Fellow Disgraced & Cursed,
In May 2021 I’d just broken my leg for the second time (achievement unlocked!) and was convalescing in a hire-bed in my study, at home (there’s a gotcha to putting all your bedrooms on the second floor). I was going to be stuck in that bed for at least a month because it turns out that the second time you break your femur, it’s a nightmare to fix. I had a new titanium rod right up the inside of it.
I wasn’t going anywhere, feeling particularly useless, and we had a project called Solium Infernum just kicking off I wanted to contribute to. So I opened my laptop and entitled a document, ‘Archfiends’.
Across the afternoon I proceeded to write out the profiles, backgrounds, and visual descriptions of all of our Archfiends in the game - eight in total, and a number of additional ones for future DLC. I wrote them all in one sitting, and they’ve largely remained the same since or provided the path for the designs that followed.
It’s important to know that at this stage I was on serious medication. I think that’s important to note.
But they hadn’t quite been born solely out of a drug-induced fever dream; I’d been brooding over the question "what could Archfiends be"? Since around 2012 when I first encountered the original Solium Infernum. I’d prototyped both a Solium Infernum card game and a tabletop role-playing game (apparently high on SI’s premise and drunk on game design) and already had considered the anti-heroes of the Solium Infernum underworld. Who would they be? What are their relationships? How would each one feel different? And my favorite question; if this was a cool anime (obviously from the 80's/90's), what would the story be?
The Eight Evil Thoughts of Evagrius
The material I’d already written formed the skeleton of the new Archfiends. Each would represent a different sin. Evagrius Ponticus, a Christian monk in the 4th century wrote the “eight evil thoughts”; gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, sloth, sadness, vainglory and pride - which happened to be the perfect number of Archfiends we’d want to launch with. This surely was no coincidence (it was).
This sin was the kernel or essence of the character. For example, Andromalius was obviously a prideful Archfiend. They believed themself to be the ultimate divine creature, higher than the throne itself. They had to be a deadly beauty in hell. An arrogant and tantrum-prone tyrant.
There was an obvious overlap with the original Solium Infernum for inspiration. In the original game, there were no ‘characters’ to select but only fascinating avatars (which did have names, but weren’t particularly surfaced for the player). When designing the visuals of our Archfiends, we did borrow where we thought appropriate, if not directly then in spirit. For example, our Belial, the schemer, contract maker, and little-finger of Hell, borrowed loosely from the original artwork, but we added more Baphomet to the visual design. We still wanted to capture that same arrogance from the original. Sometimes, we combined a few ideas together to make something new.
Lastly, we wanted each Archfiend to convey a different angle in the whole ‘evil overlord’ genre and player fantasy. Murmur is a vile necromancer, Mammon a Baron Harkonnen, Beelzebub a wretched horrorshow. We wanted players to sense these fantasies and get into them. Each Archfiend would have a custom ability that would further amplify this, a clear break from the original that asked for total customisation.
Unleashing Hell...
The final Archfiend product is something that we're immensely proud of. We hope that you love them, too.
Over the next few weeks, you will bear witness to Hell's Archfiends as we reveal them in full -- one by one.
Until then...
See you in Hell,
Ty
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If you've made it this far, thanks for following along. I intend to share more posts like this, detailing the development process as it unfolds and exploring the unique challenges the privilege of re-imagining a cult classic like Solium Infernum for new (and old!) audiences holds.
For now, you can join the League of Geeks Discord community for all the infernal news and discussion.
For those who have undying questions about the future of Solium Infernum, we'll be hosting a Development Fireside Chat on March 20th @ 4.30pm PST.
P.S. You can support us and our re-imagining of Vic's "diamond in the dark" by Wishlisting Solium Infernum on Steam, if you haven't already. Wishlisting tells the all-great Steam algorithm that people like what they’re seeing and gets us in front of more eyes.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1893810/Solium_Infernum/