The next artwork and creature description is of the Jhakra, a pestilence of the desert:

Jhakras are four-legged reptilians covered in hardened, yellow-brown, grown-together scales. Adult specimens are 1 meter tall and grow to 1.5-2 meters long. Their legs can propel them forward quite fast, but it is difficult for the creatures to maneuver. Males sport forward-protruding and side horns they use to mauling and tackling. Jhakra have well-hidden, tiny eyes to protect them when they melee or charge. Because of this they don’t see too well. However, their sense of smell is extraordinary, making them able to follow prey for miles.

Some time ago we promised to invite you all to a virtual tour of our office, so without further ado, here goes:

First stop - Budapest, 13th district

Our office is located in an edifice built in the socialist era but kept in fairly good condition compared to how others fared. Back in the day when programming meant punched cards, the whole building housed a prominent company developing 'software' on those.

As we are adding more and more characters to the game's combat, we thought you might be interested in how they appear there.

Anything a given character can do in combat (like blocking or dodging, being hit, attacking or using various skills, and even standing idle) has an assigned artwork (a sprite) that appears when that action is performed.

These two images here show some of the action sprites Sedarias has. Some powerful two-handed sword swings make up his offensive abilities, augmented by Bane (a curse he can cast on opponents).

The amazing Bazsó Lossonczy works on a number of character designs for Vagrus. In this video, you can witness (in an enhanced time-lapse) how he goes from design sketches through primaries to the finished state of a character artwork for the Cinderborn, an enemy that is a particularly intimidating one, something right up Bazsó's alley. :)

Avernum is the most important city in the Northern Searing Plains. The reborn Empire moved back to the scorched and abandoned region soon after the Calamity and found it ideal to settle because of the new resources that can be found in the vicinity: salt, rare minerals, and even obsidian. Thus, Avernum was built at the center of the Smolderbone Flats. The city mostly lacks the religious apparatus of large provincial settlements, but has a fairly large military presence there under the direct control of the Prefectus, its governor. Rumor is that due to its backwater status, the city of Avernum follows Imperial regulations more loosely, and it has become essentially the private kingdom of the reigning Prefectus.

As we promised few weeks back, we have put a significant effort into improving our hero combat and we are now happy to present you, dear patrons, an update on how far we've got.

Most importantly, we created a new UI and removed the placeholder at the bottom of the screen.

We have also added new characters and skills that they can use. Like in the second example, Sedarias strikes two Charred corpses at once with his Cleave skill.

Our next character reveal - and related artwork - is that of the unfortunate mutant Crifta (literally meaning 'feathers' in Imperial). The player meets the cunning archer in the Prologue, where she debuts as a tough enemy. She can be recruited later in the game, however.

Crifta was born named Navassia Degado in the kingdom of Viran. She became an archer in the army of the northern continent after her brother got killed in earlier battles and she felt compelled to avenge him. Captured during the battles for Santo Lucadas in Viran, she became a slave in the Empire. She was forced to be a prostitute for some time in military camps, but in a year or so she contracted the Taint, and after her transformation she was not so attractive any longer. They moved her to a stone quarry near Deven where she was both a worker and a prostitute. There, she joined some slaves who organized an escape into the wastelands; they became fugitives, escaped slaves, but at least they were free.

Here's a small taste of what kind of enemies the player is going to face in Vagrus. Enjoy!

Many forms of undead have existed all around the continent of Xeryn ever since the Calamity. One of the side effects of the magical cataclysm is that in some places, the dead don’t rest in peace, but walk among the living. Much of this threat is dealt with by Imperials, but some remote areas are still constantly plagued by the undead. One such area is the Molten Tongue and Dvendar Tharr, the former kingdom of the Dwarves, where shuffling, burnt corpses rise to kill indiscriminately.

These charred corpses are in various degrees of degradation, but all show signs of burning (as well as other traumas). There is still some flesh that cling to their bones on most of them, albeit burned and charred. They are completely mindless, attacking living beings on sight. It is remarkable that no Dwarven corpses are reanimated in this way, suggesting that the curse could have some kind of connection to scavengers or the disturbing of the dead kingdom by outsiders. Cinderborns attack by mauling, clawing, and biting, and often fall apart quite easily.

We are extremely proud and happy to announce that our core team grew with a brilliant graphic designer, Szonja. We have been looking for a character artist for quite some time to ramp up our progress on that front and Szonja proved herself to be the best fit by miles with her unique style and open-mindedness.

Her main task is to bring our hero and enemy characters to life and help us with shaping the user interface as we enter Pre-Alpha stage with more parts of the game added each day.

We have a marvelous journey ahead and could not imagine any better traveling companion than Szonja. Welcome aboard!

Time for some combat, don’t you think? :)

We’re proud to present this short video that demonstrates how turn-based combat will work in Vagrus. Just a sneak peek, mind you, but in the following weeks we’ll be showing more.

Note that this is a very early version and a lot is bound to change, but it should give you a general idea nonetheless. Enjoy!