The Lumen Rupture: claim the sea rocks, dig their ore, forge doctrine shot and hunt the four Risen

When the Black Tide’s hoard of Lumen climbs high enough, the boundary tears. All four of the Risen come through at once: the Kraken, the Leviathan, the Devil Whale and the Akhlut.

You can watch the collected Lumen and its milestones from Dispatches > Tower > Black Tide, and a character will warn you in the ticker before it tears. To hold it back, take or plunder the Black Tide’s fortresses. They gather the Lumen that Black Tide raiders take from your islands.

You will know when one of the Risen is in your sector: the ocean turns to storm and you can see the creature in the sea. Once it is in your ocean, it sets a curse on every island there. Every curse has a cure, so stock up from your workshops, the market, or by pleading with other Governors to help you.

Your war fleet’s archers will scratch them. Doctrine shot, thrown by catapults, takes a mark off a creature. You make it in the Workshop, by your Workshop’s doctrine, from the new sea ores. A mark takes ten crates, with ten catapults to throw each crate, and every Governor’s damage adds up on the same mark until it breaks. Break a mark and the creature flees to the next ocean, so expect to hunt it.

Bring one down and everyone who hurt it shares the loot and earns its mark of honour. Every blow also counts on the new Creature Slayers board. The Rupture has its own screen in your Desk, and the handbook has a page on it.

This is a playtest, and I want your feedback

The Rupture is going out in its current state on purpose, because I want to hear how it plays before I settle the numbers. Reach me in game as “Darren” or on our Discord, and tell me:

• Is a creature too easy, too hard, or too slow to hunt down?
• What rewards would you like to see? Perhaps the tooth of a creature in your profile? Is it bragging rights or something more?
• Do the marks, the chase and the curses make sense in play?
• Does it make the rocks worth fighting over?
• Does it look good, and does it fit the lore and the rest of the game?

Expect the balance and the gameplay to change once your reports are in.

Rocks worth fighting over

There can be more rocks in every ocean now. Every rock carries a seam of one of four new ores: Ember Ore, Aegis Stone, Veilglass or Sunstone. Some seams are rich.

Send small merchant ships to prospect a rock and they sail home with the ore. That ore is what doctrine shot is forged from.

Claim a rock with small warships and it flies your alliance’s flag. The ships you leave there are its garrison, and while they stand, rival merchants are turned away from your seam. Rivals can take a rock by force, and every rock keeps a ledger of whose flag has flown there.

Taking an ocean

Claiming an ocean now costs your alliance 30,000 coins from its depot. Members ship coins into the depot to pay for it, and a lost vote gives 75% back.

The vote is wider than before. The Governors of the ocean and of the four oceans around it all vote, and a claim needs two yes votes. A Governor alone in an ocean can still claim it with a neighbour’s yes. Only officers can call the vote.

A held ocean looks after its own. Outsiders who raid its empty islands lose ships on the way in and most of their haul, and its empty starting islands open up for colonising. A rival alliance’s flag on any rock in the ocean blocks your claim, so clear the rocks first.

Every alliance’s profile now has an Oceans tab showing what it holds.

New

• The Risen rise from the undertide when the Black Tide has gathered enough Lumen, a world event
• Four kinds of doctrine shot at the Workshop, one for each doctrine, forged from the sea ores
• The sea has weather, and a storm tells you where one of the Risen is standing
• An invite-only Chart Room to talk over mechanics, balance and ideas for the game
• Alliance channels can pin a note above the chat

Improved

• Sounds updated
• Island conditions such as starvation now each have one card naming the cause and how to fix it
• A good’s page says how it is made and what it costs to unlock
• The leaderboard shows the top three on a podium, scrolls to your place, and drops the island count
• Your steward appears in more places, in place of the many characters who spoke before
• Swipe between your islands in the Island Prestige dialog
• A curse card shows what it has cost you, who cast it, and the cure
• Chat’s Community tab is now Support, with a Ko-fi card

Fixed

Various critical bugs were hotfixed since the last release.

• A ticker line too long for a phone scrolls instead of clipping
• Typing Enter in a dialog no longer closes the panel behind it
• The release notice shows its picture whole
• Various fixes to the steward, condition and workshop screens

Coming next

This release was heavy on new gameplay. It also carried a lot of work on older code so the game can take on the ideas still to come. The next few releases turn to quality of life and balance.

Thanks

Thank you to everyone sending in ideas and bug reports. They are being worked on now, and you will see them land over the next few releases. Some of this release started as your reports, and special thanks go to Florentia, McCafe and Flowkap.