Timeline of Might and Magic Original Universe - Time of Wonders - Part 1 [Game Lore]

[@XEL777]

Awesome video on the great (if confusing for newcomers) MM lore. I plan to watch the rest soon. Thank you for your work narrating and presenting all this stuff. A few things: - There is no canonical info on what C.O.R.A.K. and S.H.E.L.T..E.M. stand for. - Terra and Xeen are not necessarily in the Spinward Rim. Terra is said to be a distant planet. so it's probably even farther from the Ancients than Enroth, Axeoth and Xeen. - The part about the 1000 regeneration is from a partiall fanfiction text, it isn't mentioned anywhere in MM 1-5. CRON seeds Terra with four VARNs (the Isles), and around that time Corak and Sheltem return to the planet. In the MM3 manual Corak mentions it was about 4 years since he left Terra. His journey detailed in the manual takes place in the year 491 of the Terran calendar, and the game itself starts in the year 500. - The idea that the first Heroes Chronicles takes place before the Silence frankly makes no sense when put in the broader context of the lore. The Colonial Governement ruled the entire planet (hence it being colonial), and it's logical that Jarg and Bracaduun would rise up in the wake of the rebellion that came after the Silence. I understand why such a theory is floating around online, the mention that Gryphonhearts have ruled Erathia since before the Silence, but it's apparent from the state of affairs in politics (an oppressive slave-owninng empire dominating a continent, while before the Silence the planet was closer to a peaceful utopia) and technology (they are already quas-Medieval, although Bracaduun may very well be more advanced than gameplay shows, but still). - Not really a mistake, but just to clarify. It's not stated directly that Shikbath Zera was connected to the curent seeding of Terra with four VARNs. We only know that it's "the seedship that originally settled on Terra" and that it carried "terraform platform modules". The latter may imply connection, but it's rather vague, unless I'm missing something. As for Cron, an important detail here is time. Time in the Elemental Planes is different from tme in the "prime" universe. Basically, for the elementals the events on Cron were the start of their rivalry (note how the battles described in the MM2 manual are how the opposing elements first meet) and the battle against Kalohn created their planes (which physically are in the four cornerns on Crom, but also out of the "prime" space-time). But from the perspective of other worlds, the Elemental Planes were around since time immemorial, as was the Ancient's Elemental Manipulation. All of that fits well with the time travel theme of MM2: time is relative and reckoned from the formaion of the ethereal substance, Cron's inhabitants (not to mention Corak and the Ancients) studied time, and there is even a race of creatures called time lords on Cron. Similar kind of thing is with the dragons. Acwalnder's Mega Dragon is basically *the* first dragon, but the dragons have since settled across time and space. More on that is hinted in the Xeen lore, where there is an important place called Dragon Clouds, which has access to dragons' past, present and future. Basically, you get everything about Cron lore right in the video. The exact years of Kalohn's battle with the Elemental Lords and his death may vary, but you are not mistaken. There is also an interesting bit of info about the altering of the timeline. An official source released shortly around the time of MM5 (www.mocagh.org/nwc/mmcompendium.pdf) confirms what was hinted at in MM2 manual: Sheltem also used time travel during his conflict with Corak. It was he who orchestrated Kalohn's death to pervert Cron. So, our adventure is at least the second time Cron' history is altered.

[@QuestionableOle]

Thank you so much for taking the time to watch it, Xel! As you might guess, a large portion of my research lead me to celestialheavens, where you are among, let's say, veterans. Thank you for providing detailed account of more complex details of the lore - your comment goes straight to pinned status :) Take care!

[@XEL777]

@@QuestionableOle thanks for the kind words and the pin. Good luck to you!

[@TheMambojack]

"a few things" *Proceed to write an essay*

[@nikito370]

I saw this trilogy a couple of years ago but I forgot to thank you and to say how great these are. Thank you, these videos are great!!!!!!!!!!

[@Dibbley777]

Immediate subscription from me, it took me years to figure out the tangles of this series' lore, and here is so much of it painstakingly collected. I salute you Sir.

[@gunsmithcat7542]

The games itself would never make me think that (seeing as I have finished none of them) but the backstory makes me want a movie / series adaptation.

[@juliusmatijosius2219]

Better not. Ubisoft would surely find it's way to fuck it up

[@andreib2148]

I came here because i'm currently playing MM6 and HOMM4, and in my current HOMM4 campaign they start talking about reckoning and apocalypse. I was curious about the lore and what all that is about... but wow ... what the actual f- ?! You talk about space ships, truman / 13th floor like worlds and aliens ... how did i miss a series of games with such amazing lore ?! it's 2019 and just now i find out. I'll keep watching all the episodes i find. F-ing amazing

[@QuestionableOle]

Hi Andrei, glad you like what you see! This took a while to compile and I relied heavily on what was already available on a few community forums :) yes, the lore is just mind blowing, isn't it?

[@andreib2148]

@@QuestionableOle yeah ... what the fuck !? why no one speaks about it ? it's like everyone that plays mm or homm keeps it a secret. Everyone talks about how homm3 is the best and what not, bot i never listened something about the lore. I started playing mm6 and homm4 out of boredom, and i was expecting medieval fantasy, dragons and stuff like that ... not high quality sci fi. I've seen something about laser guns in a review of mm6, but i thought it was some kind of ancient advanced civilization (like say the dwemer in elder scrolls). I feel that there's so much lore that i'll spend days browsing videos to grasp it

[@ComeToJesus]

I enjoy the homm series and casually played homm 3-5 over many years. Then today I decide, "Hey let me actually catch up and fill in the gaps on what the stories behind these sword swingers and spell slingers and places are." I did not expect to walk into this... Thanks for making these videos.

[@QuestionableOle]

It's a trip, isn't it?😂 Glad you liked it!!

[@sowa-fg2vg]

Thank you. Maybe now some people will realise Forge was very accurate town

[@odinulveson9101]

Exactly. My foolish younger self was not a fan of weird sci-fi in a fantasy setting I didnt join from the beginning even. I started with HoMM 2/ 3. I remember the backlash against the Forge town and 3do made the Conflux elemental town instead. In hindsight Im baffled. Thinking those fans roaring mostly KNEW why 3do wanted a sci fi town. Its part of M&M blood. A science fantasy with world slabs for experimentation and later morphing into spherical planets with among them magical fantasy worlds. Best of both worlds Imho

[@ImiKG]

Okay I searched for exactly this! Great research! You deserve to be big one day!

[@QuestionableOle]

Hey Krisztián! Thank you so much!! I know it's a lot, and apologies for my at time monotonous narration 😅 there are parts 2 and 3 after this one ^^

[@TheHms2]

Finally! I've been looking all over KZbin for this for my D&D campaign :D

[@QuestionableOle]

My pleasure, Harry! Pt3 is the most event packed, I recommend giving it a go! ;)

[@mrZerg00s]

Wow, I had no idea about the space-related stuff. But I think in one of the Might and Magics I played I went inside some spaceship. But I didn't think much of it.

[@QuestionableOle]

Yes, Denis! To me this universe is amazing. In part 2 you will see how Enroth and Terra are connected a bit

[@assakurayoh]

Just subscribed, hope you continue. I love the games lores

[@SardonicSoul]

Good work you have done on this massive lore! Allthough, there is a small detail about the days of fire. The council was only accused by a message, killing his daughter. That there was a conspiring ongoing, was not mentioned. It also was never truly proven that they killed her, and it could be that the true murderer(s) simply used Alans giref and anger to redirect it towards the council. Other than that, it was an excelent job! I still hope of an resurrection of the original universe. I loved how science-fiction and fantasy were mixed in it. The scraped forge faction could have been quite unique and interessting. It saddened me, that the fans rejection stoped the process there. Btw. if it's okay to ask, what is your favourit Might and Magic game?

[@Lightning_Lance]

11:07 This is a small nitpick just because I noticed, but I wonder why you pointed next to the pyramid instead of right to it? Surely the pyramid is where VARN landed in Enroth? For context, where you're pointing to now is probably the bottom right part of the Paradise Valley area in MM6, or maybe the top right of the Hermit's Isle area. (that's not to say it's part of the Paradise Valley region; but the Dragonsands region extends to multiple playable overworld areas in-game).

[@QuestionableOle]

Hello, sorry for the late reply - you are correct and I was just pointing a continent in general. Thank you for correcting me!

[@Urdalibertine]

Great video,I love the info on the elementals.Wish NWC was still with us.

[@QuestionableOle]

You and me both! Glad you liked the content! There are two more parts if you're interested ^^

[@rottenpoet6675]

soo...these VARNs are machines that imitate spacetime inside it and where these slabs of lands are? I mean its like the ancients are the developers and the VARN is their computer? and this CRON and the elementals also confusing....where they come from? or they just a program within these things? or are they in real space but a miniature version of them, inside these VARNS? and the ancients can open this housing and let the world out ?

[@odinulveson9101]

Before D&D, Battletech, appreciation of folktales and legends all over and many more. It was M&M, more correctly I first played a demo of HoMM 2 in 1996, got hooked and got HoMM 3 and later its expansions. I usually sat on my old pc with a view of the nearby mountains, daydreaming about seeing yellow and green dragons hiding and living in what looked like cave openings in the distance. Also the Rampart town in HoMM 3 reminded mw of the fjords, mountains and woods in the southern part of Norway where my uncle, aunt and cousin lives. I loved HoMM 4 aswell. Alternate upg and great map editor. Then Ubisoft happened thanks to 3DO and NWC bickering and self destructive nonsense + bancrupcy. HoMM 5 + its alternate upg and content were great despise on a new planet. I stopped after that. M&M could truly be a competitor to D&D if in the correct hands and also be made a tabletop game with a similar yet different dice system. That would be glorious!

[@ltra42]

played Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor in 1999. Now (2020) exactly 21 years later, I will learn the lore of Might and Magic, lol. I've played it so many time but never paid any attention to its lore.

[@QuestionableOle]

It's pretty extensive, isn't it? ^^

[@Tyrael66]

Awesome dope video mate!

[@QuestionableOle]

Hey thank you so much! Parts 2 and 3 are there, I guess 3rd ir the most interesting tho! ^^

[@Tyrael66]

@@QuestionableOle just finished this one. Ima put the second one right now! ;)

[@Sarnum]

Holy crap, I did not realize that this lore was so.. tangled :D

[@QuestionableOle]

I know, right?? I truly took me a while to gather most of the events into something resembling coherent timeline... More to come still!

[@juliusmatijosius2219]

This could have become an extremely advanced and ahead of it's time Sci-fi fantasy book or animation series if 3DO CEO wouldn't have been such an egomaniac.

[@QuestionableOle]

Oh yeah, Julijau, does sound like it could! Was the ceo approached by someone with this idea?

[@juliusmatijosius2219]

@@QuestionableOle I don't think so. Instead he went on unsuccessful and risky advertisents of older games like "Army men" and it got so bad that a lot of people lost their jobs to the point it ended up with only the managers managing other managers.

[@Jebu911]

@@juliusmatijosius2219 I still think it was a good call on the studios part to not make homm3 into obvious sci-fi by adding the aliens in the conflux dlc.

[@QuestionableOle]

Kinda divide and conquer situation, makes sense. Does nothing in terms of coherence for in-game H3

[@juliusmatijosius2219]

@@Jebu911 wether you like it or not, aliens are still part of the franchise. Inferno is canonically a alien faction

[@Kislotikas]

actually wtf...i did play MM 7-8-9-X and Homm2/3 but could not understand a bit of this presentation :) how did you get that info and collected it, and put it in somehow chronological order have no idea! how much time did it take?

[@QuestionableOle]

A lot :D I used those two sites from description and a few more sources from webarchive.org as original sites no longer exist. Took a few weeks to understand and a few more to produce part one... Well, at least I'm trying, right? Part 2 will cover Terra, Xeen,and HoMM 1-3 and Chronicles

[@jmp01a24]

And it all started on the Commodore 64. Back in the mid 80s. I have the originals, complete with everything, still. But Heroes of Might and Magic III and V is the best imo.

[@audifonosgutierrezdt3171]

Amazing video

[@QuestionableOle]

Glad you enjoyed this!

[@SpaceSpice]

Great!!! Thanks for this!

[@eoftar3192]

4:42 waitwaitwait WHAT?! I agree, the lore is scarse and hard to find and the only actual map of the whole Enroth I ever saw was fanmade... but I used to think that Jadame is located south of Antagarich and it is three times smaller... That is new to me oO

[@QuestionableOle]

Hey there! Haha, well if I remember correctly Jadame should be in a kind of position that allowed for it to be "kinda" in a way "between" Enroth and Antagarich, or at least in such a way that it could be a stopping point between them :) regarding size this could be an exaggeration/distortion like with our Earth's map ;)

[@Lightning_Lance]

Well, just looking at where the cold regions are (excepting Vori which doesn't count anyway because it houses the Sword of Frost), this map makes perfect sense.

[@timawaviking526]

Still slightly upset the Heavenly Forge never made it to Heroes 3.. I wonder if that would have prevented the events of Heroes 4 to have taken place if technology could have played a factor in the war between the Sword of Frost and Armageddon's Blade

[@odinulveson9101]

Agree. What I also kinda hate is that werewolves was in M&M but 3do and even the Ubisoft HoMM teams NEVER bothered to include them as neutral and/ or faction units.

[@TheKnightOfSmite]

Gelu was supposed to have held Armageddon's Blade and used it to wipe out all technology from the planet after Forge faction gets mega powerful using sci-fi tech Of course that didn't happen so I guess they went with it ending the world either way to reset the slate, that and the original devs were leaving by that point

[@erculano4647]

Nice!

[@QuestionableOle]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@ulrikecanada]

I like how you talk

[@QuestionableOle]

Thank you!! I am trying my damnest to speak clearly(ish) though this thick accent won't go away and is not to everyone's liking. Glad you found it digestible ^^

[@kikow3792]

There is only one possibility for an innate time travel device, that changes the future, and wasn't used by the ancients: It's a game. Like, literally. That is the lore. It's all inside a computer, and the humans are just a very advanced simulation from an AI.

[@EvilcorkinReacts]

Hi, your on my list to be featured, stay tuned, you should be in either a small subs video or a rapid reaction within the next 1-2 weeks, also, reviewed ya on reddit

[@QuestionableOle]

Thanks again for doing this, mate, really appreciate it. Will try to pay more attention to the speech, to the extent of my ability, anyway!

[@mercs7849]

Best setting. Just enough techno-fantasy in the actualy gameplay to be original yet not too filles with blasters and stuff. That said, after Enroth it's downhill.

[@WarOfRussia]

Emmm, HoMM4 and MM9 also takes place in the original universe so I dunno why you said nothing about it.

[@QuestionableOle]

Of course, man! It's post reckoning, and as I stated in the beginning of this video those are fairly self contained and do not interact with Terra, Xeen, Enroth and so forth. I'm working on a part 3 at the moment, which will end up with the sword of frost chronicle. Do you feel part 4 would do nicely for all of post- reckoning stuff?

[@jamesgordley5000]

Who were the silly bunch of fans that decided that Antagarich somehow belonged in the south, thereby putting frozen Vori near the equator? Somehow that's become an accepted consensus within a lot of fan-lore, but it has to be bullshit.

[@QuestionableOle]

Fair point, good sir :D let's just say climate works in mysterious ways

[@dis_iz_tud]

@@QuestionableOle maybe they developed being cold to counter the heat of the ecuator

[@diceman3219]

holy shit this is complex

[@idleGlaz]

Fun :)

[@ingolf82]

the only thing I hate about Might & magic 6 is that one of the end game dungeons has Star Trek written all over it, also every temple you visit. I hate Star Trek. fantastic game, but I wish Jon Van Caneghem wasn't a Trekkie, but oh well, no one is perfect.