The Ruins of
In The Ruins of, you play as an adventuring archaeologist in a slightly-anachronistic 1908, exploring ruins, temples, caves, and other sites around the world, excavating artifacts, and defeating mythological creatures.
The Excavations
Travel the world exploring the ruins left behind by ancient cultures, from Greek temples to Khmer palaces to Mayan burial sites (and many others besides).
Each hosts its own look and feel, but more importantly, its own history and mythology. (And yes: that is important!)
The Treasures
Because The Ruins of uses a dictionary of adjectives, nouns, and "titles" to generate items on the fly, there are over a million unique items in the game. Some words are available only in certain regions: "Thor's" in Scandinavia, "The Phoenix's" in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, "of the Elephant" in India, and more.
For things like Vases, Cups, and Bowls, these names are mostly decorational, but for equipment, every word implies specific properties, meaning there are hundreds of thousands of possible ways to arm yourself.
Other kinds of treasurse you might find:
- Dinosaur (and other extinct animal) bones.
- Alien artifacts.
- Eggs - hatch them to receive a pet!
The Monsters
Of course, it won't be as easy as just strolling in and taking all the treasure. Traps and mythological monsters stand in your way.
Just like treasures, monsters are built from a dictionary of words, each bundled with specific meaning for combat. There are tens of thousands of monsters possible, and as you explore deeper, the most dangerous will present themselves. You may even come face to face with legendary figures from mythology.
Reincarnation
As you adventure, you'll acquire Knowledges (of which there are over 100). Many you will gain by leveling up, but others will be offered by the Museum as gratitude for your services, a couple you start with, and others still will be learned in stranger ways.
You won't be able to learn them all in an entire life time, but that's OK: you'll be playing out many lifetimes.
Eventuallly you'll have the option of reincarnating. Every time you do, you get to choose a single Knowledge to keep as a "Transcendental Knowledge" that will stay with you for eternity.
The exact details of how you reincarnate I will leave to you to discover.