Greetings, Fallen Warriors…
Today we’d like to talk about Lore and Story in our game. Deathbound has a greater focus on narrative than most traditional soulslike games. While we proudly remain part of this tradition, our game features more cutscenes and dialogue lines. However, the player still needs to "piece things together" by discovering bits of lore scattered throughout the game, reading items, and skill descriptions, among other elements.
In contrast to most soulslikes, the narrative in Deathbound is more mature, moving away from "good vs. evil" tropes and being willing to "ask the big questions". It's a story about mortality, individuality, identity, religious fanaticism, and grief. Rather than being a male-centric power fantasy, it aligns more closely with a tragedy in the Greek theater tradition.
Another distinguishing feature of Deathbound's narrative is its historical accuracy. Unlike most Medieval fantasy stories, our story is grounded in real-world Medieval societies, including their economies and social dynamics. For instance, the role of the feudal mode of production is much more prominent. While in typical D&D settings, religion is often relegated to clerics and paladins, in actual Medieval societies—and therefore in Deathbound—religion plays a major role, influencing every aspect of society, from private life to global politics.
As we already mentioned, Deathbound is not just another soulslike. It also features a deep, mature narrative that delves into themes of mortality, identity, fanaticism, and grief. Read more about the world you’ll enter on August 8th.
Eons ago, the Goddess Life deceived her sister, the Goddess Death, to steal her powers and create the First Men, a race of beings unable to die. Alive for thousands of years, they erected a powerful and advanced civilization, with magic-like technology and continent-spanning cities. But Goddess Death would not accept being deceived and began to slowly seduce these immortal people, who were overwhelmed by an existence that would never end. Eventually, they gave up their immortality, and their society collapsed overnight.
The game takes place in the year 522 After the First to Die. Humanity rose again from the ashes of the old world as a medieval society of kings, feudal lords, knights, and holy people. Looming above all is the Church of Death, the de facto power in Zieminal. The Church hunts down everyone who doesn't fit into its worldviews: heretics, worshippers of the Goddess Life, political subversives, wielders of magic, etc. Fleeing persecution and eager to fight back, these oppressed people of Zieminal founded the Cult of Life.
The Cult of Life sought refuge in the ruins of the forbidden city of Akratya, a metropolis from the times of the First Men. The city has been abandoned for centuries, as the Church considers anything related to the Ancients to be sinful and heretical.
The Cult of Life is an uneasy alliance of many organizations fighting the Church and the lords of the realms. Among these organizations, called Tendencies, are the Children of Life, the 8th of Zehrim Movement, and the Essencemancers.
The Essencemancers are a group of Life-worshipping mages who want to bring immortality back to humans—at any cost. They mix magic and the long-lost technology of the First Civilization to perform experiments to unlock the secret of eternal life. When word of the Essencemancers' horrific experiments reached the Church, it organized the Fifth Crusade to invade Akratya and end the entire Cult of Life once and for all. The mages rushed to perform their last experiment before the Church arrived—and that's when you were born.
You are the Prisoner of a Thousand Faces, a creature trapped between life and death, with the power to absorb fallen warriors' Essences. Only the Essencemancers can undo your plight—but you must find them before the armies of the Church get to them…
We hope you enjoyed what you read about the dark world of Deathbound, a project we have worked on for so long. If you did, don't forget to add the game to your Wishlist, join our Discord server, and on August 8th, embark on a bloody crusade to the forbidden city!
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Wishlist Deathbound now and dive into a brutal and divided future where Death and Life were never more conflicted...
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1277130/Deathbound/
