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.

It’s not often that a post introduces two important, named characters, but today is one such day, since both Kharandar and Dralla will be integral figures in our coming expansion.

First off, there’s Kharandar – a man of action and intent. A stalwart, even noble, leader. He is the one who speaks in the expansion’s trailer. Those who follow him trust his decisions and instincts above all others. They know that when push comes to shove, Kharandar will be there, calling the shots for everyone’s benefit.

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.

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.

As the day’s heat settles over the deserts and arid wastelands of Xeryn, travel becomes even more treacherous. In Vagrus, several game systems represent or contextualize this – Vigor loss, Movement Point costs (that include difficulty from “climate”), and even Events that deal with the hardships or challenges presented by scorching weather. In our upcoming At the Heart of Ruin expansion, the heat will be turned up even more. The Mountains of Fire might not be beaten by the cruel sun all day due to the blanket of ash obscuring the skies, but volcanic activities take care of raising temperatures to even greater extremes.

Patch 1.2100717/21 Codename: Dead Weight(less)

Performance Improvements

• We optimized the sizes of several art assets, resulting in smaller install size and a bit quicker load times.
• Slight Companion Combat performance improvement against certain enemies

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a rare issue that caused summoned/spawned Companion Combat entities to remain permanently in your comitatus (no more parasitic Deadweight!).
• Fixed an issue that caused Equipment drag&drop to drag the wrong piece of Equipment.
• Fixed an issue that misaligned Gear icons with names in their list on the Character Sheet.
• Fixed an issue that prevented loading save files in Dissonance mode.
• General controller-related improvements based on your Discord feedback.

As ever, more is coming, so stay tuned, and conquer the wasteland!

This week we’re coming to you with another teaser, this time of the elemental variety. As you might know, the elements, specifically fire and earth, are closely tied to our At the Heart of Ruin expansion, and the proliferation of elementals that personify these elements comes about largely because of the spirits of these lands, destined to suffer and be consumed by rage. This is the sad legacy of the Calamity.

Hey everyone,

While work on the upcoming DLC (or rather, expansion: At the Heart of Ruin) is ongoing, the team at Lost Pilgrims is also busy fixing bugs and adding performance improvements. This patch includes several of both, with some added love to controller support. We’ve also thoroughly optimized our asset handling, freeing up a whopping 1.5 Gigabytes of hard drive space.

In the northwestern reaches of Varnurud, a monument to Dwarven splendor rises from a stone platform, a vestige of ruined Dvendar Tharr – its immense size and state of preservation are testaments to the craftsmanship and skillful architecture of the ancient Dwarves of the faded kingdom.

Though none who dwell in these forsaken lands now know its origin, some theorize that the statue was erected to honor a thane or king whose name was lost to time in the millennium since the Calamity. As for its name, “the Hollow King”, it is unknown if it is a metaphor for the king that once was or simply a descriptor; indeed, its interior has been hollowed out and the cavernous gullets that bore inside the mountain from its base share the characterization.

Vagrus’s At the Heart of Ruin expansion introduces many new enemies – both bestial and humanoid – and this week we’re happy to bring you one particular favorite: the Charred Shambler. These scorching Undead can be found almost anywhere in the confines of old Dvendar Tharr. When the Calamity tore the Mountains of Fire asunder, Dwarves perished by the thousands, a lot of them warriors. Later, the twisted magic that bore down on these lands reanimated their remains so that those would walk the world again and lash out toward the living. Charred Shamblers are thus destined to roam the mountains, taking their rage out on any who chance their domain. To call them predatory would be an understatement.