: You know, it would be interesting to take what we know of
: the cycles and pick a completely unknown period - the
: future, or maybe the First Era - and make a completely
: original scenario out of them, only using the existing
: Myth races and the guidelines we know, no characters
: or events from TFL or SB at all.
: Imagine, the dawn of the First Era.
: A comet rises in the eastern sky.
: A dark force arises in the East, and begins wreaking
: havoc on the world through treachery and deceit,
: allying around him a group of evil men who come to be
: known as the Fallen Lords. Nations and races rally to
: his promises of power and conquest, only to fall to
: some fate worse than death, bound into servitude by
: their dark lord.
: Meanwhile, a great leader has appeared in the west,
: building great cities and uniting kingdoms under his
: rule in the southern lands, and leading the settlement
: of the wild and wooded northern lands. The uncivilized
: enemies of man like the fir'Bolg are stuck at in
: harsh, unwavering attacks, and man in the west expects
: a bright future, perhaps someday even rivalling the
: mighty Trow who rule most of the north.
: But then the Dark Lord crwosses the cloudspine, killing
: everything in his path and leaving nothing but
: flattened, blackened ground, earning him the title of
: "the Leveller". As if it were an ill omen,
: the great volcano Tharsis erupts, flooding the passes
: with melted snow and drowing the tiny towns below
: them. A resistance effort is mounted against the Dark
: Lord, lead by the Great Hero himself. He searches out
: powerful artifacts and the mythical "Dreams of
: Wyrd" - a quest which is countered by the Dark
: Lord's own quest, to destroy these artifacts before
: allowing the Light forces to use them.
: Behind his frontal wave of assault, the myriad of rival
: nations united under the Dark Lord's rule begin
: fighting again. This is largely ignored by the Dark
: Lord, but the cowering west, which is slowly being
: decimated itself, tries to use this to their
: advantage. But that only slows his advance.
: Inevitably, seeing their cause as hopeless, the allied
: Light forces strike at the Leveller himself,
: sacrificing most of their army to hold his forces at
: bay while the Hero and a small group of men attack the
: evil Dark Lord.
: As expected their army is decimated, and the Hero himself
: is killed - but he succeeds in wounding the Leveller
: enough that the Hero's escort can kill him. His powers
: destroyed, the enemy forces snap out of their trance,
: and begin fighting amongst themselves again. Our
: journal writer survives that battle, of course, being
: knocked unconcious and left for dead when the victors
: leave the battlefield.
: Afterwards, he writes that, while they have defeated the
: Dark Lord called the Leveller, new seeds of strife
: have been strewn throughout the world, and most of
: civilization lies in ruins. It may take a thousand
: years to return the world to its former state of
: relative peace, but at least mankind will survive.
: Cool, eh?
Cool, indeed. A few things that would be important/interesting in the scenario:
Just because this is the first recorded Leveller known at the time of TFL doesn't mean he would have been the first one known at the time of the scenario. There would probably be dim oral traditions of the one just before him, at least, though maybe no one would have yet figured out that one comes every millennium. One or two scholars might have researched into this ancient legend of a being called the Leveller, and gradually they begin to connect it with the present Dark Lord...
Wolves, as the allies of the fir'Bolg, are a major threat at the time.
There are a *lot* of Trow, and you might see a level or two where, basically, you're trying to avoid them all. And at the time, Trow and Forest Giants aren't enemies. Also, Trow might have developed stoneworking or bronzeworking by now. Imagine a Trow swinging a massive war hammer, with a haft of bronze and a head of granite...
Is Culwyeh around, and active?
Personally, I'd prefer to do a future scenario. I'd love to do one around the premise that the Fetch come from the Tain's spider-world, which is now attempting an incursion into the Mythworld. Unfortunately, we've pretty much established that the number of scenarios we're ever going to do is approximately 0% of the number of ideas we develop. Stick to Nexus Point, my son. ;-)
--SiliconDream
