Grim Dawn Grim Misadventures #118
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The Coven of Ugdenbog is one of four new factions in the upcoming expansion for Crate Entertainment's action-RPG Grim Dawn. It is the subject of the latest installment of Grim Misadventures, the ongoing series of Grim Dawn's development updates. Apart from the Coven's, appropriately grim, backstory, the update also introduces Beasts as a new hostile faction.
Here's an excerpt:
The Coven’s history reaches back several decades, when they were but a select group of powerful witches and warlocks, bound together by the pursuit of power and not from any semblance of loyalty or self-preservation. Together, they performed rituals that bent the laws of reality and reached for the gates of the eldritch realm itself. Their indifference for the rest of humanity naturally attracted the attention of the authorities, and the Coven found itself pursued by the Luminari inquisitors.
Forced to flee the confines of the empire, the Coven desperately evaded their pursuers, though not always without casualties. Jealously protective of their eldritch discoveries, the Coven never recruited new members, and the Luminari took their toll upon their numbers. Within a few years, all that remained of them were eight women. Beaten down and desperate, they reached the edges of Ugdenbog. None of them hesitated to enter the dreadful land before them. Even this seemed better than to be discovered once more by whom they called the Runesigned.
Ugdenbog proved to be the sanctuary they sought. For months, they did not sense even a hint of their pursuers. It seemed almost too fortunate. They could not shake the feeling that there was more at play within Ugdenbog. There was an aura to Ugdenbog that none of them could quite explain. Why is it that a place seemingly abandoned by humanity could emanate with such a dark aura? But the Coven were seekers of power and they could not simply leave such a mystery unanswered. Once they had secured a dwelling for themselves, the struggling witches began to explore their surroundings.
It was a witch named Rugia that first stumbled upon an overgrown altar hidden away deep within the bog. The raw arcane energies emanating from it were palpable. The witches gathered in unison, eager to dissect the secrets of the altar. Progress was slow at first as the magic within the altar was strange to the witches, ancient in origin and unlike any they had learned while living within Erulan. But gradually, over many years, they peeled back the layers of secrets within the altar, even learning some of its origins. It was known as the Altar of Rattosh, hailing from the forgotten Arkovian Empire, and it could pierce the veil between realities.
[...]
To this day, the Coven of Ugdenbog had not been visited by the deadly Luminari. Perhaps the aura of the bog had shrouded them from discovery, or perhaps their blunted desires had made them unworthy of further pursuit. Whatever the case, they felt fortunate to have been, at last, left alone.
Yet, with the devastation of Cairn during the Grim Dawn, much has changed in a very short time. Will the Coven manage to remain secret? Or will dark tidings force them to reveal themselves to the world? You will have to find out for yourself.
The Coven of Ugdenbog is just one of four new factions coming your way with the expansion, and that’s not including the addition of Beasts as an official hostile faction. Will you greet these new groups with hostility? Or perhaps you will find that you need each other to survive the challenges of Cairn and any disagreements must be set aside?
