The Necromancer's Tale

Description

The Necromancer's Tale is a story-rich top-down RPG where you play the role of a minor noble in the 18th Century, drawn into the Dark Necromantic Arts as you seek knowledge and revenge. Great power awaits... along with the weird, the morbid, and a gradual descent into madness.

This is best described as a Necromancer Origin Story: you start off as a regular person, and gradually get drawn into the Dark Arts. Your powers must be earned: you need to put in your time sneaking and studying as you gradually become a master of the undead. This is a tale about the acquisition of power, what you're willing to do for it, and what it does to you.

Before you lies a great spellbook, filled with powerful rites of death and reanimation. Can you decipher the pages and master its arcane rituals without losing your mind or being strung up by the townsfolk? Your progress will require great determination, cunning and secrecy.

The Necromancer's Tale is a story-rich game, with 400,000 words of hand-written narrative and lore, in which you converse with 180+ NPC characters, each with their own hand-drawn portrait art (we have not used any generative AI in the game). You will investigate, negotiate, coerce and flatter in order to progress your aims. The game's Trust system means that your choices - even in conversation - really matter. If the townsfolk's trust drops too low, you will find your choices are affected - if it drops further still, you will surely be tried in court and hanged, or lynched by a frenzied mob.

Your character is created in an interactive and fully voiced backstory, defining your gender, early life, skills and career (military, diplomatic, or academic). Narrative options during the main game are affected by these choices.

The game involves tactical turn-based combats between you, your allies and your undead minions - versus a range of enemies, natural and supernatural.  Harness a range of weapons, rituals, and battle spells to defeat your foes.

The Necromancer's Tale is set in an alternative-history Kingdom near Venice and the Adriatic Sea, in 1733. This is a time at the cusp of rational thought and superstition; science and magic. The world is dark and dangerous; courtly intrigue collides with black magic even as chemistry emerges from alchemy.

A play-through will take between 25 and 50 hours, depending on how much side content and world exploration you engage with, and depending on whether you play the battles or use automatic combat resolution. There are multiple endings through which you see your choices play out into the future.

LANGUAGES

The Necromancer's Tale is only available officially in English. However, translations to several other languages have been made by the community. Please check the Steam forums for details.