MORHVAL 0.3 — Dragons, Living Territories, Faction Warfare & Beyond the Veil

First of all, I want to apologize for this update arriving later than I originally planned.

0.3 became much, much bigger than I expected.

Every time I thought I was close to finishing it, I found another system that I wanted to expand, another rough edge that needed work, another bug that bothered me, or another part of MORHVAL that simply deserved more attention.

At some point, this stopped feeling like a normal update and started feeling like another layer of the game being built underneath everything that was already there.

But now that it is finally here, I can also say that I am extremely proud of this update.

There is so much in 0.3 that I will probably still forget to mention something in this post!

A lot of the systems that define what I eventually want MORHVAL to become — a world that keeps moving, deteriorating, recovering, fighting and creating stories without waiting for the player — have taken a major step forward.

DRAGONS ARE NOW IN MORHVAL

They are here.

There are three different dragon lineages in Ravenglaire:

Cinderhorns

Skyrends

Thorncrests

And each lineage can appear at different stages of life: Young, Adult and Ancient.

An Ancient Dragon is not simply a larger Young Dragon with a different name.

Age changes what you are dealing with, and Ancient Dragons are intended to sit among the most dangerous enemies currently in MORHVAL.

Dragons are also persistent creatures rather than ordinary enemies endlessly generated around the player.

Individual dragons exist in the world and their deaths matter.

And finding one does not necessarily mean it immediately decides to fight you.

This entire system was built around the idea that seeing a dragon in the distance should feel like encountering an animal that actually exists in Ravenglaire — except that animal is enormous, can fly, and may be capable of turning you into charcoal.

Killing dragons also opens an entirely new progression path.

Dragon Blood and Dragon Scales have their own uses, including new equipment and alchemical possibilities.

More importantly, interacting with Dragon Essence can eventually awaken Wyrmfire, a new resource connected to draconic abilities.

There is also a strange old hermit somewhere in Ravenglaire who knows considerably more about dragons than most sane people probably should.

Once you have begun walking this path, he can teach you new techniques.

These eventually include abilities ranging from breathing dragon fire and hardening your body with draconic power to working Dragon Scale equipment.

And, much later...

actual flight.

Wings of the Wyrm is real three-dimensional flight.

Not a teleport.

Not a super jump.

Flight.

And the final teaching goes even further!

Dragon Form allows you to become a dragon outright.

There is also the new Wyrmcall Incense.

If waiting for a dragon to find you feels inefficient, you can now make yourself considerably more interesting to the local dragon population.

...Whether that is wise is a different matter.

RAVENGLAIRE NOW HAS TERRITORIES

This may actually be the most important system added in 0.3.

Ravenglaire is no longer just a collection of cities and settlements existing independently from whatever is happening around them.

The physical map is now divided into territorial sectors.

And those sectors can belong to different powers.

Territorial control is visible on the world map over land you have discovered, but this is not simply a colored overlay.

The territory now matters to the simulation underneath it.

THE IRONWATCH AND THE BLACKROAD COMPACT ARE NOW FIGHTING A REAL WAR

The conflict between the Ironwatch and the Blackroad Compact has become a territorial war.

Ravenglaire currently contains eight physical war sectors.

A sector can belong to the Ironwatch or the Blackroad Compact, while the actual political pressure inside that territory can range from strongly Ironwatch-aligned, through contested territory, all the way to strongly Blackroad-aligned.

And the war does not freeze because the player decided to spend three weeks exploring a dungeon.

There is a slow background simulation behind it.

Given enough time and the right regional conditions, one faction can pressure its borders, advance and seize territory from the other.

So you may leave one part of Ravenglaire, spend a long time somewhere else, and eventually discover that the political map is no longer exactly the one you remember.

AND NOW THE PLACES INSIDE THOSE TERRITORIES ACTUALLY FEEL THE WAR

This was an extremely important part of the system for me.

I did not want territorial warfare to become a strategy minigame whose consequences existed only on another menu.

Cities and settlements now exist inside the political situation surrounding them.

Territorial control creates gradual regional pressure on local Stability.

A place living for a long time under strong Ironwatch influence is pushed toward greater stability.

A place trapped under Blackroad control is pressured in the opposite direction — and this happens gradually.

A settlement does not become abandoned five seconds after a border changes color.

The effects accumulate over days.

If conditions continue deteriorating, a settlement can move from Stable to Struggling, then Collapsed, and eventually Abandoned.

As a settlement struggles, fewer residents are actually present.

A collapsed settlement becomes much more sparsely populated.

An abandoned settlement can lose its ordinary population entirely and normal commerce shuts down.

Recovery is gradual as well.

Changing the political situation can create better conditions for a place, but conquering a sector does not magically rebuild everything the following morning.

And there is another part of this system that I really like:

the relationship goes both ways.

Territory affects settlements.

But the health and alignment of the cities and settlements inside a sector also contribute to the political pressure of that sector.

So the simulation now creates a feedback loop.

A region affects the people living inside it.

The condition of those people affects the region.

That is much closer to the kind of RPG world I want MORHVAL to become!

THE ECONOMY IS BECOMING A SIMULATION TOO

0.3 also contains a major economic pass.

Settlements now have live local shortages in different categories, including:

Food

Medicine

Equipment

Weapons

Those shortages influence local prices and demand.

And importantly, scarcity is not just a random modifier generated when you open a shop.

Goods actually move through the economy.

Buying supplies removes goods from a local economy.

Selling useful supplies helps it.

Theft can make an existing shortage worse.

Supply contracts respond to actual local demand.

And freight moves supply between different places.

This exists separately from Stability on purpose.

A Blackroad-controlled settlement does not simply receive a fake universal “food costs 50% more” modifier.

Instead, territorial conditions determine whether the settlement itself is thriving or deteriorating, while the supply simulation determines what it is actually short of.

That means the player can still matter.

A struggling settlement surrounded by terrible regional conditions can genuinely need food.

Bringing food there can genuinely help its supply situation.

The political problem and the economic problem can interact without secretly being the same number.

FREIGHT IS NOW PART OF THAT ECONOMY

The wagon/freight system has also become much more meaningful.

Cities now have Freight Depots, complete with their own freight boards and clerks, while settlements can participate in the same trade network.

Freight routes can move cargo between cities and settlements.

You need an actual wagon attached to the horse doing the work.

Cargo has weight.

Different horses handle that weight differently.

And once cargo is loaded, it really belongs to that wagon until you deliver or abandon it.

But the part I like most is what happens underneath the quest.

When freight is collected, those supplies have actually left the economy of the origin.

When the cargo reaches its destination, it can relieve the appropriate shortage there.

So a delivery of supplies is not simply:

“Quest complete. +Gold.”

The goods have moved from one place in Ravenglaire to another.

The settlement on each side can feel that movement.

This is exactly the kind of mundane system I love in RPGs, because enough mundane systems interacting with each other eventually stop feeling mundane.

They start creating stories.

FACTION RANK 100 NOW ACTUALLY MEANS SOMETHING

One thing that has always bothered me in RPGs is reaching the highest rank of an organization and realizing that nothing has really changed.

You receive a title.

Someone congratulates you.

And then you go back to doing the exact same errands you were doing when you joined.

I do not want MORHVAL's factions to work like that.

0.3 adds an entirely new faction command progression.

And to clarify something important:

When I say Rank 100 here, I mean 100 Standing within that organization, not character level 100.

As you become more important inside a faction, the type of responsibility given to you changes.

Around Rank 25, you begin participating in the institution itself through activities such as teaching, drilling or training others.

At Rank 50, people under your authority can be sent on persistent off-screen expeditions.

They can succeed.

They can fail.

And they can die.

At Rank 75, the system expands into real personnel management.

You can recruit people, develop them, promote experienced members into commanders, form companies and improve their equipment.

Commanders can also develop different specialties.

Some are better at keeping soldiers alive.

Some improve battlefield performance.

Some develop troops faster.

Some make maintaining a company cheaper.

Then comes Rank 100.

At that point, the scale changes again.

You are no longer just a member of the war.

You can command it!

RANK 100 CAMPAIGNS HAVE REAL TACTICAL BATTLES

A territorial campaign is not resolved by pressing a button and comparing two invisible numbers.

Taking an enemy sector requires fighting through its defenses.

A complete territorial campaign contains four stages:

Outpost

Strongpoint

Garrison

Headquarters

Each is a real tactical engagement.

Your companies enter those battles with their actual composition and condition.

Casualties matter.

Experience matters.

Equipment matters.

Commanders matter.

And a defeat does not magically restore everybody afterward.

Most importantly, winning an Outpost does not immediately recolor the territory.

The sector only changes hands after the Headquarters finally falls.

Then the attacking faction actually gains that part of Ravenglaire.

If the player eventually removes the rival from every physical sector through these campaigns, its organized territorial presence can be broken completely.

So reaching the highest military rank now means something very different from receiving a fancy title.

It means being able to change the map.

And yes, at the very highest levels, dragons can even become strategic assets for sufficiently wealthy commanders.

...Because apparently commanding ordinary soldiers was not dangerous enough.

THERE IS ANOTHER WAR BEYOND THE VEIL

The Ironwatch and Blackroad Compact are not the only powers fighting over territory.

The Athenaeum and the Hollow Star now have their own completely separate dimensional front.

This is not another group of colored squares placed somewhere beyond the edge of Ravenglaire.

It exists as its own abstract dimensional battlefield.

Control there contributes to the wider balance between the Athenaeum and the Hollow Star.

And that balance matters.

Greater Hollow Star pressure makes supernatural manifestations and dimensional breaches more common.

Athenaeum victories can push that pressure back.

Like the physical war, this front can continue developing without the player.

And high-ranking players can eventually lead campaigns there as well.

So MORHVAL now has two wars operating on very different kinds of geography.

One is being fought for roads, settlements and cities.

The other is being fought over reality itself.

THE VEIL HAS BEEN GREATLY EXPANDED

Veil-related progression received one of its largest expansions yet.

Veil Fractures, Veil Shards, Formulae, Dimensional Fragments, Anomaly Charges and the wider dimensional system now connect into a much larger progression path.

Dimensional Fragments in particular become useful for understanding something called a Dimensional Convergence.

Interdimensional travel is not simply available whenever you feel like pressing a button.

Routes briefly align during rare Convergences.

And only one route is stabilized during a particular opening.

You can investigate those events and eventually spend Dimensional Fragments to determine exactly when the opening will happen instead of simply hoping you happen to notice it.

And at the top of Athenaeum progression, this leads to something completely new.

INTERDIMENSIONAL EXPEDITIONS

Rank 100 Athenaeum members can eventually prepare expeditions beyond normal Ravenglaire.

0.3 currently contains three fully distinct destinations:

Starfall Expanse

The Broken Orrery

Reliquary Beyond the Veil

These are not ordinary procedural dungeons with a different skybox.

Each has its own visual identity, environmental structure, hostile encounters, elite enemies, boss and unique rewards.

The Starfall Expanse culminates in The Constellation That Hunts.

The Broken Orrery contains the Orrery Warden.

And somewhere inside the Reliquary Beyond the Veil waits The Reassembling Colossus.

These expeditions also experiment with movement and environmental rules that do not normally exist in Ravenglaire.

The intention is that stepping beyond the Veil should actually feel like you have gone somewhere that does not entirely obey the assumptions of the normal world.

This is only the beginning of what I want to do with dimensional travel.

Ravenglaire is already large.

But I really like the idea that, eventually, the player discovers the map they have spent all those hours exploring may not even represent the limits of the game anymore.

A HUGE CREATURE ANIMATION OVERHAUL

This is probably one of the least easy changes to communicate in a screenshot, but it represents an enormous amount of work.

The creature roster has received a comprehensive animation pass.

That work covers the core creature families, all of the new dragon species and age variants, bounty creatures, horses, PS1 wildlife and a large part of the special/endgame bestiary.

Wolves, spiders, scorpions, heavy quadrupeds, strange monstrosities, dragons, horses and many of the much stranger things waiting deeper in MORHVAL have all been revisited.

Movement, attacks and the way these creatures occupy the world should feel considerably less static than before.

MORHVAL intentionally uses a low-poly PS1-inspired visual style.

That makes animation particularly important.

A monster does not need ten million polygons to convince you that it wants to kill you.

But it does need to move like it has considered the possibility.

MAGIC HAS RECEIVED A MAJOR VISUAL PASS

Spells have also been heavily revisited visually.

There is now a broader retro-magic visual language behind them, while different schools retain distinct identities.

Projectiles have more individual silhouettes.

Trails and impacts have been improved.

Fields and persistent effects have received more visual structure.

Fire behaves more like fire.

Frost reads more clearly as frost.

Storm magic has its own visual language.

Necromancy and darker schools feel different from ordinary elemental magic.

Larger effects such as walls, storms, sigils and ground fields also received additional work.

The intention was never to suddenly turn MORHVAL into a modern AAA particle showcase.

I still want somebody to look at a screenshot and immediately understand what kind of strange PS1-era universe this is.

I just also want casting a powerful spell to feel powerful.

0.3 gets much closer to that balance.

THE WORLD IS BECOMING MORE SYSTEMIC

This is the part of the update that excites me the most.

Dragons exist as persistent individuals.

Faction members can become persistent soldiers and commanders.

Companies can lose people in battles.

Territory can change hands.

Cities and settlements respond over time to the regional power surrounding them.

The condition of those cities and settlements feeds back into their region.

Supplies can become scarce.

Prices can react.

Freight physically moves supply between economies.

A distant war can progress while you are doing something completely unrelated.

A second war is unfolding beyond the Veil.

And a character who spends enough time becoming important inside an organization eventually stops being treated like a disposable adventurer and starts influencing the systems around them.

These things are individually quite simple.

The interesting part is what happens when they begin touching each other.

That is the direction I want MORHVAL to keep moving in.

I want you to be able to spend hours worrying about a tiny local problem in one miserable settlement without realizing that somewhere far away a war has shifted the political map.

I want you to return somewhere you knew and notice that fewer people are there.

I want a supply run to matter because somebody actually needed what was inside the wagon.

I want becoming the leader of a military faction to mean you can command soldiers and conquer territory.

I want hearing a rumor about a dragon to potentially become an entire personal progression path.

And I want somebody who thought they understood the boundaries of Ravenglaire to eventually step through the Veil and realize they absolutely did not.

WHY 0.3 TOOK SO LONG

MORHVAL is still an Early Access game made by one person.

And 0.3 reminded me very strongly what that means.

There are moments where I begin implementing one feature and suddenly realize that making that feature meaningful requires three other systems.

Dragons need persistence.

Faction ranks need responsibilities.

Companies need battles.

Battles need territory.

Territory needs consequences.

Consequences need cities and settlements capable of changing.

Trade needs goods to actually matter.

Dimensional expeditions need a reason to exist.

And before I know it, the feature I thought I was adding has become another layer of the game's simulation.

That is part of why this release arrived later than I originally intended.

I am sorry about that.

But I would rather say that honestly than pretend everything went exactly according to plan.

At the same time, I am genuinely incredibly happy with where 0.3 ended up.

There was also a large amount of bug fixing, stability work, UI correction and general polishing throughout the update — including many things that are much less exciting to write about than dragons but considerably more important when you are actually playing the game.

MORHVAL is becoming closer and closer to the RPG I imagined when I started building it:

A game that does not constantly ask:

“What does the player want the world to do now?”

Sometimes the world should simply do something.

And then the player gets to decide what the hell they are going to do about it.

Thank you to everyone who has been playing MORHVAL, reporting bugs, giving feedback, leaving reviews, posting comments or simply following the project.

Seeing people actually interact with this strange world I have been building still means an enormous amount to me.

Welcome to MORHVAL 0.3!!!

...And please be careful with the Ancient Dragons.