Here's the current status of Realms Beyond and the (possible) future:

Realms Beyond Status & Future

RB (Realms Beyond) is not currently being worked on because the business manager / level designer who owns 50% of the company & was supposed to be finding the game a publisher basically abandoned the project in late 2020. This year he has been unresponsive when Hobgoblin42 the programmer (other 50% owner) contacts him with anything pertaining to the company.  Unfortunately as 50% owner they require his approval to sign with a publisher or make any business decisions (he could legally shut down any attempts to sell anything related to RB).

Ceres is expected to go bankrupt very soon. Why?  Sorry but you are not allowed to view spoiler contents.
Then assets & IP of the game will be auctioned off to pay down company debts. The programmer personally owns the RB game engine so he will retain that no matter what. 

After bankruptcy, the programmer and the lead writer plan to form a new company and attempt to buy the assets back with personal funds.  If all goes well, the programmer and writer will resume work on the project with the new plan of first making smaller adventure modules that can be made in a relatively short time period with a small budget.  These would be standalone stories (similar to some of the premium Neverwinter Nights modules).  They will give the small module/s to RB backers and sell to anyone else interested.  If it sells well, then they will probably make some more small modules, with the eventual goal of  resuming work on the larger "Ashes of the Fallen" game as originally pitched. 

If they are not able to get back the RB assets & IP from the auction, then they still hope to create a new game project with the RB engine.  It would likely still be similar in many ways (turn-based party cRPG with 3.5e rules).  But obviously this would be a major setback as they'd have to commission or acquire new art, music, etc. and start from scratch with the lore & world-building. 

So is the game cancelled?  Vaporware? Call it what you'd like. For now, I'd call it development limbo or Hell. We'll hopefully get more definite news later this year. 

As the lead writer said on the RB Discord channel

wrote: Tharagavverug

It's not "cancelled". Nobody sat down and made the decision to stop development on the game. One owner is unresponsive and his actions interfere with the company's work, but Hob and me are still willing to keep working on the game and finish up something releasable, even if it's just a smaller module for the start. Were it not for the other owner, we would resume development part-time right away. 

Matt Barton interviews Realms Beyond and Skald developers. the interview only starts at 4:01 due to some technical issues.

Thanks Daveyd

The combat beta version of Realms Beyond has been released for backers:

Combat Beta Released to Backers

The long-awaited combat beta of Realms Beyond has been finally released to backers whose reward tier includes combat beta access. Assemble your party and enter the Halls of Challenge to brave tough fights that will put all your skills to the test!

The purpose of the combat beta is to provide feedback and bug reports to us, so if you are among those with access to it, we ask you to report any issues to us. The easiest way to do so is in our official Discord server, where we have opened a dedicated combat beta channel. You can also use our official forums at realms-beyond.com (account registration required). You can also write to support[at]ceres-games.com.

While the combat beta is not available to the public, there is no NDA on it. You can take screenshots, talk about your experience on forums and social media, or even record yourself playing it on YouTube or Twitch.

Since this is essentially a closed beta, please keep in mind that there are still bugs to be ironed out, balance is not perfect, and some features are missing. We will deal with those issues as we receive your reports. As of now, we have not yet implemented a savegame feature. If you want to speed up animations in combat, hold down <SPACE>. If you have any questions - or suggestions - feel free to contact us about them.

Happy playing, and may you survive the trials of the Halls of Challenge!

A new Kickstarter update for Realms Beyond announces that the Combat Beta will be available to eligible backers May 15th.

The latest update for Realms Beyond shows off the finished map, coin design and talks about the current status of the combat beta.

Combat Beta Status

We’re still working hard on completing the combat beta, but aren’t quite happy with its current state yet. Apart from a couple of bugs and missing elements (such as monster portraits and SFX), we are also working on the content and encounter design. As the combat beta will be the first public release of our game, we want to deliver a good first impression (especially since some people will likely show off the gameplay on stream or on YouTube). Therefore we can’t hastily release a half-baked and bug-ridden version of it, as this would taint the image of our game in the public eye. We ask you to be patient for a few more weeks, so we can release a polished version we can be proud of and you can enjoy without hiccups.

To make the waiting a little more bearable, here are a handful of screenshots from the first level of the combat demo (we don’t want to spoil the later levels yet!):

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A new update for Realms Beyond talks about the status of the combat demo, and explains character creation. There are also screenshots at the link.

It’s been a while since our last update. We’ve been hard at work designing maps and writing quests – and finishing up the combat demo, which is taking us longer than expected. The main reason for that is the combat demo’s scope: rather than just giving you an arena with a handful of fights, we give you a small story, four different maps with varied environments, shops to buy new equipment in, and the full character creation system as it will appear in the complete game.

The combat already works very well, but we still need to finish up the character creation menu and the shopping interface, and the encounters you’re going to face in the combat demo will have to be playtested a couple of times to make sure it offers just the right amount of challenge. The combat demo is the first taste of the game you’re going to get, and we want to make sure the first impression is a great one. Honestly, we underestimated the actual amount of work the combat demo would require. At the end, we don’t want to release unfinished gameplay elements and that’s why we need to spend more time in designing, implementing and polishing than originally planned. Therefore we are moving the release date of the combat demo to January.

Character Creation

The most important part of any RPG is its character creation. Many of us have spent hours trying to create different character builds in Fallout, or assembling that perfect party of six in Icewind Dale or the old Gold Box titles. Realms Beyond is going to offer you a complex character creation tool that gives you all the classic choices you would expect – ability scores, classes, skills, feats – and some unique ideas of our own that allow you to further define your characters and their role in the world. 

Character Attributes via Point Buy or Roll

Character Class Selection

Appearance and Player Portrait

Rather than just picking a race and be done with it, Realms Beyond lets you choose your character’s origin: which region of the world does your character hail from? It is more than just a cosmetic choice, as your character’s origin will influence the knowledge of local customs, politics and events the character has, as well as the reaction some NPCs will have towards that character.

Character Origin

Furthermore, you will be able to select a descent for your characters: which social class they hail from and what they did before they became adventurers. Noble, craftsman, peasant – these descents also come with unique background knowledge for your character. Characters with a noble background will be familiar with the customs of the nobility, while characters with a peasant background will be able to tell a farmer why his crops are failing.

Biography and Descent

The character backgrounds are more than just flavor, as they will occasionally offer unique insights into the events you encounter during the game.

[...]

The latest update for Realms Beyond explains reactive dialogues and shows off some new screenshots.

Reactive Dialogues (and new screenshots!)

In the weeks since the last update, we’ve been hard at work designing quests and locations. And to make sure that our quests are as good as they can be and offer the highest possible degree of reactivity towards the player character, we’ve also improved our dialogue system and added a handful of new features to it.

In this update, we’re going to show you the new features of the dialogue system, as well as screenshots of some beautiful new locations we’ve added to the world of Argea. The section of the update that shows off the dialogue tool will contain minor spoilers for early content in the game, as well as a side quest later in the game. If you wish to avoid such spoilers, please take note of the warnings and skip ahead.

In an RPG, it is important that the game recognizes the player’s character build. And since Realms Beyond allows the player to create (or to recruit) a party of six characters, a diverse party should mean that NPCs react differently to each of them. Different characters should also be able to react differently to NPC statements. While most characters might agree with the assessment that orcs are savage barbarians, a half-orc character might object to such a statement.

Click to enlarge

 

Dialogue options can depend on many things: the player character’s gender, race, class, ability scores, skills, equipment, current status effects, faction reputation, and more. If you want to find a peaceful solution with the orcs, letting your half-orc do the talking might be a good idea. Similarly, in a village where everyone is prejudiced towards elves because of an old grudge that has never been forgotten, an elven or half-elven character will have a harder time winning the sympathies of the populace.

Warning: minor spoilers for early content ahead!
To skip any spoiler, please jump to the screenshot section at the end.

[...]

Quest spoilers over. You may continue reading from here if you wanted to avoid them.

Finally, we’re going to show you some screenshots of a cozy village on the remote island in the Northern sea. Enjoy the scenes of tranquil village life!

Click to enlarge

The chopping block, where prisoners condemned to death meet their end. You can sit down in the tavern next door and watch the execution through the windows, comfortably seated with a mug of ale in your hands. The pinnacle of entertainment in a sleepy little village like this.

The local physician’s house. He cares for the sick and also serves as the local coroner. His cat is doing its best at keeping the village rat-free.

Click to enlarge

He’s not drinking on duty! He’s merely sampling the ale to make sure it is of high enough quality. A diligent guard would never let his officers taste sub-par ale. He’s just doing his duty. Besides, it’s not like these prisoners need much guarding. They’re locked behind bars, tight and secure, with no way to escape.

 

 And that’s it for today! We’ve given you a more thorough look into how our dialogue system works, along with a glimpse of one of the game’s many side quests – and keep in mind, this is the very same dialogue tool you will be able to use to create new modules for Realms Beyond, so all the power of setting custom conditions for dialogue checks and writing quests with multiple solutions and outcomes will be in your hands!

A new update for Realms Beyond announces support from the state of Bavaria.

Bavarian Support and a new Senior Team Member

Posted by Ceres Games (Creator)

We are happy to announce that Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen has received additional funding from the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern!

The additional funds of 100.000 EUR are flowing directly into development, translating into more high quality content for you to experience.

Senior Level DesignerJanos Toth joins our team to fill our world with dangerous dungeons and tranquil villages for the player to explore. He has formerly worked on games like Battle Isle, History Line, Sacred Underworld, Sacred 2, The Settlers 5 and Spellforce 3, bringing plenty of experience with the RPG and RTS genres with him. You can check out his portfolio here.

Soon, we will also post another development update about the game. We have been hard at work optimizing our tools, especially the dialogue tool, in order to allow for heavy branching in quests and conversations, and to give player decisions as heavy an impact as possible. In our next update we will show off the capabilities of our dialogue tool in detail, along with some example dialogues.

Stay tuned!

A new development update for Realms Beyond focuses on the AI that will be employed during the course of turn-based combat.

Development Update #1: AI for Turn-based Combat Systems

Posted by Ceres Games (Creator)

When we started out working on the combat system we had a lot to do to lay the basic foundations. We had to get our character animation system running and implement stuff like combat logic, hexboard generation from level topology, or hexboard queries for paths and floodings at runtime.

That left little time to care about something as high level as AI (Artificial Intelligence). As a consequence our first prototype for AI ‘grew’ with time. At first, all it could do were melee attacks. Then we added ranged attacks. Then we implemented an enemy spell AI for intelligent placing of area spells (trying to maximize hits on enemies and minimize hits on allies). Finally we included rather specific routines (like fleeing) for characters that suffered from spells like fear. We realized that AI has to be able to deal with script spells that are loaded at runtime (a feature that could be interesting for future modifications). To allow for that we coded routines that simulate spell executions and judge their effects in a more general way.

Thus our prototype grew and grew until we were sure that we covered every capability that could possibly be required. Then we started to build it from scratch to make it more flexible and debugable. And now we feel like we can finally talk about AI.

Combat AI Debug Visualization in Realms Beyond

The paradigm we had in mind for development has always been: What do we expect from a turn based AI?

Well, technically, we expect a lot! A demon wizard that fails to choose his fireball spell over a magic missile, or who fails to place the fireball in a way that maximizes damage on the player party is a no-go. An assassin who simply attacks her closest target instead of trying to stab your wizard in the back is not only little immersive – it also obliterates strategic bottlenecks like doors. And a human NPC ally that is not able to plan his path avoiding enemy attacks of opportunity is an annoyance. So when we talk about expectations from a ‘technical’ point of view, one can say that we expect ‘a lot’. A proper (3.5e based) combat AI has to be able to perform a lot of intelligent choices for enemies that we expect to behave intelligent.

Assuming that we built an AI that is able to live up to those expectations, it is time to consider a different connotation: What do we expect from AI not in terms of quality but in terms of personality?

If every enemy behaved optimally the challenge would be maximized – and immersion would be all but gone. We want goblins to horde around their closest enemy. We want orcs to ignore attacks of opportunity. And an ogre might even be too stupid to leave an area that is affected by a damage-over-time spell. Even beyond ‘intelligence’ enemies should show personality in every decision that gameplay offers: While most races ignore unconscious or otherwise helpless enemies on the battle field and proceed to face those player characters that can still fight, certain foul creatures like goblins or gnolls should be known for finishing off their helpless foes. It’s those little twists that make combats immersive.

We hope that – apart from the challenge of making our AI capable of  ‘good’ decisions – we also do a good job to diversify enemy behaviours enough to allow you to detect patterns and become especially hateful of one enemy or the other.

A combat scene from 'Knights of the Chalice'

Once again, allow us to mention Knights of the Chalice here (btw, the developer Pierre Begue will launch a Kickstarter campaign for the sequel very soon) . It is owing to that game that we had a very precise idea about what we had to do when we first started prototyping our CPU-controlled opponents. The AI of KotC (and, of course, its excellent encounter design) made almost all combats interesting. It may be prone to crowd in bottlenecks (a fact can be exploited a lot once you get the stone wall spell) but hey – weaknesses are something you also expect from an AI to have fun, another fact that we are well aware of.

Hopefully, we can soon present you some more combat vids that display various AI behaviours. Until then, feel invited to write us (here in the comments or in our forum) what you think about our ideas and what you consider important for a turn-based AI. And if you have a memorable story to tell about a combat against an especially cunning AI: please share it with us.

Congratulations to the Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen Kickstarter campaign:

We brought it home. Thanks to all of you!

Phew, what a month! Those last thirty campaign days have been a proper rollercoaster ride and felt more like half a year. But losing sleep, going a bit more grey and not seeing much of the world outside has all been worth it. The show of your support just knocked our socks off!
We’re lost for words to thank everyone. We’ve said it so many times, but can’t really repeat it often enough: THANKS!

Without all the 2648 backers from the US, Germany, UK, Canada, France, Australia, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Belgium, China and many, many more countries, nothing would have happened. But with all of you, this campaign has been a resounding success! We still can’t believe that the campaign has been funded 120%. It was fully funded three days ago and we smashed three stretch goals! We’re more than excited to get stuck in to carry on working with our team, including Edwin Pickett and the people at OnlySound, voice actor Stephen Chatfield, and of course with Francesca on the map, Casey and Scott on the writing and Kai on additional sound tracks.

All your comments, questions and feedback have been invaluable.

A new update for Realms Beyond talks about the heart of Kvenland. The Kickstarter is in the final hours as of posting.

A Glimpse of Our World, Part 4: Kvenland

The realm of Kvenland, defined by its dense pine forests and tall mountains, is primarily settled by four major tribes.

Vadians

At the southern shore of lake Kallvatn, right in the heart of Kvenland, at a point where several rivers convene, a trading post named Vadaheim was built. After the Great Cataclysm, the sky had darkened for several years and the cold north missed out on a couple of summers. This led to large masses of ice forming in the mountains, and once the climate normalized the ice melted and raised the water level of the lake, flooding parts of Vadaheim. An enterprising people, not willing to give up their city and stop their profitable trading operations, the Vadians converted their ships into rudimentary homes. Still today many of them live in house-boats and use these mobile homes on their mercantile journeys, traveling down the rivers with their entire families. Most Vadians are in the service of one of the two powerful families ruling the city of Vadaheim. Those who live in the town are better off joining one of the two families than staying neutral – which risks attracting the wrath of both the Ingvarsons and the Grimharsons. For independence is only an option for those who can assert it. But since the long-running feud between the two houses had adverse effects on commerce, they agreed to an armistice and divided the city amongst themselves. But if there is an opportunity to siphon the other family’s profits into their own pockets, they always take it – there may be an armistice between them, but in business, everything is allowed.

Click for high-res version

 

A common saying among the Vadians is, "By Valon’s golden apples!" which is an expression of surprise over an unexpectedly profitable business transaction that pulled more gold out of their customer’s pocket than they anticipated.

The origin of this expression is the myth of Valon, patron deity of merchants as well as those who acquire the property of others by cunning means, who helped an impoverished old man. This man owned nothing but a barren, rocky piece of land with a single apple tree that no longer bore fruit. He desperately called for the aid of his god, and Valon finally heard his prayers. He gave the old man a basket with three golden apples which would turn to dust as soon as he gave them away. Valon also forbid him from telling anyone where he got the apples from, and he was not allowed to sell his land before three moons had passed. The old man shrugged, as nobody would want to buy his worthless piece of land anyway, and asked what use the apples would be to him if he couldn’t sell them. Valon merely told him to carry them through town in their basket, uncovered so all could see them, and have a cup of wine at the tavern. "But how should I pay for the wine?" asked the old man. "With the apples, without promising them to another," was the god’s answer, and then he returned to his realm.

The old man did as he was told, and everyone was curious about the golden apples he carried in his basket. Indeed, the tavernkeep not only served him a cup of wine on the house, but also prepared a platter with the best food he had in stock. Soon more and more people asked the old man why he still lived in his rotten old hut and wanted to know whether his land was for sale. With a heavy heart he rejected all the offers he received, which led to the townspeople shoveling ever more gifts upon him in the hopes of gaining the old man’s favor. Soon he lived in one of the largest houses in town, and those who showered him with gifts hoped he would sell them his piece of land with the tree that, so they believed, would be rich with golden apples at the next harvest. Once three moons had passed, he accepted the best offer that was made to him, which was much higher than the best offer made to him three moons ago. Just at that moment his three golden apples vanished. The debts he had with others were not collected, since his creditors were happy to have such a wealthy man as their friend. Only to the poor soul who had purchased the worthless strip of land the old man gave a basket full of apples. Stingy as he now was, however, they were just normal apples, red and green instead of gold, as you can only be truly rich when others are poor – a popular saying among the people of Vadaheim.

Click for high-res version

 

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Thanks rjshae!

Mrozie informed us that they have a two part interview up at Enklawa for Realms Beyond. The first part can be found here and the second part here.

EN: Let's talk a bit about main character from narrative perspective. Who is he/she? What does drive him/her through the story of Realms Beyond?

PO: Actually, we don't have a main character. There is no single hero - in our game - the whole party is the protagonist.

The player will enter a world that has been plagued by a global catastrophe about fifty years ago. This so-called cataclysm is of unknown origin and devastated many parts of the world. The player needs to find out what actually happened and to achieve that, he or she needs to travel the whole world.

...

EN: Speaking of factions, how many of them can we encounter/join? Is it possible to become a master of all factions or joining one of them can shut the door of the other(s)?

PO: There will be plenty of factions in the game, some of which are mutually exclusive. Becoming the master of a faction is very rare, while some factions will allow you to rise high in the ranks, it's a bit unrealistic for someone who just joined the guild to become its leader in just a few months time! You might become the right hand of the faction leader, but not the leader himself. In most regions of our world there will also be political factions with opposing goals, for example the Wildlands where three pretender kings are fighting over who gets to rule. Of course you can only help one of them to become king, so there is plenty of replay value in the game with mutually exclusive paths.

Just noticed that Realms Beyond has been funded on Kickstarter, with the total amount being just over the asked amount of 100 KEuro.

Realms Beyond shares what they have been working on regarding pub games and voice sets. There are three days remaining in the Kickstarter.

Pub Games and Voice Sets

Pub Games

At sunset, you and your companions finally arrive in Bridgewater, a famous hub of trade and other, less honest forms of business. Milling amongst the crowds of merchants and citizens, beggars and cut-throats, you slowly wander through the town's narrow alleyways towards the Merry Hangman Inn, in a district of town known for its pleasures – many of them illicit. You enter the tavern in search for a hearty meal, a warm hearth, and some merry entertainment to lift up your spirits. 

As anticipated, you find the place is bursting with laughter, singing and cheer as you enter. The smell of good food and beer, and the sound of merry fiddles and happy folk songs out of tune, quickly overwhelm your senses. As some of your companions proceed directly to their rooms in the second floor, longing for a good bed after the strenuous journey, you manage to spot a small empty table in the far corner. When you finally make your way through the crowd of drunken patrons, the tavern maid brings you a battered pewter mug, and asks you with a smile: “Care for a Game?”

Games to spend your hard-earned coin on

Every adventurer needs some time to relax after a long day, and Realms Beyond offers you plenty of games to pass the time with when you return to town after an exhausting adventure. Cards, dice, pit-fighting and axe-throwing are just some of the many activities your adventurers can take part in, trying their luck or skill against NPCs and even wagering some money on their success.

Click for high-res version

If you’re on good terms with some tavernkeepers or have some coin to spare, who knows… they might even let you prove what you're made of in their underground fighting clubs (no arms, no armor, no spells – only fists and the cheering roars of the crowd). 

But be careful with your money – many an adventurer has lost the riches he gained during the day in the games of dice he chose to play at night. If you are clever, though, success at gambling is not only a matter of luck. A character with a high skill at bluffing will be an excellent card player, while a dexterous rogue with sleight of hand can attempt to cheat at dice. But beware! If caught cheating, you might be dragged into a fistfight, and once the guards arrive the cheater is the one who has to pay the fine.

You may even catch goblins playing a game of dice in the dungeon, and if you don’t attack them right away, you may even join in! They are, after all, not the smartest creatures nor the most vigilant guards.  

Voice Sets  

You have already heard the triumphant laughter of a wizard as he fries a horde of goblins with his fireball, but there will be many more occasions when your characters show their emotions or make a comment regarding the current events. Like in many other classic RPGs - Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Jagged Alliance 2, Wizardry 8, to mention just a few examples - you can pick one of many different voicesets for your character, covering a vast array of personalities.  

Whether your character is a lawful paladin or a chaotic barbarian, you can select the voice that fits him the best and hear him commenting on certain situations throughout the game. From a simple laugh, cough, or scoff to exclamations like "Bah, elves..." or "What a nice lady!", your characters will comment on combat events, conversations, or item interactions when appropriate.  

To achieve the best quality for these voice sets, we’re cooperating with professional voice actors like Stephen Chatfield. Stephen is not only a highly versatile and exceptionally talented voice actor but also a huge fan of table-top and computer role-playing games. We’re happy that he will contribute not only one but a handful of character voices for Realms Beyond. Exclusively for this update, Stephen recorded two samples of very different character voices to demonstrate the idea.

You’ll listen to a character with a lawful good mindset followed by a chaotic character, in different in-game situations.

 If you want to know more about Stephen's work, please visit his website.

A preview of the tools used for Realms Beyond. The Kickstarter has 5 days remaining and is close to funding.

Tools Preview, First Social Goal reached, Italian Version

Tools

In today's update we will show you a little preview video of our editing tools, which will be shipped along with the game as mod tools, so you can create your own scenarios and campaigns.

Our map editor allows you to texture and modify the landscape, place objects and effects, set the lighting and place creatures and NPCs on the map. It's a powerful editor which gives you a lot of options, but the map building process is quick and easy to learn.

The dialogue editor is just as easy to use and just as powerful. Easily write different conversation nodes and connect them with a click of your mouse. Add conditions to the different dialogue options, making them only available to certain classes or races. Or make them dependent on the player character's gender, or a certain skill or stat. With the dialog editor's script calls, you can implement a large variety of condition checks, and you can have NPCs react in different ways to the player's dialogue choices. 

We use AngelScript as a scripting language, which is an object-oriented language based on the syntax of C++. This allows you to create all kinds of interesting scripts to spice up your campaign with the custom scenes you want it to have.

Realms Beyond provides you with powerful modding tools that are easy to learn and allow for quick and efficient mapping and dialogue scripting once you are familiar with them.

Have a look:

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Social Goal reached

We have reached our first social goal! 506 people now follow our Facebook page and the fourth beer mug has been unlocked! We want to thank all our backers by including the Digital Art Book with many high res concept artworks of the game as a bonus.

Italian Version

We're overwhelmed by the interest of the Italian RPG community and the support of our Italian backers is tremendous. Therefore, we are happy to announce that we can finally confirm the Italian version of the game!

Once again, thanks to everyone supporting us! Stay tuned for new updates!

This Realms Beyond update focuses on The Wildlands area and explores the legacy of Virduris.

The Wildlands are one of the most turbulent and unstable areas in Argea. It is a region of numerous different cultures, as humans from all corners of the world came to settle there after the local kingdoms had collapsed and fallen. A land of opportunity, with the riches of the past and abundant natural resources rife for the taking. After centuries of conflict, collaboration, and consolidation, the Wildlands had become a relatively stable region attracting merchants, adventurers and researchers from all across Argea.

But the Great Cataclysm changed everything. Even though the region was spared from volcanic activity, massive earthquakes leveled the major cities and left the survivors with half-collapsed piles of rubble to live in. A large part of the population returned to the lands their ancestors had come from, leaving their ruined homes behind. But those who stayed were not left to rebuild in peace: from the south, orcish hordes pushed into the Wildlands, forcing the humans to take up arms and defend themselves.

Click for high-res version

This common threat could have united the people of the Wildlands, but instead the vacuum of power left by the collapse caused by the Great Cataclysm led to the rise of three pretender kings fighting over who gets to rule what’s left of this once-prosperous region. Amidst this chaos, the chieftains of the tribes of Pshent, who fled from the destruction of their homeland, have sworn to stay neutral. A difficult stance in a region consumed by a war with so many different sides.

To the southwest, at the border between the Wildlands and what used to be Pshent, only the city of Khuft remains as the last remnant of a once great kingdom. Threatened by the hordes of undead that overran their homeland, more and more Pshentians leave Khuft to seek a better fortune in the Wildlands. Yet all they do is trade one threat against another. 

Click for high-res version

Needless to say, adventurers and mercenaries will find many opportunities for employment in this region. Will you support one of the three pretender kings, help the tribes of Pshent protect their independence, or even join the orcish raiding parties as they push deeper into human lands?

Kalgerth is the strongest of the three pretenders, or at least that’s what he likes to claim. He is seated in the city of Antir, the only city in the Wildlands whose walls are still mostly intact. Holding it gives him more legitimacy than his rivals, but his claims to be the de-facto ruler of the Wildlands are just that – claims. He doesn’t even unite half the population under his rule, and he is too indecisive a ruler to bring more villages under his control. He may have the most solid base for kingship among all three pretenders, but unless he adopts a more bold strategy, his opponents may soon outmaneuver him.

 What Marek lacks in territory, he makes up for with a fierce army and ruthless command. He may not control as many villages as Kalgerth or Naraya, nor does he have a city as strong as Antir as the seat of his power, but he has plenty of swords and knows how to use them. He wages a ruthless guerrilla war against Kalgerth, ambushing patrols of his soldiers, and occupies villages so their population has no choice but to accept him as their rightful king. His methods may be effective, but they do not win him much support among the common populace.

Naraya is known for being an eccentric ruler who cares little about warfare and stays mostly out of the conflict between Kalgerth and Marek. Once, she had invited a cobbler from far Pyrrhenia to fashion sandals like Mirvala’s for her, but sent him away again when he didn’t bring her flowers as a gift. She considered it disrespectful of him to not arrive with a gift, and what better gift for a queen of her beauty than a beautiful bouquet of blooming flowers? Despite her eccentricity, her territory is prosperous, as neither Kalgerth nor Marek consider her a serious contender to their kingship. And yet she is far from weak, with well-equipped troops guarding her borders.

 The tribes of Pshent have declared their neutrality in the conflict, but chieftess Duniba knows it cannot last. She wants to unite the different tribes under one banner to defend their independence against the pretender kings, who want to win them over to their cause and involve them in pointless fighting. But the tribes are too reluctant, too adamant in their neutrality. She fears it may need a catastrophe to convince the other tribes of joining her cause, but she still hopes the people of Pshent will realize the need for a strong leadership before it is too late. Of course, she only wishes to lead for the good of her people, not for personal ambitions…

The Legacy of Virduris

As war-torn and chaotic as the Wildlands are today, they used to be home to one of the greatest civilizations of Argea in the past. The wizard-kings of Virduris, most prominently the legendary queen Mirvala, once ruled over a powerful kingdom that occupied the territory now known as the Wildlands. But their empire has fallen long ago, and now nothing but ruins and legends remain. Even the language of Virduris is lost to time. The many inscriptions left behind by the Virdurian people are nothing more but strange symbols on the walls to those who look at them today, the meaning behind them long forgotten.

The many ruins left by the old Virdurians offer plenty of opportunity for adventurers to find valuable relics of the past. Before the Great Cataclysm, researchers from Cormac, Pyrrhenia and Sabag-Hirar had excavated ancient Virdurian sites, but in their current unstable situation, the Wildlands are too dangerous for most scholars. Many Virdurian cities known from legends still haven’t been found, their secrets still buried deep underground.

Click for high-res version

The Wildlands offer countless opportunities for adventurers. Between the conflict of the pretender kings, the orcish incursions and the ancient Virdurian ruins, those who are brave enough to face the dangers of the Wildlands have plenty of choices.

Update: This giveaway is closed now.

We have received 10 vouchers for Realms Beyond with which we can have 10 NPCs in the game who will be in our own RPGWatch club house / guild house.

You have a chance to win one of these vouchers as long as you fulfill the requirements below:

• You are a member of RPGWatch, registered before November 1, 2018
• You need to be a more or less active member, so you need a minimum of 10 posts, with a minimum of 5 posts in 2018
• You need to have a pledge in the Realms Beyond Kickstarter campaign, at the level of the Digital Edition or higher.
• You need to respond to this post with the information that you want to participate

Everyone who fulfills the above requirements gets 1 ticket into this giveaway. Depending on your RPGWatch membership, you can increase the number of tickets you participate with in this giveaway

1. If you have a ticket, for every year that you are registered at RPGWatch you get one additional ticket.
2. If you have a ticket then for every 500 posts you have (at the end of this giveaway), you get one additional ticket.

You have the chance to win one voucher. With that voucher you get to name your NPC. Further details will be provided at a later stage.

The latest from Realms Beyond looks at camping and survival.

Travelling the World: Camping and Survival

 The world of Argea is vast and full of wonders. While exploring the world map, your group of companions will travel through lush forests, climb magnificent mountain ranges, trek through arid deserts and treacherous swamps, and even sail to long forgotten isles. Your adventures will carry you far and wide, either on the soles of your feet or on horse’s back.

But travel is not an easy task: your adventurers will get tired, hungry, thirsty, and fed up with the monotony of the road during a long journey. Your wizard will have to rest to restore his magical power, your cleric will have to meditate upon his faith; and most of all, after a long day of traveling your entire party wants to take off their sweaty clothes and heavy armor, sit down around the campfire, enjoy a hearty meal and end the day with a game of dice or cards while listening to their musically skilled companion play his lute. 

When you’re exhausted after days of travel but still far away from the nearest inn, when you’re lost in the freezing north and need to warm your cold limbs, when the heat of the desert makes you want to wait until nightfall to continue – you set up camp and allow your party to have some well-deserved rest. A campsite can be put up anywhere in the wilderness, but not every location offers the same comforts.

Click for high-res version

Aside from the elementary feature of resting to recover spells and heal wounds, in Realms Beyond your party members will be able to use the camping time to cook and eat, chat and play games to relax, go hunting and fishing, forage for berries, mushrooms and herbs, treat their wounds, craft potions or identify items, scribe scrolls, and even make music around the campfire. The chances of a successful hunt or finding ingredients in the wilderness depend on the environment, however – you won’t find many plants in the desert, and wildlife is more abundant in woodlands than on the plains.

Camping isn’t without its dangers, either. Hostile groups or natural predators might assault your camp while you sleep, and if you are ill-prepared for the weather, your characters might catch a cold or worse. But camping in the hostile wilderness is a necessary risk to take, because the longer you travel the more it tires out your characters and the more it consumes your adventuring supplies. Eventually, your party will become exhausted, your supplies will run out and you’ll risk starvation and dehydration. Camping lets you rest and take some time to gather food and water from your surroundings.

In order to make your camp a little safer and more comfortable, you can stock up on camping equipment in town before you set out into the wilderness. A kettle for cooking, blankets to keep you warm while you sleep, a boardgame and a musical instrument to serve as entertainment. Camping in Realms Beyond is a game of resource management: you have to weigh the dangers of resting in an unknown area (and risking an ambush, or worse) against the downsides of forcing your party to press on. It adds just one more issue to the list of things you will need to consider before leaving town and setting off to unknown territory.

The equipment and supplies you need to bring with you largely depend on the area you want to journey through. Proper footwear, warm cloaks and a couple of blankets are almost a necessity in the frozen wilderness of the north, and taking additional firewood along isn’t a bad idea, either. In the desert, you should take a few additional waterskins along, as water is scarce and the heat is parching. When and where to rest is always an important decision, too: in the desert, it might make more sense to rest during the day and travel during the night, when it is cooler. If your party is already tired but you know there’s a river a few miles ahead that would be perfect for fishing, it might make sense to press on to get a reliable opportunity to stock up your supplies.

Sometimes, however, you might also wish to rest while you’re exploring a dungeon. Your casters have spent all their magical energy and have no spell slots left, your fighters are wounded and you doubt you could make it through another fight. But resting in a hallway patrolled by monsters isn’t the best idea. Within dungeons, you can only rest at pre-determined resting spots placed in sensible locations by our level designers. These work in a similar way to Dark Sun: Shattered Lands and Knights of the Chalice. Some dungeons might not offer you a resting spot at all, forcing you to carefully manage your limited resources until you get through them. Others might offer you a resting spot close to the entrance, so you can rest before every encounter. This system of resting in dungeons allows us to craft varied and diverse dungeon experiences that all play differently.

[...]

An update for Realms Beyond that looks at the story behind Cormac and the Cult.

The gods are dead. Peace upon their virtues.

I was present when Rethgard burned and ash suffocated all cries for help. I witnessed the fall of Caer Pedryvan, long before it fell to the besiegers’ assaults. I listened to prayers lost in the wind, until hunger forced the godsforsaken to feast on their dead. I called to freedom all those doomed souls incarcerated by fear in Eastgate’s walls, hoping the fortress’s stone would keep the disease at bay that crawled out of the Dustmoor as Midlandshire’s righteous scourge. Do you hear the wailing? And the curses of those who had faith in your virtues? The day will come on which "The Black Hand" shall tear down the decrepit fortress and tear out the throats of those who put spoiled corn and rotten meat in the bowls of their brothers and sisters. Hear the wailings arise from Eastgate, while they joyfully watch martial games in Medcaut! They feast above the corpses of those slain for the audience’s enjoyment. Hear the jubilations of those who call the swords of the faithful to swing without rest! They who forge to lively song the chains that force once-proud Tharsians into Kvenland’s bondage. Men and women they wish to break like the trunks of the proud trees they cut down in the north and then ferry down to their stark lands, so they may be fashioned into lances to be shattered against comrades’ breasts. To their grave carry the virtues! 

But what weighs such trivial bloodthirst compared to the blistering boil of Waystead, rampantly growing on a mountain of bones! I saw it fester like an ulcer and surround itself with walls upon walls, which cannot manage to keep out the worm that feeds from its putrid flesh. Greed erects its own citadel on Waystead’s hill and stares down upon a city that drowns in it. Do you see the poor lost souls? They are driven through taverns into the voracious arms of the many whorehouses, and declare their love towards ever new piles of useless junk, peddled by crooks and swindlers. At night the great horn resounds to announce the closing of the gates whose hinges creak like the rusted doors within forgotten dungeons. In truth, these districts are the prisons of the destitute! Do you still believe the tale that these walls keep out the foes? They are for you! You are their prisoners! You lie and betray. You defile all who enter your abodes without restraint. And how skilled you are at murdering each other... your ingenuity finds many paths. And the bastard child of your cruelty is torture that causes pain without death, so sweet release may not come to your suffering victims. And you call yourselves the keepers of the virtues? Carry to the grave their legacy!

Map of Cormac

Originating in this rotten heart, the flood of falsehood flows northward the Greyadder to Cairn Thuath. Is it not blood that surges against the shores of the Galtan Sea, and is the fortress not a butcher whose ramparts reach into the skies as witnesses of incomparable arrogance? To how many who freeze in the cold could the mighty hall offer shelter? O Cirramón, highly vaunted ancestor who on his mighty throne sees, hewn in stone, the ages pass: what do your marble eyes see, o king of emptiness? Sunwardens did you see come and go. And next to them thousands of those damned by their hands. Do you listen with approval to the screams of those who suffocate in the smoke of the fire-wheels they are bound to, burning and choking in the name of the gods? Does no one have pity on the innocent? Is it dissonant to your ears to hear songs of feigned piety at solstice, while elsewhere they scream and scream as the flames consume their living flesh? Fortress of screams! Fortress of bones! Terrible songs of pain resound within your walls. But no pleas soften the hearts of your bloodthirsty knights, who set out on Tuachall’s order to ravage the lands while pennants of virtue stream from the tips of their bloodstained lances. Earl of Glenthearn, I call thee forth to the battlefield of your hypocrisy to submit yourself to the judgment of the slain! Come forth, so your victims may summon a sea of blood poured forth from their wounds to drown Cairn Thuath and your noble line in the consequences of your sins. Carry to the grave the burden that weighs on you! 

And also to the west Waystead carries its rotten seed. Towards Bridgewater, which is lovelier in its bloom than silverystar yet just as poisonous, where corrupt collectors take your coin even for crossing the bridges and hang from trees the poor souls who cannot pay, just for the sake of entertainment. Seek they in “The Merry Hangman“ absolvence for their sins at the bottom of a tankard? Or is reflected in the swill that fills their mugs the desperate thrashing of their victims’ limbs? But no, those whose tongues once tasted power over life and death crave to taste again the rush of taking lives, and so they giddily anticipate the next poor fool who cannot pay their extortionate fees! But I ask, when will the fat mayor Henry Fitz dangle from the rope he deserves!? Henry Fitz, who trades women like cattle and commits robbery under the guise of taxes, as long as gold flows into his hands. Who would be surprised to know that these waters, flowing from the west, have their source in Ethuvien, home of the degenerate elven vermin? Just as nightmares are caused by bad food that lies heavy in the stomach, so the land is haunted by the bad waters that flow into it. That is why bad dreams lurk in Fiarach’s dark forests, while restless shadows wander through the ruined castle of Dún Ifrenn.

Even the wilderness is not spared from the depravity. The Drywon of Ynys Dryw isle who call themselves tree-knowers, growing in the forests like wicked weeds. They cavort with vile fey and wild elves, perversions of nature they worship as her protectors. And yet the people are too blind to see their degeneracy for what it is: they harbor love and respect for the Druids and believe in their ungodly lies, worse even than the lies of Cormac’s priests. Their very being violates the rightful order of the world, and yet the elven lies that are Druidic tenets find approval in the ears of men. Like the rivers that run to Bridgewater, originating from elven lands, so the Druids’ enticing words have been told to them by elf and fey. Their little cult flourishes among men, for those who do not participate in the violence and betrayal of the cities instead participate in perverted rituals of faeries. Oh, how great is the humanity of Cormac! Carry to the grave the rotten bark of trees.

Why do you still bow your heads before false prophets and jeweled crowns of gold that have been forged with your sweat and your tears? Recognize your true nature! May the chains break that snake-tongued priests have laid around your limbs and thoughts. Rise, you children of the Inner Flame, so that your Lord may be pleased with you! For he is coming to redeem you. Oh, how he is coming! As a storm, as bolt of thunder, as a dark star. As a falling heaven and beginning of eternity. He shall arrive with fire and with night. His is Hylia’s body, whose wasting rays fashioned your shroud. From burning firmament and thundering clouds will rain down her blood and drench the lands with lust! Then become intoxicated by the setting sun, so you may feel the power of stars in your blood! Celebrate his arrival, you children of the Flame! Celebrate it with relentless destruction! Stride through the wreckage of broken oaths! Reject the bondage of regret! Shatter the idols that enslave you! Give in to your wants and desires! Whatever you crave, seize it! Satisfy all your long-proscribed cravings!

I see a new world rising from the fires of his flesh and with it the armies of the ostracized, who once lived in want like you, but now rejoice in the joyful flames of his kingdom of salvation. Rupture, Argea, for your savior is near! The virtues are dead. Peace be with the gods.

- Pamphlet of the "Cult of the Inner Flame"

 This update is also available in German language.

The Halloween update for Realms Beyond offers a name game.

Halloween Update: A Demon With No Name - Yet!

Click for full-size version

Only a handful of witches and warlocks have met this creature of the underworld. But even they know not its name.

But maybe one among you has been told its name? A silent whisper in the night, a cold breath of something dark and primal speaking ancient syllables into your ear. Tell us the creature's name, so the people of Cormac know what to say when they pray to their gods for protection!

Everyone can participate in this little game. Come up with a fitting name for the demonic creature that rises on the night of Sanhviun and send it to us. We will choose the one we like the most to be the name of the creature in our world. The winner will also be proclaimed - if he or she so wishes - and be listed as "Invoker of [Demon'sName]" in the credits, in addition to the normal credit listing given by the backer tier if he or she is a backer.

Please be aware: Only one submission per person! Otherwise, the demonic creature you're trying to tame will burn you alive there and then.

Suggestions can be submitted below in the comment section of this update, on Twitter, Facebook, or in the related thread in our forums. We will collect all names sent our way before the end of the deadline and then choose five of the best – and you will choose the winner by voting on the official Realms Beyond website.

The deadline is 1st November 22:00 (10PM) CET 

Who knows the creature's name? Come forth, wise men and women of our realms, and tell us!

The latest update from Realms Beyond focuses on the hand crafted artifacts to be found in Argea's History.

In the grand library of Galkarru, you’ve read a story about an ancient city in the middle of the desert, situated near a fertile oasis. It was once a prosperous city of tall minarets and flowering gardens, ruled by a proud sultan who decreed that everything within his city’s walls belonged to him and him alone. When he saw a priestess of Aliltu who visited the city, he was struck by her beauty and wanted to have her, so he instructed his men to take her to his palace. But when she was brought before him and realized he wanted to make her a part of his harem, she cursed the sultan and his city: she doomed all who lived in the palace to live eternal lives, their bodies preserved at this moment in time, no longer aging – and unable to leave the palace grounds. The rest of the city she cursed to turn into scorpions, as they were as deceitful as scorpions, first showing her hospitality then allowing the sultan to take her as if she were his property. And so, the legend says, the dreaded scorpion people came into the world. 

The story also describes the sultan’s scepter: a precious thing, made of gold and silver and a dozen jewels, and enchanted with powerful spells that enhance the wielder’s beauty and grant him a presence inspiring to all who are near him. The story is widely believed to be a legend, the city a mere symbol and warning of what happens to those of great arrogance. And yet, you set out to search for it. And there, deep within the territory of the scorpion people, you find the ruins of an ancient city partially buried by the sand. When you enter the palace, you are attacked by armed guards, nimble harem dancers, and the sultan himself – their souls driven mad by centuries of being cursed to stay within the palace. You fight them off, your blades granting them the sweet release of death, and when you examine the body of the sultan – there, in his hand, is the legendary scepter, just as it had been described in the story.

Scepter of Awe

[...]

Another update for Realms Beyond. This one focuses on the city states of Pyrrhenia and has some screenshots of temples.

Many centuries ago, the city states of Pyrrhenia ruled over a massive empire. Their settlers had colonized new shores all along the coast, and their ships had even crossed the ocean to find a strange new world in the west, of which now only memories remain. In the years before the Great Cataclysm, however, Pyrrhenia had been a subject of the Kingdom of Cormac, the zenith of its power long past and now a mere shadow of its former glory.

Scroll Picture 1

 But in the chaos of the Great Cataclysm, the Pyrrhenian cities declared independence and became free once more. Pyrrhenian lands were largely spared by the catastrophe, and the newly autonomous city states became the centers of a Pyrrhenian renaissance, foremost of all the city of Villenia.

Even though on paper the Pyrrhenian Empire has been restored, with an emperor and a senate made up of representatives of each city state seated in the ancient capital of Tregara, in truth the city states act as independent entities and are in fierce competition with each other.

In Realms Beyond, the player will visit the city state of Villenia, heart of the Pyrrhenian rebirth, where – as High Oracle Andraste told us above – everything conforms to the divine order of the cosmos.

The society of Villenia is divided into three distinct social classes: the craftsmen, the seafarers, and the soldiers. This division is reflected in Villenia’s government, as it is not ruled by a single entity, but by three so-called Tutharchs who each rule over their respective social class. The Tutharch of craftsmen inherits his position from his predecessor; the Tutharch of soldiers is elected by his subjects; and the Tutharch of the seafarers is determined by a contest of wits, skill, and physical fitness. 

Scroll Picture 2

 In the eyes of every proud Villenian, this system embodies the divine order of the cosmos, where every man and woman is at the place the gods have decreed for them. But some voices of criticism can also be heard, claiming the lack of social mobility between the three classes is unfair… but such voices speak folly, as what could be more just than the order decreed by the gods?

In Pyrrhenia, you will find many ruined temples and palaces in the wilderness, the remains of settlements abandoned centuries ago. During the Cormacian occupation, many old monuments fell into disrepair. Now they serve as hideouts for bandits and sinister cults operating in secret, far from the prying eyes of the populated cities. Artifacts of Pyrrhenia’s glory days can still be found in some of the ruins and fetch a high price in the newly independent city states, where the people adore their ancient culture.

[...]

A new update for Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen focuses on the journal and the map but the most interesting bit talks about the interactive environment.

...
As an example, let’s look at the simple quest of finding a buried treasure. A citizen of Vedwyd has found an old diary and treasure map when he cleaned out his basement. They belonged to his great-grandfather, a pirate who, when he was older, settled down to live an honest life on behest of his worried wife. But before he settled down, he buried some of his treasure at a location only he knew: a chest containing jewelry that could easily have been identified as loot from a recently plundered merchant ship.

The diary contains a short description of the location, and the treasure map is a crude drawing of what it looked like. "Berried jewls at renner grov", says the diary. "Start at nearby cave entrans. East 6 steps. North 4 steps. Luk at pointy rok bitween 2 trees. Pik it up an dig belo." Clear enough instructions to find the treasure, one might think. But the man doesn’t know what his great-grandfather meant by Renner Grove. There is no grove with such a name nearby. Maybe there had been, once – his great-grandfather had lived long before the Cataclysm, and in the turbulent times that followed, the name may simply have been forgotten. There is a clue, though: there was a cave entrance in the grove’s immediate vicinity.

[...]

Interacting with the Environment: yes, you can touch that!

Talking about the treasure hunt – as you may have noticed, it involves picking up a rock and digging beneath it. Many items in the game, and even some pieces of the environment (wall niches, inscriptions, a broken wall that looks climbable…) can be selected and interacted with. Every object can be scripted to be interactable and behave in different ways when interacted with.

Interactable elements will be outlined when you hover your mouse over them. But beware: not every interactable item is beneficial. Some might be devious traps: a magical trigger that unleashes a storm of fire when touched, a lever that locks the only exit behind you, a valuable artifact that makes arrows shoot out of the wall when you pick it up. But they can also open new ways: a heap of boulders that can be cleared by a character of high strength, a magical barrier that dissipates when touched by an enchanted weapon, a tree that can be hacked down to create a makeshift bridge over a narrow ravine.

The many pretty objects that clutter our world are not mere decoration, they are fully interactable and often serve a gameplay purpose. Always be observant, and you will find many things to play around with in Realms Beyond. And since every object you can interact with is highlighted when your mouse passes over it, it means that there’s no annoying pixel hunting. You will see at a glance whether you can do something with an object or not.

This allows us to add elaborate puzzles to the game, as well as alternate quest solutions and plain fun environmental interactions. A statue that requires an item to be placed in its opened hands in order to unlock a secret door. A merchant’s cart that can be toppled over to create a distraction. Or a magic stone that hops away whenever you try to touch it.

The interactable objects in our environments follow the three golden rules of our game design: interactivity, reactivity, and player choice.

Stay tuned for the next update where we will talk about the world of Realms Beyond a little!

The Kickstarter for the turn-based RPG Realms Beyond is here and they need 100 KEuro to make the Kickstarter a success.

Here is the Kicckstarter video:

Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen is a fantasy computer role-playing game with turn-based combat and a party system that allows you to control up to six characters at any one time. Whether you yearn for an open world to explore at your own pace, tactical combat that allows you to plan your moves carefully, or want to lose yourself in the rich fabric of our world, trying to survive and make your mark, Realms Beyond offers endless choices, lands to travel, monster-infested dungeons and a host of storylines to follow.

Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen is inspired by the classic RPGs of the 80s and 90s, taking the best elements of the beloved old classics and reforging them into something new in a powerful modern engine. In Realms Beyond, you will find the tactical turn-based combat of the Gold Box Games, Temple of Elemental Evil and Dark Sun, the world exploration and camp management of Realms of Arkania, the interactivity and living world of Ultima, the choice-driven quests and reactivity of Fallout and Arcanum, and the rich NPC interaction of Baldur’s Gate and Planescape Torment, along with fresh new features that haven’t been seen before in the genre.
Realms Beyond is an RPG true to its roots, knowing that in order to reach the skies, it must stand on the shoulders of giants. But it is more than just a simple throwback to the old days: it's a new take on classic concepts of the genre, taking the best ideas of the past and adding its own fresh concepts to create a unique game with its very own atmosphere and personality.

The Kickstarter for Realms Beyond will be starting soon according to this tweet.

For this week's #screenshotsaturday, here a little sneak preview of our upcoming #kickstarter campaign that starts very soon.#indiedev #indiegame #dnd #rpg pic.twitter.com/kQQas7RX7W

— Realms Beyond (@CeresGamesDev) October 13, 2018

Realms Beyond looks like a very promising title for the fans of CRPGs and I spent quite some time at their booth at Gamescom to collect information about the game.

You start in the world of Realms Beyond, where some 50 years ago a global disaster happened, called the cataclysm. Simultaneously everywhere in the world, volcanos erupted. Some areas were destroyed immediately and now lie in ruins. Nobody actually knows what really happened. Since then the world is somewhat in chaos and every culture and nation have created their own explanation about the cataclysm. Some think there is a religious reason, some think it is a demon, some a wizard, but nobody really knows.
It is your task to travel the entire world and collect the necessary information from the various nations and cultures, by means of completing quests and finding hints to solve the mystery. For this, you have to deal with the sensitivities of those different cultures and deal with a new cult, named the cult of the Inner Flame. A religious cult of which the popularity is rising in the world.

Realms Beyond will be coming to Kickstarter this October according to this forum post.

...

Which brings us to the final part of this post, our grand announcement:

Realms Beyond will be launching a Kickstarter campaign in October 2018!

We will reveal more information about the campaign once Gamescom is over and we've had a chance to catch our breaths. Stay tuned!

And before closing this post, we'd like to offer a heartfelt thank you to all the visitors to our booth who showed interest and asked questions about our game. There were hundreds of you, and it was a joy to show our game to each and every one of you. We're ready to receive hundreds more in the coming days, so don't hesitate - pay us a visit and let us guide you through the Realms Beyond!

Thanks daveyd!

Ceres Games will be heading to Gamescom and have some new screenshots to show off from Realms Beyond.

Realms Beyond has shown off its combat alpha with a gameplay video.

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Ambush in the Forest A battle taken from the alpha version of our combat system. While traveling through woodlands on the worldmap, the player's party has been ambushed by a group of orcs and trolls Reminder: Particularly the user Interface, sounds, FXs and animations are still work in progress. https://www.realms-beyond.com

Realms Beyond shows off some screenshots from its combat alpha.

Combat Alpha – First Screenshots

While the user interface of our combat alpha is still in the final polishing process, we can already present two screenshots from the upcoming scene.

A warband of orcs (along with a troll) ambushed the player’s party in morning hours while traveling through the wilderness.

Edited:
Some more variations with customized grid settings.

Dark variant – medium opacity

Bright variant – high opacity

Realms Beyond showed off its fireball effect.

Combat Development and Goblin Barbecue

April 29, 2018

We haven’t posted much lately because we focused all our efforts into developing the first playable iteration of the combat system. This combat prototype (or let’s say Combat Pre-Alpha) will include almost every action and spell of the classes Fighter, Barbarian, Cleric, Wizard, Ranger and Rogue (about 100 actions and spells in total).

Along with animations, character models and visual effects, we already implemented the sound for various weapons, spells and hit effects.

Until we can show you a detailed insight of the combat system, this little preview video will give you a first impression of the Fireball spell at a higher character level. Those poor Goblins never had a chance and died many deaths during the development.

Except for the combat grid, we completely hid the user interface because it’s still work in progress.

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ljs23rd spotted a progress update about character portraits for Realms Beyond:

World Building #3: Faces of Argea

During the last two weeks, we have been occupied with one of the most important visual elements of traditional RPGs: Character Portraits.
We needed to find a good compromise between quality and quantity because every NPC in our world that the player can interact with, must get his/her very own unique face. For us, that’s one of the most crucial points if you want to realize a believable world.
A small but expressive 2D portrait can deliver much more personality and individuality than a high-poly 3D model with fancy shaders and physically simulated hair.
After some experiementation with various Photoshop techniques, we finally figured out a proper way to create portraits in a reasonable amount of time in decent quality. The world of Realms Beyond, Argea, will be initially populated with at least 250 unique NPCs (common villagers without dialogue lines won’t have portraits) plus dozens of unique encounter bosses and various mysterious creatures in dungeons and wilderness areas.

We will not disclose every culture and faction yet, but those examples will give you a first impression of our portrait style and the groups that populate Argea:

Realms Beyond has a new blog update on world building.

World Building #2: Where do you start designing an open world roleplaying game?

Up to this point, most of our blog posts have covered sources of influence and inspiration and some general game mechanics. What we have not covered at all so far, is the world of Realms Beyond. That's where I come in...

Some of you may know me as "Dragon" in our forums and I am the Creative Director of Realms Beyond, which means, I am overseeing the creation of the content that you will eventually play in the game.

I do have a background in game design and I've worked on numerous roleplaying games before, in a variety of capacities, and when I joined the Ceres Team some time ago, the first order of business was the general world design.

While we're using assets and code from the never-released Chaos Chronicles project, we decided early on to create the actual content for Realms Beyond from scratch. But where do you start designing an open world roleplaying game?

Aside from re-familiarizing myself with the D&D rules of version 3.5 and looking through all the already-created assets and materials, I had a completely clean slate. Peter (aka HobGoblin42), our project director and lead programmer, had only one guideline for me: create a believable world, rich in detail, that appeals to fans of classic fantasy games and literature.

For a game designer and writer, that is a lot of leeway-much more than you will usually find. So I sat down and brainstormed a number of ideas. While being an open world, the game would ultimately have to have some kind of main storyline, regardless of the player's participation in it. Some overarching events have to happen in the world to keep the whole thing moving. With that in mind, I fleshed out a first basic storyline.

This may sound pretty straight-forward, but in reality, it means that I took a ton of notes, wrote a lot of text and revised it again and again to accommodate new ideas and changes. Just when I thought I had it all fitting together nicely, another idea popped into my head, making me rethink my premise, my second act or my solution. It happened a number of times, which is normal for the way I work, until I got to the point where I felt I had exhausted my "What if?" pool.

With plot points, locations, characters and events listed in bullet points, I then went to work to flesh it out in writing and I created a document that was a couple of thousand words long, essentially running through the plot, explaining what happens in chronological order and filling in the necessary background to follow and understand the developments, all the way to the end.

This narrative is not as clean as you might expect because after virtually every other paragraph I had to intersperse Editor's Notes to explain what was going on, why things happened, why characters behaved a certain way, why a turn of events was relevant, and so on. But in the end, it painted the picture of a story that unfolds in the world we are trying to build. Events of such proportions that they affect everyone in the world, including the player.

We bounced the plot outline around a few times to iron out some wrinkles and to add in some additional comments and ideas that surfaced while we were discussing the narrative. A few weeks later, we had an outline that we both liked and felt comfortable enough with to use it as the basic premise for Realms Beyond. It became our Foundation.

And then it was time to actually design the world...

World building is such a huge topic that I won't be able to cover it in any kind of detail in one post alone, so it will become a fixture in our blog updates, as I will cover some of the countless aspects that go into this subject. Hopefully, you'll find it enjoyable, to see how a world is conceived and what the glue is that will hold it all together.

Even though I have been working on a great many roleplaying games, most of those games either relied on an existing, typically licensed, universe, or the scope of the game was such that actual world building was not required. Therefore, large-scale world building has never been anything I really had to do before. That's what made it enticing. That's what made it intimidating. But if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it is that you can only truly learn anything by doing and that you can learn anything if you take it one step at a time.

The first thing that was necessary to begin any kind of world design was to determine what kind of game we wanted to make. What kind of feel did we want? It's the difference between, say, "The Lord of the Rings" and "Dragon Age," just to give you two very different flairs of fantasy.

It also required us to answer the question of what kind of cultures we wanted in the game. Once again, it's the difference between "The Lord of the Rings" and, say, "Wizardry: Crusaders of the Dark Savant."

What kind of geography did we want in the game? A general nordic feel like "Skyrim," for example, or something more traditional like, you guessed it, "The Lord of the Rings?"

After some discussion, we had settled on a few parameters that would serve me as a guideline to create the game world. Some of our decisions were actually dictated by the art assets we had already in place, so we knew that for the most part, we wanted a traditional fantasy world with a pseudo-medieval setting that is not too exotic or radical-meaning no fancy machines or the like.

The entire team and I shared one core belief, that in order to make a fantasy world believable, it helps to make it relatable. To make it relatable, use something familiar. Ergo, we decided to loosely base the cultures in our game world on actual historic cultures. Naturally, making a fantasy game means we treat the term "loosely" really loosely and won't let ourselves get bogged down by actual history.

In the end, we decided on a series of cultures, like a Nordic people, one that builds upon Central Europe, another one reminiscent of the Mediterranean, and then Elven people and dwarves, of course. But we also included cultures like the Maya and ancient Mesopotamia to our list. Not a bad start, especially because all of this can be expanded as the world grows. These generalized peoples also allow me to add granularity as I need it. Not all Central European cultures are the same either, after all. There are the French, the Germans, the British, the Irish... you get the idea.

As I mentioned before, it is important to us to make a game that is relatable, something that has a certain amount of familiarity without feeling like we're trying to simulate medieval world history, for example. With these cultures in place, it is possible for me to begin adding colorful facets and nuances to them, which means... notes, notes, notes!

For years I've kept a general Writer's Journal. It is a notebook in which I jot down everything that comes to my mind. Ideas, names, events, thoughts, anything really, that could be useful at some point.

Why would I do this? Because creativity is a fickle mistress. Inspiration typically strikes when you least expect it and good ideas are just as quickly forgotten. I hate it when I forget ideas and can only remember that it was something really, really cool! The Writer's Journal prevents that and for Realms Beyond, I started a separate Writer's Journal, specifically for things relating to the game. In it, I record the same things mentioned earlier, but I also collect quest ideas, ideas for cool monsters and other things that are relating to the game.

In case you are wondering, no, I do not collect these things in a physical book. I am using a software package called Scrivener which has been my best friend as a writer for many years. It is a writing software that is perfectly tailored to my writing and research needs because it allows me to organize things in ways that suit me best. I can throw in media files like images or soundbites, I can write, create folders and tree structures to organize notes, I can create a cork wall and pin note cards to it... it is truly the most perfect tool imaginable for the task.

Well, that just about wraps it up for today. Join me again next time when I'll tell you more about the process of putting together a brand new world.

Realms Beyond has had a number of updates about its progress since the new year. January 1st saw an update about exploring the world then January 5th saw an update on sound design with some music samples.

Sound Design #2: Attentive music matters

On the technical side, modern computer game development, especially in the field of roleplaying games, it appears, is very heavily focused on the visual presentation. Eye candy sells, there can be no doubt. Many will argue that music and the sound design are somehow important, too, but for the most part, it is the graphics that draw players in.

Back in the early days of computer games, computer RPGs never really considered graphics as their key focus. A large part of the reason was that hardware limitations kept things in check and so, game designers turned to music and sound effects to create the proper atmosphere. Nowadays, we have come to think that a bunch of hyperrealistic graphics with some epic music underneath make for great atmosphere, but you really couldn’t be more wrong.

Music offers very subliminal ways to manipulate the player’s mood. Especially in computer games it can affect the mood in so many different ways. And that’s the reason why we care not only about adequate graphics but also about precisely-tailored music (and sound effects, as you already know). To achieve this goal, we pay a lot of attention to the creation of the music for Realms Beyond.

We are currently working on the different combat themes. To achieve a dense atmosphere, we decided that we needed not only one but several separate themes. The driving force behind this decision was that e felt it was important to underscore different types of combat situations with different types of music. A small skirmish has a very different feel than an epic battle and the music needs to reflect that appropriately.

But it goes beyond that. Skeletons, for example, are very different from human knights. Not only do they look different or fight differently, no, they also have to have a different sound design. It is our job to create different types of atmospheres for different kinds of encounters because after meeting the skeletons, an encounter with goblins or a diabolic demon should also have a different sonic quality.

By the time it is all said and done, every type of enemy will have it’s own rhythm, harmony or motif and, perhaps, even it’s own signature instrumentation. This will be in addition to the original Realms Beyond instrument setup, consisting of a string sextet, some large o-Daiko Drums and several other instruments that have very unique sound qualities to fit in with the dark and gloomy mood of our game.

But I get it, talk is cheap. You want to hear something. Alright. Let’s take a look at the Undead. If you get tangled up in combat with these guys, aside from the standard string sextet, you will also hear a scary-sounding Indian dilruba, along with the sounds of anklungs, which always remind me of rattling bones.

To illustrate this, here are three sound samples for you to listen to. Each one represents a different type of enemy. But please keep in mind, we have slightly reduced the quality of these MP3s to conserve bandwidth here on the web. In the final game, you will be able to enjoy music and sound effects in much higher quality, of course. I should also point out that music is still a work in progress and that what you hear is not a final piece of the game.

[...]

We have been contacted about an RPG that has been in development since 2016, named Realms Beyond. It is an isometric turn-based fantasy RPG with a party up to six characters.

Realms Beyond is a classically inspired fantasy role-playing computer game with turn-based combat and a party system that allows you to control up to six characters at any one time. Whether you yearn for an open world to explore at your own pace, tactical combat that allows you to plan your moves carefully, or want to lose yourself in the rich fabric of our world, trying to survive and make your mark, Realms Beyond offers endless choices, lands to travel, monster-infested dungeons and a host of storylines to follow. Adapting and responding to the player's interactions with the world, you will find a depth and richness for your adventures that combines the very best of traditional gameplay with modern-day technologies. The result is a game world that comes alive, brimming with undiscovered stories, content, mysteries, and challenges.

Key Features:

• Turn-based combat, featuring many favorite spells, feats and actions, based on rules described in the (3.5e) Revised System Reference Document (SRD) covered by the Open Game License v1.0a (OGL) by Wizards of the Coast, Inc
• Custom-built, isometric graphic engine that combines zoomable 2D and 3D technology to bring to the screen a never-before-seen amount of detail
• A bustling open world, spanning entire continents, replete with believable NPCs, complex cultures, factions, societies and a fascinating history
• Create a party of up to six characters, with customizable appearance, ranging from 7 different races and 8 different classes
• More than one hundred spells, each with unique, stunning visual effects
• Thousands of individual items to use and interact with
• An epic storyline, massive quests, uncounted missions, hordes of monsters and a world that is steeped in lore and mystery
• Create your own adventures, campaigns or even entire worlds using the UrWelt RPG Engine framework

Platform: PC Windows

Planned Release Date: 2019