Veles are agile, tough gladiators that move and bounce around with ease thanks to their light gear and excessive training. In their idle animation we made use of a wide stance with a raised shield, ideal for spear fighting.

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'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

Necromancy is the arcane art of manipulating life-force, allowing practitioners to communicate with the dead and animate Undead minions. In most of the Riven Realms, this school of magic is associated with the Priests of Ahskul - worshipers of the God of Death - and Necromancers. The majority of the latter either belong to the Church, too, or are otherwise licensed by the Empire. Thus in Vagrus, Necromancer enemies almost always strengthen Imperial rosters, although you can come across some rogue practitioners, too.

'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.

'Kindly Sister' is a euphemism that has become a colloquialism throughout the long and bloody centuries of the Fourth Age, denoting the common members of Nosferatis Sisterhood, a coven of furtive dark sorceresses and witches. The religious organization has secretive goals revolving around magical research but beyond that the Sisters support Imperial agenda all over the Realms.

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.'

The greatest thing about running open development is receiving amazing feedback from players that helps improving your game. The hardest thing about open development is identifying what the actual problem is that your players are having an issue with.

The perfect example of all this is Crew Combat in Vagrus, which is an aspect of the game that players complained about fairly regularly. After adding the Flee/Appease option, it got slightly better but not as much as we had hoped. While digging for the reasons, we came to some interesting realizations. Whenever we heard someone getting irked about how they bled out against a much stronger enemy, we asked whether they tried appeasing them and they pretty much all said "No, 'Flee' implied losing big time".

Veles gladiators are mobile, evasive fighters who are best at supporting the sturdy Murmillos in the arena, although they can dish out punishment surprisingly suddenly if the tide turns in their favor. Although they are not the most stalwart front line fighters, their high Block and Evade stats make them actually hard to defeat. That, coupled with their good Armor and their amazing Initiative, gives them enough opportunities to control the flow of battle. Their Skills are not amazing, but dependable, with the kick being able to upset enemy lines and create opportunities for lethal attacks:

Companion Combat is an important facet of Vagrus even though players have quite a lot of control over how much they want to engage in it. At the same time, it is the most complex part of the game when it comes to code, so whatever changes we make requires more time relative to other parts.

After we added Mercenary Tasks, our focus has moved back to improving Companion Combat, partly because a lot of players opt to enter it from Crew Combat, so it is our goal to keep these fights interesting for as long as possible. The current set of changes are thus aimed at spicing things up a bit: more movement and thus further emphasis on positioning instead of spamming Skill 1 while standing still. The changes include: