Beasts of burden and mounts that a comitatus uses are large animals. They are the lifeblood of a traveling company, carrying people, cargo, and supplies on long journeys through desolate wastelands. Sometimes, however, they can literally become sustenance - in cases when you run out of supplies or when there are not enough workers to tend to them. Still, these creatures are usually very valuable but sometimes butchering them can be the difference between life and death.

• Milestone 3 - Extended Narration Voice Over for Agos
• Milestone 7 - Character Idle Animations in Companion Combat
• Milestone 8 - Enduring Effects (it means curses, of course)
• Milestone 9 - Random Passengers, and
• Milestone 12 - Workforce Mechanics (partially).

The have been or will be game design posts about all but one: narration so let's focus on that for a second.

New Content: Extended Narration
It has taken much longer than expected to reach Charles - the voice of Agos the Wanderer - due to some personal matters as well as his change of career. We are happy to share that now we have all the narration recorded for Agos through-out Pilgrims of the Wasteland, and even for the beginning of the main game as he leaves your comitatus after sharing his story. We plan to make a few minor sound editing changes to these new recordings but wanted to delay this build no further, so we will do that in a subsequent iteration only. When playing the PotW story, it gives so much to it already that we think you will like this a lot. Also, here's a shout-out for Charles' new focus as he instructs singers on how to become more confident. Check out and sign up to support his Patreon page if you are interested.

The Krawag - draconic reptiles bred to be hunter-killers or guard animals - are easily among the most dangerous enemies in Vagrus. Some of them go rogue and live the solitary life of an apex predator in the cruel wilderness of the Riven Realms, giving vagri like you trouble; others are captured and sent into arenas for entertainment; while still others roam the land in the service of the Dragonlands and its armies.

'That thing hunted them. Relentlessly. Worse than any predator they had seen before, it hounded their steps through the forest called Smuggler's Cloak by the commoners. Yet no cloak proved to be enough to hide them from those horrible reptilian eyes. The creature was clever, too. It did not attack them but tracked them from a distance, waited until they were exhausted, harried, and desperate. And then it took them, one by one. The last wretched fellow gave himself up to the first patrol he stumbled across; better break rocks in prison for the rest of his life than fall prey to a Krawag.'

The greatest cause for mutations in the Riven Realms is a mysterious arcane disease that people call the Taint. There’s no telling how it spreads or why it attacks the ones it does; its workings have eluded medical science altogether. These days, every third human on the continent is Tainted. The Taint begins with a period of incubation when the victim falls gravely sick and suffers seizures and spells for days or weeks. About half of them perish during this interval.

Foul-mouthed, easy-going, hearty, and chatty, the creature now known as 'Vorax' (meaning 'ravenous' in Imperial) is an undead abomination who can become one of your companions. He woke up one day in this bloated unliving form with no memory whatsoever of who he was or what he had done to deserve this fate. Yet his will is free, unbound to dark magicians (a rarity for undead), so he decided not to worry about it and get about his new 'life' with great enthusiasm.

Have you met the kingpin Skornar in the Prologue? He's quite the colorful sort. Good news is: he'll make his return in the main game as a Companion you can recruit! Ten years older and much grumpier, the warrior has a serious grudge against those who ousted him from Avernum's criminal underworld. Yet his story arc will involve much more than that, with the central theme of coping with growing old - not an easy plight for a warrior and leader such as Skornar.

During the first wave of Alpha testing just recently, we've received a lot of useful feedback, especially on the UI (and Combat UI specifically). We've been keenly aware that these elements needed a rework and labored hard on improvements. We are happy to report on how far we've got:

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.

A lot of the Riven Realms are endless wastelands and deserts. Yet even in the deadliest of deserts, some life remains; thrives even. Most of that life tends to be found around an oasis.