In Part I. of our breakdown of Mercenary Tasks, we discussed what this new kind of gameplay element brings to Vagrus, how it works, and began describing the types implemented in the current build. Now it is time to delve into the rest of the Mercenary Task Types:


This type is a classical RPG task: take someone (or several people) to a location and protect them on the way there. There are simpler variants - usually lower level Tasks - where you have to take them between settlements. In contrast to most regular passengers, these have known enemies hunting them, so an attack during your journey is almost certain - with several attempts at higher Task levels.

Losing Crew Combat against the attackers fails the Task. A future update would change this so that certain passengers can be killed and then these Escort Tasks will indeed focus on keeping them alive in the fight.

A more difficult variant is where the passenger's destination is out in the wasteland and once you take them there, you need to wait until they finish their business, then escort them to their final goal.



These types are the opposites sides of the same coin in some respects. Both would have you find a location in the wasteland, win a battle there, be joined by a passenger whom you need to take to their destination. The biggest difference is that the passengers do not join you voluntarily in Abduct Tasks, of course.

Both types carry the risk of being attacked on the way to the final destination as the foe tries to recapture the passenger.



In this type of Mercenary Task, you do not escort or take certain passengers but rather have to gain them from defeated enemies, that is, capture prisoners and turn them in at the given location. Most of the time, this can be accomplished in more than one Crew Combat encounters, but it depends on how many of the enemy flee or are killed during the battle.

Somewhat connected to this is the mechanic that allows you to decide the fate of the remaining captured enemies after a Crew Combat encounter. This means that during Capture Tasks, you could take the right kind of enemies prisoner, hastening your Task completion. The details of this will be discussed in a future post.

Be sure to try Mercenary Tasks with the right kind of comitatus now that they are added to the game and tell us what you think!

Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland!

The Lost Pilgrims Team

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One of the latest content updates (Patch 0.5.30 Codename: Brimstone and Bones) brought with it a spacious region to explore, the most prominent part of which are the Smolderbone Flats. Players who took the 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland' standalone story for a spin surely recognize this place, as it was an important location in that story. And yet you will find that much has changed since your last visit, with 10 years passing, allegiances shifting, and new threats rising.

One of the most important additions is a new companion you can hire to serve in your comitatus. It is none other than Skornar, the kingpin and former marauder who ran a gang of smugglers in 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland'. What trouble did he get himself into? You will have to find out for yourself.

Skornar is a stout man who can take quite a beating despite his age, but he can also dish out one. His shield and armor allow for a defensive play-style enhanced by his ability to retaliate against attackers. He's also a veteran traveler, marauder captain, and lover of tall tales. He'll most likely fit right in.


Avernum itself is home to the private army called the Avernus Legion and its master, the Prefectus. Although Imperial in name and culture for the most part, the city has always been fairly independent. And with the sources of attainable ore in this metal-starved world, as well as the blacksmiths to work it into weapons and tools, Avernum has become a power in its own right, overshadowing all but the greatest of Imperial cities.



Should you not be drawn to the metallurgists and forges, worry not. Avernum has other services and attractions for enterprising travelers, such as the Carpenters' Guild's headquarters, the Imperial arena, or the odd but certainly very powerful mage who set up shop here decades ago.

A peculiar tribal people, the Sadirar are made up of several tribes, each worshiping the Great Spirits that embody the elements. They are masters of the western deserts and on the whole are a relatively peaceful folk. In this build, you can visit the village of the flame-worshiping Utvorar and the oasis of the water-worshiping Vitrar. Their shamans deal in special goods and services that might interest any industrious vagrus.



There were quite a number of story-lines that led to this very region and most of these can now be concluded or at least continued. Have you undertaken a job for House Venari or are you looking for the Invisible Arena? Or perhaps you are interested in stories that begin here? Bounties, investigations, errands, and quests will present themselves to those that look.



It is a good time to return to the Riven Realms if any of these grabbed your attention. With Brimstone and Bones, the main campaign's size grew considerably and we are now very close to adding the final zones to round out the map. But that is not the end of the story content - we'll be working on companion quests and longer, more complex questlines, too.

Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland!

The Lost Pilgrims Team

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it's been a long time coming but finally Mercenary Tasks are live in today's build. These not only add a ton of variation and replayability but also go a long way in softening up story content and allow the running of a combat oriented comitatus for players. Fair warning, though: just like none of the other income sources work by themselves, Mercenary Tasks do not either. Combine them with Trade Tasks, passengers, and stories, with an emphasis on whichever you prefer over the others.

Mercenary Tasks are received from factions. Each faction is unique when it comes to the ratio of Trade and Mercenary Tasks you can get from them as well as the type of mercenary contracts they hand out. Enemies in these missions can be almost any kind, from beasts to outlaws and Undead - even the mercenaries of other factions.

It's perhaps good to clarify here that major changes to Point of Interests on the campaign map (like razing a settlement) are always the result of an active choice by players in story-lines and not Mercenary Tasks. Mercenary tasks are similar to Trade Tasks: both are repeatable, procedurally generated options that influence Faction relations and serve as a way to earn money. Accordingly, they always involve locations out in the wasteland on unnamed nodes.

Perhaps the easiest way to learn more is to watch a video about this feature:


You can read more about Mercenary Tasks in our design posts: Part I. (already here on Steam) and Part II. (on our website).

Another big change that comes with this build is Dissonance Mode, which you can select when starting a new game from now on. While based on our statistics (thanks to everyone for ticking the box!), the vast majority of players gets the hang of the game after a few botched trials, there are others who are looking for a more relaxed experience. Dissonance Mode is still not 'easy', so we try to avoid calling it an Easy Mode, nor is it a Story Mode since it is the cruel story itself that is left unsupported by the more lenient gameplay, but still, it's something along those lines, easing up on the management and combat mechanics so that you are less likely to be wiped out during a playthrough. Note that Achievements will be disabled in Dissonance Mode.



Just like for Mercenary Tasks and the Dissonance Mode, we will have a detailed design post about all the combat changes that are rolled out in this release but in short: skills involving movement or push-pull mechanics now switch around enemies making the tactical aspect of the companion combat more challenging and - hopefully - more exciting. You can find additional information on the exact improvements below.

Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server.

Now let's jump into the details:

--------------------------------------------------

• Mercenary Tasks were added to the game
  
• Wasteland and Dissonance Modes are now selectible upon New Game
  
• 'One More Day' option to continue your playthrough after the 10 year mark added (alas with Achievements disabled)

Companion and Crew Combat

• Push/Pull now switches the characters behind each other. Both roll Resist & immunities apply (Stunned, Immobilized, and Downed combatants can also switch place this way)
  
• Move +Action Skills no longer need an empty space but auto-switch with the other party member occupying the target position
  
• Downed Companions can now be dragged away to switch places with an active Companion using a full Move action
  
• Combat Skills with multiple phases are presented in the same camera zoom
  
• Garrik's 'Salvaged Rune' Skill now works as intended: it randombly draws a rune from several possible ones - each affects the enemy in different ways
  
• 'Acrobatic' Perk now available (you can select where to Evade!)
  
• Decide the fate of the foe if they surrender in Crew Combat or if you capture them as they flee or retreat - they can be let go, enslaved, and more!

• Passengers and Trade Tasks now have chart markers by default
  
• We have also added a selector that allows you to filter which markers you want to see
  
• Inside a settlement, you can see the destinations of all available tasks and passengers with the :eye: filter turned on
  
• Factions - Active tab filter buttons added
  
• Equipment filter buttons on the Market added
  
• Event choice hover SFX added

• Boosting Chain Lightning now works as intended
  
• Some end of the day exploits prevented
  
• Various smaller fixes and Event script tweaks

Known Issues:

• Load times are getting higher and higher. We plan to address the issue closer to the final release.

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now?' - Nope.
'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it.

So we said that the Smolderbone region was the last one... but yeah, let's go for one more! Then that's it, promise. :)

Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland!
- The Lost Pilgrims Team

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The Riven Realms, the setting of Vagrus, is a harsh, violent place. Up until now, many players have felt that their ventures are the primary targets of this cruelty but with Mercenary Tasks, you will have the opportunity to return the favor. This facet of gameplay has been in the works since we began developing Vagrus, and it not only adds a ton of variation and replayability but also goes a long way in softening up story content. Along with the branching story and trading, we consider mercenary work as one of the three pillars that hold up the game. Of course, we leave it to players which facet they want to concentrate on at times in each playthrough. Mercenary Tasks even allow for a completely combat-oriented gameplay, concentrating on forging a warband from your comitatus.

Mercenary Tasks are received from factions. Their orientation influences the ratio of Trade versus Mercenary Tasks with a given faction and also the type of mercenary contracts they hand out. Enemies in these missions can be almost any kind, from beasts to outlaws and Undead - even the mercenaries of other factions.


The simplest, most common type. You have to reach a location indicated on your chart, find the right node, then defeat the enemies, sometimes once, other times in a series of Crew Combat encounters. Victory and crushing the enemy is all that matters.

You have to reach a location and defend it against the enemy. An option to reinforce the location with fighters from your own crew is always present in this type. The cunning vagrus plans ahead and brings extra forces to be able to reinforce, of course, for weakening yourself before a battle might prove disastrous even though the number of warriors given thusly lowers the fight's difficulty somewhat.

After the decision of reinforcing or not, there is some waiting, since the enemy you have to defend against takes some time to arrive. This also makes planning ahead with supplies important. Just like with Eliminate, there can be a single enemy wave or several.

This type is a sort of a combination of Eliminate and Defend: first you reach the location, then defeat the enemies already present there, then organize the defense (you can reinforce it similarly to Defend), wait for the enemy to arrive and beat it back. Should you fail the first time, you can attempt to complete the Task again until the deadline is reached.

Alternatively, you can move on after defeating the enemies the first time and hope that the place defends itself. In this case, you must reinforce it with fighters, however.


As you can see, Mercenary Tasks mix things up in the best way possible and add a huge amount of variation. In Part II. we are going to discuss the rest of the types: Escort, Abduct, Rescue, and Capture. And who knows, in the long run, we might be able to add even more Mercenary Task types.


Mercenary Tasks are coming to Vagrus soon so stay tuned and let us know what you think once you give this new feature a spin.

Conquer the wasteland,
The Lost Pilgrims Team

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There has been a number of Quality of Life changes to the game in the last couple of months and we wanted to collect them in one post.



The comitatus UI on the top left over the campaign map is one of the most frequently used interfaces in the game and we wanted to add several stats to make it more informative. To save space, we changed text to icons and now it also displays Nutrition and Obedience, as well as Combat Strength and Defense for Crew Combat.

Another addition to the comitatus UI is the button to use the Traverse Leadership Perk - the last one missing from that category. Activating it converts 3 March Movement Points to regular Movement Points, which can be done every 3 days for 4 Resourcefulness.


When deploying your companions in Companion Combat, now you have the option to autofill the positions using the new button. The order in which they are deployed depends on their health (Wounded entities come later).


Similar to Autofill, this improvement helps with Companion Combat deployment. You can save and load three different formations. Especially since you can enter Companion Combat from Crew Combat, players have come up with their preferred setups so using Formations, they can access them very easily.

These cards unify settlement and POI cards with quest and Task markers. Button mechanics are the same now and there is a significant visual tune-up, too. For settlements, Codex, Price History, and Mark buttons are available, while quest and Task markers have buttons opening the relevant Journal entry as well as Mark options.


These were improved to show how many nodes fall into the area designated by the marker. They are color-coded to be easier to differentiate even at a cursory glance. Better yet, preview versions of these same markers are available for Tasks and Passengers (if the destination is unknown for your character), so you can better calculate travel times and risks.

We hope you'll enjoy these changes - we have put a lot of work into them.

Vagrus has made it into the finalists in the Digital Dragons Indie Celebration competition!

Besides the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places awarded based on the votes of the jury, there is also a Community Vote you can participate in here. The list is in alphabetical order, so Vagrus is the last one. ;)



By the way, the voting for Untold Games Awards' community award is still on, so if you haven't, head over there, too, and have your voice heard.

Words can not express how much we appreciate your continued support. Stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland!

-The Lost Pilgrims Team

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In this short article we've collected the recent changes to the Event UI in a more detailed format. This is something that's been a long time coming and we believe that it improves the playing- and reading-experience considerably.



There is a frame around each choice now, and the whole box thus created is clickable while also providing visual feedback when hovered over, too. These choice boxes help differentiate the various choices better and contain everything you need to make the choice.

What you have and what you need to make choices are called dependencies (a fancier name for 'requirements' really) and from now on, these are much better differentiated. Each category has its own icon and detailed tooltips. Optional dependencies are now signified as such, and many hidden, story-related dependencies at least show up to inform players that they are lacking something for that choice.


A great number of improvements were added to tooltips in Events, which mostly deals with the clean-up of dependency tooltips.

Specialized shops or ad hoc deals are often encountered in Events. From now on, the choices that lead to buying or selling are better marked, with more information on the price (and its relation to prices elsewhere). You can also see the right icon for items, equipment, goods, and gear in these choice boxes.


Last but not least, we have implemented the 'Enhance' Leadership Perk, which can be used to raise your choices in Tests presented in some Event choices. This has been planned for a long time and we hope that it will lessen the impact of the somewhat more arbitrary Tests and give you a measure of agency.



The team has done a lot of awesome work on the Event UI and we hope you'll like these improvements when you get your hands on them in the next build! Until then, take care, and conquer the wasteland!

The Lost Pilgrims Team

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We are immensely honored, happy, and proud to share that Vagrus has been nominated for two awards in the upcoming Unfold Games Awards show. It feels like quite an achievement for a game still in Early Access, especially since over 400 high-quality games entered the contest. The nominees were selected by a panel of 20 judges comprised of top industry professionals. The two categories are:

- Audience Award - Vote for Vagrus
- Best Game Design Award

We cannot express how much these mean to the whole team, how their love for the game and dedication to turn it into something truly special got recognized in the form of these nominations.

The Audience Award is, of course, one that will be awarded on the votes by players so we would very much appreciate your show of support for Vagrus under the link here:

We are also grateful to You, our players, for having made it possible for Vagrus to get here. Your continued support, constructive criticism, and dedication to the game keep pushing us to deliver more and better.

Stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland!
-The Lost Pilgrims Team

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This time, we come to you with a double feature of sorts, combining two topics into a single devlog post: changing the types of the beasts of burden of a comitatus and the mechanics of Trade Offers.




The vagrus's ability to change the type of beasts their comitatus uses has been planned to be added to the game from the beginning but it had to wait until recently for a couple of reasons. The first being that there were a number of other - more important - things to be added before and also because changing between only two types would have been a bit lackluster, but the third type was locked behind content that we got around to just lately (and is available since the addition of Larnak).

Of the three types of beasts, two are accessible in most settlements in-game. Mammals are slightly more common, which means that you can buy them in greater number in mansios, except in the deep deserts where reptiles are more common. Neither of these two types are better than the other in all respects. For example, reptile beasts of burden carry more cargo and move a tad faster but march less effectively and have a much larger consumption. Reptile mounts are slightly better at combat but less effective on long journeys than horses. Mammals are cheaper and so make it easier to scale up your comitatus but require more animal care, thus more work. The third type, insectioids, work as an upgrade in basically every aspect and cost a lot to obtain. This type is meant for high-end comitati in general.

Changing the beast type of your comitatus happens in the mansio and it changes both your beasts of burden as well as mounts to the selected type at once. From then on, you buy beasts and mounts for the new, active beast type, meaning you can never have mixed beast types in your comitatus.




Commerce in the Riven Realms is held in the iron grip of Trading Houses through official monopolies or the control of locations that produce valuable goods. A simple merchant who deals in smaller quantities of wares can not begin to imagine what profit these factions work with, especially compared to what the actual manufacturing or harvesting costs. Yet there are considerable expenses involved in these operations, too. If the hardships of travel over the accursed wastelands were not enough by themselves, factions regularly wage bloody wars for resources, mostly in the shadows but often openly as well out on the frontier - and these are astonishingly expensive.

In accordance with the above outline, we have always wanted players to only have access to large quantities of wares through factions. We had a lot of the feature in place, including UI elements, but we needed dynamic pricing to work before being able to add Trade Offers. Until it could be implemented properly, the temporary solution was to control stocks through the market of settlements, but it was less transparent in many ways - a lot of players neglected to check back to depleted or markets with a seemingly low goods density, believing that it will never change.

The concept of Trade Offers is not complicated: factions that have presence in a settlement post bulk offers for buyers and sellers alike. The content and quality of these offers depend on a variety of factors, including the faction's interest in and the supply-and-demand of the wares in question, the extent of their presence, as well as the player's unlocked Trade Offer tiers (from I. to III.).

Trade Offers can only be bought and sold in full stacks, and beside the normal price, vagri can get a better deal when spending faction reputation. Although factions do not sell their wares cheaper (except at higher standing with them on the source nodes of the goods), each unit of the offered stack costs the same, which is a great advantage over the dynamically changing market price even though it may seem that the initial couple of units cost less at the market than the offered ones. The result is that large scale trading is mostly viable through faction Trade Offers.

Apart from fitting the setting of the game, the point of this design is to keep smaller comitati more viable through normal market trading while to upkeep larger ones you would have to progress through factions. This is only true of course if the player wishes to delve into the trading aspect. Trade Tasks remain for those who mostly care about a fixed, certain profit without risking their coins.

We hope you will like these new additions - they certainly add new levels of depth and strategy when it comes to comitatus management.

The Lost Pilgrims Team

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Dear fellow vagri,

This short video was made to give you a rough idea about how the new comitatus equipment screen and system were changed. Categories have been revamped, with new ones added into the mix.



The new mechanic allows players to use these items in more diverse and specialized ways. New types of equipment, like armaments, tools, and animals were added while we ironed out the older ones as well to make it more consistent and interesting. Many pieces of equipment are available for several slots, so you can mix and match in more ways than one.

Another change is that Deputies are now linked to equipment in a new way - they will open up extra slots for certain types when assigned to their post, further deepening the system. Now you'll be able to make use of more equipment at the same time and come up with combinations that better suit a large variety of situations in game. We also added a lot of new pieces of equipment with the last several patches, making the list of available ones fairly long by now, including some unique ones only acquirable through questing and faction reputation.

The Lost Pilgrims Team

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With the arrival of Factions to Vagrus, you guys got a new way to specialize your comitatus. Up until the addition of Faction rewards, however, this meant some obscure (albeit very welcome - we're looking at you, road tax) boons and perks but then with claimable rewards, Factions quickly became our players' new best friends.

The Name of the Game

In its core, the system is well-known in video games: build more reputation by doing repeatable, procedurally generated Tasks as well as unique stories, unlock higher tiers of Standing with a Faction by doing so, and receive your rewards. The higher the Standing, the better the rewards - it is that simple. Or is it? Of course, staying friendly with a Faction might be a challenge of its own, seeing how they tend to hate each other so passionately. This means that gaining reputation with a Faction will reduce reputation with their enemies, albeit not with the same intensity. It was deliberately implemented this way so that you can not get all the goodies in a single run - a balancing act, a tool of immersion, and a factor in replayability.



The Rewards

Two kinds of rewards are bound to Faction Standing:

• Prizes: These Gear or Equipment rewards are one-time only redeemables. Once you have the Standing, you can claim them at a settlement with the right Faction presence. There is some overlap between prizes here and there but you also get a lot of unique rewards among them to make them more interesting. The higher tier ones are powerful and valuable additions to any comitatus.
  
• Boons: These are always Enduring Effects and they will stay applied to your comitatus until you lose the required Standing with the given Faction, in which case you'll lose the boon. However, upon regaining your Standing, you can again claim these effects by simply going to a settlement with any kind of presence for the Faction in question.

All in all, we are very happy with how Factions - and the related rewards - have turned out in the game. There is still some tweaking to be done, perhaps overhauls of rewards as well, but we have had a very positive feedback from our player base and we're very excited to see how these awesome rewards will motivate you guys to delve into the Faction system.

The Lost Pilgrims Team

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