Songs of Conquest News

[p]Greetings Wielders,

Today is a good day. At least if you enjoy stories, old grudges, and more undead than is probably healthy. Rise Eternal, our latest Tale DLC, is now live.

You’ve been asking for more story-driven content for Songs of Conquest. This is exactly that.

[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]A new Wielder. New research. New buildings. New artifacts and skills. All centered around the undead side of the Barony of Loth. You step into the rotten boot of Kastus Maal, a former researcher of the Unseen Society.

You have actually met him before. He was one of the Necromancers serving under Grand Seneschal Wiesh during the battle of Grey Tor at the end of the Arleon campaign map 4. He died there; in fact, you killed him. But that apparently didn’t stop him from returning to serve.

Rise Eternal starts with Kastus digging himself out of his own grave and returning home to find Faey forces under Stoutheart banners occupying what used to be his land. The village is burned. His family… you’ll find out soon enough!

[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink] Kastus is now one of the Risen. He is not a grand warrior like Merkoth or one of Aurelias old inner circle. Just one of many bound to Aurelia’s Oath, although a bit more eloquent than his Risen brothers and sisters.

Across four connected missions, you’ll see what became of the Barony of Loth after Cecilia’s victory. You’ll work alongside other Loth Wielders, push back against those who put your people in chains, and learn more about how the Unseen Society continues to fight for the return of the good old days.



Kastus also brings a new skill, Call the Faithful. It steadily adds more Risen to your ranks. If you put your back into it, you can end up fielding a frankly unreasonable number of undead. The Risen aren’t the strongest unit in the Loth roster, but they do get the job done.

We leaned further into the necromancy this time. Into what it means to serve Aurelia after death. Into the uglier parts of the old Empire. It’s been fun for the writing team to spend time there. And Kastus fits perfectly for a darker themed Loth Tale because he really is willing to step over corpses to get to his goal.



The Tale runs about ten hours and is priced at 5.99 USD, with regional price adjustments. Rest assured that we’ve taken previous feedback into account and moved away from standard Steam regional pricing.

Rise Eternal isn’t tuned as a tightly balanced experience. It’s meant to tell a story. One about revenge, faith, and what happens when someone refuses to stay buried. Sometimes you’ll feel unstoppable, and sometimes you're running for your unlife.

That’s necromancy for you.

/Anders, and the rest of the Lavapotion team of Necromancers[/p]

[p][/p][p]What’s this? Another Steam post about something other than your favorite HoMage? Well, yes. But to be fair, this is pretty cool news, and in many ways it is connected.[/p][p]By now, you probably know that we’ve been developing a separate, smaller project on the side. Something a lot different from, for example, our work on the Yulan DLC. Something that is still very much a work in progress.[/p][p]With Steam Next Fest coming up, we saw an opportunity we didn’t want to miss. So we decided to show you what we’ve been working on in the most straightforward way possible. A demo.[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]Defend the swamp and Wield the Essence (demo-style)
[/p][p]Wielders of the Essence started as a bullet-hell survivor experiment. A bit of a palette cleanser for us, and a chance to explore what else we could do with our rather extensive collection of awesome pixel art. As development went on, we kept changing things, based on our whims, hunches, and the crucial feedback we have received from testers.[/p][p]The result is no longer just a straightforward survivor. It has evolved into something closer to an incremental survivor. Short runs, meaningful progression, and a loop that feels more in line with how we tend to design games, well planned with a definite strategic choice.

[/p][p]Dreaths might be cute, but you really want to kill that one.

It has been well received by our testers so far, which is encouraging. Wishlists have been steadily growing, and we’re very curious to see what kind of impact Next Fest will have.

[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]To see someone else play the demo, well, we recommend this one!

But this post isn’t meant to fully explain what Wielders of the Essence is. That’s what the demo is for.[/p][p]So give it a try. Wishlist it if you find it interesting. And consider it a small glimpse of what our art and systems can do while you wait for Rise Eternal and the next faction DLC.
[/p][p]/Anders and the rest of Lavapotion[/p][p]
And why not a little insight into how it can look when Lavapotion works on Wielders of the Essence?[/p]

[h2]Greetings Wielders
[/h2][p]Today’s Steam post is all about Kastus Maal, an idea we had years ago that has finally clawed his way out of the grave, quite literally, in this case. We started working on his Tale back in 2024, but had to bury it again for some less exciting real-life reasons. With a new plan in place and the success of our Faction DLCs behind us, we were finally able to exhume it properly. And with over 40k wishlists for Rise Eternal, how could we let it rest? So for those of you who haven’t yet stepped into Songs of Conquest, this might be the perfect time to answer the call.[/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]Join the hordes, wishlist Rise Eternal![/p][p] Now it’s just a few more bricks to lay on that pixelated mausoleum before it's done. Or, to put it more plainly: Rise Eternal releases on March 5th. And that date is coming ever closer, a little less than two weeks as we release this. [/p][p]Our testers are currently playing through the Tale, hunting bugs, uprooting Roots, and swarming castles with their ever-growing ranks of Risen. Someone has to make sure the dead march in the right direction. We’re thankful for every bug they find.

Oh no, an ambush!

With four connected story maps, a tombstone weight of lore,  new artifact sets, a new Wielder, and new map entities, this Tale brings a fair share of fresh graves to dig into. We hope you enjoy this way of expanding the story of Songs of Conquest. If all goes well, there are more restless spirits waiting their turn.[/p][p]For us, this is a creative way of deepening the lore of our existing factions. The campaign left questions unanswered. Some stories refuse to stay buried.[/p][p]
Kastus will find himself in many strange places in search for his vengeance

So mark March 5th in your tomes, dust off your necromancy tools, and sharpen your quills. It’s only a matter of time before you are summoned in Aurelia’s name to carve a path through the enemies of Loth and avenge what they did in the Arleon campaign. [/p][p]We can’t wait until you get to walk a mile in Kastus's one good, rotten shoe and dig up all the secrets, lore, and stories of Rise Eternal.
[/p][p] /Anders and the rest of the undead hordes at Lavapotion[/p][p]
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[p][/p][p]A few months ago we shared that a small team at Lavapotion had been working on something new: Wielders of the Essence, a fast-paced survivors-like set in a familiar world. Some of you wishlisted it. Some of you raised an eyebrow. Either way, we have an update! Wielders has changed quite a bit since then. And there will be a playable demo launching February 23rd during Steam Next Fest.[/p][p]When we first revealed Wielders, it was a fairly straightforward survivors-like. It worked, and it was fun, but in a genre with a lot of strong competition it felt like it needed something more. So we started experimenting, looking at ways to give each run a bit more long-term weight. That led us to introduce incremental progression.[/p][p]The structure now revolves around shorter runs where every attempt, win or lose, gives you resources. Those resources are used to develop your town, unlocking new Wielders, troops, spells, and skills over time. If you’ve played Songs of Conquest, you may recognize the pattern. We tend to gravitate toward systems where progress carries forward. Why not learn from ourselves?[/p][p]We've made a new trailer that shows the changes better than we can describe them here, a picture says a thousand words, and there is a lot of pictures in a video.[/p][p] [dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]So what’s it like playing Wielders of the Essence? Well, you start a run on a randomly generated map. Enemies gather. Spells fly. Your troops fight alongside you. Maybe you fall early. Maybe you make it to the later waves. Either way, you return to your town with something to show for it.[/p][p]Back in town, you expand, unlock, and adjust. The next run is slightly different. Slightly stronger. Slightly more controlled, and perhaps you have a new plan in mind, a goal to reach. That rhythm between field and town is what the game is built around. And yes, there is an Essence system of sorts in here as well![/p][p] Build all the stuff! [/p][p]And since we can’t resist talking about our favorite game, Songs of Conquest is still going strong. We know many of you are here for Songs of Conquest, and only that. Nothing has changed on that front. We are still on track with Rise Eternal, Yulan, and everything else we’ve outlined. Wielders is a smaller project running alongside our main development.[/p][p]And now to a little call to action regarding the game this devlog is all about. Try the demo, test it for yourself. If you’re curious, our demo goes live February 23rd during Steam Next Fest. Give it a few runs and let us know what you think. We’re especially interested in hearing from the Songs of Conquest community.[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]If you want a reminder when it launches, add Wielders to your wishlist and Steam will notify you, they are nice like that.[/p][p]See you next week,[/p][p]/Anders & the Lavapotion Team (especially that small group that works with Wielders of the Essence)[/p]