Another crucial game mechanic that is being added to Vagrus as we are writing this is a system of Rumors. Rumors are short entries in your Journal that are meant to guide players to content and unlock locations on their Chart in order to help them plan journeys and find places. We have come to the conclusion during playtesting that not only do we need to differentiate these Rumor entries from your Objectives in the Journal but we also need to separate them entirely and move them to a different pane. As evident from this, Rumors have undergone quite a lot of change since their original conception.

Have you met the kingpin Skornar in the Prologue? He's quite the colorful sort. Good news is: he'll make his return in the main game as a Companion you can recruit! Ten years older and much grumpier, the warrior has a serious grudge against those who ousted him from Avernum's criminal underworld. Yet his story arc will involve much more than that, with the central theme of coping with growing old - not an easy plight for a warrior and leader such as Skornar.

The wretched animated beings that plague the desolate Riven Realms have many names, even the general, rotting raised dead such as the ones on the image: shamblers, unliving, awakened, undead, corpsemen, and many more. Travelers who died on the road and came back as undead are typically referred to as 'Forsaken', however, and these unfortunate creatures are often drawn to living travelers, seeking to extinguish their lives at the command some unfathomable curse.

In the last part of the Combat Guide we took a look at defenses and their importance. This time, we'll delve into effects that involve movement or its restriction in one way or another. 

In the last part of the Combat Guide we took a look at Companion Actions, including moving, Skills, and their combinations. This time, we'll delve into defensive stats and their importance.

'They may be called the 'Children of the Calamity' but make no mistake, dominus. These terrible creatures are far from being child-like. When you see one, do not hesitate; they won't.'

In the previous part of our Companion Combat Guide (Part 1: The Basics) we left off at discussing the Leader's role in combat after outlining the basic rules of an engagement. In this part, we'll cover the actions that Companions can take during their turn.

The fellow you can see above is called Harvek, one of the potential Companions you can recruit for your comitatus in the game. As it is probably evident from the design, he is no hero. In fact, Harvek has spent a lot of time in the cruelest, most dangerous penitentiary institutions of the Empire. It may have been for crimes he did not commit but there was certainly enough on his plate to justify the imprisonment nonetheless. Having survived the ordeal, he's now out to find his place again. Harvek is Tainted, that is, a human who has mutated into a new form due to a mysterious arcane disease. These mutations make him an extremely dangerous foe but his real value comes from his contacts in the criminal underworld.

We at Lost Pilgrims will always remember 2018 as the year when it all began to come together, the year when everything changed for us. It was the year when development on Vagrus got out of the preparation phase and into hardcore production.

Now that this crucial year is done and over with, we felt it would behoove us to recount how 2018 went for those of you interested (and for posterity!).

In the final chapter in our Character Design series, we have touched upon how we come up with the stats and skills for the Companion characters and enemies in Vagrus. A great number of those stats come in to play in action, so in this new Companion combat series, we are going to walk you through how they work in the game. Let’s start at the basics!