The missing link is that HoMM I doesn't have a very detailed back-story. But, if you read the letters in the correspondence that appears in the back of the manual, and construct a fuller history of 1-5, you'll notice a connection. Also, there is a MAJOR link between MM III and MM VII.

Here's the whole thing:

Corak is either an Ancient, or a constructed servant of the Ancients. We really don't know who or what the ancients are yet, but judging by the GOOD ending to MM VII, we are on the threshold of finding out.

Now, the Ancients used to spend a lot of time "seeding" the galaxy with microcosms - small biospheres supporting life. In fact, in the first 5 MM's, all the planets are flat, and in fact are strategically placed life support systems. We don't know why they did this.

About 900 years ago (if my memory of MMVII serves me) the ancients got in a horrible war with a race called the Kreegan. A large part of the galaxy was cut off from the direct influence of the Ancients, and fell into barbarism and witchcraft. In fact, these isolated worlds are precisely the worlds in which the MM games occur.

Many of these worlds had "guardians", appointed agents of the Ancients who were sent to guide the microcosmic little flat planets to their appointed place in the galaxy.

Now then… as the story begins, Sheltem, the Guardian of Terra has gone funny in the head. As we eventually find out from logs in the shuttles in MM V, Terra was a large, hospitable planet, which the Ancients were intending to seed with numerous of these microcosms. Apparently, the Ancients weren't too happy with the way he was running things (he became a bit of tyrant it seems), so they dispatched agent Corak to check things out. Corak placed Sheltem in stasis and was bringing him home to check his programming.

Somehow, Sheltem escapes and goes on a rampage. Corak begins his long quest to track him down and neutralize him. As the story opens in MM I, Sheltem goes to ground on one of these microcosms named Vehicular Astropod Research Nacelle. He deposes the good King Alamar and masquerades in his place. Our party of adventurers discovers him and sets everything to rights. Sheltem flees to Central Research Observational Nacelle via a gateway which we will see more of in MMVII. It should be noted that there is a location in MM I called Castle White Wolf. The Lord of this Castle is named IRONFIST, and one of his quests is to find LORD KILBURN. Remember those names for about 6 paragraphs.

In MMII, Sheltem winds up on CRON and starts to drive it off course and hurl it into it's sun. With a little help from Corak in stasis, our heroes manage to thwart this scheme as well. However, Sheltem escapes as we are busy decrypting a quote that will give us the password to the device and stop CRON from committing sun-icide.

Next, in MMIII, Sheltem arrives back on Terra which is where the whole mess started. Again, our trusty adventurers find out what's going on behind the scenes and drive Sheltem off. Three space shuttles depart Terra. One containing Sheltem, another containing Corak in pursuit, and another containing our party of adventurers. Something happens on this journey. Sheltem lands safely on Xylonite Experimental Environment Nacelle. Corak lands much less safely on XEEN, and our adventurers are thrown off course, supposedly never to be seen again… at least, not until MM VII.

MM IV (Clouds of XEEN) opens on XEEN, and our new party of adventurers defeats an evil undead lord calling himself simply, "Lord Xeen". As we defeat Lord Xeen, we see a vision of Sheltem proclaiming, "You may have defeated my lieutenant, but the Darkside of Xeen will always be mine. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!"

MM V opens. Sheltem is up to his old tricks, masquerading as Alamar again and driving planets off course to fly into their suns. The dragon pharaoh summons our party and they perform many tasks to set things to right. Eventually, they discover Corak's shuttle, and the stage is set for the final showdown of Corak and Sheltem. You seek out a "soul box", a device which can contain Corak's essence so that you can smuggle him into Castle Alamar without Sheltem being aware. Once you arrive, you release Corak, and he finally has a chance to confront Sheltem face to face. It is obvious that Sheltem has grown very strong "in the ways of the force" and is going to win this battle… but Corak grabs Sheltem and initiates his own self-destruct mechanism, destroying them both. So ends the first story arc in the Might and Magic pantheon.

(The extended 'World of Xeen' ending doesn't figure into the grand scheme too much, so I won't comment on it here.)

Next up would be HoMMI. Per the letters, someone apparently named Morglin Ironfist was involved in a power struggle on his home planet and his lineage was usurped by his cousin. Morglin failed to make a successful coup and therefore ran for his life with a small retinue that was loyal to his line. There are a number of hints dropped that this may be the Lord Ironfist from Castle White Wolf on Varn, or perhaps one of his descendants. Note also, that MM VI has one subplot featuring a Lord Kilburn, also named in MM I. And MMI begins in the town of 'Sorpigal', and MMVI begins in 'New Sorpgial'. Anyway- while on the lam, Morglin Ironfist accidentally trips through a magical portal to another world, Enroth, and sets up his reign there.

HoMM II is the next scene in the story, the succession wars. Morglin's sons, Archibald and Roland have a little tiff over who is going to inherit the throne. It's all family squabbles, nothing hugely important to the overall story. At the end, Roland wins and Archibald is turned to stone and imprisoned in the library of Castle Ironfist.

MM VI picks up again with the big picture, and makes it much bigger. The Kreegan, after 900 years of fighting the Ancients in other parts of the galaxy are finally making a push towards this region. They land in Enroth and in Erathia and start a reign of terror. MMVI takes place in Enroth. Roland is defeated in the opening battles and is captured, not to be seen again in Enroth for a LONG TIME. His wife, Catherine of Erathia has heard of her father's death and has departed for home and doesn't hear of this issue for some time.

Their son, little Nicolai, is left in charge. Our heroic adventurers are guided by the chief regent on a series of quests to figure out what is going on. Eventually we discover that the evil cult of the temple of Baa are in league with the demonic kreegans and many other adventures are had… Eventually, the oracle of Enroth is able to tell us how to defeat the Kreegan. We need to free the stoned Archibald! He has a magic item we need to teleport the Kreegan's nest into the void as we destroy it - in order to avoid destroying the planet as well. We succeed in defeating the kreegan.

HoMM III follows up from MMVI and largely takes place at the same time. The Kreegan and warlocks have overrun Erathia and made quite a mess of things. Catherine arrives for her father's funeral and discovers that the land has a bit of trouble. She takes up the banner of Erathia and begins a successful campaign to push them back. The warlocks make a pact with the Necromancers to ressurect Catherine's father as a lich and lead the war against Erathia. It's a bloody mess, but eventually Catherine wins the day, lays her father to eternal rest, pushes the Warlocks back to Nighon, and forces the remaining Kreegans to hole up in Eoful.

In all the turmoil, the re-awakened Archibald sneaks into Deyja, the land of Necromancers just north of Erathia, and begins rebuilding his influence in the world.

MM VII opens with the strongest link between the original five games. The shuttle carrying the 8 member party from MM III - which missed XEEN completely - finally crashlands off the coast of Antigarich (the continent which contains Erathia, Eoful, Avlee, Nighon, Bracada, and Tatalia.) At this time, they have a split. 4 of them decide to seek out the wizards of this world and offer them their technology and see if they can rebuild a gate to the ancients. The other 4 seek out Archibald and the Necromancers and seek to build the Forge- a machine which can grant them extremely powerful weapons to dominate this world. Which group will succeed depends entirely on your party's actions. Assuming that you choose the "good" path, which is fairly important for the overall story line… You will finally wipe out the Kreegans, free Roland and indirectly defeat the Necromancer's guild. You will also succeed in building a gate which takes you to an interstellar waypoint, where you meet someone named "Corak", though not the same "Corak" of MM's I-V. Corak gives you some information about the Kreegans and the Ancients, and answers the question, "Where can we go from here" with, "Anywhere you want to!"

MMVIII opens. Apparently, we were a little too slow to defeat the Kreegan menace. Someone among the ancients seems to have a "Scorched Earth" policy. That is- do NOT let the kreegans have a planet under any circumstances. If the locals can't defeat the Kreegans, destroy the planet. The planeswalker, Escaton, who appears to be another automaton like the original Corak, is dispatched to destroy our planet. He appears in the third continent on this world, Jadame, and opens portals to the 4 elemental planes. Once their energies leak into the world, and meet at a certain magical crystal… POP goes the world. Our heroes are tasked with the monumental project of building an alliance among the races of Jadame and closing the planes. Along the way, we discover that the order was given before we finally defeated the last of the Kreegan in MMVII, but that Escaton is unable to avert his programming and stop the process. Roland and Catherine make an important cameo appearance as they stop in Jadame on their journey from Erathia back to Enroth.

At the end of MMVIII, The Ironfist Dynasty is back on track and the Kreegan (and all of their side effects) are finally beaten down.

Also, we have the Gateway from MMVII opened for the first time in many centuries.

My guess is that MM IX will draw us directly into the Kreegan/Ancient war.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Ralf

NOTE: (6/9/01) My thanks to the many fans who have been trying to amend this original attempt at making a coherent history out of all the games. This was written long before HoMM3's two expansion packs were released. HoMM3: The Shadow of Death is believed to be a prequel to MM7. As DumB points out: "I only complain because Ralf is incorrect about defeating *all* the Kreegan in MM7... this actually happens in the main storyline of H3:AB(a new general is chosen after Xenofex dies whose goal is basically to destroy the world in fire using armageddon's blade and since devils are immune to fire...) Anyway, I only mention Shadow of Death because it's what lays the framework for RoE and MM7(Sandro [re]organizes the necromancers for the arrival of Archibald- in Ralf's version, it almost sounds like Archi usurped power in Deyja, when actually it was more mutual). One last thing, we do know now that H4 and MM9(most likely) will take place in a devasted "Erathia", so you might want to note that..." Thanks DumB, it has been noted. CJ

Yet another note submitted on 6/15/01: "In your section of the Might and Magic History section, it is not stated clearly what Heroes of Might and Magic 3: The Shadow of Death is all about. The Shadow of Death is really the prequel to the origional Heroes of Might and Magic 3: The Restoration of Erathia. It tells the story of how Catherine's father, King Gryphenheart was killed. Basically, Sandro, a necromancer tricks four heroes (Gem, Gelu, Yog, and Crag Hack) into giving him artifacts which he was able to build two very powerfull artifacts from. After defeting his old warlock master, he made an ally, Finneas Vilmar, and eventually made Finneas king of Deja, the necromancer country in the continent of Antagarich, which was west of Enroth. They began to take over lands of Antagarich. Gem, Gelu, Yog, and Crag Hack eventually built a magic sword called the Angelic Alliance and defeated Sandro. But the story does not end there. Sandro still won't give it a rest. He comes up with a new plan. He convinces Lord Haart to poison King Gryphenheart, Catherine's father, who is the king of Erathia. With the king gone, Sandro continues his plan to conquer all of Erathia. After helping out the Kreegan race, the countries of Eofall and Nighon joined Sandro's cause. In the end, Finneas Vilmar (still the king of Deja), plays a trick on Sandro, which eventually gets Sandro thrown in prison, so Finneas can take all the credit for Sandro's idea. This is where the game ends, and this is where HoMaM3: The Restoration of Erathia Starts, with the countries of Deja, Nighon, and Eofall invading Erathia." Thanks Jayman your note should add a bit of clarity to all this. CJ

This note was submitted on 8/24/01 by Liam: "Crag Hack was one of the travellers in MMVII, yet he has been in every HoMM Game. I have just realized The shadow of death contradicts MMVII as far as I am concerned because I have no clue how long MMI-V took place before 6. Lord Kilburn served Morglin and Roland Ironfist before he was killed by the Kreegan near Blackshire. Kastore, another member of the 8 adventurers, also appeared in HoMM1. HoMM4 is to take place in a new contienent Axeroth or somthing rather. In the begining of the game, erathia is destroyed. I don't know anymore. MMIX: Falls in with HoMM 4. You begin shipwrecked on an island and it leads to some unite the clans stuff. It will use the roster party system from MM8 which is kinda unsettling to me." Thank Liam, it will be interesting to see what develops when HoMM4 and MMIX are finally released. CJ

Our latest submission arrives on 9/14/01 from Jayman531: "I just want to add some information to your Might and Magic History Section. Heroes of Might and Magic 3: The Shadow of Death occurs a little bit after Heroes 2, and is the prequel to Might and Magic 6. Sandro sends Lord Haart to kill King Gryphenheart, and in Might and Magic 6, Queen Catherine has left Enroth for his funeral. Also, about that last note regarding Crag Hack being in all of the Heroes games and in Might and Magic 7, it's probably just a coincidence. He's probably someone with the same name, just like at the end of MM7, when we meet someone named Corak, but is not THE Corak from Might and Magics 1-5. But this is only a guess. Maybe the guys at 3DO just like the name Crag Hack, because MM3 was made a while back before the Heroes series started." Thanks again Jayman for you continued efforts to set history right. CJ