Blackguards is dark, sinister and different: The story of Daedalic’s upcoming turn-based RPG takes the player into a world where even the main character, often the brave and shiny hero, is a condemned murderer. Today, Daedalic is introducing some of the villains the player has to deal with:
First of all there is, of course, the player’s character, created by him- or herself. Before the story of Blackguards starts, players choose chose sex, name and class of their “hero”. Class-wise, they can either jump-start into the game by picking one of three class-archetypes – classic warriors, mages or hunters -, or to explore the full glory of the RPG system The Dark Eye, which Blackguards is based on. The archetypes guarantee easy access, whereas TDE and RPG pros will be able to create their desired class in detail by choosing the expert mode.
As descendant of a wealthy Neethanian family of merchants, the game’s main character has lived a boring and carefree life with his friends. He spent his childhood with a couple of guys, including princess Elanor.
The game starts with the player witnessing Elanor’s brutal death: A wild and cruel, strange looking wolf attacks her and literally chops her alive. Although players will try to interfere and save Elanor, they will be far too late to safe Elanor’s life…
Players manage to defeat the beast – however, there’s no help for Elanor.
Only minutes after the battle, players will find themselves surrounded by guardsmen, arresting the player’s character. In prison, players learn that they’re being held responsible for the murder – because actually no one else saw a wolf near Elanor. No matter how hard the guards torture the player, though, there’s nothing else they can find out.
The player’s hero is sentenced to death, and this would have been it, almost. Shortly before his execution, though, dwarf Naurim frees him/her. Naurim spent years in prison, has been arrested for arson, assault and smuggling. He has been planning a prison break for a long time, and feels he’s finding a good accomplice in the player’s character to actually put his plans in practice.
Naruim is a typical dwarf: hot tempered and with huge anger management issues. He’s also paranoid, restless, and even often dreaming (which is pretty strange for a dwarf), and sees conspiracy virtually everywhere. Perhaps it is his paranoia that makes him a fearless warrior, and therefore a perfect tank. Not just when brawling in taverns.
Naurim turns into the second member of the players’ party of up to five playable characters at a time.
On the run, Naurim isn’t the only supportive figure. There is also mage Zurbaran, for example – who will later become the third playable character. Since his birth, Zurbaran was a slave for a wealthy grandee of the Florios family. When his master found out about his magical skills, he was sent to the Academy of Al’Anfa. All his master intended was to find a cheap way to get his own house mage. Eventually, Zubaran found a chance to escape. A little and an affair with a baroness later – Zurbaran feels like he is the world’s greatest dandy – he was imprisoned. He was found guilty having poisoning the baroness’s husband.
Eventually, Zurbaran was sent to the same jail as where Naurim and the player’s character were imprisoned.
Additionally to murder, Zubaran is also accused of seducing to adultery, imposture, fraud and spying.
As a slave of a wealthy family, he saw the perks and luxury of a rich man’s life right before his eyes, all the time. After his breakout, being free for the first time, he wanted this life for himself, with bath houses, money, slaves and women, of course. Therefore, Zubaran pretends to be a grandee himself – however, he’s lacking all necessary assets, though. Not only his appearance is fake, he doesn’t really care about his vows of fidelity he gives his counterpart, too. Especially not when making them in a moment of passion.
Therefore he is living a carefree life and believes that he can own the world. He would sell someone’s grandmother to get to what and where he wants, especially when a woman is involved. There are rare times, though, when even Zubaran shows cooperativeness.
With his mighty magic skills, Zurbaran is the perfect supportive addition to the party of playable characters.
Then there is Aurelia. She will become another member of the party later on. She has strong magic skills as well, and she also knows the player’s character since childhood.
Aurelia is a witch of Horas and doesn’t care about rules – and therefore gets in trouble a lot. Aurelia is wanted for witchcraft, immorality and indecent behavior.
Lysander is a NPC, but very important. He is one of the player’s characters best buddies, and Elanor’s boyfriend. Players will experience their character’s long-lasting friendship with Lysander during multiple flash-back scenes, which open up throughout the game. Later on, players will sharply be reminded that they spotted Lysander playing some leading role during their interrogation and torturing in prison. Seems like their friendship is not worth much here…?
That’s a first overview on some of the playable and main characters of Blackguards. Soon, Daedalic Entertainment will reveal more and introduce additional characters of the upcoming turn-based RPG – some will be evil, and some will be even more evil…
Official Website: http://www.blackguards.de
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