The Savage Frontier of the Sword Coast can be a dangerous place. At the junction of the Long Road and Evermoor Way, the town of Triboar seeks the aid of heroes. Bandits have begun to assail the small town while the citizens are meant to prepare for the Highharvestide Festival...

Highharvestide 4 sees the beginning of Year 4 Events in Idle Champions and the introduction of the savage Minotaur Barbarian bodyguard to Arkhan the Cruel and the third Champion from the Dark Order: Torogar Steelfist!

This event also brings back the loyal Dwarven Battlerager, Thibbledorf Pwent, and the Tiefling Pact of the Fiend Warlock, Farideh. Players have until Monday, October 5th at 12PM Pacific to complete their Highharvestide 4 unlocks and objectives.

For more information about Year 4 Events and how they work, please check out our Year 4 Events Dev Blog.

New Champion: Torogar Steefist

Torogar's Bio

There's savage, and then there's Torogar. Few had even survived a head-to-head match with him before he ran into Arkhan the Cruel. He was known worlds over as an unstoppable brute. Now, as a part of the Dark Order, Torogar leads armies and communes with a god, but he's always down for another one-on-one match.

Torogar's Stats

Race: Minotaur	Alignment: Lawful Evil
Class: Barbarian	Gender: Male
Age: 32	Affiliation: Dark Order

STR: 23	DEX: 17	CON: 14
INT: 8	WIS: 9	CHA: 15

Role: DPS, Support
Eligible for Patrons: Mirt, Vajra
Slot: 10 (Tyril)

Torogar's Formation Abilities

Torogar is a support and DPS Champion who powers up Evil Champions. While blood raging, he increases the damage of the formation significantly, with permanent power-ups that unlock the more you use him. His DPS and buffs increase with his devotion to Tiamat through his Zealot stacks, affecting his Markings of a Zealot & Preach abilities. Initially, Torogar only gets a Zealot stack when he or an adjacent Champion kills an enemy, however, his Word of Tiamat specialization extends this power to all evil Champions.

Torogar is a lynchpin for evil formations, doubling down on the boosts they are already receiving from other Dark Order members — Arkhan the Cruel & Krull — and making them stronger as they push further into the adventure.

For more information on Torogar and his abilities, check out his Champion Spotlight!

Year Four Variants

• An Abyssal Mess — Two Abyssal Chickens start in the formation and every 25 areas, ANOTHER Abyssal Chicken joins the fun. The Abyssal Chickens don't do much, they just like hanging out with you..
  Reach Area 75.


• CONfirmed Sightings — The Resurrected Hero of the Vale appears in area 25 as an additional boss, where you'll need to defeat him. Again. Only Champions with CON of 14 or higher can be used.
  Reach Area 125.


• The Dark Order Arrives — Torogar & Arkhan start in the formation and cannot be moved. Only members of the Dark Order (Torogar, Arkhan, and Krull) can deal damage. All other Champions have their DPS disabled, but their formation abilities are active.
  Reach Area 175.

For information on previous years' variants, check out the Highharvestide 3 blog.

Hey everybody! Justin Stocks, Lead Game Designer for Idle Champions back again with another Dev Blog during our Third Anniversary Celebration Third Anniversary Celebration . This time I want to talk about our next year of events in Idle Champions.



This week will mark the fourth time Highharvestide has come upon us. As we mentioned in our Dev Blog at the end of 2019, we've been planning some changes for Year 4 events for quite a while. While you will still be able to recruit and gear up three unique Champions during the event, including the brand new minotaur Champion Torogar Steelfist, our Year One Champion Stoki will no longer be available to recruit or gear up as part of the event.

We made this change for a number of reasons, but the primary one was to keep events of a fixed, manageable size moving forward. We wanted to avoid overwhelming new players with four (this year), five (next year), six (in Year 6 events), or more new Champions during each event, and the amount of effort required for year three events felt like a good spot to focus in on.



We understand that some players were looking forward to either recruiting or continuing to gear up their year one Champions during the events this year, and with that in mind, we've spent the past year making it easier than ever to recruit and gear up the Champions of your choice through the expanded Time Gate system and Patron chests. With Time Gates you can now pick a Champion from a full list, rather than just three random options, and the rewards have been improved with an additional gold chest and multiple silver chests. The Patron system offers an alternative method of gearing up event Champions via the Patron chests, which can contain gear for any Champions that meets the Patron's restrictions.

Moving forward players can expect us to, as always, monitor player feedback regarding these adjustments. We have already made some small changes based on community feedback, such as always offering at least one year one Champion during free weekend Time Gates.

We hope you enjoy Torogar and all of the other Champions coming your way in our Year 4 events. Thanks again for helping to make Idle Champions the great success it has been.

Feedback Wanted!

We know that this choice will not be popular with all players, but we always appreciate your feedback, so please let us know what you think in a Community Q&A or feedback post on the Idle Champions Subreddit, a post on the Steam forums, or on the Official Idle Champions Discord!

"A colossal dragon's skull leans against a mountainside, surrounded by bones the size of houses. Acrid smoke rises from the skull's maw. A military tent has been pitched among the bones, and parked next to it is a Devil's Ride belonging to Torogar Steelfist, the savage minotaur bodyguard of Arkhan the Cruel."

You may recognize Torogar from Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus or from some of the awesome art posted online. Let's dive right in and see how this raging minotaur shapes up, shall we?

I. Torogar Steelfist

There's savage, and then there's Torogar. Few had even survived a head-to-head match with him before he ran into Arkhan the Cruel. He was known worlds over as an unstoppable brute. Now, as a part of the Dark Order, Torogar leads armies and communes with a god, but he's always down for another one-on-one match.

II. Torogar's Stats

Race: Minotaur	Alignment: Lawful Evil
Class: Barbarian	Gender: Male
Age: 32	Affiliation: Dark Order

STR: 23	DEX: 17	CON: 14
INT: 8	WIS: 9	CHA: 15

Role: DPS, Support
Eligible for Patrons: Mirt, Vajra
Slot: 10, (Tyril)

III. Torogar's Design

When it came to designing Torogar, we were lucky to have the direct assistance of his creator, Joe Manganiello. Joe really helped us to distill down the essence of who Torogar is, what his relationship is like with Arkhan the Cruel, and more importantly, how Torogar and the Dark Order operate.

To start, we knew when introducing Krull last year, that Torogar and the Dark Order would be coming to Idle Champions. With the release of Torogar, Arkhan & Krull will gain the Dark Order affiliation, as well as a new Dark Order Synergy ability for both. Get ready, Champions. The Dark Order has arrived!

Torogar is a lynchpin for evil formations, doubling down on the boosts they are already receiving from other Dark Order members and making them stronger as they push further into the adventure.

Torogar's DPS and buffs increase with his devotion to Tiamat through his Zealot stacks affecting his Markings of a Zealot & Preach abilities. Initially, Torogar only gets a Zealot stack when he or an adjacent Champion kills an enemy his Word of Tiamat specialization extends this power to all evil Champions.

Now that his design has come together, Torogar is a support and DPS Champion who powers up Evil Champions. While blood raging, he increases the damage of the formation significantly, with permanent power-ups that unlock the more you use him. Torogar is potent in formations focused on evil Champions and is especially powerful when combined with Arkhan the Cruel & Krull. When you want to add Torogar to your formation, you can swap him with Tyril (Slot 10).

IV. Torogar's Abilities

Basic Attack

• Fiery Longswords — Torogar inflames his golden blades and then attacks the nearest enemy.

Formation Abilities

• Markings of a Zealot — Whenever Torogar or an adjacent Champion kills an enemy, Torogar gains a Zealot stack. Torogar's Damage is increased by 0.01% for each Zealot stack he has collected (additive), and stacks persist through resets. This damage bonus is increased by 100% when Blood Rage is active. At various Zealot stack thresholds, the Blood Rage increase is buffed. These buffs apply multiplicatively.


• Preach — Increase the damage of all other evil Champions by 0.01% for each Zealot stack Torogar has (additive).


• Dark Order Synergy — The effect of Preach is increased by 100% for each Dark Order member adjacent to Torogar (multiplicative). While Blood Rage is active, this ability is increased by 100%. At various Zealot stack thresholds, the Blood Rage increase is buffed.

Note: We have also added Dark Order Affliations and Synergies for Arkhan the Cruel and Krull.
• Arkhan the Cruel — Arkhan's Normal Attack Cooldown is decreased by 0.5 seconds for each other Dark Order member in the formation.
• Krull — The effect of Krull's Arkhan's Army ability is increased by 100% (multiplicative) for each Dark Order member adjacent to Krull.


• Blood Rage — Whenever Torogar's Zealot stacks reach a multiple of 50, Torogar enters a Blood Rage for 30 seconds. While Blood Rage is active, enemies damaged but not killed by Torogar gain a Mark of Tiamat debuff. Enemies with a Mark of Tiamat take 300% additional damage. Enemies cannot gain a Mark of Tiamat twice. Once Torogar's Zealot stacks reach the thresholds noted below, the listed effect will also activate when Blood Rage is active. Triggering Blood Rage while it's already active resets the duration.
• 250: Whenever an enemy gains a Mark of Tiamat, they are stunned for 2 seconds.
• 2,500: Torogar adds a small AOE to his base attack at 50% of his damage. This AOE attack can trigger multiple Mark of Tiamat debuffs from one attack.
• 25,000: Enemies with a Mark of Tiamat attack 1 second slower.
• 250,000: Torogar reduces his base attack cooldown by 1 second.
• 2,500,000: The damage bonus from Mark of Tiamat is increased by 200%.

Specializations

• Tiamat's Word — Torogar now also gains a Zealot stack when any evil Champion kills an enemy (not just Champions adjacent to Torogar). Only one stack can be gained per kill, so an evil Champion next to Torogar still only counts once.


• Tiamat's Rage — The duration of Torogar's Blood Rage is extended by 15 seconds, and it automatically triggers after using Torogar's ultimate.

Ultimate Ability

Bull Rush — Torogar lowers his head and rushes at an enemy in the back, leaving a trail of fire in his wake. Enemies who are rushed through, or who walk through the remaining fire take damage. If the Tiamat's Rage specialization is chosen, Torogar triggers Blood Rage when he returns to the formation regardless of the number of Zealot stacks, or reset the duration if Blood Rage is already active.

V. Torogar's Equipment

Slot 1: Global DPS	Slot 2: Self DPS	Slot 3: Markings of a Zealot
Slot 4: Preach	Slot 5: Dark Order Synergy	Slot 6: Ultimate Cooldown

VI. Conclusion

We've been wanting to include Torogar in Idle Champions since the very first time we set our eyes on his character art, and we're excited to have had another chance to work with Joe to bring this badass Minotaur to life and to debut the Dark Order in Idle Champions! We hope you like him!

Feel free to send us feedback on via the Idle Champions Subreddit, Steam forum, or the Idle Champions Discord!

We introduce ourselves to Red Ruth as our trip through Avernus takes a decidedly more dangerous turn...

Note: you will need to have completed the previous two Descent into Avernus Adventures, The Path of Dreams and The Lost Hollyphant, in order to access these new Adventures.

The Wandering Emporium

We introduce ourselves to Red Ruth, who demands a favor before she'll help us...

• Variant: Madcap Adventures Redux —The Madcaps are back! Madcaps arrive in each area. If a Madcap deals damage to a Champion, another Madcap immediately spawns (bloodspawned). The bloodspawned Madcaps do not drop gold or count towards quest progress. Each time a Madcap is bloodspawned, Champion damage is reduced by 99% for 3 seconds.
  Reach area 400.

Tiamat's Army

It's time to pay a visit to Arkhan's Dragon Queen and meet Arkhan's minotaur bodyguard Torogar...

• Variant: Show of Strength — Only Champions with STR of 16 or higher can be used.
  Reach area 425.

See the in-game Change Log for more information, including a full list of changes and fixes included in this update.

Hey everyone. I'm Justin Stocks, the Lead Game Designer for Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. In the lead-up to our Third Anniversary Celebration, I wanted to take a few minutes to look back over everything we've accomplished in the last year...

Fall 2019

September 2019: Patron System (part of the Y2 anniversary)

We kicked off our third year with a bang, adding the Patron System, which allows players to replay variants and free plays with additional restrictions to earn unique rewards and powerful perks. While we started out with just two patrons and a handful of rewards, we have since expanded the system with a third patron (Strahd von Zarovich) and numerous additional rewards for purchase, such as familiars, skins, and sought-after modron component chests. We plan to continue to expand on the system with additional patrons, store items, and perks, including some new skins during the upcoming Anniversary Celebration!

October 2019: New Campaign (Descent Into Avernus)

October saw the release of our fourth permanent campaign: Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus. This fiendish campaign has been expanded upon multiple times over the year and will continue to get updates moving forward. This update also managed to sneak in an update to our in-game effects descriptions, helping players to better understand how their formation abilities interact with each other. Usually.

Winter 2020

New Year's Day 2020: New Evergreen Champion (Dragonbait)

The new year brought about another Evergreen Champion to join the ranks of Hitch, Drizzt, and Azaka. Dragonbait was a challenging unlock from a variant of the final adventure in the Tomb of Annihilation campaign, and while he is still trying to make a name for himself in a very competitive bench slot, he's nevertheless a highly sought-after saurial.

January 2020: Updated Time Gates & Offline Progress

The new year brought exciting new updates, many of which were included out in our Idle Champions in 2020 dev blog at the end of December last year. The first of which was an expanded Time Gate System. Gone were the days of gambling six time gate pieces and hoping you got a Champion that you liked. Now you could pick precisely the Champion you wanted to gear up or recruit, and the time gates themselves were made more lucrative, with up to three gold chests and numerous silver chests up for grabs. Players flocked to earn Mystra's favor and recruiting and gearing up missed event Champions became easier than ever before. And at the end of the month, Offline Progress arrived, allowing players to continue to progress during their adventures even while logged out!

Spring 2020

March 2020: Spring Extravaganza with Updated Formation Saves

The first of our 2020 seasonal events, the Spring Extravaganza, brought with it a week of free rewards, including an awesome Champion skin, but more importantly a revamped formation save system. Instead of being limited to only three formations per campaign, players could now save up to 50 formations with customizable names, and their formation saves now included familiar placements as well as Champions. Getting back up to speed after a reset had never been more convenient.

March 2020: Leaving Early Access on Steam

As a personal milestone for us at Codename, in March we also left early access on Steam. This was a big moment as it meant that Idle Champions had finally reached a point where we felt it was deserving of a full release, with features such as the Patron System really fleshing out the replayability of the existing content.

Summer 2020

July 2020: Summer Spectacular with Modron Automation & Multi-Party Play

The Summer Spectacular at the end of July was host to the game's largest evolution yet: Modron Automation & Multi-Party Play. These two new systems combined to add incredible new depth to the game. With two adventuring parties running at the same time players had to dust off several underutilized Champions to fill every slot, a trend which will continue as additional adventuring parties are made available over the next year or two.

With Modron Automation we started to put the "Idle" back "Idle Champions", letting players set up their adventuring parties to reset automatically, fill the formation automatically, and farm gems and favor to their heart's content. Finally, the Modron Components mini-game added some new strategy to the game for folks who couldn't get enough of the pipe mini-game in Bioshock or the latest Spiderman PS4 game.

August 2020: New Focus on Bugs & Performance

Modron Automation and Multi-Party Play was a big tech investment for us, and resulted in an unacceptable backlog of bugs and unoptimized code. In August we refocused our attention on bugs and performance with the addition of our public-facing bug report system. Through the month we managed to track down several memory leaks and patch them up, leading to a noticeable improvement in stability and performance. As no more major features (on the scale of Modron Automation) are planned for 2020, we will continue to iterate on these improvements and fix bugs as quickly as we can.

August 2020: Finished Waterdeep: Dragon Heist Campaign & New Evergreen Champion (Ulkoria)

Most recently we released the final adventures of the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist campaign and included alongside them our fifth Evergreen Champion: the reclusive mage, Ulkoria Stonemarrow. Ulkoria is a magic specialist who can do some incredibly powerful things for a full formation of spellcasters. While her full potential hasn't yet been released, future Champion releases will no doubt add to her repertoire and increase her play.

Third Anniversary & Beyond: The Future

So what does the future look like for Idle Champions? It's bright! While we don't plan to release any major features in the next few months, we do have a new campaign on the horizon. You can also expect us to continue with bug fixes and performance enhancements. We also intend to continue to iterate on the offline progress system, which runs your background parties during multi-party play and should result in speed improvements to everyone's progression, especially if your background party is farming gems.

Seeking rest and respite from a year of adventure, the Champions arrive in the tranquil town of Longsaddle - only to find it under siege!

Drow from the Underdark are on the hunt in Longsaddle for a Harpell artifact, and it's a race against time to find it before they do...

Brightswords 3 introduces Lazaapz, the Goblin Armorer Artificer, and brings back returning Champions Turiel, the Aasimar Cleric and Wulfgar, Human Barbarian and member of the Companions of the Hall. Players will have until Monday, September 14th, 2020 at 12:00PM PDT, to complete event objectives!

Year Three Champion: Lazaapz

Born in The Cogs beneath Sharn's Lower City, Lazaapz's remarkable intellect elevated her to the Tradefair district, where her mechanical genius became highly sought after by the Dragonmarked Houses. Lazaapz's first invention was a functional mechanical arm to replace the one she was born without; now she leads an elite team of engineers in cutting edge research and development.

Following the discovery of a mysterious Eldritch Machine, Lazaapz was brought in by House Cannith to ascertain the purpose of the device. Shortly after, both Lazaapz and the machine disappeared, never to be seen again.

Lazaapz is a Tank and Support Champion who buffs other small-sized Champions with her Fury of the Small ability. She wears a suit of custom mechanized Power Armor that powers up her abilities and attacks, granting improved bonuses and additional attacks that debilitate enemies while she is under attack. When you want to add Lazaapz to your formation, you can swap her with Makos (Slot 9).

For more information about our Lazaapz, check out the Idle Champion Spotlight: Lazaapz dev blog!

Year Two Champion: Turiel

Wherever the aasimar known as Turiel goes, devils and demons know to tread lightly. Acting on orders of their divine patron, Bahamut, Turiel works tirelessly to bring law, order, and justice to Toril. When not busy with inquisitions or crusades, Turiel calls the endless libraries of Candlekeep their home, studying ancient tomes and seeking guidance for their next holy mission.

Turiel Supports from the front of the formation, with his Embodiment of the Law greatly increasing the damage of Champions the further they are behind him. When you want to add Turiel to your formation, you can swap him with Bruenor (Slot 1).

For more information about our Turiel, check out the Idle Champion Spotlight: Turiel dev blog!

Year One Champion: Wulfgar

Wulfgar started his life in the north as the flag bearer of the barbarian Tribe of the Elk. He was bested in the assault on Ten-Towns by Bruenor Battlehammer, who decided his punishment would be five years and a day of service. Bruenor grew to love the tall barbarian, eventually seeing him as an adopted son. At the end of his service, Drizzt Do'Urden to taught Wulfgar the ways of combat and Bruenor crafted for him a mighty warhammer, named Aegis-fang. This magical warhammer bears the symbols of three of the Dwarven Gods: Moradin, Clangeddin, and Dumathoin. It is specifically attuned to Wulfgar and magically returns to his hand upon telepathic command.

Wulfgar deals AOE damage that stuns and deals additional damage to armored and stunned enemies. He has additional abilities for each other Companion of the Hall present. When you want to add Wulfgar, Son of Beornegar to your party, you can swap him with Tyril (Slot 10).

For more information about about Wulfgar, check out his Idle Champion Spotlight: Wulfgar dev blog!

Year Three Variants

• Lolth's Army — Drow Fighters attempt to stop us from thwarting their plan. Whenever you kill any drow enemy, Lolth grows angry and tracks your transgressions. For each drow killed during this adventure, the damage and movement speed of each drow enemy goes up by 0.1% (Additively)
  Reach area 75.


• I Got This...? — Only Champions with INT 14 or lower can be used can be used.
  Reach area 125.


• Short Force Leader — A roving band of Ogres have joined the adventure! Let's show 'em what Lazaapz and her crew can do! Lazaapz starts in the formation. She cannot be moved. Champions in the two columns behind Lazaapz count as a small race for the purposes of Lazaapz' Fury of the Small. Everyone's smaller than an ogre, right?!
  Reach area 175.

Year Two Variants

• Hearty Constitution — Only Champions with a Constitution (CON) score of 14 or higher can be used.
  Reach area 75.


• Army of Bahamut — Turiel starts out in slot 1 and can't be moved or replaced. Only Lawful or Good Champions can be used.
  Reach area 125.


• DPS's Day Off — No Champions with the DPS role can be used.
  Reach area 175.

Year One Variants

• Little Eyes are Lurking — A pair of Quasits have infiltrated your party, taking up two slots in the formation and causing chaos, making it difficult to work as a team. Every 25 areas they switch positions.
  Reach area 75.


• Father and Son — Wulfgar and Bruenor have set off alone, on an adventure to catch up after some lost time. Only Bruenor and Wulfgar are available, and both start in your formation. Their damage and cooldowns are dramatically improved.
  Reach area 125.


• Lolth's Domain — All Drow have the blessing of Lolth. Enemies gain armor and bosses gain additional armor.
  Reach area 175.

See the in-game FAQ for more information!