RPG based on Might and Magic.

I doubt that the 3DO team, who created Chronicles, would have paid attention to Axeoth without Caningham. They would have continued to ruin Enroth with things like Chronicles. And the idea with Nikolai Ironfist (he didn't exactly stumble into Axeoth).

Well, Chronicles is 100% based on Caningham's work. They explain a lot and basically refute things.)))
And Axeoth, it seems, John was developing in parallel. And when he left, they had nothing left to do but create a completely new concept for Heroes 4, and they took Caningham's old fantasies as a basis...

I don't remember about Nikolai... I need to ask