This level starts with a humourous exchange between some some villagers and a cynical berserk:

Berserk: "You fools! Where do you think you are you going?"
Villager: "We're going to the shrine to pray for help!"
Berserk: "Then you waste your time, the gods aren't listening."

It's interesting to note that the sound file associated with the first line is reused in level 8: Ambush at Devil's Overlook.

This snowy level was long considered the prime candidate for containing the entrance to the "secret level" because it had "many dwarves, even more ghols, and a stone idol" which was what the rumor said about the secret level. As it turns out there is no secret level entrance here, and the praying villagers that need rescuing may look like a side mission, but they are in actuality a mere distraction.

The villagers who worship at the shrine are a strange lot. They get very friendly with your Dwarves if you kill one of them at the start of the game. Of course, making friends this way is subject to the law of diminishing returns.

Here is an amusing film [mac] [win] showing these strange villagers at work. It seems I "accidentally" hinted about this before a Light vs. Dark game and the Light team decided to try it. Watch with amusement as the Light team realizes that popularity has it's drawbacks.

Thanks to Dean A Yeomans for the correction.

Here are the villagers worshiping at the shrine on the hill. But they do not pray facing toward the shrine, but away.

Look at that face on the stone, ugh. That is probably why. There are several explanations as to what that face depicts, but we'll save that for another article.

Ahhh! There's nothing like a fresh dip in icy cold water after you've been on the road from Scales for a week

Here, Tuvgold the Knock-Kneed and his brother Tim, show off the 'Touchless' Barbarian Wash which will open soon after the War is over. You can find it directly south of the stone idol those peasants are so fond of.

You can cross the river there as well, which gives you an alternate route to get to the World Knot.

If you take this 'back door' past the waterfall, you will encounter Thrall and Soulless at the ford. The Thrall on your side of the river will attack as soon as you are in range, while the other units stay put.

After you have dealt with the Thrall, you might want to check you map display. If you look carefully you will notice that the Soulless directly over the ford do not show up as red dots on the display!

In fact, you can walk your units right up to the edge of the ford without harm. Your units will ignore those Soulless and they won't jab at you. If you step in the ford they will attack and you units will suddenly start recognizing them as enemies, but they still do not appear in the display.

An interview with Jay Barry was held at Bungie Sightings on February 9th 2003. Jay was a level designer on Myth: The Fallen Lords but left Bungie before Myth II was shipped. Here's what he had to say about Force Ten from Stoneheim:

This was one of the levels I had the most fun with. Something that had way too much time spent on it was the vignette of the ghols slaughtering villagers on the hill, near the shrine. It's a nice touch though if you go in for that sort of thing.

Maybe I'll think twice about blowing those villagers up at the start now. Maybe, but probably not.