I’ve always had a passion for 3D Design, history and fantasy, and Ashes of Empire combines all these aspects with Games Design. Through this project I have produced a series of stylised low poly assets and a character design intended for use in a game, one which I hope to realise after graduating. Narrative within design aesthetics is one of the most important things for me in games design. Thus Ashes of Empire is a project that aims to show my skills and knowledge, whilst being informed by a narrative framework.

All assets and textures were made in Blender.

Set in the aftermath of imperial collapse, the once indomitable Uridian Empire is no more, it’s heart torn out in a tide of blood, and it’s corpse divided by warlords and petty tyrants each crying true successor whilst bloodying their rivals. Once might holdfasts of civilisation have become shallow ruins; beautiful edifices marred by the passage of time, and their bones become home to the lost and the vagrant, each trying to eke out a meagre existence in this dark age.

Within the refuse of bygone glories wanders Mariax Thalocar. Warrior, vagabond, he is no longer counted among those Imperial warriors whose number were once emblematic of high glory. He is a flickering ember guttering against the winds of barbarism, haunted by the deeds survival has forced upon his hands, and the deaths that have marked the long years since the Fall.

So it would have been, until the noble ember were no more. Yet whether by the hands of fate, or the whims of silent and uncaring god, Thalocar stumbled upon a youth on the road. Hunted by the an aging warlord with deranged machinations for immortality, Mariax took the boy under his protection, bringing his sword to bare upon the youth’s pursuers, and in so doing silencing the ghosts of past misdeeds.