The World of Regions of Ruin: Runegate

Some of you have asked how we went about writing the story and lore behind Regions of Ruin. As to our process, we actually spent a lot of time sitting down and bouncing ideas back and forth developing the underlying lore and setting for each world, race and culture. Over the past five years we slowly built a large living document that outlined all of the cultures and worlds in the game (And many more that aren't in the game). Having this underlying document gave us a good foundation to begin writing the main campaign plot. Essentially working backwards.

For example, in the first world there are two main human races. The Fjukamann, and the Dulra. They have tribes and clans amongst their own, but in the continent as a whole, the Fjukamann and Dulra people have entirely different ways of life, with their own reasons for conflict. We established these groups before we even attempted to write the main story. Writing the story this way gave us a lot of ideas and helped keep everything cohesive. We never had to randomly make stuff up for the story. We were simply guiding the player through an already established world.

However, there are some concerns we had, and we needed to be careful not to fall into certain traps or back ourselves into a corner. One of the first things we decided was not to impose any sense of urgency on the player. Every location has its own little side quest or mini story that is fun and memorable in its own right. Therefore, we didn't want the main story to feel like "Quick! Do this thing right now or the world will end!" It felt silly. We all know we can wander off and come back to that "urgent" quest in a few months when we've finished doing fifty other side quests. It also undermines the story. If you say it's urgent, but it clearly isn't, then you think we're just a bunch of big fat liars... or bad writers.

Our other main concern was that we needed to create a story that could form the groundwork and explanation for every other possible world. Potentially thousands of worlds. Whatever was true for one world had to also be true for every other world. We wanted something that could thematically tie all the worlds together but at the same time not rob them of the opportunity to feel unique. Eg the player has a reason to travel to multiple worlds and experience different cultures and it makes sense from a lore perspective. - I can't get into this too much without spoiling the main story. But just know that we wrote the lore in a way that also allows for player made content and new worlds to be added without undermining the main campaign in any way.

We also wanted to be mindful of the player's impact on each world. We wanted the player to feel as though they've helped a world but not completely fixed it. Yes, you can help solve some major problems, but realistically, you can't single handedly solve five centuries of conflict. The player's main task is to set things on the right course. Things will inevitably get better, but five hundred years of violence and chaos can't be mended by a single moment. It also means once you've completed the story, it isn't a surprise when you find a bunch of corrupt officials still doing corrupt things somewhere. These worlds aren't perfect the moment you complete the story. Things will inevitably take time. And we wanted that sense to remain with the player.

But one more thing to note on that. We didn't want the player to feel like their actions weren't impactful. That is where the hometown comes into play. As it slowly grows and more people join your town, it becomes this joyous little hub of all the good deeds you've done. The people there are very grateful, and it serves as a nice little reminder that you've done a lot of good.

I think this is probably long enough. But if anyone is interested to know more of the untold lore and stories behind some of the races and cultures in ROR Runegate. Let me know! Perhaps I can do a short write up for each cultural group.

See you on 14 April, Steve