The World of Calem
By the developer
Calem is coming apart, and you are the reason.
The world sits under a skin called the Veil. Thirty places hold it down. Twenty nine of them are hunting zones, from Verdant Hollow at level 1 to Dragon Sanctum at level 50. The thirtieth is The Sanctuary, the safe hub near your starting zone.
Each hunting zone has an anchor. Each anchor has something guarding it.
The defenders
Kill enough in a zone and a raid doorway tears open. The game tells you why: "Your slaughter has drawn the zone's true defender." You go in alone. On the other side is the thing that has kept that zone in one piece.
In Verdant Hollow that is the Overgrown Forest Monarch. In the Forsaken Temple it is the Void Hell Pontiff. At the far end of the map, in Dragon Sanctum, it is the Ancient Chromatic Dragon King. There are 29 of them. I counted the banner art twice.
You kill it for a chance at pieces of your class's mythic set. The zone pays for that.
What happens next
The moment a defender dies, that zone's Drift unlocks. The game says it plainly on a locked zone: "Locked: defeat the raid boss to unlock."
In the story, this is the anchor coming loose. The zone slides half a step off true. Turn the Drift on and you are standing in the same forest you leveled in, except the colors are sick, the rats have too many teeth, and three creatures you have never seen are hunting you.
That is Verdant Hollow before. The hero image at the top of this page is Verdant Hollow after.
All 29 hunting zones have a corrupted version. The Drift has its own monster names and abilities, its own loot lines, and a material you cannot get anywhere else: Drift Shards. It is also where the game gets hard.
The one place it cannot reach
The Sanctuary's description in the code reads: "A magical refuge protected by ancient wards. No monsters dare enter here." It has no raid boss, so it has no Drift. My version of why: its anchor is the wards themselves, and nobody has to guard them.
This is where you come back to forge Drift Shards into runes, sell on the Auction House and get ready to go break something else.
Where to read next
The lore is split up so you can read the part you care about.
- The Drift: what corruption does to a zone, its monsters and you.
- Names of the Corrupted: the prefixes, and the 87 creatures that only live in the Drift.
- Realm Atlas: all 29 zones with their Drift lines.
- Bestiary: the 29 defenders.
- The Last Zones: levels 41 to 50, with elite and named Drift creatures.
- Shards and Runes: the only stat growth that comes from the Drift.
- Class Orders: the seven classes and their raid sets.
FAQ
Is the lore in the game? The zone text, monster names, Drift lines and raid lines are all in the game. The anchors, the Veil and the defenders' backstories are my writing on top of that. I mark which is which on every page.
How long until I see the Drift? As soon as you kill your first raid boss. Verdant Hollow's is the earliest.
Is it solo? Yes. Raids, Drift, all of it.
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