[Edi]

Regarding Ulm, I do not see any need for a separate branching timeline.

Base Ulm is obviously the first one. I have always seen the Iron Faith theme as a short-lived corrupt transition stage between standard Ulm and Black Forest.

Even the descriptions lend some support for this. In base Ulm, magic is solely in the hands of the master smiths and the nations trusts its brawn and military might to stand off its enemies.

In the Iron Faith theme, the control of magic has passed from the master smiths to the priest orders who are fanatic zealots with little grasp of how magic works and whether it is safe. They have little magical training and compensate with religious dogma and persecution to rival the Marignon inquisition.

Black Forest is the logical outcome of this setup. With the Iron Faith priesthood infiltrated from within and corrupted, civil war flares out when there is an attempt to return to the more traditional ways of the standard era Ulm. This allows the agents of the corrupting power (Ermor or whoever else) to do their malign work unnoticed and their scheme culminates in the destruction of the Keep of Ulm, the death of the god of Ulm and teh corruption of the land when they unleash the Malediction.

It makes for a relatively seamless story that has no alternate timelines.

What I'd like to know is what the devs think of this little interpretation and how close it is to what they envisioned.

Edi