RPG General News - Project Arroa: Revenwood

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The creator of Daggerfall Unity works on a new project:

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About Project Arroa: Revenwood

Introduction

Hello! My name is Gavin Clayton, aka Interkarma. I'm an IT guy turned independent game developer, best known as the creator and lead developer behind Daggerfall Unity. I have a lifetime goal of building my own games, and once Daggerfall Unity was fully realised, I started working fulltime on my first original project.

This post is intended to share a little about me and my inspirations, and to roughly map out the game I'm working on so you can decide if it's something you're interested in following. I hope you'll walk alongside me for a while and help explore where this road leads.

Background

"Project Arroa: Revenwood is the first video game adaptation of a fantasy campaign setting I created for friends and continued to expand throughout my life."

In the 1990s, I ran a custom AD&D 2E campaign setting for friends set on a continent called Arroa. In our world-spanning adventures, we explored themes of cataclysm, the rise and fall of civilisations, and a failed magical dynasty. As a 2E setting, it contained all the high fantasy trappings of humans, elves, and dwarves, rolled up in a melange of my own ideas and inspirations from ancient history. The central mystery of this world was the impenetrable and perpetual divine storm of the Sandwolf, found deep in the Arroan Desert. Rumoured to safeguard immense power, nations of both the living and dead vied to reveal its secrets.

Over the following years, the world of Arroa continued living in my imagination. It became the setting of short stories where I explored vignettes of a larger work. It was a land I could visit in my mind's eye anytime I needed an escape in darker moments. The characters and events which occupied this world grew in my imagination and never lost their sense of wonder to me.

Now, with a decade of experience building complex gameplay systems and successfully completing a massive game project, I have set out to explore my world first-hand as I adapt it into video game format. I plan to rebuild these places and adventures to the best of my ability and revisit them with fresh eyes. I also want to experience my world once again through the eyes of others, just as it was in the beginning.

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