#46 – CREATURES

It’s been another week of development here at Charlie Oscar in Vilnius Old Town.

Some issues that we solved were pretty straightforward – we added two more character states to the system, for example (“sleepy” and “lowered health”, both are meant to draw your attention to irregularities with those who display them).

Other issues make us sit back, pour some strong tea, and scratch our heads as we ponder on possible solutions – which is the case with the question of “how big should the forests of Rund really be?”.

On one hand, nobody wants to spend months finding their way out of the ancient forest where the Spire is located. At the same time, having the Spire placed within just a few days of travel from the nearby villages makes it dangerously close to the Empire, with a high risk of detection once we introduce military patrols and bands of adventurers.

Balancing issues like this can take days of on-and-off thinking, discussions and trials – such is the life of a game developer! But if we want to release a game that will make you happy, we need to ask ourselves all the hard questions before we release it. And so, we pour more tea, and we keep the discussions going…

Today, we take a break from talking about the features of the game to catch up on a few new creatures that our team has added to the game over the last few weeks –




When we start working on a new creature, we always start with the game design.

Our game designer’s strong suit is designing “systems” and in Spire of Sorcery each creature is a system of its own, with multiple functions.

At this time, we have a little over twenty different creatures already drawn and colorized, complete with animations and sound effects. At the same time, we have many more in the plan, and we keep adding them on a regular basis.

Once we select the next creature to be drawn, we discuss its history, the biomes that it inhabits and its functions in the world of Rund, and then Rita – our concept artist – proceeds with the first concepts. Normally, we create at least three different versions so that we can have more choice about which direction to take.



After everyone on the team agrees on the concept that we want to pursue further, the concept undergoes multiple iterations and fixes based on the feedback of the team until it's final. Some ideas are fleshed out pretty easily and for some it can take up to 10 different drawings while we search for “the right” look and feel.



Finally, once we settle on a finished sketch that we consider to be properly reflecting the nature of the creature, we move from concept to line art. Line art has many more details and offers a lot more depth. It normally takes 3 to 5 revisions before we are done with this step.



With the final line art (“approved”, as we say internally), we move to colorization. More often than not, one artist creates the concept and the line art and another works on the colors.

Coloring may sound fun! But actually, it’s a pretty challenging work, and may require as many as 30 (yes, thirty) different versions before the job is done.



What are we looking for, when we colorize creatures? A lot of things: the creature should look alive; the creature should fit the biomes that it inhabits; and, the creature should match the art style of all the other creatures that are already done by now. Working with multiple artists on the same project means that we have to create and follow quite strict stylistic guidelines.






A long time ago, one of the mages used to turn his enemies (as well as some of his servants and disciples) into trees bound for hundreds of years of never-ending pain. Their souls remained alive and alert, and they could talk – but they could not move, nor could they escape their torture by finding a quick death. They became known as Wood Weepers.

Since then, hundreds of years have passed, and the original trees eventually rotted away and fell apart. But not before bearing siblings, which grew up knowing nothing except constant suffering as they continue to experience pain in every moment of their existence.



Wood Weepers are a source of “weeper’s blood”, an alchemic ingredient. They can also be negotiated with, since they remain intelligent as well as retain certain ancient knowledge inherited from their parents (which can prove valuable). Interaction with Wood Weepers is prone to make the other party depressed (unless that party is immune to empathy) since the worldview of Wood Weepers is colored in pain, and they mostly bemoan and complain about their lives.

Ultimately, one may learn how to release Wood Weepers from their prisons – either giving them a human form or providing them with a clean and painless death – but since such knowledge requires an extremely high skill, it may remain only a theoretical possibility.








Earth leeches are a hive creature with one collective mind. They inhabit wetlands – swamps, riversides and lakeshores. While the queen at all times remains in a protected underground nest, regular leeches sleep during the day and hunt during the night. Their size is roughly the size of a small cucumber.

Hunting in packs, leeches detect prey by heat and approach their victim by quietly moving under the ground. Mostly, their victims are sleeping animals or humans. The bite of earth leech is painless because of the special saliva. Depending on the strength of the victim, sometimes it would die because of the loss of blood – and sometimes it would wake up in the morning to a tough case of anemia.



The saliva of earth leeches is widely used in alchemy as a painkiller ingredient. Dried leeches are also used when preparing certain potions and powders.

Characters with strong travel skill and in particular characters with the secondary skill of survival normally can avoid the danger of setting up camp in an area that’s exposed to earth leeches. Otherwise, certain damage may be incurred; and if a wounded character is exposed, they may not survive the attack.








Blackpaws live in packs and inhabit hollows and burrows. They prefer to sleep through the days as their sensitive eyes prefer full or partial darkness. They are omnivores and maintain a diverse diet. When feeling threatened, blackpaws sound a loud alarm that attracts the attention not only of their own peers, but also that of larger animals, including predators.



Blackpaws may be hunted for their meat and hides, though considering their medium size and their advanced agility, it generally is not a very efficient investment of a hunter’s time.

By their nature, blackpaws are attracted to bright, shiny things and they are known to steal equipment from camps and lone travelers. Because of this, some people specifically seek out the hollows and the burrows where blackpaws reside, often finding there valuable loot stolen by the creatures and accumulated there over the years.








Gigglers are scavengers, roughly the size of a dog, who live in small packs. Their name comes from the human-like giggling sounds that they produce when fighting for food. Generally, they pick up on the dead, but they are also known to attack sick or weak animals and humans.

The main risk posed by gigglers, though, is the many diseases for which they serve as a carrier. This is so well-known that “giggler’s head” is Rund’s universal symbol for a disease, often painted on the doors of the houses with incurably sick or highly contagious persons.



Certain parts of gigglers are used in alchemy (but with care, requiring a high level of skill to extract and apply such ingredient). If your party travels through the area inhabited by gigglers, you run a higher risk of getting infected; and if your party is small and has weak members, the risk of a direct attack can also be rather significant.










Tree bleeders are parasites found in ancient forests. Their spiky external side mimics tree bark and is practically indistinguishable from a regular tree, except for a big yellow eye that observes the surroundings (sometimes people report “trees that are alive”, mistaking a tree infected with a bleeder for a tree that has an eye of its own). Their internal side is one big mouth, surrounded by small but sharp teeth.

Tree bleeders attach themselves to a tree, burrow a hole and suck the tree’s juices; once the supply diminishes, they fall down, roll into the like of a dry branch, and slowly move towards the next tree in the area. In dry seasons, tree bleeders are known to attack animals and even humans by shooting their poisoned spikes from the shell, as their thirst and hunger drives them to whatever can offer sustenance, be it a tree or a warm body of a walking creature.



The teeth of tree bleeders are used in alchemy as well as in setting up traps. The danger of tree bleeders is not only active (possible aggression during dry seasons when they shoot spikes), but also passive – even an accidental close contact with their spikes leads to bleeding and poisoning.





That’s it for today! As always, for updates on work in progress, please check the game’s official Discord server.

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ːsummer_magicː Spire of Sorcery – Character Generator (Steam)
ːsummer_magicː Official Discord server
ːsummer_magicː YouTube recordings of the development live streams
ːsummer_magicː Twitter (game updates)
ːsummer_magicː Facebook (game updates)



ːmaliceː Official Discord server
ːmaliceː Twitter (game updates)
ːmaliceː Facebook (game updates)
ːmusicː Original Soundtrack on Spotify



ːnotebookː Charlie Oscar’s developer page on Steam
ːnotebookː Twitter (studio news)
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ːnotebookː "Behind the scenes" Instagram
ːnotebookː YouTube