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 development studio TaleWorlds Entertainment and published by Paradox Interactive.

The total conversion had been in development during the latter half of the 2000s by a team of over twenty dedicated fans of Mount & Blade and Tolkien's works. After a mod development period of roughly 5 years, The Last Days saw its official release in 2011, on the TaleWorlds forums and ModDB.com. 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. Aside from mod-hosting sites, it is also distributed for the Steam version of Mount & Blade: Warband via the Steam Workshop.

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. Major and minor Third Age locations from Tolkien's legendarium, such as Edoras, Minas Tirith, Dale, Caras Galadhon, etc., can be fully visited and explored (and depending on the current situation, fought in). The mod development team took extra care to give each location its unique sense of place.

Available playable races include Men, Elves and Dwarves for the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth, and the orcs of Mordor, orcs of Isengard, 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 of the Ring, 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).

Unlike in the base game, where all towns, villages and castles are permanent and can only be captured, the conversion enables the enemy to eventually raise a less-defended town. This removes it from the game world altogether. The player character's troop and their military allies need to make sure the enemy doesn't completely destroy these more vulnerable garrison towns. The War of the Ring isn't just about back-and-forth fighting between the two sides. The war can be won or lost, and each of the sides can win or lose.

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. When players start their adventures, the War of the Ring has yet to have been declared. Once players reach Level 8 with their character, pre-scripted storytelling events will occur

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.

Companion NPCs

As in the Mount & Blade base game, certain unique NPCs can be befriended by the player character and recruited into their party. Below is a list of the recruitale NPCs.

"The Twilight of Man" campaign

Recruitable NPC	Species & Faction	Location
Ufthak	Orc snaga, Mordor	Orc Patrol Camp
Gorbag	Uruk Slayer of Mordor	Minas Morgul
Durgash	Wolf Rider and tracker, Isengard	Isengard
Gulm	fighting Uruk-hai (berserker), Isengard	Uruk Hai Hunting camp
Bolzog	Orc snaga healer, Moria	Gates of Moria
Fuldimir	Umbar Sailor, Umbar	Corsair Camp
Lykyada	Gold Serpent Horse Archer, Harad	Haradrim Camp
Varfang	Rhun Swift Horseman, Rhun	Northern Rhun Camp

Recruitment prerequisities for the individual companion NPCs vary. Often, an important factor is to have good relations with a recruitable companion's faction and a degree of renown among them.

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)

The entire soundtrack is available from the total conversion's Music folder, after the conversion is successfully intalled on top of a Mount & Blade or Mount & Blade: Warband base game (vanilla game).

The soundtrack can also be acquired in its entirety as a separate download at ModDB.com. (This download is actually an alternative addon. It contains the exact same music, but encoded at a lower bitrate, in order to increase performance on weaker computers running the total conversion. As a consequence, these music files are of a slightly lower quality than the ones in the conversion's standard install.)

Trailers and videos

The Last Days - Mount and Blade

Trailer for The Last Days total conversion

The Last Days of the Third Age Trailer (HD)

Opening cutscene of The Last Days

Reception

The Last Days total conversion has been received very positively by modding communities, the gaming press and individual gaming critics.

It won 8th place in the Players' Choice category of ModDB.com's 2011 Mod of the Year Awards, after being previously nominated.

Several critics noted that the total conversion has something of a learning curve, better-suited to players already somewhat experienced in Mount & Blade. Battlefield tactics of allied and enemy fighters have been given greater depth compared to the base game, so The Last Days might prove further challenging to newcomers, but enjoyable after some amount of time spent playing.

External links (download and technical)

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

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
• Concept art by Jan "Merlkir" Pospíšil