: Ooh, idea! What if he is "Faceless" because he
: has no face of his own? No set appearance - he simply
: copies the look of someone or someTHING else. So you
: wind up hunting down Thrall and Myrmidons and Soulless
: and other such monsters, and the Faceless Man is
: amongst them but hangs back to the very back of those
: forces, and runs away when they're about to be beaten.
: Then later, when he has taken the form of a Trow or
: some more powerfull enemy, he actually tries to fight
: you, but when he is defeated, he vanishes and some
: sort of thin smoke floats away to another point,
: reforming into his Trow form, which stomps off into
: the distance...
: You chase him down again, and find some more powerfull
: enemies, Shades or something. As you're battling them,
: in the midst of it all this this black smoke creeps in
: and forms into another Shade, who tried to fight you,
: but dissapears into that black smoke again, which
: races of into the distance...
: But now, when you follow down the direction that this
: smoke went to, you wind up in a forest of dead, dried
: trees, wandering through these paths looking for
: something, and then out of the blue one of the trees
: (a Changeling) jumps out and attacks you! You kill it,
: but when it dies a thin ring of black smoke dissipates
: out into nothingness. One of your units asks,
: nervously, "I... is he dead?", but gets no
: response.
Man, now you got me thinking!
Ideas I just came up with in the shower, and other ideas as they continue to flow:
The narration text would speak of hunting down the last of the Fallen Lords. Shiver is dead, as is the Watcher, Soulblighter presumably died at the Great Devoid, the Deceiver is drowned, frozen, and presumed dead, and the Lurker has just been slain, but still the undead continue to attack. Balor himself is dead as well, so it could not be him commanding them. They attack with purpose and strategy, so it could not just be the dead acting out their standing orders. So there is another Fallen Lord commanding them - only he's never been seen. This has earned him the title of The Faceless Man. These forces have been sent to destroy him, but they have no idea what they're looking for. So they head into his territory, not knowing what to find, but prepared to battle a Fallen Lord if they can find him.
The first forces they encounter are Thrall, who walk up out of a river (say this takes place on the Dramus-Meander-Scamander delta, deep inside the Ermine. Then we could use fir'Bolg and bre'Unor, and it would explain the Changeling-trees. Also, we could feature the same Journeyman who lead the assault on the Deceiver further upstream). They attack your forces, and you start battling them with Dwarves and archers, but they just keep coming in such a big wave that you eventually have to send your warriors in to fight them. However, one Thrall, the first one out of the river, just stands on the bank of the river as the rest of them keep walking by. When they are all dead, he's still standing there, and as your forces come after him, riddling him with arrows or whatnot, he just absorbs the damage like no Thrall should and dissapears back into the deep river.
The next encounter would involve Soulless, and likewise the lead one would stay back and not attack until all the others were dead, at which point it would float over an impassible hill and off into the distance, dissappearing into the Fog of War. Like the Thrall, it would just absorb any damage you threw its way without a flinch.
The third encounter could be Myrms or Ghols. The Faceless Man would stay back, as usual, but this time, not having any passability advantages, he would just turn and run. But your Berserks might have a chance to catch him! If they do get too close and start attacking the myrm, his blade(s) ignite fires beneath his targets as he lands his blows, and thus anything fast enough to catch him is going to be toast. So he runs away again. His flavor text would say something about his cowardice - sure he may be able to do powerfull magic like that, but he wouldn't take on all your forces for fear for his own life. This is also why he hides himself among mundane forces.
Next up are a surprise attack by bre'Unor. The Faceless Man actually attacks with this wave, at least with his ranged weapon, but then stands back from the melee. When your forces turn to attack him he summons some wide-area but weak lightning which hurts and could kill you if you pressed the attack, but if you don't he'll stop and run.
Then we have some Fetch, which pin you against the river as Thrall come out of it and a patrol of Soulless float down stream. Tough pinch now, and it looks like you're losing, but a lightning arrow from the northeast fries the Soulless, and the forces returning from the battle with the Deceiver help you take out the Fetch. One of them, however, is the Faceless Man, who just keeps taking a beating and waddles slowly away as you tend to the waves of Thrall converving on you (more of them pop up out of the mud on all sides around you). Any forces which manage to follow the Fetch will get fried by a some big-ass lightning bolts summoned from the sky. However, the archer with the lightning bow manages to get one shot off, which fries the Fetch - leaving a trail of black smoke sneaking off into the distance. When the Thrall are dead and the coast is clear, Nine Crocodile Skulls (or whatever his name is) says "he's not dead yet! We must follow him!" and leads the way.
At least one of the flavors texts for these last three speaks of a former avatara from just before the Great War who had the ability to project an illusionary around himself, and along with other powers (such as telekinesis, for picking things up with the hands of a giant which was a lot bigger than him) was able to accurately simulate anyone - or anyTHING - he wanted. Nine Crocodile Skull suspects that the Faceless Man may be that avatara.
Now, you and all these new forces head off toward wherever that Fetch went, only to meet a couple Trow standing guard by some pass. You have to take them out, and one of them is the Faceless Man, who kicks serious ass even more so than a normal Trow would. Like, Legendary Trow to Timid Trow comparison. But with all of your forces combined, you CAN beat him - but like before, he just turns into a trail of smoke and runs off into the distance through the pass the Trow were guarding.
When you follow him into there - apparently a bre'Unor sacrafice ground, like that seen in The Legend of Gor-Ash - you have to wander all around looking for him. Thrall pop up out of the mud, the occasional bre'Unor will throw bones at you, and eventually a really big dead tree turns into a giant Changeling - the Faceless Man - and attacks you. You start battling him and getting your ass kicked, but Nine Crocodile Skull says "get back, all of you!" and pulls out some gem or artifact and throws it toward th Faceless Man. The giant Changeling does his normal death sequence, turning back into a tree, but doesn' t explode
As your forces turn blue and walk off into the distance, a fir'Bolg gingerly asks "i... is he dead?", and Nine Crocodile Skull explains that the artifact bound him immobily into his current form, and that he should stay that way forever. But just as he says this, the giant Fallen-Tree explodes (like a Changeling does, but bigger) with a b'Y'laggo-type groan, and a mist of black smoke sweeps out across the level, dissipating into nothing. Your forces turn around to look, and the level ends as smoking bits of tree come raining down all over.
