Black Company Allusions
Characters
| The Myth Series | The Black Company |
|---|---|
| Myth is narrated in the first person, by The Journal Keeper in the Legion. | The Black Company is narrated in the first person by the Company annalist. |
| The Fallen Lords in Myth are turned by a single, powerful sorceror (e.g. Balor). | The Taken in TBC are turned by a single, powerful sorceror (e.g. The Lady and The Dominator). |
| In Myth, the Dark are led by Balor and his six (or seven) Fallen Lords. It's likely that both Balor and his subordinates were once powerful members of the Light. | In The Black Company, The Lady has ten subordinates, called The Ten Who Were Taken. Each Taken once opposed The Lady, but was defeated and forced to serve her. |
| In Myth, one of Balor's Fallen Lords is named Soulblighter. | In The Black Company, one of The Lady's Taken is named Soulcatcher. |
| In Myth, each fallen lord has a unique power. | In TBC, each Taken has a unique power. |
| In the introduction to the TFL level, "Silvermines," The Journal Keeper tells us that the Avatara "hope to use the Watcher's arm against him, if we find it. Rather like knowing his true name, only better." | Knowing a Taken's true name in TBC takes away the Taken's maigical
powers and all but assures victory in battle. |
| In Myth, The Watcher and The Deceiver constantly battle each other, even though they both serve under Balor. | In The Black Company, Soulcatcher and The Limper constantly try to undermine each other, sometimes violently, even though they both serve under The Lady. |
| In Myth, Soulblighter turns into a flock of crows when he needs to move quickly. | In The Black Company, Soulcatcher was fond of crows, and used them for reconnaissance. |
| In Myth, The Head intends to play Dark against Dark and Dark against Light, leaving every person of power on both sides dead, except for Soulbighter who could then seize control of the land, perhaps permanently. (This is only a theory.) | In The Black Company, Soulcatcher secretly manipulates the other Taken to fight both amongst themselves and the Rebel. Her hope is to end up with every person of power on both sides dead, including The Lady. She would then be able to take complete control, with no one to contend her. |
| In Myth, we have the Heron Guard. They are powerful swordfighters, also they don't have a sense of humor. They both resemble Japanese swordfighters. Also interesting to note, that the Nyung-Bao don't appear until after the Black Company has its first big adventure and manages to come out on top (about 1/2 way through the ENTIRE series). That is, after they defeated the 'supreme' evil of the land. | In the Black Company there are some extremely powerful swordfighters, the Nyueng-Bao. They are very devout and religious people. They're also really stony and don't have much of a sense of humor. Similar with the Heron Guard, we really don't hear much about the Heron Guard, and don't actually see any of them until 1/2 way through the series (in Myth 2), after the Light defeated the 'supreme' evil of the land. |
| In Myth, Thrall are corpses reanimated by dark magics as foot soldiers in the war against the Light. | In TBC, corpse parts are reanimated by dark magics and used against The Lady and The Black Company in the Battle of The Black Castle. |
| In Myth, there exist creatures known as Mahir, who are shadows and are the obsessed, tortured spirits of people who died in bad ways. | In The Black Company, there are strong, nearly unstopable beings called "shadows" (for lack of a better name). These are spirits of fallen warriors who were tortured for centuries, so that they would hate the living. |
| Myth II: Soulblighter features a warrior variant called "mercenary" that fights for The Dark. | The Black Company fought for the dark as a band of mercenaries. |
| Myth's myrkridia are quick, predatory beasts, nearly unstoppable in hand-to-hand combat. Furthermore, the myrkridia were once contained away from humanity by Balor. | TBC's forvalaka are panther-like creatures, nearly unstoppable in hand-to-hand combat. The forvalaka were entombed by The Lady. |
| In Myth, one of The Nine is named Murgen. | In The Black Company, Croaker's assistant and the Company's standard bearer is named Murgen. In one of the later books Murgen replaces Croaker as the Company annalist. |
Places, Things, and Events
| The Myth Series | The Black Company |
|---|---|
| In Myth, a comet passes every thousand years (an early Myth press release said the comet came every seventy years), always preceding a major shift of power. The first time it passes (that we're told about) Connacht shatters the Myrkridia's ancient hold on the world, and the Light take power. A millennium later, the comet again appears in the sky as Balor and his Fallen Lords are sweeping the continent. | In The Black Company a comet passes every thirty-seven years, always preceding a major event related to The Lady. |
| The Myth universe is characterized by an alternation of Light and Dark periods. | In The Black Company, dark rules the land until a White Rose is reincarnated to defeat it. |
| Myth: The Fallen Lords takes place at a time when the dark rule the land, where Balor is emperor and the Fallen Lords are his minions. The Light are led by a group of good sorceror-generals known as The Nine. | The first three books of The Black Company take place at a time when The Lady, a dark sorceress, rules the land, the Taken, her minions. The Rebel are led by "The Circle of Eighteen", a group of (mainly) good sorceror-generals. |
| During TFL, the Light are led by a group of good sorceror-generals known as The Nine. | In The Black Company (first book), the Rebel are led by The Circle of Eighteen, a group of (mainly) good sorceror-generals. |
| In Myth, the second threat against the light is brought on by Soulblighter, one of the Fallen who the Light didn't manage to destroy. | In The Black Company, the second threat against the Company is delivered by several of the taken who weren't completely destroyed (howler, stormbringer, soulcatcher). |
| In Myth, the southernmost pass through the Cloudspine is called Stair of Grief. | In The Black Company, the Company makes a stand on a bluff called the Stair of Tear. |
To seal the connection, two seperate sources uncover a rather obscure connection between Bungie's Pathways into Darkness and Myth. Man from Nan writes:
I was online and met someone named "Toad Killer Dog". The only place I had seen this before was in a screenshot of Pathways into Darkness on the back of the box. The player's name was "Toad Killer Dog" (an evil and enchanted mutt). Now the person whose name that was on bungie.net hadn't even heard of PiD before and he said the name came from Black Company.
Man From Nan isn't alone. The news entry for September 15, 1997 at Marathon's Story Page has an account of the exact same link between the two games. Some Bungie employess have been Glen Cook fans for a while, apparently.
Written and recompiled by David Bricker.