Editing Talk:Timeline

* I agree that Terror of the Seas and Horn of the Abyss should be moved - they confuse people as to the order of the HotA campaigns themselves (Horn fo the Abyss obviously occurs later). It would also be great to replace the image for an interactive map, such as the one used for the Main Menu, with links to appropriate campaigns. 
* There's another issue of placement of the Cove campaigns - in Terror of the Seas Dargem is alive and well, while he is killed in Dead or Alive. I think this suggests a rather obvious timeline for the two. - [[User:Csaros|Csaros]] ([[User talk:Csaros|talk]]) 10:15, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
* Epilogue of Terror of the Seas (Dargem feasibly lives through this):
<pre>Unnamed narrator: The defenders of the Regnan fortress shivered, and Casmetra and Jeremy hurried in. Dargem let the captive be and grabbed the Horn. He ran to the highest tower. While Jeremy was helping his brother untie the ropes, Casmetra yelled powerfully:

"Give the Horn back immediately!"

With a scared face, Dargem yelled back:

"Never! You betrayed me and left me alone! Now I know what to do!"

Taking the artifact in both hands, Dargem was just about to blow the Horn, when with a piercing "STOP!!!" Casmetra threw a magical spell at him. A huge magical explosion followed, and the shock wave destroyed half of a fortress, creating something like a whirlpool underneath it.

The only thing that Jeremy remembered was how he tried to get to higher ground desperately, and how Casmetra yelled:

"Idiot! We will be dragged into another plane of existence because of you!"

Hours, or maybe weeks after that, Jeremy found himself on a sea shore. Where is Bidley? And what happened to the Horn? May this be the end of the legend of the Horn of the Abyss?</pre>

* Epilogue of Dead or Alive (Quite obviously Boyd killed him, and if you look at the cinematic it seems almost ridiculous to think otherwise):  - [[User:Csaros|Csaros]] ([[User talk:Csaros|talk]])
<pre>Henrietta: The chase… Sword in my hand… and the barely visible path between the lifeless hills ahead. I’m racing on, barely ever getting a glimpse of the map, and the silent skeleton rides by my side. Suddenly, I wake up, shaking off the nightmare that kept tormenting me for days, in the dreams and beyond. When we pinned down that worm, Dargem, I left Boyd and him to set their scores alone. Should I expect for a second restless dead man to come to my dreams tonight? Well, just two is not that bad. After fleeing from Eeofol, I was seeing thousands of them…</pre>

* See also the "diary pages" from [[In Search of the Horn]], Dargem has been stuck in a labyrinth for a while, at the behest of his "mistress", before his appearance in the Terror of the Seas campaign.
* By the way, one more piece of evidence for chronology: the Day 12 message in [[Treachery]]:
<pre>More troubling news: war has broken out again between Erathia and Eeofol. Also, strange cities with golden-domed castles have begun appearing out of thin air all across the continent. Casmetra thinks it is an invasion by elemental lords. One of these cities appeared in the northern region of the archipelago. They've probably been attracted by the power of the Horn of the Abyss and hope to acquire it.</pre>
** This places this mission, the last of the Terror of the Seas campaign, to be synchronous with [[Armageddon's Blade (campaign)|Armageddon's Blade]]. So the Horn of the Abyss campaign must be synchronous with Armageddon's Blade too. Note that if we accept Dead or Alive to be the end of Dargem, that puts this mission to be after AB; considerably widening the time gap between missions 2 and 3 of the Forged in Fire campaign.
* So a quick Dargem timeline would be like this: navigator mage working for one of the Regnan pirate lords. Tasked with getting the Horn of the Abyss, gets stuck in the labyrinth, loses all his troops to traps and illusion, gets imprisoned by another pirate band, is freed by Bidley and co., makes a grab for the Horn, and is blasted off away. Tries to seize it by force with an combined pirate/warlock army, fails again. After these repeated failures at grabbing the Horn, resort to extorting and harassing refugees stuck in the Jadame wasteland, but fails at this as well.
* Alternatively, if Dargem somehow survives Boyd, then he harasses the refugees, gets his ass kicked, and is sent to a new assignment of hunting for the Horn. Where he also fails. This one might be actually easier to reconcile with the timeline as drawn so far.
** The second option is easier to reconcile with other issues, sure, but there's no way Boyd doesn't kill Dargem. This is the entire characterization of that campaign chapter - Boyd wanting to take revenge on Dargem. Dead or Alive. That's why it's called this way. The AB{-ab} message in the Terror of the Seas does suggest its mostly correct placement (''although slightly to the left of AB''), so the only thing we can presume is that Dead or Alive occurs far, far after Beyond the Horizon. - [[User:Csaros|Csaros]] ([[User talk:Csaros|talk]])
* Maybe we should ask the HotA team for clarification, since they wrote the stories of both campaigns. - [[User:Kastore|Kastore]] ([[User talk:Kastore|talk]]) gave us some info a while back... --[[User:Legate|Legate]] ([[User talk:Legate|talk]]) 16:49, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
* '''CONCLUSION:''' [[Treachery]] mentions "...strange cities with golden-domed castles have begun appearing out of thin air all across the continent." That puts [[Terror of the Seas]] concurrent with [[Armageddon's Blade (campaign)]]. As [[Homecoming (HotA)]]'s story text is obviously concurrent with the end of [[Armageddon's Blade (campaign)]], I think we have to conclude that Dargem somehow survived his encounter with Boyd. --[[User:Legate|Legate]] ([[User talk:Legate|talk]]) 17:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
* In Might & Magic RPG games characters could be easily ressurected, if sent to a temple. Who knows that scoundrel Dargem. I though that at one point Jeremy would have to find and free him for a help and Dargem would complain how bad they treated him.--[[User:Archer|Archer]] ([[User talk:Archer|talk]]) 17:24, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
* Day 51 of [[Catherine's Charge]] is said to be the first day of the [[Festival of Life]].
* [[Prisoner of Doom]] says that Boragus is dead and Kilgor succeeded him already, so [[Festival of Life]] campaign happened before [[Terror of the Seas]].
* A Seer in [[Homecoming (Hota)]] mentions that Ordwald is dead and Mutare is in power. So: [[Homecoming (HotA)]] comes after [[Dragon's Blood]].

== Tavin ==
Tavin appears in [[Armageddon's Blade (campaign)]], where his guerillas help Gelu so that he may free their homeland. This suggests that AB happens before [[Homecoming (HotA)]]?
* {{Hn|Tavin|0=}}([[Return of the King]], [[A Blade in the Back]], [[To Kill A Hero]], [[Oblivion's Edge]], [[Forged in Fire]])
** The HotA interpretation of Tavin sets up his guerilla basically right in [[World on Fire]] where he refuses to follow Henrietta in exile. So really all this suggests is that Armageddon's Blade follows World on Fire, which was already obvious.
** '''CONCLUSION:''' The story text of [[Homecoming (HotA)]] is definitely concurrent with [[Oblivion's Edge]]. Having those two events on the same year makes sense.

== Lore up to the Reckoning ==
We should probably make a page with this info...it is linked in several locations on this wiki.
* [https://www.celestialheavens.com/homam-iv/jennifer-bullard-lost-manuscript-files?showall{{=}}&start{{=}}3 Jennifer Bullard - Lost manuscript files (Celestial Heavens)]
** This states that Mutare was killed on 07-17-1175.
** [[Tarnum the Overlord]] day 1 event says that he took over the Nighon forces in the power vacuum left by Mutare's death.
** So...Sword of Frost campaign happens from 1175 or 1176 to the early part of 1177? There is probably another clue nailing this down further in either the text of Sword of Frost or the lost manuscripts.