v0.0.1.0 (Alpha)

NEW ENEMY: VAMPIRE - A new mob found in the wild now includes a feral vampire! These are considerably rarer, stronger, and faster than either of the previous mobs. You will know when one has caught site of your party because sinister music will play, and there will be a notice on the side message box. If they do catch sight of your party, they will hunt down every human, and then finally you. They are too fast for a human to outrun.

When the vampire catches the human, he holds them in place while their health drains, and his gets a small restoration. If you hear the music or see the message, it is best to try and find him and kill him as fast as you can. He will not stop unless he dies (or he wanders too far away to find the humans again.)
By the way, thanks to canon, vampires are immune to elemental magic. (For the sake of the game, they have a 90% resistance to elemental magic.) The intended way to kill them is with the "Magic Blast" ability, but you can do it with any spell, it just might take longer. If he takes out all of your humans and turns his attention to you, you might be in more trouble.
Again leaning on the canon, if a vampire bites you, all of your elemental mana is reduced to zero. You will begin to recharge immediately, but will go back down to zero if he bites you. When you do manage to kill the vampire he has two drops: Vampire Teeth, and Vampire Dust. The vampire has 25 health, and does 5 damage per second.

NEW ENEMY VARIATION: BEHOLDER - A variant of the vampire. This is a ranking official, and underling of Vampire King Cicero. There are 20 beholders in the game, and you will only meet one per contract. They are identifiable from regular vampires due to their face covering. (a vampire's teeth are their most important asset, have to keep them safe.)
Here we run into the reason why Magnus is one of the only successful Blood Runners in the realm. He has a deal with King Cicero and the Beholders. In exchange for allowing Magnus and his party to travel free of military force, the Beholder will ask for a single human as payment. When traveling on the road, you will see a torch on the ground in the distance. This means that a Beholder is waiting for your payment. If you get too close, he will catch your scent, and the trade process has begun. (You can avoid this encounter by circling around his radius, but you will be venturing into the wilderness tiles of the map meaning much harder enemies.)
Once he has caught your scent, two perimeter circles will appear around him. One large red one, and a smaller blue one. Once you are confined to the red circle, leaving will trigger a battle with the Beholder. He will give you a small amount of time to approach him before he decides that you are obviously plotting an attack - this will trigger a battle. If you enter the blue circle, you will be given the option to accept the terms - one human life in exchange for him letting you through unscathed. Press [E] for "yes", and [T] for "no".
At this point I should mention that Beholders can fly. (Canon reason: Cicero was a mancer of gravity before he was turned into a vampire. blah blah blah, he bequeaths his gravity powers on his Beholders, and you have flying vampires. )
If you tell the beholder "yes", he will take one of your humans. If you say "yes", and you have no one to give, he will take you! If you tell him "no", your fight will begin. Similar to a regular vampire, he will target all of the humans first, but this one can fly! You will likely lose many humans unless you are thoroughly leveled up enough to take him quickly.
It is advised that if you are planning on telling him "no", just attack him so you can get the upper hand before he starts slaughtering your party. Defeating the 20 beholders is part of the endgame goal not yet implemented.

Beholders drop Vampire Teeth, and Vampire Dust. They have (100 * [Beholder#]) - First beholder has 100 health, last beholder has 2000. They do 7.5 damage per second.

MERCENARY SCREEN AT CITY - After you reach your destination, and you select your next contract you will be given the opportunity to hire mercenaries. There is only one implemented at the moment, but her you can see the plan moving forward. up to 8 swordsman, and 20 different mancers.

START CONTRACT SCREEN AT CITY - Before starting your next run/contract you will see a summary of the run you are about to do. It will also tell you the costs of all your mercenaries, and will not let you start if you don't have enough money to start. (You can always sell stuff, or un-hire mercs if you need to.) It will also tell you if you forgot to select a contract, and that one will be generated for you. I don't recommend letting it generate one for you as it is truly random. You dont want to be stuck transporting 5 humans 13 kilometers for the least compensation.

FIRST MERCENARY - THE ALCHEMIST - You start the game with a hired alchemist, and it is up to you if you want to keep hiring him for your runs. He will brew potions for you, and the ingredients are listed above each of the three. When brewing, your potions get added to a queue. It takes roughly 3 seconds to brew a potion. I wanted it to be quick as to not be a waiting game, but slow enough that it wasn't instant. Potions will automatically be added to your inventory when they are done.
Note: If the alchemist has less than 60% health, and he finishes brewing a health potion, he's going to take it to heal himself.

If the alchemist dies, he will drop a few potions, but your ingredients are lost, so keep that queue small!

If you reach the city, and the alchemist is still brewing potions, you will get the potions before you leave the city whether you hire him again or not.

He is not a fighter, but he will slash at an enemy if it gets too close. He does 5 damage. (He has 50 health.)

Side note, potions will continue to brew when the game is paused.

NEW ITEMS: POTIONS - There are 3 potions in total in the game. Health, Mana, and Stamina. You can have them brewed by the alchemist, you can find them in chests (more on that later), or you can buy them in the city when you reach your destination.
Health potions will heal you to your max health instantly. - you can also give them to humans if they are injured! Just approach and press [E] when prompted.

Mana potions will restore all mana. Elemental or otherwise.

Stamina potions will restore your stamina.

NEW ITEM: ARMOR - Armor is now equipable in the skills menu. Pressing the button in the skills menu disposes of your current armor, and equips a fresh set. (No recycling in the Age of Blood.) Armor blocks 75% health damage when worn on the player, but the remaining 75% gets put on the armor. Armor does not last long. This is why there is an auto-equip toggle in the skills menu that will automatically re-equip armor if yours becomes depleted. Set it and forget it, but just keep an eye on your armor inventory, it goes fast!

Armor can also be applied to humans! [T] - Their armor actually blocks all damage, but does nothing against a vampire bite. (There is no physical representation of the armor on the npc models... probably wont do that at all. Might have an effect or sound or both... later.)

Armor can not be crafted, it can only be found in chests, or bought in the city. You do start with some when you first start the game.

NEW ELEMENT: DARK - Energy element #4

DARK BOLT - Shoots a bolt of dark, making it difficult to see. Same cost as the light bolt, and double the damage. 100% penetration.

DARK THOUGHTS - Shoots a slow moving projectile with a very short lifespan. If it hits an enemy, it will turn and fight for you. This only works on bats and spiders. Honestly, I might get rid of this and replace it with something different if I can't get it to work the way I want. The spiders seem to take it okay, but the bats have no idea what to do with themselves.

New ELEMENT: ELECTRICITY - Energy element #5 - This is a fun one!

SMITE - Brings down a bolt of lightning dealing 15 damage to everything in it's path. Slight knockback on everything. (Even the player). It will also leave enemies with a temporary state of electrification that does small amounts of damage. Large mana cost.

TORRENTIAL LIGHTNING - Electrical downpour surrounding the player. 10 damage per second for 2 seconds. Huge mana cost (double of Smite). Also has electrification effect on those hit. Fair warning, one of these is enough to take a Human NPC from full armor and full health down to zero if they don't get out of the AOE quickly.

NEW POIs - In addition to the abandon wagon POI that was added last update, I have added an abandoned house, and an abandoned lookout tower. Nothing too exciting, but the house can provide an interesting shelter if you utilize it.

LOOT CHESTS - Now at the POIs there is a single chest containing loot. This includes: Money, Armor, vampire teeth, vampire dust, and all three potions. The loot scales with the distance from the road. (1 tile from the road, 2 items. 10 tiles from the road, 20 items. etc.) Go treasure hunting if you dare, just remember that enemies become much harder the farther from the road you stray.

STREET LAMPS - I added dim streetlamps to the roads. Powered by the faintest of magic. These are not meant to give you better site along the road, but rather to allow you to see where the road is from a distance. If you happen to wander from the road, you may be able to find your way back just by spotting lights from a distance.

MAGNUS AUDIO - I added various audio for Magnus to say. Injury sounds, and dialogue with the beholder. He will comment when his mana use is hurting him, and he will also say something when he has less than 15% health.

DEATH - I added a camera fall to the death sequence. Just to make it more clear to the player that they have died. It was a little off putting to be standing there, and all of a sudden being faced with a loading screen.

CHANGES:

-The game is now capped at 144 fps. Performance has always been an issue, so being below that is expected, but without a frame cap the game will run as many frames as possible. (Mostly I got annoyed listening to my gpu take off like a jet engine every time I play-tested!)

-Pickup items used to magnet to Magnus no matter how far away. Now there is a range. (This will be upgradable with the Gravity element later on.)

-Yellow endzone surrounding the city is now instant death for all enemies. They will vanish, and not drop any loot.

-Healing spell [R] effect was updated.

NOTE:

-If you do happen to kill all 20 beholders, there is nothing currently past that. Currently the game will try to load Beholder number 21, and will crash.