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Dev blog: The Adventurer's Guide to Talent Stones

Hi everyone,

Talent stones are rune carved stones which gives the owner the ability to perform some special moves during combat. They are mysterious artifacts and nobody knows who forged them or how to make new ones. But they are used by heroes for centuries.



Characters already have one talent stone at the beginning of the game, depending on your choice of background. So the Retired Gladiator has “Heavy Strike”, Hunter has “Eagle Eye”, Swashbuckler has “Whirlwind Attack”. Otherwise, talent stones can be bought from the adventurer’s guild or rarely be found on dead adventurers.

To use a talent stone, you equip it on the action bar. Once you use it, it cools down for 7 turns. Each stone consumes a certain amount of stamina. So you need to be strategic about it. When your stamina is lesser than 5 points you are fatigued and your movement is slowed.



Talent stones come in three levels, and you need to have certain attribute points before you can use them. For example stones about ranged attack need dexterity points, etc. Every character can buy every talent stone and use it. There are no class restrictions and so your bow expert hunter can be good at melee fighting too.

Dev blog: Adventurer's Guide to Shopping

Hi everyone,

In this dev-blog, we will talk about shopping in Terra Randoma.

There is one shop in each settlement in Terra Randoma where you can gear up and get ready for adventure. The shop keepers’ looks and names are randomly generated. The availability of items vary with respect to the settlement status.

There are currently seven settlements in Terra Randoma (though we are thinking to offer an option to play in a bigger map with more settlements in the future) and the starting map randomly ranks them as rich, moderate, poor and very poor. The rich settlements have the biggest market, so there is more variety and quantity of everything you can buy: food, potions, equipment and armor. Accessories can only be found at the rich settlements.



In an earlier article, we talked about events and crisis that randomly happen to the settlements and how they may impact your gameplay. These directly affect the availability and price of items in the market too. For example, in a poor town, you can normally find only a few potions. But if there is an Alchemy Festival being held at that town, all of shop slots will be filled, and the potions will be sold at half price. Or, if the roads are insecure, then availability of items reduces to 25% and they become 50% more expensive. You can make a small fortune by keeping track of the events and crisis, trying to buy items where they are cheap and abundant and sell them where they are needed the most.

Another factor that affects the prices of items is your Speechcraft Skill. You can improve this skill as you level up (or you can buy skill points from the Adventurer's Guild).



The prices also depend on your reputation level. As your reputation level rises at a certain settlement, the shops will be happier to give you better prices.

You don’t need to rely on the shops entirely to get supplies. There are traveling merchants you can come across on the roads. They usually specialize in selling one type of item, for example Traveling Farmer sells only food, while Traveling Alchemist sells only potions. There is also a hunter who sells meat and arrows. They all offer a small quantity but at 25% cheaper than shops. They will conveniently buy anything from you.

Your speechcraft affects the prices of these vendors. You can also pickpocket travelling merchants. But if you fail, you will lose reputation in all towns since they will effectively spread the news all over the island.

We will add an Alchemist's Tower which you can sell materials coming from monsters for better prices (like spider silk, snake tongue).

There is a shop at the Adventurer’s Guild too. It sells food, potions, arrows and Talent Stones, which can only be found here. What are Talent Stones? Well, we will talk about them in a separate dev-blog.

Dev blog: People of Terra Randoma

Hi everyone,

In this dev-blog, we will talk about the NPCs in Terra Randoma.

You will meet NPCs all over the island. There is a shop keeper and a tavern keeper in each settlement. There is also a tavern patron, a regular at the tavern, happy to give you a quest. This person changes everyday. She or he may need you to escort her to ensure a safe journey to another settlement, or to rescue someone close to her, or to retrieve an object stolen from her. Helping an NPC also increases the prosperity level of the settlement. So by helping one, you help all. Also your reputation increases and the shops offer you goods at cheaper price. With enough reputation you may meet the lord of the settlement who has special quests for you.

NPCs can be rich or poor. You can pickpocket them. If you succeed, then fine, you get away with it. If you fail, however, your reputation decreases. If you do this repeatedly, you may be banned from entering the settlement altogether.



You also can come across to NPCs on the overworld. They can be traveling merchants, selling you food or potions at more affordable prices than shops, but offering less variety. We will also add hunters, bards and noble people who you can interact with. You may also sometimes bump into someone who is in need of help. A boar is attacking a traveller or an old man suffering under a fallen trunk. You can overcome some of these incidents with a skill check or fight your way out through a battlefield.

The NPCs are procedurally generated. Their hair, clothes, names and occupations are all allocated randomly. This is a work in progress. We will enrich them with more traits. There is an adjective for every NPC like angry, fearful or humble. This helps generate amusing stories. Say you meet a greedy tailor asking you to retrieve a family heirloom which is golden scissors or you can meet a weeping housewife whose husband is kidnapped by a ratman chief.



As mentioned above there is a lord in each settlement who you can meet if you have enough reputation. He may give you a hint about where to find a fragment of an ancient tablet which actually is a map of... well that is a subject for another dev-blog :)

Dev blog: Adventurer's Guide to Camping

Hi everyone,

In this dev-blog, we will talk about camping, foraging and hunting.

In earlier articles, we mentioned that hunger is an important aspect of gameplay. “Resting” of course is another aspect that all RPG players are all well accustomed to. And since Terra Randoma overworld is full of dangers, you cannot always count on getting to the nearest settlement before you drain. So we introduced Camping.



When you are on the overworld, you can camp on any tile, except water tiles. At the top of the screen, you can see the danger level of each tile shown with exclamation marks. The plain tiles are less dangerous than forest tiles, which are less dangerous than mountain tiles. There is a day and night cycle, and it is safer at day time than night time. Note that if you have invested points in your survival skill camping will be less dangerous.

So when you click that “Camp” button, you see a percentage showing you the chances of enemies launching an attack while you sleep. Good news is you will be all recovered nevertheless. If you can endure that attack without losing all the precious health and stamina points you managed to recover, then you are fine. Otherwise, you try again until you are sheltered in a warm tavern.



But camping isn’t all about resting. You may simply camp for the purpose of finding food. Food is not cheap, nor very abundant in the dungeons. Each step on the over-world plain tiles takes 1 hour (and twice as much on the forest and mountain tiles), so hunger will be an issue when planning your route. You also need to pay attention at hunger during combat because your character gets hungry faster when his stamina level falls below the half.



You can forage fruits and vegetables in the forests or hunt to find meat. Both options may mean that you encounter all sorts of hostile beasts in order to be able to earn your food.

You may also encounter hunting opportunity as a random incident. Sometimes, when you travel, you will accidentally come across tracks of a boar, or a deer, and use your Survival Skill to follow it. If you manage to get close to the animal, you will attack. Boars are hostile by nature, and they will defend themselves. They are fast and strong, and tend to travel in packs, so can be nasty enemies. Deers however will try to escape from you through the exit tile. Trying to hunt a deer is a fast paced mini game, which we hope you will find very enjoyable. It is kind of a procedural puzzle which you have to solve with in a few turns.



Also like all enemies these animals can have prefixes on their name and are modified accordingly. Every now and then, you may meet a “Berserk Deer” who proves its kind is not always about running off or an “Elite Boar” which is harder to hunt but drops more food.

Dev blog: The Adventurer’s Guide to Battlefields

Hi everyone,

In this dev-blog, we will talk about the Battlefields.

You will enter and crawl many procedurally generated dungeons in Terra Randoma but do you rest once you step on the overworld? The answer is: No! You will also need to fight through various battlefields.

In a previous article about incidents, we briefly explained that you go to a battlefield screen if you encounter a hostile incident on the overworld and your skill checks to avoid fight fail. The battlefields in Terra Randoma are all procedurally generated with 15x15 grids providing an intense battle experience.



The obstacles are randomly placed so the battlefield will be different every time you play. There may be river tiles on the forest and a bridge to cross it that makes battles all the more interesting. The river is passable by certain monsters but not you (until you have certain points in your wilderness survival skill).

There may be other obstacles like a fallen trunk or a cacoon of a giant spider. You are able to chop trees if they somehow block your way. There will be cracks on the mountain battlefields, and you will be able to break rocks, as you can chop trees, and occasionally find precious metals or gems inside them.

There is one exit tile on each battlefield. Like we explained before in the article about combat system, your character in Terra Randoma has a sprint ability and you may actually use this ability to escape from the battlefield through the exit tile. This exit tile is always behind the enemy so it is tricky to escape without getting a damage.



There are also special battlefields you come across as an investigation incident, where you choose whether or not to investigate a Broken Cart, an Abandoned Camp, or a Witch’s Hut.

You may perhaps choose to investigate some Castle Ruins. Here you can see the remnants of a once-wealthy household, and then broken pillars and walls here and there. This place holds great riches. There may be alchemy tables, weapon racks, barrels or simply coins laying all around. But always with an enemy party defending the place.

The Ancient Shrine of the Forgotten God is another curious incident you may discover with a special battlefield. Here you find an altar with an engraved stone you cannot read. You see a random drawing of a Forgotten God on the floor tiles. Forgotten may be, it still lures worshippers who may have offered coins or items on the altar, which you can happily loot. There may be pools here which you can heal your self when you drink or encounter some nasty suprise. Beware though, it also lures creatures of the forest who do not want you there. These shrines will play a special part in accomplishing one of the meta goals.

We will add many more spots like these above by the time the game hits Early Access, and the year following that date.