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ːsummer_magicː OTHER ISSUES OF THIS BLOG
ːQuestionsː CONSOLIDATED Q&A THREAD

Welcome to this week's dev blog of Spire of Sorcery! We've discussed ːsummer_magicː the concept of the game and how it's connected to our previous releases, as well as ːsummer_magicː the main character of the game and how you can shape him (or her). Today, we'll talk about the world around the Spire, and the different kinds of quests that you can set up for your disciples.



When you start a new campaign in Spire of Sorcery, the map is each time generated from scratch. During the game, you will see a specific name that's given to this world (in the in-game settings menu), and if you enter that name when you start another new campaign, then you will be able to access the same world again (this option is not available in Ironman or Artefact Hunter modes, of course).

What exactly changes from one campaign's map to another?

• ːnotebookː the whole geography (for example, how many major rivers there are, and where they flow into the sea);
  
  
• ːnotebookː the spread of dwellings, and dweller types, across the map (in one campaign you may start next to a war-hungry lord; in another, you may start next to the peaceful village of mushroom-eaters);
  
  
• ːnotebookː the location of the artefacts and other points of interests (certain old books may be stashed away or in possession of different tribes);
  
  
• ːnotebookː the exact location of your Spire in relevance to the Empire and the Distorted Lands.
  

Some things will remain constant, though:

• ːsummer_magicː all the way to the West, there is the big sea, and the capital of Empire, the largest seaport on the coast;
  
  
• ːsummer_magicː all the way to the East, there are the Distorted Lands – the unmapped region that is a highly dangerous place to explore;
  
  
• ːsummer_magicː all the way to the North, there are huge mountains that are not really mapped either, as the passes are snowed in and hard to come through;
  
  
• ːsummer_magicː all the way to the South, there's the same big sea, as it's going around the continent from north-west to south-east.
  
  
• ːsummer_magicː your Spire is roughly mid-way between where the Distorted Lands begin in the East, and where the border of the Empire lays in the West.
  

While your Spire is always located between the Empire and the Distorted Lands, the actual placement may vary depending on the text quest that you will complete during the character generation phase early on.

ːMapOfEdenEmoticonː How long will it take for a party sent off from the Spire to reach the borders of the Empire?

About a week or two, one way. As to the capital of the Empire... it is going to take much, much longer. You ran away from the Guild of Mages in one of the satellite cities. If you were practicing in the capital itself, it's highly doubtful that (a) you would be able to arrange such escape; and (b) you would remain uncaught by the Inquisition on your trek to the Distorted Lands.

Generally, you are likely to start the campaign with a sequence of simple exploration and resource-gathering quests around your Spire. Such quests will mostly be safe and quick, and will not require any preparation beforehand.

ːMapOfEdenEmoticonː Should you expect to uncover the complete map of the world late in the campaign?

That would be quite unlikely, because certain regions are just too hard to explore (for example, old swamps that take weeks to cross) while other regions are simply too dangerous to venture into (for example, the territory of the Empire has decent roads that allow fast travel, but it is also extremely dangerous for your disciples as they might run into the Inquisition and fail to mask their true identities).

Whenever you're about to set a new quest for a party of your disciples, there are two indicators that will help you to gauge its possible results even before you dispatch that party on the quest:

ːfireappleː How likely the party is to complete the intended goal?
ːcursedskullː How dangerous is this quest expected to be?

For example, if you're sending a couple of blind disciples to gather mushrooms in the nearby forest, then they are very unlikely to succeed in its goal (gathering mushrooms) – even though they have a 99% chance of getting back without any risk to their lives.

On the other hand, if you're sending another couple of disciples into one of Empire's border towns to sell rare minerals, they might be expected to have one hundred percent chance of success – since the minerals are rare, and in demand everywhere – while their lives will be in grave danger, because of their exposure (they are still young and cannot hide their magic talents well enough).






In terms of exploration, the map carries several informational layers:

• ːMapOfEdenEmoticonː geographical layer: rivers, roads, lakes, mountains, forests... once any of your parties walk through these regions, the geographical data is added to the global map that always remains at your fingertips.
  
  
• ːMapOfEdenEmoticonː points of interest layer: known dwellings, possible quest markers, special places like altars of death, catacombs, ruins of the ancients, and such. This layer has some depth to it, for example you may already know the location of certain caves – but you will need a party to get there and explore them, in order to utilise the full exploration potential of the spot.
  
  
• ːMapOfEdenEmoticonː observation layer, i.e. the area that you can observe in real-time: firstly, around your own Spire – this is the zone where you see other parties coming and going as they move over the map (for example, adventurers or regular armies); this zone can be expanded with certain spells and/or upgrades to the Spire; and then, once you learn the corresponding far-seeing spells, you are also able to open such 'observation zones' in other places on the map by performing certain rituals (see below).
  

We currently intend to allow players to toggle these layers on and off as they see fit, and the general idea is to create such a default view of the global map that will provide all the important information for the decision-making without overly cluttering its space with tons and tons of symbols.






And now, about the quests. Think of Spire of Sorcery as a "reverse RPG": rather than following the preset quests, you are the person that sets the quests for your disciples, and you succeed – or fail – through the balance of their skills and traits, and the sort of goals that you set for them.

ːsummer_magicː What kind of quests are possible?

There's a lot of different options, some of which start with a specific Quest Marker (as a part of the game, you learned from someone or somewhere that in this specific place, there's something to do/explore/gain); and some of which start just with your own decision and pre-existing knowledge (for example, you already know of a certain dwelling, and you send a party to this specific dwelling to enslave its population).

Some of the quest types that are already a part of the game:



ːsunnyemoː EXPLORE – a core quest where your party travels to a certain place on the map, to confirm if there are any points of interest along the route / in the destination area.

ːsunnyemoː GATHER RESOURCES – collect minerals; or berries; or mushrooms; hunt for specific animals – or capture and bring back live animals.




ːsunnyemoː ATTACK – travel to a certain destination and fight with a specific opponent.

ːsunnyemoː DEFEND – provide military assistance to an ally or a neutral dwelling/being against specified or unspecified opponents.

ːsunnyemoː RESCUE – free (and possibly bring back) a captive character / being.

ːsunnyemoː EXTRACT – extract (by force) a certain item currently in possession of an opponent / neutral party.




ːsunnyemoː PERFORM RITUAL – carry out an active magic action, for example – perform a possession ritual on a Source of Power so that the Spire owns it, and grows its mana; or perform a raise dead ritual on a cemetery of an aggressive town, so that its citizens get busy solving that new problem instead of creating problems for the Spire.




ːsunnyemoː TRADE | NEGOTIATE A DEAL | ESTABLISH RELATIONS – there's a wide variety of diplomatic actions available, for different strategies.






ːsunnyemoː RECON – observe everyday life of the dwelling, to gain further insight into its dwellers (same can be applied to animals or monsters).

ːsunnyemoː ENSLAVE – attempt to forcefully place the dwelling under the control of the Spire; sometimes this results in fighting. Once enslaved, the dwelling starts paying the Spire a tribute in resources.

ːsunnyemoː CREATE A NEW CULT – establish a following of the mage / the Spire, as a religious cult of the dwelling.

ːsunnyemoː PERFORM RELIGIOUS AGITATION – if a Cult of the Spire already exists in this dwelling, then this action comes possible and may motivate the majority of the dwellers to join the Cult, which results in the dwelling starting to take your orders and sending you voluntary gifts.

ːsunnyemoː GIVE ORDERS – if the dwelling is already enslaved or is a follower of the Cult of Spire, you can order its dwellers to attack or defend certain points, or to mine specific resources, or to send troops as bodyguards to the Spire.




ːsunnyemoː GROW – grow crops or herbs, or even crystals.

ːsunnyemoː ANIMAL / MONSTER CARE – take care of captive animals or monsters, for breeding or harvesting purposes.

ːsunnyemoː CRAFT – create new items using skills, spells and resources of the Spire and specific disciples who perform this task.

ːsunnyemoː PERFORM ALCHEMY – attempt one of the transmutations that are known to the specific group of disciples.

ːsunnyemoː STUDY – study books, or attend classes of more senior mages (you or other disciples), to advance disciple's theoretical knowledge.




Finally, a whole other type of quests are born out of events, where you have a choice to react with this or that action. These happen based on how the world revolves, and vary from laughable (a fight in the class) to life-threatening (an invasion of undead brought to the Spire by careless disciple from a trip to the burial grounds).

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As far as game features are concerned, that's pretty much it for today! But there's one more thing that we'd like to share: we recently produced a limited number of patches that carry the Spire's sign (you can see these on the photos below), as well as a bunch of stickers.

In the coming week, we'll be running a giveaway on the game's official Discord server, with the bot drawing a number of random winners among everyone who is registered in the community. These will then have the patches, and stickers, mailed to them from our studio in Vilnius. The game may not be available yet, but the Spire is already here, reaching out to the mages hiding out there in the world... ːsummer_magicː



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ːsummer_magicː OTHER ISSUES OF THIS BLOG
ːQuestionsː CONSOLIDATED Q&A THREAD

It was great to see your response to the first issue of the blog – here on Steam and on the game's official Discord server. All those comments definitely makes us feel more responsible about sticking to the weekly schedule =). In today's blog, we talk about the very start of the game: what exactly happens when you push the :turnon_lightning: START NEW CAMPAIGN :turnon_lightning: button?




There's a few things that are a given for this game, at least if you'll be playing the core game and not one of the mods:

• you are a practicing mage with years of work and study with the Guild
  
• you already know some secret magic
  
• you are quite old (i.e. "fewer days left to live than days you've already lived")
  
• you just ran away from the Guild
  
• you just erected your very own magic Spire
  
• you are pursued by the Inquisition (not on the heels... but they are looking for you!)
  

No matter how you start the game, these things will always stay true. You will always be an old mage. You will always be a runaway mage. And you will always have the Inquisition looking into your whereabouts.




Let's start with one of the most frequently requested issues:

• you get to choose your mage's gender! yes!!
  
• you get to choose your mage's character portrait!
  

Following the choice of gender and portrait, you'll be set on a text quest that will determine:

• the exact age of your mage
  
• the exact state of health of your mage at the start of the campaign
  
• the circumstances surrounding his/her escape from the Guild
  
• some of the major events in the world that happen prior to your escape
  
• all of your mage's stats and skills
  
• all of your mage's possessions at the time of escape
  

The campaign begins with the generation of your character, which takes the form of a text quest. If we put two players next to each other, and have them generate their characters – they will end up with 2 really different mages, reflecting their personalities and the roles they choose to play.

Important: this phase determines both your mage and the world around, as your answers will define both personal and global events that would have happened before your campaign begins.

Each question during this phase describes a situation followed by several possible choices of actions, one of which you must choose as the decision of your own mage character. We expect a total of 10-15 questions during the generation phase. The questions come from a fairly large base, and it is unlikely that you will be presented with the same questions when starting your next campaign, or the one thereafter.

A common question is: so what if someone keeps re-starting the campaign, and writes down all the possible choices and their consequences? To address this: firstly, it will be a hell of a job, since certain answers kick in new branches of events during the generation phase; and secondly, yes, it is possible that someone will eventually establish a link between what you have to choose, and what sort of character you'll get at the end.

But does this approach offer any tangible advantage? Not really!

Until you play the game, and figure out your personal strategy that you'll decide to pursue as the most effective one, it will be impossible for you to say what kind of character is better: with a higher Charisma, but older and more frail; or with an extra progress in Monstrology, but short on Intuition and having no possessions from her Guild days.

Our advice? We suggest to just follow your heart, and choose the actions that reflect the role that you're willing to play in this game during the current campaign!





Let's look at a possible question from this stage:


The Guild instructs every mage to undertake an additional study of Botanics.

YOUR ACTIONS:

ːsummer_magicː Follow the order and put additional time into studying the subject, as is expected from any obedient member of the Guild.

ːsummer_magicː Ignore the order and instead hole up in the Guild's Library to continue your search for the prohibited knowledge.

ːsummer_magicː Ignore the order and instead spend more time hanging out with your friends from the Guild, visiting pubs and brothels.


The first option will increase your character's Willpower (since you demonstrate the capacity to follow orders, regardless of personal likes or dislikes), as well as increase the skill of Herbalism at the start of the campaign.

The second option may generate a new pre-campaign event (such as: "a guard found you reading a prohibited book in the Library"). It will also increase the chances of gaining a perk of Bravery, plus will increase your mage's magic skills in some specific areas. Finally, choosing this option will lead you to escape the Guild earlier than usual – since you would accelerate the study of the secret spells – so that you'll start the campaign at a relatively younger age, with a few extra years of life as a bonus.

The third option will increase your Health stat (fresh air and, uhm, pubs!), but will decrease your Willpower – since you're "going with the flow" here. It will also provide you with some friends early on, who may be involved later in the character generation process (for example, helping you escape the Guild) or even early on in the campaign (for example, these could be your students who will come with you to the Spire to become your disciples).

The other thing that is affected by the character generation quest, is your mage's starting possessions: what exactly did you manage to bring with you, when you ran away from the Guild. This is the subject of the last part of the character generation questions, that specifically deal with the event of you preparing your escape.





The stats of your mage are the same as the stats of your disciples: it is the same system for everyone dweller of the Spire.

On a scale from 1 to 20, your mage will have:

HEALTH
INTELLECT
MEMORY
WILLPOWER
CHARISMA
INTUITION

Every stat is shown as a value (e.g. "3/20") as well as a descriptive ("e.g. "frail").

While HEALTH and INTELLECT are pretty obvious stats, let's talk more about MEMORY: Memory is something that affects learning. When you learn, you combine Theory and Practice. For example, you could know all about casting swords, but never have cast a sword in your life... so your skill will not progress with further theoretical knowledge until you actually engage in some real-life practice.

Having a great Memory allows your characters to progress further on the Theory scale while Practice may still be lagging behind.

Now, the WILLPOWER: this is your character's ability to do unwanted things. It's great when it means that your disciples, or your own mage, will pursue the order – no matter what their personal preference... but it also has the other side: it leads to stubbornness. And so in a critical situation during an expedition, for example, a disciple with high Willpower may refuse to listen to his colleagues who would be suggesting (rightfully so!) to change the course.

As to CHARISMA, it defines how attractive your character appears to the others, which is essential for negotiation, trading and deceit. If you need to establish good relationship with a faraway dwelling, you'll be best served by dispatching there a likeable disciple – regardless of her other skills. High Charisma can also be dangerous: if a disciple at the Spire will stage a rebellion against you, and his Charisma will be higher than your mage's... he is so much more likely to attract followers.

Finally, INTUITION: this is the ability to make correct decisions without having the necessary background information. For example, a party is sent to bring back a certain treasure. As the party enters the underground caves, there is a fork in the path. A character with high Intuition value will suggest to the group the correct decision, tapping into the global knowledge of the world that his character doesn't really have.





In the conclusion of this week's blog, let's talk about the skills of your mage (just briefly; we will focus on them in more detail in one of the later blog posts). The skills come in addition to stats, and they develop as the game progresses; they are measured on a scale from 1 to 300.

Different character actions require different skill levels to perform them. For example, to turn tosljuk's horns into silver powder, you'll need Alchemy to be at least at 120. The higher your skill value, the more the chances of successful action – if your skill only just meets the required level, then it's not much likely that you will succeed at the action at the first try.

Here's how skills are connected to character stats: The progression of each skill is influenced by –

INTELLECT INTUITION

Intellect and Intuition determine how your character's experience translates into increase of your skill.

And for your disciples, there is a third value that will affect their skills:

INTEREST

It can be a bonus (someone's not really talented in magic, but they are very interested, and thus will progress faster) or a penalty (someone's real talented, but... they simply don't care about the particular discipline).

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That's it for today, and we wish you a very happy weekend ahead! We look forward to hearing your questions and comments here on Steam forums, or on the official Discord server.

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