Lords of Magic

Lords of Magic is a turn-based strategy PC game designed for Windows 95/98 by Sierra Entertainment. The game, which was distributed on CDs, includes a single-player mode and limited multiplayer features on LAN and the Internet as well. The game was intended to combine elements of Heroes of Might and Magic II and Lords of the Realm II.

Setting
The game takes place in the land of Urak. The people of this world worship one of eight religions. Each religion has an opposite in the circle of life and the people of those faiths are bitter enemies. The atmosphere of the game is high fantasy, loosely inspired by the works of Tolkien, as well as Dungeons and Dragons. The world is filled with wandering monsters and fixed buildings filled with monsters. LOM is notably different from other strategy games in that it has only one map, with each faith starting at a different location. However, map editor was supplied.

Plot and characters
Balkoth, the lord of Death, has embarked on a campaign to destroy all other faiths in honor of the dark god Golgoth. The other lords scramble to expand their ranks to defend themselves against this dark threat but also to once and for all destroy their lifelong nemesis.

Lords are the avatar character used by the player. They are like champions, but colored differently and have higher stats. When a lord dies, the faith is removed from play, unless the player has obtained an "heir". Heirs are obtained by befriending another faith, then conquering their great temple from a marauding party, in which case the faith becomes yours and their lord in turn becomes the heir.

The Special Edition also contains the Legends of Urak quest pack. It's a set of five individual quests that revolve around stories unrelated to the main plot of the game.

Factions and Heroes
There are eight different factions: life, death, order, chaos, air, earth, fire, water.

Each faction represents their element with their own set of units, heroes and spells. Even though both Air and Earth appear to be on the side of good and both have good diplomatic relations with order and water they hate each other as much as they hate the death faction. The Heroes of the game consist of three different types which offer unique game play and tactics. They are Warrior, Thief and Mage. The Warrior acts as a Tank and leads armies into battle. The thief works best alone being able to steal money and sabotage, the thief can even kidnap other heroes ransoming them for money and artifacts. The Mage is very weak with low hit points, but can use spells which can change the entire battle in your favor, summoning great monsters or raining down fire and lightning from behind the lines. There are over 160 different spells, and they are different for each faction but with four different types of spells which are "offensive", "defensive", "overland" and "general knowledge". There are over 90 different artifacts as well to discover.

Expansion
The content in the Legends of Urak expansion (included in the "Special Edition" of the game) revolves around various fables and stories. Earth, Fire, and Death each have a unique quest while Order has two quests. The Earth quest is based on the epic poem Beowulf but involves many original battles and adventures Beowulf partakes in. The Fire quest revolves around a fire sorceress named Crispin who seeks out and slays a colossal ice drake in order to return the flow of lava to the fire capital. The Death adventure focuses on the necromancer's ability to raise the dead and employ them in battle. The adventure ends either by defeating a lich in battle and retrieving his staff for the death lord, or by keeping the staff, taking control of the death capitol and defeating the eldren queen. The first Order adventure is loosely based on the legends of Merlin and King Arthur and ends with the retrieval of the Holy Grail and death of Mordred. The second Order adventure is only activated by clicking in the center of the circle of life in the quests menu and has a unique lord named Sigfried who transforms as the game progresses. He saves the valkyrie Brunhilde and defeats Attila the Hun.

Reception
The game was met with mixed reviews. GameSpot gave the game a rating of 6.3 out of ten. The special edition was met with much better reception, with GameSpot giving it a 7.0 and Strategy Gaming Online a 7.8.