Book Of Travels Explains Need For Permadeath And Plans For New Death-Related Content
While permadeath in Book of Travels has been disabled indefinitely for Early Access, players are still concerned about developer Might and Delight bringing it back in the future. In case you haven’t noticed, the self-described “tiny” MORPG is by no means a conventional RPG and permadeath is apparently an integral part of the game’s core mechanics and lore.
“Firstly we believe that dying is an essential ingredient in the Book of Travels soup. We don't want to fall into the trap of trivializing dangers and risk, removing the edge from gameplay moments such as combat and survival. Therefore, our current plan is to keep both the life petals and ‘physical death’ but add depth, meaning, and gameplay to the player character’s post-death journey.”
According to the team, they’re looking at adding death-related content such as a special mourning and closure questline that triggers when a player sees someone else die and turning characters into ghosts when they die. These ghosts will be free to roam the Shattered Isles and interact with other ghosts. They’ll also have the chance to be resurrected and discover a way to “gain passage” back to the land of the living.
These ideas are all still works-in-progress with no definite timeline for release as of yet. In the meantime, the team has shared a bit of lore surrounding life and death in Book of Travels.
“Life and Death Death is a topic surrounded by much speculation and study in Braided Shore. In the modern mythos, life and death are thought of as being synonymous with land and sea, echoing the stormy, mysterious origins of the Asken settlers that now call Braided Shore their home. The shore between life and death is seen as a realm of passage between the two worlds. Mystics calling themselves “shore walkers'' have dedicated their mortal existence to exploring this uncharted middle-land, risking death, insanity, and perhaps even worse.
In other cultures, such as the Malku Su, death is a completely foreign concept. Malkus believe their race exists as a finite number of eternal spirits. Should their bodies perish, their spirits are carried by lightning to nest with their goddess until a worthy Malku Su family is rewarded with a child. The goddess then chooses one of the nesting spirits to bestow to the newborn, thus perpetuating the journey of the Malku Su Soul. This mysterious circularity has shaped the mentality of the stoic Malku Su for countless generations and drawn awe and wonder from other species.”
More information can be found on the Book of Travels Steam page.
