That's right, it's Cyril and Methodius Day, February 14 - the day each year when we celebrate language and learning for everyone around the world to take part in!

It's an excellent day to tell the linguists in your life that you appreciate them, to learn a language, read a book, recommend one to a friend, invent an alphabet, or more things besides. We hope you'll join us for some of that - and do let anyone else know who might be interested. Have a brilliant and learned day!

Election Results

The regular annual Exilian elections for core volunteer staff positions have happened, and our new committee has been duly elected as follows.

Regularly Elected Staff

Jubal (FIF) re-elected unopposed as Basileus, 7 votes to 0 with 1 abstention
Tusky (Ind) re-elected unopposed as Sebastokrator, 7 votes to 0 with 1 abstention
The Seamstress elected unopposed as Spatharios, 8 votes to 0 with 0 abstentions
Spritelady (Ind) re-elected unopposed as Tribounos, 7 votes to 0 with 1 abstention

Ratification of Permanent Staff

Jubal (FIF) ratified as Megadux, 8 votes to 0 with 0 abstentions
Glaurung (Ind) ratified as Sakellarios, 7 votes to 0 with 1 abstention

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Thanks to everyone who voted and to all our staff: the next regular elections will be in January 2027. There are still vacancies for staff members, for both content creation and technical matters, and we welcome volunteers for these posts.

EDITORIAL & COMMUNITY NEWS

Welcome to Updates from the Forge 60, for Winter/New Year 2026!

We've had plenty happening across the community as ever. Besides regular events like our monthly online meetups, we also had a new article out in our articles section with Jubal interviewing Matthew James Jones, author of the brutal fantasy-realism Predators, Reapers and Deadlier Creatures which draws on the author's own experiences to give a surreal viewpoint on the rise of drone warfare in Afghanistan. There's also still time to sign up for Coding Medieval Worlds, our annual workshop on game dev and medieval history, so do check that out too.

As usual, thanks for bearing with us with the perennial lateness of these issues. We run Exilian with a very small group of volunteers, and that inevitably leads to certain elements of our work slowing down when people face unexpected challenges or need to catch up with things. Some of the things we'd often cover in a winter issue are also delayed at present, but do keep an eye out for news of our winter competition and election results in the next week or two. We'll also hopefully soon be doing some new calls for volunteers, so if you could help out a community like ours, stay tuned for that.

And now, onto the updates!

CONTENTS:

• Editorial & Community News
  
• Game Development
  
  • Minerva Labyrinth Released
  • Resonance
  • Updates from Kavis
• Arts & Writing
  
  • Space Dragons Kickstarter Success
  • The Earthwitch Returns
  • The Boar of the Gods
• Miscellany
  
  • Painting with SOTK
  • Stardews and Seamstresses

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In our first headline of this last quarter, Minerva Labyrinth by Midnight Spire Games has been released! The game gives the player a group of protagonists who must work as a team to face down the strange horror known as the Hate. In a mid-sized city in the southeastern USA, a few decades from now, your magical-girl style transforming warriors must enter into increasingly strange and twisted labyrinthine environments to battle the terrors that lie within. The game is graphically 2D, and built in Godot.

The gameplay focuses on a tactical, turn-based combat system, with a six-person party and a two-row formation system that gives the player a wide range of possible tactical configurations and options to try out throughout the game. Classic pixel-style graphics and palettes, along with a driving, computer-feel original soundtrack all give a certain retro-futuristic feel to the affair, with bold enemy designs that play into the possibilities of a more stylised medium.

You can get the game on Steam or Itch and test yourself against the labyrinths within - why not take a look?

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Jubal has started a new modding project! Resonance is his first foray into making mods for Skyrim, and promises a new story based around the location of Deep Folk Crossing, placed in the far western reaches of Skyrim where it borders the province of High Rock. Skyrim is well known for its highly flexible, albeit sometimes bug-riddled and awkward, set of modding possibilities, and these will be very much on display in this new quest mod.

When the Dragonborn crosses an ancient Dwemer bridge, they encounter an odd sight: besides a single solitary plinth and a couple of ancient arches, there is a small lean-to in which a soft-spoken, bearded man sits, contemplating but not quite daring to touch the ruins around him. Some may pass him by, or leave him to his cold existence. Others, though might be led on by his curiosity to discover more about the past of Deep Folk Crossing, of the Dwemer themselves, and of the recent past and sacrifices that brought a bard out to this existence on the farthest parts of the Reach. The magic of the dwemer and the music of the bards may resonate in ways nobody had predicted - or remembered.

If you'd like to find out more, check out the development thread in the links below and let Jubal know what you think!

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Another Jubal update to round out this section, but this time from the TTRPG development side - Jubal has been running more test games in his world of Kavis, an early-medieval folkloric fantasy setting that has played host to several of his tabletop and computer game projects in the past. For the last year or so, Jubal has pivoted to focusing on the "Heart of the World" - areas of the that bear more resemblance to the Eastern Mediterranean, Iran, east Africa, or India, rather than the sort of Europeana more traditional in medieval settings. His recent game tests have explored more of those areas, with a somewhat hapless group of adventurers facing Gerfaunts, Dusk-cats and poisonous intrigue on the coast of Dulshan, and another group caught between two armes as the Murtec kingdom in Palictara attempts to expand its borders at the expense of the hill peoples to its northwest.

He's also continuing to slowly release notes and information about the world, most recently including some details on the sorts of heroes that figures in the Heirophancy, the old empire at the centre of the map, might tell tales about or refer to in speaking and writing. From the monster-killer Zard to the founding rulers of their realm and the peasant heroine Curimae, there's a wide array of ancient figures there who one might discover relics of or end up stumbling across legacies or tales of on quests in those parts. You can find all that and more at Exilian's Kavis forum:

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Friend of Exilian Veo Corva has successfully run the kickstarter for Cosmic Survivors, the second book in their Space Dragons book series. In this sequel tale Lux, the eponymous Space Dragon at the centre of the books, finds themself on the wrong side of the mighty protectors of the galaxy, the Cosmic Defenders - the heroes who save travellers from the Void Horrors beyond. That said, there aren't a lot of Void Horrors these days, and there are a lot of Cosmic Defenders still, and what was once a saviour's weapon might increasingly be being turned inwards as an iron fist. To avoid it, or even to get through loaded but inane interrogations, Lux must rebuild alliances and friendships and work things out with their crew.

Veo describes Space Dragons: Cosmic Survivors as being a tale for people unsure how to trust again, for people who crave both independence and belonging, and for people who think Space Dragons are fun. If you want a blanket-and-tea on a cold day book this winter that takes you out into the wilds space and possibility, then this might be the read you're after...

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She half-climbed, half-stumbled back to the rock where she had left her coat and bent over, her body heaving. Mina and Roy climbed off their rock and cautiously followed. The clattering of the staff as Roy negotiated the rocks echoed around the lake. By the time they reached Idil she had coughed and spat several times, and her breathing was more controlled.

"Thank you," she gasped, "Thank you, children. Thank you."

"Why did it attack you?" demanded Roy.

"It was testing me," she replied, "But it is satisfied."

We've recently had the third part of Indiekid's ongoing story The Earthwitch. In this tale, two wandering children in circumstances of desperation are saved and then adopted by a mysterious magical figure, Idril, whose task it is to bring the spirits of the earth into calm and balance despite their frequent rage and pain at the destruction caused by mankind. The two children's skills and personalities develop differently through the tale, giving a range of possibilities and tensions alike.

In part three, Idril is forced to confront the fact that, in choosing between the demands of vengeful spirits and the children, she is increasingly emotionally bound to protecting the latter. The three wanderers travel to confront a great spirit of the hill lakes, exploring their powers of direction, over animals, and in engaging with the spirits themselves. However, reckoning with their own past and the way they met may be lurking as an even greater danger thereafter.

If that sounds of interest to you, or you'd like to help the tale along by providing some more feedback, do check it out!

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The fantasy webseries Ren: The Girl With The Mark will return for its third season later in 2026, and over Christmas some of the team's patreon posts were made public to show fans what they might be getting if they sign up for paid updates from the production team. As well as behind-the-scenes footage, the Patreon offerings include a wealth of short stories, expanding the world in a variety of ways and giving additional depth or angles on the characters and legends of Alathia.

One such short story now available for public viewing is Jubal's The Boar of the Gods, set before the show's first season: in this tale, Ren's mentor, the mysterious woodsman Karn, tells his young protégé one of the myths of the god Legart, the trickster of the old gods who was instrumental to ultimately bringing about their downfall and the rise of the twin deities Nirith and Nardaeth. This story of boar-hunting makes use of the actual relationship between boars and robins in our own world - the little birds often follow boar herds in places where both are present, in order to pick up worms that the boar disturb rootling in and overturning the soil - and gives it a certain mythic twist. Both the ancient myth and the story of our two heroes hearing and telling it give us some more insights into Ren and her world in advance of the next season of her story.

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It's been a little while since we last had a flurry of miniatures painting going on among forum members, but SOTK has recently contributed this very pretty Warhammer paint job of a Dark Elven knight. Despite the Dark Elf background of this Cold One Rider, he's ditched the commonly used black armour and red-purple cloth sections and instead gone for a bright silver and blue colour scheme more reminiscent of Ulthuan's High Elves. It's really interesting how much this changes the whole tone of the model, from the brooding menace the typical paint jobs seek to evoke to someone who might be a differently equipped but more complex character. And who still has a cool dinosaur to ride. Whether this is an evildoer who refuses to dress stereotypically, or a more heroic take on what someone can do with a lance and a cool dinosaur, we're very much here for it.

If you do any sort of miniatures gaming, please do share your latest paint jobs and kit-bashes with us in the game room - we'd love to see them, whatever game system or model-making setup you have going.

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We've had a range of gaming updates, especially from The Seamstress who in October shared many of her adventures with the famed cosy farming sim Stardew Valley. Unutterably large blue melons, ostrich farming, a bear who likes syrup, and a family of raccoons living in a tree-stump with an actual door and a fire all seem to be things she's found in the game, which may or may not be an entirely accurate portrayal of rural life.

Who is the mysterious Mr. Qi who The Seamstress has been doing quests for? Is there a purpose to giant blue melons? Should we be worried about who gave raccoons the secret of fire? What other games have people on Exilian been playing, and do any of them have fire raccoons or unusually friendly bears? (Baldur's Gate 3 players, yes, we see you, please sit down now). Find the answers to all or at least some of these questions in The Arcade, our general gaming forum:

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And that's winter's updates from the Exilian community! Whether you're approaching your next round of curiosity and creativity with a notebook, a pile of python code, a paintbrush, crochet hooks, or something else entirely, we'd love to know about it and feature it next time, so do get busy and do let us know if we can help. Community, creativity, curiosity and kindness have rarely felt more needed out there, we're hugely glad to be able to play our part in helping you all build those things - there'll no doubt be much more to come in the weeks and months ahead. As for our newsletters, though, we'll see you in early April for the next set of Updates from the Forge!

It's the shortest day of another year  - happy solstice to all of you! Here at Exilian we wish you joy and happiness for any and all elebrations you might have for the ending notes of the strange little song that was 2025. We hope that with the cold fogs of the year's ending creeping around the door, you're all able to find some cosy places and warmth and company for the end of the year.

Keep your eyes peeled, and do join us for our end of year virtual meetup on the 28th - ask in the comments below for the joining link if you don't get our regular emails.

All best and warmest wishes,

The Exilian Team

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Coding Medieval Worlds 6 will be on February 20-22, 2026!

A core challenge of making more interesting medieval worlds in game formats is sharing and building the different processes needed to create them. Historians and game developers have different ways of representing, exploring and constructing the material we get from medieval sources. How, then, should we approach this, and how can we share and synthesise our different methods? How do we take the particular affordances of games and engines and how do we develop mechanics and systems to best present historically inspired material in them? Coding Medieval Worlds 6 is a workshop and discussion forum for sharing developers' and historians' perspectives and finding solutions to these shared problems!

When:
Main Sessions 21th-22nd Feb 2026, 1pm — 8pm CET
Evening Events 20th, 21st, 22nd Feb 8:30pm-10pm CET

Where:
Wherever you can connect to a video call!

How to participate:
Email exilian@exilian.co.uk or james.baillie@oeaw.ac.at by January 25th with your name and a sentence or two on your background and interest.

We have a limit of around 40 people, half spaces for developers and half for academics (independent scholars, early career researchers, and hobbyist & indie developers are all welcome). We examine all applications and ensure places are available for scholars & developers from diverse & marginalised backgrounds.

Do get in touch with any enquiries at the above email addresses.

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