roleplay Echoes of the Ancients | High RP | Custom Lore | Custom Content | 16+

[Inflectus]

Art commissioned by Blackcat Briar!

Built by roleplayers, for roleplayers, Echoes of the Ancients is a deep roleplay server operated by the Passion Project (PP) Gaming Community.

Our vision is to cultivate a deep, flavorful and immersive roleplay experience, built to scale and become the premier Vintage Story roleplay server. We work hard to create a unique experience, built on our own systems, our own story and our own custom content.

Pillars:

• Roleplay

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    We want to be the premier roleplay experience in Vintage Story. In Echoes of the Ancients, everyone is expected to be willing to roleplay, not treat it as being optional. However, we also expect and encourage people to accept, mentor and be patient with those who have less experience or creativity! We can't tell the full story without everyone's participation.

• Lore

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    While we love the Vintage Story lore, we want to create our own, unique narrative. We pride ourselves on our lore, which is written from the ground up by our talented team of writers and contributors. We also understand that roleplay and lore are collaborative processes, and are happy to canonize (and encourage!) lore that organically develops within our community.

• Freedom

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    Where possible, we want to maintain player freedom: Vintage Story is as much a game as it is a canvas for storytelling. We expect our players to be able to meet their basic goals and needs, not be restricted from farming or building based on their profession. At worst, we use custom, mechanical systems to gatekeep the highest tiers of a production chain behind professions, keeping specialists valuable and meaningful. We also fully expect and encourage players to create their own stories, as long as they respect the lore and don't impede the agency of other players!

• Longevity

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    We are in it for the long-term. We want to create not only a premier roleplay experience, but a lasting one. We recognize that roleplayers in the Vintage Story community have a lot of damaged trust with communities rising and falling with the changing of months. We've seen servers erase their characters and their progress with little to no notice, remorse or compromise. We've seen public relations disasters that were at no fault of the community at large. We don't want to tread those same waters. Just as we expect you to respect our story and time, we want to respect yours.

• Accessibility

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    We are built on accessibility, the concept that the most possible players should be able to participate in our community. Whether it be the fact we're strictly text-based, the mods we use (or don't use) or the attitude we cultivate around inclusiveness, everything is to make sure that your only limit to participation in our experience, is your willingness.

 

Story:

Echoes of the Ancients is a fictional universe that takes place in a post-apocalyptic bronze age on the continent of Daystar, a realm fractured into three distinct regions: Mesana (the homeland), Venmire (the refuge) and Cindorath (yet to be discovered). It follows the fall of the Ancients, an enigmatic people whose empire achieved unparalleled expansion and technological greatness.

Season 0 focuses on Venmire: a recently-colonized land of humid jungles, sprawling rivers, putrid swamps and redwood-topped mountains. While Mesana is torn apart by supernatural disaster, our characters flee to this fertile and exotic promised land. Some hope to carve out a new life for themselves, some seek to exploit its riches, some hope to support their families back home and some simply wish to survive long enough to return to Mesana and rebuild. 

You have a handful of unique cultures to play as...

• Riverfolk
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    Humble, communal people whose origins are unknown. Riverfolk are the most skilled farmers, carpenters and shipwrights in Daystar, dominating the few fertile regions of Mesana and credited with the discovery of Venmire. Life for the average Riverfolk revolves around family, peace and their reverence for their deity, the Great Serpent. Riverfolk communities tend to be charitable, peaceful and governed by a council of elders, but when push comes to shove, their hardiness makes for a fierce adversary. 

• Duneriders
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    Duneriders are a nomadic people, well-adapted to desert survival and famed for their skill as hunters, tamers, weavers and traders. Taught to survive from a young age, and owing their spirit and strength to the patron animal deity of their Kel, these adventurous spirits have a keen eye for business. Duneriders see profit where others see knowledge or curiosity, which gives them a reputation of being selfish and greedy people. In truth, their engagement with commerce is as much an indulgence as it is a spiritual, sacred practice, forming the very foundation of Dunerider society and, most importantly, their survival. 

• Undergrounders
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    Undergrounders are survivalists from a bygone era, a remnant slave race of the Ancients. Selectively bred for countless generations to be the ideal warrior caste, Undergrounders are not the brightest, nor the most creative, nor the most trusting. However, they make up for all of this in their strength, their fortitude and their undying loyalty to one another (and the rare Abovegrounder they call a friend.) While they lack the artistic flair of Abovegrounders, they are still known as competent stonemasons, masterful metalworkers and exceptional bards, passing down the history and hardship of their people through work songs, statues and oral history. Undergrounders, above all else, despise the concept of being controlled or suppressed by anyone- even themselves.

• Skylanders
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    Hardworking, pretentious and devout people, the Skylanders traditionally isolate themselves in their fortress-monasteries. Skylanders are rarely caught brushing shoulders with other races unless it is to complete a quest or convert them to their faith. Skylanders make for the strongest-willed warriors, the most learned scholars and masterful stonemasons. Life revolves around understanding and mimicking the Ancients, as well as worshipping the Sky, the Moon and the Sun- three deities who embody different qualities and bestow those qualities (and expectations) upon their followers. When they come of age, a Skylander is appointed to one of these castes, narrowing down their purpose in society and calling in life. 

You can play a character in this pivotal moment in history, becoming a larger part of how it's remembered and what for. Your stories will tell the collective odyssey of Venmire and the struggles- and accomplishments- of its people. You will give real meaning and impact to the history players read about when applying to our server years down the line and writing their own backstories!

You, like the people of Venmire, are pioneers in your own right!

Us:

We are a crack-shot team of seasoned roleplayers, writers, programmers, artists and moderators from the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania. We have former staff and players hailing from Minecraft and Vintage Story roleplay servers, DMs and players of tabletop RPGs and modders (like BASIC) from the Vintage Story community. I was also a Discord Partner up until 2020, lending me plenty of experience in effective community and team management- assets when undertaking a project as bold and ambitious as this one!

I hope you'll give us a chance, and that we'll soon see you become a part of our wonderful community!

Join and apply on our Discord today!

Edited October 21, 2025 by Inflectus
Corrected a typo in the first paragraph, recolored the culture names for consistency.

[Inflectus]

Just a heads up we've recently updated our server to 1.21.5!

Some bugs have reared their ugly heads as a result of the update (and all the mod updates that came with it, some of which including unofficial patches), but we're working to stabilize the experience and have ironed out most of the obvious issues already. 

Server is still very much active and growing, with multiple towns actively recruiting (or in the works), so please don't hesitate to join our Discord and apply!

http://discord.gg/R9BpRPxDV7

[Inflectus]

Haven't bumped this post in a while, but the server is still alive, and we're currently planning our big "revitalization update"! 

It won't be a seasonal wipe, rather an injection of a ton of content (procedural generated mechanical dungeon, new lore books, starting a new main plotline, QoL and onboarding updates, new major mod, etc.) to try and breathe new life into the existing world.

If you or your group of roleplayers would like to join us as part of this big update, we would be happy to have you! It'll be a great time to get involved in the server if you weren't already!

Feel free to ask any questions here or add me on Discord (Inflectus)!

[Inflectus]

Season 1: Revitalization
In three days, we're launching a new narrative Season of Echoes of the Ancients: https://discord.gg/7VenJgFX?event=1480640655687422195 

It will not result in a map wipe, a character wipe, or any wipes of any sort!

Instead, it aims to revitalize the existing map with new content, both mechanical and narrative. Our server will go down for maintenance on Thursday night, so that I can move mods around and world-edit in things on Friday morning/overnight.

Tides of Trade
Recently, the ship docked in Waystone has departed for Mesana, a new pier built in its place. It will return soon, with prominent people aboard, and new trades to offer. Someone leaves a message in its wake...

Quote

Vanguard,

Change is on the wind.

The Conclave has long appreciated-  and perhaps languished in- your combined efforts to aid Mesana, so that we may all someday return home. However, it now needs your intervention...

In the east brews a power struggle that threatens to transform the very face and fabric of Venmire. Notables from various factions will soon arrive, including our very Conclave, bringing their own conflicting agendas for Venmire with them. Whoever prevails will be determined by your action- or inaction.

Will you subdue the threat of conflict, or ignite it? For all our sakes I pray it be the former...

Join us for a new Conclave-centric storyline, crafted for flexibility and tangible consequences based on your decisions and which faction they empower.

We haven't had a meaningful server narrative since around the launch of Season 0, so this will hopefully be the start of something great for both staff and players to sink their teeth into, while also expanding on the lore of the Conclave, the Exploratorium and the Yannic Order.

Learning from our prior mistakes, we will make sure to pace out major narrative events in Tides of Trade, giving players and staff time to digest and prepare.

Additionally, the conclusion of Tides of Trade will more than likely impact how our next and ultimate storyline begins and ends. With that, your participation could affect the very fate of Venmire- and by extension Mesana- when we cross into Season 2. 

Major characters will be played by Rat, Kay and Breeso, but if they ever need a break, we have all the documentation we need to swap out actors to keep things going. We may also be opening roles throughout these narratives for players to temporarily play (or work their existing characters into), so stay tuned for that.
Upcoming Content
We have a whole ton of content separate from Tides of Change ready for you, which I'll further detail on Friday, but for now I'll include some screenshots (most of which taken by Beans of the upcoming Dungeon) and some bullet pointed summaries:

• Our newest Dungeon, built and programmed by Xenon_San to iterate on the previous Dungeon: more optimized, more accessible, more thematic and more rewarding.
• Additional infrastructure in and around Waystone, supporting new players and returning players alike; lots of it coded or created by myself (thanks to Xenon San and their command block code extension mod), a new location created by Ravyn Alexi, some incoming builds created by Oxford Koda and a significant contribution made ICly by Shazza and Albey.
• New modded content, such as one long-anticipated mod to replace Art of Cooking and another that we have already added to the server to allow members of our team to create and edit NPCs (without depending on me to do so) and revamp our old ones with new features.
• Systemic improvements to our rules, online resources and settlements; a collective effort, thanks in no small part to Shazza hunting down and organizing a lot of our old docs.

Get Involved

This is a great time and opportunity to get involved in our server! Join us for a time when many old players return and some new players find their footing! It's a rare and great way to get immersed and involved in the community!

http://discord.gg/R9BpRPxDV7