> What about this scenario? Gabriel has the position of the Wizard's throne, and he's getting quite old as you can see on the box cover. The world is in chaos, and he feels he is slowly losing his powers.
It's a possibility, but one that doesn't square with the backstory given in the AoW game and manual, or with what we know of the AoW2 intro. According to the AoW1 intro, Inioch, and his line in the Elven Court, have ruled from the Wizard's Throne for millenia, "maintaining the delicate Balance of Light and Shadow." Note that this puts the Elder Elves squarely in the camp of Neutrals, neither "Good" as the [Keeper] Elves of the game world are, nor "Evil" as the Cult [Dark] Elves are. The Highmen, and presumably Gabriel appear quite recently in LIR 800, less then 200 years before the fall of the Verdant Court and the subsequent battle in the Valley a few centuries after that, during which time the Throne has remained empty. Nor can Gabriel have taken the Throne for himself after the battle and be consistant with what we know of the AoW2 story, since in the intro we are told Merlin first meets him while fleeing from that very battle.Now consider this. We are also told in the opening cut scene that the humans arrive in the Blessed Contintent after being "Driven from their 'Garden.'" Who did the driving, and why? Well again in the officail time line, we see the the Highmen, after meeting with Inioch, left the Valley in LIR 801 "to work in their 'garden'" 161 years before the Human "vessels first appear on the horizon." Sounds to me like a planned invasion, the Highmen didn't just arrive to "protect" the Humans from the Cult, they sent them there in the first place. What about their "natural" enemies the Undead? In 1101 'someone' blows the Trump of Doom, though the Azracs deny it was them. The Undead subsequently wash over the land, destroying *everyone* in their path, good and eveil alike, but the Highmen take no action until 1146 when the threaten the Humans holding the Ancient ruins in the Valley. Once that is secure they again disappear except to guard a few key holdings, and the Undead continue to wreak havok. They rebuff all attempts by the Keepers or the Alliance to enlist their aid. If they had wanted to weaken everyone else to establish their own dominance they could not have done a better job of it, or done it at less risk to themselves.
So what can we concieve as the AoW2 storyline? Gabriel, having recruited a young, inexperienced and virtually impotant wizard, sends him forth to battle in his stead and collect the six spheres of magic. But there's a seventh sphere - the Cosmos sphere - that transcends them all that will be the focus of the final scenario. Sound's a bit like "One Sphere to rule them all, one sphere to find them" doesn't it? And who do you suppose would be more likely to actually have the Cosmos sphere the the representative of a "Cosmic" race, hmmm? What do you want to bet that little bauble at the end of either the Keeper or Cult via Highmen campaign is just such a thing?
RayB:
Yeah, like we rellay expected you were going to comment on any of this :lol It's like asking a mystery writer to give you the last page of his book before it's published.