Greetings Wielders!
It’s time for the very first Yulan Devlog, where we take the time to dive just a little bit deeper into one aspect of our new faction, and this time we’ve chosen the Tale. This has been one of the major points of feedback after we released our earlier Faction DLCs.
We’ve received a lot of love for our shorter Tales, like the one about Root’s Grow or our favorite sad Vanir troll, Sorg. And even if you’ve enjoyed these story-focused missions, especially after we added different difficulties, many of you have still been missing something more connected. A series of missions tied together by a continuous storyline, where you follow the same thread from start to finish. With the Yulan Tale, that is exactly what you’re getting.
View game pageWishlist Yulan now, that support really helps!
Three connected maps, following the Wielders of one of the three families, letting you learn more about Yulan’s lore, its history, and where the faction fits into the larger picture. You will meet many new Wielders and a few familiar ones as well. Through playing the maps, you’ll learn what makes the Yulan faction tick, both lore-wise and in terms of playstyle.
So why aren’t we calling it a Campaign? It has many of the major ingredients of our larger campaigns, so why insist on calling it a Tale instead? The answer mostly comes down to the Songs. That’s what we named our older, full campaigns. Those Songs came with custom-made, performed, and cutscene-enhanced songs created by our very own in-house bard.
It would feel wrong to call these new stories campaigns when they are missing that tavern-song element, so we are calling them Tales. Tales is our umbrella concept for story content, covering both shorter experiences, like Mehry and the one-mission stories in Vanir and Roots, as well as longer ones, such as the upcoming Rise Eternal Tale. They now have their own place in the menus, making sure they get their moment in the pixel-like sun, as the expression goes.
Just like Tales of Wonder, the Tale of Yulan will have its own space!
But enough about explaining what we call things. Even if it helps straighten out a few of those feedback questions you’ve had, let’s talk about Yulan’s story and tease a bit about its Wielders.
We will adventure in Yulan through the eyes of the House of Sheng, one of the three houses, and the one that focuses on Creation as its Essence. The House of Sheng seeks to find joy in life while also honoring its position of power within Yulan society. As hinted at, or perhaps rather outspokenly and brashly stated in our Faction reveal Steam post, a main focus of this Tale will be the revitalization of Roots, a force long thought to be under control. But something has changed, although we won’t spoil what just yet. 
Our awesome artist is Maja Misztal, check out https://www.artstation.com/steelsuit
What we can say is that the Houses of Yulan are not united. They aren’t allies. As the story begins, they are three rivals competing for power, bureaucracy, and influence. There is an old struggle between them that, throughout history, has resulted in bloody conflict, with Essence wielded as a weapon against other Houses, much like the baronies of Arleon.
Carl is hard at work crafting the Tale, while our art department is simultaneously completing everything from map entities to unit animations, buildings, and Wielders. And speaking of those Wielders, we thought you deserved the latest update on the Wielder lineup.
All three families together, a sight that is far from common, This one is made by our new Art intern Einar
https://x.com/3inart/media
So did I write all of this just to brag about our beautiful art? Well, maybe, but there is a lot more to come in the following months. And as a final thing, thank you all so much for your support, praise and feedback (And thousands of wishlists) that we recieved after our Yulan reveal two weeks ago, those kind of things really give us energy to just keep up the work!
/Anders and the rest of the Lavpotion team