'I heard that your son's birthday was late last moon. What did he get from you, my friend?'

'An army of his own. It is time for him to become a man and begin his own hegemony.'

- A conversation between the Trade Princes Tufael Rashad and Faisal Khamravi

Handjari are a caste in Tarkian society that has its power base in their great cities, wealth accumulated from trade, and ties to the priesthood of Inubis, the moon- and night-god of that desert realm. Professional soldiers organized into armies and warbands that were raised, trained, and employed by the Trade Princes are also called Handjari. These warriors are famous for being organized but also being able to take the initiative by themselves - specialist in skirmishing, light cavalry, and archery. Because of the close ties between the Empire and the Handjari Trade Princes, these soldiers can often be found attached to Imperial legions or garrisons.

The Sharduk are a savage, cruel, and opportunistic people who are notorious for raiding all the more civilized lands bordering their vast, barren territory, the Great Eastern Desert. When designing these tribal marauders, we went for a versatile damage-dealer enemy type that - when left unchecked - can work itself up to a huge threat.

The latest content update (Patch 0.5.30 Codename: Brimstone and Bones) brings with it a spacious region to explore, the most prominent part of which are the Smolderbone Flats. Players who took the 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland' standalone story for a spin surely recognize this place, as it was an important location in that story. And yet you will find that much has changed since your last visit, with 10 years passing, allegiances shifting, and new threats rising.

Ash rangers are people of the Forlorn Waste, a vast desert of grey silt and ash that most denizens of the continent consider uninhabitable. This ranger is ready to prove them wrong and to sink a barbed spear carved from Quru shell into his prey.

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'If they catch you, they will kill you this time. Or worse, sell you to the slavers of Ash.'

- Ecra to fellow household slave Fabo, upon hearing his plan of escape

As many Imperial citizens would tell you, Ash is truly the ass-end of the Empire, even though there are more remote or less inhabited regions out there over terra supra. And yet most agree that this border town is worse off than most others, or at least that it is among the most unpleasant places you can visit. Its location is rather unfortunate: the Wayward Ash that surrounds it is a desert of lifeless grey silt, tormented by ashen storms all too often. On the other hand, Ash has become the greatest slave market town north of the Sepis Mountains, in part because its surroundings discourage escape, and also because of its remoteness as well as closeness to regions loosely controlled by the Empire; regions where the slavers that converge here can gather their unfortunate inventory. And even though there are many more large slave markets in the Empire, none of them is considered as cruel and soulless as this one.

The province of Tark was formerly a sovereign country conquered and assimilated into the Empire. It has always been a region of vast deserts and arid mountains. Its people are a hardy folk who were already adapted to a life in barren lands, which allowed them to easily adapt to the many new deserts on the continent after the Calamity. Thus, a lot of them are natural explorers and traders - but quite a lot of them are mercenaries.

'Ah, Larnak, the city of contradictions. It sits in the middle of the hottest, driest desert of the continent and yet you could not find a more damp and dark place. The reason is, of course, the presence of the vast underground lakes around which the settlement was built. The waters are sacred to the desert-dwelling Sadirar tribes and yet these days the Imperials use them as industrial ponds to grow their precious brightkelp. But that is not the strangest thing to see in Larnak, oh no. For that reason, take in its wonders but tread lightly, good master.'

The vagrus's ability to change the type of beasts their comitatus uses has been planned to be added to the game from the beginning but it had to wait until now for a couple of reasons. The first being that there were a number of other, more important, things to be added before and also because changing between two types only would have been a bit lackluster, but the third type was locked behind content that we got around to just now (and will be available with the addition of Larnak).

The Assassin enemy in Vagrus is a version of the Handjari Assassins of Tark, sharing skills and a general appearance of a masked, sneaky killer. Yet their looks are less culturally specific than their Tarkian brethren and this was the goal with their character art so that they can fit easier into the many combat encounters where mercenaries or henchmen are found, complementing their combat effectiveness with their deadly toys.

'We may have lost the Krawags but by then the sun was high up in the desert sky and scorched the survivors relentlessly. My comrades fell one by one and we were so weak and thirsty that we just left them behind to die on the scalding sands. Only a handful of us reached those accursed ruins. One of the men recalled having seen the stone walls and broken arches on our march towards Dragmolac. We dragged ourselves atop another dune and there they were below us, like a jumble of rotten teeth sticking out of sick gums. But we still rejoiced upon seeing them because they had cover and shade; and that shade proved to be our undoing.