Every once in a while in the debilitatingly hot locale that is Varnurud, the ground rumbles. Indeed, earthquakes are frequent to the point of becoming one of the most common sources of peril. But when the ground opens up, revealing an ancient Dwarven town, it’s really something special.

Gorge Town, the “creative” name the local scavengers have come to call it, represents one such special occasion, and today we’re eager to show it to you. It’s just one more place that you might find yourself delving into in our At the Heart of Ruin expansion via the new Exploration Encounters, and if you’re lucky, you can perhaps recover veritable treasures.

Another day, another step closer to At the Heart of Ruin’s release date, October 22. And of course, another teaser. Today’s fare showcases largely avoided territory deep beneath the ruined Dwarven city of Dum Garok. It is a territory where few tread and from which even fewer return.

In the leadup to the release of At the Heart of Ruin on the 22nd of October (accompanied by the Ruinous Supporter Pack), we’ve already talked about new mechanics and features, like the updated throw-out or Exploration Encounters, but we thought it’s also time to touch upon the narrative and graphic art side of things.

This week we’re keen to discuss one of the newest and most exciting features we’re adding to the upcoming expansion of Vagrus: Exploration Encounters.

How They Came To Be

While it would not be entirely truthful to say that the game’s development has always followed a carefully curated path, it is not exaggeration to mention that our imaginations have run boundless thanks to that, leading to a myriad of ideas and, occasionally, feature creep. We have, however, always felt that more Events to cover simpler matters – mining salt, random encounters, or procuring scrap, for example – would have a place in the game, even if their creation may not be the best use of our writers’ time.

After over a year of development, the time has finally come to reveal the release date of our most ambitious DLC as of yet: At the Heart of Ruin will arrive on the 22nd of October! Alongside the expansion, our Ruinous Supporter Pack will also be up for grabs from the same day.

Today’s location teaser is none other than the dark chasm of the Wound, a terrible place where travelers dare not go, and oft-times where nightmares are made manifest. True to its name, the gouge in the land glows with a conspicuous crimson light and its walls appear covered in blood or viscera. Travelers who have surveyed its length say it is more than fifteen miles long, the plunging chasm within its confines ranging between one hundred and two hundred yards in depth.

Another week, another location teaser for the upcoming expansion! This week we’re bringing you one that was already featured in our At the Heart of Ruin trailer: the Fallen Tower.

Deep below ground, inside caverns whose depths hide inky darkness, many arachnids make their home. This week bringing you a teaser of a particularly spindly kind – caverns beneath Varnurud the spiders call home. Some of you may have already encountered these web-spinners before. Both the Forest of Shadows and the Lands of Shadow – terror-inspiring locations from our Sunfire and Moonshadow expansion – are known for being their hunting grounds. And, as any of you who’ve encountered them will know, they’re hardly the kindest and most remorseful of opponents. In Varnurud, they avoid the hot, arid surface, preferring spaces where they can propagate in darkness.

Unsurprisingly, Varnurud is home to many settlements, fastnesses, and facilities once occupied by Dwarves and their Inventor Kings during the last centuries of the Third Age of the Riven Realms. Since mines were common, so too were satellite towns, of which Ember Town is one.

In the northern reaches of Varnurud, a cavern exists that is dedicated to the memory of a Dwarf and his life’s work. That Dwarf was called Kahrav, and in many ways, it was his deeds – and words, written as they sometimes were – that brought about the founding of the Sons of the Mountain, one of Varnurud’s most dominant and prolific gangs. Known for their veneration of a long-lost Dwarven legacy that they have laid claim to, the Sons have also painted their home to commemorate such Dwarves, perhaps fittingly. Although they may lack the… artistic direction to truly pull it off.