Spire of Sorcery News

Earlier in the week, we celebrated the third anniversary since the release of our studio’s previous game, Gremlins, Inc., on Steam. In that time, we released nearly 100 updates with new content and new features for the game, as well as posted over 300 news stories.

With Spire of Sorcery, our plans are no less ambitious: we see the future launch of this game in Early Access (current expectations: some time before or around June 2019) as the beginning of the way rather than as the end of our development process.

As a somewhat seasoned developer (Charlie Oscar turns 5 years this year!), we have the knowledge and the skills to shape the game according to our game designer’s vision. But we also understand that with a complex design like that of Spire of Sorcery, there will be many more surprises and discoveries once the game is in the hands of players.

We’re pretty certain that a lot of truly great ideas will arrive only after the game enters its Early Access period, and we really look forward to that time!






The Cataclysm that marked the end of the Age of Mages, destroyed most of the civilization on the planet: cities turned to ruins, roads disappeared under the fallen ash. As the world lay abandoned, new forests took over any space that they could reclaim.

A few hundred years later, as the young Empire started digging itself out of the rubble and slowly expanding its reach to the west and to the east, it found these new forests useful for foraging and lumbering.

As to the forests that existed prior to the Cataclysm, they proved to be too difficult to traverse and too dangerous to explore. From the non-human dwellers of the past that still reside there to the century-old traps still set around ruins and monoliths, these ancient forests still keep – and protect – their secrets really well.

“This very first sketch of the Regular Forest biome.”

Regular Forests cover most of the central part of Rund. Some of the larger animals that live in these biomes are Tasljuks, Forest Cats and Gigglers.

“As we developed the concept of the Regular Forest biome, we experimented with different shapes and colors.”

While Regular Forests may contain Monoliths, Idols, Ruins and even Sources, the chance of discovering such objects is quite low.

“The final version of the biome that you will see in the game.”

Regular Forests are a good source of berries and mushrooms, as well as of wood. Small and mid-sized game can be hunted for meat, hides and fur. Of the specific plants, one can find here belladonna, amanita and demon mushrooms, as well as hemlock, burnet and snakehead. All of these are useful alchemic ingredients.

“These are some of the resources that you can collect in the Regular Forest, as well as some of the creatures that you may meet there.”

Disciples of the Spire who travel through Regular Forests have a risk of encountering parties of hunters and lumberjacks, who may identify them as runaway mages and subsequently report them to the Inquisition in their home villages.

“Some of the first sketches of the Ancient Forest biome (here they also show a dwelling of Mushroom-eaters).”

Ancient Forests cover the eastern part of Rund, from north to south, ending only where Distorted Lands begin at the very edge of the world. Besides Tasljuks, Forest Cats and Gigglers, Ancient Forests are home to Blackpaws, Weepers, Bleeders, Weavers and Mushroom-eaters.

“As we developed the concept of the Ancient Forest biome further, we experimented with different shapes and colors.”

Ancient Forests hide Monoliths, Idols, Ruins and Sources.

“Here you can see how we fine-tuned the colors in the final version of the Ancient Forest biome; the last image is what you will see in the game.”

In addition to all the plants available in the Regular Forests, in Ancient Forests one can also find raven’s eye, hidden root, eye-flower, clathrus ruber and the deathflower tree.

“This illustration shows some of the resources that you can collect in the Ancient Forest biome as well as some of the creatures that live there.”

Traveling through the Ancient Forest takes significantly longer than traveling through the Regular Forest. There is a higher chance of accidents as well as the risk of encountering poisonous flora. Finally, disciples of the Spire who travel through the Ancient Forests may encounter not only non-human dwellers (who could be neutral or aggressive), but also parties of adventurers that are not bound by any laws of Rund and can take advantage of a weaker party.

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



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)
ːnotebookː Facebook (studio news)
ːnotebookː "Behind the scenes" Instagram
ːnotebookː YouTube

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)
ːnotebookː Facebook (studio news)
ːnotebookː "Behind the scenes" Instagram
ːnotebookː YouTube

Welcome back to the weekly development blog!

One of the less-known features of Steam is being able to see which unreleased games are being wishlisted more often than others. We find it to be a great way of discovering promising projects that otherwise often remain under our radar. You can see the whole list here (by the way, Spire of Sorcery is at number 81 right now – thanks to your interest!).

In today’s blog, we’ll talk about how your mage and your disciples spend their days and nights – which is one of the core game mechanics.




Like Earth, Rund measures its time in days.

And each day on Rund consists of 24 segments (people call them “hours”, “bells” or “bird calls”, depending on where they come from). You manage the Spire by deciding how your mage and your disciples spend their day by defining their schedule.

Each segment of the day can be assigned either to “work” or to “rest”.

Work covers tasks that are performed in the Spire: crafting, research, study, etc.

Rest allows characters to eat, sleep and socialize as well as pursue any other activities that they are personally interested in (with some limitations).

Currently, the schedule of the Spire is the same for the mage and for all the disciples.

When you start a campaign, the Spire already has a default schedule that you can modify as you see fit according to your chosen strategy and the specific set of disciples that you will have on your hands in that campaign.

There is no hard limit on how many hours of rest or work you can assign within the day: if you want, you can set all 24 hours to work, and be done with it (until it drives everyone into exhaustion and depression, causing them to fail even at basic tasks).




Like in real life, sleep plays a big role in Spire of Sorcery.

A character will fall asleep automatically when they are too tired, even if the schedule doesn’t allow for rest at that time (prior to that, you’ll see the states of “tired” and “exhausted” showing up on that character’s profile).

Internally, we use a value that we call “stamina” (it is not displayed to players anywhere in the game, it’s just an internal formula): this is how much energy a character has left in them, before they fall down and snooze.

Each character’s stamina value is different because each character’s stats and traits are different (characters have “weak” or “enduring” traits that decrease or increase their stamina, characters also have different HEALTH stats).

Each hour of work (whether it’s mining or cooking) deducts a part of character’s stamina. At the moment, every type of work takes away the same amount. Every hour of wakefulness outside of work (i.e. the “rest” time spent on meals or socializing) also decreases stamina – but to a lesser degree than the time spent working.

Here’s several disciples from my current campaign. As you can see, their stats are quite different.

To restore stamina, a character must sleep.

In addition to the pre-set value of stamina that is restored with each hour of sleep, sleeping provides an extra bonus for each consecutive hour of sleep. The bonus increases between the first and the fourth hours, and then it remains at the same level. Thus, undisturbed sleep for 6 hours straight is more effective than two intervals of sleep with 3 hours each.

Lack of sleep eventually leads to the state of “tired” and then to the state of “exhausted”, which negatively affect productivity. After a certain point, being exhausted will also lower the character’s mood – which will further decrease their productivity.




Character’s “productivity” value (like “stamina”, it is not displayed anywhere in the user interface) is responsible for the efficiency of actions that they perform.

In the user interface of the game, productivity is related to the “success rate” that we display when assigning quests or tasks: this gives a forecast about how likely a character is to successfully complete the assigned quest or task.

Current version of the game’s crafting screen (we haven’t optimized it yet, it just has a bare functionality at this time, so that we can use the feature already).

Productivity’s value applies in the same way to both the tasks that were assigned to a character, and to the tasks that the character undertakes on their own (basically, it doesn’t matter if you read a book that the mage asked you to read, or a book that you decided to read in your free time – you will read it with the same result in both cases).

The mage as well as the disciples may have such traits as “night owl” and “early bird”: when present, these traits provide penalties or add benefits to the character’s productivity depending on the time of the day when actions are performed (early birds get a boost in productivity in the morning hours and a loss in the evening; the reverse is true for night owls).




Productivity is affected by the character’s mood (both positively and negatively: a depressed character is less successful in his actions; a happy character has more chances to succeed than someone who’s in a neutral mood).

Productivity is also affected – negatively – by the states of tiredness or exhaustion.

Another possible influence, negative as well, comes from having illness or experiencing certain symptoms.

Productivity will be higher when a character is interested in a particular skill, and lower when a character is specifically not interested in that skill.

Traits like “lazy” and “hardworking” also affect productivity. Other traits that affect it are “attentive” (high productivity for certain specific tasks) and “absent-minded” (the opposite).

Magic or alchemy do not directly affect productivity, but rather influence other character states – which in turn affect productivity. For example, an alchemic potion may be employed to alleviate the state of “exhausted”, which in turn will temporarily remove its penalty on the character’s productivity. Another example would be casting a magic spell to temporarily increase the character’s mood, which will for a time provide a bonus to the character’s productivity.

Being in the states of “hungry” and “starving” negatively affect the character’s mood, and in turn also decrease productivity.

Current versions of icons that we use for character states.

During the work hours, disciples are expected to perform the tasks that were assigned to them. Some characters, however, will slack off. In these cases, the game gives an indication that a disciple is not doing what’s expected. The reasons behind this may be subjective (character’s own decision to sleep rather than cook) or objective (lacking materials that are required to perform assigned tasks).

During the rest hours, disciples are free to do whatever they prefer – choosing among the following activities:

• Sleeping
  
• Eating
  
• Socializing with others
  
• Meditating
  
• Reading books (if the desired books are available and if there’s free space in the Library)
  
• Studying (if there’s a class happening at this time, and if there’s free space in the Classroom)
  

Also, if a character is hungry or in need of a potion, they can access the Warehouse at any time of the day.




Finally, one last piece of information: during quests, the schedule of the Spire does not apply to the parties that travel.

Rather, parties operate according to a special travel schedule, which prescribes breaks for meals as well as time for setting up and taking down the camps every night and every morning.

We hope that you enjoyed today’s issue, and we look forward to seeing you next week here in the blog – or on live stream! The recordings of previous streams are available via our YouTube channel (here). See you next week!



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)
ːnotebookː Facebook (studio news)
ːnotebookː "Behind the scenes" Instagram
ːnotebookː YouTube

Welcome back – and thanks for your patience in following this project!

Here are some numbers:

• On average, Spire of Sorcery’s page has 30,000 unique visitors each month;
  
• Spire of Sorcery’s official Discord server currently has over 3,000 members;
  
• The game is on the wishlists of a bit more than 43,000 Steam users.
  

Today, let’s talk about Secondary Skills.




First, let’s recall the primary skills in the world of Rund:

Here’s all the skills in the game, in one picture.

The “magic” group:
Battle Magic, Travel Magic, Social Magic, Domestic Magic, Concentration

The “crafting” group:
Alchemy, Artificing, Astrology, Healing, Literacy

The “knowledge” group:
Monstrology, Herbalism, Geology

The practical level of a skill from these three groups is responsible for the success of a specific action that a character performs, and the theoretical level of such skill is responsible for which actions are actually available to the character to try out. I.e. if you already know how to bake an apple pie, then you can try to bake it; the success of actually delivering a good pie, though, will depend on your practical experience.

Now, secondary skills are a further enhancement of the model, representing a narrow-use ability that is not related to magic.




When secondary skill is learned (“open”), it adds a bonus to the chances of success for the specific action being performed.

If you send two characters with the same level of Herbalism to collect deathflower fruits, the character that already has the secondary skill of “Gathering” will be more successful in her quest. So, if the quest is defined as “collect 20 fruits”, then she will finish it faster; and if the quest is defined as “collect fruits for 20 days”, then she will collect more.

The “success bonus” works regardless of the complexity of the action. Thus, learning a secondary skill brings positive results for both when a character is just starting out and when a character is already in the advanced stage of a particular skill.

Creating a skill icon that is easy to understand normally takes quite a few revisions.

When a character performs an individual action related to a secondary skill (such as hunting, or writing a book), the success depends just on that character’s skills.

When characters travel as a party on a quest and the party performs a group action (such as passing near a dangerous area or setting up camp), the success depends on the collective skills of everyone in the party.

Having someone with “Survival” and “Disguise” secondary skills helps the whole party. At the same time, if other party members lack these skills, then the risk of getting negative outcome concerns everyone, including those whose individual skills are strong enough not to face it if they were to travel on their own.




Characters learn secondary skills by reading books (such books will have a special indicator on their covers in addition to the primary skill, for example “Literacy + Calligraphy”) and by taking lessons (when the lesson is taught by someone proficient in such skill). The third way to learning a secondary skill is through practice: for example, when a character disarms traps while on quests, over time his skill of Domestic Magic increases while at the same time he picks up experience in the specific secondary skill of Trap Mastery.

Each secondary skill remains “closed” until it is fully learned and can only be used when it’s fully “opened”.




Hunting affects the success rate of procuring meat, skins and furs.

Fishing is about catching fish in any sort of water (river, lake, and even ocean).

Herding corresponds to the success of growing animals in the Spire’s Kennels (this is a late-game feature that will probably ship only after the game enters Early Access).




Lumbering corresponds to the success of cutting down trees to produce wood that is later used for crafting and room upgrades in the Spire.

Gathering is about any kid of foraging (wild herbs, mushrooms and berries, exotic fruits, etc.).

Farming relates to growing herbs, fruits and vegetables at the Spire (currently we don’t think that we will manage to add this part of mechanics in time for the Early Access).




Mining corresponds to the success in extracting resources like emeralds, diamonds, ore and others that require digging.




Cooking is about preparing food rations.





Knowing Diagnostics increases the success of discovering the illness behind the symptoms of a character. It also increases the chance of discovering the HEALTH stat of the character being diagnosed.

Care for sick is about helping ill or wounded characters get better, faster.

First aid helps to minimize the damage during accidents (when traveling as well as within the Spire).




Smithing, jewelry, tailoring and carpentry are all pretty obvious crafting skills: they are used to produce new items out of resources as well as to repair damaged items.




Ancient tongue is the only secondary skill that serves as a strict requirement: a character absolutely must have this skill open in order to read books that are written in ancient tongue.

Calligraphy is responsible for the success of copying and writing books with high quality.




Speechcraft corresponds to the success of communication during diplomacy, trading and negotiations.

Teaching not only helps in giving theoretical experience to students being taught, but also provides for a chance to spark in students an interest in the subject (or strengthen the already existing interest).

Pickpocketing is about stealing in human settlements from others (not from houses or chests, but from the pockets of dwellers).




Lock-picking corresponds to the success of opening locks on chests, abandoned buildings and, lastly, on houses in towns and villages.

Trap mastery is about noticing traps while out on quests, disarming such traps and setting up your own traps (in the Spire).




Streetwise helps find hidden locations in cities and towns (for example, different Guilds) as well as helps to remain unnoticed (avoiding the eyes of the guards and other malicious parties).

Survival is about finding drinkable water and safe spots for camping while out traveling across Rund.

Disguise helps avoid unwanted encounters outside of the Spire.




Ranged combat helps in the unlikely case when your disciples need to actually engage in a fight using distanced weapons (bows, crossbows, slings).

Melee combat helps in the same context but using shields, swords and axes.

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And that’s it for today! Next week, we plan to talk about setting up a schedule for your disciples (which tells them when to sleep, work or enjoy some free time – though not everyone will follow such orders!).

Once we finish the concept of a new creature, we create line art in black and white, and then start to colorize it. Here you can see different versions of colorization for Blackpaw (creatures that live in packs and like to steal and hoard items).

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



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)
ːnotebookː Facebook (studio news)
ːnotebookː "Behind the scenes" Instagram
ːnotebookː YouTube

Another week, another blog post!

Today, let’s dive into the system of inventory management.



Spire of Sorcery has hundreds of different inventory items, and it took us some time to understand how to organize them properly. At first, we had such groups as “Minerals” and “Jewelry”, but then we realized that it’s not what we need when we play. What we really need is to have groups based on how different items are used, such as “Resources for Crafting”, “Resources for Alchemy”, “Artifacts” and so on.

An important part of this concept is that certain items may belong to more than one group: for example, “Infinite Backpack” belongs both to “Artifacts” and to “Equipment”, while “Fat of Tasljuk” belongs both to “Food Items” and “Resources for Alchemy”.

Here’s the current list of item groups:

ːnotebookː EQUIPMENT

This large group includes weapons (such as swords, daggers and axes as well as bows and crossbows), armor (helmets and shields), travel equipment (winter gloves and travel boots, backpacks, warm coats, sleeping bags and so forth), accessories (amulets, rings, diadems – whether invested with magic or not) and clothing sets (different social groups in Rund wear different types of clothing on formal occasions, we currently have about a dozen of different sets).

The key characteristic of this group is that such items only have effect when they are worn, and there are certain limitations to how you can wear them. For example, to benefit from warm boots, a character has to actually wear them (and not just carry them in her backpack) – and, obviously, one character cannot wear two or three pairs of boots at the same time.

ːnotebookː BOOKS & SCROLLS

This is the most straightforward group of items in Rund: if you can read it, then it’s a book or a scroll.


ːnotebookː POTIONS

This group includes items crafted through alchemy: various potions, ointments and powders that can be as common as a stinking ointment used to prevent insect bites – or as rare as the Potion of Intelligence which temporarily increases one of character’s stats.


ːnotebookː ARTIFACTS

Some of the books, potions or equipment items can also be artifacts. Such items exist in a singular number and belong to the “unique” rarity level. This includes both “fancy” pieces such as rings and amulets invested with special powers and “mundane” items such as boots and cloaks enhanced with magic.


ːnotebookː FOOD

This group includes both raw food (mushrooms and berries, vegetables, fish, meat and other items that can be consumed raw) and cooked food (various food rations).


ːnotebookː RESOURCES – CRAFTING

When an item has this attribute, it means that it can be used in Workshop to craft another item. This group includes a lot of things, from minerals and metals to furs and other animal products.


ːnotebookː RESOURCES – ALCHEMY

This group includes all the items that can be used in Alchemical Studio to create potions, ointments and powders. It can be an emerald, or it can be a fruit of the Death Flower tree, or it can be mermaid’s tentacles.


ːnotebookː RESOURCES – COOKING

Finally, this group includes everything that can be used in Kitchen to cook food rations: from raw meat and raw fish to salt and spices.




Each item has one value that reflects both its weight and size. We currently call it “weight” as a compromise. Correspondingly, each character has a “capacity” that reflects how much “weight” such character can carry. And in the Spire, your Warehouse has the capacity that reflects how much weight it can store.

Spire’s Warehouse can be expanded to allow for more storage room, and a character can be equipped with a backpack to allow her or him to carry more items.

Some characters have traits that increase or decrease their default capacities (“hardy” and “weak”, but also “one-legged” and “one-armed”) and certain states (“wounded”) may also affect character’s current capacity.

Capacity of a party matters because an overloaded party receives a penalty to its speed of movement and Travel Magic comes handy because certain spells can increase the capacity of a character (temporarily) or, for a time, nullify a specific item’s weight (“levitation” is how you normally move heavy chests to the Spire).




In Spire of Sorcery, you cannot micro-manage your characters. You can give someone a warm winter cloak, but you cannot make them wear it – it’s always their decision.

Moreover, when you send a party out on a quest, the party has a shared inventory. You cannot control who gets to carry this, or who gets to wear that – these are the decisions made by the party’s leader (whom you appoint, however).

As we mentioned above, there’s no “hard limit” on how much weight a party can carry – there’s just an increasing penalty to the party’s speed of movement. Because of this, certain party leaders may make a decision to drop items in order to increase their speed (while other leaders, especially those with the trait “greedy”, will keep everything that they find, even if it means a very slow crawl across the map).



And this is it for today! Don’t forget that we run a live stream with the current version of the game every Friday at 1600 (Vilnius time), and if you missed one of those, you can watch (or just fast-forward) the recordings over on our YouTube channel.

See you next week!

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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)
ːnotebookː Facebook (studio news)
ːnotebookː "Behind the scenes" Instagram
ːnotebookː YouTube