Antharion announced

Ari Rae-Silver writes in to announce Antharion, an isometric turn-based party-based wRPG in development by Orphic Software.

The premise:

Ever since the murder of the beloved King Mallory (uniter of the Kingdom) at the hands of his own debauched son (and now King) Zeverith, the Kingdom of Antharion has been ravaged by political turmoil. Zeverith’s first act as King was to dissolve the Senate; his second was to sell off large chunks of the Kingdom to rich noblemen who promptly enslaved many of their inhabitants. The Order was a collective of adept magical enthusiasts who for centuries collaborated in secret to tame and refine their arcane magical knowledge. Zeverith quickly became aware of the Orders existence through his network of spies and sought to stamp them out. Many were killed by Zeverith’s forces while others fled deep into the depths of long forgotten caverns – some of the more masterful Wizards even managed to magically construct artificial planes of existence to escape off into. In response, Zeverith began what would come to be known as The Great Purge, sending his men from city to city to hunt down every last Wizard leaving no stone unturned. As part of a poor group of peasants from a small quiet town on the outskirts of the Kingdom, you suddenly find yourself swept up in the purge when, without notice, a group of Zeverith’s men storm your town, murder nearly all of its inhabitants, and burn every last house to the ground. Taken deep into an underground dungeon for a torturing and eventual execution, you somehow manage to overpower your captors. What happens next will be up to you.

The developers state: “We wanted to fuse together elements from classics like: The Elder Scrolls (a huge open world), Baldur’s Gate (a deep tactical combat), and Ultima (a classic old-school look and feel) into a single unique RPG experience.” Combat is turn-based with action points; character creation lets you create every member of your party. The developers promise more than 100 dungeons, 20+ cities, and 50+ unique monster types, which would indeed mean a pretty huge world if successfully carried out.

There are many more details on the game’s page, including descriptions of the classes and the game’s magic system. All in all, it sounds mighty ambitious.

There are some screenshots below. I am doing my damnedest to look past the fact that the characters’ heads are enormous, and I think you should too. Antharion is due for release in June 2013 for PC, Mac, and iPad.

…oh, and there’s a Kickstarter. (Of course.)