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The Lurker, The Faceless Man, Mjarin, and the Myth Series

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2018 3:47 am
by Blaac the Berserker
I've recently beaten the Myth: TFL plugin for Myth II on Legendary with No Casualties, and I'm starting to play through Myth II on Legendary as well. From playing the games, I noticed how the Fallen Lords themselves were never completely defeated in either the first game or the second. Of course, The Watcher was only defeated and imprisoned during the events of Myth III: The Wolf Age, and it didn't take till the Great War for him to finally fall. I understand that letting the other Fallen Lords live was to leave room for sequels. Still, the matter of the two remaining Fallen Lords, The Lurker and The Faceless Man, is still not yet resolved. The matter of Mjarin may also not yet be resolved, since he did cause quite a bit of havoc for the Legion, and even successfully caused a civil war among the Legion's leaders. Is Mjarin still protected by the seceding parties, or did he get confiscated by the Legion after Balor's defeat? What were The Lurker and The Faceless Man doing after Balor's defeat, or while Soulblighter and Shiver were doing their own thing?

Unless a new game were to be made, all we can do is speculate, and speculations remain so without new games. Still, I believe that the remaining Fallen Lords would be perfect villains for a good sequel. I personally would want to see their stories resolved before the next cycle of the Leveler were to come, though it would be interesting to see what role they would play if new Fallen Lords were to arise among The Great War's heroes. Whatever the case, here's my idea.

I want a Myth sequel which has The Lurker be the main baddie in the story. She's just seems to have so much potential as a villain, her powers of flood and famine are tremendous, and she's one of the Ancient Evils. The Myth wiki speculates that she may have been around since the time of the first Leveler, Soraganth the Flayed, so there's a lot of history to rediscover with her as the villain.

I don't know if The Faceless Man would be her ally or enemy, or if they would alternate between being allies and enemies for convenience, but since he's also an Ancient Evil, there's a lot of history to explore with him as well. The Faceless Man has an unclear connection to the first Moagim, so there's a lot to explore there. The question is which one is more powerful: The Lurker or The Faceless Man.

And Mjarin's head has to play a role in the story. Since Mjarin was the Leveler before Balor, was an enemy of Connacht and friends before they were Fallen Lords, and has knowledge to secrets long forgotten, wouldn't The Lurker and The Faceless Man want to use him? If Mjarin caused trouble again, it would certainly give the Legion an excuse to throw his head into the Great Devoid.

One of the reasons why I'd want center on the Lurker as the main villain is because of this quote: "...convinced her that everyone was out to get her – everyone she loved, everyone she cared about. There were enemies lurking in the shadows, he told her, who would hurt her and make her suffer. She surrendered and pledged allegiance to Balor." The Lurker was frightened into allying herself with Balor, and Soulblighter was responsible for resurrecting her. Since both were probably more powerful than she was, she must've wanted to wait until Balor and Soulblighter were dead for her chance to ascend. The quote also shows that she had emotional attachments that the other Fallen Lords don't have, and still felt feelings of fear and love. This suggests she may be a more complex villain than the other Lords, and may also that she's retained quite a bit of her humanity despite being so terrifying and destructive. What is her full story? Who does she care about? Are the people she care about undead or the living descendants of people she once knew? What is her ultimate aim, and how does it tie in with her history, or with the history of the world and of the Fallen Lords? If she still retained her past humanity, that could lead to some interesting story directions for her character to take.

Plus, another reason to center the sequel on The Lurker to have levels which deal with her powers. I'd want to see levels inspired by about her bringing flood and famine, her lurking in the shadows and breathing on the necks of her enemies, and of how The Lurker springs upon children in the darkness if they disobey. Maybe have a level where you play as a child wandering the village at night, looking for The Lurker.

Back at The Faceless Man, he's described as "...one of the Ancient Evils, and is so old that no one truly remembers where it was he came from, not even himself." He could be older than The Lurker. Maybe he lived as far back as The Age of the Trow, or back when the first gods, Wyrd and Nyx, warred on each other. Since both are so old, a Myth game involving them could establish a lot of hints and revelations as to what happened centuries ago, and how they became Fallen Lords. Whatever The Lurker or The Faceless Man reveal to The Legion could set the stage for missions in prequel games centered around the previous ages.

There's a lot of potential for Myth prequels involving The Ages of the Trow, of Darkness, and of Reason. It would probably be a challenge to do a Myth game about the beginning of the Myth world, because it just involves two gods picking fights with each other. However, the environmental destruction aspect mentioned in their epic story sounds intriguing. "Trow legends claim that Nyx and Wyrd had a titanic battle that shook the very rock of the world. Nyx had caused a great wound to Wyrd, which formed into the volcano Tharsis, but Wyrd would not fall to her assaults. In her rage, she called upon the powers of the Dark Gods to aid her. The Wyrd was shattered, his powers flung to the corners of the world in rocky fragments. And yet, the One Dream of the Wyrd remained." That would be something to visualize in a Myth game. The death of Wyrd and the twisting of the world reminds me of the origin story of Shiny Entertainment's Sacrifice.

But in any case, I think that a Myth game involving the two remaining Lords and Mjarin has a lot potential. I probably have to visualize it as fan fiction and fan art as a blueprint for a possible game design. I was thinking of calling it Myth: The Lurker Ascends (I'm not sure if I can risk giving it the IV number). What do you think? What title would you go for involving the last of the fallen lords? How do you visualize the story continuing? How do you visualize the fates of The Lurker and The Faceless Man?