Before anything else, I also want to apologize for being a little absent from the community over the past few weeks.

Development completely consumed my time, and I ended up spending much less time talking to everyone than I wanted to. I'm sorry about that, and now that this enormous update is finally out, I'm going to try to be much more active again.

This is, by far, the largest update MORHVAL has received since release!

For the past several weeks, almost all of my development time has gone into expanding, rebuilding, balancing and polishing the game. What started as another large update gradually became something much bigger: an attempt to bring the entire province of Ravenglaire together as one coherent sandbox.

The result is Update 0.7.

This is not going to be a line-by-line changelog. There have simply been too many changes, fixes and smaller adjustments to reasonably list every single one here.

Instead, I want to go through the biggest things that have changed!

The full province of Ravenglaire

Ravenglaire is now a much larger and more varied place.

The playable mask currently contains approximately 862.3 km² of land, divided across three major regions with very different cultures, landscapes, architecture, economies and political conflicts.

The West remains the rougher and poorer frontier of the province: dry country, practical settlements, horses, the Iron Watch, the Black Road and the older institutions that formed the foundation of MORHVAL.

The Northeast is wealthier, greener and considerably more urbanized. It contains larger cities, estates, organized municipal government, primitive firearms, magical engineering, the Artificers' Collegium, the Crown and, most importantly, the provincial capital of Crow's Port.

The Southeast is where many of the Vyleish took refuge.

It is not their ancestral homeland. It is the region where a large Vyleish population found refuge and built communities of their own inside Ravenglaire.

There, they have adapted to mountains, cliffs, terraces and humid forests while preserving their own culture, architecture, beliefs, equipment, magic and way of life.

Across Ravenglaire there are now dozens of cities and settlements, along with a very large number of dungeons, roads, farms, estates, faction locations and wilderness sites.

Six different beginnings

Character creation now offers six origins, spread across the three regions of Ravenglaire.

Your origin affects where you begin, your circumstances, your initial priorities and the life you are stepping into.

A poor Northeastern character does not begin in the same world as a Western farmer.

A Vyleish Cliffrunner begins with a very different relationship to the province than an aristocrat living near the Crown.

Origins also provide an initial Life Goal.

Depending on who you are, you may want to support your family, escape poverty, own a home, prove yourself or pursue another personal objective.

These goals are intended to give your character some direction without becoming a main quest.

And, as always, you can simply ignore them!

Take your mount, choose a direction and leave.

MORHVAL is still a sandbox.

21 joinable factions

One of the largest parts of Update 0.7 is the expansion of the faction system.

There are now 21 joinable organizations and political movements spread across Ravenglaire, ranging from military powers and criminal organizations to magical institutions, civic authorities, religious movements and Vyleish ideological factions.

They are not all trying to accomplish the same thing.

Some fight for territory.

Some fight over religion, culture or political legitimacy.

Some compete through institutions.

Some are attempting to prevent wars rather than win them.

Others are considerably less peaceful.

Faction progression has also become much more meaningful.

At the beginning, you are mostly doing work personally.

As you rise, you can begin teaching or training others, delegating assignments and eventually organizing persistent groups of your own.

At the highest levels, factions can give you influence over events on a much larger scale.

The conflict in the East

One of the biggest changes in 0.7 is the expansion of the political conflict in Eastern Ravenglaire.

On the human side are the Linealists.

The Linealists believe that human political control over the East must be maintained and expanded. They oppose the growth of independent Vyleish political power and can push the region toward direct military domination.

On the Vyleish side, however, there is no single unified response.

Some Vyleish movements believe survival requires negotiation, coexistence and a political settlement.

Others believe that coexistence has failed and that the Vyleish must defend themselves through force, establish territorial control of their own and resist human rule directly.

So the Eastern conflict is not simply "humans versus Vyleish."

There are moderates, radicals, competing philosophies and different possible outcomes.

It is possible to push the region toward peace.

It is also possible to make the conflict much, much worse.

Territorial wars and faction command

Four major powers can fight directly for control of Ravenglaire.

The Iron Watch and Black Road Compact struggle over the West.

In the East, the Linealists and militant Vyleish political forces can escalate their conflict into an actual territorial war.

If you rise far enough inside one of these factions, you can eventually stop being merely another soldier or operative and begin commanding forces yourself.

You can organize troops, issue strategic orders and take part in turn-based battles for territory.

And taking a territory is not simply changing a color on a map.

Cities can respond to who controls them.

Stability can change.

Crime, patrols, institutions, occupation forces and political presence can change with the state of the world.

Eventually, a sufficiently successful faction can attempt to take Crow's Port itself.

Controlling the capital opens the possibility of governing the entire province through policies based on the philosophy of the faction that reached power.

Depending on who you helped, that government can be relatively protective, exploitative, authoritarian or considerably worse.

You can increase security throughout the province.

You can exploit it for profit.

And depending on who you help reach power, you can make decisions with extremely serious consequences for entire populations.

The world now reacts much more to politics

A major goal of this update was making political change something the player can actually notice.

Faction control, local Stability, institutional presence and cultural control are increasingly connected to the physical world.

Organizations can gain or lose local presence.

Cities under occupation can change.

Institutions can disappear from places where they no longer make sense politically or culturally.

Political information is also treated as something your character actually has to learn rather than omniscient knowledge automatically provided by the UI.

The simulation may know exactly who controls a territory.

Your character might not.

This also applies to dialogue and local information. NPCs can now give more useful information about the actual place you are in, available work, institutions and the political situation around them.

Crow's Port

Crow's Port received an enormous amount of work.

The capital is one of the largest settlements in MORHVAL and now has a much stronger identity as the political and economic center of Ravenglaire.

Its districts have been reworked, streets and intersections received major improvements, commercial areas have been expanded, Public Houses and institutions are easier to identify, navigation has been improved and the city map has been rebuilt to be substantially more useful.

Crow's Port now has a much wider range of services and businesses, including multiple functioning banks and other commercial services.

NPC activity, guards, markets, residential areas, shops and institutional presence have also received extensive work.

However, I want to be completely clear about something: Crow's Port is not 100% finished yet.

The city is enormous.

There are still houses without complete interiors, and there may still be inconsistencies in some streets, buildings, services or other parts of the city.

At some point I had to choose between delaying the entire update until every single building in Crow's Port was perfect, or releasing the enormous amount of work that was already finished.

I chose the latter.

Crow's Port is much more complete than before, but I will continue improving it over time.

If you find a house, street, service or part of the city that looks wrong, please tell me.

Pawn shops

A smaller addition, but one that came directly from player feedback: pawn shops are finally spread across several cities in the province.

A special thank you to Dethdagon66 for suggesting them!

I'm not sure if the implementation is exactly what you originally had in mind, so if you try them and think they could be improved or adjusted further, please tell me. I'm completely open to refining them more.

Regional equipment

Equipment received one of the largest content expansions in the entire update.

MORHVAL now contains roughly 540 pieces of equipment, including hundreds of weapons, armor pieces, shields and accessories.

More importantly, equipment is no longer intended to feel like one Western equipment library spread across the entire province.

The West, Northeast and Southeast now have much stronger regional identities.

Western equipment tends to be practical, rough and easier to maintain.

Northeastern equipment is generally more refined, engineered and institutional.

Vyleish equipment makes much heavier use of unusual shapes and materials such as fibre, wood, horn, bone and organic construction.

Faction equipment has also been expanded considerably, so progressing through an organization can give access to equipment associated with that organization rather than simply another generic sword.

A large balancing pass also went through weapons, armor, shields and faction progression so higher-tier equipment should behave much more consistently.

Crafting, upgrades and loot

Crafting has been expanded heavily to support the much larger equipment library.

Regional materials now matter more, and many recipes were revised so that what you use to craft or improve an item actually makes sense for what that item is made from.

There are new materials, new schematics and new crafting opportunities throughout the province.

Equipment upgrades have also been revised.

Weapons, armor and shields can progress through +1, +2 and +3 improvements, with upgrade materials now better reflecting their construction instead of every object following the exact same metallic progression.

Improved equipment can also appear naturally as loot.

Higher-quality rewards can have better chances of producing improved equipment, and merchants may occasionally carry +1 items as well.

The strongest improvements remain much rarer.

Enchanting

Enchanting also received additional work.

More equipment types can participate in the system, including shields and amulets.

Regeneration enchantments now form a proper tiered family rather than being an almost-inert effect.

Re-enchanting has also been made safer.

If you attempt to place a new enchantment on an already enchanted item, the system compares the old and new effects rather than blindly destroying a stronger enchantment.

Magic

Magic expanded considerably, especially outside the traditional Western schools.

The Vyleish now have a much more distinct magical identity built around nature, movement, animals, roots, transformation and the environment.

Vyleish characters also begin with magic that actually belongs to their culture rather than simply receiving Western spells with different flavor text.

The Artificers' Collegium has also expanded its magical-engineering identity, with deployable devices, runes, wards and other applied forms of magic.

The Black Bloom received additional magical content as well, representing a darker and corrupted interpretation of Vyleish nature magic.

Spell presentation has also been improved.

Held magic now has much more visual variety, with spells using forms that better represent what they actually do instead of sharing a handful of generic shapes.

Night-vision effects and several spells that technically worked but behaved unreliably in normal gameplay were also corrected.

Regional animals and ecology

Both Eastern regions received much more distinct wildlife.

The Northeast contains animals suited to plains, agriculture, roads and estates.

The Southeast has stranger creatures adapted to cliffs, wet forests, roots and the unusual ecology surrounding the Vyleish communities there.

Regional animals now participate more naturally in loot, cooking and crafting systems instead of existing purely as scenery.

Caves and dungeons have also been audited so regional wildlife is less likely to be replaced by obviously Western creatures simply because the underlying dungeon generator is shared.

Travel

Travelling across Ravenglaire has changed substantially.

The traditional horse remains central to the West.

The Northeast has access to magical-engineering transports such as the Runic Walker.

The Vyleish use the Rhelk, a climbing mount particularly suited to the extreme slopes of the Southeast.

Regional freight systems have also been expanded.

In addition, there is now a proper coach network connecting a number of major settlements.

Coaches are paid city-to-city travel.

You choose one of the available destinations, see the fare, pay, time advances and you arrive directly at the destination.

There is no need to manually simulate the entire journey.

Cities, houses and interiors

A very large amount of work went into the places where people actually live.

Northeastern cities received major passes on street layouts, intersections, city edges, houses, roofs, doors, interiors and public spaces.

Vyleish communities received extensive structural work to make their terraces, stairs, houses, walkways and cliffside architecture function properly with the terrain.

Many interiors have been revised for better navigation and more believable furniture placement.

Residential buildings, taverns, faction offices and services should also be considerably more reliable to enter and use.

NPC routines received extensive work as well, including population, walking behavior, work schedules, tavern activity and persistence.

Again, this does not mean every building in the province has been individually perfected.

There is still work to do, especially in Crow's Port.

Crime and guards

Crime systems were expanded and corrected across the province.

Witnesses and guards now make better use of jurisdiction and line of sight rather than reacting omnisciently to crimes.

Murder is treated much more seriously than ordinary theft.

Municipal guards have also been expanded in Northeastern cities, with patrols and local authority rather than simply borrowing the Western military structure.

Crime, guards and local activity can also respond to city Stability and political conditions.

Stability

City Stability is now much more deeply connected to the world.

Low Stability can affect crime, institutions, public activity and political conditions.

High Stability supports stronger civic life.

Territorial occupation can also affect Stability over time, creating a stronger relationship between the strategic layer and what is actually happening on the streets.

This system existed in earlier builds, especially in the West, but Update 0.7 greatly expands and connects it across Ravenglaire.

Regional quests and work

A major pass was made on work and contracts.

Regional jobs now make much greater use of regional situations, enemies and locations rather than constantly feeling like the same Western template with different names.

Faction work has also been expanded considerably.

Many organizations that previously existed primarily as political or worldbuilding structures now have much stronger progression and practical activities.

Quest return logic, destinations, faction contacts and several cases where a job could send the player back to an incorrect location were also corrected.

Combat and animation

Combat presentation received another pass.

One-handed weapon attacks were rebuilt to look more like actual swings rather than simple rotations.

Two-handed weapons, firearms and other categories received additional adjustments.

NPC weapon handling was also heavily revised, particularly for newer character models that previously failed to properly move weapons from holsters into their hands.

A large number of human models were replaced or updated during development, with additional work on idle poses, running, weapon handling and death poses.

Creatures received animation fixes as well, including problems that could cause them to freeze, slide, snap between animations or die in bizarre positions.

Maps and navigation

Both city maps and the world map received major work.

Roads are now much more reliably visible when you are actually standing near them.

Political information better respects what your character has learned.

City maps have clearer services and destinations.

Crow's Port received especially large improvements to its city map.

Several travel and arrival systems were also revised to reduce cases of players arriving inside buildings, invalid terrain or areas that were not ready yet.

Hundreds of smaller fixes

On top of all of this, Update 0.7 contains a huge number of smaller fixes and polish changes.

UI screens have been cleaned up.

Controller layouts have been improved.

Loading text has been revised.

Dialogue has been adjusted.

Incorrect materials have been fixed.

Map markers have been corrected.

Shops have been improved.

NPC placement has been repaired.

Signs have been adjusted.

Creature death poses have received work.

Camera problems have been fixed.

World geometry has been repaired.

And many strange edge cases discovered during actual play have been addressed.

A lot of this update was not about simply adding another feature.

It was about making the enormous number of systems already inside MORHVAL work together better.

What happens now?

For the last several weeks, I've been working on MORHVAL at an honestly ridiculous pace.

Update 0.7 is the point where I want to slow that pace down a little.

The game will absolutely continue to receive updates, fixes and new content, but I want future development to be more focused rather than constantly rebuilding enormous parts of the province at once.

I also want to spend more time actually playing the game alongside everyone else!

MORHVAL is a very large sandbox made by one person.

I have spent a huge amount of time testing this update, including automated regression testing and a lot of manual play, but with a game this large I am not going to pretend that every strange interaction has been discovered.

You will probably find something I missed!

If you do, please tell me.

Bug reports, suggestions, weird situations, balance complaints and even small things that simply don't feel right have already directly changed the game.

A surprising amount of Update 0.7 exists because somebody played MORHVAL and said:

"Hey, why doesn't this work like this?"

And sometimes they were absolutely right.

Thank you to everyone who has played MORHVAL, reported something, written a review, posted a screenshot, suggested an idea or simply gave the game a chance.

And again, I'm sorry I've been quieter than I should have been lately.

I'll try to be around much more from now on!

Steam Autumn Sale 2026

Later today, MORHVAL: Ravenglaire will also be joining the Steam Autumn Sale 2026.

During the sale, the game will be 25% off.

So if you've been following MORHVAL but haven't jumped into Ravenglaire yet, later today will be a good opportunity to do it.

The Autumn Sale runs through October 8.

See you in Ravenglaire!