About 5 — Menno van der Heijden - Game Designer and Writer

Black Legend

Black Legend is a Turn Based Strategy Role Playing Game Developed by Warcave in Unreal Engine 4. It is my second professional project and the first time as Director.

Black Legend tells the tale of an accursed city inspired by the 17th century Low Lands. A mad alchemist has enveloped the city in a toxic fog and your group of Mercenaries have been sent to liberate it.

Premise

Concept Art for a plaza in the city of Grant.

Black Legend was my first project where I was involved from the start. As the only Designer, I took up the position of Writer, Lead Design and Director upon myself.

The intention of Black Legend was inspired by the Witcher series. Through their games, they managed to promote Slavic folklore and culture to the rest of the world. Our Lead Artist and I were both Dutch and were big fans of the Efteling, a themepark in the Netherlands where Dutch and Belgian fairy tales and folklore is presented through rides and attractions.

For the story, we wanted to show instead of tell, much like how Dark Souls handles it’s story. The goal was to create a world that captured the Golden Age of the Netherlands and unite fantasy and history in subtle manners.

The name “Grant” was created as a union of three major Belgian cities: Ghent, Bruges and Antwerp. With it came the city’s motto: “Grant us our wish.”, to be spoken by merchants and traders as hope for good mutual tidings when making a deal.

The city itself would also be a hotspot for Alchemy, one of the major themes of Black Legend. Operating under a “what if” scenario, Alchemy is a veritable and established science in the world of Black Legend.

The City of Grant

Fog of War

Wealth and neutrality are a sore subject in times of war. This quickly became the reason for Grant’s imminent demise.

Two neighbouring nations would enter a war, with the wealthy city-state of Grant being caught in the middle. To prevent being ransacked, a powerful Alchemist by the name of Mephisto would brew a beer that produced a toxic fog that drove everyone without the antidote mad.

Here I wanted to use Belgium’s love for beer as part of the plot to spread it’s cultural significance. Mephisto is a clear reference to the tale of Faust, the infamous Alchemist who traded his souls for knowledge. In this case, it’s a city that trades it’s sanity for the protection of it’s wealth.

Mephisto isn’t a true villain in the sense of the word. They simply vanished one day, leaving the people without antidote eventually and causing utter pandemonium in the streets as a result. While they are responsible, it’s not immediately clear that this was done with ill motives. In fact, one of the major plot twists is that the player’s main character is Mephisto who has returned to solve the issue.

I wanted to ask the question of punishment and responsibility here. Does fixing your issue afterwards absolve you of your sins? In our society we punish criminals, but rarely does it make up for the crimes they’ve committed.

Mephisto has transcended gender as an Alchemist, something players can discover in the lore as some characters will mix between “he” and “she” when referring to them as a person. In Alchemy, there’s the concept of “union of opposites”, something I found quite fascinating and opted to use as a way to naturally add a non-binary character without making it feel forced.

A Mad Villain

A potential player character, and thus the possible look of Mephisto.

History

Grutte Pier, a Frisian folk hero who inspired Grand Piers, one of Black Legend’s most iconic bosses.

To create Grant and the world, I looked at both History and Folklore to flesh out the lore.

For characters, all major bosses are based on real Dutch and Belgian historical figures. It then became a matter of linking these people to a specific Alchemical catalyst from the gameplay side of things. Four major bosses for four major catalysts.

Christiaan Huygens would become a Naval Officer of Grant and represented Crimson.

Grand Piers (Grutte Pier) was leader of the military might and upheld justice. He represented Silver.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek would oversee science and Alchemy. He was represented by Bronze.

Benedict Baruch would oversee city expansion and serve as the final boss of the story and has the theme of Gold.

All these bosses had their own backstories, told through item descriptions and NPC interactions for the player to find. This gives them personality before they got corrupted by the toxic fog that blankets the streets.

Folklore made up the second half of Black Legend’s source of inspiration. By diving deep into folk stories we managed to find a plethora of tales to gain new ideas for stories and lore in the city.

Entities like Nekkers, White Wives and Old Red Eyes are all implemented in some way in the game.

Their spotlight was mainly given through sidequests for the player to delve into.

Folklore

Old Red Eyes was said to be a very special type of Nekker. It could shift between flesh and smoke, and was ultimately killed and separated from his skin in the folk tale. Both body and skin were then buried separately.

Items

Lord Halewijn wielding his iconic sword, based on an Executioner’s Blade.

Nearly all items in the game are based on real-life counterparts, with some exceptions in the “Ultimate” weapons, each of which holds their own bit of lore.

Every description and placement of these items in the context of the story was written by me, insinuating certain links between items and events.

By reading through the item description, a lot of lore is highlighted for the city, giving players more of an incentive to seek it out.

Besides Item descriptions, Grant has a few civilians left, each with their own personality. I was given assistance from the VAF by assigning Jedidjah Julia Noomen to aid me in writing unique dialogue for every character.

In the end, I received enough feedback to both write their voicelines as well as select and direct the voice actors to deliver their lines in an immersive and satisfying way.