Kellan Rook
Kellan Rook is an unused character concept originally planned for Mundus: Chapter I - Mundus Reborn. He was designed as the leader of the Saints' Shadows, a St. Stylinson based street gang that policed the city’s neglected lower districts through a mix of mediation and violence. Kellan was also used internally as a prototype for an early “affection lock” system, and was intended to become a semi-permanent combat ally who could appear unprompted during Dark Energy events.
| Kellan Rook | |
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 Kellan Rook (early concept artwork)
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| Race | Humekind |
| Age | 24 cycles |
| Nationality | Directionland |
| Origin | St. Stylinson |
| Aliases | Rook |
| Occupation | Leader of the Saints' Shadow; contract enforcer |
| Affiliation | The Saints' Shadows |
| Status | Unused (cut content) |
In later development, Kellan’s storyline was placed on indefinite hold due to its complexity, tone, and incompatibilities with the game’s romance assumptions. Following server and Lorekeeper disruptions in the summer of 2025, incomplete traces of his data briefly resurfaced during restoration and re-indexing, resulting in a short-lived erroneous in-world placement in St. Stylinson during a February 2026 update.
Concept and creation
Kellan Rook was created as a testbed character for early relationship gating, referred to in internal notes as an “affection locked” character. His questline was intended to unlock in layers based on player affinity, with certain routes remaining hidden until late progression. This design goal made him substantially more complex than other Chapter I character plans, which were being adapted to a stripped-down affection framework.
Kellan was also conceived as a tonal counterweight to the more whimsical story threads planned at the time. His content focused on poverty, street crime, vigilantism, and civic neglect within St. Stylinson, one of the founding kingdoms of Directionland.
Planned in-world biography
The following biography reflects planned narrative material and design notes. It was never implemented as playable content.
Early life
Kellan was planned to be born in St. Stylinson. His parentage was intentionally unknown. He grew up in an orphanage on the city’s outskirts, escaping at 16 cycles old and surviving on the streets through pickpocketing and theft.
While he stole to survive, Kellan’s character premise emphasized a personal code and a sharp intolerance for predation. He was written as someone who would intervene violently against those who harmed people unable to defend themselves.
Founding of the Saints' Shadows
At 19 cycles old, Kellan was planned to form the Saints' Shadows, an underground organization taking “gray-area” contracts to resolve disputes, sometimes with words and sometimes with force. The group also patrolled lower St. Stylinson to impose a rough stability in areas where authorities were portrayed as absent or indifferent.
By 24 cycles old, Kellan’s criminal reputation was intended to be at its peak, while remaining positioned as “low-risk” compared to major syndicates. Four additional core gang members were outlined at a high level, but were never finalized before the storyline was shelved.
Training and fighting style
Kellan’s weapon of choice was his fists. His hand-to-hand style was attributed to long-term training under a former soldier who had fallen on hard times. In exchange for Kellan’s help resolving a dispute using his skills as a thief and hired muscle, the soldier trained him regularly for years.
Personality and themes
Kellan was characterized as gruff, dismissive, and quick-witted, but fiercely protective and loyal to those he considered family. His outward confidence was intended to mask volatility, self-loathing, and deep frustration with his own perceived “wrongness.”
A key planned theme was Kellan’s denial of his attraction to men. Although he had girlfriends, internal notes described him as closeted, angry at himself, and prone to lashing out when cornered emotionally. This conflict was intended to drive major branching content in his affection-locked route.
Appearance
Kellan was planned as a fit young man with a striking physique and “boyish” charm:
- Hair: black, short
- Eyes: green
- Build: athletic
- Outfit: black tank top, black shorts with a belt chain, gray shoes
- Accessories: white handwraps
Planned quest structure
Kellan’s story was planned as a layered system with escalating unlock conditions:
Layer one: St. Stylinson underbelly
An introductory arc focused on St. Stylinson’s lower districts, poverty, and crime, with the Saints' Shadows functioning as a guiding lens into the city’s “darker” social reality. This layer was intended to introduce parts of Kellan’s past and some of the unfinished gang roster.
Layer two: Affection locked confession route
A higher-affection route was intended to center on Kellan coming out as gay to the player, framed as self-discovery and self-acceptance. Early drafts included a conditional confession of romantic feelings toward the player if the player was identified as male. A later proposed revision replaced this with Kellan confessing attraction to a newly introduced character, reframing the route as supportive matchmaking and locking the player into platonic friendship.
Layer three: Reform and civic aspiration
A later arc would have shifted Kellan from “closeted criminal” toward a lawful civic role, either as a Directionland lawkeeper or as a civil servant in St. Stylinson City Hall, depending on route choices. This layer aimed to connect personal growth to material change for the lower districts.
Hidden layer: Parentage investigation
A final hidden route was planned to unlock only at maximum affection (romantic or platonic), beginning a parentage mystery. The intended conclusion was Kellan reconnecting with his family and becoming a permanent party member who could appear during Dark Energy events to assist allies.
Development difficulties and cancellation
Kellan was considered one of the most technically demanding character concepts of the early Chapter I period due to:
- Multi-layer route gating tied to affection thresholds
- Complex emotional state and reactive dialogue requirements
- A darker tone that differed from adjacent planned storylines
A major design conflict involved romance assumptions. Mundus characters were treated as pansexual by default to avoid requiring the system to determine player gender identity, which the Lorekeeper could not reliably infer without intrusive questioning.
Kellan’s route, built around a defined orientation and earlier conditional romance logic, became increasingly difficult to reconcile without extensive rewrites.
Lorekeeper and server incidents
Although Kellan never shipped, work continued intermittently on his characterization within Lorekeeper constraints, including internally generated visual material depicting his intended arc.
During a hacking incident in the summer of 2025, files used to track lore and character progression were deleted, which broke the API linkage used by the Lorekeeper and caused widespread lore overwrites and personality loss across characters. Kellan’s data was among the affected sets.
During restoration from older backups, incomplete remnants of Kellan’s data were accidentally reintroduced, prompting the Lorekeeper to rebuild his database and recreate his character ID. A specific instruction was then added to ignore Kellan and never place him in the world.
In a February 2026 Lorekeeper update, character data was moved and re-indexed. During this process, the “ignore Kellan” instruction was not applied, and his incomplete character was erroneously placed at his original quest starting location in St. Stylinson before being removed again.
Trivia
- Kellan was intended to be the most system-heavy character in early Chapter I development due to affection locking, hidden routing, and party member behavior.
- Four additional Saints' Shadow members were planned but never finalized.
- His primary weapon choice was deliberately limited to unarmed combat to distinguish him from sword-focused party archetypes.