Myth (series)

"In a time long past, the armies of the Dark came again into the lands of men. Their leaders became known as The Fallen Lords, and their terrible sorcery was without equal in the west. For sixty years, they reduced the civilized nations to carrion and ash, until the free city of Madrigal alone defied them. An army gathered there, and a desperate battle was joined against the Fallen. Heroes were born in the fire and bloodshed of the wars which followed, and their names and deeds will never be forgotten."
—Opening Crawl

"Casualty."

Myth: The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter are a pair of classic Real Time Tactics games for PC and Mac produced by Bungie, the studio now famous for the Halo series, which contains at least one Shout-Out to them.

Heavily inspired by the Black Company novels and battle scenes from Braveheart, the games tell the story of an epic war between the living and The Undead, led by the eponymous Fallen Lords. They represent one of the first attempts to create a strategy game with no base building, instead giving each side a fixed number of units per level. What also sets this game apart from many others is its highly realistic and revolutionary for its time physics engine. Almost everything is potentially a projectile and everything is affected by its surroundings. This creates a certain unpredictability on the battlefield and can lead to horrible/funny outcomes.

A prequel, Myth III: The Wolf Age was produced by GOD games and developed by Mumbo Jumbo. It was rushed through development and released with no play testing, resulting in a game that was borderline unplayable until a much later fan-made patch fixed some bugs.

The series boasted of a vibrant modding community that lasted well into the next decade. This included entire, full-length fan-made campaigns with new factions. Some of these rivaled the original in quality and a few were even included in the Total Codex re-release.

Not to be confused with the book series of a similar name by Robert Asprin, or any other myth.

The following tropes are common to many or all entries in the Myth (series) franchise.
For tropes specific to individual installments, visit their respective work pages.
  • Action Bomb: The wights are bloated gas filled animated corpses that explode paralyzing everyone within range.
  • After the End: The first game starts out like this.
  • The Alliance: The survivors of the Cath Bruig Empire, the Dwarves of Myrgard, the Free Cities of the North, and the fir'Bolg. Time and budget constraints prevented the inclusion of a fifth, the Skrael.
  • All Trolls Are Different:
    • They're called trow. They were created from stone by the goddess Nyx and actually predate all other races in the world of Myth. They are immortal (the Undying type) but incapable of reproducing. They exist primarily to scare and kick the hell out of noobs.
    • There are trolls in the Seventh God expansion, too. They're moss-covered creatures of living stone that can pretend to be boulders.
  • Animated Armor: Stygian Knights.
  • Ancient Artifact: Plenty. The Ibis Crown, Balmung, The Tain, The Total Codex, The Rod of the Callieach, the fragments of the Wyrd, which are the source of all the Dream magic in the world.
  • Another Dimension: The Tain. In the first game, it was shattered, and in the second, you go into one of the fragments. There are whole areas inside that are just... not there.
  • Arc Number: 7.
  • Arrows on Fire: The archers have this as a single-use ability.
  • Artificial Stupidity:
    • The AI is generally good with one exception - ranged units don't check that their target is clear of nearby friendly units, resulting in lots of friendly fire. That's not a bug, it's a feature. Seriously, it was listed as one.

Dwarf: Incoming!
Announcer: Casualties.
Dwarf: sorry about that.

    • The AI in The Wolf Age is pretty terrible with enemies often forgetting to attack, use special abilities, or just getting stuck for no reason. Worst of all are the Trow, as 90% of the time the only way to beat them is exploit their deliberately broken AI, which will always chase the closest unit. Since unlike Myth I and Myth II they are not the fastest units, you can easily lead them in circles with a single soldier while your ranged units destroy them. It just takes forever and gets old really fast.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking:
    • The Avatara. According to the GURPS book for the setting, they are required by long standing tradition to be experts with weapon combat, in addition to being magical powerhouses.
    • Averted in the second game with the baron, who is a cowardly overweight old man, despite being the first necromancer you beat in the game.
  • Back From the Brink:
    • One human city remains unsacked at the start of the first game. And then, toward the end of the game, it gets sacked.
    • The Wolf Age also starts with mankind nearly extinct due to a thousand years of being hunted by the myrkridia. Only a single city and a few isolated tribes of barbarians are still standing.
  • Back from the Dead:
    • Shiver gets killed offscreen during the first game and comes back as something resembling a female shade in the sequel.
    • All the incarnations of the Leveler.
  • Badass Army:
    • The Legion from the first game is this. However, it also means that the guys in charge always send them where the fighting is going to be the ugliest, as noted by the author of the journal. Just before meeting a Trow for the first time.
    • Connacht's company in the Llancarfanian army, known as "The Devil Slayers" for their fearlessness in battle against the myrkridia.
  • Badass Boast:
    • Connacht, when asked how he beat back the myrkridia.

Connacht: You lose because you are fearful of them. They can smell it on you and they will kill you for it. When the devils stare into your eyes show them only your rage and your hate! Make them know that it is they who should be fearful. Of you.

    • The Trow description in Myth III has one.

... late in the Age of Reason, Avatara made contact with the Trow to speak of peace. The Avatara told of human cities and castles built by their hand. The Trow stated, "The first buildings on land were our creation." The Avatara spoke of the powerful sorceries mastered by humans. The Trow said, "The first magics were created by the Callieach. We slew them."

Although the hero of every age of light is different, every dark age is ushered in by the same beast - a transient divinity that seeks only conflict - The Leveler. And so Tireces returned as Moagim, to end the Age of Reason - and Connacht, the great hero of the Wind Age, returned as Balor, to lay waste to the greatest empire the world had ever known. The Leveler was never killed. He was immobilized by sorcery, beheaded and burned at the stake in the Second Era. A thousand years later, he was drawn and quartered on the plains before Ileum, the tireless horses dragging the pieces of his lifeless body to the four corners of the world. Again in the Fourth Era, his body was destroyed by fire, his ashes mixed with salt and buried under the Mountains of Kor. Balor, Moagim and all those before them wore the Mantle of The Leveler.

  • Big Bad Wolves: And how!
  • The Berserker: The aptly named human berserks.
    • Also the myrkridia, who go berserk when injured enough. Unfortunately, their "I'm going berserk now!" animation take long enough that they often don't get to enjoy it.
  • Berserk Button: Even centuries later, Balor really doesn't like anything to to do with the myrkridia. Alric uses this to his advantage.
  • Blade on a Stick: Soulblighter's glaive, which was his weapon of choice back when he was captain of the Heron Guard, even though they traditionally use two swords.
  • Boring Invincible Hero: Connacht in the Myth III, up to utterly exterminating a race no other human force had ever fought and lived, because he's just that Badass. Twice. The only battle he loses is also the only one where he doesn't fight personally.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The aptly named Deceiver.
  • Colonel Makepeace: The eight good sorcerers who aren't Alric.
  • Combat Medic: The Heron Guard.
  • Cool Gates: The World Knots are an ancient network of portals, which are connected in pairs. Luckily the bad guys can't make use of them.[1] You can always count on one of them to appear exactly when and where it is needed.
  • The Captain:
    • Alric.
    • Connacht is a general for most of Myth III, though he's allowed to run his army anyway he sees fit.
  • Deadpan Snarker: The narrator has moments of this in Myth 1, such as "Until now, Murgen said, no man except (the Tain's) creators knew where its victims were taken. I'll try to feel privileged while I starve to death." And whenever you lose a unit, a deadpan voice mocks you with "Casualty."
  • Dead Weight: The wights, but only in Myth III. They're quite slim in the first two games.
  • Decoy Protagonist: The early levels of Myth II follow the heroics and inspired tactics of the narrator's commander in the legion. He is unceremoniously killed in Soulblighter's first appearance in the narrative.
  • Demonic Invaders:
    • Fetch were pulled out Another Dimension by Ballor. They wear the skins of their enemies and when they die, their essence flies off in the sky, so nobody knows what they really look like.
    • The myrkridia were similarly brought to the Myth world by Moagim.
  • The Dragon: The Watcher is this by his own agenda. He could easily be the most powerful person in the world, but then he would become The Leveler, and would be Screwed By Destiny, so he makes sure he's always second-best. He was the first lich, invented the ability to reanimate the dead, and has lived since slightly after the dawn of man.
  • Dye or Die: Connacht is given command of his own army by the Cath Bruig Emperor, under the condition he shaves his Beard of Barbarism, so he doesn't look like a wild savage. He complies by shaving his head completely.
  • The Empire: Subverted, as the Cath Bruig Empire were the good guys - that is until Balor and his minions sacked it and reanimated it's inhabitants as walking dead.
  • Eleventh-Hour Superpower: The sword Balmung, used by Alric in the final battle, which kills myrkridia in seconds and casts Chain Lightning on everything he hits. The only real danger during that mission is getting your own troops fried by accident (the wrecked sword can be seen on the ground in the last seconds of the level, explaning its absence in the finale).
  • Elite Mooks: Trow, fetch, myrmidons, myrkridia, dwarven mortars, warlocks and the various priest units in Myth III all far more dangerous than the standard grunts on both sides.
  • Enemy Mine: The Deceiver.
  • Enemy Civil War: At one level in the first game (Seven Gates), the armies of the Deceiver and the Watcher clash, allowing the player to pick off the survivors.
  • Everybody's Dead, Dave: The Legion get completely slaughtered in the final battle in both The Fallen Lords and Soulblighter.[2] In the first game even the narrator is implied to have been killed and Alric is pretty much the Sole Survivor only because he wasn't present for the last level. Even this is a retcon, as you can see his severed head flying past in the ending video.
  • Everything Fades: Averted to the extreme, as you lay permanent waste to the landscape. Awesomely. Bloodstains, craters, heads, limbs, even broken arrows and bits of armor remain until the level ends. This is tactically relevant, especially in multiplayer, as you can see where battles have occurred before you got there. Furthermore, ghols can pick up discarded weapons or even body parts, particularly those of the wights, and hurl them at the enemy.
  • Expanded Universe: The comic book and the GURPS Myth roleplaying game.
  • Fake Difficulty: Compared to modern RTS, the controls of the first game are extremely unwieldy and the camera isn't exactly great too. Can be very annoying, considering that the game loves attacks from different directions, fast skirmisher enemies, suicide bomber enemies that deal massive damage, and is generally micromanagement-intensive.
  • Fallen Hero: Most of the commanders of the armies of the Dark were once the good guys. You even get to play as them in the prequel.
  • Five-Bad Band: The five Fallen Lords encountered in the game.
  • Five-Man Band: The Fallen Lords back when they were still human, minus The Watcher.
  • Flat World: Hinted at in the first game's manual.

Back when I joined up with the Legion there was a mad Journeyman who regaled anyone too tired to move away with his theory about the Edge of All - that line between the land and nothingness out beyond the kingdom of Gower, where Connacht arose. He claimed the world is double-sided and constantly spinning, like a coin tossed in the air, and the living and the dead are held to its surface by sorceries too powerful for humans to master. [3]

  • For the Evulz: The Fallen Lords have no real motivation but evil for the sake of it. They are, of course, being lead by the Leveler, described in the game as "a transient divinity that seeks only conflict".
  • Friendly Fireproof: Averted. See Artificial Stupidity.
  • Game Mod: Countless, especially after Myth II and its bundled editing tools. While most are "simply" new multiplayer maps or sets of units (Civil War, Wild West, WWII and the like), a few easily rival the original game.
    • Chimera, a sequel to Myth II that was made with help from Bungie. Confirmed to be canon.
    • The Seventh God, a game-sized total conversion that takes place on another continent in the Myth world, and is more of a traditional fantasy land.
    • Mazzarin's Demise, a legendary fight in the Myth universe that took place over a full day between the last of the magical heroes of Light and the forces of Darkness lead by the Watcher. Canonically, the dark side won, but the mod allows you to Screw Destiny. Be warned, however - it is exactly as hard as the canon battle, and most players have never beaten it.
  • Geo Effects: Rain and snow means that there is a larger chance or dwarven explosives not working. High ground gives big bonuses to ranged attack units. The use of the flame arrow in the second game also depends upon the terrain.
  • Giant Mooks: Trow, Forrest Giants and Myrkridia Giants.
  • God Is Dead: Wyrd, the creator of the Myth world, was actually killed by the dark goddess Nix, presumably because he didn't ask her permission first (and built it on a world she had just finished and populated with the Trow). His body was ripped to pieces, which were scattered around the world and became known as the fragments of Wyrd. The Callieach first discovered them and figured how to harness his power to cast Dreams - the main type of magic in Myth, some of which were later copied by the Avatara and various other races.
  • Great Big Book of Everything: The Total Codex - a biography on every person who will ever live. It gives more or less arbitrary information every time it's opened. Only the most skillful of mages can open it on a page that is actually relevant to their fate. Myth III retcons this somewhat by claiming that several important events were not written in the Codex.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: Quite a few. You've got the Dispersal Dream, The Watcher's Volcano Dream, Moagim's Vortex Dream, Alric's chain lightning attack with Balmung, the Trow iron warrior's basic hammer attack, the ghol priest's tornado attack, the myrkridia giant's exploding skulls, the dwarven mortars and the canon blasts, the dwarf smith's flamethrower, Ravanna's spinning attack, the warlock's fireballs and of course Mjarin's insta-kill ginormous firewalls.
  • Hero Unit: Besides the various sorcerers and commanders, the first two games have a single mission where you command a handful of heavily enhanced "champion" versions of your basic units. Myth III has several missions with hero units only.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The Watcher is defeated by Alric, using arrows with tips made from the bones of his own severed hand, which he lost escaping from his stone prison centuries before.
  • Hopeless War: Conveyed particularly brutally in the first game.

"It can't be hopeless." Two nights ago half a dozen men and I crouched around a campfire, trying to stay warm, and one of them said those words. [...] Tonight I sit by a campfire fifty miles northwest, remembering the way he screamed this morning when four thrall surrounded him, knocked the sword from his good hand, and hacked him to pieces.

They hope to use the Watcher's arm against him, if we find it. Rather like knowing his true name, only better. Again, I don't pretend to understand.

  • Level Editor: Very powerful map-making programs called Fear and Loathing come with the game.
  • Life or Limb Decision: The Watcher tore off one of his arms to escape from his prison. Since he was immortal, it was more like a Liberty Or Limb Decision.
  • Light Is Not Good: While for the most part good and evil are identified with the Light and the Dark, respectively, Balor wears a suit of gleaming white platemail. Probably a leftover from his days as emperor of the Cath Bruig Empire.
  • Lightning Bruiser: The biggest units in the game are also the fastest. The trow, forest giants, and myrkridian giants can outrun anything on the ground and can destroy armies in short order. The spider queen is the fastest thing in the game, but not nearly as strong as the above three.
  • Little Hero, Big War:
    • The whole tale is told from the view of low ranking soldiers, as inspired by the Black Company books.
    • Averted in The Wolf Age, which goes for a traditional Heroic Fantasy narrative, losing much of the iconic atmosphere of the series in the process.
  • Magic Knight: All Avatara are archmages. However, as a condition for joining that Order, they are also required to display competence with the sword. This is meant to show their willingness to lead in battle, and to remind them not to neglect the mundane while studying the arcane. Some only payed lip service to this requirement, others took to it with relish, but regardless each Avatara is deadly in melee combat in addition to their ability to cast army-shattering spells.
  • Martyrdom Culture:
    • According the the GURPS source book for Myth, this is something of the case with the warriors of the Legion. They are quite Genre Savvy about their status as the Redshirt Army, understanding that their role on the battlefield is sometimes to pave the way for the success of other units by laying down their lives.

The average Legionnaire takes a perverse pride in all of this. Nobody sacrifices more for Emperor, Empire, and the Light. He knows this, and he knows his superiors all the way up to Alric himself know this. He may gripe and bemoan his fate, but giving his all is why he first took up the sword, and likely why he will die with it in hand.

    • Also lampshaded by Soulblighter.

Soulblighter: So, Alric, once again you sacrifice loyal men to increase your own glory.

    • Several avatara also sacrifice themselves to save the lives of troops, like Sardonac's suicide mission. Murgen and Cu Roi are also implied to have sacrificed their lives blowing up the Tain.
  • Molotov Cocktail: The dwarfs employ a version with a little more kick.
  • Mook Maker:
    • The Summoner. His only ability shown is to summon myrkridia from elsewhere.
    • The myrkriadian pack-mage can summon very weak thrall by the dozens.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast:
    • Balor's title in the first game is the Leveler.
    • His second calls himself Soulblighter.
    • The Deceiver is initially only known as that, but in the second game, he gets a little more fleshing out. One of his titles, as it turns out, is "Source of the Five Hundred Poisons".
  • Necromancer: Bahl'al the Watcher - the first human to rediscover the Dream of Unlife after recovering one of the Callieach's Runestones. Since his death the knowledge has spread.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Depending on the interpretation, it is possible that Soulblighter's attempt to finish what Balor started, and overthrow the new age of Light in its beginning, broke the Vicious Cycle of the Leveler for good (unless making Balor Deader Than Dead didn't do the trick earlier).
  • Night of the Living Mooks
  • No Arc in Archery: Averted. Arrows arc and are even effected by strong winds. The archers also visibly aim higher to shoot farther, and gain increased range from high ground.
  • Noodle Incident: Alric and Sinis knew each other from some unspecified past event; all we know is that Sinis apparently died when Mazzarin collapsed a shrine of Nyx on top of him, and Sinis either became a Shade as a result or already was one.
  • Not Drawn to Scale or Writers Cannot Do Math: The village of Shoal is four miles away from Covenant ("Flight from Covenant"), and Silvermines is a hundred miles from Bagrada ("Silvermines"); but on this map, the distance between Silvermines and Bagrada is much less than twenty-five times the distance between Shoal and Covenant.
    • The dates are also somewhat inconsistent; for example the first mission takes place on Wednesday, August 3rd, and the second mission takes place two days later, on Tuesday, August 5th.
  • Nothing but Skulls: The myrkridia totem platforms. Described in-universe as Nightmare Fuel.
  • Obviously Evil: Soulblighter. If his name didn't tip you off, the fact he cut out his nose, lips and heart definitely will. Somehow there were still humans willing to fight on his side.
  • Off-Model: The briefing pictures in Myth III are almost cartoonish at times. They were probably meant to be reminiscent of actual Medieval art style, but compared to the first two games it just looks cheap. The prerendered cutscenes have no such excuse; many are markedly worse than the in-mission graphics.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Due to the story being narrated by a single low ranking soldier, who couldn't always be in the heart of the action, quite a few epic moments are only mentioned in between missions.
    • You don't get to take part of the epic battle between the 20 000 men of your legion and the horde of Shiver which brings the good guys back from the brink of destruction and results in the first victory over a fallen lord ever! Instead you get a diversion mission. Likely due to gameplay limitations but still...
    • The defeats of Shiver (first death that is) and the Watcher.
    • The Heroic Sacrifices of some of the Nine.
    • The exploits of the Seventh Legion, who were not mentioned between charging in Soulblighter's army as a first strike and suddenly appearing as The Cavalry in a battle hundreds of miles away.
      • there's a mod for that
  • Offscreen Teleportation: According to the warlocks, the Deceiver can move much faster when he is unobserved. Of course he was shown using actual Mass Teleportation on-screen, but presumably something prevented him from doing so in this case.
    • The Mass Teleportation was done by controlling which Tain shard he exited by, he could only do it once.
  • Ontological Mystery: Arguably. The player never learns how the Vicious Cycle came to be or what force perpetuates it. Just vague allusions to gods in conflict. Word of God has hinted that that the game somehow connects to Marathon.[5]
    • Expanded upon via WMG here.
  • Our Banshees Are Louder: The Lyches in Myth III are the vengeful spirits of women who were drowned during The Great Cleansing for practicing magic. They attack with homing skulls that summon ghostly hands beneath the victim For Massive Damage.
  • Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Myth III even adds the classical ax-wielding, armor-wearing type.
  • Our Ghouls Are Creepier:
    • Lovecraft style apemen called ghols who can pick up and throw battlefield debris.
    • The ghasts, rotting corpses with the ability to paralyze.
  • Our Liches Are Different: The shades. Magic-users who have "traded a lifetime of hoarding power for an unlifetime of abusing it". They move with their feet hovering a few inches above the ground, are unable to cross running water, and cast a perpetual shadow around themselves in all directions, regardless of light sources, hence their name. Each is magically quite powerful, having access to the rightly-feared Dispersal Dream. However, becoming one seems to require the assistance of another wizard to complete their transformation, and thus they tend to be loyal to a more powerful magic-user such as the Fallen Lords.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: The myrkridia.
  • Person of Mass Destruction:
    • The Shades and Alric due to having access to the Dispersal Dream - a spell that is similar to Chain Lightning, except it kills nearly everything in one hit and it has no limit of how many units it can chain. Hell, you can easily take out both the enemy forces and your own at once if you're not careful.
    • Balor in The Fallen Lords. He's defeated in a scripted event yes, but if you fail to run away after planting the bait he'll make short work of your whole force in seconds.
    • Alric again when he uses the sword Balmung. If it wasn't for a certain kind of enemy that can paralyze him, he could finish the whole climactic battle with Soulblighter's army by himself.
    • The Trow were bad enough in the first two games, but the iron warriors in The Wolf Age go Up to Eleven. They attack with giant hammers that kill anyone they hit in one blow, including hero units. And they swing it in an arc, so it's guaranteed to take out multiple units in one blow if you try to surround them. Add the fact that you don't have any giant units of your own and you soon realise that attacking Trow with any number of melee units is suicide.
  • Plotline Death: In the first game: Shiver, six of the Nine, and most of the Legion are killed offscreen. In the second game: Cruniac.
  • Power Floats:
    • The Shades.
    • Shiver from the second game.
  • Praetorian Guard: The Heron Guard are a collection of immortal warrior-monks who guard the Emperor of Cath Bruig with their lives. When the emperor was killed, the survivors threw down their weapons and discarded their armor, donning simple fur cloaks and pulling down several golden tiles from the imperial palace which they then wear around their neck as penance for their failure, becoming Journeymen.
  • Precursors: The Callieach were the first and most powerful race to use magic. According to legend they could move mountains, incinerate cities, and make themselves immortal. The Trow hunted them to extinction before the rise of human civilization.
  • Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: Alric, about to fight a shade one-on-one.

Alric: Ah, Sinis! I thought you died when Mazzarin collapsed the Shrine of Nyx upon you.
Sinis: Indeed Alric, then I'll wager that you thought you'd seen the last of me!
Alric: I have seen the last of you.

  • Proud Warrior Race:
    • The berserks.
    • Their Dark counterparts, the Myrmidons, who Balor tricked into fighting for him with the promise of immortality, which he then provided by turning them into mummies.
  • Ravens and Crows: Soulblighter's signature ability is to turn into a murder of crows, which is how he escapes destruction in the first game. The Deciever kills one of the birds, removing that ability.
  • Real Time with Pause
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Probably the shortest "The Reason You Suck" speech ever: "Casualties!"
  • The Remnant: Soulblighter in the second game.
  • Revive Kills Zombie:
    • Healing any undead unit will kill it. It's the only way to defeat Soulblighter in the first game. Now actually having the healer survive long enough to finish the spell...
      • Requires you to mob him with melee guys so he's too busy killing them to notice the journeyman.
    • You can do this to Moagim as well, though you don't have to.
  • RPG Elements: Nearly non-existent in the original game, though units do improve a bit when they gain kills, but some mods have put more emphasis on this element. Particularly the "Mazzarins Demise" expansions, where your units will level up after a certain amount of kills and get significantly stronger.
  • Schmuck Bait: As pointed out in the first level of the first game, Undead don't need to breath. So going near water is a very bad idea. In any level with water it is a safe bet that Undead are waiting to pounce on you when crossing water.
  • Screw Destiny:
    • The Fallen Lords are prophesied and double prophesied to win. They're the non-player side. You do the math.[6]
    • Soulblighter also tries to do this in the second game - he continues his attempts to destroy civilization even though the latest incarnation of The Leveller, Balor, has already been defeated. The epilogue even states that he was deliberately trying to force the cycle by not waiting for The Leveller's next incarnation.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: The myrkridia in Myth. Not so much in the second one.
  • Squishy Wizard:
    • In the first game, played straight with the fetch, inverted with everyone else that uses magic - using magic actually makes a person more hearty and hale.
    • This is played straighter as the series progresses, with every magic-user except evil bosses being complete pansies compared to non-magic-users of equivalent plot value.
  • Stealth-Based Mission: "Silvermines" and the first part of "Sons of Myrgard" in the first game; "A Murder of Crows" in the second game.
  • The Strategist: The Deceiver in the second game.
  • Taken for Granite:
    • The Watcher gets petrified and then smashed to pieces to make sure he isn't coming back.
    • Trow turn to stone when they are close to death.
  • Taking You with Me:
    • Everyone present when Balor's head was thrown in the Great Devoid died in the resulting blast, including the narrator.
    • That is actually how the Great Devoid came to be. The last of the Callieach chose to blow themselves up along with the pursuing force of Trow. Now that is how you leave a mark on the world.
    • When Shiver is finally cornered and killed the explosion reduces the killer to paste as well.
    • Soulblighter tries to do this on a global scale after his army is defeated, by forcing a volcanic eruption that would shatter the continent. He might have been able to escape, if he could still turn into a murder of crows.
  • The War Sequence: The river battle in Twice Born, where your troops are backed by two equal columns of NPCs against waves of Myrkridia.
  • Throw Down the Bomblet: The dwarves specialize in this, with most of their units packing a bandolier full of dwarven cocktails and a set of satchel charges for demolition. They are one of the most powerful common units, but tend to be pretty aggressive with the use of their weapons, so a player is wise to keep them on a short leash, lest they create an unfortunate Unfriendly Fire incident.
  • Time Abyss:
    • The Trow claim to have been present when the world was (re)created by The Wyrd. They are immortal and don't reproduce so every single one counts as this trope.
    • The Watcher is called an ancient evil, since he's been around for almost as long as recorded history and outlived several Levelers.
  • Tin Tyrant: Balor was known for wearing a full suit of plate armor, complete with a horned helmet. Supplimental materials suggest that he did not really need to wear plate armor, as like most arch mages in the setting he had enough magical protection that such armor was redundant, but he liked to present an imposing image.
    • This is implied to be the piece of artifact armor that Alric was questing for when he got captured.
  • Tournament Play: The annual MWC (Myth World Cup).
  • Treacherous Quest-Giver: The Head in the first game sends Alric to retrieve a magical suit, which Balor already has in his possession. After that failed mission Alric is captured and needs to be rescued.
  • Vicious Cycle: Apparently a basic law of the world - every 500 or 1000 years (it's hard to be sure), a new Leveler appears and human civilization is in turn destroyed and rebuild - an age of Darkness, followed by an age of Light. The earliest incarnations were just another warlord until the Watcher joined in with his necromancy. The Leveler gets more powerful every time, since he usually takes over the form of the one who beat him last, gaining all his knowledge in the process. Even so the Dark has never won a complete victory, likely because that would break the circle. [7]
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: Soulblighter (pictured on the cover of Myth II that forms the page image) is always seen stripped to the waist. This is not for fanservice. Rather, it is to show off the large, curving scar down the front of his torso where his heart was cut out as part of a magical ritual that imbued him with Nigh Invulnerability on the battlefield.
  • Weather of War: A key feature of the game. Not only is terrain a consideration, but so are the meterological conditions of the battlefield. Wind can adversely affect the accuracy of archers. Rain and wet ground can put out dwarven cocktails. Dry grass can be set on fire. Troop movements leave tracks in the snow and mud that can clue a player into what their opposition has been up to.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: The Nine spend most of Myth being manipulated by a disembodied head, which allegedly belonged to an old enemy of Balor. After it's treachery is discovered, it's never mentioned again, its ultimate fate unknown.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Connacht incites a rebellion among the enslaved Oghre against the Trow. He then leaves the Oghre to fend for themselves, knowing full well they stand no chance of winning on their own. Indeed, the Trow respond by hunting their entire race to extinction over the next few years, while Connacht is free to regroup and prepare his next attack in peace. The Oghre were under a Dream of Subjugation while fighting for the Trow and only wanted to be free after centuries of slavery. Damas calls Connacht out on this.
  • Wizards Live Longer:
    • Alric is shown as older but still very healthy, enough to fight on the battlefield in full plate armor, after sixty years had passed between Myth: The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter.
    • The Watcher is the first human to discover necromancy and the oldest living being we know of from the mortal races, having been alive before the time of the champion of Light Connacht, who would later become Balor.
    • This applies even to the Heron Guard/journeymen, the "deathless" personal guards of the Emperor of the Cath Bruig. At the end of the second game, an older one of these guards remarked on the former splendor of the capital city before its destruction 110 years prior, told a new inductee into the order that he may see it return to glory some day soon, and joked that with a little luck, they would be around in another 940 years to see whether or not the cycle of the Leveler had been broken permanently.
  • World Half Full: The world of Myth is a pretty horrible place, full of bloodthirsty monsters and evil sorcerers, its known history is one huge Vicious Cycle of war and slaughter, and its prehistory is, allegedly, another. But looks like this time its inhabitants managed to Screw Destiny. Hopefully.
  • You Are Number Six: The Journeymen and the Heron Guards, after their initiation, change their name to that of the date of their initiation.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: The existence of The Total Codex seems to suggest so. Connacht also takes this attitude, as he is both certain of his victory over Moagim and his eventual return as the new Leveler. Myth III does show that the prophecies are kind of Broad Strokes and things that were not written can still happen as long as the final results are the same.
    • Connacht's one attempt to fight his fate is to have his lieutenant take all the magical artifacts he had acquired and scatter them across the world, telling no-one where they were hidden in an attempt to deprive his Leveller incarnation of their power. Unfortunately, the lieutenant was resurrected as Soulblighter.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Soulblighter attempts to do this to Shiver by blowing up a dam, that would wash over both the Legion and her army. Possibly justified, since she had the only major force left between him and Alric and it was completely smashed on it's own. Still, you'd think he'd show her some mercy, considering they were married and had a son back in the Wolf Age.
  • Younger Than They Look: Alric looks quite old and decrepit in the first game, but he is in fact younger than Mauriac (who had been his prince-regent when he was a boy).
  1. ↑ Except for the Deceiver who does make use of one, so the Nine blow it up.
  2. ↑ This can be averted in the second game on the lower difficulties if you charge ahead with Alric.
  3. ↑ Though he may have been referring to the Vicious Cycle.
  4. ↑ Note that all the Fallen's true names are known, so this may very well be a mistake by the the narrator.
  5. ↑ See May 19, 1999's entry here.
  6. ↑ Technically, this is disputed by some fans, who argue that the nature of the cycle was misinterpreted and the true battle to break it hasn't begun.
  7. ↑ Whether the Leveler is defeated is not necessarily an indication of what age comes next. The first Moagim was throughly beaten and killed at the beginning of the Wind Age, but he had already unleashed the myrkridia on the world, so it was still a Dark Age even without a Leveler to oversee the genocide. Also, there is some debate as to whether the 500/1000 years of Dark/Light mean a constant state or a gradual shift.
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