‘They Allow You to Play With The Time Limit’ - The Blood of Dawnwalker’s Fantasy Races Are Much More Interesting Than Elves and Goblins

In the immense bulk of phantasy video games, the satellite is populated by much than conscionable humans. Mankind is typically accompanied by a scope of antithetic taxon oregon races, and The Blood of Dawnwalker has nary volition of bucking that trend. Vampires are not the lone creatures you’ll beryllium bumping into connected your travel done Vale Sangora, but that doesn’t mean you’ll find your emblematic elves and dwarves astatine the section tavern – this is simply a spot that doesn’t play to the mean rules.

Developer Rebel Wolves has taken a precise peculiar attack to its phantasy worldbuilding. Its sentient races thin acold much into ideas established successful folklore than they bash Tolkien oregon Dungeons & Dragons. One of the champion examples of that is the impish, tooth-thieving sanzhana.

“They play connected a batch of tropes astir pixies from folklore, but of people with our ain twist,” says originative manager Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz. “There are a fig of quests that utilize them and I'm precise excited to spot however radical volition respond to them.”

Sanzhana are unusual creatures, somewhat akin to moths spliced with tiny humans, implicit with bluish skin, achromatic markings, and fuzzy abdomens. And, arsenic our caller gameplay footage demonstrates, they person a funny involvement successful teeth, truthful overmuch truthful they’ll forage from corpses and barter with bandits to get their victims’ gnashers.

But wherefore would Coen, our young and noble protagonist, ever indulge a pixie’s petition for molars and incisors? Well, the reward could good beryllium overmuch much invaluable than a fewer golden coins. “They let you to play with the clip limit,” Tomaszkiewicz reveals, “because determination are a batch of myths astir pixies wherever they get to bash immoderate time-bending stuff. And for us, since our crippled is truthful heavy revolving astir the clip system, this was thing chill to play astir with.”

“I deliberation it's precise chill erstwhile you bash systemic worldly to person exceptions from it and immoderate ways that interaction it successful ways you didn't anticipate,” helium adds. “It creates this feeling that thing unexpected mightiness hap astatine each crook and determination are inactive secrets to beryllium found.”

Sanzhana are powerful, but they’re besides uncommon – you won’t walk by dozens of them arsenic you rotation done the world’s villages. Fulfilling a relation much akin to that of accepted phantasy crippled races is the uriashi, a taxon of towering, beast-like humanoids.

Rebel Wolves has gone to large lengths to make a distinct, believable civilization for these upland giants.“

You’ll often spot them moving alongside humans, providing important other musculus for garrisons. But their relation successful nine is comparatively caller – aft being hunted to near-extinction successful a erstwhile age, the uriashi lone precocious re-revealed themselves to humanity.

“They unrecorded precocious up successful the mountains successful places that were inaccessible to humans,” explains Jakub Szamalek, The Blood of Dawnwalker’s communicative director. “They really guarantee that they are inaccessible, they'd origin a tiny small avalanche to marque definite that their secrets are kept safe.” All that considered, really uncovering the uriashi’s colony connected Dawnwalker’s representation volition beryllium “a full escapade of its own.”

While the humans of Vale Sangora were mostly clueless to the beingness of the uriashi, the vampire lord Brencis had already discovered them. “So helium showed up astatine their colony and helium said, ‘Well, I telephone the shots present and I'm enlisting you guys’,” reveals Szamalek.

Szamalek and the Rebel Wolves squad person gone to large lengths to make a distinct, believable civilization for these upland giants. Their colony is made of rocks, moss, and twigs, with houses built to blend successful with the mountainside to assistance support their secrecy. As radical who walk their winters holed up successful caves, they’ve developed unthinkable patience. And they person their ain governmental structures, which people causes immoderate part among their society.

“They're rather conservative,” Szamalek explains. “So the wide consciousness of the civilization is to support things the mode they are and not experimentation and that besides becomes a spot of a hostility successful 1 of the stories.”

But creating a caller contention is not conscionable astir individuality and civilization – it besides requires immoderate thought astir however the uriashi interact with their neighbours. That forced Rebel Wolves to see the uriashi vocabulary and however they dependable successful conversation.

“They're truly intelligent creatures, but they don't cognize the quality connection precise well,” Szamalek says. “Their vocal concern isn't needfully conducive to speaking a quality language. They conflict to speech and their grasp of grammar is not needfully precise strong.

“I deliberation the archetypal absorption is to instrumentality them for dumb brutes,” helium adds. “But the much clip you walk with them, you recognize that they're much blase than that.”

While the uriashi whitethorn conflict with quality words, they person nary specified contented with magic – thing Coen tin instrumentality vantage of erstwhile interacting with their peoples. Coen can, of course, larn spells, curses, and hexes – they’re 1 of the 3 branches of his accomplishment tree. And, if you’ve seen immoderate of those abilities successful action, you’ll already cognize that Rebel Wolves has crafted a precise peculiar attack to the supernatural arts.

“There are nary fireballs, determination are nary lightning bolts, there's nary elemental magic successful the D&D consciousness of the word,” explains Szamalek. “It's much similar acheronian voodoo arts. A batch of it revolves astir giving your ain humor successful bid to gully from immoderate cosmic power. The ocular constituent of it is subdued.

“You're fundamentally opening a transmission of connection with immoderate people that you don't genuinely comprehend and surely cannot control,” helium adds.

Magic has aggregate purposes successful Vale Sangora, acold beyond Coen’s abilities to summation his moving velocity and summon spectral birds. One of the monsters we’ve seen, for instance, is the gargoyle, a benignant of jury-rigged automaton that Szamalek suggests is the merchandise of magic and a acheronian imagination.

While determination are nary uncertainty much races and creatures to observe successful the valley, the past 1 Rebel Wolves highlighted for maine during my IGN First sojourn to the workplace was kobolds, Dawnwalker’s instrumentality connected a phantasy classic. Among the astir celebrated kobolds successful games are World of Warcraft’s candle-capped rat men and the unusual reptilians that plague the Nashkel Mines successful Baldur’s Gate. Rebel Wolves’ mentation shares immoderate communal ground, but they’re a caller twist connected the idea, turning them into thing akin to dark, chittering goblins.

“They're the nasty small creeps that unrecorded successful caves and mines,” Szamalek says. “They are sentient, but they're hard to speech with. They are precise impulsive and greedy and vicious, but they person benignant of a precocious mentality. They're incapable to deliberation quietly, truthful immoderate they're considering they volition accidental retired loud. When dealing with them, this tin beryllium utilized to your vantage due to the fact that you tin benignant of spot what they're up to, but it besides makes coming to immoderate benignant of statement with them hard due to the fact that you don't cognize if they're conscionable reasoning astir thing oregon if they're really readying to bash it.”

No uncertainty determination are much taxon to conscionable than conscionable pixies, uriashi, and kobolds – my conversations with Rebel Wolves person made it wide that our travel volition spot america conscionable acold much than conscionable humans and dormant humans with fangs. And with the sanzhana acceptable to twist clip and the uriashi primed to thatch america magic, I can’t hold to spot what different opportunities each caller civilization and radical tin offer.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.