'This place is death.'
- Thula, apprentice shaman, upon entering the Writhing Oasis for the first time
Even among an abundance of amazing artwork pieces that we are lucky to have in Vagrus, the one depicting the weird and disgustingly beautiful Writhing Oasis is an exceptional one. Anyone who has seen the art of Péter Kovács, our amazing location painter, will know that he is quite at home when it comes to working on dark, haunting, or corrupted landscapes, while biological abominations are especially dear to his heart. Entrusting him with the Writhing Oasis - a cursed grove around a tainted pond that grew together to create a single deadly organism - was a no-brainer, and the result speaks for itself. I love all the little details and the strong call-back to Warhammer artwork.
Tahrar Barak, or the "Grim Plains", is a volcanic highlands region surrounding the Molten Tongue. To the west, it reaches the Molten Kingdom of Dvendar Tharr, while to the east, west, and north it gives way to the less jagged but still excruciatingly hot Searing Plains. Clefts in the slag and hard earthen crust run dozens of miles in all directions, creating a hard-to-navigate spiderweb of ravines that most travelers shun.
Should the darkness cruelly whisper,
Call upon a kindly sister
Sister, sister, blood drops glister
Revoke now your cruel dark whisper
- From an Imperial children's rhyme
Kindly Sisters are members of the Nosferatis Sisterhood, a coven of mystics and sorceresses who delve into the deepest, darkest arcane secrets one can think of. The organization is one of the Pillars of the Empire, a religious order that serves the realms in an important capacity, although in the case of the Nosferatis, most Imperials have no idea what this service entails - except that it is most ominous. The wise seem to believe that it involves espionage, magical warfare, and arcane research. Members of the coven worship Bal-Ur-Kaal the Demon Prince and Ahskul, King of the Underworld, which is quite telling in and of itself.
Day 26 - Disaster struck today. We were making good progress up until last night. The Plains of Bone are a desolate place if I've ever seen one but at least we've got to some of the richer ivory piles. No Scortaur in sight as of yet, which is a boon already. As it was getting darker yesterday, we could see something large over the horizon, like a dark hill - something very uncharacteristic of this flat, empty expanse. But due to the worsening dust and wind we could not make out what it was and struck camp before night fell.
Lost Pilgrims had an AMA session over on discord where players asked us questions about the game and the studio alike. We had a great time talking to people and decided to compile the questions and answers into a single AMA article for posterity. We also added some very frequently asked questions to the beginning that players or those looking up information on the game might find informative.
Just in a few days from launching the public phase of our campaign we have passed two additional milestones: Scouting and Trade Systems.
Thank you so much to all our Backers and supporters on social media! This would not have been possible without you!
So, let's take count of where we are and what comes next.
#fig #projectupdate #development #team #crewcombat #milestone #crowdfunding
Most fantasy adventures have an inn or two but in our case - in a game where you lead a caravan and its crew on all kinds of journeys - taverns and inns are vital and appear in almost every sizeable settlement.
The artwork you can see, the versions of which will serve as a backdrop for such watering holes in Vagrus, was painted by the amazing Péter Kovács. The image perfectly captures the alien feel of the world, the dark and hard fantasy elements, as well as the relatively peaceful atmosphere of an inn.
Time to reveal a new character today: the Mercenary.
One of the mercenary characters in the game, this lass is a melee expert in combat and a tough customer to boot. Players will come across her in the Prologue as a friendly NPC, but later on she can be encountered more frequently as a mercenary enemy. Apart from her axe, she wields a whip to great effect. Her painted leather armor is light but sturdy.
From the very first moment in art design and development for Vagrus, we knew that the game world's haunting, post-apocalyptic beauty is key to conveying the atmosphere we want to create. Of course, that may not be saying much, since most games today rely heavily on visuals, it comes with the genre. More specifically, the challenge was to convey the right kind of atmosphere and find the art style that is perfect for that. We agreed soon that cartoon-like or pixel art would not do, nor would any other more stylized imagery. We settled upon the more realistic, but painting-like look, which gives a feeling almost akin to observing an old and faded piece of classical art. The other challenge was that the world of Vagrus has been a living and detailed environment for a long time now, so often our fantastically talented artists have to follow very specific directions on certain elements of an image.