We hope you’ve enjoyed the last 2 dev blogs about the setting of Unforetold: Witchstone, the harsh and mysterious island-continent of Kalsundia. Collaborating with the legendary Ed Greenwood to create this world has been a dream come true and way more fun than anticipated. We hope you’ll also have fun immersing yourself in our universe.
Today, we’re going to dive a little deeper into a topic that’s been brought up a few times in previous posts: Kalsundian factions.
Three main factions vie for power on the island: the Free Legion, the Commonwealth, and the Brightwind Clan. At the start of Unforetold: Witchstone, there is an uneasy truce between them, but any inciting event could potentially trigger an all-out war. Due to their conflicting ideals and visions for the future of Kalsundia, this swing between war and peace has been happening since the last time they all fought together and forced the mainland empires to retreat from the island. The factions have divided the ownerships of towns among themselves but these ownerships can easily change through negotiations or battles.
The Commonwealth
The Commonwealth is the oldest faction in Kalsundia. Formed on Orwindar by Avondan political revolutionaries and prisoners, they were among the first people to live on the island in a few thousand years.
The Commonwealth opposes military leadership and instead prefers appointed leadership, which puts them in political opposition to the Free Legion. Their ideal is that the people need to unite and share, to serve a Greater Purpose. Gradually, in the last few years, more and more elves have become high-ranking members of the faction, to the dissatisfaction of a few.
In order to gain favor with the Commonwealth and get invited to join them, you will be asked to influence civilians to serve the Greater Purpose, negotiate with rival factions, and help the elven leadership.
The Brightwind Clan
The Brightwind Clan is the 2nd oldest faction in Kalsundia. Formed by Avondan wizards who discovered the secret to breaking the Compulsion-Bond, a mind control method used by Avondan leaders, using witchstones. By performing and teaching the ritual to Kalsundians, they gained the trust of people for many generations.
In the years since, the Brightwind has invented many witchadar devices to improve Kalsundians’ daily lives. Of course, they have also created witchadar weapons that they keep mostly for themselves. Their focus is on selling products and ensuring no conflict gets in the way of business.
The Brightwind Clan would appreciate you and include you as of theirs if you helped them keep the other factions from fighting each other and dealt with the Commonwealth members stealing witchadar weapons.
The Free Legion
This faction was founded by rebel Avondan soldiers who were stationed at the fort that has been renamed Free Fortress. Though the Free Legion despises the oppression, corruption, and manipulation of their former empire, it did keep and adapt their military training and structure. A leadership position is earned from battles.
A Free Legion soldier’s life revolves around training and discipline. They believe that a good fighter with a strong weapon can beat any Brightwind weapon. Therefore, they train and employ the best blacksmiths in Kalsundia. This belief also means that the Free Fortress loves to send troops into townships to take over other factions’ properties.
To earn the respect and friendship of the Free Legion and join their ranks, you will need to join them on their raids and strike down people who they perceive as enemies.
Which faction you decide to join (or not join) in Unforetold: Witchstone is completely up to you. Helping out to strengthen a faction without ever joining them is also a valid option. There are also other smaller factions in Kalsundia that might pique your interest, like the Luck Turner bandits or the Order of the Departed cultists. And there are factionless civilians that you can side with and defend.
As you explore Kalsundia, you will learn about factions’ wants and be rewarded for playing a part in fulfilling them. How you act on these available opportunities will shift the balance of power and the appreciation between factions. You’ll have some decisions as you can’t fulfill conflicting factions’ wants without ruffling someone’s feathers.
We’ll be back next month to talk more about opportunities and the numerous journeys they’ll take you. Also, we’ll explain about how opportunities set us apart from conventional CRPG and the approach we took for questing in a RPG sandbox.
Unforetold: Witchstone is set in the rich, historied world of Horiza, where tired warring empires on the large continent of Orwindar look to the smaller, frontier continent of Kalsundia for the highly-prized witchstones, gems that store and discharge energy and so power many useful things—including deadly weapons.
Folk who sail the pirate-infested, stormy seas to Kalsundia see it as a chance to build new lives, free of the empires—for now.
You are one of them..
Kalsundia is a land of mountain ranges, tundra, verdant forests, and rolling plains, roamed by thunderbeasts (dinosaurs), some of which the humans, elves, and dwarves have domesticated. Others are raiders, or gladly eat people. They range from the hand-sized gothogs and thusk, often kept as pets, right up to the forest-shaking long necks, and the deadly roarjaws. A hungry roarjaws is often the last sight a Kalsundian settler sees.
Settlements are few and far between across Kalsundia, and law and order is more of a notion than reality, though warring factions impose their own harsh justice where they can. We’ll explore them later.
So what awaits you, in Unforetold: Witchstone?
Kalsundia offers you a chance to forge your own life. You choose your goals, you define success—though as one grizzled old prospector famously said, “Success in Kalsundia is staying alive.”
He hasn’t been seen for years, though they did find his hat. There was a lot of blood on it.
Some folk want to destroy witchstones. Others want to keep them for themselves, and even regard people not of their group as profaning witchstones if they handle them. Still others want to craft new and better devices to harness the power of witchstones. You can choose which of these approaches suits you—or you can choose to walk alone.
You can stay factionless, or join a faction, even rise in the ranks to perhaps lead a faction, and shape lives for all in Kalsundia. Or you can work with one faction on one aim but ally with another faction on another. There are no “right” or “wrong” roads, but there are roads that will take you where you want to go, and roads that will lead you to doom. So you can play the game over and over, trying for this goal or that one, and riding with this faction or that one. Kalsundia is a great big sandbox you can have fun in.
Kalsundia has its oddities, its remarkable sites. From the skull-and-ribs rock promontory of an ancient monster that looms over Kalsundar, the smelly crowded port that’s usually the first place a voyager to Kalsundia sees, to the Emasu at the other end of the continent, the fossilized remains of a gigantic, dragon-headed ocean creature, signs of the ancient past are everywhere. Pack merchants following trails from town to town will often pass huge bones jutting up from the earth, and there are tales of strange magic that lurks in Eolithic (ancient) ruins “somewhere out there.” As an adventurer in Unforetold: Witchstone, you will be one of the brave few who goes out there, and explores those ruins, and perhaps even enjoys that old prospector’s success: staying alive.
Some will achieve much more than that. Some adventurers will change the world.
Most believe that the witchstones will be the key to the future: using them in the right way, perhaps in ways not yet thought of, to shape better lives for all.
Others mistrust the witchstones, warning that they corrupt (as, they say, has happened to the elves, who suffer the Hollowing) or carry the curse of the Lynite-gods upon the dwarves—so that if you handle witchstones too much, or dare to try new uses for them, that curse will afflict you.
Many who shun witchstones look to another road to power: factions, working together with others, strength in numbers. They may be right, but the problem is that the factions on Kalsundia are fiercely opposed to each other, and work for aims that conflict. They can’t all win, and they can’t all be right.
Faction preparing to go raid a building
Faction in combat, raiding a building
The Commonwealth faction, for example, wants the will of the people to prevail from one coast of Kalsundia to the other, a law and order that always seems to involve public hangings.
Whereas the Free Legion wants to turn to martial law, with the Legion ruling Kalsundia as one great military camp, having vanquished all foes.
And there are many small but ever-rising factions like the Luck Turners, who raid others and are seen as bandits bearing a grand name; every charismatic and successful adventurer can lead such a faction, which is why they spring up as fast as they are smashed or collapse when their adventurer-leader dies.
And every faction has its spies, and its agents implanted in the ranks of other factions, so you can never trust a fellow faction member. Folk who came from Avondus may still be bonded, a compulsion bond riding their minds that will force them to do what Avondan commanders want them to do…so it seems your mistrust is well founded. And make no mistake: rising within a faction or getting the aid of a faction always has a price, and for adventurers that usually means a dangerous mission, often to explore the hostile settlement of another faction, or an ancient ruin sane folk stay well away from.
So go it alone or join a faction, it’s hard to get away from factions in Kalsundia. Which is why we’ll dig deeper into the factions next time.
Dates to Recall: 🔹 Question Submission: October 25th to October 27th. 🔹 Answers Posted By Devs: October 30th to November 3rd.
Participation Steps: 🔹Once you are in the ask-your-question channel, make sure to read the guidelines. 🔹 Double-check faq channel to ensure your question hasn't been previously addressed. 🔹 Before posting, confirm that a similar question hasn't been posted in ask-your-question channel. 🔹 Share your query in ask-your-question channel (Just one question per post!). 🔹 Want a particular question tackled? Give it a thumbs-up! 👍
Reminder While we're eager to respond, keep in mind that Unforetold: Witchstone is still in progress. We might not be able to provide or have a precise answers for everything but we'll do our best.
See you all on Discord <3
Upcoming Written Q&A on Discord
Hello adventurers!
We're thrilled to announce that we'll be hosting an exclusive written Q&A on our Discord server. If you've been burning with questions or just want to know more about what's brewing behind the scenes, this is your golden opportunity!
To participate, please join our Discord server. And once you're in, make sure to check out the news channel for all the details about the upcoming Dev Q&A.
We're eager to chat with you and shed some light on the mysteries of Unforetold: Witchstone. See you on Discord!
Dev Update #11: The World of Horiza
Hello again - Ed Greenwood here. If you don't know who I am, check out this video: Today, I'm here to tell you about the world of Horiza!
As we look down on the endless sea, behold two continents. The large one is Orwindar, and the smaller one below it is Kalsundia. Orwindar is split into two warring empires: Avondus on the west, and Nethick to the east, with a war-zone between them.
Avondus is sophisticated but weary and jaded, and its elven rulers place magical compulsion bonds of loyalty on their citizens; humans do most of the daily work. Nethick is ruled by liches, who work dark necromancy to control their citizens, who have long been outnumbered by their undead relatives and ancestors. Both empires have lost the gods who once led them daily, but what they are today was shaped by those gods. Who are dead, or trapped deep beneath the earth, after wars among them and the treachery of their formerly trusted servants, the Old Dwarves, back in Eolithic times. There are rumours—there have always been rumours—that one day they will return.
As we move south of Orwindar, we reach Kalsundia - the setting of Unforetold: Witchstone.
Kalsundia is a wild frontier, truly ruled by no one. Reptiles large and small—dinosaurs, to us, but “thunderbeasts” to Kalsundians—roam these largely mountainous wilderlands, in which can be seen the titanic skeletons of leviathan creatures who perished long ago.
Kalsundia is a chance for a new life for anyone who escapes the Orwindan empires, and it’s also a place both empires are interested in and will likely soon invade and seek to conquer, for it is the source of the richest lodes of witchstones, which are rare and worn out on Orwindar.
Witchstones are what makes this world different.
They are gems of various sizes and hues, that absorb and store the raw energies of the world. When mined, cut, and polished, their wild energy discharges become focused, so they can serve to power furnaces, lamps, firearms, and hundreds of other devices. (They also give off light, and so illuminate Kalsundia.) Of old, the dwarves crafted such things, and some of their largest and most impressive Eolithic creations still function, awaiting new wielders (perhaps you).
These days, a faction of Kalsundians known as the Brightwind Clan dedicate themselves to making witchadar devices—but there are other factions active on Kalsundia, from the law-and-order Commonwealth to the militaristic Free Legion and the sinister Order of the Departed. Not to mention bandits and pirates galore. All of them seeking witchstones, and power. Just like the Orwindan empires across the pirate-infested seas.
Brightwind Clan
Commonwealth
Free Legion
Order of the Departed
These factions don’t get along. Warfare is nigh-constant, and everyone wants their freedom. Usually by taking away someone else’s.
Some of these players are running out of time. A mysterious malady afflicts the elves, so that they waste away. They don’t talk about it, but it gnaws at them just the same.
Kalsundia has a train, and tall fortresses, and its main port of Kalsundar has been there long enough to have decaying “old” buildings that were built recently, and crowding, and intrigue aplenty, with smugglers and spies.
Yet beyond its gates, and the end of the train lines, much of Kalsundia is a wilderness “out there,” and folk talk in the inns and taverns of ghosts, and demons, and strange magic as old ruins are discovered. A lot of it hasn’t yet been properly explored, and bandits and prowling monsters are everywhere, so exploration isn’t a matter of picnics and afternoon strolls. Most explorers, sooner or later, just don’t come back.
So Kalsundia is one big cradle for adventure. We’ll take a closer look at it next time!
We are excited to reveal that Project Witchstone now has a real name…
A final name, a fresh new look, and some updated screenshots on our store page can only mean one thing: we are getting close to officially releasing the game.
Hope you are all ready to join us on this journey!
Dev Update #10: Map Preview - A Frontier Town Called Howling Valley
Greeting Adventurers!
A few weeks ago, we previewed the Free Legion faction’s base, the Free Fortress. In today’s Dev Update, we’ll explore another town - one controlled by a rival faction to the Free Legion, the Commonwealth.
The recently established town of Howling Valley already has quite the history. Situated directly south of the port city of Kalsundar and accessible by train, it is also where you will make a big impact early in your journey across Kalsundia! Let’s take a quick look, shall we?
Please keep in mind that this map is currently in development and that every part of it is subject to improvements.
A Blessed Town
Founded and led by a priest, Howling Valley is known for its unusual shrine. While most shrines are built of stones and decorated with ornate statues of gods, Howling Valley’s shrine is constructed with repurposed pieces from the caravans of a scouting convoy.
Some of the current residents of Howling Valley are people who were in the convoy. They were searching for a good location for a new train station and outpost when thunderbeasts ambushed them. Surprisingly, during the chase, the thunderbeasts gave up and ran away. The priest and leader of the convoy (now current leader of Howling Valley) believed the valley where the beasts fled from to be blessed and ordered the construction of the shrine and train station.
A Commonwealth Town
Not long after the founding of the town, the Commonwealth came and also started building in Howling Valley. The Commonwealth sent up one of their young rising stars to take care of the planning, construction, and recruitment. It was a resounding success as the faction gained a fortified mansion and also now generates income through the stables and train station warehouse.
The Commonwealth have to keep all their properties well-guarded as many rival factions and bandits might want to snatch them away. Alarms and traps are set up in case someone does manage to sneak past the guards. As for the mansion, it is built on a cliff ledge and designed so that an invader has no easy way to reach the leader’s office.
A Mysterious Town
The mystery as to why the chasing thunderbeasts ran away that day has yet to be resolved. As well, the shrine is surrounded by rock pillars with shining lights, but their function remains unknown.
Researchers who have tried to dig deeper into the ground were met with fierce resistance from the founding priest. The leader of Howling Valley would rather not risk disturbing anything in this blessed area. But many believe that something ancient lies under the town.
Some Concept Art
I hope you enjoyed this look at Howling Valley and its history. Let us know in the comments what you think of the look and feel of this town.
We’ll be back next month with a Dev Update diving deeper into the setting of the game and it’ll come with a big surprise for you all! Stay tuned to our posts!
Today, we'd like to talk to you about one of the core classes in our game - the Cleric. The Cleric is a divine spellcaster class that combines strength, wisdom, and faith to protect allies and smite enemies. They are an essential part of any adventuring party.
The Cleric, like the other core classes, has many subclasses - each with its own unique playstyle and ability sets. Let’s take a quick look at some of them!
As the game is currently a work in progress, some of the information below may be inaccurate by the time you play Project Witchstone.
War Priest
The War Priest is a warrior of faith who blends melee combat with divine magic. They are experts in battle, capable of calling forth holy power to smite their enemies and protect their allies. They are the sturdiest of the subclasses, being able to wear heavy armor and having a slightly higher hit dice versus their counterparts. Much like the Fighter class, they can also wield martial weapons making them a formidable frontline force on the battlefield.
Some of their abilities include:
Smite
A powerful melee attack that deals extra damage and radiates holy energy. The real power behind Smite is that the War Priest does not have to sacrifice attack actions to use this ability, which allows him to tap into a source of extra damage at the cost of mana, should they need to do so during their turn!
Lay on Hands
A versatile yet powerful touch-based healing ability that can be used in the heat of battle to restore a friend or himself, and clear negative status effects. Much like Smite, some of the power of this ability comes from not tapping into the War Priest's action economy, and can be used alongside an attack or spell on their turn.
Divine Ward
A protective barrier given to a friendly target that negates enemy status effects. Sometimes being proactive instead of reactive is a good idea, especially when you are about to fight a creature that, say, likes to paralyze your allies during battle. Following a recurring theme here as well, just like Smite and Lay on Hands, this ability does not tap into the War Priest's standard actions economy, making this ability fairly easy to use on one's turn along other actions.
Sage
The Sage is a specialist in the study of life and restoration. They are wise scholars who use their vast knowledge and divine magic to protect their allies and bring light and protection to those in need. They are the ultimate support cleric subclass, as they provide the strongest healing, warding and protection toolkit to their party. They can also wield light and holy magic to defend themselves should the need arise.
Some of their abilities include:
Consecration
The Sage can mark an area as sacred. The consecrated ground heals allies and damages foes alike. A great area denial tool that allows the sage to pick a spot where he can fight on his own terms, or simply heal or damage characters in a wide area around himself.
Bolster
A powerful ability that raises a friendly unit's maximum HP for a set number of turns. Perfect to supplement the survivability of your frontline, should the challenge ahead prove to be especially daunting.
Radiant Presence
A Sage's presence on the battlefield is always a welcome sight, unless you're on the opposing side. Radiating around the Sage is an aura that benefits friends and hinders foes on every turn while it's active. This effect grows stronger as the Sage progresses in experience.
Witchfire Priest
The Witchfire Priest is a passionate zealot who wields the power of witchstone to purify the unworthy of its use. They are a force to be reckoned with, using their spells to ignite their enemies and turn the tide of battle. Of the subclasses, they are the most offensively-minded. Their spells are focused on dealing damage or controlling the battlefield, making them ideal for players who enjoy a more aggressive playstyle.
Some of their abilities include:
Deconstruction Aura
A unique Witchfire Priest ability that causes any artificial constructs, undeads and demons around them to wither over time. Every turn spent around a Witchfire Priest channeling this aura will cause damage to those creatures until they are no more.
Witchfire Overload
Witchstone users beware, Witchfire Priests have a heightened magical influence on any Witchstone objects. As an ability, they are able to jam, overload or disable any source of witchstone, sometimes to the unfortunate surprise of their owner. Wield a witchstone-powered device in front of a Witchfire Priest at your peril!
Arcane Training
A Witchfire Priest is in a unique position where they are the only subclass that can double-dip in both Arcane and Divine spellcasting without multiclassing. Through Arcane Training, they are allowed to pick a few specific extra spells throughout their spell progression, only those spells are of Arcane nature, rather than Divine.
So there you have it, the Cleric and some of its subclasses! Whether you prefer to be a warrior of faith, a wise scholar, or a passionate zealot, there is a subclass for everyone.
We hope this gives you a better understanding of this class, and we can't wait to see what kind of characters you all create.
