'...came from the farthest reaches of the vast expanse of Arenas Vorax and upon their defeat at the hands of Imperial forces - aided by the Sadirar tribes and the Dark Elves of Katundar - they retreated into that unknowable land of voracious sands, never to be seen again.'

- Excerpt from the Imperial Chronicles Volume XII

Crew Combat is the most common way you will handle violent conflicts as you roam the wastelands of the Riven Realms. We wanted to give you a rundown of the basic concepts here so that those interested might find some insights.

Disposition

Each Crew Combat encounter identifies the two sides as either the Attacker or the Defender. The player's comitatus can typically be the attacker when they raid small settlements or prey upon other travelers, while they are often found as the defender when getting accosted by monsters, outlaws, or worse.

I'd sooner go walking in Maar Gorad.

- A common saying in terra supra, meaning 'not a chance'

Not all regions of the northern part of the continent are deserts or arid wasteland, even though those are the most recognizable features as well as the most numerous. One region stands out with its wet, humid atmosphere and its moors that are almost impossible to navigate: Maar Gorad, the Unforgiving Swamp.

• 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.

We are super excited to share some of our progress as we are getting closer and closer to releasing the build that has the new trade pricing system feature.

This short video demonstrates how the comitatus carries goods from one market to the other trying to make some profit. The quantity and price of goods are calculated based on their source location and the time spent on the road to get to a certain place. Will your comitatus be able to transport them quicker than the market flow to realize a profit? 

Ever since we came up with the idea of Vagrus, a game where you manage a comitatus, we knew we needed to develop an elaborate, dynamic trade system that would serve as one of the major features of the game and would also aid in fleshing out a living world.

Basic Premises 

While trading was always to be one of the main sources of income for the player, we also wanted to avoid creating a pure trading simulator game. It's not that those are not fun for the right people - stories about Gabor dominating the Auction House on our server in World of Warcraft for a period of time still surface in conversations among friends - but because our strengths lie elsewhere. Our unique setting, The Riven Realms, and telling stories with memorable characters was the first and foremost motivation to create Vagrus, so it was also much more likely to excel in that rather than in a simulation - which we knew relatively little of.

As we are getting closer and closer to releasing the first playable build of the main campaign of Vagrus, it is perhaps a good time to talk a bit about the differences between the open world campaign and 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland'. The focus of this is going to be narrative design and stories but there are going to be implications on gameplay as well.

'Ever been to Salum, mate? Mighty odd place I tell ya. Them Ratharnak mooks claim to have struck gold with the salt but the operation looks pretty shitty if ye ask me. Perhaps they literally struck gold instead, eh?'

- The musings of the vagabond called Shakub over an ale, shortly before his disappearance

There are many quarries in the middle regions of the Empire, which consists of territories relatively rich in useful resources: stone, marble, crystal, and obsidian. Three of the sites stand out and will be locations in the game:

The Acherus Quarry is the largest and oldest one in the whole region. It was established before the Orc Wars when the armies of the Empire were in dire need of obsidian for the war effort. Since then, Acherus has run dry and only provides little of the black, glassy material every year. It is overseen by House Darius.

What a Great Start!

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.