How to play

The rules of the realm, in plain words. You don't need to know any of this to start, but it all helps.

Your character

Your stats shape everything: how hard you hit, how well you dodge, how much mana you have. They grow a little every level.

Stat	What it does
Strength	Melee hitting power: adds to attack strength with swords, axes, maces and thrown weapons. Also sets how much you can carry before you slow down. Adds to physical training points.
Constitution	Toughness: raises your maximum health and stamina, and helps you shrug off disease, poison and crippling wounds. Adds to physical training points.
Dexterity	Precision: improves aim with bows, crossbows and thrown weapons, and your skill at picking locks, disarming traps and skinning. Adds to physical training points.
Agility	Nimbleness: improves dodging and your overall defense, balance, and how quickly you react to sudden danger. Adds to physical training points.
Discipline	Willpower: sets how much experience you can hold before you need to rest, adds to stamina, and steels you against fear and mind attacks. Adds half to physical and half to mental training points.
Aura	Magical spark: sets your spirit points and powers Elemental magic (Arcanist, Skald, Occultist). Adds half to physical and half to mental training points.
Logic	Reasoning: how fast you absorb experience, how well you use magic items and scrolls, and the power of Mental magic (Ascetic). Adds to mental training points.
Intuition	Instinct: perception, hunches and luck. Helps you notice hidden things and danger before it strikes. Adds to mental training points.
Wisdom	Spiritual insight: powers Spiritual magic (Priest, Mender, Oathsworn, Warden, Occultist) and helps resist spiritual attacks. Adds to mental training points.
Influence	Presence: persuasion, intimidation and better prices from merchants, and the strength of mind-affecting magic (Skald, Mender). Adds to mental training points.

Your skills are what you've trained: weapons, armor, dodging, climbing, magic and trades. You earn training points every level and spend them at the Crooked Lantern Inn with TRAIN. Each profession pays a different price for each skill, which is what makes a Rogue different from a Priest. See Skills.

Fighting

ATTACK <creature> swings whatever is in your right hand. Every attack is a roll: your attack strength against the target's defense, plus a d100. Beat 100 and you hit. ROLLS ON shows the numbers if you like that sort of thing.

Roundtime: every swing, spell and big action leaves you busy for a few seconds. The bar on the right counts it down. Commands typed during roundtime wait.
Stance: STANCE OFFENSIVE hits hardest; STANCE DEFENSIVE trades attack for defense. Four steps sit in between (advance, forward, neutral, guarded).
Targets: with several creatures in a room, TARGET lists them with numbers. ATTACK 2, ATTACK SECOND RAT and ATTACK OTHER RAT pick one. ASSIST <friend> attacks whatever they're fighting.
Assess first: ASSESS <creature> tells you how tough it is compared to you.
Shields give their full defense in your hand, and only a quarter when strapped on your back.
Hiding: HIDE slips into the shadows. Creatures lose track of you, and your next attack is an ambush. Fog and darkness help.

Wounds, bleeding and healing

Hits land on a body part and leave wounds. Bad ones bleed, draining health until treated: TEND uses First Aid to stop it (bandages help). The body diagram on the play screen shows your wounds; bleeding ones pulse.

Health comes back slowly on its own, and faster when you REST (in town or at a hidden safe spot) or stand in the inn, the loft above it, the temples, the banks or a safe spot. Menders and Priests heal with spells, and the apothecary sells healing draughts (DRINK).

Dying

At zero health you die, and become a spirit beside your body. You have two choices:

Wait for help. A Priest can cast Restore Life on your body and bring you back on the spot, losing nothing. Friends can DRAG or CARRY your body somewhere safe first.
DEPART. You return to life at the temple of the nearest town you've visited. It costs the experience you had banked, and the temple keeps 75% of the silver you carry (bank it!). You also feel Death's Chill for 10 minutes: experience soaks in at half speed.

You never lose your gear when you die.

Experience and levels

Kills bank experience, and carrying banked experience wears you out: your fatigue goes from fresh through winded, tired and weary to exhausted. Banked experience soaks in and becomes yours a little at a time, and your fatigue eases as it does. FATIGUE (or EXP) shows where you stand.

It always soaks in slowly, even while you hunt.
REST soaks it in twice as fast, and heals you faster too. You can rest anywhere in a town, and at hidden safe spots out in the wild: a hollow in the standing stones, a beekeeper's bothy, a forgotten chapel. Creatures never come into a safe spot. Find them with SEARCH.
The inn, temples, banks and safe spots are the best of all: standing in them counts as resting, three times as fast, no command needed.
When you're exhausted, further fights teach you nothing until you rest, and your attacks are a little weaker (-10 attack). Your defense isn't affected, and the penalty lifts as soon as you've rested a little.

Easy fights teach nothing at all, so move on to tougher hunting grounds as you level. Each level gives training points and a little growth in every stat. The level cap is 100.

Groups

Adventuring together is safer and faster.

GROUP <name> invites someone; they type GROUP ACCEPT. The leader sets how loot is shared (GROUP LOOT ITEMS ROTATION, GROUP LOOT SILVER SPLIT).
Group members in the same room get bonus experience: +10% for each extra member, up to +30%.
FOLLOW <name> walks wherever they walk.
Some blessings can be cast on the whole group at once (CAST GROUP), for double the mana.
HOLD <name> (or GRAB) pulls a friend into your group by the hand, if they allow it with SET HOLDING ON.

Duels

There's no fighting between players, except by agreement: DUEL <name>, and they DUEL ACCEPT. Nobody dies: the loser drops to 1 health. YIELD concedes.

Magic

Spellcasters PREPARE a spell by number or name, then CAST it at a target (or INCANT to do both). New spells unlock as you level; spell ranks (trained like any skill) make your circle's spells stronger and last longer. Heavy armor can make a spell fizzle. Mana comes back every 30 seconds. See Magic.

Talking

Command	Who hears it
`SAY` (or `'hello`)	Everyone in the room
`TELL <name>` / `REPLY`	One person, anywhere
`GSAY` (or `GS`)	Your group, anywhere
`SHOUT`	Everyone in the same area (the whole town, the whole moor)
`CHAT`	Everyone online (out of character). `CHAT OFF`, `CHAT HISTORY`
`EMOTE` (or `:grins`)	Everyone in the room: "Tess grins."
`MAIL <name> <letter>`	One person, whenever they next log in. `MAIL` reads yours.

IGNORE <name> hides someone's tells, chat, shouts, emotes and letters. There are gestures too: WAVE, BOW, NOD, SMILE, LAUGH, GRIN, SHRUG, SIGH, CHEER, THANK, HUG, POKE, SALUTE.

Invasions

Every so often a town is attacked: the Hollow King's dead march on Thornwick, or the wreckers raid Saltmere. Everyone online gets a warning a few minutes ahead. Then three waves pour in at the gates and spread through the streets, the last led by a captain. Shops and the bank bar their doors until it's over. Clear the streets in time and everyone who fought (or stood in town at the end) is rewarded with silver, experience and a defender's medal, and the town throws a feast (cheaper shops for a game day). Fail, and the raiders carry off their plunder, and prices go up.

Looking after your gear

Your gear wears down as you fight. CONDITION shows how it's holding up; REPAIR it at a smithy. LOOT <body> searches a body and packs what it had; SORT tidies your pack. See Silver & crafting for repairs and enchanting.

Something wrong?

Type BUG <what happened> and it's sent to the Game Masters along with where you were and what you'd just done. Typos and ideas are welcome too.

Day, night and weather

A day in the realm passes in two real hours (TIME). Night falls at 8 o'clock and lasts until 6: town gates close, rooms look different, and the dead walk. Each region has its own weather; fog makes it easier to hide. Some places are pitch dark: LIGHT a torch, or cast a light spell.

Getting around

Walk with directions or named exits (GO BRIDGE). Some ways need CLIMB or SWIM and a skill roll; failing hurts. SEARCH an empty room for hidden paths. To cross the realm quickly, BOARD the coach between Thornwick and Saltmere or the river ferry to the Silverbough Eaves, for a few silver. See The world.