Combat is too shallow for it to be so integral to the game.

[MKMoose]

3 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

It's still a feature I'd prefer to see more in procedural dungeons than story locations, I think, simply because those aren't really plot critical and more meant as entertaining side quests. Thus the more intricate details and tougher challenges can be left to main story locations, while procedural dungeons could be more relaxed and handle a greater variety of problem solving.

I see the argument, but having three separate systems (free gameplay, "partially claimed" and claimed) may introduce unnecessary complexity to the claim system which already isn't exactly simple and intuitive. It may be better to either stick to it as is or make it slightly less restrictive globally. I'm not certain on player claims, though.

A very similar solution but approached from a different angle (arguably much better) could be to rework some items (make the scrap bomb an actual throwable) and introduce a small class of "portable" items which could be placed in claimed areas, perhaps with some restrictions. They could be automatically broken if in the way of some machinery or otherwise blocking or obstructing something, and they may get automatically collected back into the player's inventory when they walk too far away (just a thought, but I think with a lot of potential).

This category of items may include some light sources like torches and lanterns, bags (i.e. backpacks and so on), the firepit or a portable stove, a sleeping bag, optionally ladders, perhaps bombs and other traps (griefing would have to be addressed). The goal is to allow the player to perform some basic survival activities and implement intuitive problem-solving methods that they're used to from outside of claimed areas, without giving complete crearive freedom.

Granted, unless limited to an extremely narrow selection of items, this change may still require adjustments to existing story locations, and I don't know if the devs want to do that.

[LadyWYT]

2 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

A very similar solution but approached from a different angle (arguably much better) could be to rework some items (make the scrap bomb an actual throwable) and introduce a small class of "portable" items which could be placed in claimed areas, perhaps with some restrictions. They could be automatically broken if in the way of some machinery or otherwise blocking or obstructing something, and they may get automatically collected back into the player's inventory when they walk too far away (just a thought, but I think with a lot of potential).

I like this approach. Throwable grenades would be useful against packs of enemies, or for achieving effects like smoke screens(perhaps this stops enemies caught within from targeting you for a brief time). Noisemakers could attract rotbeasts to specific areas, while flares could do the same for bells(apparently those are attracted to really bright light). Flares could also provide much more light than torches, at the expense of having a faster burnout time. Caltrops could slow down entities that step on them, or disappear after a short time if not stepped on.

In any case, I think this kind of approach would allow the player more options, without needing to rework the locations already in the game.

[MKMoose]

2 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

To be fair, the only times I have ever had issues with my house spawning random creatures is when I have multiple side rooms. I have never had rotbeasts spawn in the room I'm occupying as long as it is small enough to count as an interior room. The wine cellar off the basement? Sure, I'll get shivers and drifters, even bowtorns spawning down there. But never when I'm in the room.

I really think that half the people complaining about stuff spawning right on top of them during storms are building too big and the game is marking the interiors of their homes as valid spawning locations for these things. That's the only way I can imagine having something like a shiver or other create spawn right on top of you during a storm. I've played through countless storms and have NEVER experienced that except on one server I played on where I built a HUGE hunting lodge that was too big to count as an interior space. Every other interior space we had on the server was small enough to count as such and never had issues with rotbeasts randomly spawning inside on top of us while we were trying to hide from them.

Okay, my experience does largely align with that, as I have yet to see something spawn literally on top of me, but the issue of spawning in other rooms is still significant. How did the monster get inside, realistically? He claims he phased through the wall, but doesn't want to show it now that I'm recording.

I have spent most of my time in my longest-running world in a 3-floor house with 5x7 interiors (the lowest floor is a cellar, two other ones are connected with stairs making a single room in the game's logic), and it doesn't even include anything metalworking-related. I've had something spawn inside once in about two or three storms on average, and a few of those times it walked down from the top floor and jumped me while I was working in the kitchen. And yes, I did check, the game detects all the rooms correctly. The worst part - I've run out of space despite using a bunch of trunks, crates and barrels on the outside as well, in part because I prefer to sort my items neatly and so my chests tend to be at most half-full.

Yeah, some people would benefit from learning how to build small. But I can't make it smaller without sacrificing convenience or aesthetics, and in spite of this I still get occasional spawns in a house which I would consider to already be on the smaller side. No remodeling options seem particularly appealing, and expanding the house is even less so if it were to increase spawns on the inside. It feels restrictive and annoying, especially when that occasional monster sometimes has enough damage to outright one-shot a player without armor (speaking from experience).

From a game design perspective, if something gets inside, it generally should be the player's fault or at least there should be an otherwise clear "why" and "how" behind it, instead of there just being a small but nontrivial chance to spawn something nearly anywhere it pleases. This may constitute a notable part of why some people are dissatisfied with combat and say it's too common, because they got dumped into encounters with almost no warning a few times more than they would have liked.

[Jochanaan Fair-Schulz]

Having blocks lose temporal stability during storms could work if there were any effective way to counter it. One way would be to have different types of blocks have different levels of "temporal insulation" : basically cheap blocks (dirt, logs, etc..) could phase during weak storms, but stronger materials (cobble, wooden boards, etc..) would remain solid, with the highest intensity storms only being insulated against by the most complex blocks (Ashlar or brick for example). The only downside to this is that it would probably lead to people always using the same materials for the maximum insulation, so I think that a different approach would work better.

To steer back to thinking about combat in this thread, a big problem for the combat system is the lack of material reward that comes from engaging with it. Vintage Story is a survival game at its core, with the efficient use of resources and avoiding waste being drilled into the players mind at every opportunity; the cost and danger of engaging in combat with rot beasts makes it a late game extravagance rather than a practical option for most of a play-through. With the exclusion of temporal gears (which are already rare and also become most useful only at the end game) all we get from fighting monsters are bone arrows or flax fibers (which we can produce on our own without the risks of combat, and in much larger quantity). My thinking is that the drops of rot beasts should be tweaked, and directly tied to crafting solutions for temporal instability/storms.

Instead of just dropping regular flax fibers, the specific drop could be "temporal fibers" (or insert any other name you think is better). No matter what the specific name or appearance of the drop, it should be an ingredient for crafting place-able items that raise the temporal stability or prevent rot beasts from spawning within a small area; to use the example of temporal fibers, it could be used to make dream catchers you can place in your rooms to stop monsters from spawning there during storms or to craft a consumable candle that raises the stability around it while it burns.

The specifics would need fiddling to be balanced, but creating a material benefit from combat would make it a more viable choice early on and set up the late game developments with Jonas tech/dungeon diving; combat wouldn't be an easy option, or one that players are forced to make, but it would no longer be a wasteful one either.

Edited November 12, 2025 by Jochanaan Fair-Schulz

[Bruno Willis]

On a slightly different note, the auto loot feature on the falx is actually a big change to combat. I've gone from having to kill rot beasts to just targeting the tough ones and hitting them until I get a gear, then fleeing. It's made getting loot from combat more interesting and slightly less resource intensive.

[LadyWYT]

13 minutes ago, Jochanaan Fair-Schulz said:

Having blocks lose temporal stability during storms could work if there were any effective way to counter it. One way would be to have different types of blocks have different levels of "temporal insulation" : basically cheap blocks (dirt, logs, etc..) could phase during weak storms, but stronger materials (cobble, wooden boards, etc..) would remain solid, with the highest intensity storms only being insulated against by the most complex blocks (Ashlar or brick for example). The only downside to this is that it would probably lead to people always using the same materials for the maximum insulation, so I think that a different approach would work better.

You also have to account for chiseled blocks, which is a nightmare in itself. And even then, it could still be cheesed easily enough by always making the base of the block stone, so that the chiseled block type always qualifies as stone. From that point, it's just a matter of chiseling every single block in the base to prevent spawns.

 

19 minutes ago, Jochanaan Fair-Schulz said:

To steer back to thinking about combat in this thread, a big problem for the combat system is the lack of material reward that comes from engaging with it. Vintage Story is a survival game at its core, with the efficient use of resources and avoiding waste being drilled into the players mind at every opportunity; the cost and danger of engaging in combat with rot beasts makes it a late game extravagance rather than a practical option for most of a play-through. With the exclusion of temporal gears (which are already rare and also become most useful only at the end game) all we get from fighting monsters are bone arrows or flax fibers (which we can produce on our own without the risks of combat, and in much larger quantity). My thinking is that the drops of rot beasts should be tweaked, and directly tied to crafting solutions for temporal instability/storms.

I heavily disagree. The current balance of combat is fairly realistic, in that it's something the player does in order to stay alive, and not something that should actively be sought out. Combat means risking injury, even with good equipment, and injuries are detrimental to survival. By increasing monster loot, and making said loot more lucrative, what happens is the player starts being encouraged to hunt down the monsters for rewards, instead of focusing on survival and only dealing with the monsters when necessary. That kind of balance is great if the focus of the game is meant to be on combat, but not good if the main idea is to survival, homesteading, and exploration.

 

22 minutes ago, Jochanaan Fair-Schulz said:

Instead of just dropping regular flax fibers, the specific drop could be "temporal fibers" (or insert any other name you think is better). No matter what the specific name or appearance of the drop, it should be an ingredient for crafting place-able items that raise the temporal stability or prevent rot beasts from spawning within a small area; to use the example of temporal fibers, it could be used to make dream catchers you can place in your rooms to stop monsters from spawning there during storms or to craft a consumable candle that raises the stability around it while it burns.

Or instead of getting some esoteric unexplained loot droop from monsters, take the concept of "temporal fibers" and add it to a weaving gameplay loop as some sort of late game material. That way there's also some sort of reasonable explanation for how those fibers came to exist(the player utilized technology to make them), instead of the player being left to wonder how a horrible rot-infested creature can produce something so valuable.

As for stopping spawns with dreamcatchers and candles...as a mod it works, but not for the base game. Stuff like that enters the "generic RPG fantasy" realm, and if it were really that easy to keep the monsters away, NPCs would be surrounding their homes with handicrafts instead of building strong fortifications.

1 minute ago, Bruno Willis said:

On a slightly different note, the auto loot feature on the falx is actually a big change to combat. I've gone from having to kill rot beasts to just targeting the tough ones and hitting them until I get a gear, then fleeing. It's made getting loot from combat more interesting and slightly less resource intensive.

The feature is especially valuable in storms, where you may not have time to loot. Even if the falx didn't extract all the loot, it does make monsters killed via falx easier to loot since you no longer have to wait for the harvest animation to play before looting.

[Jochanaan Fair-Schulz]

25 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

56 minutes ago, Jochanaan Fair-Schulz said:

nstead of just dropping regular flax fibers, the specific drop could be "temporal fibers" (or insert any other name you think is better). No matter what the specific name or appearance of the drop, it should be an ingredient for crafting place-able items that raise the temporal stability or prevent rot beasts from spawning within a small area; to use the example of temporal fibers, it could be used to make dream catchers you can place in your rooms to stop monsters from spawning there during storms or to craft a consumable candle that raises the stability around it while it burns.

Or instead of getting some esoteric unexplained loot droop from monsters, take the concept of "temporal fibers" and add it to a weaving gameplay loop as some sort of late game material. That way there's also some sort of reasonable explanation for how those fibers came to exist(the player utilized technology to make them), instead of the player being left to wonder how a horrible rot-infested creature can produce something so valuable.

As for stopping spawns with dreamcatchers and candles...as a mod it works, but not for the base game. Stuff like that enters the "generic RPG fantasy" realm, and if it were really that easy to keep the monsters away, NPCs would be surrounding their homes with handicrafts instead of building strong fortifications.

I'll just point out that according to the internal logic of the game's setting having rot beasts spawn inside people's houses doesn't make sense either.  Also, temporal gears are also highly valuable drops (its never insinuated that the monsters make what they drop, but rather the drops are what they are made out of). 

Do temporal candles and dream catchers represent the perfect the solution... maybe and maybe not (it is not about implementing those aesthetics specifically). There is a problem with players being presented with a problem and no solutions until 2/3 of the way through the game. VS is too big of an experience to leave the player in limbo for this long. There needs to be at least a mid game way of dealing with the temporal rifts and mob spawning; these should obviously be much weaker than late game solutions, but a challenge can be fun, whereas forced helplessness is just annoying.

[Bruno Willis]

34 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

As for stopping spawns with dreamcatchers and candles...as a mod it works, but not for the base game. Stuff like that enters the "generic RPG fantasy" realm, and if it were really that easy to keep the monsters away, NPCs would be surrounding their homes with handicrafts instead of building strong fortifications.

I think this brings up a key issue with combat, which is that the current combat system and foes don't encourage people to build walls and towers and fortifications, our aesthetic sensibilities do. Sure, the walls are useful, but not any where near as useful as a pit and a dirt box. I think a good way to improve combat would be to design the foes we will experience at our bases to be best countered with fortifications. 

That would mean giving rust foes the ability to climb fences and open doors if they try for long enough, and some way to keep the center of a fortress free from foes in a storm. Maybe that means single use mid-game technology like these maybe?

3 minutes ago, Jochanaan Fair-Schulz said:

Do temporal candles and dream catchers represent the perfect the solution... maybe and maybe not (it is not about implementing those aesthetics specifically). There is a problem with players being presented with a problem and no solutions until 2/3 of the way through the game. VS is too big of an experience to leave the player in limbo for this long. There needs to be at least a mid game way of dealing with the temporal rifts and mob spawning; these should obviously be much weaker than late game solutions, but a challenge can be fun, whereas forced helplessness is just annoying.

It'd be cool to, for instance, set up a bonfire in the center of a walled fort, and when the temporal storm sweeps in you all run inside the walls and light the bonfire. The huge light and heat from the bonfire would prevent spawns in a reasonable area, letting you all prepare in the open and try to barricade the doors before they're breached, or open the doors just before they're breached so that you can have controlled fights. 

(I like the idea of a bonfire because it is A- a heavy investment of basic materials B- very medieval rather than si-fi and C- could look and sound epic.)

At present fortifications are as useful as handicrafts when a temporal storm sweeps in. 

[LadyWYT]

1 minute ago, Jochanaan Fair-Schulz said:

I'll just point out that according to the internal logic of the game's setting having rot beasts spawn inside people's houses doesn't make sense either.  Also, temporal gears are also highly valuable drops (its never insinuated that the monsters make what they drop, but rather the drops are what they are made out of). 

I would actually argue the opposite, to an extent. In the context of temporal storms, it does make sense, given that a temporal storm is essentially one giant, particularly nasty rift that allows monsters to bleed through into reality with ease for a short period of time.

 

3 minutes ago, Jochanaan Fair-Schulz said:

Do temporal candles and dream catchers represent the perfect the solution... maybe and maybe not (it is not about implementing those aesthetics specifically). There is a problem with players being presented with a problem and no solutions until 2/3 of the way through the game. VS is too big of an experience to leave the player in limbo for this long. There needs to be at least a mid game way of dealing with the temporal rifts and mob spawning; these should obviously be much weaker than late game solutions, but a challenge can be fun, whereas forced helplessness is just annoying.

I think the better solution for temporal rifts specifically, is to place more weight toward them spawning in unstable areas, rather than in a certain radius from the player. The only way to fully stop rift spawns within an area is still going to be the rift ward, but that way the player can at least deal with the rifts a little more easily by making sure they settle in a spot with good stability and then fortifying the perimeter of their base.

 

1 minute ago, Bruno Willis said:

I think this brings up a key issue with combat, which is that the current combat system and foes don't encourage people to build walls and towers and fortifications, our aesthetic sensibilities do. Sure, the walls are useful, but not any where near as useful as a pit and a dirt box. I think a good way to improve combat would be to design the foes we will experience at our bases to be best countered with fortifications. 

Honestly, the game already does, at least somewhat. Building a perimeter and lighting it up will cut down on the spooks, and fortifying said perimeter with rift wards(once you obtain them) should stop all spawns outside of whatever temporal storms drag in.

 

3 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

That would mean giving rust foes the ability to climb fences and open doors if they try for long enough, and some way to keep the center of a fortress free from foes in a storm. Maybe that means single use mid-game technology like these maybe?

Ironically, given what some of the NPCs say about the monsters and the design of certain locations, the monsters absolutely are capable of climbing fences and smashing through doors and windows. Likewise, the monsters, according to the lore, are incredibly resilient to damage. The versions of the monsters implemented in the game are more nerfed versions balanced in favor of player fun, than how they realistically should be. The corrupt and nightmare tiers are more what I would consider what the toughness of the standard surface monsters actually should be.

 

6 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

It'd be cool to, for instance, set up a bonfire in the center of a walled fort, and when the temporal storm sweeps in you all run inside the walls and light the bonfire. The huge light and heat from the bonfire would prevent spawns in a reasonable area, letting you all prepare in the open and try to barricade the doors before they're breached, or open the doors just before they're breached so that you can have controlled fights. 

(I like the idea of a bonfire because it is A- a heavy investment of basic materials B- very medieval rather than si-fi and C- could look and sound epic.)

The bonfire idea I could see being a useful mid-game strategy to keep low tier monsters at bay, but not high tier ones(those should remain incredibly serious threats). I think the heat is also a reasonable excuse for why a bonfire would keep spooks away, but not lanterns, despite both providing lots of light. And of course, bonfires could also be used to keep hostile wildlife away from your camp as well, since that's much more intimidating than a measly little campfire. Though to keep it balanced in terms of resource cost, perhaps it requires the firewood equivalent of a small charcoal pit to actually get started, and then utilizes whole logs as fuel once established(but for a longer burn time in exchange for being unable to cook on said bonfire).

Overall, I still think the best way to deal with rifts and monster spawns should be Jonas tech.

[Bruno Willis]

28 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Ironically, given what some of the NPCs say about the monsters and the design of certain locations, the monsters absolutely are capable of climbing fences and smashing through doors and windows. Likewise, the monsters, according to the lore, are incredibly resilient to damage. The versions of the monsters implemented in the game are more nerfed versions balanced in favor of player fun, than how they realistically should be. The corrupt and nightmare tiers are more what I would consider what the toughness of the standard surface monsters actually should be.

I think the monsters would be more fun if they were rarer but more lore accurate, specifically being able to climb fences and clumsily open doors. That'd make them creepier and a categorically different threat to the wildlife. Saying that, I don't think the current versions of surface monsters are that nerfed from a lore perspective. If you think about the size of that other location, one death a year would be unsustainable. I'm doing risky things, but surface monsters still murder me way more than once per year and I'm a well equipped seraph. To ordinary folk the surface monsters are still a long term existential threat. I do wish the traders would take the threat seriously though. It feels like they've paid the rust monsters protection money at the moment. 

That idea to make rifts spawn more in unstable areas would be excellent: It'd also help players notice faster that they shouldn't be settling down in that spot. 

47 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

The bonfire idea I could see being a useful mid-game strategy to keep low tier monsters at bay, but not high tier ones(those should remain incredibly serious threats). I think the heat is also a reasonable excuse for why a bonfire would keep spooks away, but not lanterns, despite both providing lots of light. And of course, bonfires could also be used to keep hostile wildlife away from your camp as well, since that's much more intimidating than a measly little campfire. Though to keep it balanced in terms of resource cost, perhaps it requires the firewood equivalent of a small charcoal pit to actually get started, and then utilizes whole logs as fuel once established(but for a longer burn time in exchange for being unable to cook on said bonfire).

Overall, I still think the best way to deal with rifts and monster spawns should be Jonas tech.

I think having a desperate measures option to keep out rifts and spawns makes the Jonas tech more exciting. 

"We're out of firewood and the horrors are almost through!"

"We built the woodshed out of logs, didn't we? Get cutting."

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

Overall, I still think the best way to deal with rifts and monster spawns should be Jonas tech.

mic drop moment

[LadyWYT]

57 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

Saying that, I don't think the current versions of surface monsters are that nerfed from a lore perspective. If you think about the size of that other location, one death a year would be unsustainable. I'm doing risky things, but surface monsters still murder me way more than once per year and I'm a well equipped seraph. To ordinary folk the surface monsters are still a long term existential threat. I do wish the traders would take the threat seriously though. It feels like they've paid the rust monsters protection money at the moment. 

In fairness, I'm not sure that the village is accurately scaled either, as it's really more of an outpost than a proper village. Realistically, I would expect a village to be around a hundred or so inhabitants, but that's not really feasible to implement for a game like this and still keep the performance and level of detail we currently have. So things get scaled down as a result.

As for traders, they're supposed to be getting reworked next update, and from what I've heard they're going to be living in fortified shelters similar to what the treasure hunters now have, rather than the wagons we're used to seeing everywhere. So I would expect to see proper fortifications, though I will note that most current traders seemed to be armed with at least one weapon.

1 hour ago, Bruno Willis said:

That idea to make rifts spawn more in unstable areas would be excellent: It'd also help players notice faster that they shouldn't be settling down in that spot. 

Yeah, that was basically my reasoning too--kills two birds with one stone.

 

1 hour ago, Bruno Willis said:

I think having a desperate measures option to keep out rifts and spawns makes the Jonas tech more exciting. 

"We're out of firewood and the horrors are almost through!"

"We built the woodshed out of logs, didn't we? Get cutting."

Or I mean...technically most of the landscape is combustible, if one is desperate enough.

 

1 hour ago, Bruno Willis said:

I think the monsters would be more fun if they were rarer but more lore accurate, specifically being able to climb fences and clumsily open doors. That'd make them creepier and a categorically different threat to the wildlife.

Maybe. At the very least, shivers should be able to clamber over fences with ease, since they're a large monster and seem built for mobility anyway. As for opening doors...I'm not entirely sold on that, although it is quite funny to read the occasional story about players who install mods that grant drifters that ability, without realizing the installed mods grant such.  Overall, drifters don't really strike me as intelligent enough to figure out how doors work, so I wouldn't expect them to open doors as much as I would expect them to simply beat the door down. The obvious counter here, is to simply allow the player to install a bar over the door in order to reinforce it, since a standard lock mechanism won't be strong enough. Then it's just a matter of the player remembering to actually bar the door at night/during periods of high rift activity.

[ifoz]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The versions of the monsters implemented in the game are more nerfed versions balanced in favor of player fun, than how they realistically should be. The corrupt and nightmare tiers are more what I would consider what the toughness of the standard surface monsters actually should be.

Personally I feel like the surface mobs are decently lore accurate, though only when you consider the realistic damage they could do. Shivers could easily grab onto you with their giant mouths, and a bowtorn bolt to the head probably isn't going to be a great time even if its the surface variant. 
The player's only saving grace is that we don't have a limb damage system. 

"I used to be a treasure hunter like you, until I took a bone arrow to the knee".

 

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

In fairness, I'm not sure that the village is accurately scaled either, as it's really more of an outpost than a proper village. Realistically, I would expect a village to be around a hundred or so inhabitants, but that's not really feasible to implement for a game like this and still keep the performance and level of detail we currently have. So things get scaled down as a result.

I feel like Nadiya is probably mostly accurate to the lore, since Tad jokes about it as being "the only bastion of civilisation within a reasonable walking distance". So I do think canonically it's likely a smaller outpost compared to some of the larger human settlements that are probably out there somewhere. The reworked traders have outposts even smaller, with the largest seemingly made of 2-3 houses and some sort of watchtower. Something I really like with the new traders is how the single trader huts are the least developed, being made out of planks or cob most of the time. The outposts are a little more developed, made of rammed earth and featuring luxuries like brick fireplaces/chimneys.

Edited November 13, 2025 by ifoz

[Jochanaan Fair-Schulz]

On 11/12/2025 at 5:33 PM, Teh Pizza Lady said:

On 11/12/2025 at 4:25 PM, LadyWYT said:

Overall, I still think the best way to deal with rifts and monster spawns should be Jonas tech.

mic drop moment

Yes, I agree. The solution should be some kind of Jonas tech.

Its just, presently, the way things progress is that one day we go to bed as a medieval peasant, then wake up the next knowing how to throw together a box of rubbish that can rip holes in space-time. Having a little bit more of a wind up would not only make more sense from a game play pov but also from the perspective of logic. Having some "primitive" Jonas tech that's geared more to the mid game, not only addresses the exact problem that we are discussing, but is just necessary in general to set the precedent for late game contraptions.

Linking the power for these mid-game techs to rot beasts drops (of whatever kind you personally find lore coherent given that its is already established that their bodies contain Temporal Gears and killing them partially restores a player's sanity) is just following the logic of Jonas tech as we have seen it everywhere else. That I think this would also kill two birds with one stone by making dungeon diving more useful in the average play-through makes it an even more appealing route (not because I even want anymore combat related content, but because, as we have established, it is coming. Story and Procedural dungeons are going from a sideshow to a main act in the ecosystem of VS gameplay loops, and to work well those require a real mechanical reason for engagement with that content, or at least to not have engagement so actively disincentivised; Otherwise, why even spend the time and energy to add these in the first place, why add them as The Story? For the record, I really do like the narrative of the story, I just find it unfortunate how much it's design conflicts with the rest of VS, and believe that part of that story reaching its full potential is about working in tandem with, and not against, the mechanical logic of the actual game for which it is meant to be the story).

Edited November 19, 2025 by Jochanaan Fair-Schulz
Clarification on the second paragraph

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, ifoz said:

I feel like Nadiya is probably mostly accurate to the lore, since Tad jokes about it as being "the only bastion of civilisation within a reasonable walking distance". So I do think canonically it's likely a smaller outpost compared to some of the larger human settlements that are probably out there somewhere. The reworked traders have outposts even smaller, with the largest seemingly made of 2-3 houses and some sort of watchtower. Something I really like with the new traders is how the single trader huts are the least developed, being made out of planks or cob most of the time. The outposts are a little more developed, made of rammed earth and featuring luxuries like brick fireplaces/chimneys.

Possibly, though my reasoning behind it being realistically more like 100-200 people, or perhaps even just 50, is that's enough of an adult population to support 10-15 guards, as well as keep family trees...well...looking like trees, and not telephone poles. In any case, it's easier to have extra people to cover the workload in the event that there's a casualty(the victim doesn't have to die, but they will need someone to fill in for them while recovering from serious injuries). If Nadiya were actually as small as it is in game, they're in big trouble if certain citizens die, or otherwise too injured to function.

 

1 hour ago, ifoz said:

Personally I feel like the surface mobs are decently lore accurate, though only when you consider the realistic damage they could do. Shivers could easily grab onto you with their giant mouths, and a bowtorn bolt to the head probably isn't going to be a great time even if its the surface variant. 
The player's only saving grace is that we don't have a limb damage system. 

"I used to be a treasure hunter like you, until I took a bone arrow to the knee".

Pretty much.  I use the Ghosts short story as a good benchmark for what they're capable of.

 

39 minutes ago, Jochanaan Fair-Schulz said:

Its just, presently, the way things progress is that one day we go to bed as a medieval peasant, then wake up the next knowing how to throw together a box of rubbish that can rip holes in space-time. Having a little bit more of a wind up would not only make more sense from a game play pov but also from the perspective of logic. Having some "primitive" Jonas tech that's geared more to the mid game, not only addresses the exact problem that we are discussing, but is just necessary in general to set the precedent for late game contraptions.

The general reason for why the player knows everything they know isn't quite a complete handwave for gameplay reasons; the player character was once a part of Jonas's forces, and may have personally worked alongside him on occasion. Thus it stands to reason that the player learned several things about Jonas tech and other various useful things, and a certain NPC says as much when giving the player a certain schematic.

 

43 minutes ago, Jochanaan Fair-Schulz said:

Linking the power for these mid-game techs to rot beasts drops (of whatever kind you personally find lore coherent given that its is already established that their bodies contain Temporal Gears and killing them partially restores a player's sanity) is just following the logic of Jonas tech as we have seen it everywhere else.

I think the reason that rotbeasts drop things like temporal gears and Jonas parts, is that they were most likely also part of Jonas's forces once, before getting turned into monsters.

 

44 minutes ago, Jochanaan Fair-Schulz said:

That I think this would also kill two birds with one stone by making dungeon diving more useful in the average play-through makes it an even more appealing route (not because I even want anymore combat related content, but because, as we have established, it is coming; Combat is going from a sideshow to a main act in the ecosystem of VS game mechanics, and that puts the bar for "good enough" on a different level).

Honestly do not see the logic here, as it's still just shifting focus from homesteading, survival, and exploration, to a dungeon crawler game. More complex, difficult dungeons is fine for some better ruins loot and side questing, but that shouldn't be a primary method of progression as much as it should be a nice little distraction.

If anything, I'd be more inclined to advocate removing Jonas part drops from monsters entirely(save for the mechanicals), and instead having some sort of late game crafting loop where the player actually has to make their own parts. 

[MKMoose]

12 hours ago, Jochanaan Fair-Schulz said:

Having blocks lose temporal stability during storms could work if there were any effective way to counter it. One way would be to have different types of blocks have different levels of "temporal insulation" : basically cheap blocks (dirt, logs, etc..) could phase during weak storms, but stronger materials (cobble, wooden boards, etc..) would remain solid, with the highest intensity storms only being insulated against by the most complex blocks (Ashlar or brick for example). The only downside to this is that it would probably lead to people always using the same materials for the maximum insulation, so I think that a different approach would work better.

Yeah, no, it would have to be implemented in a way that doesn't restrict creative building. Similar mechanics were discussed in this thread before, and one of the ideas was that we may want to add new threats that aren't just different enemies which ultimately are dealt with in the same ways. Some kind of ghosts, infestations, particularly extreme temporal fractures. Or creatures that can in some way reach inside without destroying blocks.

The point about having some way to counter it is a very important one, though.

 

12 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

As for stopping spawns with dreamcatchers and candles...as a mod it works, but not for the base game. Stuff like that enters the "generic RPG fantasy" realm, and if it were really that easy to keep the monsters away, NPCs would be surrounding their homes with handicrafts instead of building strong fortifications.

I would actually argue the opposite to a certain extent. People often tend to be superstitious, and if they believe it will benefit them they will surround themselves with endless trinkets and whatnot, and perform little rituals to keep their demons away.

Dreamcatchers, candles and similar are far from exclusive with fortifications, and some well-themed amulets, incense, something as little as "put a temporal gear under your pillow" or larger rituals that the player could perform may have a lot of potential to greatly reinforce the feeling of an unfamiliar world haunted by eldritch horrors and the desperate circumstances of the last survivors.

Some sort of folk theming might fit villages and outposts quite neatly as well, especially the smaller ones.

 

11 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

11 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

It'd be cool to, for instance, set up a bonfire in the center of a walled fort, and when the temporal storm sweeps in you all run inside the walls and light the bonfire. The huge light and heat from the bonfire would prevent spawns in a reasonable area, letting you all prepare in the open and try to barricade the doors before they're breached, or open the doors just before they're breached so that you can have controlled fights. 

(I like the idea of a bonfire because it is A- a heavy investment of basic materials B- very medieval rather than si-fi and C- could look and sound epic.)

Expand  

The bonfire idea I could see being a useful mid-game strategy to keep low tier monsters at bay, but not high tier ones(those should remain incredibly serious threats). I think the heat is also a reasonable excuse for why a bonfire would keep spooks away, but not lanterns, despite both providing lots of light. And of course, bonfires could also be used to keep hostile wildlife away from your camp as well, since that's much more intimidating than a measly little campfire. Though to keep it balanced in terms of resource cost, perhaps it requires the firewood equivalent of a small charcoal pit to actually get started, and then utilizes whole logs as fuel once established(but for a longer burn time in exchange for being unable to cook on said bonfire).

I cannot rightly express how much I love this idea. I would also imagine a more late-game metal brazier that could be filled with a larger amount of fuel including with coal and burn for much longer. A small brazier could be used for civilized cooking on a grill, but a larger one, or a proper, maybe 2x2 bonfire? Come closer to the fire, people, let us burn the filth away! The monsters shall not reach us tonight, for the eternal flame protects us!

 

6 hours ago, ifoz said:

The player's only saving grace is that we don't have a limb damage system. 

I would really love a status effect system to add that. Long-term injuries would much more meaningfully reinforce the extreme danger of the monsters than making an Egyptian mummy out of yourself with all the bandages in small breaks between fighting sometimes five to ten enemies at a time in a war of attrition.

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

I would actually argue the opposite to a certain extent. People often tend to be superstitious, and if they believe it will benefit them they will surround themselves with endless trinkets and whatnot, and perform little rituals to keep their demons away.

Dreamcatchers, candles and similar are far from exclusive with fortifications, and some well-themed amulets, incense, something as little as "put a temporal gear under your pillow" or larger rituals that the player could perform may have a lot of potential to greatly reinforce the feeling of an unfamiliar world haunted by eldritch horrors and the desperate circumstances of the last survivors.

Some sort of folk theming might fit villages and outposts quite neatly as well, especially the smaller ones.

True, but in that case, it should be theming only. Otherwise, if the counter to the monsters is magic charms and rituals, then it's no longer realistic survival and steampunk sci-fi, but generic fantasy. Really not ideal to have that kind of abrupt tone shift.

 

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

I would really love a status effect system to add that. Long-term injuries would much more meaningfully reinforce the extreme danger of the monsters than making an Egyptian mummy out of yourself with all the bandages in small breaks between fighting sometimes five to ten enemies at a time in a war of attrition.

Really, I figure a status effect system would solve a lot of the complaints...as well as produce several more(though hopefully not). And with a proper herbalism system, it's possible that some effects might require certain treatments in order to heal efficiently.

[Bruno Willis]

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

True, but in that case, it should be theming only. Otherwise, if the counter to the monsters is magic charms and rituals, then it's no longer realistic survival and steampunk sci-fi, but generic fantasy. Really not ideal to have that kind of abrupt tone shift.

I feel like this game could do with supporting very sub-optimal options. It would be really fun if hanging stick and string mobiles with a rust gear in the center could reduce the percentage of rift spawns in the area by like, 0.2%, so you'd have to turn your area into a crazy witch-warren of charms to actually see any effect. Some people would do it. I would hang a few around if they had random variation in their design.

I also think blackguards should be able to eat pies whole, and some drifters will go away if you offer them a nice warm bowl of stew. The game wouldn't be worse for it. 

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

I also think blackguards should be able to eat pies whole

They can with this mod(though the pie still needs to be cut first): https://mods.vintagestory.at/expandedstomach

2 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

some drifters will go away if you offer them a nice warm bowl of stew

I'd be more in favor of throwing a temporal gear into their midst and starting a brawl over which one of them gets it. But that's assuming they would have a fascination for such things that trumps their desire to murder and mutilate humanoids.

 

2 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

I feel like this game could do with supporting very sub-optimal options. It would be really fun if hanging stick and string mobiles with a rust gear in the center could reduce the percentage of rift spawns in the area by like, 0.2%, so you'd have to turn your area into a crazy witch-warren of charms to actually see any effect. Some people would do it. I would hang a few around if they had random variation in their design.

It could, BUT...such options still need to support the overall flavor and atmosphere the game is supposed to have. Vintage Story has a rather realistic approach to its world, with some steampunk and eldritch horror sprinkled into the background for interest. The focus, however, is still realism and natural processes. It's not out of the question that the denizens of said world might make charms or draw symbols out of superstition, but if such things have an actual gameplay function outside of pure aesthetics then the focus of the game shifts from realism and solving things with real world processes or steampunk science, to more of a fantasy land where things such as magic symbols and mysterious rituals grant esoteric power.

So I have to disagree that adding something like functional charms and rituals wouldn't hurt the game. I think a better place for that kind of idea is perhaps Project Glint--the secret adventure game that Anego has been tinkering with. From the sounds of it, it's supposed to be much more of an adventure RPG chock full of fantasy, so things like charms and magic won't feel out of place.

[MKMoose]

7 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

13 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Dreamcatchers, candles and similar are far from exclusive with fortifications, and some well-themed amulets, incense, something as little as "put a temporal gear under your pillow" or larger rituals that the player could perform may have a lot of potential to greatly reinforce the feeling of an unfamiliar world haunted by eldritch horrors and the desperate circumstances of the last survivors.

Some sort of folk theming might fit villages and outposts quite neatly as well, especially the smaller ones.

True, but in that case, it should be theming only. Otherwise, if the counter to the monsters is magic charms and rituals, then it's no longer realistic survival and steampunk sci-fi, but generic fantasy. Really not ideal to have that kind of abrupt tone shift.

Note: I wrote much of this before your more recent post.

Frankly it is unclear to me why you describe it as generic fantasy, because I mean it more in a folk tales and superstitions kind of way. They naturally serve as inspiration for many fantasy settings, but it is only natural that, in a world overrun by rotbeasts and other horrors, people would develop their own explanations and stories about what they see, and try to find ways to combat what they do not understand. Themes of this sort are also not alien to lovecraftian or similar fiction, from what I've seen, which does appear to be a notable inspiration for Vintage Story. Note as well that this doesn't have to be something that everyone engages with - you could even have a split between more superstitious and more pragmatic people in different villages and outposts.

We already kind of have one item that could be included in this category - the temporal gear amulet. Extremely simple, yes, but that's also kind of the point. It doesn't have to go into extremes and either be a big solution to something or just a purely decorative bauble.

I could list out a range of reasonably simple features that could easily have sufficiently plausible in-universe explanations without employing conventional magic and without particularly drastic gameplay consequences:

• allow creating a larger variety of containers, stands, racks or just simple rope or cloth which can be used to keep temporal gears and other items, including things like lanterns or jugs, amulets, small things like bones or herbs, and most of the stuff that I'm listing out below, on display and/or ready to use, be it hung from the ceiling, in a decorative box (maybe with dedicated space for gears and a knife), on a display stand, or anything in that vein,
• add a single-use item which somehow overwhelms or otherwise briefly incapacitates rotbeasts (in a lore-accurate way - I'm thinking of how the shiver curls up occasionally, or how the drifter raises its arms and looks into the sky - it may be possible to somehow bring out the remaining scraps of cognition, emotion or whatever they may have left, at least for the weaker ones; this is also kind of related to the idea for throwing sand or quicklime to blind them, as the effect is similar),
• make rotbeasts more hesitant to stay near areas with certain symbols or trinkets, or to cross lines made from some sort of loose or powdery substance (basically just adjusted random pathing weight or cost; some items may also have the opposite effect of attracting rotbeasts),
• have one of the herbs weaken or scare away rotbeasts when it's burned (ideally, it would burn significantly longer when made into proper incense),
• add various improvised remedies, poisons, and herbal or more unusual decoctions with a variety of effects - courtesy of a status effect system and requiring a bunch of herbs to be added, so I won't delve into this too much here,
• add a way to coat a weapon with some sort of oil to apply an additional effect when attacking rotbeasts (the exact same system could be used for maintenance of weapons and tools made of ferrous metals to protect against corrosion),
• make rotbeasts afraid of fire to some extent (as mentioned along with the bonfire suggestion),
• allow burning or otherwise destroying some temporally affected items for a stability boost (kind of like killing rotbeasts improves stability),
• add collectible trinkets and baubles which may either increase or reduce stability in an area or have odd, stability-related effects when interacted with (some may also be sold, taken apart or used in a craftable device),
• allow to take a short nap during temporal storms as long as the player has a protective amulet of sorts nearby (which provides a pocket of relative stability),
• implement some sort of a ritual to close a rift or to permanently or temporarily increase stability in an area (sacrificing something in the process, presumably a temporal gear and potentially something else),
• add a small device that allows to gauge the time and duration of temporal storms or to check current rift activity and predict it at least a few hours ahead,
• add an improvised device which produces a warning when a storm is approaching and about to start (there could also be a more late-game cast bronze bell which could be used for the same purpose, exquisitely fitting for various church, temple or castle builds),
• add a medallion or amulet that produces a warning of some sort in unstable areas and/or when the player's stability is low.

Some of these items (mainly the ones near the bottom of the list) are  partially associated with that other suggestion to remove or redesign the player's stability gauge (the spinning gear). Removing an immediate tell in the UI would require the addition of other means to measure an area's and the player's own stability and the theming of the required items is closely associated with this suggestion. Several of these functions could be easily fulfilled by Jonas tech as well, but I don't think it should be the universal answer to everything pertaining to stability.

Perhaps, since you know the lore much better than me, you may say that a bunch of these ideas don't fit, but I as of now know no reason to categorically discard any of them on these grounds.

And of course, there is always space for purely decorative items like ornaments, charms, drawings, totem poles, garlands and whatever else, and I think they are certainly better than nothing. We do have some already, primarily in the form of a bunch of clothing items and repairable clutter, though almost all of them are only ever looted from somewhere (sometimes purchased as well). There are few actual decorations that can be placed, even fewer still that can be hung on walls or ceilings. Most clutter is dark, desaturated and broken in some way making it unsuitable for most purposes. The biggest advantage of purely decorative items, at the very least, is that they are easier to implement in high quantity.

And to keep it remotely related to the topic, I'll mention that, implemented well, some of these items may offer alternative ways out of certain encounters that aren't just focused on head-to-head combat, which largely goes in line with the original suggestion.

 

5 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

[...] such options still need to support the overall flavor and atmosphere the game is supposed to have. Vintage Story has a rather realistic approach to its world, with some steampunk and eldritch horror sprinkled into the background for interest. The focus, however, is still realism and natural processes. It's not out of the question that the denizens of said world might make charms or draw symbols out of superstition, but if such things have an actual gameplay function outside of pure aesthetics then the focus of the game shifts from realism and solving things with real world processes or steampunk science, to more of a fantasy land where things such as magic symbols and mysterious rituals grant esoteric power.

I don't know if I have to reiterate that these ideas are not supposed to just be some generic magic, and the gameplay functions don't have to take a big focus of the game. There's plenty of ways to integrate much of it neatly into stability, if nothing else. The denizens of this world are not following arbitrary superstitions just because they are superstitious - they are responding to the world around them, and instability along with associated alien horrors is a crucial part of it.

[LadyWYT]

3 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

We already kind of have one item that could be included in this category - the temporal gear amulet. Extremely simple, yes, but that's also kind of the point. It doesn't have to go into extremes and either be a big solution to something or just a purely decorative bauble.

To use this as an example to answer your question, the temporal amulet(Forlorn Hope Amulet) is very obviously some sort of charm, however, it has no functional gameplay purpose aside from being a cool little lore cosmetic. The most it actually does is emit light, which isn't particularly magical since that seems to be an inherent property of whatever temporal stuff is. Likewise, there are also glowing alchemical symbols, and other amulets and things that could be taken as artifacts of superstition. However, like the Forlorn Hope Amulet, they're just decoration, or neat cosmetics.

As for what the player uses to actually solve problems and interact with the world around them, those are almost entirely real world processes, barring temporal tech and abilities. The player doesn't make potions or complete rituals to heal themselves--they use bandages and alcohol. There is no charm for warding off hostile wildlife; the player must be careful and either not disturb the animals, or otherwise hunt them. Likewise, when dealing with monsters, the player must either avoid them or kill them, since they aren't things that can be reasoned with. 

Temporal tech and abilities, while obviously somewhat esoteric, still fall into the realm of science fiction more than fantasy. Temporal abilities are inherent to seraph biology. The temporal tech uses machines and a set science that it follows in order to function; that is, it's not charms, mystical powers, and magic rituals but rather transformers, power pylons, gearboxes, and the like. Charms and the like tend to be rather arbitrary and require a lot more handwaving, like rabbit's feet being considered lucky, or smashing some barnacles and salmon roe into a bottle with a raw chicken egg to get a concoction that allows the imbiber to breathe underwater. 

So it's not that charms don't have a place aesthetically in Vintage Story, it's just that by giving them a legitimate gameplay function outside of aesthetics, the door is opened to introducing what's essentially an entire magic system, which is standard for fantasy settings. If a charm made from sticks, bones, and mineral/plant powder wards off monsters, then one has to start asking what effects other types of charms could have, or whether certain rituals could be used to speed up farming, or what inherent magical properties are present in different materials, etc. The focus is no longer the natural world and realistic processes, but rather bypassing natural law via the use of magic; at that point, it's no longer Vintage Story, but the Thaumcraft mod turned into a full game.

23 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

Perhaps, since you know the lore much better than me, you may say that a bunch of these ideas don't fit, but I as of now know no reason to categorically discard any of them on these grounds.

Just quoting this to serve as a convenient break from the above section, but it's worth noting that in regards to the lore behind the Forlorn Hope...while they did seem to be a faction steeped heavily in charms, rituals, and mysticism, they were also a faction that has been(presumably) wiped out entirely. Whatever they were using for their practices doesn't seem to have helped them survive.

I suppose it's also worth noting that the "Old World" in the lore is our world in the late Middle Ages, with the general setting in central/eastern Europe. While there wasn't a shortage of superstition and related practice, it's worth noting that Christianity was the dominant religion of the region at the time, so magic charms, rituals, and other things typically associated with witchcraft would have been frowned upon. That's not to say that the denizens of the present time still practice Old World religions, or that new superstitious practice didn't arise, but there does at least seem to be lingering influence of past tradition, given how NPCs speak and refer to certain things.

31 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

I don't know if I have to reiterate that these ideas are not supposed to just be some generic magic, and the gameplay functions don't have to take a big focus of the game. There's plenty of ways to integrate much of it neatly into stability, if nothing else. The denizens of this world are not following arbitrary superstitions just because they are superstitious - they are responding to the world around them, and instability along with associated alien horrors is a crucial part of it.

Overall, I'm not saying it's a terrible idea, just that magic items and rituals aren't the way to do it in Vintage Story. It's better to focus more on the natural process already established, by doing things(which you have mentioned) like adding bonfires to help keep hostile creatures at bay, or adding more Jonas tech gadgets the player can craft to do various things(like the night vision mask we have already), or allowing the player to distill poison in addition to medicine in order to combat foes that are vulnerable to being poisoned.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

3 hours ago, MKMoose said:

implement some sort of a ritual to close a rift or to permanently or temporarily increase stability in an area (sacrificing something in the process, presumably a temporal gear and potentially something else),

The rift ward already exists in the game and it is powered by temporal gears. This is a classic example of combining "magic" with technology. Because, after all, magic is just science we don't fully understand yet. No need for supernatural magics. We already have that in the form of rotbeasts and wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. When the rot appeared, they didn't turn to the court wizards and mages. They turned to Jonas Falx. A tinker. An engineer. A scientist.

Try to stick to the theme of the game and you'll be on your way to a solid idea.

[MKMoose]

9 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

To use this as an example to answer your question, the temporal amulet(Forlorn Hope Amulet) is very obviously some sort of charm, however, it has no functional gameplay purpose aside from being a cool little lore cosmetic. The most it actually does is emit light, which isn't particularly magical since that seems to be an inherent property of whatever temporal stuff is. Likewise, there are also glowing alchemical symbols, and other amulets and things that could be taken as artifacts of superstition. However, like the Forlorn Hope Amulet, they're just decoration, or neat cosmetics.

The temporal gear amulet, not the Forlorn Hope amulet. They look very similar, admittedly, but the former is effectively an emergency temporal gear which doesn't take up an inventory slot.

 

9 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

As for what the player uses to actually solve problems and interact with the world around them, those are almost entirely real world processes, barring temporal tech and abilities. The player doesn't make potions or complete rituals to heal themselves--they use bandages and alcohol. There is no charm for warding off hostile wildlife; the player must be careful and either not disturb the animals, or otherwise hunt them. Likewise, when dealing with monsters, the player must either avoid them or kill them, since they aren't things that can be reasoned with. 

Temporal tech and abilities, while obviously somewhat esoteric, still fall into the realm of science fiction more than fantasy. Temporal abilities are inherent to seraph biology. The temporal tech uses machines and a set science that it follows in order to function; that is, it's not charms, mystical powers, and magic rituals but rather transformers, power pylons, gearboxes, and the like. Charms and the like tend to be rather arbitrary and require a lot more handwaving, like rabbit's feet being considered lucky, or smashing some barnacles and salmon roe into a bottle with a raw chicken egg to get a concoction that allows the imbiber to breathe underwater. 

So it's not that charms don't have a place aesthetically in Vintage Story, it's just that by giving them a legitimate gameplay function outside of aesthetics, the door is opened to introducing what's essentially an entire magic system, which is standard for fantasy settings. If a charm made from sticks, bones, and mineral/plant powder wards off monsters, then one has to start asking what effects other types of charms could have, or whether certain rituals could be used to speed up farming, or what inherent magical properties are present in different materials, etc. The focus is no longer the natural world and realistic processes, but rather bypassing natural law via the use of magic; at that point, it's no longer Vintage Story, but the Thaumcraft mod turned into a full game.

7 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

The rift ward already exists in the game and it is powered by temporal gears. This is a classic example of combining "magic" with technology. Because, after all, magic is just science we don't fully understand yet. No need for supernatural magics. We already have that in the form of rotbeasts and wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. When the rot appeared, they didn't turn to the court wizards and mages. They turned to Jonas Falx. A tinker. An engineer. A scientist.

My apologies if I'm getting annoyed or annoying, but how many times do I have to say that I'm not talking about magic?

I'm not familiar with the lore enough to say it with a sufficient level of certainty, but I struggle to believe that temporal stability can somehow only ever be interacted with using specially-designed delicate machinery. The thing with machines tends to be that they are more accurate, more reliable and more efficient replacements for simpler tools and devices, not something that was designed one day by some stroke of genius and had no prior alternative.

Put a temporal gear on a string and observe it while you're walking around an area. Does it behave differently in certain places? Maybe those could be the unstable ones. If that works, then try other things. Put it on a stick. Attach it to things. Improvise basic contraptions.

Granted, the temporal gear is supposed to "turn a constant level of inertia", I think, so maybe it is not the best choice for this, but surely there are also other things that could be used for a similar purpose. Ultimately, Jonas parts are made from something, and it ought to be possible to achieve various effects when using the same materials, if only by taking these parts apart and studying or reusing them in more improvised contraptions, given that they can interact with stability as seen by the rift ward. And you did say at some point that there is a lore reason for why the seraph knows Jonas tech or something of the sort.

I'm thinking of it kind of like electricity - for a medieval setting it's practically magic, and you're not gonna replicate something like a computer (really, you can't even make a single modern electrical component without appropriate tools, so you'd have to improvise heavily in a lot of cases), but it works on simple physical principles that were discovered much earlier and originally used in very simple ways.

As for the idea for the ritual to close a rift or reduce instability, the same thought process applies. Find something that seems capable of stabilizing things - a temporal seems like an easy fit - then walk up to a rift or find an unstable area and try do do whatever you can think of to it. Burn it, hit it, add chemicals to it, arrange it with metal scraps and Jonas parts, anything. Something happened? Write down how you did it, including the weird things that might not have actually been necessary necessary, but, well, they worked. Boom, you have a ritual.

Are all items equally affected by instability? Could there be something which gets "glitched" for lack of a better word, where it gets dangerously unstable, more so than the surroundings. It may just be a trinket, or it may have an actual purpose. Or maybe something could promote stability in some way (right about the same semi-scientific idea as for the rift ward, just simpler and less controlled), creating a pocket that could offer some protection in a temporal storm.

Observe how drifters behave. Do they react to light? Do they react to any symbols? Can they be blinded, stunned, shocked? Do they react to strong aroma? Are they attracted to something or do they prefer to stay away from something? Does their body react with anything, starting from simple chemicals and poisons? Be it something that creates a physical reaction in their bodies, or something that reminds them of something from the past, if they are capable of that. Or are they just completely mindless, boring, "zombies" with no distinguishing features?

When I talk about improvised remedies and decoctions with various effects, I'm talking about things that are known to react with the human body in a whole range of ways, or things that could be easily explained to react with the seraph's biology. We have a horsetail poultice and a honey-sulfur poultice already in the game, though their effects are heavily simplified, the same as the effects of bandages.

I really don't know how I'm supposed to describe it to avoid you interpreting it as magic, when introducing magic is expressly not my intent.

Edited November 14, 2025 by MKMoose
Mention the "rituals".

[Jochanaan Fair-Schulz]

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

My apologies if I'm getting annoyed or annoying, but how many times do I have to say that I'm not talking about magic?

This has some real *scientist about to be burned at the stake for "witchcraft"* energy 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

7 hours ago, MKMoose said:

My apologies if I'm getting annoyed or annoying, but how many times do I have to say that I'm not talking about magic?

I'm not familiar with the lore enough to say it with a sufficient level of certainty, but I struggle to believe that temporal stability can somehow only ever be interacted with using specially-designed delicate machinery. The thing with machines tends to be that they are more accurate, more reliable and more efficient replacements for simpler tools and devices, not something that was designed one day by some stroke of genius and had no prior alternative.

Then allow me to ask. Have you done the Resonance Archive and scrubbed the entire library of every single lore book you can find? Have you done Chapter 2 and found out what is causing the temporal storms and rifts?

Because if you have, then I think you might have missed something. Jonas tech is what it is simply because Jonas himself [redacted] and abused [redacted] to [spoil the whole story up to this point]. He had help, don't get me wrong, but that help came in the form of [redacted] and [redacted] one of whom [redacted] and the other [redacted]. Suffice it to say there's a very good reason that temporal stability can only ever be interacted with using machinery because [major plot spoiler].

If you have done all of Chapter 2 and you don't know how to fill in the blanks above, then feel free to start a thread in the story forum, tag me in it, and ask me to fill in the blanks.