The Last Days (of the Third Age of Middle-earth)

The Last Days (of the Third Age of Middle-Earth) is a fan-made total conversion (TC) for the action roleplaying games Mount & Blade and Mount & Blade: Warband, which were developed by Turkish developer studio TaleWorlds Entertainment and published by Paradox Interactive.

The total conversion had been in development during the latter half of the 2000s and saw its official release in 2011. Since then, the TC's developers had worked on regular patches and updates. The Last Days was at first only available for the original game Mount & Blade (specifically ver. 1.011), but was later ported to Mount & Blade: Warband as well.

Setting and Gameplay of The Last Days

The total conversion is based primarily on the literary works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially The Lord of the Rings and other works detailing the Third Age. Art designs for the mod were mostly inspired by existing Tolkien illustrations, and to a lesser degree by some of the visuals from the film adaptations. Many of the particular designs were also filled in by the modding team's own imagination.

The Last Days focuses on the War of the Ring from the perspective of an ordinary combatant, male or female, who takes part in the fighting and various military campaigns during The War of the Ring. (The TC derives its title from the fact that The War of the Ring signifies the end of the Third Age in Tolkien's legendarium.) Due to the geographic scope of the war within Middle-Earth, the game world only includes Rhovannion (and the eastern side of the Misty Mountains), Gondor, Rohan, Mordor and parts of northern Harad and the East. This corresponds to the battlefields of the War of the Ring from the books.

Available playable races include Men, Elves and Dwarves for the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth, and the orcs of Mordor, orcs of Orthanc, warriors of Harad and Khand, etc. for the forces of evil. Reflecting this, the campaigns of the War of the Ring's two main sides are dubbed "The Dawn of a New Era" (Free Peoples) and "The Twilight of Man" (Mordor and vassals).

The Last Days features a large number of various factions, varying in the size of their territory, manpower and military specialisations. Of the Free Peoples, Gondor is the largest faction, and includes several regional subfactions which offer different military strengths. Other factions have a more "single region" scope (Rohan, the Woodland Realm, Lothlorien) or are fairly localised (Beornings, people of Lake Town and Dale, the Dwarves). Despite Eriador not being featured directly, the mod contains some small-scale Eriador factions that plausibly took part in the war, such as the army of Rivendell and the Dúnedain Rangers of the North.

Characters from The Lord of the Rings and related works make appearances throughout the total conversion as non-player characters (NPCs). None of them are controllable by the player, some appear only in brief cameos (e.g. Gandalf the White), or as static NPCs in particular locations (e.g. Denethor and Pippin Took at Minas Tirith).

While most of the gameplay follows that of the base game (mounted and infantry combat, leading and managing a party of fellow soldiers, gaining and investing experience), much of the in-game economy has been altered to better suit the theme and setting of the total conversion. Player characters no longer use in-game currency (fictional coins) that is valid in the entire game world. Instead, each of the many factions provides players rewards for their military efforts and completing of quests and sidequests, in the form of "Resource Points". These abstract resource points can then be used to purchase new equipment. However, Resource Points are not universal, and one needs to gather them separately from each faction. A player can have a high amount of RP among the Beornings and Mirkwood Elves, making transactions with them easy, but zero RP in Gondor, disallowing any purchases of equipment within that territory (until the RP number is raised).

Player characters begin (with only the most basic of clothing and equipment) in a location that logically corresponds to their chosen race and faction. Players creating a character from Rohan begin in Rohan, players creating a Dúnedain Ranger character begin in northern Rhovannion near the Misty Mountains, and so on. A player's standing within a friendly faction can change and develop based on how well he/she fulfills quests or sidequests for local authorities and noblemen, or how well he/she engages in small-scale diplomacy.

There are certain esthetic and technical limitations to what items can be used by members of particular races and factions. The Free Peoples cannot scavenge and don armour and weapons of the evil factions, e.g. the Mordor orcs, Saruman's orcs. Conversely, the evil factions cannot scavenge and don armour and weapons of the Free Peoples. Due to technical limitations for certain non-human races, these races also have limitations to choices of gender and certain military capability. For instance, the Dwarves only have male playable characters, and cannot use horses, engaging only in infantry combat.

The player character can occassionally experience special random events occuring during his or her travels (e.g. getting attacked by giant spiders while travelling through Mirkwood).

Unlike horses, which stop posing a threat on the battlefield after their riders are killed or knocked unconscious, the warg mounts of the orcs are counted as separate units, and will continue to harass soldiers even after their riders are killed.

Music of The Last Days

The music for the total conversion was composed by Vladan Zivanovic, who created an extensive soundtrack, consisting of 109 unique music tracks on release.

Below are some examples of the various leitmotifs used for factions, locations, travel and combat.

Track	Theme/Leitmotif
Follow Your Feet	Intro theme
A Tale Untold	Main theme / Main menu theme
Iron Hills	Dwarves of the Iron Hills
Lake Town	Lake Town and its people
Erebor	Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain (Erebor)
Over the Misty Mountains	Travel theme
Beorning Town	Settlements of the Beornings
Mirkwood Elves	Elves of Mirkwood, the Woodland Realm
Rivendell	Rivendell (camp and army)
Nightfall on the Anduin	Travel theme
Battle Rohan	Rohan (combat theme)

External links (download and technical)

• The Last Days (of The Third Age of Middle Earth) at ModDB.com
• Nightly patches for The Last Days]

External links (overview)

• Original release discussion thread at the TaleWorlds Entertainment forums
• The Last Days (of The Third Age of Middle Earth) at the Mount&Blade Wikia