Vapourware Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen - Chaos Chronicles reborn and dead again

[Darth Roxor]

doesnt scale to your tavern

 

[Tigranes]

I find the scale of indoor areas very weird... look at this:

That tavern doesn't look functional in any way, and you can tell that you're never going to battle there. :/

Compare that with this alchemy shop, which is like 5 times bigger:

Do you know how expensive real estate is in backwatersville these days, geez

You're lucky there isn't a thriving migrant shantytown between the two houses

 

[FeelTheRads]

I drank in smaller places than that.

 

[Jimmious]

Yep there are taverns in real life that are smaller and "tighter" than that.
I actually like the fact that there's seems to be a tavern/inn in a game which is not a MAJOR HUB

 

[ghostdog]

Also it seems it's one of those kitchen-less taverns. The owner comes with a bag of salami each day, throws it on the tables and the patrons eat whatever they find on the table each given time, if they find anything. A good idea to eliminate cost from hiring cooks and renting a bigger place.

 

[Reinhardt]

A good idea to eliminate cost from hiring cooks and renting a bigger place.

But again - it's day and no one here but owner lit candles on tables. Why? Candles costs money.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

A good idea to eliminate cost from hiring cooks and renting a bigger place.

But again - it's day and no one here but owner lit candles on tables. Why? Candles costs money.

That's all the patrons get to reheat cold food, I guess.

 

[JarlFrank]

Does it have c&c?

Yes. We got some C&C planned for the main questlines, and I'm considering different approaches and outcomes for most of the quests I'm designing.

 

[JarlFrank]

A good idea to eliminate cost from hiring cooks and renting a bigger place.

But again - it's day and no one here but owner lit candles on tables. Why? Candles costs money.

That's all the patrons get to reheat cold food, I guess.

We have a very impressive food reheating system in the game. You can use candles or campfires to reheat your food and increase its tastiness stat (but it won't quite reach the level of tastiness that freshly cooked food has).

 

[JarlFrank]

I find the scale of indoor areas very weird... look at this:

That tavern doesn't look functional in any way, and you can tell that you're never going to battle there. :/

Compare that with this alchemy shop, which is like 5 times bigger:

This has been one of our first test maps with which we tested the capabilities of our editor. The final level design will be more refined. These screenshots are just showcases of what our assets look like and what kinds of places we can build. We're still in pre-alpha so nothing you see design-wise is final yet.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Can you talk more in depth about how you cook your 2d background? I remember how obshitian did it and I always thought they were doing it wrong. They placed all this stuff in Maya (which I imagine was already a very slow process considering the amount of geometry) and then left it to be rendered for the night, which took ~8 hours and often just crashed.

Also, post pics of your editor.

 

[Infinitron]

Accidental leak on the game's official forums: https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1061486689&postcount=65

Ohhhh… looking at the developer profiles on the offical forums reveals some "hidden" posts: https://www.realms-beyond.com/forum/…=showposts;u=1

Which leads to these hidden subforums:

https://www.realms-beyond.com/forum/…php?board=43.0
https://www.realms-beyond.com/forum/…php?board=40.0

The second one doesn't have any interesting content, but the first one is full of quest descriptions:

Spoiler

The Fake Relic

The player is tasked to switch out a powerful relic of an evil cult with a powerless prop that looks convincingly real, and almost perfect copy - and there was even a useless spell placed on it so it will appear magical to those who can detect magic. This way, a blow can be struck against the evil cult by robbing them of a power source, while they themselves will stay ignorant of that fact.

The player can solve this quest in several ways: sneak inside and switch it out while the cultists are sleeping. Disguise his party as cultists and switch it out while nobody is looking. Diguise only the best stealth or persuasion character, while the rest of the party distracts the cultists by conversation or other means while the disguised character switches out the item. A fight should be almost impossible, as the cultists can use the great power of the relic to hurt the party, but if the player is of a high level and well-prepared, he might have a chance to prevail against all odds. Killing everyone makes the relic-switch pointless though, since that cult presence is eradicated then, anyway…

Once the player has the relic, he can try to destroy it himself, turn it in to the questgiver who will then destroy it (or maybe keep it for himself? depends on trustworthiness of questgiver!), or lie to the questgiver that he destroyed it but actually keep it and use its powers for his own means!The Golden Flute/The Runaway Daughter

The daugher of an artifact collector ran off with a charming bard, and took an ancient golden flute with her. The father mistrusts the bard and wants the player to get his daughter back; the player will receive the ancient flute as payment.
The player gets a description of the bard and can ask about his whereabouts. When he comes to the town the bard was most recently seen in, the player can find out that the local tavernkeeper runs some illegal operations in his basement, and the bard has sold the girl to him as a pleasure slave. Finding out about this should be difficult, since this isn't information that people give out freely!
There are several ways for the player to deal with this situation: try to buy the girl back, try to free her by fighting the tavernkeeper and his guards, try to sneak her out the stealthy way, or just steal the flute from the girl… it is the reward her father had promised, so an evil party can just snatch it and leave the girl. Another possibility might be to report the illicit operations of the tavernkeeper - including the girl's slavery - to the authorities.
The tavernkepper will only let the player into the basement if he proves to be trustworthy, though. He wouldn't be running an illegal pleasure den for long if he let in everyone, would he? It should also be possible to find out about the illegal operations without having the quest to find the girl. Theoretically, the player could free her before getting the quest in the first place, which should lead her to ask the player to escort her back to her father's place.The Long-Dead King

The player finds the desiccated body of an ancient king buried in a throne room deep within a crypt. When he tries to loot the king's jewelry, his eyes will open and he will talk to the player, expressing relief that finally, after all those centuries, mortals have come to his resting place. The long time of loneliness and boredom have taken their toll on him, he explains, and he wants nothing more than the sweet release of death. He has forgotten most of his life after centuries of sitting on the same spot and staring at the same wall; he only remembers that a witch cursed his soul to be bound to his body forever, even when it has become rotten and useless. He asks the party to show him mercy by breaking the curse and allowing the sweet release of death to take him. His body is so rotten, he has not been able to move at all for a very long time.
When the player manages to remove the spell that binds him, he does not die though - it turns out he just fooled the player into releasing him! In truth, he is a powerful lich who has long ago been bound to this place by a benevolent sorceress with a powerful ritual. By breaking the spell, the player released him back into the world. Now the player can choose to fight him, or he can let him go and get terrible consequences for this in an ending slide (if we do ending slides).
If the character talking to the long-dead king has a high lore skill, and the player has read/been told/somehow heard of the story of the powerful lich and the sorceress, he can recognize the similarities of this long-dead king and the lich of legend and look past his bluff. If the player manages to look past the lich's bluff, he can refuse his request and get some XP, or he can demand a high price from the lich (something like sharing his power with the party) for freeing him when playing an evil party.


Updated and elaborated quest concept; started writing the initial dialogue when the player enters the lich's chamber.

Initially, he will try to trick the player into breaking his curse:
- he will pretend to be an innocent king cursed by an evil witch
- if the player says he's just here to loot the tomb, he'll tell the player that by graverobbing, he will become cursed too (which isn't true)

Breaking the curse will involve destroying or de-powering a magical anchor stone kept in a nearby room. The stone contains a short inscription that a learned character can decipher and translate. If the party has heard the ancient legend of a dangerous lich who was bound by a good sorceress or priest-queen, they can connect the name on that inscription to this legend and confront the lich about it.

When the party figures out his real identity and confronts him with it, he will readily admit that he wanted to trick them into helping him by making himself appear innocent. Then, he offers the players a reward if they decide to help him regardless of his background. He promises to tell them the location of his old laboratory, which likely still contains some treasures as thieves will find it impossible to enter: not only is it hidden in a remote location, it's also magically locked and nobody can enter unless they know the magic word to unlock the door. With some persuasion, the players can get him to tell them the location so they can check whether his claims are true, but he will only give them the password once they have broken his curse.

The player can, of course, also interrogate the lich about what he plans to do once he's set free. Since his power has weakened over the centuries, he will stay away from civilization for a while, rebuild his power and make plans for reconquering the land he once ruled. He'll make no secret of his desire to become a king again, and if the party still helps him despite that knowledge, their aligment will shift quite a bit towards evil - knowingly releasing an undead tyrant upon the world isn't exactly a good thing!

If they talk to him a little more, they can also get him to promise an additional reward: he'll teach them a couple of ancient spells and maybe even promise to help them out in their struggle against the game's main antagonist* if they help him get his revenge by bringing him the mortal remains of the sorceress/priest-queen who bound him to this place. Even when he's already been freed, the party is still able to take that quest from him. They can more easily move among mortals and find out the location of her remains than he can. When the party returns the sorceress' body to the lich, he will raise her as his undead servant, tearing her soul from the afterlife and forcing her to be his slave, a fitting revenge for the curse she had put on him. Of course, this act will shift the party's alignment even further towards evil.

Convincing the lich to help the party in their struggle against the main antagonist faction* and then freeing him might unlock an achievement called "The Lesser Evil?".

The sorceress/priest-queen (whatever's appropriate for the region) will be buried in a temple somewhere, her body magically preserved. Pilgrims arrive regularly to receive blessings there, and she is worshipped like a saint. Of course, that also means the body will be heavily guarded and stealing it from the temple will be a difficult task.

The player can decide to turn against the lich at any point in the quest. The magic that binds him to the place also prevents his body from being damaged, so destroying him will only be possible once he's freed. If the party turns against him after freeing him, their alignment won't shift towards evil, maybe towards good since they've taken such a risk to destroy this evil lich. Of course, the player can also tell him that they won't unleash him upon the world, and alternatively finish the quest by blocking off the entrance to the place he's imprisoned in.

*depends on whether this would be appropriate in the context of the main quest or notTax Collectors

This is a rough concept where the details depend on the existing factions of our setting and their alignments. This has to be worked out when the setting has been finalized, but I'm posting the rough concept here already:

A village (or a couple of villages, or maybe even a smaller town with few guards) has been visited by a couple of tough guys wearing what look to be uniforms of the authorities (religious or worldly, whoever carries more authority in our setting), who forced the people to pay exorbitant amounts of taxes. Something about these people seemed fishy to the village/town's merchants, and they believe them to be bandits taking protection money while pretending to serve the law.

If the authorities in the region are benevolent, someone - possibly associated with rebels - may have hired these tough guys to make the authorities appear unjust and oppressive, driving more people into the ranks of the rebellion.
Even if the rebels are generally the good guys, maybe one of their leaders has decided to take drastic measures in order to get more recruits. The "rebel false flag" option would be an interesting scenario in any case. It might even be more interesting when the rebels are the good guys, since it poses the question of whether such methods are acceptable to achieve the greater good.

The player can either fight and kill them, or leave them alone after finding out their allegiance, and then decide what to tell the townspeople. Does the player reveal the truth, turning the population against the rebels? Does he lie, and if yes what kind of lie will he tell? Will he tell the people that those were just regular bandits trying to make their job easier by dressing up as officials? Or will he tell them they were indeed sent by the government, therefore strengthening the rebels' cause?

If the player tells the people that the government is responsible, and joins sides with the rebellion, he can also convince the rebel leaders to call off their "tax collectors" now since the desired result has been achieved. He can then tell the townspeople that he "dealt with" the tax collectors, mentioning that he had help from the rebels. This would raise the popularity of the rebellion in that town tremendously while also decreasing the popularity of the government, but of course, it is all based on a lie and therefore not very moral…

And a "master list": https://www.realms-beyond.com/forum/…php?topic=15.0

Spoiler

Exploration

#1 – Movement – you go somewhere and something happens.
#2 – Interaction – you must click on something to explore what it does / says
#3 – Hidden interaction. Like #2 but it’s not obvious – like a secret door, or a sword tucked away in the corner. Care must be taken to make sure these aren’t TOO hidden, or the game becomes a “hunt the pixel” exercise.
#4 – Use an item in a particular spot to reveal a hidden map spot
#5 – Using a skill or ability or a tool (item) in a particular spot to reach an otherwise unattainable location.
#6 – Illusionary obstacles – like an illusionary wall or a hidden bridge across a chasm.
#7 – Destroyable obstacles. Particularly ones that can’t be destroyed by chopping at it with a hand weapon.
#8 – Sequences of actions done in a particular spot – these are usually either explained to the player or strongly hinted at.
#9 – Luring a computer-controlled entity (example: NPC, enemy, or a trap effect) to unlock the environment in a way the player cannot by himself.
#10 – The world / information / rewards change with time – perhaps as the game progresses, with the seasons, or just time of day. Silent villagers during the day are talkative at night, moongates shift position and destination based on phases of the moon, etc. Or as a really weird idea, what if the player could experience “flashbacks” in various locations to what happened at an earlier time as they learn more about the world?
#11 – New ability reveals all-new information / objects / alternate versions of the world. Maybe a dog added to the party can “see” smells that were previously invisible, or the player character can “phase shift” into a shadowy unpopulated alternate dimension version of the same world.
#12 – Proximity Clues – the player is not given the exact location of what they are looking for, but may explore with hints revealing either the approximate location (maybe an area to be searched), or as inFrayed Knights, updates as to whether you are getting “warmer” or “colder” as you search.
#13 – Need special equipment or vehicle to pass – perhaps scuba gear to explore an underwater area, or a magic carpet to fly over an impassible mountain range. This differs from #5 in that it’s not a specific action done in a particular location, but rather the possession (or equipping) of the item allows access to all terrain of of this kind.
#14 – A physical or mental puzzle is required to explore deeper. Dungeon Master style games – like the recent Legend of Grimrock – are full of these.
#15 -Counters. While it’s very “gamey,” having a running counter of the number of undiscovered secrets (possibly broken down by type) can help motivate players and also let them know when to quit digging around every nook and cranny. Ideally, these would be explained through some kind of mechanic that makes sense within the context of the world, but even a totally external mechanic is often better than nothing, depending upon the style of game.
#16 – Mood / Reputation / Faction / Alignment / Progress shifts – the world (or at least the willingness of people to talk about it and give you access to areas and information) changes based on cumulative shifts instigated by the player. Perhaps as you gain the trust of certain villagers, they become more forthcoming with key bits of information. Or efforts to repair flooding throughout the city and direct the flow of water unblocks or reveals new paths.
Okay, there’s a dozen ideas for making exploring an environment more interesting. Not all are great, and that’s really just scratching the surface. Hopefully, for RPG designers out there (especially the aspiring / beginning ones), those will at least start you thinking. Now here are a dozen ideas for rewards:
#1 – Exploration is its own reward. Sometimes – and this is very occasionally, and really depends on the game – just seeing something cool is good enough. Like an “easter egg.”
#2 – Loot. Yeah. This is done a lot. As this is frequently optional, this is usually one of the more expendable / cumulative resources rather than a major permanent item.
#3 – Story Rewards. Doling out a little extra optional exposition might not thrill all players, but the RPG players tend to be the kind that enjoy this kind of thing.
#4 – Clues / Hints to more locations to explore or ways to circumvent their challenges. Yes, this reward for exploration encourages… MORE exploration.
#5 – New environments. The classic Super Mario Brothers “Secret World” reward. These are obviously expensive for developers to make, but the promise of a few of these scattered throughout the world can make exploration REALLY exciting.
#6 – A bonus quest
#7 – A potential new NPC companion
#8 – An experience point award. Minor, but cool.
#9 – A challenging optional puzzle or combat encounter (with its own reward).
#10 – A location that can recharge player resources – like a fountain that restores health or magic points, or a merchant.
#11 – A hint, strategy, or action that can be taken to make an upcoming “boss” encounter easier. This is, IMO, a far more exciting way of rewarding careful players than simply making their brute-force abilities more potent (with more potions, XP for the treadmill, etc.). I did this a few times in Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh – Daon… you could bypass the a big chunk of the dungeon and go straight to the boss, or you could explore and deprive the boss of power or reinforcements.
#12 – A piece of a bigger reward or puzzle gets exposed.
#13 – Reputation / Vanity award – because of what you have explored or done, other characters react to you differently based on the news. This can either be a one-time specific reward, or add towards a cumulative “reputation” score.
#14 – Customization options – this provides no actual gameplay reward, but gives the player the addition of new visuals, sounds, or whatnot to make their character unique.
#15 – Cumulative Story Progression – maybe you need to achieve a certain number or percentage of exploration-based goals to progress a story or quest. Beware – done poorly, this can lead to a boring “Kill ten rats” type of goal.
#16 – Unlocking of certain other obstacles. A tried and true variation.
Again, there are probably an infinite number of permutations, alternatives, and combinations of these ideas that can help make a more interesting RPG that relies upon more than simply beating the snot out of bad guys.

Boccob’s Blessed Blog 101 Quest Ideas

1. News spreads that a dragon was slain while away from his cave, a search for its unguarded hoard is underway
2. A thief has stolen a power item from a lich and then joins the party for protection
3. A wizard/collector wants a live troll to study
4. Rat catchers are going missing under the city and a plague is spreading in their absence
5. A local caster has summoned a creature that they cannot contain and it is destroying the area
6. A charismatic charlatan claims (and has proof) to be the cousin/brother/son of one of the PCs
7. A wandering merchant trades a pc for their magic item for a fake he claims is more powerful
8. Shipments from a nearby mine have stopped, when the PCs investigate they find the miners crazed and covered with red welts apparently from exposure to a new element they uncovered
9. A white dragon is driving monsters from the north into the southern lands
10. A planar rift has formed and outsiders are seeping through
11. A powerful noble/wizard is hosting a masquerade ball where the guests are polymorphed into monster as their costume, but an actual monster attends to kill the noble/wizard
12. A sorcerer has died of old age, strange things are creeping out of his tower as his spells, and dweomers break down
13. A map has been found that leads to parts of an artifact that once reassembled, will summon a fiendish kraken
14. The dead are rising as zombies one hour after their death
15. Slavers are capturing peasants and merchants on the highway and selling them to mindflayers
16. A shop/traveling merchant sells pets/familiars that are actually polymorphed people
17. The PC’s are sent to find a hermit that lives on the “moving island”, a zircon/dragon turtle
18. A traveling circus/faire comes to town and completely vanishes in the morning with several children
19. An Ur priest cult is killing all the divine casters in the area
20. Water drawn from a certain well is animating into water elementals/mephits
21. An evil druid has taken up residence in the sewers and is waging a guerilla war on civilization
22. Anyone who reads a cursed book, brought into town by an adventuring party, dies after reading it
23. A killer is leaving rare flowers in the mouths of his victims
24. A member of a planar cartographical society offers the PCs membership into the elite group if they can complete a scavenger hunt that leads them across several planes in one day
25. A mysterious helmed/hooded/masked figure has forged an impressive army by bringing tribes of kobolds, goblins, orcs, and hobgoblins under one banner. The leader is actually a cleric disheartened by the lack of faith and respect of his flock and means to increase belief and prayer for his deity by leading an army of wolves against his flock
26. The owner of a failing inn claims to have the entrance to a mysterious dungeon in his cellar hoping that the ruse will draw business from adventurers
27. A pack of displacer beasts/displacer beast lord are preying on farm animals and farmers alike
28. Two rival gangs are actually devils and demons fighting a Blood War battle on the city streets
29. The daughter/apprentice of a caster that polymorphed himself into a golden cup and placed himself in the hoard of a green dragon in an attempt to learn more about dragons, but it has been weeks and he has not come home contacts the PCs
30. Reports that a gold dragon is ravaging the countryside turn out to be true. The dragon, sick with a rare disease, has gone mad and must be stopped
31. Grave robbers working for a necromancer are running out of graves and start looking for easy prey
32. A “red” dragon demanding tributes from a village is actually an especially greedy copper dragon
33. A killer is released from prison and the father of one of his victims stages a similar murder in the hopes of framing him
34. A traveling “holy man” is selling relics that disappear in the morning
35. The new judge is in fact a devil hoping to harvest souls for not guilty verdicts
36. A logging camped is being haunted by the ghost of a treant/forest haunt and his dryad followers
37. A band of fey have been stealing wine from a rural tavern
38. A good and helpful aranea has been captured and tried for murder while the true culprit is a drider that resides close by
39. A college that teaches science over magic opens and arcane casters start going missing
40. Drug related deaths lead the PCs to an evil alchemist
41. The PCs are hired to retrieve a meteor, but find it is being worshipped by a tribe of goblins/orcs/lizardmen etc.
42. Several woman in the area are pregnant under strange circumstances, an incubus is to blame
43. An artifact is needed to avert a major catastrophe; its last known owner was Levistus the arch devil trapped within a glacier
44. The PCs must find a rare herb only known to grow within Gith monasteries
45. The PCs visit a strange village where all the people are simulacrums, an ancient wizards mark is seen everywhere
46. The PCs are sent to a distant land to find an NPC that it turns out has been dead for 20 years
47. The PCs must help a conflicted Erinyes to the Cradle of Creation (phb2) to be reborn into a non-evil body
48. A map leading to the legendary Shield of Praetor has been found, it states that the shield is in the cave of a dracolich. The map was sent by the dracolich’s minions in the hopes of freeing their master who is sealed magically into his cave
49. A local orphanage is actually run by a demonic cultist that sacrifices the weak children and raises the strong ones to be followers
50. A powerful artifact that will allow teleportation through the layers of the abyss/hells has been uncovered and a race to claim it has begun. The PCs must beat the groups of devils and demons that see the artifact as a powerful tool to end the Blood War
51. An overmatched Marut seeks assistance with a powerful lich/vampire/mummy
52. Rumors of “The most powerful sword” lead the PCs to an evil, intelligent, dancing sword that can animate other weapons to fight for it
53. The PCs are sent to a battlefield to retrieve a family heirloom from a missing soldier where a necromancer and his corpse collector golem are raising the fallen as undead
54. A cult of Tiamat have discovered a spell that ages living creatures and they are trying to use it on dragon eggs to raise powerful allies
55. The PCs are sent to deal with a raiding ogre that turns out to be a gnome illusionist
56. The PCs are looking for an arrow used to slay a dragon a hundred years earlier, but when they pull the arrow from the dragon’s skeleton, it animates and attacks
57. The PCs need the help/information of a treant that will only add them if they agree to be shrunk down to clear out an infestation of insects that invaded his roots
58. The PCs are invited to a Three Dragon Ante tourney, either as guards, VIPs, or to play
59. A lawful good lich (Monsters of Faerun) seeks the PCs to protect him from a zealous paladin on a quest to rid the world of undead
60. Thieves have plundered a tomb and until his golden burial mask is returned, a ghost/ghast/specter will continue to kill innocent people
61. A group of fire giants has taken up residence in an inactive volcano, their activity threatens to awaken the volcano and cause widespread devastation
62. A grandmotherly, if slightly senile, NPC asks the players to rid her attic of rats. The rats are in fact a group of thieves trying to open a magical doorway left by the wizard that previously owned the home
63. A monster seen roaming close to town is actually a cursed person and not evil
64. The PCs find a genie in a bottle, but the genie agrees to help/grant wishes/serve only after the players travel to the City of Brass and save someone the genie cares about
65. The PCs find a wounded angel that is being hunted by powerful outsiders
66. A newly discovered dungeon is actually a complex trap to harvest souls/magic/life energy
67. The PCs must break an innocent man from a complex magical prison
68. Murders attributed to a small girl are being done by her doll, a slaymate (libris motris)
69. An ancient beholder has gone mad and his destroying the Underdark, driving monsters to the surface
70. A gnome settlement has been overrun by Drow displacing hundreds of citizens
71. A mad wizard has been selling potions that have poisonous/odd effects
72. Mind flayers are draining people of their quintessence in hopes of using the substance to return to the far realm from which aberrations came
73. A spelljammer has crashed in a remote forest/jungle and the inhabitants seek materials to repair their helm
74. A foreign diplomat seeks the party’s monk to protect him on a mission to a country/city where magic and weapons are not allowed
75. The tarrasque is wreaking havoc on the countryside and the party (lvl 10ish) must slow it down until the champions (20th) can arrive, but the tarrasque is actually a simulacrum (cr 10) sent by an outsider/caster/etc. and not the real thing
76. Cultist seek a tablet that depicts a ritual that will summon a Fist of Spite (BoVD)
77. The party must save an NPC from the stomach demiplane of Dalmosh (MM5)
78. The guild master of the cooper’s guild wants to discredit the owner of a local winery with whom he has had an argument by poisoning his barrels
79. A local sage/astronomer is convinced that a massive meteor is going to strike the kingdom/city/town
80. The normally-inert gargoyles atop the temple/castle/mansion have animated and started attacking people who approach the building
81. A group of bulettes is keeping anyone from entering or leaving the city/town/inn
82. A doppelganger/changeling serial killer claims the identity of their most recent victim for one week before killing again
83. A gnome settlement has been overrun by fiendish duergar led by a demon
84. PCs seek out a powerful dwarven, smith that traded his soul to Asmodeus for unearthly crafting abilities. Before the smith will help the PCs, they must reclaim his soul from the arch devil
85. The players find/are sent to a city that reflects the entire multiverse scaled down with a neutral inn in the center run by a power caster
86. The PCs search for a legendary library that when found, has no books only the corpses of long-dead sages and librarian clerics that use speak with dead to obtain the knowledge
87. The PCs need a party member/NPC raised from the dead but the only cleric powerful enough to do so has recently been turned by a vampire he was hunting
88. The PCs find/buy/are given a strange bag of holding that has a small pocket dimension inside it where a frightened caster hides. He/she created the bag to hide in and saw that it ended up in the PCs hands to keep it safe
89. The PCs seek an answer/information from a forgotten bard. When they find him, he is a ghost and he will only help them if they give him peace by finishing his final poem/song/movement
90. A chaotic good horselord (CAd) has led all the horses in the region/city/town away into the hills to freedom
91. The huntsman of a local lord/mayor has kidnapped the NPC's daughter, and only a highly trained tracker can follow the trail and find the girl
92. An aged and grizzled warrior is going town to town offering his magic sword/shield/armor to any fighter that can best him in honorable combat
93. After returning from a diplomatic journey, the noble/diplomat/prince/queen is acting strangely. The PCs are asked to look into it only to find that the NPC is a doppelganger/changeling/simulacrum/charmed/possessed
94. A pair of ethereal filchers are stealing all the curative magic in the area/city/town
95. The answer/riddle/name/code that the PCs require is etched onto the helm of a massive golem that paces a deadly dungeon
96. Monthly full moon attacks are blamed on a good lycan, and are actually being carried out by a pack of Moon Rats (MM2)
97. Summoned Thoqqua threaten to compromise the structural integrity of the city/town/inn/dungeon/ as they melt tunnels through the ground below
98. Centaur knights (phb2) are running any humanoid from their forest
99. The PCs are sought by the patrons of a desert land where a despotic temple of cleric charges impossibly high rates for fresh water to people not of their faith
100. A temple has hired a large number of bards for a festival where music is to be played from sun up until sundown, the only problem is that no one recalls the obscure holiday because it is a ruse to mask the sound of tomb robbers breaking into sealed vaults below the church
101. A xenophobic elvish lord has begun to arrest non-elves after his daughter eloped with a human

Quests

1. A minotaur was victimized by a wizard, and now he will hire you to lead him through his own labyrinth to his treasures.
2. A painter has been using magic to easily duplicate his own paintings to sell as originals. But a fowl art critic with a penchant for theatrics is on to him and has sworn to reveal the secret unless he is permitted to marry the artist’s only daughter. The artist hires you to eliminate the critic who knows too much.
3. The sun set 26 hours ago. The world is in panic. The Drow are invading, and only the heroes can stop them.
4. A madman who thinks he is a prophet is slaughtering the livestock of the local farmers in the hopes that it will bring forth Ibanirox, the Night Eater, a long forgotten (and made up) deity of immense power. The farmers offer the group 20 gold or 3 cows per adventurer.
5. A theatre director hires the party to keep his lead actor (who is marked for death by a crime syndicate) alive long enough to perform in front of a powerful monarch. The assassins attempt to make his death scene a real one.
6. A tribe of kobolds has taken up residence in the sewers and has been hunting dogs and cats as food.
7. The pc’s are sent after a powerful artifact/weapon that will make their patron unstoppable.
8. The pc’s are hired by a Gensai sorceress to recover her mephit familiar from an enemy.
9. A character notices an error in a broadsheet posted in the city square, and quickly realizes that the paper has been forged to deflect guilt from a minor noble. The noble hires thugs to “dissuade” the party from investigating further by stealing some of their gear and shifting their attention to the thieves.
10. Mind flayers are performing perverse rituals on local orc tribes and granting them psionic abilities. The party must find and destroy them before psionic orcs destroy the kingdom.
11. Ancient prophecies predict that a star will fall at a precise location on a certain day. Whoever is first to grasp the star will receive a wish. Various dark factions camp and await the coming of the star, intent on making their wish.
12. A devil/caster/demon/warlock has set a fire using hell fire and it can only be quenched by the waters from a spring in Celestia
13. A Devil prince coerces you to sabotage the wedding of one of his political rivals.
14. A besieged city holds a tournament to mock their enemies. The King asks you to sneak into the city and win the tournament to demoralize them.
15. A wizard believes he has discovered the location of the wreckage of a legendary battleship, but so has his rival. You must recover the arcane weaponry from the wreck before the opposing team does.
16. You are hired to perform a filibuster in the legislative body of a monstrous nation. It proves dangerous.
17. An ancient and complex prison facility for extraplanar criminals is malfunctioning. The party must repair it as a group of imps attempts to use the facility against them.
18. The party is sent to investigate the disappearance of a missionary cleric in a vast and dark jungle. Investigation reveals that the cleric has instead been converted by the demon-worshiping jungle people and now mobilizes them against his former mission.
19. Gnolls have dug up the severed head of a lich in the desert, and it has promised them great power if they reunite him with his body.
20. A band of Drow (or similarly evil humanoids) comes to town claiming to be not evil and seeking asylum.
21. Ghostly dryads haunt the grove where their tree was destroyed and they can only be put to rest if the grove is replanted.
22. A werewolf, seemingly immune to wolfs bane and silver terrorizes a village. He is in fact a barghest.
23. A ruined tower is in fact a colossal animated object.
24. A yeth hound poses as a wounded blink dog.
25. The pc’s seek an item buried within a grove sacred to a centaur tribe.
26. A delver tunneling under the city is causing earthquakes.
27. The characters are sent to a primitive island to retrieve an item/find a treasure/seek an npc. The island is filled with dinosaurs, near-humanoids, and dire animals. As the pc’s explore the island they begin to devolve, as do their animal companions, mounts, familiars, etc.
28. The mayor, sheriff, high priest, has been replaced by doppelgangers.
29. A white dragon is freezing ships and carrying them off to his glacial home.
30. A major port is now home to spawning dragon turtles.
31. Dryads have taken loggers hostage.
32. All news and shipments from a dwarven stronghold have stopped; the king frees a Duergar attack.
33. Ettercaps have poisoned village children and carried them off, the pc’s know they have a limited window in which to rescue the children before they are eaten (as ettercaps like to let their dinner hang and liquefy before eating).
34. Hippogriffs, run off their mountain roosts by a red dragon, have begun devouring cattle.
35. All the townspeople in a village have contracted lycanthropy and become were-moose at the full moon. The group must discover that the alchemist upstream of the village’s water supply has been experimenting with dangerous chemicals to turn his beloved pet albino moose, Alabaster, into a sentient best friend.
36. The pc’s break a law in an unjust and evil land while doing something good, but are later pursued by a zelekhut for their actions.
37. The elementals that power a dwarven forge have broken free and must be captured without harming them.
38. A thief tells the party about a dragon graveyard that contains the treasure of a dozen hoards, but is haunted by ghostly-dragon guardians.
39. The pc’s require the help of a lillend, but she refuses unless the party’s bard can impress her with his musical abilities.
40. Ice mephits have frozen the town’s well.
41. Merfolk are waylaying ships from traveling over a sacred coral reef.
42. A gelatinous cube, used to eat waste, has escaped the sewer and must be lured back down.
43. Drunken satyrs have carried off a number of women from the village.
44. Will o’ the Wisps are luring people to their swamp.
45. All the animals in the village have collected on a hill nearby and refused to come down.
46. A splinter cult of Drow are kidnapping townspeople and sacrificing them to a powerful aranea sorceress, they worship as an avatar of Loth.
47. The pc’s hired by a local politician that fears he will be poisoned at an upcoming banquet.
48. Thieves have stolen dragon eggs and put the entire town in jeopardy as the angry mother wreaks havoc.
49. The “haunted forest” is actually filled with awakened creatures.
50. A mage’s guild seeks thieves to steal an artifact that will hamper the use of magic. They plan to use it to control all magic in the city.
51. A stray cat taken in by the pc’s is the familiar of an enemy spell-caster.
52. Mongrelmen living under the city are demanding citizenship and full rights.
53. The local wizard’s college wants to hire the pc’s to capture some new familiars.
54. A con artist posing as a priest is fleecing peasants.
55. The pc’s must stop an angry mob from attacking a peaceful tribe of orcs.
56. A glacier has been discovered with an enormous, nightmarish creature inside and the ice is beginning to melt.
57. The pc’s are asked to serve as guardian to a young noble whose parents have been killed.
58. The pc’s must smuggle a message into a besieged city.
59. A dying dragon holds a contest to give away pieces from its hoard.
60. Lizardman-half-Mindflayers are being spotted in the marshes outside town.
61. A vigilante is killing evil criminals in town. The party is hired to capture him, while the people view him as a hero and champion of good despite his methods.
62. Something has driven all the game from the kings hunting grounds.
63. Prisoners are being sold to mindflayers.
64. Marble carved from a newfound quarry is animating.
65. The prison has been taken over by the prisoners.
66. When the well goes dry, the villagers discover a glowing portal to Sigil.
67. A wizard/engineer wants help capturing elementals to power airships.
68. A wizard polymorphed into a chimera is attacking caravans.
69. The pc’s must acquire an artifact from the hoard of a fiendish-black dragon that resides in the swamps of Othrys on the plane of Carceri.
70. People are disappearing and paintings of the missing are showing up in the inn/temple/manor.
71. Fiendish weasels are terrorizing a farmers chicken coop. The family is on the edge of hunger and ruin.
72. A group of wild elves hire the pc’s to escort their clan to a new home in the Beastlands.
73. Something is causing the dead to rise from the local cemetery.
74. After a dark omen all cure spells function as inflict spells.
75. Wererats are stealing children and infecting them with lycanthropy.
76. After a Drow priestess is hanged, women in the city begin giving birth to spiders.
77. The pc’s encounter a strange man on the road how casts a spell on them/gives them a potion, shortly after they arrive in town to see (with their arcane sight) that half the town are actually changelings.
78. A farmer finds a possessed tablet in his field and begins going on a killing rampage.
79. The city’s most powerful adventurers return from questing in a temple of Tharzidun.
80. A child has been bitten by a rare spider, and the only antidote requires some of the spiders venom.
81. A vampiric bard is dining on the finest artists in town.
82. A pc learns that his family lost a powerful legacy item to a dragon. The item is still in the dragon’s hoard.
83. The party is left to raise a brood of silver dragon wyrmlings after their mother is slain.
84. A child is possessed by a demon and must be exorcised.
85. The pc’s are shipwrecked and must build a raft to escape.
86. A child in the slums is spouting doomsday prophecies and is gathering a large following.
87. The pc’s are drugged and forced into naval service by a violent press-gang.
88. The party’s warriors are invited to participate in the alabaster cup (Com. Warrior).
89. The party is approached by an npc that claims to have detailed evidence of an assassination plot. The npc even shows them plans that he stole from the assassin. After the attempt is made, the pc’s are framed and they detailed evidence is found in their room at the inn.
90. An awaken golem is creating an army of warforged to wipe the lands free of living beings.
91. A barbarian horde threatens to invade unless someone can defeat their leader in single combat.
92. The new mayor of a rural village is a Rakshasa.
93. A massive egg has appeared in the village square and cracks are forming.
94. Each night eerie organ music can be heard from the ruin manor on the hill; in the morning, a townsperson is missing.
95. Lightning continues to strike the same gravestone every night for the last week.
96. A wizard, pretending to be goodly, hires the pc’s to retrieve his “stolen” spell book from a rival.
97. Cultists have obtained a scroll of Crushing Fist of Spite (BoVD) and intend on releasing it on the countryside.
98. A party member’s soul has been purchased/stolen/bartered for, by Asmodeus and the party must debate the Devil lord to get it back.
99. A gnoll army sweeps from the north, their leader wields what appears to be the Triple Flail of Yeenoghu, Demon Prince of Gnolls.
100. A Cauldron of Zombie Spewing (BoVD) has been unearthed in an ancient ruin by clerics of Neurull.
101. A mad cleric has resurrected the stuffed monster in the party’s favorite inn.

Cool stuff

Whoops!

 

[FeelTheRads]

Can you talk more in depth about how you cook your 2d background? I remember how obshitian did it and I always thought they were doing it wrong. They placed all this stuff in Maya (which I imagine was already a very slow process considering the amount of geometry) and then left it to be rendered for the night, which took ~8 hours and often just crashed.

Also, post pics of your editor.

They did it like with the IE engine backgrounds, no? Save for the extra passes they use to fake lighting.

This one, if I understand correctly what JarlFrank says, is probably just using pre-rendered objects rather than pre-rendered scenes. Like, say, Arcanum.

 

[JarlFrank]

Can you talk more in depth about how you cook your 2d background? I remember how obshitian did it and I always thought they were doing it wrong. They placed all this stuff in Maya (which I imagine was already a very slow process considering the amount of geometry) and then left it to be rendered for the night, which took ~8 hours and often just crashed.

Also, post pics of your editor.

We're going to write a blogpost about the editor soon.

We don't need any third party programs to build our levels and won't have to render anything for hours. Think of it more like the, say, Shadowrun editor, or even the NWN editor - or, yes, like FeelTheRads said, Arcanum. There is no "cooking" or "baking" of visual elements at all. Every map entity can be placed and moved dynamically. The lighting is also completely dynamic. Therefore, our game levels load quite fast (<3 secs) and are very compact (less than 200kb each).

It's a very modder-friendly editor that will allow people to design their own levels for their game, and allows for a flexible approach to level design. Every level can be changed, slight adjustments be made, at any point during development. In a game like the IE games or PoE, when a level is set it's set. You decide 1 month before release to delete one building because you don't have any time left to fill it with content? Too bad, it'll stay on the map and you just have to make it inaccessible. We just click five buttons and the building's gone. Or we can add another building to a map if an area of the map looks too empty. This also means that anyone can edit a level rather than just the dedicated level/graphic designers - one of our quest designers came up with a cool quest idea that requires a few objects that aren't in the map yet? No problem, he can just add them with two clicks!

 

[Infinitron]

Also on RPGWatch - oblique confirmation from HobGoblin42 that he had something to do with Demons Age being taken down from Steam: https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38666&page=2

Hey there Hoboglin42. Thanks for posting here! The game looks interesting.

I'm curious what happened to Demons Age, though? It disappeared suddenly from Steam. I saw some posts on the 'Codex that says this game uses some of the same assets as that (scam) game. Any info on that?

I can't go into further details here, but our company Ceres Games owns the exclusive rights to all assets and source codes of the cancelled project Chaos Chronicles.

(Fluent being weird as hell in that thread as usual)

 

[FeelTheRads]

Ahaha, it would be great if he killed that piece of shit shovelware.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

These areas look nice. I immediately got Divine Divinity feels.

 

[Infinitron]

Ceres Games? I thought they were Grimlore or something?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...th-park-2-and-more.110740/page-4#post-4726608

 

[Dorateen]

Hey, Sawyer, know what else Realms Beyond has that Deadfire doesn't?

Turn-based combat and a six character party!

 

[ArchAngel]

Hey, Sawyer, know what else Realms Beyond has that Deadfire doesn't?

Turn-based combat and a six character party!

And a proper old school rules system.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Also on RPGWatch - oblique confirmation from HobGoblin42 that he had something to do with Demons Age being taken down from Steam: https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38666&page=2

Hey there Hoboglin42. Thanks for posting here! The game looks interesting.

I'm curious what happened to Demons Age, though? It disappeared suddenly from Steam. I saw some posts on the 'Codex that says this game uses some of the same assets as that (scam) game. Any info on that?

I can't go into further details here, but our company Ceres Games owns the exclusive rights to all assets and source codes of the cancelled project Chaos Chronicles.

(Fluent being weird as hell in that thread as usual)

Isn't that a bit petty-minded? A multitude of projects are preferable and may the best one win

 

[Modron]

Fluent doesn't really care how good a game is as much as how compatible it is with his steam controller.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.realms-beyond.com/source-inspiration-3/

Source of Inspiration #3: Wizardry
December 24, 2017

Whenever the conversation touches upon old-school computer roleplaying games, the subject turns to just how difficult those games were. With that in mind, I think it is time to talk about Wizardry, the legendary RPG series developed by Sir-Tech. THOSE games were hard to beat! Seriously hard! Similarly to the Ultima games, most of our team’s first contact was not with the first Wizardry game, but rather with later entries in the series, typically, starting with Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna.

It may sound strange, but the very first thing that comes to mind when remembering Wizardry IV is its copy protection. The game allowed you to play through the entire first dungeon but then would ask you for a series of digits from a list that was included in the box. The fact that the list was printed on red paper made it virtually impossible to photocopy. (Remember, this was long before color copiers or the Internet.) It is a strange thing to remember, altogether, but it stuck for some reason.

If Ultima gave us a world to explore and Pool of Radiance gave us tactical, turn-based combat, the AD&D ruleset and the sense of wonder brought across through strange NPC encounters, Wizardry gave us the satisfying sense of accomplishment for surviving every single step of the way!

Wizardry IV, in particular, had an extremely cool story setup that was very easy to understand. You started on level 10 of a dungeon and had to make it to the top level to escape. On each level, you would have to find a pentagram to restore a part of your former power. That was it. But good luck!

What they didn’t tell you was that there were monsters in that dungeon that could kill you with a single blow. They also did not tell you that you needed expert mapping skills to carefully map every step you took. Without it, you were hopelessly lost in no time at all. Did you just have a round of bad luck rolling the digital dice and miss a few hits? Too bad for you… end of the game! Yes, it was that hard.

Because Wizardry IV was never released on the Commodore C64, Atari ST or Amiga, few of us had actually played it. The Apple II on which it ran simply wasn’t a very popular computer in Germany. But it has always been one of those legendary games the older, nerdy gamers talked about. People you would meet at the fantasy store. The one you bought your AD&D stuff at. And according to them, all the other computer RPGs were merely kids stuff. And there was some truth to it.

With that in mind, the Wizardry games most of us had actual hands-on experience were David W. Bradley’s Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom or Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge. The reason is simple. These games were finally available for the C64 and Amiga, respectively. And it was at this time that we got indoctrinated to the difficulty level of a Wizardry game because either of them was hard. Really hard. If you hear people talk about Demons or Dark Souls these days, this is where that true feeling of accomplishment came from. The fear that each step might be your last, and the satisfaction when, at long last, you made it past your previous point-of-defeat.

In future blog posts, we’ll revisit the Wizardry Series, to be more precise, Wizardry VII – Crusaders of the Dark Savant, in regards to advanced/prestige character classes.

But for now, we wish you Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.realms-beyond.com/exploring-world-camp/

Exploring the World #2: Camp and Survival
January 1, 2018

You’re an adventurer. For most of the time, that means, being a traveler. And you can’t just keep walking all day long and then on through the night. So what do you do when you reach a clearing in the woods at dusk and have no idea how much longer you will have to walk until you may reach another city? Camping is what you do. You pitch a tent for the night and you try to get some rest.

For most D&D-based games, resting was an extremely important feature because it enabled you to recharge your spells. Aside from the elementary feature of memorizing spells or powers, in Realms Beyond your party members will be able to use the time during an encampment to cook, eat, hunt, collect food, cure wounds or to identify items.

But encampments don’t come for free. There is always an inherent danger in staying out in the open at night, such as surprise attacks. As a result, setting up camp will become this balancing act because the longer you travel, the more it tires out your party members. Eventually, they will be exhausted, and once they are exhausted, they will become easy prey for a horde of Goblins that they would otherwise take with one arm tied behind their backs.

The key feature that is at play here can be called Resource Management. You have to weigh the dangers of resting in an unknown area (and risking a random encounter) against the downsides of forcing your party to press on. It adds just one more consideration to the list of things you have to contemplate before leaving a town and setting off into unknown territory.

As mentioned above, setting up camp can be a risky undertaking. You are never alone in the woods and whatever monsters are roaming the dark, just outside the circle of light from your campfire, might consider you easy prey. But not all dangers come with the falling of darkness, even during the day, a camp may find itself the target of a surprise attack by roaming monsters.

In certain areas, it might make more sense to rest at night, since humanoids like Orcs and Goblins prefer to sleep during those nighttime hours. But there are others. Creatures of the night, and it might be safer for you to travel under the cover of darkness when the air carries sound better and you can hear every noise. It may just save your life when something awful decides to leave its lair where it hides during the day in search of prey.

 

[Jack Dandy]

All is looking great and exciting.
But I don't think I got the answer to this one yet, tho-

How are our boys funding this?