Unveiled: Camelot Unchained Newsletter #36 - City State Entertainment View this email in your browser Share Tweet +1 Team Tidings -by Max Porter Hey folks,



Happy end of July and start of August! We’ve had an equal measure of pleasantly sunny and gloriously stormy days here in summery downtown Fairfax, Va. In terms of developing Camelot Unchained®, this month we’ve had an equal measure of fixing things and further progress (how’s that for my usual comparison to the weather?)! Every week has seen major strides in our Top Tenish updates, and our User Stories have reflected solid progress on all fronts.



You can read more on that progress in the State of the Build section below, where Brittany goes over a few highlights of the month. Or, if you’re interested in just how things get done, check out Ben’s article on communication between designers and programmers. We also have Jon jumping in for Art It Up, talking specifics on his pipeline in making cool things, and a Lore update from yours truly. Onward!



Here at the East Coast office of City State Entertainment®, we have continued our weekly schedule of streams this month, showing you everything from impressive creative work by artists and programmers to the latest updates and news. We have fun with it, but the streams are also very important to us, as we always want to be as informative as possible for our Backers and fans. If you want to catch up on any missed streams, they can always be found on our Twitch and YouTube channels. For a good read of our news, as well as our weekly Top Tenish updates, check out the News section of our website, and our User Stories to check on our progress.



And speaking of progress, some tremendous news for our Backers broke late last week, when we restarted the Bot testing system within Camelot Unchained. As hopefully all of you already know, our Bots--really autonomous remote PC clients--have been one of the staples of our testing since the pre-Alpha days. Now that the new ability, animation, and reworked VFX systems are in, we had to hook them back into our new systems. Well, last Thursday night, our efforts resulted in stuff like this:







We got up to testing as many as 2.1K Bots in a small area!



Wrap your heads around that, folks. Over two thousand PC clients running around in a small space! As Mark talked about in last Friday’s update, this is not only a tremendous milestone for us on the road to Beta 1, but as far as we know, the largest number of PC clients (with VFX and animations) that we’ve ever seen in so small of a space. No massive lag, no major culling, and with an FPS that made the game more than playable at every point of the test. And with that, one of the roadblocks to the opening of Beta 1 is overcome--crushed, actually!



It’s always fun to edit this newsletter every month, and this one was extra fun, as we had a couple of unusual and special pieces. In collating these detailed articles from the team, I hope to provide you folks not just with an inside look, but with a whole view on aspects of the development of Camelot Unchained that you simply could not get otherwise. To read on for the in-depth articles, updates, news, lore, art, and all the goodness of the month, allow me to remind you to click on the “view this email in your browser” link in the top right! Please enjoy this, the thirty-sixth issue of Unveiled. Hot Topics

The latest topics of discussion on the forums right now include the latest tests, morality in the Realms, and AoEs.



Join the discussion on the forums on our website to bring your thoughts and ideas to the table! The latest topics of discussion on the forums right now include the latest tests, morality in the Realms, and AoEs. Thank You Every now and then, some of our freakin’ awesome Backers send us lovely gifts. We always greatly appreciate the presents, and we want to thank our Backers here.



Many thanks are due to Ludovic, who has once again spoiled us with lovely gifts. These astonishing tea flowers are bringing great joy to the tea drinkers in the office. Thank you, Ludovic! And thanks to Poxer, who sent us this new, directional microphone for our weekly Wrap-Up streams! We’re going to try it out next time and see how it sounds. Thank you so much again, Poxer! Look What You Did Let’s have ourselves a little fan fiction contest! Without giving anything away, in this issue’s Lore Corner, the main character comes to a nasty realization or surprise. Let’s take inspiration from that for a little vignette! Write up a piece at 250 words or less about a character in the world of Camelot Unchained who thinks things are one way… and finds out they are another. Post your creation in the thread you’ll see popping up in the Fan Fiction section of our Forums, and we’ll pick a favorite to publish in next month’s newsletter. I can’t wait to see what you folks come up with! Dose of Design -by Ben Pielstick Constructive Communication

Have you ever wondered how games really get made? Well, along the same lines as seeing how sausage gets made, I would advise those of you with weak constitutions to go ahead and skip to the next section of this newsletter.



Some people think that every job in game development primarily involves playing games, and that game designers specifically just have to play games and think up cool ideas for them. Being able to play a game and evaluate its strong and weak points is important for game designers, and there is some amount of trying to come up with cool ideas to improve upon a game. However, most game designers spend most of their time creating documentation, working in editors, filling out data tables, and writing scripts in an effort to turn their ideas into an actual game. One of the less talked-about aspects of this process is the interaction between game designers and other members of the team working on a game.



Even at a glance, it should be easy to guess why a game designer would sometimes need to talk to a programmer or an artist. However, it is hard to convey the extent to which these conversations sometimes have to go, or the difficulty of communicating what might seem like simple ideas between people that have completely different frames of reference. In an attempt to explain this process, I’m going to provide an actual example from a conversation this month here at CSE. I’ve left out the names of those involved to protect the (somewhat) innocent.



Early in the day, while I was working on something completely unrelated, a programmer sent me an instant message asking a question about EventFilters, which are an important part of the ability system. This kind of thing is pretty normal, as game programmers can do a much better job when they know what designers are trying to use their features for.



[11:08 AM] I'm making a few changes to Events that make things more explicit and removes unnecessary/redundant information



[11:09 AM] There's an email incoming, but I wanted to check in with you regarding one concept that is going to be renamed in xml



Sounds pretty good, right? More explicit, less redundant, with just some typical XML formatting changes to facilitate it. Programmers often end up making little changes like this, not as a dedicated task, but usually as a side effect of working on another part of a system. It can cause difficulties for me if something changes when I’m used to it working a certain way. So, it’s good for a programmer to let me know when something like this is happening so that I won’t be confused the next time I try and edit or write a new XML file, only to find the way I used to be able to do something no longer works.



[11:10 AM]

<eventFilter src='Evt.Direction == EventDirection.In AND Ctx.DamageWasTaken(DamageType.Crushing)'/>

is proposed to be

<eventFilter src='Ctx.SbjIsTarget AND Ctx.DamageWasTaken(DamageType.Crushing)'/>



[11:12 AM]

<eventFilter src='Evt.Direction == EventDirection.Out'/>

=>

<eventFilter src='Ctx.SbjIsSource'/>



My thought on reading this was “Uh oh…” The term “Ctx.SbjIsTarget” immediately stood out to me. Ctx is short for Context, which is just a way of describing the locality of the event we’re paying attention to. Sbj is short for Subject, which is the term we generally use to describe the entity that an event is being processed by. Events themselves are basically things that abilities actively do, like inflict damage. Because we have abilities that figure out who they are going to affect based on physics impacts of projectile abilities, or spatial queries for Area of Effect abilities, the Subject often isn’t the Target, as in the entity you click on or push tab to select as your active Target in the game. It should virtually never matter if the Subject is your Target or not, especially in the evaluation of the full above statement where the syntax “Ctx.SbjIsTarget” replaces “Evt.Direction == EventDirection.In”.



“EventDirection.In” is a scripted way of saying, in the language of XML, that we’re filtering the events on this entity for the ones that are inbound, or being applied to it, as opposed to ones that are outbound that it is applying to other entities. The purpose of this would be something like checking if the character takes damage, as opposed to when the character deals damage. As you can see here, this proposal is to make “Ctx.SbjIsTarget” mean the same thing, which might be a bit questionable.



After chatting back and forth for a while to try and understand what was going on with this proposed change, I was able to discover this useful piece of information:



[11:28 AM] so target is a 'new' word in our code base, it didn't exist explicitly



My thought on reading this was: “Aha! Here we have the first problem.” In the process of game development, you have to make up terms that describe a lot of very specific and sometimes very complicated concepts. Inevitably, there is a desire to choose short, simple words to describe them, especially when they have to be written down in code in a lot of places. This typically leads to word collisions, where the most fitting word in the English language to succinctly describe a new concept is already being used to describe some other concept. The worst thing that can happen in this case is word overloading, where in the case of a collision, instead of picking the next closest word that seems to make sense, the exact same word gets used to describe two completely different concepts. Overloading terms in game development is something to avoid as much as possible, but inevitably tends to happen with common defining words like “object”, or in this case, “target.”



With a bit more conversation, I explained that the word Target already has a meaning that should probably not be used to describe this new concept, and it was agreed that it could be renamed once the concept it was describing was accepted. Until we decided on a new term, however, we continued to use Target for the sake of discussion, as there was still the matter of introducing a new concept in the first place, which needed further discussion.



[11:43 AM] for the event direction use in event filters, its use was clear

[11:43 AM] how that event direction was expressed in code was... random and inconsistent

[11:44 AM] the concept is still the same in terms of the event filter.

[11:44 AM] The event direction can be 'derived' from the entities involved.

[11:45 AM] it can 'NOW' be derived with the addition of the Target field as separate from the Source and the Sbj of the evaluation



By this point, the reason for this change is starting to make sense. Event direction is a pretty clear and understandable idea, but if behind the scenes in code it was messy, it seems perfectly reasonable to derive the concept of direction from whether an entity is the Source or the Subject of an event. If you are the Subject, the event is happening to you, so it is therefore incoming. If you are the Source of an event, then you are the one generating the event, and it is therefore outgoing. The question in my mind that still remained by this point was, if all we’re concerned with is incoming versus outgoing, and that can be described by evaluating against the Source or the Subject of an effect, why do we need the new concept of “Target”?



Sometimes it is hard to convey ideas through text. It was around this time I started asking for a clarifying example of how this concept would actually work, so the programmer I was talking to decided to try making a diagram in order to fully explain: This makes perfect sense, right? …If you said no, you are correct. The presence of “maybe” and “probably” when applied to Sbj for Subject didn’t really inspire confidence in its use in script evaluations, or communicate to me exactly why “Target” was a necessary concept that was less transient, so we tried a more elaborate example: Believe it or not, this image actually helped to identify the problem with Subject, which is that in some cases it is actually being used to mean completely different things because of the way different effects handle incoming and outgoing events.



[12:32 PM] I just thought of something, the concept of Target DID exist earlier.. but it was named... Sbj

[12:32 PM] on the Event

[12:32 PM] So there was Ctx.Sbj and Ctx.Evt.Sbj…



Shortly after this, it was time for lunch on the East Coast, followed somewhat later by lunchtime on the West Coast. We took a bit of a break from this discussion to get something to eat and for me to catch up on other chat messages and emails that tend to pile up whenever I’m tied up in any one thing for longer than about an hour.



Once we picked the conversation back up, it became clear we needed a different resolution than the one that had been proposed, so I opened the discussion up to a few more programmers familiar with the ability system. From there things got significantly more technical, as they tend to do when programmers talk to each other. As a designer, I’m certainly not going to follow all of what is said between programmers on how exactly the code works, but having at least some programming background is something I recommend for any game designer so that you can at least loosely follow along and hopefully pick out any parts of a technical discussion that are going to matter to the players of your game.



After quite a long discussion with multiple programmers over chat, it was decided we should start a video conference.



[6:53 PM] how about we try to talk on the camera, maybe hand motions will help 😃



Sometimes it is hard to convey ideas through text. Working remotely with people in different offices around the country or even the world can be exceedingly difficult. Video conferencing is often the best way to have a group conversation, which can help to work through problems. We can work together to try and come up with solutions to challenges that no one person really knows the best way to solve alone.



After a couple more hours of discussion, a new proposal was eventually agreed upon:



1. Event.Target can stay Event.Subject. And there was much rejoicing.

2. It will be a guarantee that Subject in Scripts is the SAME as Event.Subject.

3. Any other entities that need to be looked up will be referred to using constants. These constants can be set outside of scripts as well. (This will be used for buffs. Buffs were the only case we NEEDED to have a separate Sbj from Target).

4. SkillContext.Sbj should be renamed to SkillContext.Self.

5. Rename definitions at the skill level to skillConstants.



So in the end, the solution to the original question of “What is the difference between Target and Subject?” is…that there shouldn’t be one. There really are just two entities involved in direction, one that is doing something, and one that is having something done to them. For cases where we do care about other entities, a new usage of an existing feature of defining constants is leveraged, so that we can explicitly evaluate against entities that aren’t the Source or the Subject of an effect, but are still involved in some way. Additionally, in cases where we don’t actually have an event that contains a subject yet, we can rely on Self from the SkillContext to refer to the entity that will be running the skill nodes and generating events later on down the skill execution chain of events.



All in all, this discussion started around 11 a.m. EST and ended around 8 p.m. EST, with a few hours’ break somewhere in the middle. Sometimes feature discussions take only a few minutes, while others can take days to really figure out. These types of conversations sometimes come up very unexpectedly based on something someone was trying to do that only happens to be tangentially related to their main task at hand, but has much farther-reaching effects than initially anticipated. When that happens, it is important to keep the goals of the game in mind, so that when a resolution is reached, it will be what best serves the goals of the overall project.



I hope this has provided a small peek into some of the less-obvious design work that goes on here at CSE. Camelot Unchained is a huge project, building an entire game engine from scratch, including a unique and very advanced combat system. Keeping everything on track and making sure the needs of the game will be met at every step along the way is a constant challenge, but the further along everything develops, the more clearly we can see ahead to the end result. We all hope you’ve been enjoying what you’ve seen so far, and will continue to follow the development of CU as we look toward our first stage of Beta testing and beyond. Developer Quote “Yeah, we want to be the most transparent KS-backed studio out there. I think we are, but that’s up to our Backers and others to decide. :)” - Mark Jacobs Artitup -by Jon C. Young There are many different modelling pipelines that artists use to get their creations into video games. Every year, these pipelines evolve to become faster and easier for the artist, in order to keep up with the ever-changing video game industry. In this segment, I will demonstrate one of these methods by showing the step-by-step process I used to make a skull relic for a hidden Depths shrine.



For this particular pipeline, I will only use three programs for the art; Zbrush (for the high and low poly, as well as the unwrap), Substance Painter (for baking, texturing, and map generation), and Photoshop (to compile and touch up maps). The final program will be our in-house editor. We use that to upload the geometry and textures, from which we can then add more parameters more specific to the assets used in the engine.



First, I will begin in Zbrush with a simple sphere that has been made "PolyMesh 3D,” allowing me to work with it. Symmetry is turned on to make life easier, allowing me to get the same results on either side of the model, no matter which side I’m sculpting on. Towards the end, I’ll make the sculpt more asymmetrical, both to be more realistic, and for added visual appeal.



I start with the move and clay buildup brushes to flush out a basic silhouette of the skull. It's important in this phase to utilize "Dynamesh"(a function that reorders geometry based on shape and detail) --especially when I’m pushing and pulling the geometry so much. This will even out the distance between polygons, giving me a more even surface to work with, and supporting more detail in later stages of the sculpt.



Once I have developed a basic silhouette that I am happy with, I will then create the horns and bottom jaw by using the same method, but under separate subtools (new object layer). This allows me to work on different pieces of the model independently. When I am satisfied with the horn shape and placement, I'll merge all of my subtools together and then "Dynamesh" once more to connect everything into a clean, singular piece.



Now that I am happy with the shape and design, I will subdivide the mesh a couple of times to increase the detail clarity of the model. I will then use the mask lasso to mask out and polygroup each of the horns separately--this will allow me to sculpt on the horns individually without obstructions of view from other objects.



When I sculpt detail work, I usually just keep things simple and stick with the same few brushes. For this particular model, I used Standard, DamStandard, Hpolish, Snakehook (with Accucurve turned on), and Slash 2. I will also , on occasion, use Formsoft for subtle variation. As I sculpt skulls and other organic shapes, I try to keep things pretty loose and "sketchy". This kind of sculpting results in a more natural look and feel. With the sculpting phase complete, I will now duplicate my model in the Subtool palette and decimate it using "Decimation Master". Given the scale of this particular mesh compared to the size of a human model, and since it is a unique, standalone piece , I'll try to decimate down to around 8 or 9 thousand tris, respectively (for perspective, a fully armored character with weapons is around 10-to-12 thousand triangles). Once it is decimated down to a lower poly count, I will then unwrap using "UV Master". Conceptually, unwrapping a 3D asset takes all the surface area of the object and lays it out into a flat, 2D space so we can begin working on the materials.



I normally use polygroups to unwrap in Zbrush. This method offers great control over where UV seams (The edges of the unwrapped geometry in 2D space.) will be placed and will usually give me a nice, clean result. For example, you typically don’t want a big seam running right up the middle of the character’s face, so the artist will want control over where those seams, are so they are more hidden.



For this mesh, I will keep the polygroup of each of the horns, but also polygroup the front and back of the skull. Each one of these sections of the sculpted geometry are now represented in the UVs. After unwrapping is complete, it's time to get out of Zbrush and into Substance Painter. I now use the “FBX Exporter” tool to export out the high poly sculpt and the low poly (game version) as two separate files.



Texturing models in Substance Painter has sped up our studio's workflow exponentially and has become a real game-changer. For example, the next step is to project the details from the high poly mesh we exported earlier onto the low poly model. What used to take an hour now only takes a minute. Substance also allows us to not only to create new textures on our UVs, but change and edit nearly all aspects of the textures on the fly. This, in turn, speeds up our turnaround if any changes to texture or material need to happen.



In SP, having baked the high poly details onto the low poly asset, the next step will be to add texture, so I'll select the "Smart Materials" library and pick the "Bronze Corroded" material. This looks just like you would think it would: like corroded bronze. However, the end result of something that looks like ‘corroded bronze’ is actually comprised of several tunable parameters.



I've found the setup of this particular material to be very versatile and easy to work with. First, I delete the "Oxidation" layer within the material, then adjust the hue values on the base metal layer. I also delete the metal channel out of the material, so it no longer reflects like a metal would, and instead looks more like the bone material I’m going for.



Next, I'll create a new "Fill Layer", choose a dark color, and add a "Black Mask" to it. Then I'll apply a "Dirt Generator.” Coupled with the mask layer, this will add dirt to the cavities of the surface of the object, while leaving the higher details cleaner. Not only does this very easily add an aged, dirty look to the model, it also helps to accentuate the details in the sculpt.



The next phase will be to create a couple more fill layers the same way (with different hues), only this time I will add smart masks (instead of generators) for different effects. This will add more color variation to the base color and provide more subtle weathering in the material.



Once I am happy with the texture result, I then begin to export my textures. Our engine uses a Physically Based Rendering system, or PBR, to define the materials in the game. That means I’m exporting out four files, the albedo (color), normal (sculptural detail), roughness (microsurface detail), and specular (reflected light intensity.) If you want to learn more about this subject, just look up the term “PBR rendering” to find piles of information online. With the texture files exported, I then head into Photoshop. The final step before loading everything into the game engine is compiling and cleaning up all of the maps. I begin by loading in and then organizing all of the maps according to what the map type is. I quickly invert the green channel in the normal to match our renderer, then increase the intensity a bit. As SP uses a different PBR format than our engine, I create the spec map via the albedo map turned greyscale and then adjusted with "Levels" and a few other minor tweaks. The final step is then to import all these files, including the geometry, into the engine via our editor.



Additionally, we save out many of our material settings in Substance Painter. Not only does this allow us to work faster, but it creates a consistency between materials when we want to use them in something like our crafting system, where two very different items may be built using the same materials.





And that's it! This may seem like a lot to take on at first, but compared to previous pipelines that were once industry standard, this method allows artists to turn out a lot of cool, game-ready assets in a very short timeframe. State Of The Build -by Brittany Aubert When I tell someone I make games for a living, the clichéd response I often get is, “Does that mean you play games all day?” Of course not, is generally my answer, as I’m spending the majority of my own time organizing tasks, helping programmers to clear dependencies, and taking part in discussions. While I do get to play the game in between all of those responsibilities, there’s so much more that goes into making a game, as you can read in our updates and see on our Twitch channel.



Last month, June, saw the greatest frequency in impromptu and weekend testing since I joined CSE. But with the constant increase in development velocity, we ran face-first into some client instability. As a result, this month, July, saw a lot of firming up on the underlying architecture for the game. In this month’s article, much of the focus will be on how we tackled improving client stability. I’ll also touch on a few fun things coming down the pipe--yes, there are plenty of fun things, we are talking about video games after all!



Let’s get to it!



Client Stability: We’re driving towards Beta 1 at full speed, and in the process we hit a bit of a red light. After a string of really successful gameplay tests, it became clear that client stability was becoming an issue. At this point in development, having an occasional crash isn’t the worst thing. However, when the frequency increases enough that it seriously impacts the fun factor, it’s time to pull over for a bit and fix it.



The best way to address these issues is to start by tackling the obvious low-hanging fruit. Anytime a player crashes, a crash log is created and stored in a location we can access later. We’re able to take a look and see what was happening right before the unexpected error occurred. Right away, we found a number of our players were running into an audio crash related to the audio not initializing properly. After shoring that up, we looked for the next issue.



Sometimes crashes are harder to find, or worse, they could be happening, but aren’t--you might call ‘em Schrödinger’s Crashes. This is where asserts come in. As Backers on our Hatchery server have seen, you may occasionally see red message boxes pop up. When this happens, it’s because the code is doing something different from the expected outcome. A lot of times, these are crashes in disguise. While they are sometimes annoying, it’s important that we pay attention to them, as they may be a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. The team added much more asserts, which uncovered many other potential problem spots. This led us to task Dave to spend some time updating the thread safeness surrounding model loading.



The obvious stuff was fixed, but anything more would be a larger undertaking. We decided to pull the car over, in a sense, and tackle a relatively large change: updating the way we manage the renderables in the scene (scenes contain the objects of your game like cameras, models, effect, etc.). This was a multi-week endeavor by George, Andrew, and Dave that left our game and our editor in a much more stable state. And as a total coincidence, Andrew was actually in Seattle working directly with George while we were doing this work.



It was unfortunate we had to make this brief detour, but our trip forward should have far fewer roadblocks. How many more car analogies can I fit into this article?



Bringing the Bots Back: We’ve explained previously how our Bots serve the purpose of stress testing our systems, so we can see how performant our servers are with a large number of players, without the need to coordinate hundreds of actual players at a moment’s notice. In order for the bots to continue to serve their purpose, they need to be updated to use the plethora of systems that have been added and improved upon over the past few months.



Bots now shoot arrows, use abilities, and have unique inventories per Bot, which is a more accurate representation for unique players. However, we ran into an unforeseen issue when working on Bots when we did. Bots are what we call headless clients, meaning that instead of just spawning an entity, a Bot actually logs into the game and launches a client as if it was a player. With the client as unstable as it was, it took far longer than we expected to get the Bots back up to snuff. Importantly, it took longer to spin up Bots for testing, since they were crashing at a much higher frequency. But once the client was finally more stable, we were able to test up to 2100 Bots simultaneously!



Inventory UI: It’s incredible that no matter how much work is done on a system in code, it doesn’t really feel “real” until you see it in the game. This month, we saw AJ’s first pass of an actual equipment inventory UI. Up until very recently, a player’s inventory consisted of a simple list of weapons, armor, and other items. This new hotness is a full-screen menu that communicates a significant amount of information to our players.



As with most UIs of this nature, you’ll see a grid of boxes surrounding your character, each grid representing a slot for your armor (both under and overlayers), your weapons, and more. Then comes the actual inventory menu, where you can see everything your player is carrying around. There’s even filtering by armor, weapons, etc.



Players can now take items from their inventory and equip them to valid slots of their choice. Some items take up multiple slots (ex: Viking Helm) and this is now communicated to the player in a much clearer fashion than it has been previously. Hovering over an item in the inventory shows stats to the player.



There’s a lot that had to be tackled to get this to a playable point: drag and drop, displaying stats on mouse-overlay, highlighting grids for player feedback, and more. But with the investment in the upfront cost, other parts of the inventory UI will hopefully be quicker to build. And, of course, this is still the first iteration, and there are many more features to come.



Siege Engines: Last month saw the completion of the first pass for siege engines. After getting a chance to play with them and fix a few bugs, Matt dove into the next pass. The bulk of the work with siege engines has been extending functionality that was previously assumed in the code to be “player only.” Take targeting, for instance. Until recently, any targeting code assumed that the entity doing the targeting was a player. Matt has now extended this functionality to include siege engines, so you can pick a target focus while controlling a siege engine, like most abilities.



One of the next questions we have to answer is: How far do we go with siege animations? We have a first pass where the siege engine aims in the direction it is going to fire, but the player doesn’t animate along with it. This will be a bit more tricky, and involves more investigation and discussion amongst Engineering and Design. How does physics work in this case? What happens to the player's state on the server while controlling the engine? Regardless of how we tackle these problems, the focus is (and will continue to be) improving the fun factor in the shortest amount of time.



4th of July Fireworks: At the tail end of last month and the beginning of this month, we had a number of systems come together to enable adding SFX and VFX to different phases of abilities. Tim had the great idea of testing this by setting up some fireworks for a weekend playtest, so we could stay in the theme of the celebrations happening across the country. This was a fun side-quest of a task and not something we ever included in our roadmap. But I think it’s important from time to time to step out of the grind of completing tasks in a list and have a little fun. We are making games, after all!



That’s all for now. Let’s go make a video game! Brittany out! Lore Corner -by Max Porter Hey folks, welcome to another story in the Lore Corner! This month, allow me to present to you a rewritten, revamped, and refreshed version of part 4 of the epic story of the Silverhands! This sprawling chronicle was originally written by Mark Jacobs in seven parts, which were then collected into one massive Becoming™ story. Please read on for the developed version, as we call it, of this Becoming tale, which not only tells us a great adventure of the first Silverhand, but also presents some of Mark’s thoughts on The Depths™ and the beings therein. Here's parts one, two, and three, in case you want to catch up. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy! The Becoming: The Silverhands Part 4

The tale of Nuada Part 4

It was a strangely quiet time for Nuada, waiting for the being called the Merchant to finish his work. It seemed to take days, but the passage of the sun had no meaning at all here in the endless darkness and strange shadows of The Depths. The evil place seemed almost dormant, sleepy, rather than focused on him.



It wasn’t long before Nuada set off to look around. He explored the area around the forge, then expanded his search to other empty passageways. He made sure to mark the walls with his initials as he went, to avoid getting lost in the shifting tunnels. Sometimes he found himself carving the letters into stone, flesh, or other substances of which he knew nothing. If he had to, he left something on the ground as a reminder instead. Once, he lit a torch that was sitting in a wall sconce and the torch came alive and attacked him. He easily cut it to pieces. It almost seemed as though The Depths was holding back, waiting to until the time was right to unleash its full horror. The thought chilled him.



Nuada spent the long period of quiet darkness wandering through nearby passages. While he found a number of interesting baubles, he did not uncover what he was looking for: powerful or deadly artifacts. He did, however, manage to find a hidden passage that seemed to lead out. Carefully, ensuring it couldn’t disappear on him at any point, he took careful note of its location in every form of sight he could. As his small supply of food ran out, Nuada followed his markings to return to the monstrous forge.



However, the Merchant was gone. In his place, there were several glittering objects laid out on the massive anvil. As Nuada approached, he also noticed several parchment notes, the nearest of which simply read, “For Nuada.”



The first item to catch his attention was a black chunk of obsidian, a sword much like the one that Bres had carried. The note upon it read, “Wield me, if you can.” This weapon was larger than Bres’ blade, and it radiated an aura that was surely tainted by this place. Unlike the cold aura of Bres’ sword, this blade shone with a bright red glow.



Nuada grasped the leather-wrapped pommel of the sword, but the weapon was too heavy to wield with his left arm. He could barely lift the blade from its resting place on the forge. Angry and frustrated, Nuada tried again and again to swing the sword. As his anger grew, he found he could lift it a little further...but still, not enough to use it as a weapon. Dropping the sharp obsidian back down on the anvil with a resounding clang, he turned to the next treasure: a golden arm.



The arm that the crafter had created was magnificent. Shapely and muscular, it was decorated with an intricate filigree, and looked almost too good to be true. On the arm was a note that read “Touch me, if you dare.”



A little taken aback, Nuada brushed his fingers over the smooth gold elbow. Somewhat to his surprise, nothing happened. The Tuatha picked it up in his left hand. It was heavy, yet still lighter than he expected. However, still nothing happened. Hot-tempered as ever, Nuada felt his frustration and anger growing once more. What was he supposed to do with this? Was the Merchant mocking him?



As his anger increased, the arm twitched in his grasp...but that was hardly wondrous. These puzzles were too much. His frustration near the point of explosion, Nuada dropped the golden arm back in its place and turned to the final treasure: a plain, modest wooden box.



While not particularly interesting to look at on the outside, the box had its own aura. On the box was a note that read “Eat me, if you are man enough.” Slowly, Nuada lifted the lid. Inside, he discovered a velvety, blood-red spider. It twitched its legs, ready to leap out.



Revolted, Nuada slammed the lid of the box shut. He snatched it up and raised his arm, about to throw it into the hot coals of the forge. Then he hesitated.



It’s only a spider after all, he thought. Surely he had eaten worse on a dare as a youth. Then again, there was something strange about that spider...after all, he was in The Depths. Perhaps this was more than a foolish prank. Could it be some sort of rite of passage?



Many thoughts spun through his head as he stood there, left arm raised over the fires that crackled and muttered to themselves in the hot forge. He remembered the sacrifices of Nimue, of John, and the people of Tír na nÒg. After a moment, he put the box back down on the ground and sat beside it, leaning against the warm metal of the great anvil.



When he was ready, Nuada flipped the box open. Before it could react, he grabbed the crimson spider, shoved the struggling thing in his mouth, and swallowed.



The Tuatha instantly regretted his choice. The creature was still alive as it made its way down his throat, prickly legs kicking. With the spider in his stomach, Nuada felt his anger rise again. He had been tricked by the Merchant, betrayed by his own people, while John and Nimue had been fools. Nuada was tired of them all.



As the spider continued moving around in his stomach, apparently still alive, he felt a surge of something else. Power, perhaps?



“Yes,” Nuada muttered, “Power is the key to everything. I’ll make that damned arm work, take the sword, kill Bres, and make my people bleed to take me back.”



Once again, Nuada grasped the golden arm, rage and determination in his heart. This time, it responded to him. Of its own accord, the limb flew from his hand and attached itself to his stump. Tendrils of gold emerged and latched onto his shoulder.



There was an uncomfortable wriggling sensation, not painful but very strange. Nuada could feel his flesh merging with the arm, becoming one. He flexed his new golden fingers. The arm felt completely his own.



Nuada reached for the obsidian sword and found he could heft it easily.



He was as giddy as a child; the sword felt as light as a feather in his golden arm. As for the spider, it seemed to be resting easy inside; Nuada didn’t feel it any longer.



Thinking back to his exploration, the Tuatha ran to the hidden passage he had marked earlier, flipping between his forms of sight. He called out to The Depths themselves as he ran, laughing: “Thank you for all your gifts! I will use them well.”



As he swung the sword triumphantly overhead, he could feel the life within it calling out for more life, hissing its hunger for blood.



When Nuada left The Depths, the great empty caverns grew nearly silent. The only sound that echoed through the dark halls was the crooning laughter of the lone Merchant. He tenderly caressed the new-budded tendrils of the Golden Forge. Regrowing, they caressed him in turn.





When he made his way out of the ley tunnel, Nuada found himself near the small settlement where the mercenaries had joined him. However, it was no longer the tiny hamlet it had once been. It had grown into a proper town, sprawling over the hillside. Many of the people there had no idea who he was, except as a vague legendary figure.



It was into a very different world from the one he had left. It seemed the passage of time had little meaning in that mysterious and deadly place.



Nuada was perplexed, and felt sorrow staining his triumphant return. When he asked about the years he had been gone, he finally understood why The Depths had been so quiet, why it had lulled him into a sense of security. A subtle trick had been played on him.



Apparently, he had been gone over a century. Fully a hundred years and more had passed since the day when he had led a troop of mercenaries into the black monolith. Yet, when he looked at his own reflection in the village well, he hadn’t aged a day.



“That damn Merchant didn’t care to mention this…” Nuada mumbled to himself as he trudged through the town. “It seems I was wrong about magic and time…”



A friendly passerby told him to cheer up. “Feel better, friend! The reign of Bres the Blessed is a joyous time, a golden age of the Tuatha Dé Danann!” The man tipped his hat, about to continue on his way.



Enraged, Nuada grasped the little man by the throat and threw him against a nearby wall. The golden arm pinning him effortlessly, Nuada hissed, “What are you talking about? Bres the Blessed? I should remove your offending head from your shoulders!”



Choking, the man raised trembling hands. “Easy, easy! I did not invent the name. Please, let me go!”



Nuada released his grip and did not spare the stumbling man a second look. Stalking off like a frustrated predator, Nuada repeated his oath to kill Bres in his mind. “And once that is done, I will return to The Depths to teach that damned Merchant that I am not to be trifled with. By all that lives, I will conquer The Depths and use its power to lead my people to glory. Long indeed shall be the reign of Nuada the Mighty! After that, who knows? With the full power of The Depths at my command...anything is possible!”



As the tall, powerful man with a golden arm left the settlement, mumbling to himself, the fearful folk closed the gate behind him. They hoped he would not come back.







Bearing his new arm and his obsidian blade, Nuada traveled the land of the Tuatha Dé Danann, asking questions and trying to learn the truth of what had happened in his absence. Not everyone liked Bres as king. There was much talk of trouble between the three Realms of this world. The unity that had been built over many generations was fraying at the edges. Nobody knew how the disharmony started, but as best as Nuada could discover, it had begun around the same time that he and the mercenaries had entered The Depths.



A cauldron of anger was slowly boiling in the Realm under Bres’ rule. Many felt ignored by King Bres, sitting safe in his capital city with no care for the people. They remembered the old King Nuada with fondness, even if they didn’t remember his true glory very well.



Wherever he found sympathetic ears, Nuada stirred up discontent among the people. Gradually, he gathered a small army made up of the disaffected malcontents, the dregs of Tuatha Dé Danann society. His troops were drawn from all the known races of his Realm, but he forced them to work together, within the same rules of combat. He trained them hard, forging them into a weapon he could wield against Bres.



Word spread quickly about Nuada’s return, along with exaggerated tales of his army and the “treasures” he’d somehow earned in The Depths. As the tales grew in the telling, others tried to follow his example, becoming Delvers themselves. As far as Nuada heard, they emerged with nothing but madness.



Rumors sprang up of his strong golden arm and unstoppable sword. Some said his gifts sucked out men’s souls as one would suck the marrow out of a bone. Nuada encouraged the stories so that more people would flock to his banner. He even held public duels to show his power and help the rumors grow.



As Nuada and his army neared Tír na nÓg, the land itself seemed to recognize the coming storm. It grew quiet. The woodland creatures crept away to hide, and the wind dropped to dry gusts that barely brushed the trees. Though he saw the land suffering, Nuada forged onward, continuing his relentless march to the capital city of the Tuatha Dé Danann.





It was a gloriously sunny day when Nuada and his army reached the object of his obsession. They stood before the sealed gates of his former city just as the colors of the fall season were reaching their zenith.



While his army made camp before the great golden gates, Nuada sat astride a newly acquired black Phouka, obsidian sword in his right hand, glinting gold in the sunlight. All around him, the trees showed off their deepest reds and brightest yellows, while bright leaves floated through the crisp morning air in a scene worthy of a fine artist’s skill.



Nuada could see the deadly archers of his Realm on the battlements of the city, watching him as hunters watch a wild animal. He felt a mixture of pity and the thrill of battle about to be joined. His sword seemed to pick up on these emotions, and it hummed in his hands with expectation. He raised it high above his head. “Come out, Bres! I challenge you once more, vile traitor! Meet me in single combat to decide the future of our people!”



With no response from the city, the sword’s hum changed tone, and its aura flickered in annoyance.



For days, the gates remained closed. Not even a messenger was sent from the city. The siege of Tír na nÓg began in moody silence.



Nuada became increasingly frustrated, with little to do but wait. Knowing how powerful the defensive enchantments from ages past could be, he did not with to risk his army on an assault of the walls. However, the siege seemed to have very little effect on the city and its inhabitants.



Months passed in waiting and uncertainty. The autumn leaves piled up on the tents of Nuada’s army and upon the mighty walls of Tir na nÓg.



Though new warriors came to join his army’s ranks day by day, the people within the city seemed to be carrying on their daily lives. Nuada could only watch from a distance as the Festival of the Winter Court was held right on schedule. He ground his teeth at the sounds of revelry and merrymaking from within the city’s walls. Though all of his scrying spells seemed to be blocked, Nuada was sure that his siege was failing.



However, he never wavered in his determination. Sitting in his tent, a quick glance at either his new arm or his sword reminded of his cause for rage. Even his own people cared naught for him.



“How can they treat me this way?” he asked himself, alone in the quiet of his tent. “I was their first king! I have fought so many battles and slain countless abominations to keep them safe. And now they swear allegiance to a man that is so...unworthy. I will gather the Courts and discover those that have betrayed me. They will pay, and pay again for what they have done. Why have none of my family sent me a message?”



As winter’s grasp tightened on the city and his army, there were no signs that either side’s resolve would slacken. Through the winter Nuada waited, and found himself still standing by the city when the snows melted, no closer to opening the gates.



With the coming of spring, his anger bloomed with the buds on the trees. He began to look for someone to blame, punishing his soldiers for the smallest infractions. As morale within his army began to fray, there came the first sign of a break in the interminable stalemate; someone from inside the city was captured upon leaving. It was a Hamadryad healer.



When she was brought to Nuada’s tent, he immediately recognized her as the one who had treated him so long ago.



Though he was the general of the army that besieged her city, Nuada remembered what she had done for him. “You are no prisoner here,” he told the healer, walking to her with arms open to embrace a long-lost friend.



However, she recoiled in horror. He saw her antennae twitch in alarm, and her sharp-tipped tail moved to a defensive position. “Don’t come near me, abomination!” she snarled.



Nuada was thunderstruck.”As I have always been, I am your king. You will not speak to me this way. I am still Nuada, unchanged but for my golden arm. A little bit wiser perhaps, but no different…” he reached forward with his golden arm to show her.



“You truly don’t see it?” she cried, leaping back so violently that Nuada thought she would harm herself.



“See what?” he smiled, patting himself down. “I see nothing but the one true king of this land and all its people. It is you who are seeing things.”



“Your arm is not golden. It is the limb of a spider. And if you didn’t know it either… that sword you carry radiates such evil that it lit up the sky for a day before your approach.”



“What lies has Bres fooled you with? My arm is made of metal, a pure gold that serves me well. As for my sword, it is not evil but simply a tool. A very useful tool, to help me take back my city and rule it,” said Nuada.



“What city?” asked the Hamadryad. “There is no city left for you to rule.”



“You truly are insane,” said Nuada, with a touch of pity in his words. “I stand before the great capital city of Tír na nÓg, while its people foolishly resist me. Their king is a coward who skulks in the city like the traitorous rat he has become.”



The Hamadryad shook her head slowly, her eyes wide. She cleared her throat and adopted a softer tone. “Please, my lord and king,” she said quietly, “What do you see before you?”



“I will not play games with you.” Nuada began to wonder if he should have made her a prisoner after all.



“Humor a poor healer who once saved your life,” she said, “Please tell me what you see.”



He looked around him, speaking in the resigned tone of a parent with a difficult child. “I see the great gates of the city. Etched in the purest gold, inlaid with the finest jewels, they stand proudly before us. I see men and women on the city’s battlements, wearing the finest armor of our people and carrying our powerful bows.”



“I understand,” said the Hamadryad, “Do you see or hear anything else?”



“I hear the laughter of a people reveling in the new season. These people should be starving by now, yet they merrily celebrate the peak of the harvest season.” He turned to her, his eyes red. “Will you tell me how they bring in their supplies? Secret tunnels, or some other method?”



“I promise you I will answer that question if you will do one simple thing for me,” said the Hamadryad.



“Ask,” replied Nuada quickly, for he was anxious to discover these hidden routes. Once revealed, he could cut off the supplies flowing into the city, and the siege would end much more quickly.

“Let me touch you with healing, as I once did,” she said gently. Nuada wasn’t sure how to handle her tone; she sounded like a mother with a scared child.



“Is that all? Yes, you may touch me. But keep this in mind, healer. If you try to trick me, my touch upon your throat will be the last thing you feel,” Nuada smiled unpleasantly.



The Hamadryad gestured to a wooden crate that lay nearby, and Nuada sat, holding out his arm. She placed her right hand upon Nuada’s head, not his arm. He remembered that she had done the same thing to him when he was first taken to her, many decades ago.



Nuada relaxed as she began a chant in the magical tongue of healers. Power immediately answered her words, flowing through her skin, which glowed as she worked her spell. His eyes started to close as spinning specks of light gathered, forming a globe around his head.



As the light swirled closer Nuada, he felt pinpricks all over his head. Suddenly, the pain grew in intensity, as though his head had been punctured by hundreds of daggers. He screamed and lashed out, landing a blow that threw the kindly healer into the side of his tent. Nuada held his head, shuddering helplessly.



Rising from the ground, the healer did not hesitate to cast her next spell. Great power spread from her, rippling through the cluster of tents and out into Nuada’s entire army where they lay camped before the city gates. The screams of others echoed back to Nuada’s ears. He could not move. All over the encampment, the screams rose to the heavens in a cacophony of pain and suffering that had not been heard in this place since the First Breaking of the world.



The pain was so intense that it seemed to last an excruciating eternity, but in truth, it began to fade after only a few moments. Shaking off the effects, Nuada brought himself upright. He strode purposefully across the tent towards the healer. The Hamadryad knew what was coming. Before he came close, she kneeled and held out her right hand.



“Strike off my arm if I have offended you, Nuada. But before you do, look to your own right arm,” she said.



Without thinking, Nuada glanced down at his arm and jerked to a halt. What he saw horrified him. His beautiful golden arm was gone. In its place was a huge, hairy spider’s leg. Worse, the obsidian sword that he had worn with pride was a jagged creation of blades, spikes, and bone.

“...No! This is the trick! It has to be! What have you done?” He raised his awful weapon to strike the healer.



“Nothing but removed the spell you were under, my lord,” she said calmly, without a trace of fear. “If you don’t believe me, go outside the tent and show your men.”



Nuada stepped outside and looked around the tent. His followers looked at him as if for the first time. They were frightened.



“This is impossible. It simply cannot be,” he said.



“It is so, though I wish it were not,” the Hamadryad replied sadly, coming up behind him.

Nuada ran through the camp, looking for anybody who could see the truth, and not this distorted vision of him that the healer must be responsible for creating. This must be her fault. This must be a trick.



Everything seemed confused, different than it had been for the past year. He spun around, determined to cut her in half. But then he saw that he stood before the gates of Tír Na nÓg.



The city’s gates were not golden. Twisted hulks of wood and metal, they hung open, swinging on a rotten breeze. He peered up at the battlements and saw only skeletons.



“This cannot be. I refuse this false vision,” he screamed.



“It is true, Nuada, refuse it though you may,” said the healer, who had silently followed him.



“What am I seeing?” he asked imploringly.



“The truth, nothing more,” she answered, folding her arms.



“What has happened here? To me, to our world?” he asked, feeling the ground begin to shift and spin.



“You are under a terrible spell, Nuada. One of such power that I could only undo a part of it… and my spell can only hold the lies at bay a short time longer. As for our city, it has been deserted for decades,” she said, gesturing at the ruined gateway. “There are none of our people left alive in there. There is a but an evil statue of a one-eyed god named Balor.”



“I remember--that statue,” Nuada was speaking in stops and starts, distracted but unable to stop himself. “At the battle with Bres.”



“Yes. A malevolent being that drains the life from our land and our people. His influence has spread throughout the land, his corruption working its way from town to town through the ground itself,” The Hamadryad spread her arms and tail to indicate the whole Realm.



“And--Bres?” Nuada choked out.



“He and his followers stole the greatest treasures from the city and deserted it long ago. After establishing his rule, he simply left the people in the city, and the whole Realm of the Tuatha Dé Danann, as payment to Balor. The one-eyed creature has been repaid in full for helping Bres defeat you.”



“I will avenge myself against Balor, and then I will find Bres and recapture our treasures,” Nuada spat, true anger welling up in him.



“As much as I wish you to succeed, I cannot lie to you. You are not the king you once were.”

“Not so! I feel better than ever. This arm may look like a nightmare, but it fights like a dream.”

“It is illusion, my lord. I can see the damage that the arm and sword have done to your body, and it is considerable. You are nearing your end, for the arm and sword are draining your life away.”



“You lie!” said Nuada, but with less conviction than before.



The healer shook her head sadly and once again took a knee before him. She drew her own weapon and handed it to Nuada.



“If you truly believe that, strike me down. But I pray you, use my sword. I wish to cause you no more pain than I already have this day,” said the healer.



His fury boiling, Nuada grasped the weapon with his spider’s arm. He felt hot and itchy. It was difficult to think. Surely things would make more sense with her gone, along with her confusing pronouncements.



The arm raised her weapon as if about to kill her, but Nuada stopped himself as he looked into her eyes. It was so hard to think straight. That pity in her eyes...was it for herself or for him? This was the same face that had hovered over his as she tended him through the difficult days after Bres took his arm. Hers were the hands that had brought him back to life.



He raised his Veilsight, as he had in The Depths. When he saw his own aura’s dark, malignant power gathered around him, Nuada hung his head and dropped the Hamadryad’s blade in shame.



“No, I cannot. I know that you are right. About me… About this accursed weapon… I have failed again.”



The Hamadryad stood and fixed him with a stern look, even as she patted him on his left shoulder. “No Nuada, it is not over yet. There may still be hope for our people. Think of them, and not of yourself.”



Nuada could not look at her any longer, so he plucked up his twisted sword and walked through the creaking remains of the gate, dragging the evil weapon behind him. The Hamadryad stepped aside as a few brave soldiers followed their general inside.



Walking through the deserted capital city of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Nuada felt his anger devouring him from within. Looking back, he ordered what few troops had followed him to stay outside the city’s walls. “If any come to despoil what is left of Tír na nÓg...threaten to kill them. What happens after that is up to you to decide.”





He could hardly bear to force himself to look at the desolation of the city. Nuada felt guilt bearing down on him, crushing him as though all of Tír na nÓg, city of desolation, had fallen on his head.



Thus ends the fourth part of the Silverhands Becoming story. Well, that's a wrap on the July newsletter! If you've made it this far, I just want to say a big thank you for reading our monthly issues of Unveiled.



Until next time, Max out!