This week's enemy breakdown post takes a look at he Dark Elf Marauder/Mercenary, one of the newer enemies added to the game. Let's dive in!

As we have previously discussed, these Dark Elven warriors either fight in lockstep formations in their Prince's armies, maraud on the surface at their lord's behest, or serve as mercenaries in the Riven Realms (mercenary variant).

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.

Hey everyone, a quick recap of the patch/fix that went live during the weekend can be found here. Hopefully, the more egregious errors have been squashed, now onto the smaller ones as well as the upcoming content development before the year closes out. :)

New/Updated Features:  

• Exploit leadership perk enabled. Use RF to reroll available Trade Tasks  
• Objective area markers for certain events where you need to scout a larger area [like bounties] so you know, at least roughly, the location  
• Goods category filters on the Market  
• Specify quantity button on the Market - mainly for Steam Remote Play users playing on iPads  
• Goods pilfered by the enemy can be taken back if you destroy them in Crew Combat  - Entering major settlements with a larger armed force now requires a license  
• Vagrus now runs in the background

Bug Fixes:

Hey everyone,

today, we are happy to share the changes we squeezed into this new update! Better yet, we have included two additional features that we managed to implement on top of our initial plans.

A quick recap of what we have added (skip ahead to see the bonus additions):

'Disgusting little runts. Eaters of the dead. Pale vermin. I hereby vow to do all in my power to push them out of your neighborhoods and businesses, to bar them from decent citizens of the Empire, and in the end perhaps even rid this city of their filth altogether.'

- Tribune Septimus Votano of Deven in a speech about Wraiths during his campaign for office

'How hasty you are to point out that my people owe allegiance to your Senator. But your petty strife and pitiful intrigues bore us, Imperial, and our allegiance is merely ink on paper, not invoked by blood. We never shared battle, nor feasts, nor kinship. The Senator thought to purchase us with that crude contract but we are Moreldin, descendants of Caladnir Aen Daglunath and the great heroes of the Second Age, the victors of the Forgeheart Massacre, the defenders of the Kavraenar Ziggurath, and scions of Dread Skar'Voran. My kin owes nothing to yours save for the silver already paid as per your sorry little contract. Tell this to your Senator.'

One of the most requested additions by our Early Access players has been Companion progression for a while now, and it's no surprise. Being a party-based RPG at its heart, Vagrus has a roster of unique Companions that are your most trusty lieutenants with their own backstories, skills, and personalities. It is only natural that they can become stronger with time and effort - and we have naturally designed this progression system in the beginning, but we held off on adding it because there were a lot of specifics to work out and the EA experience functioned fairly well without it.

Hey everyone,

and first of all let us thank all of you who shared their views regarding our planned priorities. We took that to heart and worked tirelessly to implement Companion Progression, which includes raising the Prowess cap from two to five, introducing Companion-specific traits that increase stats, and much more.

Specters are malevolent ghosts of the dead that often haunt the forsaken, magically-warped places of the Riven Realms. They are dreaded by most denizens of Xeryn because their ethereal forms are impervious to most damage types and though magic is more abundant than in other settings, it is still beyond the reach of most.

'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.