Another non-human character joins our cast, this time a Dwarf! Dwarves are typically lonely, cranky, calculating fellows in the Riven Realms. Their homeland was utterly decimated in the Calamity and has remained uninhabitable ever since. All the magnificent achievements, inventions, and treasures of the mighty Dwarven kingdom went up in flames when it was engulfed in a volcanic cataclysm. And because the volcanoes are still very much active, there is little hope of reclaiming anything from the ruins. Most Dwarves were killed during the Calamity and today, only several thousand remain. For all intents and purposes, they are a dead race.

In Part 3 of our Character Design series, we discussed how a character concept gets to its final artwork state that is placed into the game. In this last part we'll talk about how characters are given stats, skills, and roles in game, especially in combat.

Vagrus has turn-based combat because we wanted to capture the tabletop RPG atmosphere and flow we know so well. It is also a fantasy game which comes with a few expectations of what roles characters fulfill in a party of adventurers. The similarities to DnD and other roleplaygames can surely be seen when observing combat and related character stats. It was along these lines that we designed our heroes (even though few of them are actually heroic) and enemies.

The reveal of our next character marks an important moment in artwork development: Renkailon is the first character who's not going to appear in the Prologue and thus is exclusively created for the main game.

In the last part of our character design series, we talked about what goes into conceptualizing and designing characters and touched upon how Bazsó came up with distinct the art style for characters and how Szonja raised the bar when working with the majority of them.

Now it's time to discuss what actually happens after the initial phase of concepts and moodboards. Mind you, this will probably have information that is well-known by any graphic designers who work on 2D character art; yet others may find it intriguing.

As we've previously hinted at, parts of the game Vagrus has a narrator in the person of Agos the wanderer. An older man and a vagabond, Agos stumbles upon the player one evening on the road and begins telling stories of his travels (if you let him, that is). One such story is the Prologue that you can play through to be introduced to the world and gameplay at the same time, essentially playing through the story Agos is telling.

In Character design - Part 1 we talked about the types of characters in Vagrus, focusing especially on Companions and their roles in the game. Now it's time to move onto the topic of what exactly goes into the graphic design phase of these characters.

Hey everyone, let's talk combat. So based on the initial feedback and testing of the Companion combat, we have decided to revamp quite a lot of it. The process is still not fully complete, but you can already see the improvement on the images in the post.

The new enemy character (that can also be an ally sometimes) you can see above is the tribal warrior of the Sadirar. These brave people are trackers, hunters, desert guides, and of course, capable fighters. Their only weapon is a spear, so in combat against tough opponents, they prefer to have superior numbers or support from their elemental shamans; or both.

There's been a lot of character reveals for Vagrus - The Riven Realms here on our website and on our social media since we began posting about a year ago. We figured it behooves us to talk a little more about who these characters are and what their role is in the game.

The vast majority of the characters you see revealed are enemy characters, even if sometimes they can be allies in the game for short periods of time (or versions of them, anyways). Although Events will involve these enemy characters often, you will mainly see them as shown in the artwork in turn-based combat. All of them have their unique combat skills and synergies with other enemies.

The next character to be revealed is another enemy, although this one can often be encountered as a temporary ally as well: the elemental shaman of the Sadirar people.

The ancestors of the Sadirar survived the Calamity in underground vaults and left those several generations after the catastrophe. Upon going back to the surface, they found endless sand dunes, blinding sunlight, and searing temperatures in place of their dense forests and hills. In their hour of despair, however, the Great Spirits spoke to them and guided them to oases in the cruel desert. These spirits have been worshiped by the Sadirar ever since. Each spirit is the embodiment of an element: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. Those that communicate with the Great Spirits and in turn command these elements are the shamans. The Sadirar are now a nomadic people who thrive in the deserts called the Searing Plains. They rose above cruel barbarism through spirit worship but are far from docile.