Fall From Heaven

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Hear me, mortals, and heed me well. Whispers of forgotten lore have found my ears, the currents of time flows through my veins with every beat of my heart and bear visions of death and despair... ...As the wickedness of man takes hold of him, darkness will start to engulf his world. At first he will see nothing, only a few of the most gifted will even sense the change. The world will go on as it has, for a time, but the seed of its downfall has been sown...

A Dark Fantasy mod for Civilization IV, arising from the CivFanatics Civ boards, and one of the game's most famous mods. It is vaguely based on the originator (Derek "Kael" Paxton)'s long-running Dungeons and Dragons game.

After the Age of Ice, the various tribes of the world of Erebus are forming into civilizations once again, seeking to reclaim the glories of a previous age, leave their own mark upon Erebus, conquer everything in sight, or just blow it all to Hell. But untamed Erebus is not a nice place, and many of the civilizations (possibly including your own) will quite happily make it even worse.

A prequel to the mod, Fall From Heaven Age of Ice was included with the Beyond the Sword expansion for Civilization IV.

You can get it here. A standalone sequel was in the works, but has now been cancelled. (see here )

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This mod provides examples of:

• Abnormal Ammo: The Balseraph Catapult launches live cows, complete with sound effects and the relevant Monty Python and The Holy Grail quote.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Alazkan the Assassin, Gibbon Goetia, Kithra Kyriel, the Octopus Overlords...
• Age of Titles: The Age of Ice scenario.
• Alien Non Interference Clause: The Compact forbids the gods from directly intervening on Erebus. By default (unless the game is set up otherwise), it's essentially an unenforceable joke; the Infernals and Mercurians will burst onto Erebus the moment that someone opens a hole for them to enter through.
  • The reason it's an unenforceable joke is that the gods are free to empower their human followers to act in their stead, as well as be summoned into Erebus via human-controlled magic. The aforementioned Infernals and Mercurians (as well as the Illians) take these loopholes to their logical conclusion.
• All There in the Manual: Sort of. The in-game Civilopedia is less then trustworthy, but there is a PDF manual to help out newbies. And if it's a Backstory question, go to the forums and ask away.
• Altum Videtur
• Angels Devils and Squid: Justified. See Eldritch Abomination.
  • The thing is, in this case, the classical angels and devils are the source of those Eldritch Abominations, and therefore are most likely stronger than them. Think about that for a moment.
• An Ice Person: Auric, the reincarnation of the slain God of Winter. And The Illian civilization in general.
  • Evil Is Deathly Cold: Though they don't tend to be nice people.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Basically, Kylorin had twenty-one like this during the Age of Magic, including Perpentach, Os-Gabella and Laroth. Inverted, however, as they were all corrupted during this time, including Kylorin himself. He was just the only one to repent. Also, Gibbon Goetia toward Chalid Astrakein. Not that he wasn't creepy before that...
• Artificial Stupidity: The AI doesn't understand many of the mod's new mechanics.
• Awesome but Impractical: Gibbon Goetia has the ability to allow you to control another faction for a while. However, your actions are limited,and since there is no way to control two civs at the same time, the AI makes a mess of your empire while you're away.
  • For that matter, Auric Ascended, who comes very late in the game. The real strength of the Illians are their three Priest of Winter and their Boring but Practical ability to cover the map with only-produces-food-for-you snow tiles, with cottages, gaining a fairly good Research rate.
  • Drifa the White Dragon also falls under this. Unlike Abashi and Eurabatres, Drifa can't be built directly, instead requiring a ritual to be completed that itself requires that you destroy at least one other civ by then. The thing is, if you're already powerful enough to destroy another civ, then you probably don't need Drifa anyway.
• Ax Crazy: Let's see... the Doviello. The barbarians and Clan of Embers. The Balseraphs. The Infernals. And just to top it off, the Mercurians.
• Badass Automaton: Barnaxus, the sentient Golem Luchuirp hero.
• Badass Normal: Grigori Adventurers upgrade to the normal unit types (swordsmen, archers, mages, et cetera) but also passively gain experience until they reach 100, making them incredibly dangerous.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Ethne the White, secular leader of the Elohim, is a Female Expy of Buddha and bastion of Incorruptible Pure Pureness. In the official scenarios released with the mod, she summons Basium to defend her people against the evil factions. Yes, him. She ends up asssasinated for this by the Sidar, who were trying to mantain Balance Between Good and Evil (sort of).
• Big Bad: Overall, Agares. In-game, any evil leader that becomes particularly powerful will probably qualify. Likely examples include Auric Ulvin, Tebryn Arbandi, and Hyborem.
  • The Woman Behind The Man: Possibly Ceridwen, the evil Goddess of Magic and patroness of the Sheaim. It is supposed that all the efforts spent by the villains to destroy the world are really her Evil Plan to take the place of the One.
• Black and Grey Morality: There are a few genuinely virtuous leaders (The Elohim leaders, for example) but this is the overall feeling. Good and Neutral characters are frequently Anti-Hero flavoured, while evil characters, with the possible exceptions of Mahala and Sheelba leave little doubt they live up to the title.

• Black Magic: Is your mage playing with Death and/or Entropic magic? They'll be joining the Infernals as a manes if they get killed.
• Blood Knight: The Eidola, the demon version of the proud warrior race guy
• Bonus Level of Hell: The Lord of the Balors scenario.
• Celtic Mythology: The names of the majority of characters come from here.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Falamar. A less-than-chivalrous imposter of his attacks a woman in the opening text of one of the scenarios, only for the real Falamar to show up, kick his ass, and escort the poor girl home.
  • The real Falamar is more a Chick Magnet with an annoying reputation.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: In terms of story there are a couple of people who qualify, and this being Civilization it runs rampant in the game.
  • And the Council of Esus religion has a synergy with this attitude.
• Circus of Fear: The Balseraph civilization's hat. Occasionally mixed with Rule of Funny.
• Circles of Hell: There are six Vaults filling this role, plus Ceridwen's Portal Network that connects them.
• Conservation of Ninjitsu: The standard military units are represented by a group, but most of the more powerful units depict a single fighter.
• Creepy Child: Keelyn, who was raised by summoned demons. Cardith Lorda, though basically decent, is a small child sharing a body with an ancient gold dragon.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Order definitely has some shades of this.
• Deal With the Devil: The Ashen Veil religion's theme.
• Death World: In the early stages of Civilization, barbarians represent a minor but incessant nuisance. In Fall From Heaven, they are far more dangerous.
• Defector From Decadence: Cassiel, who fell because he could no longer accept the Gods meddling in Creation.
• Did We Just Have Tea With Cthulhu?: Charadon is maybe a scary resurrected Ax Crazy who forbids his people to craft even their own axes and teaches them to act like wolves but he will always enjoy a nice cup of tea.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The safest way to kill Auric Ascendant is with the Godslayer, but sending soldiers en masse will suffice.
• Disk One Nuke: In earlier games, civs with an archmage hero coming reasonably early could Dominate Sons of the Inferno, who have good strength and can summon Fire Elementals. It is now significantly harder to do this, but still possible.
• Does Not Like Men: You play a male leader? You will have a little diplomatic malus with Os-Gabella, who has her reasons.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: While the Fall From Heaven universe is, as the name suggests, usually unpleasant, some of the civilizations are genuinely decent people... and there's the the Altar of the Luonnotar victory.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Octopus Overlords religion is based around worshipping these.
  • To be exact, the Octopus Overlords are "Incomprehensible Lovecraftian entities created by nightmares of a mad man, empowered by the dreams of the sleeping god of water, who has the Lord of Nightmares and Madness whispering in his ear." Yeah.
    • To be even more exact, they're Cthulhu.
• Elemental Powers: A whopping 21 of them are available to the mage classes: Dimensionnal versus Enchantment, Law versus Chaos, Mind versus Metamagic, Creation versus Entropy, Nature versus Ice, Life versus Death, Sun versus Shadow, Fire versus Water, Spirit versus Body, Air versus Earth, and Force.
• Encyclopedia Exposita
• Enemy Mime: The Balseraphs have a sword-wielding mime unit called a Mimic.
• Entropy and Chaos Magic: both entropy and chaos are names of spell schools. Entropy magic is associated with slower decay, with spells such as wither and rust. Chaos magic is associated with randomness and energy, with spells like Dance of Blades and mutate, providing random bonuses.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The evil civilizations all have the capacity for Complete Monster-hood, but even some of them will fight against the Ashen Veil.
  • Evil Versus Oblivion: The Infernals and Sheaim want the world to burn, while most of the other evil factions want to rule it (or else just run around plundering everything, like barbarians do).
  • Even Dark Fantasy Has Standards: As a meta-example, the lore and scenarios pack a lot of dark material into the game, but at least one story ended up on the cutting room floor. Originally, the "Cavern of Trials" scenario was going to be played out by a teenage Amurite girl named Tya Kiri. She goes through the trials guided by the spirit of a young boy, who she learns later is actually the soul of her unborn child who she didn't know she was pregnant with. Unfortunately, the trials put so much stress on her body that she miscarries, after having gotten to know and love her child. According to Kael, the original story was so sad that the team re-wrote it so that another Amurite leader would take Tya's place.
• Everything Is Better With Penguins: Chaos Magic can randomly summon penguins. If you let them stay, you get a happiness bonus.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Keelyn attempts to summon and control Hyborem, Lord of the Balors, who is second only to Agares in the hierarchy of Hell. Subverted: she manages to summon and even temporarily contain him, and when Hyobrem escapes she hunts him down with an army, possibly ending in her replacing him as master of the Legions of Hell.
  • In-game, any faction can study the Infernal Pact technology, which gives some great benefits...and summons Hyborem into the world. Hyborem and his Infernals want to see evil people die and become productive citizens of his empire.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Quite a few: The Black Tower from one of the scenarios, and the Tower of Eyes and Tower of Complacency wonders.
• Fallen Angel: Let's see... Agares, God of Hope, and the six others angels who rebelled against the One. Bhall, Goddess of Fire, who lately joined them (with collateral damage). All the good angels who did the same.
  • And, for non evil equivalents, Cassiel, who wanted the gods to end completely their war and deliberately falls, and Basium and the Mercurians, who pursue the exact opposite goal.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Largely averted, but some examples stand out: the Malakim (Bedouins), and the modmod Fall Further has the Chislev (Native Americans). Less obvious examples include:
  • The disappeared empire of Patria has some Roman aspects.
  • The Order and the Bannor, both the protegees of Junil, the God of Order, have some aspects of the Catholic Church with their Crusaders.
  • The Grigori are a nation unable to adopt a state religion and noted for an independent, self-reliant people.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: And the combinations between civilizations and religions increase even more this fact.
• Fantasy Pantheon: Technically "angels" (through far more powerful than the others), they were created by the One and their opposition form the main part of Fall From Heaven's backstory.
  • The Good Gods (who stayed true to the One and choosed to protect humanity from the Evil Gods):
    • Amatheon, Angel of Fertility, youth, creation and emergence. His mana is Creation, and his civilization the Kuriotates (governed by his Dragon, Eurabatres).
    • Junil, Angel of Justice, transcendant law and submission to authority. His associated mana is Law and he is the patron god of the Bannor (their leader Sabathiel being his Archangel). Worshipped by The Order, though in a gradually more corrupted way.
    • Lugus, Angel of Light, Revelation and honesty. His mana is Light, and his civilization the Malakim. Worshipped by the Empyrean.
    • Nantosuelta, Angel of Faith, and direct self-improvement. Her mana his Enchantment, and her civilization the Luchuirp.
    • Sirona, Angel of Wisdom, charity and goodness. Her mana is Spirit and she is the patron god of the Elohim.
    • Sucellus, formerly Angel of Growth, resurrected as Angel of Life at the End of Fall From Heaven Age of Ice. Associated with resilience and self-sacrifice, Life mana, the druids and theorically the Mercurians, though their leader Basium has only contempt for this God.
  • The Neutrals (Loyals to the One, but less involved than the Good Gods):
    • Arawn, Angel of Death, passivity and retirement. Associated with Death mana (even if he disapproves its use), and the Sidar (even if he doesn't care about them).
    • Cernunnos, former Archangel of Sucellus and now Angel of Growth and progressive change. Associated with Nature mana and the Ljosalfar. The Fellowhship of Leaves worships nature as a whole, so he has a prominent place in this religion, among various gods.
    • Dagda, Angel of Balance, contracts, and democracy. Associated with Force mana, and the Grigori (due to their leader Cassiel being his former Archangel, even if the Grigori themselves don't worship any God.
    • Danalin, Angel of Water and serenity. He is associated with Water mana and the Lanun. Now sleeping after the disparition of his race, the Aifons, his nightmares created the Octopus Overlords.
    • Kilmorph, Angel of Earth and hard work. She is associated with Earth mana and the Khazad. Worshipped by the Runes of Kilmorph religion.
    • Oghma, Angel of Knowledge, memory and curiosity. His mana is Metamagic, his civilization the Amurites.
    • Tali, Angel of Air, fun and irresponsability. He is associated with Air mana and the Hippus.
  • The Evil Gods, who rebelled against the One for various reasons:
    • Aeron, former Angel of Strength, now Angel of Rage, domination of the strongs and physical pleasure. Associated with Body mana and the Calabim.
    • Agares, former Angel of Hope, now Angel of Despair. Associated with Entropy mana and the Infernals (with his Archangel Hyborem leading them). The Bigger Bad of the setting, worshipped along with the demons and the various evil gods by the Ashen Veil.
    • Bhall, former Angel of Fire and righteous indignation up until the Age Of Ice, now Angel of Passion and fury. Her associated mana is Fire, and her civilization is the Clan Of Embers.
    • Camulos, former Angel of Peace, now Angel of War and strife. Associated with Chaos mana, the Doviello and Werewolves.
    • Ceridwen, former Angel of the Stars, now Angel of Magic and unhealthy relationships. She is associated with Dimensional mana and the Sheaim. Possibly the woman behind Agares, and on of the most active of the gods in the destruction of Erebus.
    • Esus, former Angel of Trust, now Angel of Deception, relativism, and incertainty. Associated with Shadow Mana and the Svartalfar. Worshipped by the Council of Esus.
    • Mammon, former Angel of Foresight, now Angel of Greed. Associated with Mind mana and the Balseraphs. His Archangel Hastur, Lord of the Nightmares, is responsible for twisting the nightmares of the god Danalin, making him partially responsible for the creation of the Octopus Overlords.
    • Mulcarn, former Angel of Ice, now Angel of Winter and reactionnarism. Associated with Ice mana, the Illians and the White Hand. Killed at the end of Fall From Heaven Age of Ice, he is in the way of being replaced by Auric Ulvin.
• Faux Affably Evil: The Balseraphs. Think of them as entire nation of Jokers.
• Final Boss: Any number of particularly powerful units can wind up being essentially this, but especially Auric Ascended.
• Five Races:
  • The good civilizations:
    • Stout: The Luchuirp, dwarven golem crafters.
    • Fairy: The Mercurians, angels come to battle the Infernal.
    • Mundane: The Elohim, defenders of Holy places, and the Malakim, desert nomads and priests.
    • High Men: The Bannor, holy crusaders.
    • Cute: The Kuriotates, "children" of the Gold Dragon.
  • The neutral civilizations:
    • Stout: The Khazad, dwarven empire ruled by gold.
    • Fairy: The Sidar, the undying ghosts of Erebus.
    • Mundane: The Grigori, godless heroes, the Hippus, mercenary horsemen, and the Lanun, pirates and rulers of the sea.
    • High Men: the Amurites, masters of sorcery.
    • Cute: The Ljosalfar, elven defenders of the forest.
  • The evil civilizations:
    • Savage: The Clan of Embers, united tribes of bestial races, and the Doviello, raiders and the wolves of winter.
    • Eldritch: The Infernal, demonic harbingers of Hell.
    • Humanoid: The Balseraphs, the twisted carnival.
    • Fallen: The Calabim, vampiric aristocracy, and the Svartalfar, elven assassins and illusionists.
    • Crafty: The Illians, legacy of the fallen god of winter, and the Sheaim, Seekers of Armaggedon.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Averted, though gunpowder is a very late-game tech.
  • Played literaly with the Callabim who are barred from gunpowder units. While not explicitly stated perhaps because said technology is too dangerous for their cattle to have.
• Fluffy the Terrible: Keelyn's balor, Giggles.
• Follow the Leader: Several civilization 5 fantasy mods are planned, including a few by Fall from Heaven team members and modmodders, that will likely use similar mechanics and settings.
• Friendly Enemy: Sabathiel and Cassiel. They have completely different views on the humanity's role on Erebus, yet are still personal friends.
• Game Mod: Not only is it a mod for Civilization, it has its own ModMods.
  • And modmodmods, and modmodmodmods...
• A God Am I: Auric, leader of the Illians, believes himself the reincarnation of the slain God of Winter, Mulcarn. He is.
  • Also, Laroth.
• Good Is Not Nice: A common trait amongst the good guys. The Order and Mercurians come to mind.
  • The Bannor are also like this, or worse, though there are numerous exceptions.
• Good Powers, Bad People: Spirit Magic is usually used to bring peace, inspire courage, and generally do good things. The dead archmage Laroth is using it to conquer the underworld and overthrow the non-interventionist God of Death.
• Grand Theft Me: Gibbon Goetia's modus operandi. Also what Perpentach does when his old body grows, well, old.
• Grievous Harm With a Body: The Doviello berserkers' preferred method of combat.
• Heel Face Turn: The Elohim can construct buildings and units from the original civilization of captured cities.
• Heel Faith Turn: Also Faith Heel Turn. The only way to change alignment in the original game is to change religions.
• Hired Guns: The Hippus civilization, mercenary horsemen.
• Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Sthephanos (Conquest), Buboes (War), Yersinia (Pestilence) and Ars Moriendi (Death).
• If I Can't Have You: "Love most tragic, love most fair... you don't want to know the rest.
• Infinity+1 Sword: The Godslayer, which slays gods. Also works nicely on mortals.
• Kill'Em All: The Sheaim worldspell Worldbreak will, if the Armageddon counter is 100 or more, kill every unit in every non-Sheaim city, except those that are fire resistant.
• Knight Templar: The Order religion. Maybe.
  • Then we have Basium, the leader of the Mercurians. He likes killing demons. And people who associate with demons. And people who use magic of a vaguely demonic nature. And anyone who's been in the same room as a demon at some point in time. And good people, but that's for a different reason: he wants them to return as angels to fight on his side.
    • And he subverts it too, as he knows that the Underworld is far better for the innocents than any evil god's Vault.
  • The entire Bannor civilization is based on this trope. They are dedicated to destroying evil wherever they find it, and they tend to favor the Order religion.
• Like a Badass Out of Hell: The entire Bannor civilization was (undeservedly) hurled into Hell itself when their goddess fell from heaven. They carved their way out with divine aid, but it's left them a bit intolerant.
  • Such a problem, in fact, that Agares commissioned Esus, God of Deception to build a Hell for would-be escapees who didn't quite make it. In it, his Master of Illusion minions create a Lotus Eater Machine version of Erebus, and try to fool the trapped into thinking Erebus is even more of a World Half Empty then it actually is, so that they end up going back to the more honest Hells on their own. What happens to people who figure out the ruse is not explained, though This Troper suspects they become Badass Bookworms Out Of Hell.
  • The Mercurians Angels are also like this: they were hunting daemons in hell for aeons, before you or another player summon them on Erebus.
• Monster Clown: Perpentach, king of the Balseraphs, a telepath who doesn't believe in Mind Over Manners. Every time he invades another's mind, however, he gets a copy of that person permanently placed in his. Suffice it to say, he is quite nuts, though he's learned to enjoy it.
  • The Balseraph hero Loki is also a good example.
• The Heartless: The Avatar of Wrath. Born of people's hatred, fury, and despair. Since he's created on Erebus during the grand finale of The End of the World As We Know It, it usually takes a very large army to kill him.
• Hero Unit: Not usually a representation of the player, but very useful and capable of turning the tide of battle.
• Mind Rape: The game includes a very dark portrayal of the usually-innocuous Charm Person spell; essentially, it warps the genuine emotions of love and protection that the target feels for, say, their friends or family, and then maps it to the caster instead. The victim still hates the person who's doing this to them, but the mental manipulation is so great that it leaves the victim completely unable to fight back or even defend themselves while the caster's allies cut them to ribbons.
  • The domination spell is a better example, gameplay-wise, since it takes the unit over, instead of just stopping it for a turn.
• Nay Theist: The Grigori won't generally argue the gods don't exist, they just refuse to worship them. Their leader is an archangel who quit heaven because he refused to accept Gods having a right to meddle in human affairs.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The campaign ends with Auric Ulvin killed. Too bad, it was with a sword who brings is soul right to Laroth, who can now have the informations he needs to become the new God of Death.
• Norse Mythology: The Ljósálfar (light elves) and the Svartálfar (black elves), although their backstory reveals that they used to be one race before their civil war.
• Numerological Motif: Twenty-one gods, twenty-one civilizations, twenty-one Magic Spheres. As you can guess, they are related in some way or another.
• Omnicidal Maniac: The Sheaim civilization's hat.
• Omniscient Morality License: Sabathiel: "His mind appeared to work on an entirely different plane. While humans had to stumble through their choices, hoping the one they made was the best possible, the angel simply knew. He was capable of total mercilessness, of deceit and exquisite cruelty, but the results of an action commanded by Sabathiel would always be better than any alternative course of action could have brought. The angel, however heartless and wrong he seemed at the time, was always right."
• Orcus On His Throne: Acheron the Red Dragon cannot leave the city he is created in.
• Our Angels Are Ax Crazy: The Mercurians, rogue angels who fell for the sole purpose of hunting demons. They don't much care about humans who happen to be in the way.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: The Khazad are isolationists who love their gold, have a slight taste for Steampunk, build the best siege engines in the game, and are completely useless with magic. The Luchuirp have never actually lived underground, also love Steampunk, and use golems for everything, including and especially war.
• Our Elves Are Better: The Ljosalfar are the local wood elves. As usual, they're masters of archery. But they exchange the usual isolationism for a more proactive approach. The Svartalfar are the resident dark elves. They don't live in caves: depending on the player can become backstabbing city-dwellers or dark versions of their tree-hugging cousins. They're even more aggressive.
• Our Orcs Are Different: The orcs of Fall From Heaven are physically like Blizzard orcs (WITH SPIKES!), and culturally straddle the line between Blizzard and Tolkien variants; the Clan of Embers is slightly more the former, the barbarians more the latter. Jonas Endain of the Clan is almost a counterpart to Thrall, except evil.
• Our Vampires Are Different: The Calabim, a vampiric aristocracy who treat their human subjects like cattle (or worse). They aren't undead, and the blood-drinking isn't necessary; they devour souls for immortality.
  • It's a bit of a Flip Flop of God in that regard, as in some pages of the civilopedia they are stated to eat souls, whereas in some others they are able to subsist on "lesser blood" when in need.
• Pals With Jesus: The original Bannor who escaped from Hell with the aid of the archangel of the god of law.
• Personality Powers: Each Magic Sphere has such influence on the mage (or the god).
• Physical God: Auric Ascendant.
• Physical Hell: Hell terrain.
• The Plan: The One might have let Agares fall and become evil for the sake of preserving free will through out the universe. Or some other greater purpose. This is debated.
• Pirate: The Lanun civilization, although they still live on land.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Hippus. The Doviello and Bannor have hints of this too, though the Bannor are more Knight Templar and the Doviello more Ax Crazy.
• Raised By Wolves: While the Doviello were inspired by wolves, Keelyn of the Balseraphs was actually Raised By Demons. This made her what she is.
• Reality Warper: Hemah and Danalin's dreams.
• Reality Warping Is Not a Toy
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Cardith Lorda, who is basically possessed by the soul of a dragon and doesn't physically age beyond ten.
• Reforged Blade: The Godslayer; indeed, the main point of the 'Age of Ice' scenario is to seek out the scattered fragments of the Godslayer, since only that weapon can bring down Mulcarn, the God of Winter. The actual reforging is passed over lightly, and was apparently performed by Kylorin the Archwizard himself — so presumably, it was magical in nature, rather than involving hammers and anvils. Of course, considering the intense magic held in those shards, it may have just spontaneously reassembled itself when all the pieces were gathered in one place.
• Religion of Evil: The Ashen Veil. Octopus Overlords and the Council of Esus also qualify quite often.
• Room 101: The Octopus Overlords Asylum.
• Scary Black Man: Chalid Astrakein, a Badass Bookworm who has his own spell, Pillar of Fire, and was incidently the teacher of Gibbon Goetia.
  • That said, he's a pretty nice guy. The Empyrean code he lives by is one of the more tolerant religions in the game universe (as opposed to the Order), so as long as you're not a demon worshiper or other enemy of Good, you're safe with him around.
• Sculpted Physique: The angels, including Cassiel, Sabathiel and others.
• Sealed Evil in A Can: Exploring a dungeon can unleash some nasty monsters. Sometimes they are strong enough to wipe out your whole civilization early in the game.
• Sealed Good in A Can: Brigit the Shining, ancient archangel of Bhall.
• Shadow Dictator: Sabathiel is this for the Bannor. He's quit them a long time before the time of the official scenarios.
• Shout Out: Many. The Grigori cities are named after locations from Final Fantasy VII. The Lanun cities include Innsmouth and Dunwich. You can summon a trio of giants named Larry, Curly, and Moe. One of the Lanun heroes is Guybrush Threepwood. The Tower of Mastery victory is a homage to Master of Magic. The original score list of historical leaders is replaced by a list of fantasy characters, from Cthulhu to Tweedledee. Many references to Monty Python.
  • And, according to Word of God, a large part of the Great People names are anagrams of Muppets names.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Its exact location depends on what civilizations are involved in any given game, and how well they do. It can go anywhere from a peaceful world ruled by fundamentally good people to a twisted hellscape where evil lunatics fight slightly less evil dictators to determine whether the world will be brutally enslaved or annihilated outright. The canonical position, though, is pretty far on the Cynical end.
• Soulsaving Crusader: Basium has some shades of this.
• Soul Jar: Tebryn Arbandi makes one out of Abashi the Black Dragon.
• Story and Gameplay Segregation: The two are kept in separate corners and forbidden to speak to each other on pain of death. Nothing prevents you from playing lore-wise pacifistic nations as greedy conquerors, and vice versa.
  • They do manage to whisper to each other, on occasion. For example, in the civilopedia, Ethne The White has a dream in which she discusses morality with Hyborem. He asks her if she would be willing to push one man into the path of a werewolf to save five others. It happens that a random event can ask the player to make the same choice.
  • Also, the scenarios included with the main mod are more scripted.
• Summon Bigger Fish: The Infernals cannot come to Erebus until summoned by an existing faction, but Hyborem owes no loyalty to his summoner, and may in fact decide that his summoner's people will serve better as Manes.
  • His Good Is Not Nice counterpart, Basium, also fits. Unlike Hyborem, he is bound to not attack his summoner by way of Permanent Alliance, but can freely go after any other Good civ in order to build up his army of angels. And the aforementioned Permanent Alliance has the side-effect of dragging Basium's summoner into any wars he starts.
• Sure Why Not: According to Word of God, the MC method of Lore Creation is "I make a few obscure hints about some background lore then wait for Magister Cultuum to explain it and use his explanation."
• Tarot Motifs - actually more of a Themed Tarot Deck minigame. Rather than the four suits of ten cards of the minor arcana and regular cards, there are tens suits of four (numbered three to seven). The suits are Angels, Demons and Dragons, and the remaining seven use a Tarot image and are paired with one of the game's religions. There are four specials cards, Death and three Jokers Fools.
• Technical Pacifist: Corlindale will quickly become this if the player knows what he is doing.
• Tech Tree: It's a Civilization mod, what do you expect? Differs from the original game's by having a greater variety of shorter, more specialised 'branches'.
• The Alliance: The mechanics encourage this when the Armageddon Counter gets too high.
• The Atoner: Corlindale, the Elohim Hero, and Kylorin, at least in the Age Of Ice scenario.
  • The player is also free to do this with any of the evil civilizations by adopting a good-aligned religion to alter their alignment. Some civs, like the Clan of Embers, actually fare pretty well with this strategy.
• The Dragon: For a literal example, Drifa the White Dragon is a dragon who is The Dragon to Auric.
  • Hyborem is this to Agares.
• The End of the World As We Know It: Courtesy of the Armageddon Counter. If enough evil happens on Erebus, plagues are released on the land, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse are let loose... and they aren't even the worst. That honor goes to the Avatar of Wrath. Finally, if the Counter hits 100, All Hell Breaks Loose. Well, moreso than usual. Oh, and the Sheaim and Infernals actively seek to cause this.
• Token Evil Teammate: In the scenario Lord of the Balors, Keelyn. In normal gameplay, this is rare but possible.
• Ultimate Evil: Agares only appear in the backstory.
• Unwitting Pawn: The Sidar civilization has Shades, men who give up part of their souls to become quite immortal. These souls are used by Laroth as soldiers and weapons in the Underworld.
• Voice of the Legion: Sabathiel.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Os-Gabella, the only true immortal (can't die even a violent death) in the cast of characters, wants to end her existence and leads the Sheaim in their quest to destroy the world.
  • Not the only character - she has captured her also-immortal husband and experiments on him, using him as a guinea pig to find a way to end her life.
• World Half Empty: The default state of Erebus. Most (but not all) civilizations, if not actively evil, have some skeletons in their closets(often animated with black magic). In case that's not enough, there's Armageddon. See above.
• World-Wrecking Wave
• Zerg Rush: The Clan of Embers specializes in this. The AI however are more keen to do this with the Sheaim and their Pyre zombies