Video Game / Invasion from the Unknown

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Invasion from the Unknown is a user-made campaign for Battle for Wesnoth created by Iris Morelle (Irydacea/shadowm). One of the most popular and downloaded add-ons, it is available in multiple Wesnoth versions from 1.4 to 1.18. The campaign itself has underwent revisions throughout the years, with v2.0 being released in 2015. It consists of two "episodes", each consisting of 13 and 10 scenarios respectively, so players can jump to the middle part of the story if they want to although it is not recommended due to both story and gameplay reasons. Story-wise, the campaign takes the After the End settings of mainline campaign Under the Burning Suns and expands it with its own direction.

In a hostile, sandy world with two suns, the last forest elves has found sanctuary in a rare, green, forested valley. However, they never truly has peace due to routine attacks from sand-dwelling humans, and one day, one of their patrol groups led by Galas drive off an unusually armed group of invading humans. It quickly becomes clear that a massive army of humans and demons are expanding their territory, and thus Galas with the aid of his mentor Anlindë is entrusted to lead the elves to safety. An encounter with the ancient lich Mal Keshar lead to an unexpected alliance as he knows about the whereabouts of the Lady of Light and the Master of Darkness, who might be their only hope for stopping the seemingly-unending demonic invasion.

A sequel campaign titled After the Storm was first released in unfinished state in Wesnoth v1.8 (2011) and the campaign's v1.0 was released to Wesnoth v1.18 in 2026. It consists of three episodes, consisting of 13 scenarios each, and follows the story of the protagonists after the end of Invasion from the Unknown while uncovering a lot of lore within the campaigns' setting.

Tropes used by both campaigns:

• After the End: Both campaigns take place after Wesnoth's failed attempt at raising the third sun that destroyed the then-empire and ruined elves' forests, turning both into barren deserts. Galas's elves descended from the elves who survived and managed to found a rare forested valley, although it turns out that the lands north of the Heart Mountains has remained green. On the other hand, what left of the Wesnoth Empire and Wesmere Forest (both important locations in many mainline Wesnoth campaigns) have become Chaos Empire's base of operation.
• Always Night: Wesmere has become a land of eternal night, both in gameplay and story. When it is first visited in "Ashes of Wesmere", Elynia explains that it is caused by Zhangor's curse during their battle that ruined the forest.
• And I Must Scream: When he was first defeated in the backstory, Zhangor cannot be killed outright and can only be torn to pieces, with the pieces being still alive but scattered and buried back in Inferno. When he comes back in the last part of After the Storm after being restored centuries later, he makes sure to mention to Elynia how painful it is.
• Binary Suns: The campaigns follow the settings of Under the Burning Suns with the two suns and the unusual day-night cycle.
• Boss Warning Siren: Boss fights here are distinguished from regular battles by how a written warning saying "Enemy boss sighted!" will pop up when they start.
• Captain's Log: Most scenarios of Invasion from the Unknown starts with an excerpt from Galas' journal explaining what happens between each scenario. After the Storm follows suit, but with Elynia's journal and only until "Outpost of Hell" where the intro transitions into being excerpts from Argan's journal, which averts this trope due to being an exposition of lore rather than of current events.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Despite necromancy being normally considered evil dark arts in Wesnoth, the heroes ally themselves with Mal Keshar with no moral problem (except for Keshar occassionally joking about murdering people), arguing that time has changed. In fact, the reason they need is help is because they want to find the Master of Darkness as well as the Lady of Light, who worked together to defeat the demonic threat a long time ago. By the end of After the Storm, good necromancers are not considered unusual things and one of the heroes, Anya, is revealed to be the second Guardan of Darkness, something exploited to turn some people of the Chaos Empire to the heroes' side.
• Fantastic Racism: Fairies are distrusted on sights by most humans.
• Interspecies Romance: The romance between Elynia (elf) and Argan (human), which was forbidden back in both of their homelands so they have to keep their marriage a secret.
• Thanking the Viewer: The closing credits of the campaigns list "You" the last, as a thanks for playing the campaign.

Invasion from the Unknown contains examples of:

• Antagonist Title: "Goliath", which is titled after the mechanical goliath who is the final boss of the scenario.
• Badass Boast: During the final boss fight, Mal Keshar ends up being possessed by the boss and Elynia has to destroy him, both done using the power of the Union. He simply reforms himself and tells Galas there is no way that is enough to put him down.
  Mal Keshar: Help you? HA! Of course I can help you! It will take much more than some unfathomable ancient power to put me out of commission, boy.
• Bigger on the Inside: The chamber Elynia sleeps in during her centuries-long slumber is explicitly said to be larger on the inside by Althurin, rather than the game just zooming in to make it look larger.
• Boss-Only Level: Unlike other boss fights in the campaign which is usually preceeded with small skirmishes with regular enemies, "Until Death" immediately starts with the confrontation against the Final Boss.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: According to Elynia, Mal Keshar is responsible for the undead incursion against orcs that the Emperor of Wesnoth used as an excuse to raise the second sun, but Mal Keshar dismissively says that he doesn't remember any specific attack of his after he has been attacking orcs for centuries.
• Collapsing Lair: After the Final Boss is defeated in "Until Death", his domain starts to collapse, making the final scenario "Broken Heart" about the heroes escaping the collapsing citadel in time.
• Compound Title: The scenario with the boss fight against the Chaos Emperor is titled "Until Death" and the cutscene scenario that immediately follows it is titled "Do Us Part", referencing the marriage phrase, "Till death do us part". Both scenarios deal with how said boss fight is a fight between spouses, Elynia and Argan, which ends with Argan's death.^note A comment in the code for "Until Death" remarks that it is not titled "Till Death" to make the spoiler less obvious.
• Decapitation Presentation: In the intro of "A Real Confrontation", it's mentioned that the elves' border patrol don't return and instead the heroes find their skulls mounted on the top of the approaching enemies' banners.
• Dramatic Unmask: When the heroes finally confront him, the Chaos Emperor opens his mask to reveal that he is Elynia's presumed-to-be-dead husband Argan who has pulled a Heel–Face Turn.
• Final Boss Preview: A penultimate boss example. The Chaos Warlord is fought futilely by Anlindë in the final scenario of Episode 1 with no chance of Anlindë winning, setting up how difficult the boss fight will be when the Warlord is fought near the end of the campaign.
• Hearing Voices: From "Dawn of War", Galas begins to hear the Chaos Emperor's voice in his head trying to manipulate him into betraying Elynia to them. It concludes at the start of "Under the Sands" where the Emperor attempts to straight up possess him to do so, but Galas resists and falls unconscious instead.
• Hold the Line:
  • The main objective of "A Real Confrontation" is to resist the Chaos Empire's attack until the time limit runs out, at which point the enemies are said to be regrouping.
  • "Strike on Herthgar" has the heroes and their dwarven allies having to survive the enemy's onslaughts until the time limit runs out and the enemies retreat.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The final scenario of Invasion from the Unknown Episode 1 has Anlindë fighting Chaos Warlord who is completely invincible to any attacks. After being fatally wounded, Anlindë attempts to pull a Taking You with Me by collapsing the cave. It doesn't kill the Warlord, but it helps her You Shall Not Pass! objective.
• I Did What I Had to Do: When Elynia reveals to everyone else that Anlindë used to be one of Zhangor's cultists, Anlindë defends herself by saying she had to be or she and her family would have became one of the cultists' sacrifices.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: When Galas suspects that Mal Keshar leads the elves to an orcish land to be slaughtered in "The Moon Valley", the necromancer replies that if he wants to kill them, he would have already killed them all in their sleep.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Early "Into the Lair", the heroes realize that the snow plain between them and the Emperor's lair is too empty to not be suspicious. By the end of the scenario, they figure out that the Emperor wants them to confront him, probably as a trap.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Anlindë, who is Galas' mentor from before the story stars and during the entirety of the campaign's first half, chooses to sacrifice herself at the end of said half, stating that she is confident to go now that Galas has shown himself to be a capable leader. Galas' risky plan in the second half is partly motivated by a desire to avenge Anlindë's death.
• Never Found the Body: When explaining her backstory, Elynia mentions that her husband Argan died falling into a chasm created by a sudden earthquake and she never find his body. Naturally, he turns up alive, albeit with mechanical parts, and is the Big Bad.
• Redemption Demotion: When he is first fought against, Mal Keshar is a level 5 unit with all sorts of special abilities. After he is defeated and joins the heroes, he is reset to his level 3 version and the player has to level him up multiple times over until he is level 5 and has all of his abilities again.
• Sequel Hook: At the epilogue, Elynia explains her plan to went to Zocthanol to learn more about the villains from the desert elves, with Galas and Mal Keshar agreeing to joining her.
• Shifting Sand Land: "Over the Sands" takes clear inspiration from Under the Burning Suns's "Across the Harsh Sands", being a desert-themed scenario where the player has to drag their units across the sands while dealing with dehydration.
• Significant Name Shift: Galas and Elynia start out calling each other "lady" and "lord" to be formal before agreeing to call each other by names after exiting the caves, while blushing and flirting, respectively.
  Mal Keshar: Pffft, what is this? You both have fancy titles to flaunt around, and instead opt for this trite fraternization thing? This is a waste of everyone’s time.
• So Proud of You: While announcing her plan to stay in Herthgar to stop any enemies from attacking the heroes from behind, Anlindë tells Galas that she is proud of him for proving his ability as a fighter and leader since they leave the valley, which is why it is okay if they part ways now.
• Suicide Mission: The second half has Galas going on a suicidal mission of going straight to the capital of the very powerful and vast Chaos Empire and killing the Emperor, bringing only the bare minimum of fighters with him. Thanks to quick and careful movement and Elynia and Mal Keshar unlocking the power of Union when it is needed, it actually succeeds although everyone except Galas, Elynia, Mal Keshar, and optionally Igor is dead by the time the mission ends.
• That's an Order!: When entering Elynia's slumber chamber, Galas overrides Anlindë's belief that only the two of them should enter (Galas wants Mal Keshar and Unarye to come along) by asserting that his desire is an order, forcing Anlindë to back down as he is officially her lord.
• Unable to Retreat: Entering Elyssa's boss room in "Face of the Enemy" causes the door behind the player's units to turn into a wall, trapping them in the room for the boss fight.
• What the Hell, Hero?: After the first meeting with the Aragwaithi council has Galas telling the Aragwaiths that he will declare war against the Chaos Empire on the elves' behalf so that the Aragwaiths would do the same, in addition to putting all of the elves, Elynia, and Mal Keshar under their command, he gets called out by pretty much everyone on his side for not consulting them first, not to mention for sending the refugee elves to a war. Galas justifies it by saying the Aragwaiths wouldn't be charitable to them otherwise and the Empire needs to be taken down as soon as possible.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: When asked why would she sacrifice herself by pulling You Shall Not Pass! in Herthgar after living for so long, Anlindë says that for her, living for centuries just means she has much more time to be haunted with guilt over her time as Zhangor's cultist.
  Anlindë: Eternal life becomes a disillusioning burden as time passes by and you see... you see everything turn to dust. And then your memories begin to fade away as well... You eventually forget all positive experiences and can only recall the horrors that haunt you in your sleep.
• The X of Y:
  • Scenario titles "Errand of Hope", "The Source of Light", "Shadows of Time", "Dawn of War", "Voice of the Armageddon", "Ashes of Wesmere", and "Face of the Enemy".
  • Played for laughs when Elynia is first encountered and Galas introduces himself and others using "X of Y" titles, but Mal Keshar interrupts and creates an "X of Y" title for himself on the spot.
    Galas: I am Lord Galas of the Elves of the Valley of Elynia, my lady, and these are Anlindë, my loyal advisor and leader of the Elven Council at Telchior’s Hold; Lady Unarye, High Sorceress of our people; Althurin, High Runemaster of the Dwarvish Kingdom of Herthgar; and this is—
    Mal Keshar: Mal Keshar, the Harbinger of Dread — a title I just made up so I don’t seem out of place among those big names.
• "Yes"/"No" Answer Interpretation: In "Shadows of Time", Elynia answers Galas' question of whether she forgives him for making a plan without consulting her by playfully saying she has an eternity to decide. Galas decides to take it as a "yes".
• You Didn't Ask: In "A Royal Meeting", Althurin interrupts the heroes' discussion to reveal that he has heard of the Lady of Light. When Mal Keshar questions why hasn't he told them earlier, Althurin points out that they haven't told him that they are looking for the Lady of Light earlier either.
• You Shall Not Pass!: After Chaos Empire's attack on Herthgar shows that staying is not safe and simply running away can lead to an attack from behind, Anlindë decides to stay behind with some undead minions and dwarfish berserkers to stop whomever try to follow the rest of the party.

After the Storm contains examples of:

• 10-Minute Retirement: In Episode 3, Durvan decides to leave Elynia and co. after the battle in Aran-Baglur, feeling her plan to find the demon lord Ergea is too risky and he is nowhere near as powerful as the other magical protagonists or their demonic enemies. He comes back four scenarios later leading the reinforcement from the Alliance, due to some off-screen convincing from Ergea herself and his own desire to check on Anya's safety.
• Big "NO!":
  • In "The Triad", Elynia screams "NO!" after Elyssa kills Galas.
  • When her deception is exposed in "And then there was Chaos", the fake Lady of Light shouts "NO!" as the elves around her begin to process the truth.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: At the start of "The Triad", Mal Hekuba pretty pointedly says that he and the other members of the Iron Triad should not kill the captured Elynia and Galas until they have explained their plan, which they proceed to do and it gives the opportunity for the captured heroes to be rescued.
• Cold Iron: Elves' weakness to iron that is established in The South Guard is made relevant briefly in the intro of "The Triad", where Elynia is captured and helpless due to the pain caused by being chained with iron.
• Collapsing Lair: The Chaos Empire base on Wesmere collapses after the final boss fight of Episode 1, as the energy condensers that are destroyed in order to defeat the boss are also what is holding the base together. The final part of the mission is to try and find an exit, only to find none and Elynia only escapes alone by using an unmastered teleportation spell.
• Continuity Nod: When Mal Keshar insists on accompanying Elynia in her suicidal mission infiltrating the hive in Wesmere, Elynia questions what is his motivation to do so and whether he is seeking redemption. Mal Keshar points out she already asks those questions when they first fight together in Herthgar back in Invasion from the Unknown. Back then, he gives a non-answer; now, he replies that he doesn't actually know what he wants anymore.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Subverted in "Tears" where Elynia makes a remark implying the events of "The Triad" could have been solved faster if she just uses the teleportation spell from the start instead of at the very end. Mal Keshar counters by saying that she hasn't mastered the spell enough to even teleport his undead body in one piece, so Galas's death wouldn't have been avoided by using the spell earlier.
• Death Glare: When Mal Keshar tells Elynia that Argan was a very willing enforcer of Uria unlike her hope that he was forced into it in "The Search for the Past", Elynia angrily stares at him before saying "You know nothing." Mal Keshar is surprised by the amount of rage in her eyes, although it isn't successfuly in making him back down.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: At the end of "The Triad", after the heroes have been running for some time without finding an exit, Galas, the protagonist of the previous campaign, suddenly gets killed without a chance to fight back by Elyssa who shows up out of nowhere. When contrasted to other major character deaths which take place in Episode finales or boss fights, it is quite striking.
• Enemy Mine: In the final stretch of the campaign, Elyssa revives Elynia so she can help her beat Zhangor who has just supplanted her as the Empire's leader, albeit making sure she is under her control. It becomes a genuine alliance later after the control wanes off and Zhangor's attempt at Mind Raping both of them causing Elynia to see Elyssa's buried feelings and traumatic memories, leading to her Heel–Face Turn.
• Evil Laugh: Mal Hekuba makes his presence known in "The Betrayal" by cackling ominously as Elynia's group find out that the fake Lady of Light is a Shaxtral, revealing him to be responsible for it.
• Genocide Backfire: In the intro of the secret epilogue, it is explained that Dorvoth of the Valdemons tried to stop the rise of the Guardian of Life, but he only knew about the upcoming Guardian's species and decide to kill them all. Unbeknownst to him, said Guardian, Lyphanea, was away researching her powers and Dorvoth's action enraged her into killing him.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Mal Keshar reveals at the end of "Tears" that his lower half doesn't make it when Elynia teleports both of them at the end of the previous scenario. Since he is a lich, he survives and can fight like normal afterwards.
• Heroic Second Wind: At the final fight of Episode 2, Mal Hekuba has gotten Elynia on the ropes and tells her to just give up already. Elynia remembering Mal Keshar's words that she is fighting for a greater cause, combined with the appearance of Ivyel providing a weak point to destroy Mal Hekuba, gets her to stand up again and fight with better in-game stats than usual.
• Hold the Line:
  • The objective in "Civil War" is to hold against the infighting enemies until time runs out. Unlike other cases of this trope in the campaign, killing the enemy leaders is a losing condition rather than the opposite since the infighting enemies are Galas' own group of elves.
  • After starting out as a Storming the Castle scenario, the last section of "Destiny — Part 2" has Anya's side having to hold out said castle from waves of Shaxthals coming from their hives until time runs out.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: In "The Triad", Galas is fatally struck by Elyssa's surprise attack before he can finish his suggestion to use the teleportation spell to escape.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: While the campaign can be played (and even downloaded) without playing Invasion from the Unknown first, doing so immediately spoils that Argan has become a Fallen Hero and Elynia has to kill him in the intro.
• Multi-Part Episode: The three scenarios in the middle of Episode 1 where Galas, Elynia, and Mal Keshar have to escape the Iron Council's base are titled "The Triad — Part 1", "The Triad — Part 2", and "The Triad — Part 3".
• Not Always Evil: After all demons being shown to be subservient to Uria in the previous campaign and Episode 1, Episode 2 introduces a faction of demons led by Elorran who refuse to submit and choose to ally with Elynia instead. Episode 3 introduces other good demons as well.
• Not Enough to Bury: In "Beyond the Smile", Elynia wants to find Elorran and Tara's remains, only for the ending to reveal that the creatures used to kill them also devoured their corpses.
• One-Word Title: Scenarios titled simply as such include "Fear", "Tears", "Proximus", "Divergence", and "Blood".
• Plot Threads: After the appropriately-titled scenario "Divergence" in Episode 3, the story focus splits into two equal subplot: Elynia's solo mission that leads her to Elyssa and the rest of the heroes' battles against Chaos Empire army.
• Rewatch Bonus: Zynara's last words if she dies when her death is a losing condition is to apologize for failing to complete her mission. It looks like a simple declaration of failure at first, but after the reveal that she is The Mole, the quote becomes clearly about her dying before getting the chance to take the Ruby of Fire from Elynia.
• Sequel Hook: The campaign ends with Elynia and Elyssa leaving Irdya (the universe where most of the campaign take place) to find a way to stop Uria in Ethea, with Anya deciding to join them.
• Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: Part of the boss fight against Zhangor involves him summoning shapeshifters that can take the form of figures from Elynia and/or Elyssa's past. Their reaction while fighting them varies from anger to dismissal.
• Shout-Out:
  • The achievement for obtaining a special axe is named "Heeeere’s Johny!", referencing the iconic axe scene with that line from The Shining.
  • If Igor dies with Mal Keshar around, there is around 7% chance of Malin jokingly quoting Hamlet as he tries to turn the goblin into an undead minion until Elynia stops him.
    Mal Keshar: Alas, poor Igor! I knew him, Elynia—
    Elynia: Leave his body alone!!!
• Start of Darkness: The intro of the secret epilogue explains how Lyphanea, the kind girl who saved Argan's life, becomes Uria, the goddess who claims her predecessor's name and plots to control everything, starting from the genocide of her people to her desperation at learning her Guardian of Life powers and eventually realizing that there are ways to break free of Yarae's design and make her own.
• The Stinger: Unusually for Wesnoth, an entire scenario titled "Destiny — Part 3" is played after the ending credits, albeit one that is light on combat and heavy on simply moving Anya around while she is thinking on and making a big decision. One additional cutscene scenario titled "Epilogue" is also played right after that if Elyssa picks up the book that secretly contains the missing pages of Argan's journal in "Interim". The pages (whose texts are used as the scenario's intro) reveal the Start of Darkness of Uria, or rather Lyphanea before she decides to take her predecessor's name, while the cutscene has Uria laying waste on Silida while dropping additional Sequel Hooks.
• Storming the Castle: The last scenario with the player's main army, "Destiny — Part 2", has them storming and taking over the Chaos Empire citadel and defeating the last of the Iron Council leaders.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Galas, the protagonist of the previous campaign, is abruptly killed by Elyssa at the end of "The Triad", Episode 1.
• Suicide Mission:
  • At the end of Episode 1, Elynia plans to go alone into the Shaxthal lair to destroy Yechnagoth's heart alone, even though the lair is filled with dangerous biomechanical enemies and no one knows who or what else might be inside. She gets convinced to allow others (other than Horo and Kyara who are assigned to send a message back) to join her and everybody that do die when the lair collapse, except for Elynia who teleports herself at the last minute.
  • Elynia's mission to meet Ergea in Episode 3 is considered very risky due to the meeting place being located in enemy's land and the heroes don't actually know how trustworthy Ergea is, to the point Durvan has a 10-Minute Retirement. It turns out to be relatively safe, although Ergea immediately sends Elynia on an even more suicidal, personal mission inflitrating the Empire's lair with minimum support to find some kind of weapon she hears about from the Seer, which ends with Elyssa temporarily killing her.
• Teleporter Accident: Elynia learns a teleportation spell during the visit to Zocthanol, but never masters it so it is considered to be too risky to use. The first time she uses it to teleport herself and Mal Keshar to safety, he apparently has to survive without his lower half for a while. The second time, she gets sent forward in time on top of being moved location-wise.
• That Man Is Dead: In the secret epilogue, when Xia’el/Aradellys tries to appeal to Uria's good side from before her Start of Darkness, from back when she still calls herself Lyphanea, Uria tells her "Lyphanea is no more."
• Time Skip: Early in Episode 2, it is revealed that the episode takes place a year after the first one; Elynia's use of an unmastered teleportation spell at the end of Episode 1 sends her forward in time.
• Title Drop Chapter: The last scenario before the end credits, a cutscene that takes place after all of the final battles have been won, is titled "After the Storm".
• Unable to Retreat:
  • When the player's side enter the room for the boss fight in "The Queen", the entrance to the room closes itself.
    Mal Keshar: And, now we’re trapped. How predictable.
  • When Elynia reaches the last section before the boss fight in "Dark Fire", a wall cuts off the way to go back, both accomplishing this trope and forcing Elynia to confront Elyssa alone.
• What Would X Do?: When demon lord Elorran proposes a truce with Elynia and claims that his faction is also against Uria like her in "Shifting Allegiances", Elynia ponders on what would Galas and Anlindë do, leading to her accepting the truce, even though she has never met heroic demons before, because Galas and Anlindë spared Mal Keshar back when they first met. Like with Mal Keshar and necromancers, Elynia's trust in Elorran proves that demons are Not Always Evil.