Lore questions for Myth Total War

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

Hi, I'm a longtime Myth fan and Medieval 2: Total War modder, and after seeing Briarius' Myth TFL mod abandoned, I've decided to try finishing it. I've been scouring the lore, both playing the games/watching recordings, and reading up online. I have a few questions that I'm not entirely sure about, so I figured I'd ask here.

Firstly, what years were Alric and Mauriac born in? We know Alric wasn't old enough to rule in 2468, when he and his family had to flee Covenant, with Mauriac acting as Prince Regent, but TFL takes place in 2480-81, and Myth 2 in 2540. Now, Mauriac was still alive in 2540

"Mauriac, ancient and honored, still speaks of his time with the Legion and their victory over Balor. Many of the great military minds of our day sharpened their skills under his command."

Mauriac likely didn't have magic to extend his lifespan, so he was probably in his 20s when he became Prince Regent, and then his 90s when considered ancient. If Alric was around 14 when fleeing Covenant, then he'd be 26 in TFL and 86 in Myth 2. If he was 7, then 19 in TFL and 79 in Myth 2. He didn't sound 19-20 to me in TFL, but I suppose it's possible.

Also, who was Caliban? He made the peace with the fir'Bolg a year before Alric's family had to flee Covenant, so he isn't another name for the underaged Alric. Perhaps Alric's father? Another of The Nine? He was important enough to meet with the fir'Bolg Great King, ou'Kahn to forge a truce, but notably wasn't given a title, unlike ou'Kahn.

Next question, who was the moustachioed man in the TFL intro? The guy with the hood in the tent when they unbox The Head. We know the Berserk was Truan, the Avatara likely either Alric, Murgen, or Maeldun, and any local Journeyman would be worthy to include in a council. He doesn't look like a fir'Bolg. Could that be an Avatara? Possibly Cu Roi?

Thats all I can think of for now. Hope to have a good discussion!

[A-Red]

For the most part, the answers you're looking for do not exist in canon. You'll have to decide for yourself.

You're probably right about Mauriac being around 30-35 in TFL. Alric's lifespan is pretty clearly prolonged by magic -- even at your minimum estimate of around 80 in Myth II, he wouldn't be hardy enough for the kind of combat he gets into (and excels at) in that game. I guess he still has to be in roughly his early 20s in TFL for the other details to match up, although he seems older than that to me too.

I believe that Caliban is a historical figure who is far distant from the TFL timeline. The flavor text refers to him being part of the Sword Age, and there is absolutely no other reference to that age in any canon, which leads me to believe that it is not the age in which TFL occurs. It would have been an age of light, so I would guess it's the one before the Wind Age, in which case the flavor text refers to a much earlier alliance than the one that is formed temporarily for the Great War (TFL). He may have been either a Cath Bruig emperor or a powerful avatara.

The guy in the intro might as well be another one of the Nine, but there's no evidence as to which one. He could also be Durak, a hero who is briefly referenced in one of the journals in Myth II as having defeated The Deceiver shortly after the death of Balor.

We know Alric wasn't old enough to rule in 2468, when he and his family had to flee Covenant, with Mauriac acting as Prince Regent, but TFL takes place in 2480-81, and Myth 2 in 2540. Now, Mauriac was still alive in 2540

Incidentally, where are you getting these calendar years from? And where did you find the information that Caliban's treaty is a year before Alric leaves Covenant? None of this is in the games or their manuals. Are you using an unofficial source like GURPS?

[Forrest]

It does sound like he's going off of GURPS, yeah.

For some more-canonical but still non-canon dating, might I suggest a post from the Asylum discussing the kind of dating used in Bungie's pre-release materials.

I've got a bit of headcanon in accordance with the theory under discussion there, that Caliban was the great hero of the Second Era... who, if we add Myth III's thoughts to the mix, would have gone on to become the Leveller Sorangoth who was defeated by Tireces in the Third Era.

[A-Red]

It does sound like he's going off of GURPS, yeah.

For some more-canonical but still non-canon dating, might I suggest a post from the Asylum discussing the kind of dating used in Bungie's pre-release materials.

Oh hey, neat. It seems to me like that timeline has some problems -- I buy into the "long cycle" of 1000 years of light and 1000 years of darkness, since the epilogue of M2 seems to support it clearly. The games also seem to me to say that the Wolf Age was the one after the Wind Age, since Connacht ushered it in. However, this may have come entirely from Myth 3; I only accept some of that game's lore as canon, so it can be confusing to recall where everything comes from at times.

in accordance with the theory under discussion there

By the time Myth 2 was out and we were all speculating on it, it had somehow become "common knowledge" around here that the cycle was 1000 light, 1000 dark, 2000 total. (I'm going to call that the "Long Cycle"). But the only thing I can think of that seems to concretely claim this is the "...at least not for another 940 years" bit from the end of the Myth 2 epilogue. However, if that were the case, then the Age of Light ushered in by Connacht 1000 years ago would just be ending at the time of TFL, which means that this era was - as you said - supposed to be Dark, thus it was *Alric* who broke the cycle, not Soulblighter.

This is exactly how it works in my own headcanon (thanks for the term) and in the rather extensive set of lore upon which The Fallen's Vengeance is based. We've got lots of theories, but I probably shouldn't discuss them here.

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

Incidentally, where are you getting these calendar years from? And where did you find the information that Caliban's treaty is a year before Alric leaves Covenant? None of this is in the games or their manuals. Are you using an unofficial source like GURPS?

I got the dates from
http://myth.bungie.org/legends/encyclopedia/when.html

I don't put too much stock into GURPS Myth, just below Myth 3, basically. That encyclopedia seemed to be mostly based directly on canon and things inferred from that.

Looking at the quote again, it does seem to imply that the Sword Age was in the distant past, rather than something that just began recently, with how the sentence is structured. Or maybe not. "Clever people posted on The Tain forum in the new millennium" sounds like an odd dating to use when talking about us talking.

My aims with the mod are to make everything at the start date as accurate, or at least not inaccurate, as possible. I was initially thinking to make it start right at TFL start, since we know pretty much where most everyone is, but Medieval 2 is about big battles and conquering territory over hundreds of turns, and TFL was the last year of the war. So I've been toying with the idea of having the game start near the beginning of the War in the West, with the Forest Giants helping defend Bagrada and Seven Gates, The Barrier a desert, Alric a boy king, and The Province, Free Cities, fir'Bolg of the Ermine, Berserks, and remaining Journeymen and Dwarves forming The Alliance in anticipation of the destruction crossing the Cloudspine. There's a lot less information on who was around in this period, though.

A lot will need to be filled in, even trying to leave it as vague as possible, and I'm not against using some non-canon sources for that, as long as they don't clash with everything else. For instance, the bre'Unor leader being named Gor-Ash, The Nine having unique unit models based on mods, and so on. Shout outs and in-jokes are welcome.

The campaign won't force history, just aim at it being logical, so for instance, if The Alliance captures Muirthemne and has Alric crowned with the Ibis Crown, the Journeymen would become Heron Guard again, even if the player pulls it off while Alric is a teenager rather than an octogenarian, or if they never do it, then the Journeymen can die in shame.

[Forrest]

Oh hey, neat. It seems to me like that timeline has some problems -- I buy into the "long cycle" of 1000 years of light and 1000 years of darkness, since the epilogue of M2 seems to support it clearly.

Except it doesn't necessarily, as I wrote further on there. The epilogue clearly shows that there's a thousand years between Levellers being killed, and that we'll have to wait another 940 years to know if the cycle is broken, but it doesn't say anything we can use to distinguish whether those thousand year periods between Levellers are alternately light and dark (the Long Cycle), or rather rise gradually from darkness to light after the fall of one Leveller and gradually fall into darkness as the next comes to power, until he's defeated in turn and it repeats (the Short Cycle).

The games also seem to me to say that the Wolf Age was the one after the Wind Age, since Connacht ushered it in. However, this may have come entirely from Myth 3; I only accept some of that game's lore as canon, so it can be confusing to recall where everything comes from at times.

Connacht ushering in the Wolf Age is entirely from Myth 3, which I don't consider canon (largely because it leverages a lot of material from GURPS and my own encyclopedia [the latter in turn based significantly on the former], which I no longer consider canon, having seen the metaphorical pizza box lid, which in turn is the only Bungie information GURPS had to go off of).

The two canonical games only say that Connacht was the "hero of the Wind Age" and that he "ushered in the Age of Light". The latter could be a euphemism for an age that has another name (like the Wolf Age maybe), but given that Bungie's own notes list an Age of Light as a proper name...

This is exactly how it works in my own headcanon (thanks for the term) and in the rather extensive set of lore upon which The Fallen's Vengeance is based. We've got lots of theories, but I probably shouldn't discuss them here.

Yeah, I'm familiar with them (I'm in the beta remember? Or was, at one point, when I still actually played), and was kind of sad to learn that, especially since that way of thinking becoming so popular is largely my own fault and I've since recanted but I guess it's too late now.

I got the dates from
http://myth.bungie.org/legends/encyclopedia/when.html

I don't put too much stock into GURPS Myth, just below Myth 3, basically. That encyclopedia seemed to be mostly based directly on canon and things inferred from that.

I wrote that encyclopedia, and based all the dates off of GURPS, and now wish I hadn't. Please ignore the prose summaries at the top of each entry and use it only for the compendium of quotes and other raw data. While I thought I was being purely factual and descriptive when writing the summaries, I now see that it is full of implicit theory that I've since recanted.

[A-Red]

The fact is, there is very little information in Myth I and II, because they are intentionally minimalist (and to good effect). One has to get the information from somewhere -- you can always just make up the rest.

I consider Myth III to be useful because it fills in a lot of gaps in ways that don't directly conflict with higher-priority canon (particularly with regard to the cycle of ages, which is so vaguely referenced in prior games that it's hard to consider anything about it in M3 to be a breach of canon, regardless of one's prior interpretation). Of course, M3 is also full of stuff that directly conflicts with better canon, and lots of totally weird crap. So I use it selectively, but I *use* it. It seems better than nothing, and I'm deep enough in the lore that I can recognize the total nonsense when I see it.

Or, as WhiffOfGrapeshot put it:

A lot will need to be filled in, even trying to leave it as vague as possible, and I'm not against using some non-canon sources for that, as long as they don't clash with everything else. For instance, the bre'Unor leader being named Gor-Ash, The Nine having unique unit models based on mods, and so on.

That's pretty much how I think of M3. I don't really think of either the "Myth Bible" or GURPS as sources, since I don't have access to them and everything I've ever heard referenced from either of them always sounded a little silly to me.

Anyway, more on topic, the basic setup sounds really cool. I had always thought that Myth: Total War was envisioned as a reboot of TFL, not something that would be able to fall in line with canon. I'm glad to see that it's taking that route, and the idea of setting it in the early Great War sounds cool to me. I put together a timeline recently for my Phantom Hounds campaigns that tries to put together relative times for events of the Great War based on info from TFL, supplemented by a few highly relevant and high-quality mods like Coming of the Dark. I'll dig it up and post it here soon if there's interest, but it's pretty small, since, as aforementioned, there really just isn't much concrete information available.

[GodzFire]

Having worked with Briariuss supplying various Myth resources and lore for the project, I can tell you the work he was doing was nothing short of amazing and I am truly sad if he decided to discontinue the project, and honestly like to know why.

Regarding M3's story and lore, it's canon as much as the other games are, even if people didn't like it.

Having read and re-read GURPS multiple times, 90% of it is factual and accurate in terms of story and lore, although there are some obvious mistakes, those can mostly be ignored.

There is no Myth Bible, you are probably thinking of the Myth Handbook by Deathwhore.

[A-Red]

There is no Myth Bible, you are probably thinking of the Myth Handbook by Deathwhore.

It's probably an informal term and may no longer be in use, but it refers to Bungie's dev notes for TFL, some of which do seem to have leaked out at various points -- it's where people got some of the names of ages from, as well as Bonesplitter and The Faceless Man (if I'm remembering correctly) as potential names for the remaining two Fallen Lords.

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

I wrote that encyclopedia, and based all the dates off of GURPS, and now wish I hadn't. Please ignore the prose summaries at the top of each entry and use it only for the compendium of quotes and other raw data. While I thought I was being purely factual and descriptive when writing the summaries, I now see that it is full of implicit theory that I've since recanted.

Okay, good to know, thanks. I'll still use it to look up the quotes as needed.

The fact is, there is very little information in Myth I and II, because they are intentionally minimalist (and to good effect). One has to get the information from somewhere -- you can always just make up the rest.

I'll end up making up a good bit just so the game isn't too flat. I'll try to keep it as vague and minimalist as possible, and when I have to create things entirely new, take inspiration from The Black Company and Irish mythology as much as possible, with a bit of stock fantasy and medievalism thrown in. All in all, starting after the fall of the Cath Bruig and before the sacking of Covenant, things shouldn't be too dissimilar from any canon, fanon, or headcanon. For instance, The Head can still be a mysterious "ally" that gives tips, no need to specify if it's Mjarin or Moagim or Connacht or Durandal-uploaded-into-Master-Chief's-head.

Having worked with Briariuss supplying various Myth resources and lore for the project, I can tell you the work he was doing was nothing short of amazing and I am truly sad if he decided to discontinue the project, and honestly like to know why.

I'm not entirely sure. He gave it up and said it's all free to use, so I figured it'd be a shame to let it sit there when it had all the makings of a top 10 mod. I messaged him last month asking if he had any other files, and he got back to me sounding excited I was working on it, and said he'd send what he has on his old computer. Haven't heard back yet, but I'm mostly doing brainstorming at this point, with only a bit of hands on modding. I do have some previews on twcenter here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthre ... war/page61

[A-Red]

For instance, The Head can still be a mysterious "ally" that gives tips, no need to specify if it's Mjarin or Moagim or Connacht or Durandal-uploaded-into-Master-Chief's-head.

You may just be using this as an example, but thing to keep in mind: The Head is discovered and dug up by the Nine at the start of TFL, during the 17th year of the war in the western provinces and 50 years after the sack of Muirthemne. He is most likely underground during the time in which your campaign takes place. Since TFL doesn't actually make clear whether he was an enemy of Connacht or Balor, I suppose it's still possible for you to use him, although he should probably remain outside of the knowledge of the Avatara of the provinces during that time period. Or maybe digging him up is just an option you're allowing, like recapturing Muirthemne?

As always, the screenshots for this mod look awesome!

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

Medieval 2 allows you to have mods that run for thousands of turns if you like, and the timescale for the turns can be anything, but usually 12, 8, 4, 2, or 1 turn per year. I'm aiming for something like Alric vs. Balor, with it starting just before The Fallen Lords make their big push West, and ending only with their destruction, however long that takes. Probably 12 turns per year, and maybe 60 years before game over. Theoretically I could make a mod that runs from the start of Myth III right through to the end of Myth II. Generally, though, you break sequence as soon as the player gets control, although some mods try to be more on rails and less sandbox. I think the campaign will be best if it's mostly open to the player, but certain events can be triggered in a fairly logical and consistent way.

Like The Head might be discovered earlier if things went a little different. Certainly if they recapture Muirthemne, they'd also find The Head, since they managed to discover its existence and send Truan to retrieve it in the opening cinematic. It'd be possible to set up a mission sequence that'd go something like a 10% chance per turn after turn 20 to get a message that The Nine have learned of an item of power that could be the key to victory, then the player would have to send a Berserk scout to the province of Muirthemne for a turn, where he'd pick up The Head, then run back West, and ta-da! That could open up a mission to retrieve the Total Codex, sending Alric off into the desert, and maybe with some ingenuity a nifty way to have Rabican defeat Shiver.

Other possibilities are things like if the player kills The Deceiver, they have the option to later resurrect him as an ally. If they do, they get him and a spiffy new set of Warlocks. If Balor is killed, then all the Myrmidons and Trow disappear from the Fallen Lords army, and if you then happen to have The Deceiver on your side and bring him to Rhi'ornin, and then kill the Trow there... new units received.

[A-Red]

Awesome! I vaguely remember playing the original Shogun: Total War many years ago, so the open-endedness makes sense. You've got lots of really cool ideas for this.

[William Wallet]

Aw bugger, Briarius moved on? The TW mod was some damn fine work.
If I knew anything about anything I'd be trying to put the Bungie unit models into TW but as it stands I'm too dumb to even get the textures working properly.