Tabula Rasa game designer Brian Hudson recently completed work on a new instance named Velon Hollow, where the minds of once intelligent beings have been overrun by an unknown toxin, turning them into ravenous zombies.  In this dev journal, Brian shares his influences and inspirations in making this new replayable instance.

Velon Hollow Dev Diary

Hi, I’m Brian Hudson and I am a designer on Tabula Rasa. I wanted to talk about a new instance, Velon Hollow, slated for release in Deployment 10. This Deployment will be going live in the next couple weeks, and I’m extremely excited to share my insights.

First, a little background:

Imagine that an evil alien race has developed a serum capable of suppressing your personality and trapping you in your own mind. The chemicals make you stronger and more aggressive, and the sight of human flesh makes you hungry. As the last of your sanity slips away, you are only slightly aware that your friends and family have become your latest meal!

To the inhabitants of Velon Hollow, this nightmare has become a frightening reality. For centuries, the Order of Velon prided itself on its purity of thought and deed; now they have been reduced to mindless thralls, unable to stop the inevitable decay caused by an unknown toxin. In the heart of the mountain, in one of the spiritual centers of the Foreans, death has come.

Read more here.