Companions are people, not possessions
Additional companions can join where the world allows. They can have opinions, loyalties, goals and limits that differ from your player characters.
People with their own lives
Earn trust. Leave an impression.
Meet autonomous companions and NPCs with memory, loyalties, private knowledge and reasons of their own.
What this means for your play
Choices with practical meaning.
The people around your party are not disposable dialogue. Friendships, rivalries, misunderstandings and alliances become part of your continuing campaign.
Memory changes future encounters
Help, betrayal, promises and failures can affect trust later. Returning to a person means meeting someone with a shared history.
Knowledge is not universal
A witness, a rumour and a verified discovery are different things. NPCs do not automatically know what only your party saw.
The world does not wait for your turn
People can pursue work, obligations and interests elsewhere. You enter their lives rather than bringing them into existence only when needed.
In depth
How it works.
Read the part that interests you. Each capability connects to your party and the continuing world.
Your party can become larger than the characters you created.
Persistent companions can join the journey where the world and campaign allow them.
- Companions are not disposable combat tokens.
- They are characters in the world.
- They can have:
- Their own abilities.
- Their own knowledge.
- Their own relationships.
- Their own opinions.
- Their own progression.
- Their own history.
- Their own reasons for travelling with you.
- Their own reactions to what your party does.
A companion can become part of your campaign history rather than simply another slot on a combat screen.
The world does not wait for your party to speak.
VERIDIAN's NPCs are autonomous. They are not extensions of the player. They can exist, act, remember, form relationships, hold opinions and react to previous events.
- The game can distinguish between:
- What the world knows.
- What your characters know.
- What an NPC knows.
- What another NPC knows.
- What is rumour.
- What is verified.
- What remains secret.
- What has been forgotten.
- What was never discovered.
An NPC should not know something merely because the narrator knows it. Knowledge belongs to characters and the world.
People can become part of your history.
Relationships are persistent. A character you meet early in the campaign can matter much later.
- Friendships can grow.
- Trust can be lost.
- Rivals can develop.
- Allies can return.
- Enemies can remember.
Romantic, professional, political, personal and faction relationships can all become part of character history where appropriate. The world is built around recurring people rather than disposable encounters.
Characters remember what happened between you.
NPCs can retain memory of previous interactions and world events.
- They can react differently because of:
- What your party did.
- What one specific character did.
- What they were told.
- What they witnessed.
- What they believe.
- What they know about your reputation.
- What faction you supported.
- What promises were kept.
- What promises were broken.
- Memory creates continuity.
Knowing something is itself a game state.
VERIDIAN distinguishes between objective world truth and character knowledge. An NPC can know something your party does not. Your party can know something a settlement does not.
- A secret can remain secret.
- A rumour can remain uncertain.
- A discovery can change what characters understand.
Information can travel through the world rather than instantly appearing in everyone's mind.
A concrete example
A promise can outlive the mission.
An illustrative situation: your party agrees to help a local craftsperson but pursues another urgent lead first. The delay can matter to that person’s plans and trust. A later meeting begins from what happened, not from a reset greeting or a newly invented friendship.
Keep exploring
See what this connects to.
A discovery, relationship or capability can create new choices elsewhere in the game.
Influence and belonging
Join a world of competing interests.
Find your place among guilds, factions, civic powers and religious institutions with interests beyond your party.
Read the full guide →
A campaign that becomes yours
Live with what your party changes.
Follow authored missions, pursue your own goals and build a long history of achievements, setbacks and consequences.
Read the full guide →Continue in VISINVOKE
Your party.
Your world. Your history.
Create a free VISINVOKE account and review VERIDIAN access in your account. Build a party whose choices leave a lasting place in the world.
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