We have met the Iron Horde, a war band of orcs and kobolds, and the AshWing, a cult of fire and dragons. The third enemy faction of The Last Bastion is our newest, and the one with the darkest story.
Meet the Gravebound.
A garrison that never stopped marching
An old fortress garrison still marches under a broken oath. Once these soldiers defended walls like yours. Whatever oath they swore, they broke it, and it did not let them go. Now they come for the Bastion in ranks: rusted siege armour, torn standards, burial cloth and a cold light burning where their eyes used to be.
That backstory shaped every design choice. The Gravebound are not a random collection of monsters from a graveyard. They are a disciplined army of the dead, with shield bearers, archers, siege troops, standard bearers and a commander. You should be able to recognise them from far away by colour alone: pale bone, dark iron, weathered cloth and a restrained cyan and blue-green soul light. The Iron Horde is earthy and physical, the AshWing is fire and wings; the Gravebound are cold, quiet and relentless.
The roster
Nine regular units and one boss, each built around a silhouette you can read at a glance.
- Grave Walker (front line): An armoured corpse with a blade. The baseline of the faction.
- Bone Runner (fast pressure): A thin, forward-leaning skeleton on long legs. It runs; the others walk.
- Crypt Guard (protective front): A big round shield and square armour.
- Grave Archer (ranged silhouette): A bow and quiver rising above a narrow frame.
- Ossuary Breaker (siege): A heavy tomb hammer and bent stone plates. Slow, and heading for your wall.
- Bell Keeper (support): A hand bell and trailing banners, ringing the garrison forward.
- Shroud Bearer (disruption): A pale veil and a single cold lantern.
- Crypt Hound (flank pressure): A low, four-legged hound of bone and iron with a glowing ribcage.
- Oath Reliquary (elite): A walking reliquary with a caged blue flame on its back.
- Oath Regent (boss): A crown of broken iron, a long cloak and an oversized grave blade.
Slow, steady and hard to ignore
The Gravebound move differently from the other factions. Most of them walk at a natural, measured pace of about 1.35 to 1.6 metres per second, like soldiers on a long march. That makes the two exceptions stand out: the Bone Runner and the Crypt Hound break into a real run and gallop at four metres per second. When the fast ones reach your walls, the slow column is still coming behind them.
We were strict about one detail: feet stay planted. Every walk and run was built so that a foot on the ground does not slide, and each unit's movement speed in the game equals the speed of its animation. It is one of those things you do not consciously notice, but a marching column of the dead only feels heavy when its steps actually carry it forward.
Third time right
The Gravebound have gone through three versions in a very short time.
The first version was a set of simple low-poly models in Blender, enough to prove the roster worked in the game. The second version followed a new concept sheet: chunkier, more stylised bones, large skulls with dark sockets and cyan-green eyes, tattered cloth with its own secondary motion, and hand-made walk cycles with heel strike, toe-off and a swaying pelvis.
For the third version we went back to the concept art itself and rebuilt all ten units as fully textured models, then finished them in Blender: weapons and props in their hands, a lantern and a bell that swing when they walk, glowing eyes, new idle, walk, attack and death animations, and a lighter level of detail for large crowds. The in-game gameplay did not change, the look did.
In-game capture from our development build: part of the new Gravebound roster, from the Grave Archer to the Crypt Hound.
What is next
All ten Gravebound units are playable in custom scenarios and listed in the Codex. They do not yet appear in the campaign's waves; that is the next step, after a round of playtesting on both host and client in co-op.
Their roles are communicated through silhouette, speed and health for now. The archer's arrows, the guard's shield, the Bell Keeper's support and the Regent's boss attacks are ideas we still want to design properly, together with the rules for heroes and towers. One thing we decided early: the Gravebound do not raise fallen enemies or turn your soldiers into undead. They are an army, not a plague.
This concludes our series on the three enemy factions of The Last Bastion. Three armies, thirty units and three bosses, each with its own story and its own reason to come for your walls. We cannot wait to show you what happens when they start to march together.
Cover: illustrative concept art. The in-game models may differ.