Sunset over the meadowLisswen Hollow by nightA hazy morningRiding by moonlightMist in the ThornwoodThe Hollow Crypt's gate at nightFire at dusk
An original fantasy online RPG

ALDERVAST

An island held together by broken light. Explore five regions, gather a party, and follow the main story through twelve chapters, from the Unlit Road to the Measure.

Latest release1.14.40The Measure, the story's twelfth chapterWhat's new
Sunset over the meadow
The island

Aldervast is an online role-playing game set on an island of the same name. Long ago the Weavers bound the land together with the Lattice, a web of living light. In the Unweaving that web broke. The Cinder Fall burned the west into black glass, the dead began to walk as the Hollow, and the free towns that survived built the Lantern Compact from the ruins, lighting their lanterns with salvaged Lattice-light.

You wake on the road outside Harrowford with that light in your veins and no memory of the night before. From there the game is yours: a shared world with towns, quests, dungeons and battlegrounds, and a deep build game of skills, sockets, passives and loot underneath it.

A world that moves

Weather, wind and the time of day

Clouds cast shadows as they pass. Rain soaks the ground and gathers in puddles; snow settles on the roofs of Highwatch; storms throw lightning that can set a tree alight. The light follows the hour: golden evenings, red sunsets and a blue twilight, with mist in the hollows and over still water at dawn. At dusk the shutters close and the windows light up, and the long grass bends aside as you walk through it.

Cloud shadows sweeping over Harrowford
Wind gusts rolling through the meadow grass
Banners in a gale

More clips in the gallery

Gallery

From the game

Dusk fires, moonlit rides and night fights in the Thornwood, all taken in the game as it is now.

A hazy morning
A hazy morning
A Thornwood Ogre at night
A Thornwood Ogre at night
Lights across the fields
Lights across the fields
Fire in the grass
Fire in the grass
Night on the meadow
Night on the meadow
Wolves at the crypt gate
Wolves at the crypt gate
Fire at dusk
Fire at dusk
Lisswen Hollow by night
Lisswen Hollow by night
Mist in the Thornwood
Mist in the Thornwood
Listen

Every place sounds like itself

Birdsong over the meadows, the smith's hammer in Harrowford, gulls over Gullhaven's harbour. These are recordings of the game's own sound mix.

A tour of the islandEach region's ambience in turn, recorded from the game. · 1:21
Harrowford at noonVillagers, the smithy and the square. · 0:24
Millbrook at duskEvening on the farms, with the dusk bell. · 0:15
Gullhaven harbourWaves, gulls and the harbour at midday. · 0:29

More sounds of the island

Where it stands

In active development

Aldervast is being built one release at a time; the current release is 1.14.40. Builds are made for Windows and Linux, with dedicated servers for both. Each game build comes as two zip parts: unpack both into the same folder, since the second holds the game's second data pack (aldervast_data2.pck), which it reads in as it starts. You can play on your own (Single Player runs the server inside the game, no connection needed), host a game for friends, or join a dedicated server. New players get a short guide in the game, and the wiki's Getting started page covers the same ground. Its Guides walk through every quest, with where to go for each step.

It is a work in progress, and some of it is rough. Screenshots on this site are taken in the game as it is built and will change as the work goes on. The release history lists what each version added.