Hmm, I like SorO's outline too. Nice and simple, but ripe for plot hooks.
Isn't that basically Version 2 + Prophecy?
Nope.
#2 is
Post-Apocalyptic[/b]
-Nobody knows how, or even exactly when, but it happenned. Most of the world is covered in heavy Taint, kingdoms and empires collapsed, fiends and undeads are at the top of whatever passes for society in this forsaken world, altough for the most part is a dog-eat-dog world. Only a few "safe" areas of precious untainted land remain, hiding some thousands of "pure "people. But hiding is not enough. For now the forces of Taint are still disorganized, fighting against each other for power and resources. It's only a matter of time until one of them proves stronger than the others and unites them to finish covering this world in Taint. You must strike out before that. You must go out there and start purifying the land, cleanse the fiends and unliving!
And this is Evil dominate. You're in a kingdom of good surrounded by evil on nineteen fronts trying to battle to purge the land of the "
where in the hell did all these zombies come from!"
This is substantially different. To rip off WoT some more you can say Spellcasters are driven insane faster so they are not trusted unless trained and recognized by the Wizard's Tower. So now you've got a schism in the world, pet casters and their dogma and the people hiding their talents. However, you've got a group of zealots that are convinced you can never really trust someone that's walked through a blighted area or snuck through a tomb or two and as a general stance they oppose anyone not walking in the light as they do and these two factions don't exactly get along. King and kingdoms exist and hold together pretty well, but the ever presence of Taint makes all courts fairly corrupt. Anyone with money can buy someone looking the other way, spies and treachery spread faster than rumors. People do have the security in their daily lives that while the threat of assassination is possible, a ruler doesn't die overnight. The population for the most part would be safe and get along fine. But in the dark, each man locks his own door to keep the monsters, and his neighbors, at bay. Because you just cannot trust a man who might be Tainted.
In a gist, the world lacks trust in it's follow man. They go through the motions and such because they have to. Kind of like WoT really, distrust in the male side of the power lead to less spellcasters breeding, no 20+ circles of power, the submissive female half taking up and failing at the male's dominant role, etc. The author did some very nice world building, I don't see why we can't rip off and adapt