ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hello

Now that the first half of the game is done or nearly so I'm pondering the next part

The player has been robbed of the staff and reported to Minas Tirith.
They say that orcs sightings are rare and do not recognize the symbol of their shields.
Orcs were last seen in the Moria so the player is sent there to investigate.
He descends into the mines, defeats many vile orcs before arriving at their leader (who works for the Istari)
who has an open portal to the Empty Lands. Upon defeating the leader (who does not die but is set at 1 HP)
he interrogates him about the staff and thus knows more about the story and enters the portal.
The portal is one-way and the player is stranded on the Empty Lands, with no allies or ressources to speak off, lost in an hostile territory full of orcs and easterlings.

The Empty Lands are not part of middle-earth for beyond the sea of Rhun lies the Eastern Sea and beyond it yet the Empty lands, it is an other continent.
The main feature of it is the Walls of the Sun with the Gates of Morning, through which the Sun arose, before sundering which made Arda a sphere.

Scattered trhough the lands are bastions of orcs, settlements of easterlings, damp caves full of trolls and undeads, even a desert where many of the last dragons of Arda live.

But all is not without hope, a group of Avari (elves who did not follow the valar) and humans have settled near the Walls of the Sun a long time ago and now resist to the power of the Istari, but they fight a losing battle, overwhelmed by the numbers and soon they will be gone. (An occasion to open new classes ? Sun priest ? Light warrior ? )

The wilderness map will be undiscovered at first and must be explored (random/part random map ?), the player will learn that in order to bring down the Istari their power must be weakened by breaking the ties to some of their allies.
I imagine a few dungeons that must be explored and their boss killed into order to destroy a "binding orb".
Binding orbs bind the life force of their alleis to the Istari rendering them exponientialy more powerful.
This could act as a difficulty setting to, the more orbs are destroyed before taking on the Istari, the "easier" they are.

Thoughts ?

the question is: would the istari be so open with the secrets of the staff with their underlings/allies? I think they would refrain from saying too much about it given its powers...

maybe have the others think that the istari left one of their staffs over there, and want to retrieve it, but were hindered earlier by the war of the ring.

though what also would make it interesting would to have the allied bosses fight more desperately/smarter as more are destroyed, so you would have a balance, easier uber bosses or harder normal ones.

then let bosses summon kin (or underlings or whatever, like the master does sometimes)... then let then panic sometimes and "summon and flee" if they are low on hp.

Shoob wrote:the question is: would the istari be so open with the secrets of the staff with their underlings/allies? I think they would refrain from saying too much about it given its powers...

Tie it with the death of a Boss, so one of the pickups would be a scroll with some details of the staff...

Well the boss of the moria wouldnt know why the istari need it but he knows they do and orcs are pathetics, he could speak under the threat of death.

Oh yes a "summon and flee" talent would be quite fun (for me at least ;> )

So you like the general idea ?

pretty much yes, though how they communicated if the portal is one way intrigues me.


before I was wondering how the map would look like, but randomness does help

though I suppose you could use that weird map that madmonk linked to a while ago (the one showing middle earth over europe) to infer what the empty lands look like

Well the istari can open an other portal in the other direction but only when they need it.

As for the randomness, I am not sure how yet.
Things like the sunwall need to be in a nearly-set location (to the far east of the continent).
Othre than that an heightmap-generated island could workd quite well I suppose...

Shoob wrote:pretty much yes, though how they communicated if the portal is one way intrigues me.

Well, I would guess there is another portal somewhere. Perhaps a way to eventually go home to middle earth?

I think that's a really neat twist, saying that it's an Istari that sent the orcs after the staff. I would've thought hey, aren't they supposed to be good guys?!?! Glad to hear more content coming along. I just hope the Empty Lands have some shrubs or trees for cover from all those nasty archers and spellslingers

You'll die in the emtpy lands!
Pray that the Sun Paladins help you!

I've always been fascinated by the Blue Istari- seems like such an obvious departure for more stories that Tolkien left us. If I ever was to write fan fiction about something, it would probably be about them. I always pictured them as good characters who's stories were never fully known, distorted by rumor by the time they made it to the West. Or that there was conflict, and one struggled with the other. Maybe the corrupted one was victorious, but the good one's sacrifice averted some doom from the east that would have swept through middle earth.

The Gates of Dawn would be a great setting- nice idea!