I wanted to run this by you guys; I've proposed this as the story for a possible future map by Creation.
Remember my theory about the Callieach and the Devoid and the Spiders and Fetch and everything? Well, that's what this is about.
Long ago, there were the Dark Gods. Then came Wyrd who created the world in his battle with Nyx, and Nyx created the Trow. Then came the Leveller, who brought in evil races every thousand years to challenge the inhabitants of this world. The greatest of these races he ever brought were the Callieach, powerfull sorcerors who drew their power from evil gods in another plane.
The Trow eventually defeated them, and in their last stand they created a passageway back to their realm, allowing them to escape and dragging many Trow with them to die. This portal is now called the Great Devoid.
Giant Spiders native to that realm crawled up out of the Devoid, and a cult began to form around them and their gods in the Dwarven culture surrounding the Devoid. Thousands of years later, these Dwarves used their knowledge of this other realm to create a device that would trap creatures between the two realms - the Tain. This was used by the Human hero Connacht to imprison the evil Myrkridia.
Connacht later returned as the Leveller Balor, and having sent creatures to the other realm before, he now drew his most powerfull weapon from it, alien priestesses called Fetch.
After Balor's defeat, the Fetch were left stranded in our world with no way of getting home.
Our story picks up some 71 years later, in 2552 Acit El. The Fetch have formed an alliance with the resurging Spider-Cult, in an attempt to get back home. The Cult hopes to appease the Spider-Gods by sending their priestesses home. They will construct a sort of magic transporter down the Devoid, using a hybridization of World Knot and Tain technologies.
What the Dwarves don't know is that the Fetch have also approached their mortal enemies, the Ghols. The Fetch plan not only to go home, but to release their gods into our world as revenge for their years spent stranded here. They have fooled the Ghols into believing that the Spider-Gods are one and the same with the Dark Gods, and so the Ghols will overrun the Dwarves once the transporter device is built, allowing the Fetch to free them.
The Ghols, however, have long been subjugated by the Trow, and when the Trow hear that the Fetch are from the Devoid, they put 7 and 7 together and realize that they are related to their ancient enemies, the Callieach. So a few of them and an army of Ghol slaves go to assault the Dwarves and Fetch.
In the midst of this battle, the cause of which no outsider has yet determined, a Human prophet in the service of the Emperor dreams of a circle of Ghols chanting around the Devoid, columns of lightning rushing down it, and the subsequent destruction of the world. He tells this to Alric, who sends a small army to escort two emissaries to our allies amongst the Dwarves and the Trow.
Enter game.
A Heron Guard Hero goes to the Dwarves, and tells them that the Fetch are behind the Ghol attack, and plan to betray the Dwarves. A Warlock Hero goes to the Trow and tells them that the Ghols are working with the Fetch.
The Dwarves and Trow won't attack us unless we attack them in this level, but their Fetch and Ghol partners will. If we attack their partners, they'll join the attack against us, but if we run away they'll call them back.
However, once we have met with the Dwarven and Trow leaders, every group we come across turns to our side (and comes under our control), turning against (and being turned on by) their former allies. We've got to save as many Dwarves and Trow as we can (saving Trow from Ghols is easy; saving Dwarves from Fetch isn't - and the Dwarves are more important). Then we turn to the Devoid.
When we arrive at the Devoid we find it surrounded by a circle of black Ghols, chantings and throwing Dwarf heads into it. The Fetch stand near what look like large, Tain-styled World Knot pylons, surrounding and bending over the Devoid. When they see us, the Fetch turn and fire at the pylons, which start to send columns of lightning tunneling down the Devoid.
The Ghols stop their chanting and charge toward us. The Fetch behind them line up to attack. We've got to defeat them, and then hold of another wave coming in from off screen, and destroy the pylons before it's too late.
As time goes by after their activation, the ground around the Devoid will begin to ripple with that cool mesh effect. Later a column of blue light will shoot up out of it. And finally, a sea of spiders will boil out of the Devoid and devour everything. The loss screen would depict the Spider-Gods escaping into our world.
