Arcanum: Explaining The Void

arcanum tim-cain world-building game-design lore villain-design sequel

Abstract

Problem: What is the Void in Arcanum, how was it conceived, and were there plans to expand on it?

Approach: Tim Cain explains the dual origin of the Void — born from both a systems design need (the Speak with Dead spell) and a narrative need (banishment as a story mechanic) — and how it evolved into one of the game's richest lore elements.

Findings: The Void served three purposes simultaneously: justifying why the dead suffer when summoned, providing a physical destination for banished characters, and motivating the main antagonist Kerghan. It was considered for expansion in the cancelled sequel Journey to the Center of Arcanum.

Key insight: The best world-building emerges when a single concept elegantly solves multiple unrelated design problems at once.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtrBgSyZAf0

The Two Problems That Created the Void

The Void originated from two separate design challenges converging on the same solution.

The Speak with Dead Problem

When designing the magic spell list, the team included a Speak with Dead spell inspired by AD&D, where you could ask a limited number of questions scaling with level. This proved extremely difficult to implement — the narrative designers lacked tools to write dialogue with a variable number of questions.

The team needed to answer a fundamental question: if the dead can be spoken to, why would they cooperate? Someone (Tim believes it was Leonard Boyarsky) proposed that being pulled back was agony. The dead are in pain when summoned, and they answer your questions quickly to end their suffering. This meant some part of a person survives after death — the first key to the Void.

The Banishment Problem

Separately, the game's story required a concept of banishment. Nasrudin banished those who developed technology, the dwarves were banished for sharing technology with humans, and Nasrudin himself was banished for what he did to the Vendigroth Wastes. This needed a destination — somewhere you could be physically pushed into.

The Void as Unified Concept

The team wanted both concepts to describe the same place: an extra-worldly realm, not heaven, but something closer to Hades in Greek mythology. A dark, physical place where:

  • The physically banished existed in their entirety (body and all)
  • The spirits of the dead went after dying

Kerghan's Speech and the Layers of the Void

Tim highlights the endgame cinematic (written by Chad Moore) as one of his favorites in the game. Kerghan — who has been impersonating Nasrudin throughout the game while keeping the real Nasrudin trapped in the Void — delivers a monologue describing the Void's layered structure:

  1. The Vessal of Lands — spirits who still cling to the living, crying out, passing through one another "like shadows in the dying light of day"
  2. A middle realm — spirits tormented by memories, regrets of the flesh, trapped in a prison of their own making
  3. The deepest layer — an endless sea of gray mirrored glass where spirits finally find peace, enlightenment, and truth through complete release from life

Kerghan himself nearly became trapped in this deepest layer because it was so peaceful — a state of non-thought, non-life, simply being.

Kerghan as a Nuanced Villain

Tim emphasizes how much he loves that Kerghan doesn't see himself as a villain. His logic is internally consistent:

  • Life is something people are "thrust into without being asked"
  • Living is painful, horrible, and itself a form of torture
  • Death brings peace and release
  • His plan to end all life is, from his perspective, an act of mercy — "speeding up the process"

Tim contrasts this with a "mustache-twirling villain" — Kerghan has genuine reasons for his actions, making him a far more compelling antagonist. This connects to Tim's broader philosophy on nuanced character design that he's discussed across many videos.

Plans for the Sequel

For Journey to the Center of Arcanum (the cancelled Arcanum sequel), the team had no explicit plans to feature the Void prominently, though Tim considered two possibilities:

  • Banishment as a level-six heroic spell — a powerful spell that would send enemies to the Void entirely (like Disintegrate, but without XP reward since you didn't technically kill them)
  • A story hook involving a powerful hero trapped in the Void whom the player would need to convince to return to life — complicated by the hero being content in death

Tim notes the Void was "too good of an idea to ignore" — if not used in Journey, it would have almost certainly appeared in a sequel to that sequel.

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