Firgof Umbra
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Plot Synopsis
[Farhymn] Asterai Uzra is a simple boy about be drawn into a plot of reality-shaking proportions. Passed into a legacy he never knew, thrust into a role he didn't want, forced to perform tasks he regrets.
The Apprentice of Farhymn series (this installment titled "The Firgof's Legacy") concerns itself chiefly with the Howlfang Era, a time of great trouble and sacrifice. Farhymn, himself, plays a big role in shaping the sum of events which define the era. The draw in the story is not about the war; not about those drawn into conflict; it is about inner, personal battles being played out on the world's stage. It is about how one betrayal can terminate in an explosion of battle, blood, and war; how one can deal with a mistake so large that it would condemn thousands to death.
It is Conflict and Conflict's origins, and the cycle of life and death all things go through, the web of connections, and how being connected to another person at the right time can be the most enlightening, dangerous, and opportunistic force you may ever know.
[Farhymn] Asterai Uzra
(ret.) Captain Uzra
A forty-year old war veteran, jokingly nicknamed 'The Firgof' by his unit in the Battle of Pellanor Fields in recognition of his peerless swordsmanship and near-effortless capture of the Raven Keep. Retired since the Greywar, and now lives quietly with his wife, Meryl, in the quiet village of Running Meadows -- remote, safe, and without surprises. Due to substantially hiked taxes on their family name due to his indignation to the King, he is often in nearby towns doing work with his hands or offering martial training to noble progeny to make ends meet back at home.
Meryl Uzra, Ex-Bard
Once a traveler of bars and inns, often following army camps whenever possible, Meryl and Uzra developed a lasting bond during his fruitful career in the Firryn militia. By the end of the Greywar, Meryl agreed to be bewed to him. Seven months later, Captain Uzra retired from service, throwing down his blade in front of the King, and made to Running Meadows to escape the damning shackles of King Mollin with his new wife. Meryl, though slightly disappointed in just how remote the village they picked to start their lives together was, got to work without begrudging her situation. On the Eve of the Harvestmoon, roughly one year after they had arrived in Running Meadows, Meryl gave birth to [Farhymn] Asterai Uzra. From this day, she lovingly cared and nurtured for her son.
(ret.) Sgt. Sheila "Skyblade"
Longtime friend and veteran-in-arms of Captain Uzra, who was her superior officer during the Greywar. After the war, Uzra convinced her to retire from service and move to Running Meadows with them. When the three arrived in Running Meadows (little more than two houses and a farm) they quickly settled in to the day-to-day of smalltown life. Sheila, unlike Uzra and Meryl, is restless in Running Meadows; often offering to teach the highly valued arts of the Stormcallers as merely a boredom aid for loose change (or for free in Asterai's case). She has no suitors and does not seek any, much to the dismay of Hargas the Woodsman.
03/16/2009 @ 0342 (GMT-6): Tonight all of the raw work for the main storyline in the prologue is finally in. All that needs to be done now is tightening up what's already there, fixing spriting errors, implementing the combat engine, and waterproofing the tonality system at the end of the prologue. I did two complete runthroughs to get a rough estimate on how long the Prologue is.
With some sidequests, some training, and a slightly above-average reading speed, the total playtime of the Prologue is roughly one hour.
Speeding through the prologue with noclip, no sidequests, no random encounters, button-mashed text, and no training clocked in at about 12 minutes.
I'll be adding back in some sidequests I earlier scrapped for time, opening some areas back up for player exploration, and truly start focusing on presentation now that gameplay is almost ready-to-beta.
I look forward to opening up the second public beta of the Prologue to RMXP.org. It should be coming along this month or next.
- Standard RTP Tilesets and Charsets until I can work on them and make better ones, more suitable for the plot.
- The Tonality Engine: One of many unique gameplay approaches to dialog and environment interaction. Your choices may completely alter the story.
- A world many years in the making, rich with unique characters, races, and empires to visit and interact with.
- [Planned] A combo-focused combat system in the style of Xenogears for Martial characters and a Wounding system for ranged characters.
- [Planned] Multiple modes of combat. Where some situations require a face-to-face encounter, other situations will require a tactical approach.
- High-quality OGGs to compliment the atmosphere of the game; selected specifically for their scenes.
- Split into chapters to keep the story releases 'on time'.
- Truly scaled combat. Low level characters are immensely different from high level characters due to a complete revision of level-scaling to keep combat tactical.
The Calcite Mine at the Northern End of the Town
13 Secret Chests, each unlocking unique abilities or altering the endgame.
The Training System Main Menu (when I can get to it: T.P. and T.LV. will be represented in a separate window for ease of use)
Curious and deadly inhabitants of the World of Serzahnk, this one a "Nosferatu", await you in baited breath.
Sheila's Training Room/Generic Windowless, Unadorned, Brick Room
Kraviklaw Monster conceptual
Kraviklaw Monster conceptual
03/16/2009 @ 0342 (GMT-6): Tonight all of the raw work for the main storyline in the prologue is finally in. All that needs to be done now is tightening up what's already there, fixing spriting errors, implementing the combat engine, and waterproofing the tonality system at the end of the prologue. I did two complete runthroughs to get a rough estimate on how long the Prologue is.
With some sidequests, some training, and a slightly above-average reading speed, the total playtime of the Prologue is roughly one hour.
Speeding through the prologue with noclip, no sidequests, no random encounters, button-mashed text, and no training clocked in at about 12 minutes.
I'll be adding back in some sidequests I earlier scrapped for time, opening some areas back up for player exploration, and truly start focusing on presentation now that gameplay is almost ready-to-beta.
I look forward to opening up the second public beta of the Prologue to RMXP.org. It should be coming along this month or next.
03/05/2009 @ 2327 (GMT-6): After a long period of sporadic activity, I've finally been able to put in two days' worth of work into the game and the prologue is getting fairly close to completion. The Training System was put in tonight and all of its features are now enabled. Currently it relies on quick-time-events to get the mechanics done but I hope to find a better way to do it in the future (suggestions are welcome!) Spent a lot of time fixing bugs and smoothing out dialogue here and there. Still a few ways to break the main quest when things are done in a certain order (such is the nature of letting the player roam around freely). Will hopefully have the new Training Room battlerbackground done sometime next week; I've uploaded a rough of its current design layout in the new Concept Art spoiler. Feedback is welcome.
11/11/2008 @ 0003 (GMT-6): Testing out interior maps with the matching INQ XP tileset; may convert for sake of continuity between interior and exterior environs. Fixed the savegame crash bug. Fixed the slowtext in battles bug. Numerous dialog and code changes throughout. Optimization of certain events. Added a few new areas to the maplist. Have been mostly busy with schoolwork for the past week so only limited work on the project has been done. Now at Revision 18.
11/03/2008 @ 1637 (GMT-6): I've always felt kind of weird when I came into contact with NPCs in a lot of fantasy games, two shakes away from death, and they're chatting me up like I'm just another guy. Though adding this recognition into every possible NPC meeting might be a little too ambitious, your parents now at least get scared half-to-death if you walk in the door with wounds all over the place.Â
I've also added in more immerse BGSs for the Cave and Village areas and in a few sequences. They're high quality, seamlessly looped, OGGs and only add about 5 MB to the package so I think that's a fair trade off as I'll be using them throughout the game. Did more work on the conversation trees, finished work on the first side-quest, am nearing completion on introducing the main quest, and have added more detail to Fort Moonfall as well as having a preliminary layout for Pellanor Fields (and Pellanor Fields is the first large-scope map; though it isn't near the planned scale of the world map).Â
Once work on Pellanor Fields completes, I can tighten up the backend of some of my programming decisions, add in the necessary sequences and areas to hit off the first part of the main quest, and transition to the future, then I'll go back, add in some side-quests, and close off the main area for playtesting. It's been a productive month and screenshots are soon to follow of the new build (expect them in a few days)!
11/01/2008 @ 1317 (GMT-6): Numerous changes to the basic structure and layout of the village, added two new areas, starting to add in quests, and am working on making a faster, more involved, introductory sequence. Cut the letter to the Apprentice out of the introductory sequence, added Sheila's sparring option to her basemenu, and added more suspense to the prologue instead of heaving it all out at once. Tentatively cut the dream sequence. Other miscellaneous changes detailed in SVN Log.
10/14/2008 @ 2105 (GMT-6) : I've encountered a showstopping bug in HERMES, which currently controls and modifies all of the text in the game. Luckily, it is only affecting developer testing at this time as the ingame portion of the code is still functional; if unbearably laggy. I have, in the meanwhile, uploaded a pic of the first section of the Gabbro Mine not too far north from Running Meadows; it's still a W.I.P. but I figured I'd show it anyway.
10/12/2008 @ 1243 (GMT-6) : Added a new member to the project team. Fixed the majority of bugs. Added Secret Chest events.  Now working on the interiors of the village houses. From there, I'll begin work on side quests. After side quests are finished, plot events will be tied. Once tied, then I will evaluate the package with a new internal alpha and begin work either on Pellanor Fields or the Fortress to the south. Added Nosferatu and new skills to the game. Balanced accordingly.
09/04/2008 @ 0830 (GMT-6) B2 : Swapped the current preview of the village out with the more current version. Nearly decided on layout of village; coming closer to cohesion. Also, added Changelog to original post so that I don't have to post a new reply every time I want to release a news update.
With some sidequests, some training, and a slightly above-average reading speed, the total playtime of the Prologue is roughly one hour.
Speeding through the prologue with noclip, no sidequests, no random encounters, button-mashed text, and no training clocked in at about 12 minutes.
I'll be adding back in some sidequests I earlier scrapped for time, opening some areas back up for player exploration, and truly start focusing on presentation now that gameplay is almost ready-to-beta.
I look forward to opening up the second public beta of the Prologue to RMXP.org. It should be coming along this month or next.
03/05/2009 @ 2327 (GMT-6): After a long period of sporadic activity, I've finally been able to put in two days' worth of work into the game and the prologue is getting fairly close to completion. The Training System was put in tonight and all of its features are now enabled. Currently it relies on quick-time-events to get the mechanics done but I hope to find a better way to do it in the future (suggestions are welcome!) Spent a lot of time fixing bugs and smoothing out dialogue here and there. Still a few ways to break the main quest when things are done in a certain order (such is the nature of letting the player roam around freely). Will hopefully have the new Training Room battlerbackground done sometime next week; I've uploaded a rough of its current design layout in the new Concept Art spoiler. Feedback is welcome.
11/11/2008 @ 0003 (GMT-6): Testing out interior maps with the matching INQ XP tileset; may convert for sake of continuity between interior and exterior environs. Fixed the savegame crash bug. Fixed the slowtext in battles bug. Numerous dialog and code changes throughout. Optimization of certain events. Added a few new areas to the maplist. Have been mostly busy with schoolwork for the past week so only limited work on the project has been done. Now at Revision 18.
11/03/2008 @ 1637 (GMT-6): I've always felt kind of weird when I came into contact with NPCs in a lot of fantasy games, two shakes away from death, and they're chatting me up like I'm just another guy. Though adding this recognition into every possible NPC meeting might be a little too ambitious, your parents now at least get scared half-to-death if you walk in the door with wounds all over the place.Â
I've also added in more immerse BGSs for the Cave and Village areas and in a few sequences. They're high quality, seamlessly looped, OGGs and only add about 5 MB to the package so I think that's a fair trade off as I'll be using them throughout the game. Did more work on the conversation trees, finished work on the first side-quest, am nearing completion on introducing the main quest, and have added more detail to Fort Moonfall as well as having a preliminary layout for Pellanor Fields (and Pellanor Fields is the first large-scope map; though it isn't near the planned scale of the world map).Â
Once work on Pellanor Fields completes, I can tighten up the backend of some of my programming decisions, add in the necessary sequences and areas to hit off the first part of the main quest, and transition to the future, then I'll go back, add in some side-quests, and close off the main area for playtesting. It's been a productive month and screenshots are soon to follow of the new build (expect them in a few days)!
11/01/2008 @ 1317 (GMT-6): Numerous changes to the basic structure and layout of the village, added two new areas, starting to add in quests, and am working on making a faster, more involved, introductory sequence. Cut the letter to the Apprentice out of the introductory sequence, added Sheila's sparring option to her basemenu, and added more suspense to the prologue instead of heaving it all out at once. Tentatively cut the dream sequence. Other miscellaneous changes detailed in SVN Log.
10/14/2008 @ 2105 (GMT-6) : I've encountered a showstopping bug in HERMES, which currently controls and modifies all of the text in the game. Luckily, it is only affecting developer testing at this time as the ingame portion of the code is still functional; if unbearably laggy. I have, in the meanwhile, uploaded a pic of the first section of the Gabbro Mine not too far north from Running Meadows; it's still a W.I.P. but I figured I'd show it anyway.
10/12/2008 @ 1243 (GMT-6) : Added a new member to the project team. Fixed the majority of bugs. Added Secret Chest events.  Now working on the interiors of the village houses. From there, I'll begin work on side quests. After side quests are finished, plot events will be tied. Once tied, then I will evaluate the package with a new internal alpha and begin work either on Pellanor Fields or the Fortress to the south. Added Nosferatu and new skills to the game. Balanced accordingly.
09/04/2008 @ 0830 (GMT-6) B2 : Swapped the current preview of the village out with the more current version. Nearly decided on layout of village; coming closer to cohesion. Also, added Changelog to original post so that I don't have to post a new reply every time I want to release a news update.
