You sounded like a right douchebag mate. Sorry

Don't worry, you didn't sound rude.

Thanks for posting this, NIggles! I missed this somehow...

The theme is unique because it actually seems focused on the middle-east (southwest Asia). The music sets the mood too, if the music is from the game.

If it comes to GOG I'll definitely score it.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/199630513/zaharia/posts/759913

"Update #5 ℹ

Feb 27 2014
The Azhanit cult
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First of all, we want to thank all the backers, we've seen some real support from you and that is really inspiring for us.


This update is another dev. diary we released some time ago, it's about the most popular religion among the Zaharian Empire, because we believe this to be an important element for creating a realistic world, with its own specific people. History shows us how religion has always shaped peoples and societies, so much that we can’t possibly give it a minor role in what we are realizing. We can’t forget the impact that spirituality has over the material world.

The Azhanit religion

The Azhanism, the cult of Azhan, can count on a millenary history. In the course of time, besides its own inner evolution, it has deeply characterized the Zaharian cultural system, giving birth to a strong Oriental and Middle Eastern context. Religion, in these cases, is the starting point to give a philosophical and cultural setup to one population. The values estabilished by a cult generally mark out its worshippers and, as time goes by, change their world views. In order to create this religion, not only did we draw inspiration from Islamism, as one can think at first sight, but we mainly considered aspects from Zoroastrianism, and also a bit from Buddhism.

The cult of Azhan is really unusual, and it differs from the majority of the occidental doctrines since it bestows a great dignity on human condition. Material world is the paradise Azhan created to host humanity, not a punishment for the original sin. He spread his mark of benevolence all over the world he created, a constant revelation of the divine will that would make humans tell good from evil. In this way humanity could fight chaos and slowly build an order that would allow humans to free themselves from pain.
An ancient Azhanit temple

The great Azhan’s plan for humanity is an earthly paradise, where eternal permanence is granted to humans thanks to an endless cycle of reincarnation that invests all human souls.

From a theological and moral point of view, the Azhanism is characterized by a series of values that allowed the birth of a social and political system that, in our opinion, may seem almost enlightened. It allowed the rebirth of the country and its cultural and economical expansion.

In Zaharia there is no gender discrimination, and there aren’t signs of an aristocracy that could demand inheritance privileges. In addiction to this, tolerance for diversity is preached in the holy books. All this allowed a better integration and a cultural evolution, also thanks to the positive contamination of ideas from the different populations that settled down in the area. Finally, the man doesn’t see his condition as a period of transition after which he will enjoy an eternal life in an endless shining heaven. Instead, only material life counts for him, being the only one where he can live in an appropriate way. The man is born as an ethereal soul, static and incapable of experience, but when this soul join a material body the man can live, be happy, and evolve.

All these aspects don’t mean that Zaharia is free from superficiality, intolerance and all the negative behaviors that exist in human nature. They’re just expressed in different ways compared to the European man of the present and the past.

History of the cult

The Azhanit religion is born in Zaharia, about a millennium before the beginning of the game. It propagated fast over the Zaharian territory, once hosting only a lot of different little and local cults.

The history of this religion is rather calm in the first centuries of its existence. Even if the politic situation of Zaharia was always fragmented, there weren’t many conflicts in the course of time: thanks to the wide diffusion of the cult, some religious sects originated in the country, and their supranational-oriented nature managed to soften general tensions. The major crisis of the Azhanism, corresponding to a period of unstableness for the entire Zaharia, is relatively recent. Outside the Zaharian territory took place the beginning of the Idath-Hain, a religion which expanded rather quickly thanks to the fanaticism and the aggressiveness of its devotees. In about a hundred years the Idathi (those who follow the Idath-Hain) conqueredor converted almost all the territories bordering the Zaharian territory. This is the moment when the different Azhanit sects managed to increase their political power. This happened not only thanks to the agreement over common purposes and theological principles, but also to the attempt of forming a common front against the Idathi menace. The idea is to make a huge theocratic structure capable of joining the whole Zaharia. However, the religious order didn’t manage to realize its purpose in time and the Idathi nations invaded, conquered and divided the Zaharian lands. Thus for 150 years Zaharia was under the control of these invaders who take advantage of territory and people, persecuting the Azhanit followers one way or another.
The Warrior Monks were created to protect the Azhanit cult

The real turning point came when a new figure emerges, Zhartost Azhanai, the Prophet. He succeeded in organizing a rebellion’s movement which in a few years managed to make all the Idathi nations fall, and to reconquer Zaharia. This was the way the Zaharian Empire came into existence, under the shelter of a central government led by the Prophet. He then became the first Emperor and also the first man able to reunite under the same flag all those territories that remained separated for thousands of years.

We aim to realize a religion carefully crafted, since this aspect is too often underestimated while building a setting. We frequently see that in many fantasy settings there are cults and divinities of any sort, but these never really have a real impact on the world. All the cultures seem essentially European-like, although this has no explanation from a religious point of view. The creation of a religion can’t be carried out by just giving a name to a divinity, creating some ceremonies or some particular figures. We should instead lay the theological and philosophical foundations for what will be the moral and cultural behaviors of all its followers, all things that the player will notice during the game when interacting with the Zaharian native people."

Looks pretty cool, and the setting is great! Thanks for the tip :)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/199630513/zaharia/posts/761387

Update #6 ℹ

Feb 28 2014
The concept of city in Zaharia


In this update we will explain how we want the cities in Zaharia.

We don't want them to be only huge quest hubs, cities must be massive places where the player get lost and meet infinite possibilities. In Zaharia the economic and political power dwells in the biggest cities of the Empire, cities are full of opportunities of any kind and they will be the starting point of most players' adventures.

We begin to create a city from its history. Why does this particular city exist? Why did it become so important? Each city has its own, unique history in our world and in Zaharia it will be the same, the history of a city defines its features, affects its inhabitants’ culture and creates a lot of peculiar realities.

We aim to create living cities, heavily influenced by their history and by the culture of zaharian people. The player will go through crowded bazaars full of spice merchants, only to reach a traditional zaharian tearoom where a mysterious employer will give him more details about a shady but well paid work. In Zaharia the player can't just enter a tavern and find the obviously important rich woman, an exclamation mark above her head, he will need to talk with people instead, to obtain fragments of information that may lead him to the right person.

We won't have the budget to create full, real cities: Ashantir, the capital city, hosts more than a million people, it would be impossible to fully recreate it. We will divide cities in different districts, like in Baldur's Gate 2, and each district will have remarkable features. This choice makes us avoid the two things we don't like in games: absurdly small settlements and big settlements full of building and districts all looking the same. Seeing only 20 buildings in what should be a huge city is ridiculous, but a massive city full of copy-pasted neighborhoods is even worse. That's why we chose to divide cities into districts: we will be able to focus our work on little parts of the city without misleading about the city extension. As you can see in the concepts, we worked on the architecture of different historical phases. No city was built in just one day, that's why the player will see ancient buildings, built in a simpler style, and recent buildings showing more modern shapes. If the game tells the player a temple is 1000 years old, the temple must be really different from a modern building, because of both the technological advance and the evolution of tastes.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/199630513/zaharia/posts

Looks like they cancelled the project. Disappointing :(

"The Kickstarter campaign didn't go well, despite all the positive feedbacks we received we weren't able to properly spread the word about Zaharia.

What will happen now? We don't know yet, we're currently searching for an alternative solution and, if we find something, we'll let you know through our social pages (Facebook and Twitter). We knew that Kickstarter was a risk, so we're not unprepared for this scenario.

We worked a lot on Zaharia, so we can't simply cancel the project, but we don't want to ruin the project with a cheap development that will only lead to cheap results. It would be horrible to cut most contents to release a soulless, anonymous game, both for you and for us.

We want to thanks all the backers for the support, we loved to share Zaharia with you and we hope you will continue to follow and support us. "