Stoneshard Updates, $50,957 and Counting

With $50,957 pledged and 13 more days to go, the Kickstarter campaign for Ink Stains Games' roguelike RPG Stoneshard has reached its first stretch goal and will now feature additional dungeons and enemies upon release. And if you're curious about this project, or perhaps are still on the fence about backing it, you might be interested in some of the recent campaign updates. They covered the game's stealth system, weapon types, class system, and of course its vampires. Here's a bit about Stoneshard's bloodsucking fiends:

Hello! Today we are going to tell more about main enemies of the prologue - vampires.

In the world of Stoneshard vampirism is a disease created by the many-faced Court, the divine patron of ailments and maladies. Almost any highly intelligent being can become a vampire: after being contaminated, the infected slowly mutate into a monster. Vampirism gives amazing longevity (some vampires live for centuries or even millennia), inhuman strength and gradually uncovers hidden magical potential. Usually, the longer a vampire lives, the more powerful he gets.

But everything has its price: vampires suffer from the ever-growing bloodlust. If a vampire remains hungry for a long time or is forced to drink "bad" blood (extracted from animals, for example), he irreversibly degenerates, loses his mind and turns into a so-called “outcast" - insane half-animal, craving for a sip of fresh blood. Ordinary vampires prefer either to outright kill the outcasts or use them as watchdogs.

Vampires usually form strictly hierarchical communities and dwell in well-hidden shelters. They rarely leave their dens, but when they do, they usually try to replenish the depleted supplies of captives, attacking strayed travelers, caravans or poorly guarded villages. This is exactly what happened to Verren’s caravan: it was ambushed by vampires during late-night transition. By the way, in the main game vampires will be mostly encountered during the endgame stage and will be much more powerful, compared to the prologue’s ones.

Now let’s talk about their abilities, which were either not yet implemented in the prologue, or could remain unclear to you:
  • Scent of Blood. In the full game vampires will be able to smell your blood from afar, revealing your position, if your character is low on health or is heavily bleeding.
  • Vampiric Rune. Those bloody pentagrams vampire priests like to cast. Stepping on it deals cursed damage and permanently raises the caster's health by several points. Remember that they will disappear only after the caster’s death!
  • Blood Oath. Used by Vampire Noble (that one with a halberd). Buffs all vampires in a small area around, increasing their vitality, maximum health and giving regeneration.
  • Crimson Banner. Used by Vampire Noble too. Buffs all vampires around with increased weapon damage, critical strike chance and counterattack chance. Try to destroy it as quickly as possible!
Oh, and by the way: thanks to your support we've reached our $50,000 stretch goal today! Which means even more content will be added to the main game: good luck fighting three types of Depth Dwellers and exploring three new dungeon layouts. We still have a lot of time remaining, so let's push even further: maybe we'll be able to hit one or two additional stretch goals!

That’s all for today. Stay tuned!