An interview with: HoRRiS Lupercal [YARR!]

HoRRis Lupercal [YARR!] has only been playing Illyriad for around six months, but he has already become a familiar name and made his own stamp on the game.

You may know of the gargantuan effort HoRRis has put into his empire planner Luper-Tools, his LUTIP trading programme to encourage trade at smaller hubs, or his fledgling Lupercalian Union [TLU] alliance and the cool medal he sometimes gives as a reward for prestige build donations.

He came to Illyriad through Steam achievements, but stayed for the sandbox, the long-term planning and the community. 

We talked in  about achievement hunting, cluster building, trade hubs, Luper-Tools, gaming, and what keeps him logging in.

Let’s get started! Where in the world are you based, and how long have you played Illyriad?

I have lived in central Canada all my life, and I am currently eleven days away from my six-month Illy anniversary (author note: interview held in late May 2026). Fun fact about my location: the longest move I have ever made was about twenty metres, when I moved into the house next door to my childhood home.

What has kept you so rooted in one place?

Family. My parents still live next door in my childhood home, so I go over for supper every night and save myself the cooking. I don’t see myself ever leaving the house I am in, barring unforeseen circumstances.

I understand you found Illyriad through Steam. How did that happen, and what made you try it out?

I actually came across Illyriad on a third-party website that tracks the rarity of Steam achievements, while looking for unique games to 100%. I take pride in my rarest achievement showcase, with my most common achievement in that showcase currently held by only 0.3% of players.

Illyriad has many very rare achievements, including some that I am confident no one has ever achieved (not including the broken ones, which obviously no one has)

I was hooked pretty quickly once I started. Within a couple of days I was fairly sure I would be sticking around for the long term. I love the scope of the sandbox - I never run out of things to do and I have many goals to work towards. I also enjoy the long-term planning aspect of Illyriad, which is what motivated me to work on Luper-Tools, so I could have a more concrete and visual way of planning out my empire.

It is also worth mentioning that the community here has been unlike any other online game I have played, in a positive way. I find that very refreshing.

Do you think there is an untapped audience of Steam achievement hunters who might discover Illyriad in the same way? And what happens once you have all the achievements?

Yes, I do think there is an audience there, although I am not sure how widely Illyriad would appeal to them given the very long timeframe for completion. Many achievement hunters are specifically after games they can complete to 100%. While that is something I search for too, I also care about the rarity of individual achievements.

Given that there are currently broken achievements blocking the 100%, I think it would be a tough sell to a lot of those players. That being said, any who do try it will probably have to interact with the community at least to some degree. I would not be nearly where I am now without the help of Global Chat and YARR.

As for what happens once I get all the achievements, that is a very good question and one I do not have a solid answer to! I think my playstyle will probably change a fair amount, because there are currently things I do exclusively for achievements, such as diplomacy and quest score. I will be happy never to complete another tavern quest in eight years when I have finally reached ten million quest score.

So... if you could change one thing about Illyriad, what would it be?

This is the easiest question yet: I would fix all the Steam achievements! Given that completing the game to 100% is my prime directive, it would be awesome to actually be able to do so.

As far as I know, it is not on the roadmap at all. I have made a suggestion in the relevant Discord section, including simply removing the broken achievements if fixing them is too involved. Hopefully that suggestion gets picked up someday. I will whine a little louder in future if I need to!

What is the origin of your name?

I'd say it's 50% mystery and 50% warhammer inspiration. HoRRis (weird capitalization included) has been my gamer tag for as long as I can remember. Not sure how I landed on it but I was a child so I could have done a lot worse!

The Lupercal last name is a more recent edition to the tag, probably started using that 3 or 4 years ago. That is purely drawn from 30k/40k (I read a great number of the Horus Heresy books) and the fact that my existing tag fit it perfectly.  Truth be told I am not even a chaos player, my main factions are Guard, Blood Angels, Ork, and Tyranids but I couldn't resist such a perfect fit.

What do you think you are most known for among other players?

I would like to think I am most known for either Luper-Tools, my empire planner spreadsheet project, or my in-game trade incentives, where I sell items at 80-90% discounts compared with Centrum prices to promote trading in smaller hubs.

For players who do not know me for either of those reasons, they probably know me in passing from my almost daily “Good morning Illy :)” and “Good evening Illy :)” in Global Chat.

Luper-Tools is a big, impressive project. How would you describe it to someone who has never seen it, and how much work has actually gone into it?

Luper-Tools is an empire planner built in Google Sheets. It uses a graphical interface to allow players to build and plan up to sixty cities and see their collective inputs and outputs. It accounts for things such as sovereignty, troop levels, active spells and much more.

I would say it is made for old and new players alike: anyone who wishes to do some serious forward planning. The workbook can be very overwhelming for newer players, though. I tried to include a step-by-step guide on every sheet, as well as an error checker that should help newer players avoid city configuration problems while planning, such as accidentally planning to have two Mage Towers.

I have put well over 650 hours into the project. At that point I rather stopped keeping track. Probably 200 of those hours were spent in GIMP creating all of the art assets from in-game screenshots, another fifty or so went into researching game systems to make sure I accounted for as many variables as possible, and the remaining time was spent building the workbook itself.

I have done small projects for other games before, but this is by far my most extensive. In fact, I would consider Luper-Tools my magnum opus.

Six hundred and fifty hours is a huge effort! Your other key contribution is the trade incentive programme. What are you trying to achieve with that?

I started the Lupercalian Union Trade Incentive Program, or LUTIP, in an effort to encourage players to send traders to the smaller hubs across Illyriad.

I have a small hub, Kachak, near my cluster. It had no trade activity at all when I started stockpiling there, and now it has at least five traders that I know of, with listings in many categories.

That being said, I am far from finished. I plan to continue promoting Kachak, and I will bring the programme to new hubs in the future.

How would you describe your own playstyle, and what do you most enjoy doing when you log in?

I like to think I have a pretty balanced playstyle, where I try to interact with as many of the game systems as possible. I quite enjoy the hunting and gathering portion of the game, as well as crafting, which I am slowly becoming more involved in as my presence on the map increases.

The only portion of Illyriad I am not particularly sold on is PvP, as it has never been an area of interest to me in any game. In general, I far prefer co-operation over competition, although the structured PvP of tournaments has been a fun mixture of both.

What are you working towards at the moment?

My biggest project at the moment is simply expanding. The difference between the three spread-out cities I had in the beginning and the eight clustered towns I have now is a total game changer.

For the foreseeable future, my main goal is going to be setting up more clusters, both as HoRRis and MoRRis. My Orken Coast experiment has firmly sold me on the idea of clustering, and I am itching to get my dwarf cluster going.

Given that you are less drawn to PvP, what would happen if war came to YARR?

Given that my cluster is rather central in the YARR land claim, it would be dishonourable of me not to participate in a defensive war. It is unlikely that I will ever go on the offensive, but I will defend the Orken Coast to the last Lupercalian soldier if the need arises.

What is the most memorable piece of advice you have received in Illyriad, or advice you now pass on to other players?

One of the most memorable pieces of advice I have received in Illyriad is the ABCs: Always Build Cows. Even though I have been following that advice in every city since my second day in the game, it is still hard to meet demand.

I also strongly support the idea of clustering, which was recommended to me early on. It makes a world of difference when you have a couple of cities within twenty minutes travel time to feed resources with.

Are there players or alliances in Illyriad that you particularly admire?

Almost too many to mention, and all for different reasons. A few examples include IKnights, who does a great service with his terraforming network for little gain to himself; Lonewolf, who runs the fantastic Wolfmart, which is my favourite place to shop in Illyriad; and House Fenring, who hosts community trivia.

Any player or alliance that contributes to the community in a big way gets my admiration, and those are just a few examples. Players like them were the inspiration for my own community contributions through Luper-Tools and LUTIP.

You mentioned that gaming has been a big part of your life. What other games would you recommend to players who enjoy Illyriad?

A recommendation that is always at the top of my list is Factorio, although I am not sure how that would land with the wider Illyriad audience. It requires forward thinking, problem solving and a focus on logistics, which I think are also applicable to Illyriad, although to a lesser degree.

I would also recommend Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic, which is my favourite city builder by a pretty wide margin. I have never played another city builder that is nearly as in-depth, or with a realistic mode as challenging and punishing. Building a thriving republic on the hardest settings was a very rewarding experience for me, although some may find it tedious and frustrating.

Do you play other browser games like Illyriad?

No, this is a first for me. I almost exclusively play games on Steam and very occasionally on mobile.

I have played lots of traditional MMOs, though, such as World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV and Star Wars: The Old Republic, as well as some non-traditional ones like Foxhole and Helldivers 1 and 2.

Foxhole remains one of my favourite games of all time. It hits every niche perfectly for me, but it is also a dangerous game for me: I can easily spend eighteen hours straight in the trenches without realising it.

That is some gaming history. How big is the Steam library? And how much of it is there for interesting achievements?

I have built up an extensive Steam library of over 1,400 games, with more than 17,500 hours on record across my fifteen years on Steam.

My primary motivation for buying games is personal interest and the intention to play them. However, I do tend to put much more actual playtime into games that have achievements I am interested in.

What message would you like to put out to the Illyriad community? This is your opportunity for shameless self-promotion, or otherwise!

I suppose my message to Illyriad would be to keep an eye on my profile. Luper-Tools and the weekly LUTIP deal are both advertised there, and I have more ideas for initiatives that will be hitting my profile in the future!

Finally, who would you be interested in reading an interview with, and why?

I have a number of people who come to mind. Okkudo is a player I like and have good relations with, but I have seen some animosity in chat towards them at times. I would be interested in hearing their Illyriad story in full.

Ordo has been very supportive of MoRRis, sending me resources and gear randomly without any request, which I greatly appreciated. I do not see them in chat too often, so it would be nice to hear more.

I have never once encountered Mars, despite them topping many leaderboards. I think it would be interesting to hear from the number one overall ranked player. It is a similar story with Deathdealer98-II, although I have occasionally seen them in chat helping people out. I would be interested in hearing more about their Illyriad journey.

But above all of the others, I would actually pick TylabIV. Despite appearing in chat with a “Woot!” quite often, their account is covered in mystery: no profile, no alliance history, but lots of growth activity. I would be really interested in learning more.

Huge thanks to HoRRis Lupercal [YARR!] for taking part in Voices of Illyriad.

You can find HoRRis Lupercal in-game here: HoRRis Lupercal’s Illyriad profile. Keep an eye on his profile for Luper-Tools, the weekly LUTIP deal, and whatever he comes up with next.