Adventure gamers have run into a Grand Inquisitor before, but unlike the days of Zork, this time players will become one themselves in Nicolas Eymerich, Inquisitor: The Plague, a new Italian adventure now in production.

The medieval adventure co-created by Koala Games and Imagimotion casts players in the dual roles of Nicolas Eymerich and his partner, friar Jacinto Corona. A cruel man whose only goal is to "combat Satan", Eymerich assumes the mantle of Grand Inquistor when sent to a French territory where the Catholic Church has lost its influence. Once there, he discovers that the village is afflicted with a deadly plague and that "madness and heresy have united, forests are on fire hiding monstrous creatures created by the ancient pagan myths, and the Cistercian castle has turned into an impregnable fortress where large stakes burn." It's up to Nicolas and Jacinto to discover the cause of these horrors and put a stop to them.

The presence of monsters doesn't require any combat, according to its developers, as Nicolas Eymerich is largely a traditional point-and-click, 2.5D title. At various times players will control one of the two lead protagonists alone, and sometimes both of them working together. In an interesting nod to old school adventures, the game will also feature a text parser that allows players to communicate with Eymerich. Writer and director Ivan Venturi warns, however, that the Grand Inquisitor is not a good-hearted man, so talking to him will not result in friendly exchanges.

The story has been "freely adapted" from Valerio Evangelisti’s novel Nicolas Eymerich, Inquisitor”, published in Italy. As the first installment of a planned trilogy of games, The Plague will include 130 environments and about 30 other characters to interact with. It'll be a while until inquisitive minds get to see the finished version of the game, as the developers are tentatively targeting a release late next year for the Italian version. In the meantime, for more details about the game and its unusual protogonists, be sure to check out the official website.