The Forest of Shadows is a vast expanse of tangled trees that extends across the western side of the Penumbral Plains, covering the feet of the abandoned mountain range that rises high and stands mighty over the benighted lands. Many theorize that this woodland and the Dead Forest were once united; a tale the proof of which is lost to the annals of time. Old stories circulate about the Forest of Shadows enduring the wrath of the Calamity and its fallout, only to succumb to the enigmatic arachnids that now plague its shadowy expanse. The creatures killed everything there and built their nest in the forest, covering it with their webs so thickly that not even light itself could penetrate them.

Hey everyone,

With the announcement of Vagrus’s first expansion behind us, we thought that it’d be a good idea to create a short series of devlogs about certain frequently appearing topics regarding Sunfire and Moonshadow. The first of these – the one you’re reading – is about the region itself and its boundaries, with some lore tidbits sprinkled in. So, let’s get to it!

Not quite a location per se, more of an occurrence everybody tries to avoid, a change storm is a special kind of arcane storm. Striking out of nowhere, often without any prior warning signs, it rains malicious energies upon anyone unfortunate enough to be caught up in it. Change storms are known to twist forms and change substance. They are known to alter living creatures and inanimate objects alike. Such a storm refracts, warps, reshapes, mutates, and changes everything and everyone it touches in the most disconcerting, morbid, and repulsive ways fathomable. The effects of a change storms are a perverse violation of all anatomical structures – and the changes may very well be permanent. Therefore, change storms must be avoided at all costs, or, one caught up in it has to muster all sorcerous defenses at their disposal to get out unaffected.

In Part I., we discussed upcoming changes that are not combat-related for the most part, so in this one we'll focus on updates to combat, as well as changes we've made to the Log.

Game Log Changes

We've felt for a while now that despite providing important information, the game log is not as informative as we would like it to be. And so we took our tools to it to give it a nice facelift and rework.

The artbook of Vagrus is finally here (well, technically it is also on its way to everyone who ordered it) and holding it in our hands is indeed fantastic.

Admittedly, putting the book together was quite rough. Some of us thought that pulling it together from already existing artwork and writing texts around the art is going to take a couple of weeks. Turns out, compiling and writing something this big for physical publishing takes a handful of months, more like. All this in spite of doing a sort of a dry run previously with the smaller (A5) art booklet that went into the Collectors' Editions, albeit that had no texts accompanying the images. 

This week’s devblog is all about the plethora of quests being added to Vagrus with the full launch on October 5th. The update will include a revamped UI, a new companion to recruit, and plenty of quests to find on your journies across the wastelands. Let’s take a look at what’s coming!

Revamped User Interface and Extended Campaign Map

'You have taken our herd-brother captive, two-legs. Now you either trade him back to us or face the wrath of my tribe. I would think twice before you answer. When irked, we are not unlike Kal-dai-Ruhk, Great Spirit of the Eternal Wastes, when he summons his calamitous gales to wipe away whole cities.'

- The Kal-rish traveling merchant Ku-ro-Rath bargaining for his kin's life with a soon-to-be destroyed outpost's magistrate

By 'alternative Wyrms' we do not refer to a group of odd subculture, but a series of new enemies that are coming to ruin your day! These Sand Wyrm variants share the general look of the basic creature with slight modifications (and in some cases, differences in size). The reason for this diversification is that the long, high-end storyline involving them we are working on called for more and more varied enemies to make fights interesting and keep players on their toes.

'While looking into the etymology of these remarkable, albeit quite belligerent, creatures, I was surprised to learn that not only does the Draconic tongue attribute a negative connotation to the base 'Ifrean' but also does so for some ancient, undisclosed reason that most contemporary speakers of the language do not know about. What or who this 'Ifrean' was to cast such a long shadow is something we will probably never know unless the Dragonlords themselves reveal the knowledge to me. However, it seems that the bad reputation of these reptiles is acknowledged even in the naming of their kind.'

Hey Folks,

we have been a bit busy. Sorry about that! Now we are coming back big time with a patch that is a culmination of all the changes we have made on the main game over the course of the last nine months.

COVID did not help matters for us but overall, we are happy with our progress thus far. Read more about how 2020 went for us in our blog post here: 2020 Year-End Summary.