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]