Spellborn Starter Area Changes

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Developer Spellborn NV has rolled out a new content patch to the Closed Beta version of The Chronicles of Spellborn. Since today the city of Hawksmouth boasts an improved design and environment. This change was motivated by technical and immersion reasons to make sure new adventurers of The Chronicles of Spellborn benefit from the best gaming experience possible. By reducing the graphic load on the server and by placing High House Silver and Torque in a new area of the city, Spellborn Developers made sure this beginner zone is ready for release.

In addition to this overhaul, a new lighting engine has been shipped to this latest Closed Beta version. Strengthening the immersive and realistic elements of Spellborn, this new engine allows for sharper and clearer experience than previously.

Last but not least, the imposing palace of High House Silver now resides in the new area of the starter town Hawksmouth. Players can join one of the High Houses in the game as soon as they have reached Fame Level 10 in the online-roleplaying game. Once aligned to one of the High Houses, adventurers will experience the multi-facetted background story spinning around the disintegrated game world composed out of several large shard realms. This story is told differently depending on which faction the player chooses. A developer journal now tells about the origin and development of the High Houses in general and the splendid Silver High House in particular.

As the High House palace has just been integrated into the currently closed beta version, interested fantasy heroes can still register to join in on the official website www.tcos.com. Developer Spellborn intends to expand the beta pool to larger player numbers soon. The Chronicles of Spellborn will be released on November, 27th in Europe and North America.

House Silver

As the youngest High House, House Silver emerged from trade amongst the various other factions. Acting strategically, Silver amassed such wealth that it was impossible to exclude it from the decision-making of the ruling factions. Initially seen as a nuisance to the establishment, House Silver proved pivotal in getting the economy of the Enclave up and running. House Silver consists out of three separate entities: the Scales of Habitat, the Scales of Storms and the Scales of Trade. Together they govern taxes and housing, transportation and trade respectively for the Enclave. With emerging wealth, greed can become a problem and House Silver is no exception to that phenomenon. But according to the view of House Silver itself, attaining monetary funds is paramount to the stability of the Enclave as a whole and to secure its future.

The History of the High Houses

The High Houses are political organizations which originated as tribes under the reign of the Eight Demons. Throughout ancestral history, each of the Houses was founded to reflect the appropriate political situation at that time and power struggle between various factions. Though joining a High House used to be optional and at the request of an individual, this notion changed after a significant incident at Green District. Finding itself severely weakened after the war of Tykaru's Tyranny, the Enclave understood that it needed manpower, should another war or disaster ever occur. The High Houses therefore decided that citizenship would no longer automatically be handed over upon coming of age, but rather after being conscripted to serve in the Enclave Militia and having joined a High House.

It is through these means that the Enclave hopes to strengthen the community of the High Houses, its own capabilities and to bolster the people's own resolve into making the Enclave a better place. Time will tell whether this decision of drafting more people into the High House ranks or if the drastic measures won’t rather drive many men and daevi into the arms of the renegade and vagabonding people.

Origin and development of the High Houses in the pre-history

In the years after the Awakening – almost 500 years ago – the eight High Houses Maul, Onyx, Pale, Rune, Shroud, Silver, Torque and Void, vied for power and control over the combined might of the human and daevi that had survived the Great Collapse. The indifferences from before that catastrophe had not diminished in the slightest and the struggle for dominance continued. But as time progressed it became clear that some of the Houses had similar goals and as such started to form allegiances. Pale, Onyx, and Void formed the Deadspell Alliance. Thus, history now refers to them as the Traitor Houses to whom Shroud, Maul, Torque and Silver opposed with such vehemence that war was inevitable.

The High House Rune was caught indifferently in the middle for some time. Whilst initially veering towards the Deadspell Alliance, Rune was not completely sure if this was the right course to take. It was not until the Deadspell Alliance made known that they would rather take their right by force than to let it trudge on under the rule of House Torque that House Rune started to support the four Houses opposing High Houses. Why House Rune suddenly did so, remains a mystery to this day. Some scholars say it was the pressure of abandonment and others speculate that House Shroud might have had some influence in that decision, too.

At the time House Rune openly supported the four High Houses, the Deadspell Alliance found itself in a minority position. Recognizing that they could not possibly hope to win against the joined five High Houses, war was no longer an option. As such they left the shard realms and disappeared into the Deadspell Storm by Vhelgar steed. They would find a shard for themselves and build their own civilization there. Whatever became of the three “Traitor Houses” is as big a mystery as the creation of the Deadspell Storm itself. Some say they did end up on a shard of their own, while others say that they were mostly destroyed by Vhelgar roaming the Storm. One thing is certain however, that somewhere within the darkness of the Deadspell Storm, whatever is left of the Deadspell Alliance is plotting its return.