We are extremely proud and happy to announce that our core team grew with a brilliant graphic designer, Szonja. We have been looking for a character artist for quite some time to ramp up our progress on that front and Szonja proved herself to be the best fit by miles with her unique style and open-mindedness.

Her main task is to bring our hero and enemy characters to life and help us with shaping the user interface as we enter Pre-Alpha stage with more parts of the game added each day.

We have a marvelous journey ahead and could not imagine any better traveling companion than Szonja. Welcome aboard!

Called the Desert of Black Sands, or the Black Desert (Arenas Negrasin the Imperial language), this vast, empty desert that has fine, black sand instead of any other color is probably one of the most ill-reputed places of the post-Calamity era. Nothing lives here, not even insects. The silence is deafening. People who enter the desert and stay for a while usually inexplicably disappear. In the center of the area is a terrible place, supposedly the source of all evil in the region: The City of the Dead, Arx Mortis.

Formerly the capital of the Sanvorati province and previously known as the Shining City, Calderum was made into its own horrible caricature by the Calamity. These days, Arx Mortis is a dead place filled with eerie moaning and groans, cast in perpetual twilight, beset by bone-chilling cold and a pale, frigid light emanating from the faded rocks that are almost all that remain from the once beautiful buildings and walls. Now these stand vacant and hollow, often reminding visitors of broken teeth peeking out of black gums.

Hey guys, we've got another location artwork here for you, and a little backstory to match it:

Before the Calamity, Dvendar Tharr was the homeland of all Dwarves on the continent, a kingdom unmatched in technological advancements, inventions, and inventive ambition. One of the most ancient of Dwarven royal lines, the kings of Dvendar Tharr were sympathetic to humans and aided them from as early as the Second Age. The Inventor Kings showed early Imperials the art of metalworking and stonemasonry, helped build their cities, and taught them the art of mining. Dvendar Tharr itself was abundant with metal and precious stones, so much so that in their arrogance, the Inventor Kings of the Third Age forgot the wise ways of their forefathers and started rebuilding their massive stone fortresses and arching bridges purely from iron. 

Sedarias posed mightily on the Patreon high-resolution wallpaper reward back in January 2018. Now it is time unveil him to the public. Enjoy!

Meet Sedarias, one of the characters who can join your travelling company in the game. He is an Imperial human serving the Ordis Negras Solis (the Order of the Black Sun). Sedarias was knighted after a period of squire service under an infamous knight Konarius. Knights of the Black Sun worship Sergorod, God of Malevolence and Vengeance, and Ahskul, God of Death. The Order itself was created to bring the two clergies of these competing new gods closer in cooperation for the good of the Empire. Having been around for over 600 years, Ordis Negras Solis is the first and most powerful of the Imperial knightly orders. Its members are picked from the best soldiers, nobles, and warriors of the Empire.

Well, we have been so busy that we skipped a beat in our originally planned monthly project updates. Which is actually good news if we are looking at it from a progress perspective. So what has happened since last year?

After returning recharged (and pot-bellied) from the holiday period we focused our attention on two things: 

• Creating additional graphic design capacity by finding more super-talented and like-minded artists to create environment and character art assets for us.
• Prototyping our hero combat to test its mechanics both in terms of graphics and game design.

The obvious intent behind choosing those focus areas was that we wanted to show more to our follower community on how the game is going to look like as well as display some of the game mechanics we're planning on using.

Wow! We have not even released our first post and got some Patrons already. Thank you for jumping aboard so quickly! 

It means a lot to us to know that there are others out there sharing our vision and trusting us delivering upon it. 

So why have we started all this? Quitting our day jobs and jumping head on into indie game development?

Well, we could say it was destined, all roads leading to this point. Maybe. Or maybe it was just blind luck dealing us a good hand and we were -  finally - bold enough to say: 'All in!'