Tor'Zag's Shelter is a vast, dark city in the belly of the Blackblood Mountains, carved out mostly by Imperials after obsidian became scarcer in the region and the fleeing armies of Warleader Tor'Zag, an Orc general, capitulated, leaving the tunnels beneath the mountain at the end of the Orc War. People who lost everything came here to share respite from the scorching sun of the Jagged Waste with traders who were looking to establish a way-station between Deven in the north and the Province in the south. Now, a couple of hundred years later, the Shelter is among the five greatest cities of the continent.

We have started almost every single project update with 'A lot has happened since our last update' but now the 'lot' of the past seems kind of tiny compared to the 'LOT' of today.

The Pandemic

Corona hit hard and unexpected. What we looked at with blissful ignorance and naivety in the early days turned our lives upside down in mere weeks.  Luckily, everyone from the team is safe and sound as of now, though being in the middle of the flu season we cannot be certain whether we've been exposed to the virus already or not. Either way, we  stay home to keep everyone around us safer.

Grufta are disgusting, worm-like creatures that dwell and prosper in filth - and in great cities like Tor'Zag's Shelter, filth is in abundance. Grown specimen are large enough to hunt people, and even though they live in sewers and caves far from the homes of folk, they often slither out to catch the unwary.

When Tamás started working on the Grufta, we discussed how the creature should ooze revulsion (pun not intended). The colors and the moving little tendrils all invoke the images of parasites in our minds and the Grufta are just that: huge, man-eating parasites. Soon you will see how your Companions can stomach these poisonous worms.

Hey everyone,

we wanted to provide an update on Vagrus as we come close to releasing the first Open World build. We've been talking about it for a long time now, we know, but we hope you will appreciate the ambition of this small team, along with all the effort and heart poured into the game when you get your hands on it.

Finndurarth is an amazing asset to any comitatus because of her charisma, knack for diplomatic solutions, and upbeat spirit but when it comes to a battle, she is not a delicate flower at all. You probably want to place some sturdy meat-shield in front of her so that she can dish out unblockable magical damage to your foes or cast defensive spells to protect your Companions. Her Skills are versatile tools to be used in battle:

What did we learn when we started implementing the Specter and Shade enemies? Well, apart from them looking ghoulishly amazing, we realized that we need a new mechanic to best describe and present the idea behind them, that being physical damage defense and also methods to crack it.

So we added two new Combat Traits for these, Impervious and Unstoppable.

The Riven Realms has been around for over two decades now for us who created it for our tabletop campaigns, and the setting has quite a lot of currencies, even if one only considers the continent of Xeryn. When we set out to develop Vagrus, we picked three coin types not to overcrowd the UI: the Lyrg, a copper coin; the Bross, a silver coin; and Draka, a rare and very valuable golden coin. These are all coins that are used fairly often in large-scale commerce on the continent, and they are also fairly easy to identify as the copper-silver-gold trio of currency is fairly common in historical and fantasy settings.

There were a number of project milestones that we managed to unlock recently over at fig. Some of these are quite big and we are very excited to be able to work on them as they make the game better and deeper by what they bring to the table. Let's take a quick look at what is being developed currently:

Scorpions of all sizes, colors, and features plague the arid wastelands of the central continent of Xeryn, and most travelers are quite used to their presence and to the threat they may present. However, nobody is used to the presence of a Stinger Scorpion, this hulking yet frighteningly fast monster that hunts beasts and men during the cool night hours. Unfortunate souls may learn that while these solitary scorpions are inert during the day when they are buried under the sands, they are far from being safe around, as they can awaken with a sudden and fatal rage. There is a cunning viciousness about them that makes them far more than simply a large animal.

One of the last big additions to Vagrus' Open World Campaign that is now coming very close to being released is the character creation sequence at the start of the game. That is the feature that allows you to customize and set up your own vagrus by selecting a variety of options in subsequent steps. To give a quick idea of the many amazing options, here's a little rundown: