Entropy Saga

Entropy Saga is a tale that accompanies a map that I am designing (though it has a low priority atm). The overall idea of the story is that it will work across a series of maps, each one telling a single chapter of the overall story. It will work similarly to a campaign, except it will be multiplayer and designed for small LAN games.

Prologue:

A people. A nation. A world.
Fear, greed, power and darkness.
When one man believes in bitter Justice, that which rectifies the evils brought to him, he will stop at nothing to bring the Justice upon his fellow man. This man is Norton.
Norton seeks to purge the land of those that have created him, cast him aside whilst he transformed into the bitterness that he has become.
The world is vast, the nation divided, the people fearful.
Norton's Justice is becoming reality, an ideal, a nightmare, a war.

Chapter 1: Flee

In seasons of late tales have travelled and news has spead about a dark army that has risen out of a divide in ideology. As time passed the news became more of a reality as towns and villages fell rapidly to the hand of the dark amy, which came to be known as the Black Justice Empire. They named themselves so because of their vision of how the world has treated them. They beleive in no regrets, no tolerance and that all opposition is immediately wrong.
It was more by force than aptness that the other nation became known as the White Justice Empire. The White Army is strong, but too slow for the non-stop onslaught that is the Black Empire. Many a town has fallen to the Black Hand, the Black Empire's conversion sect. Those who resist are slaughtered, their towns razed. No-one is spared.
Now, every town lives in fear. All towns that do not have a division of the White Army protecting their borders are being sent troops to help guard thier villages.

***

Lan live's in the village of Boardia. It is a small village surrounded by forests, the only way into the village being a road that enters the forest from the Boardia Plains.
The villagers live in fear, and knights have not yet arrived. The men of the town are training to be militia should the need arise; Boardia does not intent to succumb t the likes of the Black Hand.
In the past few weeks traders from neaby towns have ceased to arrive with their daily goods and news. The tension has risen so much that some folk have locked themselves in their homes with their swords and spellbooks.
It is a rare occasion these days to see children playing in the cornfields, to see merchants at the market, to see the Inns overflowing with travellers whom come to relax in the quiet getaway village.
However, it is this night that shall change the fate of Lan and his sister, Ether.
When the Black Hand arrived, they hid, picking up nothing but Ether's spellbook and Lan's sword.
From the silo on their late-father's farm they could hear the villagers' cries. The village Elder had resisted the Black Hand and had been punished for it; 'purged in the name of bitter justice'.
Arrows were let loose, swords drawn and pleas ignored.
Lan and Ether slowly crept to the cornfields, which were already razed to the ground in some places, and then they ran.
Arrows landed in the path of the flattened crop, flames rose fomr the sides. They were being followed.
Meanwhile, a friend of Lan's had managed to slay a single Black Knight. Rout was well established and donned his armour when the invasion started, but one was enough, there were others that would surely defeat him. He fled towards Lan's farm where he found Lan's sword. He feared for the worse.
An old man gathering firewood from the woods sees smoke rising from the direction of the village.

"Could it be~?"

His name was Medom, a wise-man respected by those who new them. He returned to the village to find the bloody battle in-progress. He ran to the nearest shelter - a farm whom he knew the late owner of. He knew not the young lad who now ran the farm, only that he was a kind-hearted boy who took good care of his sister.
He turned a corner of the building, only to be confronted by an armour-clad man wielding two swords.

"P-please! Spare me! I have but firewood and have just returned from the woods I -" his plea was silenced as the armoured man muffled his with a gloved hand.
"Calm down old man, and come with me. I have felled one of these black armoured fiends. My friend run's this farm, what would you know of him?" The warrior confessed, releasing the wise-man from his grip.
"I know nothing of him, except that he has escpaped into the cornfields" spoke the wiseman, pointing to tracks leading through the crop.
"Then come, I shall protect you. We shall find my friends and escape this burning wreck"

And with that the two fled into the crop, stopping only to help when another tripped.
About half-way to the forest, the wiseman stopped.

"What are you doing old man?" Rout whipsered angrily, "We must continue to the forest!". Medom peered through the reems of corn, only to step back after a few seconds of watching.

"What is it?" Rout was curious. He edged towards the place where Medom had peered trough the corn, but stopped suddenly when Medom let out a cry.
Rout turn just as a flame erupted from Medom's aged hands. The flame tiwsted in the air as it shot towards where Medom had ben looking.
The cry of Black Knights pierced the sky, and as the crop burned it was revealed to Rout that Medom had spotted a group of Black Knights scouring the crop for someone - presumably Lan.
The knights twisted and let out cries in the magical flames which melted their ebony armour.

"Onwards" he said, running past Rout, who had never seen such magic, nor even known that someone in Boardia was capable of casting such a destructive spell.

And on they ran until they reached the forest. A few meters into the forest, they could hear talk bewtween two other people. Medom rested against the bark of a pine whilst Rout catuously investigated.
Throught the smoke and the night, Medom could only hear what was happening. Rustling, Rout's shape disappearing in the fog and then nothing. Only the sound of burning crop and houses, screams in the distance.

"Aaaargh!"

Medom readied his mind when the woman's scream peices the night air. He stood up, readying the flame magic once again.

He held up his now glowing hands as 3 shapes emerged from the fog.

"Relax, man, it is but my friend and his fair sister".

Rout introduced Lan and Ether to Medom, and they set off into the forest at marching pace.

"My thanks for helping my friend, Medom. He is a strong man but if it was not for I am afriad that those knights may have found us all" Lan spoke, breathlessly.
"Your thanks are duely noted. You are as a good a man as your father. He was a kin fel~" Medom's words were cut off as an arrow flew pass the 4 survivors and embedded itself into a pine to the right of them.

"Go!" Shouted Medom, now leading the group deeper into the forest.

As they ran further and further, light approached from between the distant trees. It became clear to them that it was fire. They left the forest to find themselves on a road with a burning border. Was this the mark of the Black Hand?

"Have they lost us yet Lan?" Ether was scared.

***

At this point, the first game begins, and so I shall not continue until I have decided what to do - keep it as a story, or carry through with the whole map campaign.

Comments?

First I'll comment on the story, then how it would play into a map.

Story
--There's a few typos (bewtween, 'arrows shot pass' instead of 'arrows shot past'), but that is forgiveable.
--Entropy Saga? Did you choose that name because it sounds cool? Entropy is the measure of disorder in a system, and sounds out of place in fantasy.
--Generic plot. Almost every fantasy story imaginable has a 'dark army' or 'dark force', Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, Sword of Truth, and hundreds of fantasy. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is lackluster. At this point we don't know much about it, but firther on down the road it needs alot more character. Why is it evil? Who controls it? How does it exert it's influence? If you find yourself giving it more character, give it believable aspects. Do people siding with this dark force do so out of trickery, lust, or force? Try to make it your own too, stray from stereotypical 'oh he's just evil and wishes harm'.
--Generic Hook. Once again, the opening hook of 'normal man caught in a struggle not his own' is done countless times. This is a decent enough hook, but how you follow through will play a much bigger role.
--Character Development. None of the characters are highly remarkable, but then again there was not much time for development. As they are is highly typical and bland. Even a simple farmer can have things he wants to protect from the black army. Plus this fighter/caster guy seems...expected.
--Overall Writing. Try to use the "show, don't tell" rule when describing
This could easily be rewritten in this spirit.
"Ether found breathing at a pace less than frantic nearly impossible. Abject terror and sudden physical exertion left her little room to consider the events previously passed. Just as she took her first deep breath. Death was common to her folk. Death from disease, famine, drought were facts of life. But unprovoked death from slit throats, caved skulls, and devastating magic filled her with a fear that refused to let her body do any more than frantically pull breath into her body."
Instead of showing an emotion, I gave the emotion reason and function to create a much stronger feeling.
--This seemed really out of place. 'Relax man'? Innapropriate vernacular.

I'd give it 4/10. Not bad, but definitely something highly generic and typical. This is fine for an opening, but it will really need more substance later.

In summary, remember that you can go anywhere with this, which is a blessing and a curse.

Gameplay
--This would be fine as a 2-3 minute opening. Enough to make a simple intro without excessive pointless dialogue. Most people aren't expecting ground-breaking introductions since they are just introductions.
--I'm guessing you would have up to 4 players each choose one of the characters to play? There's not enough info to really know what this game will be.

That's my opinion