A world worth walking through

The towns were alive and the land between them empty. We made 1060 new props, from rye sprouts and haystacks to skulls, shipwrecks and dungeon gates, and gave every field, road, river and ruin of Felucca something to tell.

When the towns of Felucca went up, they looked lived in: yards with woodpiles, lamp posts, shop signs. Step outside the gate, though, and you walked through empty grass to the next town. So we filled the world. Every picture below is the game itself.

A farmstead among its fields: blue flax, wheat, cabbages, hedges between the plots, a scarecrow and a haystack

A thousand new things

We ordered 1060 new props in nine families and modelled them all: crops in four stages of growth, haystacks and scarecrows, flowers and mushrooms for every kind of land, rocks and cliffs, ores and crystals, skulls and bones, graves, ruined walls and toppled statues, tents and woodcutters' camps, milestones and bridges, boats and shipwrecks, market stalls for every trade, the eight shrines of virtue and the gates of every dungeon. A few of each, side by side:

Farm props: a round haystack, a hay wagon, a granary on staddle stones, beehives, a well sweep, scarecrows, a plough, crops

Grim props: a dragon's skull, a whale's ribcage, a barrow mound, standing stones, a giant stone head, skeletons, torn banners

Camp props: the tents of the Dominion and the Concord, a yurt, an orc hut, a charcoal kiln, a quarry crane, a lookout, a fishing boat, a merchant's wagon

Arcane and town props: virtue shrines with their flames, a summoning circle, a crypt door, a moon basin, a mushroom house, market stalls

Fields and farms

The land around every settlement is cut into fields. Each plot grows one crop, chosen by climate: rye, oats and flax in the north, wheat, cabbages and hops in the middle, melons in the warm south. Some are just sprouting, some ripe, some already harvested into stooks and haystacks. Hedges, wattle and split-rail fences divide them, with stiles to climb. Farmsteads stand among the fields with their granaries, beehives and woodpiles, and most villages have an orchard or a vineyard and a windmill.

Fields outside Skartor: wheat ripening, oats still green, stubble with sheaves, fences between the plots

A windmill at the edge of the woods, between the cabbage fields

Places with a story

Every place on the atlas got its own scene. A ruin is the broken rooms of an Old Empire house, with its floor showing through the grass. A shrine stands on a paved dais among candles and offerings. A graveyard keeps its rows of stones behind a fence. The ancient trees wear ribbons of offerings, fairy rings glow in the woods, wizards keep their towers behind circles of crystal, and hermits live alone at the edge of the snow.

A ruin of the Old Empire on the edge of the snow: broken walls, a mosaic floor, rubble and weeds

The shrine of Valor on its dais, its red flame among the candles

A graveyard on the dunes, its stones in rows behind a dark wooden fence

An ancient tree in a forest glade, mushrooms and lantern flowers around its roots

A fairy ring glowing in the woods of the Concord, crystals and lantern flowers around it

A wizard's sandstone tower in the ash lands, glowing pylons and an arcane circle at its door

A hermit's cottage on the snow line, herbs drying on a rack

Where the danger is

Battlefields of the war are trampled fields of torn banners and weapons in the ground. Bandits camp behind stakes with their loot, every dungeon has its entrance, and miners dug into the mountains wherever the atlas put ore.

A battlefield: trampled grass and mud, torn banners of both realms, weapons in the ground, the memorial in the middle

A bandit camp: broken walls, tents, totems, the bandits standing guard

A barrow in a pine forest by a lake, graves around its stone door

The entrance of a crypt in a forest glade

A mine dug into a snowy cliff, ore carts and a winch at its mouth

Land and roads

Mountains rise behind real cliff faces, the ash lands smoke and glow, rivers have reeds and stepping stones, coasts have driftwood and shells. The roads have milestones in the style of their realm, wayside shrines, lanterns on the last stretch before a town, border posts, and bridges where a road fords a river. Where the roads are dangerous, broken wagons and travellers' bones lie by the wayside.

A mountain ridge: cliff faces between a lake shore and a snowfield

The ash lands: lava cracks, steam vents, obsidian and dead trees

A small stone bridge where a path crosses a brook

Towns

The towns got their markets too: stalls for fish, meat, cloth, pottery, weapons, bread, flowers, herbs and jewellery, each with its goods. Trade signs hang by the doors, realm banners in the squares and flags on the halls.

Skartor's market: striped stalls of every trade with their goods

The square of a port town, thatched houses around it

Rivers and corners, fixed

Two things that bothered us are fixed along the way. River banks no longer look torn: water now lies flat at its own level, and the shore has the same soft edge as every other ground. And houses with cut corners are symmetric: both front corners, or all four, never just one.

A river through Skartor: soft shores, streets fording the water

Not there yet

Docks and boats can't be walked on yet, fields don't grow with time, and the ore veins, quarries and herbs are only scenery until gathering comes. Dense forests are still the heaviest places to draw.