Hyrule Total War

Hyrule: Total War, originally known as The Legend of Zelda: The Gerudo Wars, is a mod of Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms by UndyingNephalim. The game's composer is Adam Halpin/StygianWhite.

Plot
Main article: Hyrule Historia

Ancient Age
The storyline of Hyrule: Total War starts in 5000 BG. The Sage Sulkaris, many millennia after being banished from the Sacred Realm for coveting the divine Triforce, stumble upon the Gohma, who are still wandering aimlessly as she was after the destruction of their creator, Iemanis. Sulkaris gives the beasts untold knowledge and power, and in return they become her personal army. Under the command of Sulkaris, the Gohma engages on a genocidal war across Hyrule, eating everything in their path.

The Ancient Hylians and their ruler King Gustaf rise to oppose Sulkaris. They ally with the Gohma's ancient enemies, the Huskus, and with their help destroy the Gohma swarm. Sulkaris duels with King Gustaf and manages to disarm him, but as she prepares for the kill Gustaf grabs a bow and arrow from a fallen soldier and fires an arrow imbued with holy power, killing the Fallen Sage.

With the death of Sulkaris, the Gohma retreat to their homelands to the northwestern Misery Mire. The Kingdom of Hyrule is founded, and make many allies including the Zora Dominion and the Wind Tribe. The remaining Sages, meanwhile, catch wind of this disaster and deem it wise that after a given time a Sage must choose a successor to inherit their powers and abilities. The Sages choose the Huskus Palagard to assume Sulkaris' place, and they eventually pass their powers onto successors as well: Solahrasin to the Hylian wizard Sahasrahla; Maphaeus to Dakkon, ruler of the Volvagians; Malkorbagia to the Oshunite Jabun, founder of the Zora Dominion; Evaleen to the Sheikah Impa; and Kovaloo to the Darknut Yaraxonal. The new Sage Dakkon quickly takes advantage of his new powers to conquer Death Mountain. The Gorons are enslaved by the Volvagians, while the Lizalfos flee south to the Kokiri Forest.

Eight years later, the ancient Druthulidi Vaati, a survivor of the primordial war between the Druthulidi and the Golden Goddesses, awakes from its slumber and possesses the tiny Minish sorcerer Vaati from whom he takes the name, and sets out to expand his powers so that he may manipulate the word at large. Displaying his powers to the Darknut warrior Zalunbar and promising to make him a deity, Vaati makes Zalunbar his servant, helps him unite the Darknut people and found the Darknut Legion. Zalunbar becomes King of the Darknuts and appoints the new Sage Yaraxonal as his adviser, but the real power lies with Vaati, who would never make himself known to the Darknut people to give the illusion that Zalunbar was indeed their all powerful ruler.

When Yaraxonal discovers Vaati and Zalunbar's plan to invade the Wind Tribe and steal the Triforce, she attempts to put a stop to them. However, with the help of her husband Senturon, they are able to seal her under Ontheon so that they could use her powers to claim Godship over the Legion. Vaati is able to assume power over the winds while Zalunbar gains her ability to cease ageing.

Zalunbar then sends Senturon and a Darknut army alongside Vaati in a crusade against the Wind Tribe, nearly destroying their race. On the brink of extinction, the Wind Tribe decide to ascend to the Heavens with their powers and leave Hyrule forever. At the Tarm Ruins, with the help the Ancient Hylians, the Darknuts were halted long enough for Siroc and the last of the Wind Tribe to escape. Senturon, enraged at how his people were used like pawns by Vaati, turns against him, but Vaati easily and brutally murders him, then leave with the rest of the Darknuts.

Not long after Vaati's departure, Senturon is resurrected by the Fairies of Tarm. The Darknuts are furious with their loss, but Vaati is unfazed and simply begins to seek alternate sources of power, avoiding the Hylians for fear of making an enemy of them.

A few years after the Wind Tribe's exodus from Hyrule, King Gustaf dies childless and without an heir. Meanwhile, the Druthulidi Majora comes to the Kingdom of Ikana to the south and convinces its ruler King Igos du Ikana that the military officer Captain Keeta is conspiring with the Garo to assassinate him and take the throne, while his daughter Gomess plans on letting Keeta remove him so she could take the Kingdom. Igos initially laughs Majora off, thinking it to be joking. Majora, meanwhile, simultaneously brings Keeta and the Garo together against Igos and promises Gomess powers over nature if she'd overthrow her father.

In spite of his initial disbelief, Igos' paranoia grows ever greater. When Majora tells him Keeta's going to assassinate him the next day, Igos readily accepts Majora's offer to worship itself in lieu of the Goddesses so Majora would lend him an army of its spawn against Keeta and Gomess.

With the help of Majora's spawn, Igos' forces managed to crush Keeta's and Gomess', but after three days of constant fighting, the capital of Ikana was in utter ruin. Igos, devastated to see his empire falling apart before his very eyes, cursed the Goddesses for betraying him and his loyalty. At this point Majora absorbed the entire Kingdom of Ikana into the twisted parallel realm of Termina, but the Ikanians and everyone else on Hyrule never know about this, mistakenly believing that this is the Goddesses' punishment for Ikana for apostasy.

The third Druthulidi, Demise, becomes worshipped by the Moblins of the southwest. After expanding their empire and amassing an army, Demise begins a campaign of conquest against the Ancient Hylians. Entire armies fall to the hordes of Moblins.

Desperate from failure against this horde, the Ancient Hylians empower a young Hylian, then known as Hylia, with dangerous abilities. With her new powers, Hylia easily holds the Moblins at bay. Hylia's miraculous abilities earned her the love of many, so the Hylian people decided to crown her their Queen, and eventually worship her over the Goddesses themselves. Such notions go to her head however and she starts to believe she's a Goddess.

Hylia believes that the best way to stop Demise was to cut him off from his followers in a remorseless extermination. When her armies reach the Old Moblin Kingdom, Hylia orders them to seek out and kill every single Moblin they can find: man, woman, and child. Demise attempts to repel the Hylians and engaged in battle with Hylia, but eventually she overpowers him and incinerates the Moblin city with holy fire, killing countless Moblin citizens.

Demise emerges from the smouldering ruins of the city, claiming that she had done far more damage against the Goddesses then he ever did by warping the Hylians into her own personal cadre of worshippers, before retreating from Hyrule. Ashamed of her horrible actions and the pride that went to her head, Hylia withdraws from her followers into hiding.

Without the leadership of Demise, the Moblin empire collapses and becomes a barbarian confederacy again, while Hylia seeks asylum among the Order of the Wizzrobe, who readily accept her and help her erase all records of her from history.

Hylia disappears from the annals of history, but her crimes cannot be forgotten: Hylian and Moblin would be bitter enemies for millennia. The Kingdom of Hyrule would go on to dominate the land with an iron fist, forcing those not of their creed to follow the royal family and crown.

Rise of Ganon
Forty-nine centuries after Hylia's disappearance, a Moblin boy named Ganon is orphaned when his mother is killed defending their family from a roving band of Hylian knights hunting Moblins for sport in their lands. With her last words, Ganon's mother tells him that the Hylians are barbaric monsters who don't know any better than slaughter.

Meanwhile, Demise returns to Hyrule and plans to continue his plan for world domination. Instead of a direct approach, Demise plans on using the source of Hylia's power, the Triforce, to destroy those that oppose him. He chooses the orphan Ganon to be his champion and trains him to be a powerful general and warrior.

When Ganon grows up, he becomes the first Blin leader in five millennia to unite the warring tribes into one powerful state. He gathers the leaders of the Blin races and forms a plan to destroy the Hylians, by capturing Princess Nylin Zelda I, daughter of King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule and forcing her to reveal the location of the Triforce.

Ganon succeeds in capturing Zelda and occupying two Hylian towns, Lon Lon Ranch and Kakariko, but Zelda remains silent on the Triforce's location. Fortunately for him, a renegade Sheikah called Bongo agrees to help him discover the location of the Triforce from the Princess, if he helps her confront the source of her nightmares in the Shadow Temple.

It is discovered by Ganon and Bongo that a Druthulidi named Dethl has infiltrated the Shadow Temple for an unknown period of time and haunted dreams of its prisoners. Dethl was able to extract the horrific thoughts and nightmares of these criminal Sheikah and manifest them within the temple. Over time Dethl was able to twist the prisoners into hideous creatures, creating the ReDeads: zombie-like monsters that continually died and came back to life. Dethl was able to feed on the Shadow Temple's population for a significant period of time, but eventually desires a fresh source of nourishment and thus begins haunting Bongo's dreams.

Dethl is taken by surprise by the army that Ganon brings with him into the Shadow Temple. Dethl attempts to stop Ganon's army with hordes of ReDead and other twisted denizens of the haunted prison, but Ganon's army is able to fight their way through and injure Dethl. Before Ganon and Bongo are able to leave the Shadow Temple, Dethl slips into Bongo's mind and escapes, creating the Eye of Truth - an artefact with the ability to read the truth and control people.

With the help of Bongo's Eye of Truth, Ganon discovers the location of the Triforce: under the King's throne in Hyrule Castle. Bongo advises him to seek allies in the Gerudo Desert, as Hyrule Castle is the most fortified location in the kingdom. Ganon first attempts to parlay with the Gerudo Circle of Warlords, who, in their pride, reject his offers; in return, Ganon curses them by poisoning the oases in the desert, preventing male Gerudo from being born.

Following Bongo's advice, Ganon then leads an army further west to the Gerudo Cliffs, land of the Darknut Legion and the Zuna, and challenges Zalunbar in a tournament, for then he'll be compelled to accept Ganon's wish that Zalunbar and his army join the Moblins in their conquest. Even though Zalunbar tries his best to avoid this by first cheating and then suddenly 'changing' his mind when Ganon defeats his army, he eventually has to submit to Ganon when Ganon mentions the Triforce to Vaati, who tells him that it was the power left behind by the Wind Tribe seeked by Zalunbar five millennia past.

The three Druthulidi masterminds of the alliance find themselves all in the same plot to chase the Triforce, all at the same time. Vaati thinks none of them could have engineered it, and begins to suspect that he and the other two were being set up by another force.

With his new allies, Ganon returns to Hyrule Castle and defeats the Hylian garrison. He enters Hyrule Castle and confronts King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule in his throne room. The King taunts Ganon and belittles the Moblins as simple monsters who only seek to destroy the world. Ganon, enraged, tosses the King away and overturns his throne, but cannot find the Triforce. With the Eye of Truth, Bongo is able to extract the Triforce's new location - the Water Temple under Lake Hylia - from the King before he dies. Realising that Ganon also wants the Triforce, and that he will contest with her once the Triforce has been found however, she decides to lie to him that the Triforce is at Spectacle Rock.

Before King Nohansen dies, Ganon allows his daughter to speak to him for a last time before having her executed as well. Unfortunately, just as he leaves the throne room and the executioner prepares to behead Zelda, Impa sneaks in, kills all the executioners and frees the Princess.

After the fall of Hyrule Castle, Vaati orders Zalunbar to retreat to the Gerudo Cliffs. While Ganon marches upon Death Mountain, conquers it from the Volvagians and turns Dakkon to his side, Princess Zelda and Impa sneak out of the burning Hyrule Castle Town towards the fortress Snowpeak. Zelda has Rauru, the son and successor of Sahasrahla, gather the surviving Hylian soldiers for a counterattack while Impa defends the fortress against a Moblin army.

Armed with a contingent of Hylian knights and loyal Sheikah, Princess Zelda assumes command and marches with all of her forces onto Death Mountain to confront King Ganon. There she discovers that the Volvagians have sided with Ganon, leaving her to plead with the Gorons and their King Darunia for their aid. Promising to free the Gorons, Princess Zelda and Darunia's armies assault the Fire Temple and Ganon's forces. Ganon sends the general Ogalon to help Dakkon defend the temple while he begins to extract th Triforce from its cradle.

Discovering the Triforce isn't there and he has been deceived by Bongo, Ganon breaks down crying, and doesn't bother to defend himself when Zelda sneaks into the temple to assassinate him. With Ganon dead, the Moblins and Volvagians flee from Death Mountain. Rauru then examines the seal at the centre of the temple and finds out that the Triforce is not present, so Zelda deduces that King Nohansen must have placed it in the care of the Zora at the Water Temple. She wonders why the Moblins and the Dark Interlopers have attacked the Fire Temple instead, until Impa notices that the traitor Bongo and her followers are not present either. Horrified, Zelda, Impa and Rauru quickly leave the temple to chase them down, never finding out about Ganon's wish: he only wanted to use the Triforce to end the 4955-year animosity between Hylians and Moblins and to bring back everyone who had to die because of it.

News of the fall of Hyrule, and the Triforce being up for grabs, spreads fast across the planet. From the west, the Twinrova sisters lead an army of Gerudo to descend upon the Water Temple; while from the east the Great Fairy Veran brings her own Fairy army as well - both against the wishes of their masters, the Gerudo Warlords and Tarm. The Sheikah quickly reach the Water Temple, only to find these two new enemies contesting with them over the Triforce, and are caught in a battle between them.

Demise, furious over Bongo's betrayal, strikes a pact with Zelda: if they wouldn't war on the Moblins further, he'll help them against Bongo. When Zelda grudgingly accepts, he teleports her, Impa and Rauru directly to the Water Temple. There they join forces with the Zora general Rutela against the interlopers.

During the battle, Bongo nearly succeeds in extracting the Triforce from its cradle, until a furious Demise interrupts her. Even though Veran later manages to distract Demise and throw him down Lake Hylia, it was too late as Bongo is immediately arrested by Impa.

Most of the Interlopers, the Fairy and the Gerudo prisoners captured in the battle are given to the Circle of Warlords and banished via the Mirror of Twilight in the Arbiter's Grounds, which is thought to be a portal to an endless void. Bongo, however, is guillotined in Kakariko and has her corpse dumped into the well in the village.

Ganon is slain and the Dark Interlopers banished. The Hylians are victorious.

First Golden Age
Hyrule ushers in a century of peace, led by the slayer of Ganon herself, and later by her daughter Princess Yanera Zelda II. Keeping her promise, Zelda crowns Darunia King of Death Mountain and makes him Sage of Fire, while the traitor Dakkon is stripped of his power.

Rauru convinces Mediator Ooccoo that keeping the Triforce in Hyrule is too dangerous and that it should be returned to the Sacred Realm as it was in ancient times. Claiming that keeping the Triforce locked away from the world would lead to a decline, Rauru proposes to create a portal that could be opened to the Sacred Realm in times of need and suggests converting the Temple of Time into such a door. The Oocca agree and work with Rauru in secret to transform the Temple of Time into a portal to the Sacred Realm. Once completed, Rauru and the Oocca create the Temple of Light inside the Sacred Realm and bring the Triforce to rest there.

In the south, the Great Deku Tree Kasuto, successor to Palagard, finishes his experiment with the Kokiri Bandits. After getting rid of the criminals, he takes their children under his wing and after a few generations, they become the Kokiri.

To the southwest, with Ganon defeated, Demise withdraws from his plans of conquest and spends the next decade watching over the Moblins and monitoring Hylian expansion. Demise honours his promise with Zelda, and true to their word, the Hylians move east and avoid all contact west of Ordona Province.

To the west, the Gerudo are faced with a serious gender crisis. As the result of Ganon's curse, no more Gerudo boys are born, and the male Gerudo slowly die out. However, in 73 AG, a son is unexpectedly born to the Gerudo woman Adieladorf, whom she names Ganondorf, as despite Ganon's curse he still manages to be born. The living Gerudo men, his father included, are all old at this point, and none survives long after his birth. The boy Ganondorf becomes the sole member of the Circle of Warlords, with his mother serving as regent until he's of legal age, but Adieladorf's regency doesn't last long: she mysteriously dies a few months into Ganondorf's reign. At this point, the Twinrova sisters, who were spared banishment for their involvement with the Dark Interlopers, adopt Ganondorf as their own son and become his co-regents.

The Realm of Twilight
The Dark Interlopers, after being banished through the Mirror of Twilight, find themselves not in an endless void as what the Warlords thought, but in a new alien world dubbed the Realm of Twilight. Many struggle to survive and most die soon after their arrival.

Weakened from the battle at Lake Hylia and by the harsh alien landscape, Veran wanders off from the other survivors to die alone. In the wilderness, she is found by the Dark Dragon Onox, who senses that she had great and powerful magic, so he shelters her from the harsh Realm of Twilight and helps her recover from her wounds. Because of this the two develop a close and possibly romantic relationship.

With the help of the two other Great Fairy survivors, Morsheen and Una, Veran organises numerous kingdoms amongst the rest of the exiles, who now call themselves the Twili. For centuries the Fairies remain in control of the Twili, pulling the strings of each King that they placed on the throne. Morsheen establishes the Church of Majora in the Realm of Twilight, and becomes a major missionary in spreading the worship of Majora across the planet.

Eventually the Fairies' power over the Twili becomes threatened. The powerful King Mizorant, before his ascension, has made powerful allies in the Parella, a group of minions of Bellum - the original creator of the Mirror of Twilight. It is revealed they intended to head to Hyrule from the Mirror's original destination, but the Circle of Warlords' meddling disrupted the portal and left them stranded on the Realm of Twilight instead. With their help, Mizorant plans to get rid of the three Great Fairies, and then conquer Hyrule.

A short time after Mizorant's coronation, his son Zant meets the lowborn girl Midna, starts a relationship with her and gives her a room in the Palace of Twilight. Mizorant strongly disapproves of this relationship.

Midna also finds out being the Prince's fiancée isn't as exciting as she thought - Zant is an immature, sadistic, insane man-child, and often bullies her and tells her she's only mad because he always wins. When Mizorant becomes fed up with his son's behaviour, he scolds him for being an incompetent heir, introduces him to the Parella and his plan to invade Hyrule while leaving Zant behind to rule in his stead, and gives Zant an ultimatum: to continue being a child with Midna, or to become a man and a King like his father.

But Mizorant underestimated the influence the Fairies had in the Twili Empire. Quickly after being banished from the Palace, they have his armies disbanded against his will and assassinate him in the Palace of Twilight, then cast Zant aside in favour of Midna.

Being denied the throne, Zant's love for Midna is eventually replaced by envy for what his father promised him. In secret, Zant consults his father's Parella associates and forms an army from Mizorant's personal guards. Knowing that this army can't be enough to usurp the throne, Zant travels to the prison of Valran to free Lady Middee, head of the Bonemold Monks who was abandoned and imprisoned by Midna. Following Middee's advice, he then heads to Elmenzhia, the throne of Una and overcomes her army of Twili Sorceresses.

After Zant's forces take Una captive, Veran teleports in and invites him and his forces to the church of Uzu, making it clear that his army can't defeat hers there, then returns to Uzu where Morsheen and Onox await. Back at Uzu she asks Morsheen to summon Majora, and ask it to animate the Avatars of its likeness to crush Zant and his army, with the condition that Majora could reap their souls. Majora cackles at this idea and summons numerous Wrath Entities, as well as animating Avatars to destroy Zant.

Zant knowingly marches into Veran's trap, with the belief that he can overcome and subjugate her.

Despite being backed up by Majora, Onox and Veran at the end still lose to Zant, though she refuses to bend the knee for him. Zant slices her kneecap, forcing her to kneel, then tells her of his plan to return to and conquer Hyrule, at which point Veran gladly accepts to help him. Veran begins to transform Zant's men into Shadow Messengers using masks of Oorgath.

Zant, Middee and General Onox march upon the Palace of Twilight to forcibly remove Midna from the throne.

Upon his victory, Zant confronts a surprised Midna in the throne room, accusing her of casting him away after taking his birthright. Midna tells him that he could have become King by her side, but he left her alone because of envy for the throne. Furious at Midna but unable to kill her, Zant forces her to don a mask of Oorgath, turning her into an imp.

The Realm of Twilight now his, Zant provides the necessary resources for the Parella to build a new Mirror of Twilight to conquer Hyrule.

Playable

 * Kingdom of Hyrule
 * Gerudo
 * Gorons
 * Zora Dominion
 * Kokiri
 * Gohma
 * Ordona Province
 * Lanayru Province
 * The Deku Tribes
 * Stalfos
 * Moblins
 * Sheikah Cadre
 * Darknut Legion
 * Lizalfos
 * Labrynna Regime
 * Fairies of Tarm
 * Kingdom of Ikana
 * Forces of Twilight
 * Order of the Wizzrobe
 * River Zora

Custom Battle Only

 * Ancient Hylians

NPC

 * Oocca
 * Church of Majora
 * Zuna
 * Subrosians
 * Tokay
 * Huskus Remnants
 * Horonians

Other

 * Mercenaries
 * Wildlife

Expansions
Hyrule: Total War is going to have four expansions that focus on other locations and other time periods in the world of Hyrule.

Great Sea: Total War
Great Sea: Total War is the first of four expansions, focusing on content from the games in the Adult Timeline in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. Characters and empires from those games have been fleshed out and incorporated into the greater lore and mythos of Hyrule. Players will get to play as their favourite characters from these games and lead both armies and navies against each other in the Great Sea setting.

Great Sea: Total War is set after all the events of Hyrule: Total War, after the Great Flood has drowned Hyrule, leaving scattered islands in its wake.

Termina: Total War
The second of the four, Termina: Total War will take place in, shockingly, the world of Termina, and is the sequel to Great Sea: Total War. Link has somehow found his way into Termina, only to find Majora's up to something new.

Shadows of Hyrule: Total War
Set in the Realm of Twilight, Shadows of Hyrule: Total War's events stretch from before the Twili Civil War until after the events of the main game and Great Sea.

Gods of Hyrule: Total War
A prequel, Gods of Hyrule: Total War tells of the events occurring in the infancy of Hyrule, when Sages and Druthulidi battled for supremacy until the extinction of the Trilith and the betrayal of Sulkaris.