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Today, we'll talk about the goal of the main campaign of the game: getting access to the Elixir of Youth.



When you start the main campaign in Spire of Sorcery, you have multiple ways of addressing the challenges that the world throws at you:

• building a stronger defense against a possible attack by the Inquisition;
  
• exploring the distant corners of the world to obtain rare resources;
  
• increasing the strength of your magic Call to attract more disciples;
  

…and so on. However, there is one challenge that stands out: your mage's age. Every day the mage gets older, and death from old age is the hard limit that the game sets for the main campaign. You may slow down the decaying health, but you cannot stop the onset of decay - unless you win the main campaign by accessing the elusive Elixir of Youth.




Since different players start the campaign with different characters (based on the initial text quest), the basic life expectancy of your mage varies. Just like some mages will have better skills than others, some will also have stronger health stat.

The other thing that affects the longevity of your mage is your decisions on his or her way of life. The following points have a strong effect on how fast your mage ages:

• the sort of food that your mage eats;
  
• the amount of sleep that your mage gets;
  
• the frequency of mediation;
  
• the mood of your mage;
  
• the regularity of his/her overall schedule.
  

Food

The basic thing than you can eat, is what your disciples can forage from the land: mushrooms, berries, roots and wild fruit. On the next level is meat and fish ("game") that your disciples can hunt.

Then comes the cooking: a basic ration requires resources and basic cooking skills, as well as time to prepare, and is more preferable to what you can forage. A ranger's ration is a ration that can last for a long time - so it's possible to prepare those in advance and store them; or use them during expeditions; but at the same time, this ration is not as good as the basic ration in terms of nutrition.

Finally, there's the special healthy ration that needs an advanced cooking skill to prepare: while it cannot be kept for a long time, it provides all the nutrition that a character needs. Eating these healthy rations will delay the decay of your mage's health.

Sleep

Every day, your mage gets tired and needs to sleep to get back to shape. There is a physical limit on how long your mage can go without sleep - after certain time, any character just drops down from exhaustion and falls asleep no matter what you tell them to do; there is a similar limit also on how long a character may stay asleep - if you pushed character for all-nighters the whole week, you won't be able to just tell them to go and sleep for the next 60 hours; rather, characters have natural limits as to when they wake up.

Meditation

There are several meditation techniques, all of which can be learned, that help your mage to regain stamina and improve body/mind balance. Regular meditation helps to delay the disintegration of your mage's health stat.

Mood

Stress and unsatisfied desires negatively affect your mage's health, while keeping him/her happy and providing the small pleasures that they desire has a positive effect.

Regular schedule

Every person in the Spire reacts well to having a regular schedule. Eating three times a day, sleeping in the night and meditating or exercising at specific times keeps people in a good shape. Waking characters up in the middle of the night, skipping meals to address urgent issues and so on, has a negative effect on the current health parameter.





Your mage doesn't really have any special "Life Clock" ticking away in his/her hall, that would show something like "You have 352 days to live". As the mage gets older, he/she is more likely to succumb to illnesses; you may approximate the expected lifetime that remains - especially if you've already played the game and developed an "intuition" for your mage's current state - but this is nothing more than a guess, since so many factors, internal and external, affect the outcome.

Technically speaking, every character in the game has a "current health" and "overall health (constitution)" parameters. With disciples, the value of "current health" is automatically restored with time. You get tired, you fall sick, you get injured… but there's always the cure that can set things right, and by default your characters will restore their current health with time. With the mage, though, this parameter is not restored on its own, and once "current health" reaches zero, the overall global health stat loses another point.

As you may remember, character stats in Spire of Sorcery are measured from 1 to 20. On this scale, 10 is the average value corresponding to a regular healthy person, 20 means "super-human" and 0 means "dead". Since we don't show specific numbers in the game, but rather an overall characterization - "strong", "frail", "very frail" - you will have a general idea of where your mage is, on this global scale, and you'll need to figure the rest based on your overall situation.





The Elixir of Youth should not be mistaken for the Elixir of Immortality. While there are known references to the Elixir of Youth as something that existed during the Age of Mages, the Elixir of Immortality is more a myth than a reality - in theory, it could be possible; but in practice, no one ever heard of, or read about, such a thing.

In the Age of Mages, the Elixir of Youth was used by powerful mages to restore their health and extend their lives. There is no single recipe for this elixir, as mages kept their discoveries private - some formulas resulted in another 100 years of life; some resulted in just 20; and some formulas were so risky that the mage who consumed them, may never wake up at all.

To win the main campaign of Spire of Sorcery, you need to, first, access, and, second, use the Elixir of Youth. It is not enough to find it somewhere - as it may get stolen on the way to the Spire. It is also not enough to produce it, and store in the Treasury - as you may end up being unable to consume it due to special requirements.

Important: once consumed, the Elixir needs years of undisturbed rest to take effect. Thus any mage that walks that path needs to prepare for the occasion by constructing a special chamber, where he/she - and only a few select disciples - may remain safe from the world outside for as many years as the elixir requires, while the other disciples are sent out into the world on their own, and the Spire itself is destroyed in order to hide the resting place.




There are two ways of getting your hands on the Elixir: finding it; and producing it.

In order to find the Elixir, you'll need an extremely advanced skill of Astrology, which may reveal the location of one of the bottles with the Elixir that remain from the Age of Mages; or a success in exploring the world, which may allow your parties to reach such remote places and uncover such information that would yield the secret knowledge.

In order to produce the Elixir, you'll need an extremely advanced skill of Alchemy - as well as a large number of rare ingredients. Like with any other potion, your mage's personal formula of the Elixir will be the same form one campaign to another - but as the properties of different world items change, so with every campaign you will be looking for a different set of ingredients.

Once you find - or produce - the Elixir, and prepare to consume it, you will enter the final part of the game: choosing the disciples who will be sent away and choosing the disciples who will remain with you in the sarcophagus. And here we'd like to reveal a special feature of the Iron Man mode: the disciples whom you send away at the end of the campaign, are able to cross the parallel universes, and come to the Spires of other players that are just starting their own campaigns in the Iron Man mode!



With this, we end this week's dev blog, and as always, thank you for your interest in the game! Please join us on Discord if you would like to participate in the weekly Q&A sessions with our game designer, as well as to see work-in-progress materials that we regularly share there!

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In this week’s blog, we talk about a small group of people that has a huge impact on the life of Rund: The Inquisition.



The Inquisition is an independent organization that operates separately from the Empire. It was established by the former members of the Second Legion shortly after the Empire itself was founded, driven by one fear: that if people who possess magic talent are left uncontrolled, then eventually the horrible events of the Cataclysm will happen again – and the world as we know it, will be finally destroyed.

The central seat of the Inquisition is in Rund’s capital city, from where several hundred inquisitors manage its regional branches. Every big city – currently, 10 – has its own office of the Inquisition, numbering around 50 people each, with the overall current headcount of the organization standing at a bit over 1,000 people.

The Inquisition doesn’t have a single person at its head – rather, it is governed by The Council of Fathers, a group of 7 who attained the highest possible rank. Like the army, the Inquisition attracts bright youths with a promise of a brilliant career for those whose dedication to the cause is exceptional. It accepts recruits from all walks of life, though it’s a known fact that the sons of rich lords tend to become officers much faster than the sons of village blacksmiths – which you can blame on the lack of education of the second group, or attribute to a special protection enjoyed by the first group.

The Inquisition is focused on 4 big tasks:
[oLIST]
Managing the Guild of Mages
Seeking out mages outside of the Guild
Clearing out new lands from non-humans
Performing special operations: catching runaways, and so on.
[/oLIST]





Among all the tasks that the Inquisition undertakes, managing The Guild of Mages is the task that requires the most effort.

First, the scope: there are offices of the Guild in every big city, plus more temporary housing in smaller towns. Every mage needs to be fed. Every mage needs to be protected. And every mage needs to be accounted for, least some decide to become runaways.

Second, the diversity of issues to be solved: from indoctrinating new mages to communicating with customers – lords or officials of the Empire – and then performing the allowed common magic, to collecting payments due.

It is true that the Inquisition is the only organization in the Empire that is not subject to any taxes. It is also true, that the Inquisition does not have any other sources of income, and so it fully depends on the Guild of Mages to generate whatever revenue it needs to support its structure and its ambitions.

Ironically, without the mages the Inquisition will not have the funds to control the mages.




Every day brings reports about people who are suspected to possess magic talent. It falls to the Inquisition to verify each report, and to bring the people who are confirmed to having been born as mages, to one of the offices of the Guild of Mages. There, these people will receive a basic education, and their magic talent will be put to use – strictly within the allowed limits, and to the financial benefit of the Inquisition.

Every day also brings reports about people who are suspected to use their magic talent outside of the Guild, practicing unlicensed magic – whether as undercover mages, hidden by some of the lords; or as wild mages, hiding on their own in the borderlands.

Since the punishment for practicing magic outside of the Guild is public burning, verification of this type of reports is more demanding: firstly, you need to send a whole group of inquisitors, so that if the suspect attempts to run away, then he or she is easily caught; secondly, your group should be strong enough to face, and win, a possible fight with the mage who is cornered and has nothing to lose.

Disappointingly, most such reports turn out to be false, and that can drive the morale of the lower-ranking inquisitors down. Having spent days on the road to a remote village only to discover that there’s no magic involved… they would sometimes get aggressive, just to send a message to the villagers – maybe beating the hell out of the accuser who made them come all the way, to prevent future false alarms. Occasionally, this creates a higher-level problem, as the families of the victims may seek revenge. But what can you do? That’s life.





Where an office of the Inquisition in the capital may look like that of a trading company, with the majority of people involved in management and processing of data and orders, an office of the Inquisition in the borderlands is much more similar to army barracks.

Here in the Wild Lands, the major task of the organization is sending out expeditions to destroy non-humans – considered to be dangerous remnants of the Age of Mages. Once the land is “cleared”, it is normally given to settlers or, more often, is transferred into the possession of the nearest big lord, who then sends there his own peasants.

As a few people in the capital have observed, sometimes the lords in the Wild Lands would blow the threat of non-human dwellers out of proportion, requesting expeditions into the lands that pose little strategic threat. Perhaps the true reason in these cases is their greed for more land, and the Inquisition becomes but a tool that they use to get it from the Empire – for free.





A runaway mage from the Guild is a rare occurrence, not the least because of the severity of the punishment: a public burning of the runaway as well as of every single person who helped them plan and make the escape. But whatever the risks, these things tend to happen from time to time, and when they do happen, nothing is as efficient as a special operations unit of the Inquisition that has among its ranks a number of mages who help them with tracing the escapee.

As to the other sorts of special operations, like putting down the invasions of non-humans and mutants – on these occasions, the Inquisition serves as consultants, with the Legion itself taking assuming control of the situation at large. The last time anything like that happened was a long time ago, when non-humans bread specifically for conflict got around to taking control over several nearby tribes, thus creating a real and tangible threat to the Empire (of course, they were smashed to pieces).




As any organization numbering in hundreds, the Inquisition is far from being a monolith where every person shares the same view. Generally, higher-ranking officers of the Inquisition work off a blueprint for Rund where mages and normal people co-exist.

However, there’s a secretive group of “hardliners”, whose vision is that of the world where every mage is killed. Their “big idea” is the belief that if you start killing off mages, then eventually the number of people who are born with a magic talent, will start to fall, until the day when no mages are born at all...



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That’s it for today – and thanks for being a part of the community! Did you know that there’s nearly 1,000 people on the official Discord already? Every week, we run there a Q&A session with the game designer, answering 15-20 questions from players. You can join it here, or read the answers from the previous Q&A sessions here. See you around!

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Earlier on, we spoke about Rund's lay of the land. Today, we take a closer look at the history, and the current situation, of The Empire.



Currently, the Empire enjoys a privileged position: its borders are secure, and there are no wars except for an occasional conflict with one of the barbarian tribes. It's easy to think that things have always been like this; however, in the Age of Mages the same stretch of land has been divided into many more domains of mages, fiercely competitive with each other.

Lay of the land, Rund.

Before the Cataclysm, the western part of Rund has been of secondary importance, with the most advanced domains being located in the east, where the concentration of Sources of Magic Energy is the highest. The current state – known as the Empire – was created about four-five generations ago by the Second Legion, one of the five armies of mage Nesturs the Wise, and the only significant military unit to survive the Cataclysm.




Nesturs the Wise was famous for going against the current: while other mages focused on bringing into the world elaborate magic creatures, he worked with the regular human material, year by year changing his recruits towards his image of an "ideal soldier".

He used his powers to create magically enhanced armor: light and comfortable to wear, protecting its owners from both regular and magic weapons.

He used his powers to create magically enhanced weapons: weapons that were able to destroy not only regular enemies, but also those special creatures that were created immune to most of the traditional weapons.

He used his powers to create magically enhanced shields: light and durable, they offered an oversized protection area since they actively attracted projectiles flying around, so that an arrow aimed over the shield's edge at the head of its wearer would still change its trajectory to end up stuck in the shield.

He also created other items with similar effects, such as The Flag of the Legion that made those around it immune to magically-induced panic attacks, and so on.

On top of this, he worked with the selection and enhancement of the actual bodies of his soldiers, creating a group of humans that were substantially stronger than the regular folk, and lived longer than others (some of these traits successfully passed from fathers to sons, and some didn't).

The Legions of Nesturs the Wise carried the flag that depicted magically enhanced human soldiers as its main force, ready to strike the enemy at once.

At the time of the Cataclysm, Nesturs the Wise had five legions. All except for the Second Legion were on the battlefield when the conflict got out of control; all perished in the fight. The Second Legion, though, was stationed at the barracks as the reserve, and thus survived with lesser damage, in the aftermath establishing the state that later became known as the Empire.

With the evolution of the Empire, "the real story" behind the Legion has also evolved. Now, over one hundred years later, the Legion's magically enhanced skills are explained as "the true blood of the original human race", which soldiers and their heirs managed to preserve - on comparison with the rest of the population, that was "weakened by uncontrolled magic". As to the magically enhanced items, these are described as "sacred", with their effects due to the glory of the Legion's earlier hero-soldiers - rather than based on magic spells.

A major undertaking of the Second Legion since the Cataclysm is their on-going campaign to "lay to rest the bones of our brothers and fathers", which is focused on finding, digging up and re-burying the remains of earlier legionaries, with their advanced weapons and armor taken away to the Empire's closely guarded armory. Since the artefacts are described as "sacred", these weapons and armor cannot be openly traded - if someone lays their hands on such items, they must immediately bring them to the armory of the Empire, where they are generously rewarded. Using such items for personal purposes outside of the imperial army is punishable by death.

You, or your disciples, may try your hand at locating and digging up such artefacts, even though there's a very little probability to find those in the east. As to venturing west, where the legions originally perished, this presents a significant risk: not only will your disciples enter the territory with heavy presence of the Inquisition, but they may also encounter on such quests the imperial parties that are looking for the same thing, and will be absolutely unhappy to see competition.

The flag of the Empire is the interpretation of the Legion's original flag: now the hand is open, offering help to those in need; the triangle represents the knowledge of the state, and its stability; and the crown shines its light on all of Rund, until there are no more dark corners left in the world.

While being a runaway mage is a crime punished throughout the Empire, catching such runaway mages is far from being a priority for the imperial army, which spends the majority of its efforts on securing the western border with the barbarian tribes as well as on preventing the stronger among the lords of the Wild Lands from becoming too independent from the capital and avoiding its tax collectors.

The troops of the Empire are well-equipped, and fast - its soldiers are among the few who have the right to keep horses (horses are a rare and valuable asset that attracts immediate attention; outside of the army, only lords have horses, while the common folk uses donkeys and oxen).

At the same time, even if the army became concerned with your case, it is unlikely that they would pursue it - until and unless your Spire becomes a major force that may actually threaten the territorial integrity of the Empire. For their main advantages - fast travel and impressive strength of regiments - are of little use in the Wild Lands that are covered by ancient forests and often lack even the basic roads.

It is the Inquisition that is responsible for the criminal cases that involve mages, including those who ran away from the Guild of Mages; and while the Inquisition is very enthusiastic about their agenda, they are not yet as powerful as to command the attention of the Emperor.

Yes, there is possibly a threat somewhere in the Wild Lands. Perhaps a mutant settlement that's growing too strong. Perhaps a lord that's hiding a son who possesses the magic talent. Or maybe a village that started to trade with cyclops, leaving food at the entrance of their cave and finding iron there a few days later. But this is still too small for the imperial army to become attached to the matter… until it starts to present a real and actionable threat to the state.

While the Inquisition portrays itself as the always-alert, always-present force on the forefront of the fight to keep dangerous magic under control, the reality is often different. The job involves extensive travel, and the majority of the reports about 'wild mages' turn out to be false. Down on the ground, serving in the Inquisition is mostly about routine investigations, and a bit of politics, rather than about actually confronting the real danger. Quite a significant number of people who serve in the Inquisition give much more attention to their own career opportunities, rather than to the main cause of the organization.

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Let’s talk a bit about how you can explore the world of the game – Rund.



The world of Spire of Sorcery is known as Rund. Nobody really knows where the name comes from. Some say it stems from “Runes” and some say it stems from “Ruins”, but no one is certain, because this name has been in use for centuries even before the Age of Mages.



We spoke earlier about the general layout of the world. And today we’ll talk about how you actually interact with this world. The global map features three kinds of informational layers:

• Regions
  
• Locations
  
• Markers
  

Region: Ancient Forests.

Regions are what we internally call “biomes”: forests, farmlands, swamps, and so on. Each region on the map has its name: you’ll encounter Dark Woods and Dead Woods and Silver Woods, and many more variations of how the locals name their surroundings. These names come from a database. Each time you start the main campaign, the map is generated from scratch – and these names are assigned from scratch, too. So each player will have a unique experience as far as discovering the world is concerned.

There are many types of regions. We currently completed about a dozen of different types and will continue to add more, as we move towards the launch in Steam Early Access – and then between the Early Access and the Full Release periods. Some of the already finished region types are:

• Farmlands
  
• Plains
  
• Hills
  
• Mountains
  
• Lakes
  
• Rivers
  
• Forests
  
• Ancient Forests
  
• Swamps
  
• Distorted Lands
  
• Rusted Forest
  
• Battlefields
  
• Black Pools
  

Region: Rusted Forest.

The type of region defines how fast your party can move through it when traveling: for example, moving through plains is very easy; while moving through swamps is harder.

The type of region also defines the range of visibility that your party has there: while traveling through hills, your disciples can see far ahead – and can be spotted from far ahead, too, if enemies are around. While traveling through ancient forests, though, the range of visibility is really limited.

The other thing that depends on the type of region is the sort of chance encounters that your party has there: traveling across farmlands may put you in front of a group of peasants going on their regular business (and hopefully, your disciples are able to disguise their magic talents). Traveling across ancient forests may lead you to meet a party of mushroom-eaters returning from a harvest. And traveling across battlefields may throw you face to face with the Bone Creature.

In addition to chance encounters, the type of region through which your party travels dictates the relevant travel risks: mosquito bites in swamps; poisonous air near black pools; dangerous animals in forests. These sorts of mini-events can seriously affect the health and even the lives of your party members.

Each type of region features a different set of resources to harvest: the types of herbs, berries and mushrooms, woods and minerals that your party can forage, depend on the type of region where you’re at.

Finally, the type of region specifies which kinds of dwellings you can find there: mushroom-eaters prefer to settle in ancient forests; cyclops live in caves and catacombs; mermaids are found in lakes and rivers; and so on. Think of it as this: not every ancient forest has a dwelling of mushroom-eaters; but when you find a dwelling of mushroom-eaters, it will be in one of the ancient forests.

Region: Caves.

And what does this all mean for the way you explore the map of Rund?

As you might remember from an earlier blog post, whenever you set up a quest for your disciples, the game will indicate for you the level of danger on that quest. If you’re about to send some weak characters across swamps and ancient forests towards Distorted Lands, you’re likely to see “red” – meaning one or more characters might die on this quest. If you keep the same quest, but change the characters in the party to those who are strong enough, and have the relevant survival skills – you might see the level of danger turn “green”, meaning no risk of death en route.

Your disciples have different advantages and disadvantages on specific region types. So getting to know your disciples better means becoming more efficient in assembling parties to go out to, and through, specific regions.




Locations are points of interest on the map that you can interact with. Here’s some of the more common ones:

• Villages
  
• Towns
  
• Towers
  
• Hermit quarters
  
• Dwellings of non-humans
  
• Mutant settlements
  
• Sources of magic energy
  
• Caves
  
• Ruins
  
• Catacombs
  

Some of these are straightforward: you visit the dwelling of weavers to negotiate, trade, fight or enslave them. Some contain sub-locations and sub-regions that you can explore.

For example, your parties may visit town multiple times, and trade there on the market. And then later on you’ll discover that there’s an alchemist store, or a secret book shop – impossible to access until you learn about it. The same applies to locations like caves and catacombs: explore the cave, and you might discover the dwelling of cyclops or pale ones; or buried treasure; or an old grave.

Sub-regions like caves and ruins do not affect visibility or speed of travel, but like the main regions, they define the type of resources you can harvest; the type of chance encounters you might have; and the type of risks associated with them, as well as the types of dwellings that are native to them.

Regoin: Swamps.

Markers indicate information that is tied to a specific place on the map, for example:

• The place where your party is going to
  
• The place where one of your earlier parties disappeared, and stopped communicating
  
• The place where one of your earlier parties died
  
• The place where something was sighted, for example – somebody’s camp site
  
• The place where an event, often temporary, is happening, for example – a forest fire
  

You also get markers based on information that you learn, such as after hearing in town about a cave in a nearby forest, you’ll get a corresponding marker with this information showing up on the map in the approximate location of such cave.

Like locations, markers show you where you can take action: if this is a grave of your party, you can send disciples to explore the remains and find out what really happened; if this is an event, you can send disciples to discover the details; if this is information that your party learned second-hand, you can send disciples to check it – and so on.

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That’s it for this week! See you on the forums, or at the official Discord server – which by now has over 750 players discussing the game in English, Russian, Japanese and Chinese languages!

ːorange_boxː Bonus content: in this video, you can see and hear the Ancient Forests of Rund:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGDJteLQKu0
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It's been a while since we introduced a few of the creatures that you will meet in Spire of Sorcery. It's time to lake a look at some more!

Illustration 1: Tasljuk.

Tasljuk is a medium-sized omnivorous mammal. It eats mostly fallen fruits, and digs for nutritious roots – wherever those can be accessed easily. They inhabit forests, ancient forests, hills and plains. Tasljuks are generally not aggressive (unless they feel threatened or find themselves in the state of panic).

Tasljuks are hunted for food. Their fat is also sometimes used in alchemy, as one of the ingredients for various healing ointments.

Tasljuks can be domesticated. In the Wild Lands, it is quite common to see a number of tasljuks being a part of household animals. Moreover, tasljuks can be trained to search for Hidden Roots – a rare and expensive delicacy, which is a parasitic plant that grows wholly underground; because tasljuks love to eat them, they became extremely good at smelling these out.

A special characteristic of tasljuks is their symbiosis with Death Flower: tasljuks are immune to the hallucination-inducing pollen of this tree, but they enjoy eating its tasty fruits. Because of this, tasljuks help Death Flowers to propagate across the land, depositing its seeds in their poop, often miles away from the place where they ate the fruits in the first place.

Illustration 2: Death Flower.

Death Flower is a carnivorous tree that flowers and bears fruit all through the year. The trunk is rather elegant, covered by a thin layer of reddish bark. The leaves are quite intricate, often described as airy; the flowers are big, intensely yellow; the fruit somewhat resembles a large pear, and darkens when ripened.

The roots of Death Flower are thin and elastic. The tree can extract them from the ground, and uses them to immobilise and consume its victims (the movement of the roots is so slow, that an outside observer will be hard pressed to notice any movement at all).

The flowers of this tree offer a pleasant, sweet smell; their pollen contains a very concentrated hallucination-inducing poison (however, the fruits are safe to eat). When even a microscopic dose of this pollen is inhaled by an animal or by a human, the victim begins to observe a series of attractive mirages, seemingly emanating from the tree itself. In the state of trance, the victim approaches the tree and lays on the ground to sleep. During such sleep, the ever increasing concentration of inhaled poisonous pollen leads to a heart failure, while the roots of the tree pierce the victim's body in multiple points, to drink its blood.

Tasljuks are the only large animal that is immune to the pollen of Death Flower. They love to eat the tree's fruits, helping it spread across the land by depositing its seeds in their poop.

The fruits of Death Flower are an exotic, and very expensive, delicacy; the pollen of Death Flower is a rare, highly valuable ingredient used in alchemy.

Illustration 3: Forest Cat.

Forest Cats are a large predator with greenish fur that makes them difficult to spot in the woods. They inhabit forests and ancient forests, climbing old trees to build large nests that they make from skins and bones of killed prey.

Forest Cats are able to move almost without a sound, often stalking their targets for miles on end. Their preferred approach to attack is jumping from high trees, knocking the victim out before it can even begin to defend itself.

These animals pose a substantial danger to lone travellers attempting to cross forests on their own; however, they rarely attack groups of people, so most parties will be safe.

The skins of Forest Cats are a highly valuable trade item, and are easy to sell on any market. While their teeth find certain use in alchemy, they are neither a strong nor a valuable ingredient.

Illustration 4: Mermaids.

Mermaids are one of the dweller races that were created in the Age of Mages. They were made to tend to valuable underwater plants, and to hunt for larger types of fish. Mermaids live in lakes and rivers.

Their skin is of blueish colour, their bodies are a combination of a female torso and a fish-like lower part. They are viviparous hermaphrodites.

Mermaids are generally known as rather playful creatures, and will often engage in underwater games. One of their favourite pastimes is luring passersby to play with them, and then drowning them as a part of the fun.

Illustration 5: Creepers.

Creepers are medium-sized slimy creatures that have two limbs in the front, and a snake-like tail in the back. To get around, they use a combination of limb and tail movements. Their limbs are strong, ending with sharp fangs that come handy for digging tunnels. Creeper's head is on the small side, and is mostly taken up by a large round mouth surrounded by a number of mobile tentacles.

Some people say that Creepers were created in the Age of Mages for a long-forgotten purpose. Some say that they were created not for help, but rather as a pest – and set to attack the cellars of rival mages. Others think that Creepers were always a part of this world, and existed for centuries – before being disturbed and discovered in their underground tunnels that stretch below the land of Rund.

Creepers prefer humid spaces, from lakeside caves to swamp burrows. Nowadays, they are also found in sewers and cellars, often causing significant damage before being found out. "Complete eradication of creepers" is one of the bestselling services from the Guild of Mages all over the Empire.

Creepers are not choosy eaters. They would eat almost anything, as their gastric juice is able to dissolve even the hardest of materials. When Creepers are defending themselves, or going after a victim, they squirt acid, causing significant burns. In close encounters, they also use their fanged limbs.

The gastric juice of Creepers is used in alchemy as one of the basic ingredients for some of the more potent potions.

Illustration 6: Weavers.

Weavers are the race of dwellers created to produce top-quality cloth. Originally supported by the mages who created them, after the Cataclysm they managed to survive on their own – by using weaving skills to create traps for birds and small animals. With time, they further learned how to breed forest pigeons for their meat and eggs, and how to make poisonous bait in order to hunt larger wild animals.

The bodies of Weavers are generally the size of a rather large pumpkin. The head and the face are human-like, as well as two frontally placed hands. Like spiders, they are able to produce cobwebs, and turn them into cloth. Weavers also posses basic knowledge of alchemy, which allows them to make a large variety of dyes as well as certain poisons.

Weavers love bright colours and often decorate themselves and their dwellings with various coloured patches, flags, feathers and amulets. Their dwellings are typically made of ropes tied around a large tree. In the tree, they would create a hollow to be used as the alchemy lab.

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