Lore question - Who are the titans and why serve wizards?

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Lore question - Who are the titans and why serve wizards?

Unread postby BMJedi » 07 Feb 2015, 21:55

Hi, I've just started replaying HoMM 3 thanks to the release of the new HD version, and I have a lore question.

In the campaign map for reconquering Steadwick, you get to choose either two archangels or two titans to start.

I can see why the archangels help the Castle human faction, as so deeply explained through story in Might and Magic 7.

But, in Might and Magic 6 and 7, the titans seem to be neutral monsters who hate pretty much everybody.

In both HoMM 2 and HoMM 3, the titans are suddenly changed from terrifying, Lovecraftian monsters who have their own inscrutable agenda, to the servants of wizards. How did that happen?

Also, the HoMM 3 Tower version of the titans somewhat implies that they could be constructs of wizards. Are the titans constructs, or are they living, organic, sentient, terrifying giants?

I think the second Lovecraftian thing is the more compelling titan lore, but that would exclude them from being a recruitable HoMM creature, unless one supposes that the wizards, at high enough level and "town" research, become able to enslave them, one or two at a time.

So, can any of the lore experts here shed some light on the lore of the titans?
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke, "Clarke's Third Law".

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Unread postby orzie » 08 Feb 2015, 08:33

The titans are most probably the creations of the Ancients as well as the Angels. The trick is that they are most probably a somewhat mechanical/android/biorobot entities, and they have their own instructions for behaviour.

The Titans and the Angels might have created a pact with the Wizards, or the latter just found a way to control some of them. It is true that many Ancients creations might have turned amok with time and just after the Silence.

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Unread postby BMJedi » 08 Feb 2015, 14:51

@orzie, hmm, thanks, that's food for thought.

If the ancients constructed the titans to be military machines, who then ran amok after the Silence, that would help explain why they attack adventurers on sight during MM6 and MM7.

Perhaps the wizards of HoMM 2 and 3 are then assumed to be discovering ways to capture them and bring them back under control.

What's still unexplained is why they run around in deserted areas like the Land of the Giants, the Eel-Infested Waters, the Stronghold in the northeast of AvLee, and the desert near Sweetwater, when they could easily overwhelm and destroy civilization in both Enroth and Antagarich, given their numbers.

That implies that they have some kind of agenda of their own that makes them willing to leave humanity alone as long as they are not bothered, but will kill on sight if their territories are invaded.

The same goes for the dragons, actually, who seem to be at war with the titans. Come to think of it, that would explain the "hates dragons-hates titans" mechanic in HoMM 3. Perhaps there's a story about a war between the dragons and the titans that never got told.
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Unread postby orzie » 08 Feb 2015, 14:56

They have actually appeared suddenly, with the arrival of Kreegans. It is still unclear to me why the arrival of Kreegans would influence, but that's the fact.

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Unread postby Pitsu » 09 Feb 2015, 16:10

My bet would be that NWC gave gameplay a higher priority than lore and they did not really "waste time" to come up with every monsters detailed backstory. And since every player/mapmaker could come up with their own logic, it made the games good.

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Unread postby Tress » 13 Feb 2015, 20:54

Dont think there is detailed backstory. It's just mob which is assigned to wizard castle. Same thing coud be asked what are nagas.
Basically only since homm5 creatures are given real back stories. So you can pretty much use rationalization of homm5 where they are spirit infused constructs.

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Unread postby BMJedi » 14 Feb 2015, 15:02

Thanks for all the answers.

The thing is, don't forget what happened with HoMM 3 vis a vis Might and Magic 6 and 7.

It was supposed to be directly linked, and the conflux town was originally going to be a technology-based Forge town straight from MM7, until NWC got a backlash from fans who had only played HoMM and didn't understand the connection to MM.

I think a lot of people still might not know this bit of the history of New World Computing.

I for one am very interested in the connection between the two games and the lore of the world of Enroth, because it's very rich and detailed. I'm pretty sure their writers had something in mind for everything they put in it, and they wouldn't have just pulled the dragon-titan hate out of thin air with no thought.

We know about the angel-devil hate, since the angels worked for the Ancients and the Ancients were at war with the Kreegan, plus it fits our own real-life Judeo-Christian stories and seems inspired by them.

I'm not saying there are any official answers about the probable dragon-titan war,or who or what the titans are, but I think they probably had some things in mind originally, and it's fun to speculate.

(The intro to MM6 shows a red dragon working with the Kreegan, there is a gold dragon in the pit of the medusas' temple, and one of Archibald's intros in HoMM 2 shows a black dragon enslaved and chained at his feet, but that doesn't tell us much other than that dragons will work with Kreegan and warlocks, willingly or not.)

Any way, I guess there's nothing but only speculation for it, since NWC apparently never wrote anything definitive about the dragons and titans in the games.

(Unless maybe any old veterans who played MM 1-5 remember something?)
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Unread postby Pitsu » 15 Feb 2015, 07:59

BMJedi wrote:I'm pretty sure their writers had something in mind for everything they put in it, and they wouldn't have just pulled the dragon-titan hate out of thin air with no thought.
The titan vs blakc dragon (IIRC titans did not hate other dragons, but rather lived happily together with them in MM games) hate was because during H2 era fans had a lot of fights over the strongest monster in game. Some said that BD is the best, others said that titan is better. For me this has been the reason why the rivalry between titans and BDs was made official in H3, although since H3 they weren't anymore clearly the two best units in game.

EDIT: found H3 titan's abilities:
Immune to all Mind Spells - Ranged - No Melee Penalty - 150% damage against Black Dragons

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Unread postby BMJedi » 15 Feb 2015, 14:30

Thanks, @Pitsu, that sheds some light on the topic. I hadn't noticed that the titan bonus was only against black dragons specifically, and I didn't know about the fan history influencing that particular game mechanic.
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Unread postby Tress » 15 Feb 2015, 18:19

(The intro to MM6 shows a red dragon working with the Kreegan, there is a gold dragon in the pit of the medusas' temple, and one of Archibald's intros in HoMM 2 shows a black dragon enslaved and chained at his feet, but that doesn't tell us much other than that dragons will work with Kreegan and warlocks, willingly or not.)
While definitely connected you should notice that lots of things and established relations are nowhere near consistent between homm and mm. Even simple fact of dragon classification - green - red - gold (mm6) is complitelly inconsistent with homm3 or homm 2 classification, as well as efreet is tied as djinn subtype which by homm logic should be polar opposite.
As for titans - as Pitsu suggested, likely nod to fact that titan tired to dethrone dragon from his most powerfull unit throne in homm 2 , making wizard other castle with extremely powerful top tier, thus the rivalry and 150% dmg.
As for dragon and kreegan - dragons like people are not faction, single dragon might just end up on their side one way or another. But likely dragon added in intro movie for extra dramatics, as it is dragon after all. Something that would give good reason for heroes to flee.

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Unread postby BMJedi » 16 Feb 2015, 02:34

@Tress, good points.

There are no blacks in MM.

However, green and red are the prerequisites for blacks in HoMM 2, and both greens and the golds appear to have sided with the elves in HoMM3, while the reds and blacks appear to have sided with the warlocks.

So, it's not like all the dragon colors aren't represented in HoMM 3 (they are).

The only dragon color unique to HoMM is the blacks.

It at least seems that all the dragon colors are unique factions among their own kind.

I'm probably overthinking it all, and both the titans and dragons in MM were just meant to be "big, scary monsters". ;)

EDIT: An afterthought - aren't the dragon player characters in MM8 blacks?
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Unread postby Tress » 16 Feb 2015, 06:04

EDIT: An afterthought - aren't the dragon player characters in MM8 blacks?
Nope.
There was two models - greyish green for Ithilgore and one in Shadowspire, and Red for other two.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 16 Feb 2015, 10:46

There are no titans in the first two generations of MM games. Looks like they're only native to Enroth, and maybe Axeoth.

Whether they're golems or actual creatures is hard to tell. In HoMM2 they're immune to mind magic, which can mean either that they don't have a mind of their own or that they have incredible will. Then, in HoMM3 they look more artificial, in HoMM4 they look quite alive. In fact, the Academy choice is between titans or dragon golems, the latter being clearly mechanical and the former being (more?) organic. In both cases, they seem to dislike the warlocks: in HoMM3 they hate black dragons, while in HoMM4 they have resistance against chaos creatures and spells.

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Unread postby BMJedi » 16 Feb 2015, 15:03

Thanks, @Tress and @GreatEmerald, those are great answers. I knew some of the veteran experts at Celestial Heavens would know what there is to know about anything MM related. :)
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Unread postby BMJedi » 22 Feb 2015, 20:36

I found this interesting link through a search for more information about the Contested Lands and Harmondale as related to the bonus campaign in Restoration of Erathia that sets up MM7.

The information there implies that the creatures in the Land of the Giants are native to Antagarich and Enroth, and that the Kreegan first made planetfall in the Land of the Giants, which is consistent with MM6 and the creatures we love to fight around Sweetwater.

Those would be the titans and the dragons.

I knew there had to be a connection here somewhere in the lore of the two connected games.

If I understand correctly from reading @DaveO's history, Armageddon's Blade came after MM7, which came after Restoration of Erathia. So, Restoration of Erathia directly sets up MM7, while Armageddon's Blade and the Chronicles directly set up the world ending HoMM 4.

I think the Eschaton threat from MM8 comes in between the endings of Armageddon's Blade and Chronicles, and HoMM 4. So at least the poor people of doomed planet Enroth got a few years to enjoy their hard won victory over the Kreegan, thanks to the heroes of MM8.

(I'm pretty sure we're all agreed that MM9 doesn't exist. Let's never speak of that abomination again.)

Oh, yes, the link to my source:
http://www.angelfire.com/ma3/neatpics/antagarich.html
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Unread postby Tress » 23 Feb 2015, 09:41

I dont think any titan background lore is that well made up. They are just strong mobs , thus filled in endgame locations. To be honest I dont remebr where in homm series , word land of giants were ever used (it was mostly just Eofol , with halflings mentioned as original dwellers. )
I'm pretty sure we're all agreed that MM9 doesn't exist. Let's never speak of that abomination again.)
I prefer to think on homm4 that as well since they basically destroyed any lore they have built up to that point. Unlike mm9 while game while not polished it had some very good point though.
One of reasons I think rebooting series in different setting was acceptable move, unless they doesn't write anything past sword of frost out of lore I don't want to see old setting.

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Unread postby BMJedi » 23 Feb 2015, 14:35

Land of the Giants is from MM7. You get there by the teleporter outside of Harmondale, very late in the game. It is populated by mobs of titans.
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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 27 Feb 2015, 14:41

Yes, we know, but Land of the Giants is an alias for Eeofol. Possibly meaning a smaller subset of Eeofol, or maybe the other way round.

As for MM9 and HoMM4, don't be mean to them. They're on another planet, but at least in the same universe. HoMM4 is really good, they tie in the stories of the past with the new direction very well. It's refugees from the old world trying to make a new life on the new one. And MM9 was unfinished, but the idea still counts when it comes to lore. Though I'm pretty sure there were no titans in MM9.

Now anything Ubisoft has done, that is something we shouldn't speak of, because it's not even the same universe, only a bunch of loose references.

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Unread postby BMJedi » 27 Feb 2015, 15:10

Yes, I came to like HoMM IV quite a bit, and I spent a lot of time playing it. I've always defended it when other fans complained about all the changes to gameplay.

I just didn't like that they destroyed Enroth in the story arc after all those years I'd invested in playing in it and trying to save it while roleplaying one of the characters in it. (First from the Kreegan, then from Eschaton, then from Lucifer and Armageddon's Blade, and then it's all for nothing.)

I guess it's the same sort of reaction a lot of people had to the reboot of the Star Trek universe in the movies. I still enjoy the new movies, but I don't like what they did to the old universe, such as having planet Vulcan destroyed.

I even like playing Ubi's HoMM V, and the differences don't bother me, because I see the world of Ashan as having nothing to do with the world of Enroth that I loved. But it does bother me at least a bit that all my characters' efforts in Enroth and Antagarich got blown up and were useless in the end.
Last edited by BMJedi on 27 Feb 2015, 17:56, edited 1 time in total.
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Unread postby Tress » 27 Feb 2015, 17:42

"Loose" references made in mmx makes it more connected to classic mm universe than mm9 can ever dream to aspire with its nicolai cameo, in fact mmx have actually that part made more worked out than some more worked out series like mm8, so I dont really see problem why not speak of it, at least it doesnt destroy all previous lore with one inconsitient plot "twist"


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