Dead Harem

Hello everyone!
I have started this project recently, a little over a month ago…

What is Dead Harem?
Dead Harem is a 2D Top-down RPG about necromancy, highly inspired by Dungeon&Dragons; it has also strategic elements (similar to Fire Emblem) during battle phases.
You can view more information on the official website.

Story
The story revolves around Chrome, a young but promising wizard who one day finds a grimoire… Its contents change his life forever:

It is a grimoire about the art of necromancy, ranging from basic spells to small lists of common undead and their characteristics.
However, he also finds a letter from his long deceased grandpa, through that letter, he learns that he is part of an infamous necromancer clan whose legacy died off more than 80 years ago.

This discover sparks the young wizard’s curiosity, he studies this book for many hours a day and slowly falls in love with the art of necromancy, fast-forward to three years later, he has finally become a full fledged necromancer.

He decides to become an adventurer to travel all around the world to further improve his abilities and knowledge but also to discover more information about his clan.
His dream and main quest? To command an army of various and beautiful undead, because for him, necromancy is an art.

Media




Changelog
12th July 2018 - Follower & New enemy
18th May 2018 - Character Creation
9th May 2018 - New character and NPC sheets
25th April 2018 - Dialogue and spells
11th April 2018 - Character sheet (background, statistics, journal, skills, and inventory), containers.
13th March 2018 - Basic map, movement system with interactions, doors, basic battle system.

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9th May 2018:
I have added a new character, Talia, Chrome’s mother.


How strong is she? Well… Here is a little aura comparison, mine is barely visible compared to hers.
EDIT: For some reason, the image does not display… The link to the image is: http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/67/66027/AuraComparison.1.gif

She started to learn magic back when she was younger, way before Chrome did, now 33 years old, she is a pretty good wizard and acts as a mentor for Chrome, helping him to study and improve as a Wizard.


Just like Chrome, she got unusual violet eyes, very pale skin and pitch black hair.

She is very kind and intelligent but you never saw her interact with other people, as you both live in a secluded cabin in the snowy mountains of Balsik, hours of walk away from the Imperial City of Hawksburg, the place where you were born.

You both moved here after your father’s death, when you were only but a kid, for some time you thought that she had moved away because she could not afford to live in the city but eventually you have found out that being a wizard pays very well, especially if you are a pretty decent wizard.

She will have a pretty important role in the story, especially at the beginning of the game which is a sort of tutorial to introduce you to all the game features.

Together with the new character, I have decided to add NPC sheets; just like the Character’s sheet, it will show important information about the NPC.
You can view them for curiosity’s sake or for real need of information, however, while trying to see them is as easy as left clicking a character, actually viewing the information of another human requires you to be the same level or higher.

Of course that is not true for all the categories of the NPC sheet, the Background category requires you to know the character, no matter how much of a higher level you are, it will never show the NPC’s name if you have never learnt it.
Other information such as the inventory, human’s speed or size will always be visible because they’re the same for all humans.

Other than overworld NPCs, you can also view the NPC Sheet of opponents during a battle, that will be especially useful when you are battling a monster you know nothing of:

Unlike humans, the information shown will depend on the Knowledge skill check that you will be throwing automatically, since we want information regarding a rat, Knowledge: Nature was used.

Since we have made a good skill check (23), we were able to view all the information except for the skills, which would look like this:

While not really useful to view the information of a rat, making a good skill check and viewing the resistances and/or immunities of an unknown creature could mean the victory of an otherwise really hopeless fight.

Knowledges are automatically stored and can be viewed at anytime in a sort of “Codex”, you cannot attempt a knowledge skill check twice;
That result will apply to any other rat you will encounter, however, once you level up, a new skill check will be attempted.
If the new result is higher than the old one, it will be replaced, otherwise the old one will be kept, so you never risk of “Forgetting” an information, those skill checks are always thrown automatically.

This is it for today’s update, thanks for reading!
Any feedback or opinion is always very welcome, stay tuned for the next update!

18th May 2018:
I have added a simple character creation system, while some things cannot be altered (like the character’s apparence) because they are tied to the story, some other things can be edited without influencing the story but at the same time allow you to perform some tasks in your own style.
More options may be added in future.

Ability scores

You will start with default assigned ability scores but, should you not like them, you can slightly alter them to fit your playstyle.

If you prefer to get close and personal with your enemies, you might prefer to have higher strength and constitution, whereas if you prefer ranged fighting, raising up your dexterity might be a better idea.

None of the abilities can be raised up above 18 at the beginning, that will be possible only through the use of items or by assigning points every four levels.
Strength, Dexterity and Constitution cannot be lowered below 10, whereas the intelligence has a stricter limit of 14 because you are a wizard.

As you may have noticed, Wisdom and Charisma cannot be altered, that is because they are tied to the story (and they are not very useful to a wizard anyways) but you are free to alter them when you will level up or wear items that boost those abilities, if you choose to do so.

Traits

Traits are optional to pick, they can make your character feel more “yours” by selecting up to two traits that will grant you both benefits and drawbacks.

Those benefits and drawbacks are only numeric and do not affect the story (for now?), picking Aggressive will not make your character speak in an aggressive manner and picking Honest will not restrict you to always say the truth.
You can still choose a Honest trait and lie all the time, you would just have a negligible penalty.

Flaws

Unlike traits, Flaws will only give you significant penalties, in exchange for extra Feats.

They are optional and may be a good or bad idea to pick depending on your playstyle; If you plan to always fight ranged, picking flaws that affect your strength or hit points may be a good trade off in exchange for one or two extra feats.

Feats

Feats are very different and are strictly tied to your style:
If you have a favorite school of magic, picking Spell Focus for that school would help you a lot; if you plan to fight mostly by summoning creatures to fight for you, picking Spell Focus: Conjuration would unlock Augment Summoning, another feat that boosts the strength of all your conjured creatures.

Not all feats are related to combat: Scribe Scroll is a feat that allows you to scribe scrolls of any spell you know, particularly useful if you want to make some gold or want to have extra spells when your mana is running short; while Stealthy just boosts move silently and hide skills.

Spells

You can choose your beginner spells in here, the number of spells you can choose varies depending on your intelligence.

This list only displays all the existing tier 1 spells, since the list is pretty thin for now, the description shown is pretty simple but, as the list gets bigger, I will extend the description by showing the spell details (such as duration or range) to make it easier for you to pick the spells you want to start with.

Skills

You get a certain number of skill grades depending on your intelligence, and you can use them to raise up the skills that your character knows.

Skills are not affected by just the grades you put but also by items you wear and your ability score, for instance: Concentration is an useful skill to have if you need to cast spells when enemies are near you, it is affected by Constitution, which is an ability score you want to raise up if you are often near enemies, as it ultimately affects the number of hit points your character has.

Skills are manually or automatically used in a vast number of situations, so it is impossible to have all the skills you will always need…
If you encounter an undead creature and you want to know more information about it, you will need to do a skill check on Knowledge: Religion, if you want to know whatever someone is lying or not, you will need to do a skill check on Sense Motive, and so on.

Languages

Last but not least, we have languages; The number of languages you can learn at the beginning also depends on your intelligence.

While the majority speaks common, there will be some instances of creatures speaking only their native language and you will not be able to communicate with them unless you both speak the same language.

Languages are not only useful to speak with creatures you encounter but they are also useful to decipher texts that you may find in dungeons.

This is all for today’s update, thanks for reading!

12th July 2018:

Followers
I have added followers, the game will contain mainly two type of followers: Companions and summoned creatures.

It is a pretty basic system right now, they follow you around until they are dismissed but you cannot interact with them.
In future there will be many interactions with them, including commands (Wait, guard here, go there…) and settings (follow behind/next to me, stay closer, …).

Followers will follow you into battle, however, summoned creatures may not last long enough for that; It is a better idea to summon them during the battle but regardless of that, they will not last more than a turn as a level 1 Wizard.

Currently, only a Human Skeleton Warrior can be summoned, in future, there will be a prompt allowing you to select which undead you wish to summon everytime you use the spell.

You will be able to view the character sheet of any undead you will summon, but unlike those that you will encounter, you will not need to do a skill check on “Knowledge: Religion”, you will automatically know every information about the undead you have summoned.

The summoned creatures will always be different from one to another of the same type, not only they will have different background details (age, gender, …) but also different statistics, some will be stronger or better equipped.

Wolves
I also added a new monster: Wolves.

They behave differently than the previous monsters I have added (rats), unlike them, wolves work in team and will try their best to flank their opponent.

They can be pretty dangerous if faced without preparations and even then, their bite is quite deadly!

Teamwork
Luckily, you are not alone to face such dangerous foes, as a beginner wizard and future necromancer, you have to rely on teamwork and fight from behind the lines.

Followers will aid you during battles, there are currently two types of followers: Followers that act in their turn automatically and followers that require manual input (you have to move them and select their attacks).


The first category falls mostly on intelligent companions that join your team temporarily, you have no control over them and will behave following their controller like monsters do, except they will be on your side.


The second category falls mostly on summoned creatures: you will be able to move them, select their attacks and even know every detail about them; They will be an “Extension” of your player character.

This is all for today’s update.
Next update, if everything goes well, will include a small release of everything that has been done so far, it will not be long as the game is still in very early stages but it will give everyone the chance to try the game out and give some feedback, thanks for reading!