Welcome, fellow Godir, for the time has come to delve into the Secrets of the Archmages. I am Jakob from Triumph’s narrative department, but you may call me Eomolch.
The upcoming DLC of Age of Wonders 4 (to be released on the 16th of June) is the first “Story Pack”, which meant a break from our regular routine of doing DLC with a new flagship ruler type or culture. Today I will be talking about what this meant for our concepting of the DLC and the grand stroke paths we decided to stride.
New Horizons
So what even is a “Story Pack”? For the narrative team the idea of a “Story Pack” represented first of all new opportunities, new visions to explore, more daring designs to consider. Normally the big feature additions of a DLC define the framework of the narratives we craft. The gameplay leads, and the stories must follow. But with Secrets of the Archmages the situation had been reversed: we could first develop our stories and then sketch out the content required to support those stories based on our narratives. Of course in realistic terms it wasn’t quite that simple, but still the promise of creative freedom was tantalizing!
Time for the disciples of the antsy quill to escape from their Cage of Binding!
Of Wizards and Secrets
When exploring the directions for the DLC one vision emerged early on and eventually became engraved even on the DLC name: we wanted to close-in on the stories of the Wizards from the old games and their secrets. The original idea was to follow the banished Wizards of Athla on their journeys throughout the Astral Sea between Age of Wonder Shadow Magic and the end of Age of Wonders 3 (when the Seals locking Athla from the Astral Sea were broken). But when we realized this would clash with existing faction options of the present Age of Wonders, we ended up altering this approach in favor of story lines that would chronologically follow our previous narratives. Still, this original idea persisted in a different form as will be seen later.
When planning out narrative content for Age of Wonders 4 we face the constant dilemma that there is a division in the community in terms of their preferences: while one part of the players desires to experience emergent narratives supporting their roleplaying sandbox games, the other part is more interested in following a carefully crafted story, continuing longer narrative arcs more akin to a traditional campaign (naturally some enjoy both or don’t care for either). In our first story pack we wanted to offer something compelling to both types of players, so we ended up with two content types to pursue:
Story Realms — well, you know what they are. ;)
Shrouded Isles — now this is the super secret part. Sorry, had to swear an unbreakable oath, sign my soul over to a Demon Overlord, and (worst of all!) it’s where I’m hiding from Turiel right now, so no pointers whatsoever how to find them. All I can say is you really don’t want to see what’s behind the gate to Nimue’s Isle!
The scary door — enter at your own risk!
With the Shrouded Isles better left behind the scary door for now, the rest of this dev diary will focus on the Story Realms.
The Golden Rule of Three
Anyone who has been engaged with game or UX design for some time knows that 3 is a magic number that keeps popping up in all kinds of designs. 3 event choices, 3 archetypes to choose from, 3 steps to complete in a quest chain, 3 magic materials in a set, 3 levels of good and evil alignment—this list could go on forever.
With that already said it’s no big surprise that we ended up rooting for 3 new Story Realms to make for Secrets of the Archmages. Our high level narrative goal of the DLC was to keep broadening our game world, let the conflict between Urrath and Archons that had defined most of the main narrative up until Archon Prophecy shift out of focus for the time being, and instead look at other factions and worlds that could play bigger roles in our future narratives.
To make our Story Realms the most diverse and help us reduce dependencies and risk in the tight business of DLC making, we decided to not tell a linear story, but rather episodic stories with a common narrative backdrop.
As a consequence all three Story Realms will be available directly and can be played in any order.
Early portal art let us choose our starter Pokémon (yes, I’m shamelessly stealing your joke, Bas).
The common narrative backdrop tying all three stories together is that of the Circles of Deogai. Those are the councils of Godir founded by the Archons throughout the Worlds Within as a response to the Fracturing and the experiments of the Unmakers. Originally intended to foster stability and peace, each of those Circles went through its own long history. Some perished, while others persisted and transformed throughout the ages…
Finding our Main Cast
Staying true to our earlier idea about Athla’s Wizards, we determined that each Story Realm would have a “main” Wizard from the old games to follow. Now, Age of Wonders 4 with all its DLC has accumulated an impressive official library of 100 distinct Godir characters by now, covering most of the original (still alive) Wizards. Still, there are some characters missing, so those became a natural point of interest in our investigations.
The Wizards of Age of Wonders 2/Shadow Magic.
The criteria in our search were simple: we wanted to pick a cast of characters with interesting backgrounds and appeal that would fit in well for 3 very different narratives and themes.
In the end the following 3 pairings of characters and story pitches emerged that would later form the foundation of the Story Realm designs:
Merlin, seeking cosmic secrets and redemption.
With the DLC name Secrets of the Archmages we couldn’t give our series’ most defining Archmage a pass. After the (for him) rough Third and even rougher Fourth Age of Wonders, Merlin deserved to get a more merciful narrative arc going. Though it’s a longwinded stairway to climb out of that umbral pit of his.
The player gets to accompany Merlin on his return to Evermore, where they comb through the secrets left behind by the Wizard Kings of the crumbled Circle of Deogai. Together they must expose and fight the sinister powers sleeping in Evermore’s shadows.
Karissa, going on a killing spree on Obbadoth.
Ever since her humiliating experience on the Crimson Caldera a rising fury has been seething inside Karissa. So it is no coincidence that she returns to the infernal world of Obbadoth to let it all go (in a hotter, fiery way).
On the Azh’Ruun Pit the player encounters the target of Karissa’s unleashed fury: an ancient Circle of Deogai, teetering on collapse. Will they protect the Circle, prolonging its unholy duty? Or will they join Karissa and burn it to the ground?
Ham Binger, abducted by the Fey and brought to Duatha.
Our game world’s most cherished adventurer and story-teller (with permission of the lovely Elya) is renowned for getting into the biggest possible trouble—and somehow surviving it. Will his legendary luck be enough to save him from the vile judgement of the Duathadae?
Not this time, no. For this time Ham’s fate depends on the player, who must venture to the Burrow Downs on the fey world Duatha. Following the fey guide Dawnusk they must learn to navigate and understand a realm of constant change and trickery, or Ham Binger will be lost!
Now, this is the moment for the quick-witted Godir to pause reading and complain: “Hey, none of these three is actually new to AoW4! Weren’t we just promised some still missing characters?” Well, rest assured (no need to cast fulmination yet!), there is more to explore in these Story Realms. Some secrets must be kept.
Conclusion
And thus, in an epic struggle, the clumsy hero Eomolch barely dodges most spoiler bullets, leaving the rostrum for his brave colleagues to climb another day. For in the next week, as has been foretold in the Prophecy of Jordi, there shall be revelations about the Tomes in Secrets of the Archmages.
Thank you all for sticking along in this introduction to the first Story Pack of Age of Wonders 4, to be released on the 16th of June!