Franchise / Thunderscape

"The Age of Thunder has not ended."

"Aden will not slip quietly into the night."

In the early 1990s game publisher SSI was churning up RPGs based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and was the leader in that area. But the ADnD license was going to expire and relations with its owner TSR were getting progressively sour. Something new was needed. Thus Thunderscape: the World of Aden was born.

Aden used to be a peaceful world where rulers were secretly guided toward bright future by a group of seers. Armies and weapons still existed, but large wars were a thing of the distant past. The discovery of a magic-boosting metal — manite — allowed a number of scientific breakthroughs and precipitated industrial revolution with magic and technology tied into a strange arcane art of mechamagic. In hindsight that was the golden age.

It all was changed one unremarkable day ten years ago. The sun was suddenly eclipsed by an unknown force. The darkness didn't last long, but in this short time nightmarish monsters — "nocturnals" — sprang from every shadow. Beasts long destroyed, terrors only imagined, and things no sane mind had ever contemplated all became real. Countless thousands were slaughtered and an untold number of villages and cities were burned. In hours Aden was plunged into chaos and anarchy. This event and the malevolent force behind it have been dubbed "Darkfall".

After a millennium of peace people were ill-prepared for this ruthless onslaught, and it seemed that mortals would perish without ever knowing the cause. But the people of Aden are hardier than that. With mechamagic, steam golem warriors and the many other strengths brought to bear by the nations of Aden, the world fights back against the Darkfall and its nocturnals.

Two computer games for MS-DOS, three novels and a D6/Masterbook tabletop role-playing game were released. By the time they were published SSI has already been bought by Mindscape. The new owner, allowed to finish the projects, but then cancelled everything. In 2012 the rights were acquired by Kyoudai Games, which ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for a new tabletop RPG, this time a Pathfinder one. It has been released in 2014.

The video games were published in 1995 less than a month apart. They bore little semblance (other than mentioning Darkfall), were set on the opposite sides of the continent and featured unrelated plots. For years they stayed Abandonware, but were picked up by GOG.com in 2014. They are:

• World of Aden: Thunderscape frequently called just Thunderscape: A first-person real-time 3D RPG with turn-based combat. A group of heroes are sent to restore magic shields on mountain passes between Northland and nocturnal-infested area. Charitable reviewers compare it with Ultima Underworld, less kind recall Descent to Undermountain.
• Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall: A Three-Quarters View action/adventure with alleged RPG elements. A lone hero tries to save the island kingdom of Phoros from some sinister plot involving giant sentient insects, transformations and Mind Control. Can be described as a grimmer, high-resolution Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse. Somewhat influenced by The Legend of Zelda.

The novels are:

• The Sentinel (1996) by Dixie Lee McKeone. A young soldier struggles to find his place in the world after escaping servitude to a tyrant.
• Darkfall (1996) by Shane Lacy Hensley. A paladin and his trusted friends are tasked to escort a mage through hostile territory. Their path brings them close to unveiling the biggest secret of Darkfall.
• Indomitable Thunder (1996) by Mark Acres. Orphaned brother and sister have fought for survival every day since childhood. They struggle to get out of their ghetto into the greater world of Aden. And then they find a cause greater than themselves.

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Contains examples of:

The setting in general

• Adventure-Friendly World: Deliberately designed to allow diverse parties and enemies.
• After the End
• Applied Phlebotinum: Manite, the metal that can store spells. For example casting a heat spell on it makes it permanently hot. Although it's possibly not unique.
• Apocalypse How: Societal Disruption, at least Continental, more likely Planetary. As for how, Darkfall employed many methods:
  • Horde of Alien Locusts
  • Turned Against Their Masters
  • Zombie Apocalypse
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: How Lord Urbane came to power. He was a barely known mercenary warlord until he managed to knock together an army that stopped a large horde of nocturnals devastating Urbana.
• Bug War: This will happen if the giant insects — ilithix — decide to expand their territory.
  • Or if somebody needs something on their territory.
    • They're even worse now, since the Brood Mother was corrupted by the Darkfall, and her newfound viciousness spread across the Hive Mind.
  • Kyan uses insect mounts. War against Kyan will be similar.
• Cassandra Truth: Darkfall killed most of seers. A few disappeared without a trace. These days when a seer appears, he's probably a charlatan. Even if the seer is genuine, nobody would believe him. Except for nocturnals, who will try to kill him.
• Combat Medic: Healer class is one of the best for dealing damage. Radiant Order are one of the elite fighting forces in-universe, and they were the organisation of healers before the catastrophe.
• Clockwork Creature / Tin-Can Robot: They are called golems.
• Cool Train / Tank Goodness: Urbana's four gigantic Thunder Trains. Each is unique and heavily armed. They don't even need rails. They are probably the most advanced Magitek in the world and the safest way to travel between the surviving nations.
• Crapsack World: But it's too early to say if Status Quo Is God.
• Cyborg: Golemoids — people with parts of their bodies replaced with mechanisms. Bodies and minds eventually start breaking down, but life expectancy of cripples is even shorter. Scratch that, life expectancy of the front line warriors is often shorter than the time before Wasting starts manifesting.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Especially far from fortified cities. Especially at night. The authors deliberately defined nocturnals vaguely to allow very diverse enemies.
• Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Zigzags. Stronger nocturnals and Corrupted may prey on weaker ones. But if a powerful Corrupted assembles an army, he can quickly put an end to any infighting.
• Face–Heel Turn: The Corrupted — people that were granted supernatural powers by Darkfall. Some can pass as normal, some look monstrous. Their powers vary greatly. It seems as if anybody can ask Darkfall and may be granted some power.
  • Some didn't ask for that power, a nocturnal sensed the potential to become a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds and infused them with Darkfall powers before setting them loose. Thankfully, becoming Corrupted is not always the end - most retain some amount of their conscience and can become Fallen instead.
• Fantastic Racism: Ferrans were originally created as slaves, but got their freedom after a long and bloody war. Rapacians were once considered mentally inferior. Both facts are ancient history by now. Juraks are still regarded as savage dumb brutes and usually don't bother proving otherwise. Meanwhile goreaux are bothered by taller races looking down on them, but definitely aren't Compensating for Something with their mechamagical achievements. That said, all civilized races are more or less equal and a member of any race can appear anywhere and in any capacity.
  • On the other hand, trolls are still considered little more than animals, and everybody despises ratlings, even rodent-based ferrans.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Averted. Primitive wheel-lock muskets and pistols are common.
• Heel–Face Turn: The Fallen — people corrupted by Darkfall, but fighting against it.
• Hive Mind: Ilithix. Originally a fairly benign one, since they're naturally herbivores, but then the Brood Mother was seduced by the power of the Darkfall...
• Lizard Folk: Rapacians. They are among the good guys, though.
• Loads and Loads of Races / Massive Race Selection: The video game Thunderscape allowed 8 PC races (human, elf, dwarf, faerkin, goreaux, rapacian, jurak, ferran) plus golem and troll NPCs. The tabletop games added a few more playable races. Pathfinder version promises to bring yet more, most notably insectoid Ilithix. And enemies are much more diverse.
• Magic Knight: Everybody knows a bit of magic and many warriors use it in battle in addition to blades, bows and guns.
• Magitek: From everburning stoves and lamps and enchanted bullets to steam golems, steam trains, steam guns. Usually powered by manite.
• Organic Technology: Kyan doesn't have genetic engineering yet, but is going in that direction with its selective breeding of insects.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Strong, stout, equally proficient with axes and pistols, make good tunnel fighters. Some of them believe that dwarves seeing the sun was the blasphemy that brought Darkfall.
• Our Orcs Are Different: They are covered with fur, they are called "juraks", they have a deserved reputation of bloodthirsty savages, although Badass Bookworms are not that unusual. They've got impressive fangs. And they are among the good guys.
• Primal Fear: The Darkfall's main ability - it finds Urban Legends and terrifying myths, then constructs a nocturnal based around that theme.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: The ones who didn't are long dead.
• Standard Fantasy Races: Pretty standard humans, elves and dwarves, plus magically-inclined fairy/hobbit "faerkin" and mechanically-inclined gnome/goblin "goreaux". There are also several more animalistic races.
• The Un-Reveal: Curse it to Infernus, what is Darkfall? Is it sentient? Is it merely a force of nature? Does it give orders to Corrupted? Why is it afraid of seers? No answer... yet.
• Uplifted Animal: Ferrans — humanoid-animal hybrids. "Humanoid" being any of the five humanoid races (see Standard Fantasy Races above). Actually, there are 3 branches of ferrans: mammals (the most common), avians (nearly wiped out in their war for freedom) and reptiles (scarce due to low reproduction rate). They can only crossbreed with ferrans of the same branch.
• We ARE Struggling Together: The kingdoms of Aden seem to spend more effort preparing to fight their neighbours than actually fighting nocturnals.
• Zeppelins from Another World: Yzeem has those.

World of Aden: Thunderscape

• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: No more than 4 player-created characters, and no more than 6 playable characters in total. Attempting to add a seventh character will cause the game to prompt you to release one of your non-player-created characters in the party.
• Artifact Name: The internal name of the starting level is "graymt_1", which likely refers to the Greyhawk Dungeons & Dragons setting. This also implies that development of Thunderscape started when SSI still had a healthy relationship with TSR.
• Back Stab: Described in the manual as "the most effective attack of all", a backstab requires the character to successfully use their Stealth skill to hide first. On their next turn, the character can then execute the backstab, which does up to five times the normal amount of damage.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Characters with points in the Martial Arts skill can damage enemies without equipping a weapon and unlock the option to kick the enemy in combat.
• Dramatic Thunder: This happens nearly every time you move between menus, advance dialogue, or enter combat, which means you will hear the sound of thunder quite often while playing. The only action that consistently averts this trope is viewing the automap.
• Dump Stat: The Pickpocket skill serves only one purpose: to steal items being sold in shops. This is not as useful as it sounds since there are very few shops in the game, the penalty for being caught stealing is to be permanently barred from entering the shop, there will always be a chance for the steal to fail regardless of how many points a character has in the Pickpocket skill, and having over 100 points in a character's Merchant skill means you will sell equipment and items for a higher price than what the shop is selling them for, essentially giving you a risk-free and consistent alternative supply of gold.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • The amount of damage your party takes when moving around is proportionate to the frames per second. With a high FPS, bigger drops (such as falling down non-lethal pits) will result in an instant Total Party Kill.
  • Having too many items on the ground will cause the game to crash with the message "Ran out of render posts".
• Heroic Sacrifice: Upon entering Vanguard Keep Tower, if you allowed Theros to join your party at the very beginning of the game, he will leave the party and remain in Vanguard Keep to create a distraction.
• Money for Nothing: Gold is used to purchase equipment and items in shops. However, there are only three shops in the entire game, the quality of their goods pale in comparison to some of the unique gear you can find strewn all over the levels, and once any character in the party has over 100 points in the Merchant skill, you will always buy low and sell high with any equipment.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast:
  • The leader of the nocturnals that captured the beacon at Vanguard Keep is known as the Dark One, and the final boss is named Anthrax.
  • On the unique weapons front, we have such names as Deathwish, Skull Splitter, and Demon Slayer.
• No Stat Atrophy: Averted with the Raise Dead spell. A party member's maximum HP will be reduced by 1 each time they are resurrected with this spell. Played straight otherwise.
• Permanently Missable Content: If the elevator connecting the Troll Caverns to King Droog's chambers is raised and you use the teleporter in Vanguard Keep Tower to backtrack to Skelon's Pass, all of the Vanguard Keep levels become inaccessible, which prevents you from going back to pick up any items on those levels that you may have missed.
• Powers via Weapon: Any weapon that has "Magic" or "Magical" at the front of its name gives an automatic +25 points boost to the skill that is associated with the weapon. This means that even a character who has no points invested in said skill can make use of the weapon to some degree.
• Situational Damage Attack: One action your characters can perform during a battle is to "Attack for Vitals", which is represented by an icon depicting an arrow through a heart. This attack is more difficult to successfully carry out, but can occasionally do tremendous amounts of damage on a Critical Hit.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: Averted; contrary to what the manual states, any characters that leave the party will not take their equipment and inventory with them, but instead leave both in a pile on the ground.
• Stat-O-Vision: In combat, the Xenology skill will display information about any enemy you right-click. At lower skill levels, it only shows the enemy's name and Hit Points; higher skill levels provide a lot more information, such as the enemy's damage resistances and type of attacks. Similar to the Merchant skill, the character with the most points in Xenology will have all the benefits of their skill available to other characters in the party.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: The elevator located after the bridge in Skelon's Pass is the only way to access the upper levels of the pass (as well as all the other levels in the game). If the player takes the elevator to the upper level, then falls off the cliff to the ground level, they will not be able to call the lift down and must restart the game from a point where they can still access the elevator.
• With This Herring: Downplayed; your party is a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits who banded together to reactivate Skelon's Shield, which will prevent the nocturnals from overrunning the Northlands. You start at a dock near the pass with nothing but basic equipment, although you are immediately greeted by Theros, who will join your team and assist you for a time if you allow it.

Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall

• Amnesiac Hero: The hero wakes on a shore barely remembering how he got there. When he comes with a plausible explanation (being thrown off a ship), he stops dwelling upon it. When he meets people he knew, he remembers them. Actually he's been thrown back in time by a time-travelling spider queen. This isn't his first attempt to save the islands. Which also explains his above-average martial prowess — he has already consumed some "juice" and got much faster and stronger.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: If you don't hurry in your last mission, you'll become a Blob Monster spewing out the juice that transforms humans into insects. Just like the queen of Phoros.
• Apocalypse How: Regional/Species Extinction. It is never said if Darkfall brought any nocturnals to the islands, but the islanders lost all their giant insects vital to their agriculture.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: From the moment you see them, it's clear, they are up to no good. Their wealth came from commoners using giant insects to do various works. Now that insects are gone, they want to transform commoners to insects.
  • They may look and sound like pushovers, but they are deadly in combat even near the endgame.
• Bait-and-Switch Comparison: "You look like your sister. Only her biceps are bigger."
• Black Comedy: Quite a few examples.
  • If you try to save a brainwashed man from being eaten by a giant ant, he attacks you for "disturbing him while while he is feeding the ants".
  • You find a corpse under a fallen tree. He's been driven out of the village for irresponsible spellcasting and was practising a spell to make trees fall to impress villagers to be let back.
• Bookends: In the intro T'Urthrax Mata says "How many more times must I encounter you?" and sends you back in time. Before the final showdown she says the same words, but this time you are better prepared.
• Dying as Yourself: The queen of Phoros. She does become a human when you kill her insect form, only to give you the last quest and die. Redemption Equals Death.
• Forced Transformation:
  • The hero consumes various insect-derived substances to boost his strength and slowly transforms into a giant insect. Borderline example, since he knows of the risk and willingly takes it.
  • The sinister plot central to the game is to trick inhabitants of Phoros into drinking stuff that turns them into insects that would work for the nobility. The next step of the plan is doing the same on the continent and eventually taking over the world.
  • The source of the transforming substance is the queen of Phoros, who got transformed by a cursed scarab planted by an agent of Darkfall.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: All hives are ruled by queens. You'll have to kill them all eventually. In other words they are bosses, ranging from That One Boss through Puzzle Boss to Final Boss.
• Have We Met Yet?: The intro looks incomprehensible. That's because the spider travels in time. And the hero has been thrown to the past, but forgot everything.
• Hornet Hole: Actually it's a hive of man-sized bloodsucking bees. Ruled by That One Boss. The ant colony also comes close.
• Mood Whiplash: The game tries to be funny while staying true to the rather grim setting. And it isn't subtle.
  • You start in a devastated village with dozens of fresh corpses, and barely save another from becoming the same.
  • Then you help to summon a "beautiful nymph" who turns out to be a monstrous octopus. At least she does protect the village as promised.
  • Then you meet funny Obviously Evil Harmless Villains feeding people some crap. (Both metaphorical and literal.) And equally funny clueless rebels.
  • And then your friends start getting killed. And you can't do anything.
  • The storyteller keeps commenting your actions and arguing with his audience until the end.
  • See also Dark Humor.
• No Ontological Inertia: After you re-seal the scarab, all transformations are reverted. But the dead stay dead.
• Purple Prose: The storyteller commenting on the hero's actions.
• Stealth-Based Mission: Sometimes you need to use pheromones to blend in with the insects. Unless you wish to fight the whole colony.

Darkfall

• Action Girl: Mara, Krysys.
• Badass Bookworm: Narl.
• Blood Sport: Appropriately called "splat". Involves fighting on a rickety frame far above ground. Killing opponents isn't obligatory.
• Dark Action Girl: Arkana. With retractable poisonous Femme Fatalons.
• Escort Mission: The first half of the book is escorting a mechamage who decided to change the employer and soundly fears the retribution. The second half was going to be kidnapping a teenage prince from his father and escorting him to his mother, but unforeseen circumstances conspired to make life more interesting.
• Famed In-Story / Living Legend: Grimlak.
• I Lied: The word of Ice Queen is unbreakable. Her sons, on the other hand, can promise anything... And then break the promise in favour of the queen's order.
• Knight in Sour Armour: Grimlak.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Spyre's ability to understand ilithix surely came at an appropriate moment.
• No One Could Survive That!: The death of Lonage Crouix is never shown. His executor only listened to his screams. This allows to bring him back in a sequel if it ever materializes.
• Redshirt Army: Anybody helping Grimlak risks dying for greater good. Especially if they were introduced less than a chapter ago and their names were never mentioned. Although names don't guarantee anything.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Lonage Crouix gets exactly the reward he was promised. And is left with the reward in the middle of Ice Wastes near a very unfriendly group of snowmads. Although he is killed not for betrayal, but for his earlier actions.
• The Trickster: Spyre.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Spyre's impulsiveness created more problems for Grimlak and Narl than all enemies combined.
• Would Hurt a Child: Lord Urbane is more than willing to golemize his children in attempts to create a perfect heir. Most die in the process or shortly after, but he can sire more.

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