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.

The teaser this week is somewhat of a continuation of an earlier post, where we brought the Earth Elemental to you, explaining that a key aspect of its design included not just anger, but a range of human emotions felt and experienced by the cursed, suffering spirits that manifest them.

In many ways, the Fire Elemental is no different. Similarly, it is a host to restless spirits, yet in contrast, that spirit is perhaps more enraged than broken. The diverse denizens of Varnurud testify that the two elementals are different in that their anger is represented in disparate ways; the Earth Elemental holds a deep grudge and sadness, while the Fire Elemental manifests a furious rage.

What makes a great set of stairs, you might ask? Well, that’s a tough question, we say. In our At the Heart of Ruin expansion, there are many sets of great stairs, but only one is called the Great Stairs – at least that’s what the locals would say. Whether those locals are bloodletting miscreants who worship an unknown entity that demands depraved sacrifice, madmen who delight in the act of burning themselves and others alive, or men who believe themselves to be beasts after discovering a dead Wyvern that they thought was a divine creature of the skies, that’s what they would say. There are other… more cultured locals, of course – even ones that’ll talk to you – but they each share a different brand of insanity. Enjoy, we say.