It's spring 1990 and I'm in elementary school. My best friend brings a book to school that he reads aloud to a small group of us during our big walks at lunch break. The book has a weird old wizard on the cover conjuring smoke from a crystal ball. More interesting are the illustrations on the inside: intricate black and white drawings of strange fantasy creatures and dungeon locations. The little book is Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson's Warlock of Firetop Mountain, translated to our native language. Most of you probably know that it's a gamebook that you do not read from start to end but in branching numbered chapters that make the story personal and add replayability. Yet they are much more than simple choose-your-own-adventure books because they include a stat and combat system you have to manage throughout the adventure - albeit a really simple one.

Here are some character poses for the Orc Marauder enemy to feast your eyes upon!

The Bruiser returns with some combat phases/poses! These are:

• Cheap Shot (top left): A melee hit that puts a severe debuff on the target. Also, ouch.
• Dodge (top right): Triggers when the Bruiser avoids an attack.
• Bull Rush (bottom left): The Bruiser rushes the target and pushes it back.
• Smack (bottom right): A melee attack against a single target.

The Bruiser is a basic frontline character in the outlaw roster. Though not armored or particularly good at avoiding damage, he is fairly tanky and is able to dish out a lot of pain as well as debuffs and other effects. It can be extremely effective in cooperation with the Brigand and the Slinger.

The time has come to show you the Main Menu of the game, which might not sound super-exciting at first, but with the title screen artwork in its background it's quite a beauty. I'd rather not waste words on the menu points, they speak for themselves.

Another character who plays a very important role in the Prologue, Javek is a young sorcerer who uses telepathic abilities. He is of Tarkian origin and because the Imperial province of Tark is based on early Persian and Turkish cultures from real life, Szonja designed Javek's appearance to match those in clothing and equipment.

Calm and easy-going, Javek's ability to pick up surface thoughts and glean motives can be very useful. He is also skilled at handling animals and beasts of burden. That skill is enhanced by his telepathic ability which works even better on animals. Does that remind you of someone? Hmmm. It makes you wonder, doesn't it? :)

It's time to share some combat images for the character 'Slinger' (more on him here: https://vagrus.com/news/character-artwork-slinger ).

It is finally time to look at the stats and systems related to the vagrus, that is, YOU, the player's character in the game (aka Leader). You can interact with the Leader UI screen (opened by clicking the leader's medallion in the bottom left) in order to manage said stats and improve your character.

This week's character reveal is the Orc Marauder. Orcs are popular fantasy characters with many different iterations since their addition to fiction by Tolkien. The Orcs of the Riven Realms are creatures prone to violence, sharing a mystical past and origin but they were created fairly recently. They are tribal in their homeland called Darkmoor but rarely travel in groups when far from it.

Here's another little character art post. This time, there are four combat poses/phases for the Priest of Sergorod.

Time for dynamic character combat poses again!

The Executor of Sergorod is in full swing on these images, courtesy of Szonja. The phases are (from left to right):

• Shattering Blow - and armor point reducing attack.
• Block - the Executor uses his shield to block attacks.
• Smashing Blow - a base attack against a single target.
• Idle - Exector stands idle.

More info on the Executor can be found in an older post: https://vagrus.com/news/character-artwork-executor