Ancient Ruins in the Wilderness

An order of knights secluded themselves out in the vast northern forests of Kaskaban and built a grand stone Cathedral deep in this wilderness. Although at first known to be pious men of good deeds, their ways became strange and stories started to circulate of hostile behaviour towards local villagers they would trade with. Matters escalated until the murder of a local and well respected clergyman enraged Lord Kelm and a small battalion of his guards were sent into the forest to seek out the knights responsible. After several days of travel, the battalion arrived at the Cathedral, but the place was deserted.

Not a body, dead or alive was found, or a reason why the entire order had vanished. Some hints were discovered in relation to dark magic and the occult, some dark symbols and statues, but nothing that gave any reason for the disappearance. After holding up at the Cathedral for several weeks and searching out into the forest the Battalion found no sight of them. After this short stay the guards returned home and the Cathedral was left to decay out in the wilderness where it’s ruins still stand to this day.

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I created this environment in Unreal Engine 5 and the post-render image work was done in Adobe lightroom. To start with I collected some reference images and built a reference board in the program PureRef. I also like to add a section for ‘lighting’ and ‘assets’ to this board as well as references for the layout of the environment. I used assets from a Gothic collection by Meshingun Studio, Mystical statues by Dzen Games and some Quixel Megascan trees and foliage.

I’ve also uploaded a sequence of creation stages screenshots that you can find by clicking here.