The Grey Wolf idol, where travellers rest
A Metroidvania needs places where you stop running. In Forgotten Eras those places are carved wolves. Find a Grey Wolf idol and you have found a safe point, somewhere to get your strength back before the forest tries again.
A protector carved in wood
The Grey Wolf has stood guard over the kingdom for a long time, long before Ivan woke with the rune on his brow. The idols say so in wood. Each one is a sanctuary where travellers recover, and each one keeps the memory of the bond between man and spirit, a promise of guidance through danger. When Ivan rests at one, he is resting under the eye of his oldest companion.
If you have not met the Wolf yet, start with his story.
Bigger than a wolf should be
The notes on the concept sheet are about the animal more than the carving. He should be larger than any real wolf, about the size of a small horse, so you feel straight away that he is something more. His fur is thick, silver and deep grey. He is strong but lean, built for speed. His eyes are yellow and they have to show feeling, because the Wolf thinks, and the player should see it.
The idol keeps all of that and turns it to wood. A wolf's head rises from the top of the pillar, the amulet hangs at his chest, and the bands below carry carved signs. The pencil stages start with the pillar on a tree stump, as the Leshy idol does. By stage four the stump is gone and the base is a block of woven patterns.
The idol's 3D stages, from a bare column to the carved wolf with his amulet.
The wolf and the old god
Why a wolf for a resting place? In our world the Grey Wolf is bound to Veles, the god the Slavs linked with the underworld, magic and change, and wolves were counted among his animals. A creature that walks between the living and the dead is a good guard for someone who is only stopping to breathe.
He shares the kingdom with three other idols: the Leshy, the Vodyanoy and Morana.
Sources: the Forgotten Eras design sheets for the Grey Wolf idol. A. N. Afanasyev, Russian Folk Tales, No. 168, "Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Grey Wolf".
