The Great Sage's complete field manual: every guild system, combat rule, and mechanic, organized by topic.
Ah, you've arrived at last. I am the Great Sage, advisor to guilds across the realm.
Before you lies an empty guild hall and a world in need. Gargadusa's monsters plague the land, and only adventurers can push them back.
But first, every guild needs a name. What shall we call your guild?
Before you lies Hiltcrest, a frontier town that has kept its own counsel in the shadow of the Tower for centuries.
The lands around it are where your guild earns its name. Contracts land on the near roads first; clear them, and the frontier opens further.
Return to this view at any time with M, or the Map icon in the top bar.
One important thing before you begin: Gargadusa's Tower is a turn-based simulator. Nothing happens until you say so.
See the "ADVANCE WEEK" button in the upper-right corner of your screen? That is how you end your turn. Press it when you're ready to move time forward.
Each week, your adventurers train, your quests progress, and the world moves on. But only when you advance. Take your time, make your decisions, and press the button when you're ready.
You can also press the Spacebar as a shortcut.
The Recruits tab shows travelers seeking guild employment. Each has their own strengths, potential, and asking price.
Use your Scout to reveal their hidden stats. Without scouting, you're signing blind.
Look for adventurers with good Potential: it determines how far they can grow. A "B-Tier" or "A-Tier" potential adventurer is worth the investment.
Your scout is on the road. A report is not written in a day.
Scouting builds week by week, and only when you press Advance Week (or the Spacebar). A starting scout needs about 3 to 4 weeks for one report. Until then the recruit shows "Scouting...". Nothing is stuck.
When the report lands, the recruit's hidden stats appear as ranges. Carry on with your other business in the meantime.
Your scout has sized up this adventurer: their hidden stats now show as ranges.
Pay attention to their OVR (Overall Rating) range: a weighted average of all stats. Higher is better. Exact values are only revealed when they sign; a more skilled scout narrows the ranges.
But don't ignore potential! A lower OVR adventurer with "A-Tier" potential can surpass a high OVR "D-Tier" with training.
Excellent! You've signed your first adventurer. They now appear in your Registry.
But one adventurer alone cannot take on quests. You'll need a full party of 5.
Sign 4 more adventurers, aiming for a balanced team: Tanks to absorb damage, Healers to restore health, and Damage dealers to finish fights.
You have enough adventurers for a party. Time to organize them.
A party needs 5 members with complementary roles. The classic composition: • 1 Tank (absorbs damage) • 1 Healer (restores health) • 3 Damage dealers (Melee or Ranged)
Head to the Parties tab to assemble your first team.
Every party needs a Captain. They provide bonuses based on their Leadership and Charisma stats.
A good captain reduces injury chance, improves party effectiveness, and can prevent morale-related desertions.
Higher-level captains also mentor lower-level party members, granting up to 25% bonus XP. Pair your veterans with your rookies.
Choose your most experienced or charismatic adventurer.
Your party is ready. Now comes the real work: Quests.
The Quest Board shows available contracts. Each carries a threat RANK from F to S: your scouts' estimate of the party OVR it demands. A B-Rank posting wants roughly 70-84. Scouts can misjudge a contract, so treat the letter as an estimate, not a promise.
Upgrade the Scouting Post to narrow that estimate. At T3 the board shows each quest's exact ROVR (Required OVR). When you pick a party for a quest, read its Risk badge first. Underpowered parties face higher injury and failure risk.
One more thing before you send them out.
Some class combinations unlock mechanical bonuses the party carries into every fight. Put an Archer next to a Ranger and their precision sharpens: that's Hunter's Eye, +4% DEX/ATK contribution. Pair a Rogue with an Assassin and they score more crits together. These aren't flavor. They're real multipliers on your party's effectiveness.
Look at your party card on the Parties tab. If any synergies are active, you'll see them listed with a icon and a "+% OVR" bonus. If the list is empty, you've built a party with no shared synergies, which is a choice, not a mistake, but you're leaving power on the table.
When recruiting, think about what each new adventurer unlocks for the party they'll join. For the full catalog, open Sage's Wisdom (press H) and find the Class Synergies entry.
To send a party on a quest, select the quest and assign an available party.
Quests take multiple weeks to complete. During this time, those adventurers cannot train, rest, or take other quests.
Choose wisely. Some quests are more dangerous than others.
Your party has departed. Now we wait.
Press "ADVANCE WEEK" to advance time. In this game, 1 week = 1 turn. Each turn, your party makes progress on the quest.
Watch the Front Desk for updates. Injuries, events, and completion notices will appear there.
Time moves forward when you choose. Press "ADVANCE WEEK" to advance.
In Gargadusa's Tower, 1 week = 1 turn. Each turn (week): • Quests progress toward completion • Wages are paid from your treasury • Injured adventurers heal • New quests appear on the board
Be mindful of your finances. Running out of gold ends your guild.
When a party is on a quest or raid, you can pre-stage their NEXT lineup so the swap applies the moment the deployment ends.
HOW IT WORKS: Open the Parties tab while a party is deployed. You'll see a "Plan Next Lineup" button. Click it to enter Pending Edit Mode: formation slots become editable for the queued lineup, while the live deployment continues unaffected.
When the quest or raid ends: ⬢ Members released from the deployment return to the roster as usual. ⬢ THEN the queued lineup applies BEFORE commander auto-deploy reads parties for the next tick. ⬢ This means a queued swap takes effect on the same tick the quest completes. No manual click needed.
CANCELLING + EDITING: ⬢ "Edit Queued Lineup": modify your queued change before it applies. ⬢ "Cancel": discard the queue. ⬢ "Exit Planning": return to viewing the live lineup without affecting the queue.
VALIDATION AT APPLY TIME: If a queued-in adventurer is dead, fired, retired, or expired by the time the deployment ends, their slot becomes empty (the rest of the queue still applies). The party gets a hole rather than a phantom roster.
LAST-WRITE-WINS: If you queue the same adventurer into two different parties' next lineups, the most recent queue wins. The older one gets auto-scrubbed.
WHAT IT WORKS FOR: ⬢ Active QUESTS (week 2+) ⬢ Active RAIDS (past deploy week)
WHAT IT DOESN'T WORK FOR (yet): Faction contracts, joint operations, dispatches, tower descents, and garrison stationing all hard-reject roster mutations while underway. Recall those before reorganizing.
Use this to chain quests without micro-managing roster swaps mid-week. A guild with 3 active parties can keep its bench rotating without ever having to wait for "back from quest" notifications.
Adventurers can be dispatched on solo assignments separate from party quests.
When an adventurer is dispatched, they're sent on a specific task: delivering messages, escorting caravans, or other individual missions. Dispatched adventurers are unavailable for questing or training until they return.
Dispatch assignments come from various sources: faction requests, Crown commissions, or special events. They're typically shorter than full quests but don't require a full party.
Check an adventurer's status in the Registry. Dispatched adventurers show their current assignment and estimated return time.
Every adventurer in your guild has a detailed Dossier: a comprehensive profile accessible from the Registry.
The Dossier contains: ⬢ CAREER HISTORY: Every quest, raid, and tower descent they've participated in ⬢ RELATIONSHIPS: Friends, rivals, mentors, and bonds formed through shared experience ⬢ ACHIEVEMENTS: Notable accomplishments and milestone moments ⬢ ZODIAC PROFILE: Sun and Moon sign interpretations (if an Astrologer has read their stars) ⬢ INJURY LOG: History of injuries sustained and recovery
The Dossier is your window into who an adventurer really is beyond their stats. Use it to understand party dynamics, track development, and make informed decisions about assignments and trades.
Your Treasury is your guild's economic dashboard: much more than a balance sheet.
WHAT YOU'LL SEE: ⬢ GOLD BALANCE: current treasury, with a 26-week sparkline showing trajectory. ⬢ WEEKLY NET: true week-over-week change in your gold (income minus expenses, calculated as the delta from last week's final balance). ⬢ INCOME BREAKDOWN: quest contracts, raid earnings, faction contracts, passive income from renown ("standing bonus"), market activity, treasurer trades, and more, itemized line-by-line. ⬢ EXPENSE BREAKDOWN: adventurer wages, staff salaries, training costs, construction, all itemized. ⬢ FINANCIAL HEALTH: one of six states (Thriving / Solvent / Stable / Strained / Critical / Bankrupt) calculated from runway and weekly net. ⬢ PROJECTION: runway in weeks, based on a rolling 12-week average to smooth single-week noise.
UPGRADE PATH (Treasury building): ⬢ T1: Passive income: 50g/week + 10g/week per year as your guild matures. Unlocks the TREASURER staff role: they auto-trade materials weekly using your sell/buy rules. ⬢ T2: Doubles passive income. ⬢ T3: Annual interest (2%) on your gold. Golden Reserve: gold cannot drop below 500g. Endowment Fund: 0.5% weekly interest on gold above 50,000g.
STAYING SOLVENT: A warning banner appears when projected runway drops below 8 weeks. Common rescues: ⬢ Sell surplus materials (or hire a Treasurer to do it at scale). ⬢ Push parties into more quests: they're your primary income. ⬢ Release expensive low-potential adventurers before contract renewal. ⬢ Aim to keep 4-8 weeks of wages in reserve.
A bankrupt guild dies. Adventurers desert when wages can't be paid. Watch Financial Health, not the gold number alone.
Your Treasury now provides a comprehensive financial dashboard to help you manage your guild's economy.
GOLD HISTORY: A sparkline chart shows your gold balance over the past 26 weeks, giving you a visual sense of whether you're trending up or down.
FINANCIAL HEALTH: Your guild's financial state is categorized into one of six levels based on your weekly net income and savings runway: ⬢ THRIVING: Strong income, deep reserves ⬢ SOLVENT: Healthy finances with comfortable margins ⬢ STABLE: Breaking even, adequate reserves ⬢ STRAINED: Spending exceeds income, reserves declining ⬢ CRITICAL: Dangerously low gold, immediate action needed ⬢ BANKRUPT: No gold remaining. Adventurers will desert.
RUNWAY: Your projected runway shows how many weeks your current gold will last based on a rolling 12-week average of income and expenses. When runway drops below 8 weeks, a warning banner appears.
TREASURER: Hire a Treasurer (unlocks at Treasury T1) to automate market trades and optimize your finances. At Treasury T3, your guild earns annual interest on savings and benefits from a Golden Reserve safety net.
Your Training Yard is ready. Any adventurer not on a quest can enroll in a training program.
WHAT TRAINING GRANTS: ⬢ XP toward the next level. Leveling is what actually raises stats; see "How XP & Leveling Works" for the exact numbers. ⬢ TRAINING FOCUS: the program's stats roll one tier higher on the adventurer's next few level-ups, from ANY source. Drill a Knight in weapon forms, then send them questing, and those levels skew toward Strength, Dexterity and Attack.
INTENSITY (choose by risk tolerance): ⬢ Light: 0.75× XP, +50% duration, 2 Focus charges, no injury risk. ⬢ Standard: 1× XP, 3 Focus charges, 2% injury risk per week. ⬢ Intensive: 1.25× XP, -25% duration, 4 Focus charges, 5% injury risk per week. ⬢ Extreme: 1.5× XP, -50% duration, 4 Focus charges, 10% injury risk per week.
BONUSES THAT STACK: ⬢ CLASS MATCH: a program listing the adventurer's class pays +50% XP and +1 Focus charge. ⬢ INSTRUCTOR: assign one for bonus XP by their tier. If they specialize in the program, that XP bonus rises another 25% and adds +1 Focus charge. ⬢ TRAITS: Focused and Disciplined adventurers bank +1 Focus charge from every completed program. ⬢ Training Yard, veteran and difficulty modifiers apply on top.
Focus charges cap at 5. Retraining the same program adds to them; a different program replaces the focus and its charges. Early on, training is how rookies grow. For veterans, quests are the engine and training mostly steers which stats their levels favor.
Professionals provide passive bonuses to your guild operations. They appear in the Recruit tab alongside adventurers.
Crafting professionals: ⬢ BLACKSMITH: Forges weapons and heavy armor ⬢ LEATHERWORKER: Crafts light armor and accessories ⬢ ALCHEMIST: Brews potions and consumables ⬢ ENCHANTER: Imbues items with magical properties ⬢ JEWELER: Creates rings and amulets ⬢ RUNESMITH: Inscribes powerful runes (unlocks at higher tiers) ⬢ CHIRURGEON: Speeds injury recovery and reduces death chance
Support professionals: ⬢ COOK: Boosts party power on quests ⬢ CHRONICLER: Improves renown gains ⬢ CARTOGRAPHER: Reduces ambush chance, creates tower intel maps
Each professional has a skill level that improves with practice. Higher skill means better results. A master Blacksmith forges far superior gear than an apprentice.
Your guild can construct and upgrade buildings through the Construction system.
Buildings provide powerful passive bonuses and unlock new capabilities. There are 31 buildings across 5 categories: ⬢ GROUNDS: Training Yard, Barracks, Armory, Infirmary, Sparring Pit, Mess Hall ⬢ OPERATIONS: War Room, Scouting Post, Expedition HQ, Cartography Hall, Pathfinder's Lodge, Dwarven Forge ⬢ COMMERCE: Marketplace, Treasury, Salvage Station, Trade Routes, Warehouse ⬢ MAGE'S TOWER: The Stacks, Alchemy Lab, Enchanting Chamber, Observatory, Rune Circle, Archive, The Wellspring, Sanctum ⬢ GUILD HALL: Workshop, Tavern, Granary, Quarry, Academy, Reception
Each building can be upgraded through 3 tiers (T1 → T2 → T3), with each tier providing stronger effects. Some buildings unlock new staff roles or game features when constructed.
Construction requires materials, gold, and an Overseer to oversee the project. Assign crew members from your roster to speed up construction. The quality of the finished building depends on your Overseer's skill and crew, ranging from Low-Quality Build to Masterwork.
Certain building pairs create Synergies when both reach T2+, granting bonus effects.
GROUNDS buildings form the physical foundation of your guild. They govern training, health, combat readiness, housing, and meals.
TRAINING YARD · Training XP & Instructor Capacity T1 (3,500g): +10% Training XP. Unlocks Instructor role (3 slots). Drill Sergeant: recruits below level 10 gain 50% bonus training XP. Auto-Training: set adventurers to auto-enroll (Weakness Training, Highest Tier, or locked program). T2 (12,000g, Tier 3): +10% total Training XP. 6 Instructor slots. Cross-Training: each level gained in training has a 15% chance to grow one stat outside the Training Focus as if it were focused. Veteran XP: +50% for level 10+. Sparring Partners: on a level gained from a party drill, each stat drilled alongside a party-mate rolls one step better, stacking with Training Focus. T3 (30,000g, Tier 5): +20% total Training XP. 10 Instructor slots. Cross-Training chance: 25%. Veteran XP: +100% for level 10+. War College: level 15+ mentors teach level 8 or below for 13 weeks, granting +1 to mentor's two highest stats.
BARRACKS · Morale & Rest Recovery T1 (2,500g): +1 morale/week. 5% party rest skip chance. Bunk Bonds: 10% seasonal chance for idle adventurers to form a Bond (+2 teamwork when partied together). T2 (8,000g, Tier 2): +2 morale/week total. 10% rest skip. Rest Recovery Wing: idle for 2+ weeks grants +1 to lowest stat until next quest. T3 (20,000g, Tier 4): 15% rest skip. Veterans Wing: 3+ year veterans gain +1 morale/week and 5% reduced desertion.
ARMORY · Equipment Durability & Repair T1 (3,000g, Tier 2): +10% equipment durability. Unlocks Quartermaster role. T2 (10,000g, Tier 3): -10% repair cost. Unlocks the Improvement System: artisans can enhance gear with stat boosts. T3 (25,000g, Tier 5): +15% durability total. -15% repair cost total. Auto Repair: Quartermasters repair returning adventurers' gear weekly. Master Fitting: equipped gear grants +1 to primary stat.
INFIRMARY · Healing & Injury Reduction T1 (4,000g, Tier 2): -5% medical cost. Unlocks Chirurgeon role + Basic/Standard recipes. T2 (12,000g, Tier 4): -1 recovery weeks. 25% instant heal chance. Advanced Chirurgeon recipes. Triage Ward: when 3+ members injured in one quest, worst injury drops one severity. T3 (30,000g, Tier 6): -2 recovery weeks total. 50% instant heal chance. -15% death prevention. Expert/Master Chirurgeon recipes. Phoenix Protocol: critical injury survivors gain Scarred Survivor (+2 CON, +2 END permanently).
SPARRING PIT · Combat Bonuses & Injury Prevention T1 (3,000g, Tier 2): +5% combat quest XP. +3% injury prevention. Ranked Sparring: weekly champion gains +1 to highest combat stat (temporary). T2 (9,000g, Tier 3): +10% combat XP. +8% injury prevention. +10% quest & raid XP. Challenge Matches: rivals may demand sparring matches. T3 (22,000g, Tier 5): +15% combat XP. +13% injury prevention. +20% quest & raid XP. +5% all warfare effects. Proving Grounds: new recruits gain +3 to highest stat.
MESS HALL · Morale & Meal Buffs T1 (2,000g, Tier 1): +1 morale/week. Unlocks Cook role + Basic/Standard recipes. Family Dinner: idle/training/resting adventurers gain +1 to a rotating stat weekly (Cook skill 75+ gives +2). Stacks up to 6, consumed on dispatch or season change. T2 (7,000g, Tier 2): +2 morale/week total. -5% desertion. Advanced Cook recipes. Menu Planning: Cook sets weekly menu (Hearty: +HP, Energizing: +SPD, Refined: +morale). T3 (18,000g, Tier 4): +5 morale/week total. -20% desertion total. Expert/Master Cook recipes. Feast Before Battle: before tower descents, +2 ALL stats for the attempt (costs 500g + materials).
OPERATIONS buildings govern raids, scouting, expeditions, mapping, and exploration.
WAR ROOM · Raids, Tower, & Strategy T1 (5,000g, Tier 2): +5 Tactician OVR bonus. +2 raids/year. Unlocks Raid Expeditions. T2 (15,000g, Tier 4): +10 Tactician OVR total. +4 raids/year. Unlocks Tower Assault + Tower Preparation training. Strategic Focus: seasonal choice of Quest Ops (+10% quest rewards), Raid Ops (+10% raid rewards), or Tower Campaign (+5% tower power). Territorial Hold: +25% tower floor decay timers. T3 (35,000g, Tier 6): +15 Tactician OVR total. +6 raids/year. +5% tower damage. Floor Intel: each tower attempt on a floor reduces difficulty by 1% (max -5%). Territorial Hold upgraded to +50%.
SCOUTING POST · Scout Speed & Intel T1 (3,000g, Tier 2): +10% scout speed. 12 scout slots. Early Insight: at 50% scouting, one trait revealed early. Scout Reports: fully scouted rivals show top 3 adventurers. T2 (9,000g, Tier 3): +5 Scouting OVR. 18 scout slots. 2 headhunter slots. Field Intelligence: scouts gather intel twice as fast. Full rival intel reports. T3 (22,000g, Tier 5): 24 scout slots. 4 headhunter slots. Expert Reconnaissance: all scout assignments complete at double speed. Quest Intel: the Quest Board grades each contract as an F to S rank off your scouts' estimate. Each tier narrows that estimate (unbuilt ±10 OVR, T1 ±6, T2 ±3), and T3 shows every quest's and raid's exact ROVR.
EXPEDITION HQ · Raid Success & Tower Support T1 (4,000g, Tier 2): +2 raids/year. +3% raid success. T2 (12,000g, Tier 3): +6 raids/year total. +6% raid success total. -5% raid duration. T3 (28,000g, Tier 5): +16 raids/year total. +3% tower success. -5% death prevention. +5% all expedition effects. -10% raid duration total. Siege Protocols: each failed tower boss attempt reduces that boss's HP by 5% (max -25%). Garrison: assign a party to freeze decay on a 10-floor range.
CARTOGRAPHY HALL · Quest Discovery & Mapping T1 (4,500g, Tier 3): +10% quest discovery. Unlocks Cartographer role + Basic/Standard Scribe/Cartographer/Chronicler recipes. T2 (13,000g, Tier 4): +20% quest discovery total. +3 quest board minimum. Advanced recipes. Dungeon Mapping: after 3 completions in a region, +5% OVR ratio on future quests there. T3 (30,000g, Tier 6): +30% quest discovery total. +9 quest board minimum. +1 raid board minimum. Expert/Master recipes. Route Optimization: mapped regions also reduce quest duration by 1 week.
PATHFINDER'S LODGE · Exploration & Wilderness T1 (3,500g, Tier 3): -3% negative events. -5% quest duration. Unlocks Hunter role. Trail Blazing: first successful quest in each region per year gives +50% gold and renown. T2 (10,000g, Tier 4): -6% negative events. +1 morale/week. -10% quest duration. Unlocks Trapper role. Wilderness Cache: 10% chance on wilderness quest success to find 2-4 bonus materials. T3 (24,000g, Tier 6): -9% negative events. -20% quest duration total. Unlocks Salvager role. Ambush Warning: ambush events show 1 week early. Northern Ranger class gains +2 OVR.
COMMERCE buildings generate gold, manage storage, and facilitate trade.
MARKETPLACE · Sell Prices & Loot Value T1 (3,000g, Tier 2): +5% sell price. +3% loot value. T2 (9,000g, Tier 3): +10% sell price. +6% loot value. Bulk Deals: selling 3+ items in one batch gives +10% bonus gold. T3 (22,000g, Tier 5): +15% sell price. +9% loot value. +5% all transactions. Black Market Contacts: Rare+ items sell for 2x through underground channels.
TREASURY · Passive Income & Financial Safety T1 (5,000g, Tier 3): 50g/week + 10g/week per year (growing investments). Unlocks Treasurer role. Bidding Wars: 1% chance to double a market sale's value. T2 (14,000g, Tier 4): 100g/week + 20g/week per year. Prestige Lots: S-Tier item sales award +1 Renown. T3 (32,000g, Tier 6): 150g/week + 30g/week per year. +2% annual interest. Golden Reserve: gold cannot drop below 500g. Endowment Fund: 0.5% weekly interest on gold above 50,000 (capped at 500 + Treasurer skill bonus).
SALVAGE STATION · Material Recovery T1 (2,500g, Tier 3): +5% salvage yield. Auto Scrap: automatically scrap common items below threshold. T2 (8,000g, Tier 4): +10% salvage yield. 5% recipe discovery on salvage. Reforge: downgrade quality tier to restore full durability (half material cost, keeps enchantments). T3 (20,000g, Tier 5): +15% salvage yield. Clean Scrap: scrapping Rare+ items returns their primary crafting material.
TRADE ROUTES · Trading Capacity & Alliances T1 (4,000g, Tier 3): +10% ally income/week. +5 trades/week, +100 materials/trade. Trade Ledger: 5+ trades with a rival makes them a Preferred Partner (+10% trade value). T2 (11,000g, Tier 4): +20 ally income/week. +10 trades/week, +200 materials/trade. Caravan Contracts: seasonal guard quest for guaranteed gold + rival trust. T3 (26,000g, Tier 6): +30 ally income/week. +15 trades/week, +500 materials/trade. Ally Gifts: 5% chance per season to receive a random item from an allied guild.
WAREHOUSE · Material Storage T1 (3,000g, Tier 2): Storage capacity 2,000 per material (up from 1,000). T2 (10,000g, Tier 4): Storage capacity 5,000. Overflow Sale: excess materials auto-sold at 50% market value. T3 (25,000g, Tier 6): Storage capacity 10,000. 5% discount on market material purchases.
MAGE'S TOWER buildings focus on knowledge, magic, enchanting, astrology, and arcane arts.
THE STACKS · XP & Recipe Discovery T1 (3,500g, Tier 2): +5% XP bonus. +2% recipe discovery. Unlocks Scribe role. Portrait Reveal: Scribes sketch portraits of unscouted recruits weekly. T2 (10,000g, Tier 3): +1 raid victory renown. +4% recipe discovery total. Unlocks Chronicler role. Research Group: adventurers earn 1% of current level XP weekly while resting. T3 (24,000g, Tier 5): +2 raid victory renown. +6% recipe discovery total. Lore Mastery: -5% XP required to level up all heroes.
ALCHEMY LAB · Potions & Refinement T1 (4,000g, Tier 3): Unlocks Alchemist + Herbalist roles. Basic/Standard recipes. T2 (12,000g, Tier 4): +10% crafting speed. Advanced recipes. Alchemical Catalyst: 5% chance for 2x items when refining. T3 (28,000g, Tier 6): +30% crafting speed total. Expert/Master recipes. Arcane Catalyst: 3% chance for 3x items when refining.
ENCHANTING CHAMBER · Magical Crafting T1 (4,500g, Tier 3): Unlocks Enchanter role. Basic/Standard Enchanter/Runesmith/Diviner recipes. T2 (13,000g, Tier 4): +5% enchant quality. Unlocks Runesmith role. Advanced recipes. T3 (30,000g, Tier 6): +15% enchant quality total. Unlocks Diviner role. Expert/Master recipes.
OBSERVATORY · Astrology & Celestial Events T1 (4,500g, Tier 3): +3% astrologer OVR bonus. Celestial Alignment: 1% chance to double quest rewards. Stargazer's Forecast: weekly readings grant +2 or -2 to a stat for available adventurers. T2 (13,000g, Tier 4): +6% astrologer OVR total. Shining Star: 12% chance to warn 3 weeks before an S-Tier adventurer appears. T3 (30,000g, Tier 6): +9% astrologer OVR total. From The Brink: Astrologer prevents raid member deaths. Oracle class gains +2 OVR.
RUNE CIRCLE · Equipment & Arcane Training T1 (5,000g, Tier 4): +3% equipment bonus. +3% training efficiency. Basic/Standard Jeweler recipes. T2 (14,000g, Tier 5): +6% equipment bonus. +6% training efficiency. +10% arcane training. Advanced Jeweler recipes. Runic Attunement: equipped items gain power over time. T3 (32,000g, Tier 6): +9% equipment bonus. +9% training efficiency. +20% arcane training. Expert/Master Jeweler recipes. Soul Bond: gear bonded 1+ year gains permanent +2 all stats. Hexblade class gains +2 OVR.
ARCHIVE · Rare Discoveries T1 (3,500g, Tier 2): +3% recipe discovery. +1% legendary chance. T2 (11,000g, Tier 4): +6% recipe discovery. +2% legendary chance. Lost Recipe: discover unique items not available elsewhere. T3 (28,000g, Tier 6): +9% recipe discovery. +3% legendary chance. +5% all arcanum effects. Forbidden Knowledge: special quest chain with lore rewards + powerful gear. Arcane Mage class gains +2 OVR.
SANCTUM · Spiritual Wellness T1 (5,000g, Tier 4): +2 morale. +4% rest recovery. T2 (15,000g, Tier 5): +4 morale total. +8% rest recovery. Unlocks Essence Harvester role. Meditation: max-morale adventurers gain +1 random stat per season. T3 (35,000g, Tier 6): +6 morale total. +12% rest recovery. Inner Peace: resting/idle adventurers are shielded from morale loss when party members die in the field.
GUILD HALL buildings provide essential guild infrastructure: crafting, social spaces, resource gathering, construction, training, and reception.
WORKSHOP · Crafting Station T1 (3,000g, Tier 1): Unlocks Blacksmith + Armorer roles. Basic/Standard Blacksmith and Armorer recipes. T2 (10,000g, Tier 3): +5% craft speed. Unlocks Tailor + Jeweler roles. Advanced Blacksmith/Armorer recipes. Basic/Standard/Advanced Tailor recipes. T3 (25,000g, Tier 5): +10% craft speed total. +5% crafting quality. Expert/Master Blacksmith/Armorer/Tailor recipes. Master Craftsman's Mark: crafters with skill 75+ have 10% chance to produce one quality tier higher.
TAVERN · Morale & Intelligence T1 (3,000g, Tier 1): +2 morale/week. Unlocks Bartender role. T2 (10,000g, Tier 3): +4 morale/week total. -5% desertion. Rumor Mill: 15%+ weekly chance the Bartender generates a quest with guaranteed Rare+ loot. T3 (25,000g, Tier 5): +6 morale/week total. Bard class gains +2 OVR. The Back Room: 10%+ weekly chance for actionable tips (trade leads, recruitment intel, poaching opportunities with 25% cost discount and 15% success bonus).
GRANARY · Gathering & Food T1 (2,500g, Tier 2): +10% gathering bonus. Unlocks Forager + Miner roles. T2 (8,000g, Tier 3): +30% gathering bonus total. Unlocks Farmer + Fisher roles. Seasonal Harvest: choose to stockpile materials or sell surplus. Seasonal Stockpile: food stores above threshold grant all adventurers +1 VIT. T3 (20,000g, Tier 5): +60% gathering bonus total. Supply Chain Mastery: 15% chance per crafting material consumed to refund it.
QUARRY · Construction & Stone T1 (3,500g, Tier 3): +5% construction speed. T2 (10,000g, Tier 4): +5% wood gathering. +5% stone gathering. Unlocks Lumberjack role. Deep Excavation: chance to discover rare materials during construction. T3 (24,000g, Tier 5): +10% construction speed total. Quality Work: buildings are never Low-Quality. Geomancer class gains +2 OVR.
ACADEMY · Youth Development T1 (5,000g, Tier 2): +3% academy stat growth. Unlocks Academy Training system. +10 max recruits. +1 instructor slot. T2 (15,000g, Tier 5): +6% academy stat growth total. +15 max recruits. +2 instructor slots. Curriculum Specialization: set a focus (Combat/Magic/Support) for +3 OVR in that discipline on graduation. Prodigy Watch: 5% chance per semester a prospect's highest potential category upgrades one tier. T3 (35,000g, Tier 6): +9% academy stat growth total. +20 max recruits. +4 instructor slots. Bloodline Legacy: when a 5+ year veteran retires, 20% chance a relative appears (sibling, child entering Academy, or cousin) with Family Legacy trait.
RECEPTION · Recruitment & Renown T1 (2,000g, Tier 2): +25% recruit applicants. +1 renown/week. Unlocks Receptionist role. First Impressions: new hires start with +5 morale. Contract Auto-Renewal: Receptionist negotiates year-end renewals. T2 (7,000g, Tier 3): +50% recruit applicants total. +2 renown/week. Trial by Fire (Week 30): annual event where 10 prospects battle in two teams. Winners gain +2 OVR, top performer earns Proven trait. T3 (18,000g, Tier 5): +100% recruit applicants total. +3 renown/week. Hospitality: set a preferred class for incoming applicants.
Building your guild's infrastructure is no simple task. The Construction system governs how buildings are planned, built, and upgraded.
THE PROCESS: ⬢ SELECT A PROJECT: Choose a building to construct or upgrade from the Guild Hall ⬢ ASSIGN AN OVERSEER: Your Overseer oversees the project. Their skill directly affects build quality ⬢ ASSIGN CREW: Laborers from your roster speed up construction. More hands = faster progress ⬢ GATHER MATERIALS: Each project requires specific materials and gold ⬢ WAIT: Construction progresses weekly. Events may help or hinder the project
QUALITY: When a building is completed, its quality is rolled based on your Overseer's skill, crew expertise, and Construction Yard tier. Quality ranges from Low-Quality Build to Masterwork, and permanently affects the building's effectiveness.
⬢ LOW-QUALITY BUILD: Reduced effectiveness. Can be improved later at cost. ⬢ STANDARD: Normal effectiveness. ⬢ QUALITY BUILD: Slightly improved. ⬢ SUPERIOR: Notably improved. ⬢ MASTERWORK: The finest craftsmanship. All effects enhanced.
A skilled Overseer with an experienced crew and a high-tier Construction Yard is the recipe for Masterwork buildings. Invest in your construction infrastructure. The bonuses are permanent.
When certain building pairs BOTH reach Tier 2 or higher, they create a Synergy: a bonus effect neither building provides alone. Visible as a purple badge in your Guild Hall header; synergized buildings show a purple ring with a lightning-bolt icon.
THE 6 CANONICAL SYNERGIES:
⬢ COMBAT ACADEMY: Training Yard T2+ AND Sparring Pit T2+ First quest each season awards 2× XP to all party members.
⬢ MEDICAL WING: Alchemy Lab T2+ AND Infirmary T2+ Injuries heal 1 week faster. Alchemical remedies flow directly to infirmary beds.
⬢ GRAND LIBRARY: The Stacks T2+ AND Archive T2+ +5% recipe discovery chance. Cross-referencing reveals lost knowledge.
⬢ COMMAND CENTER: War Room T2+ AND Expedition HQ T2+ +5% raid success AND +10% tower damage reduction. Tacticians coordinate with expedition planners.
⬢ TRADE EMPIRE: Marketplace T2+ AND Trade Routes T2+ -15% market buy price (bulk import orders via your trade connections).
⬢ GUILD CULTURE: Tavern T2+ AND Barracks T2+ Morale floor rises to 30: adventurers can never drop below 30 morale, no matter what disasters strike.
Effects are automatic. No activation needed. Think of synergies as a reward for balanced infrastructure investment rather than rushing a single building to T3. A guild that develops 3 synergistic pairs collects more compounding effects than a guild that maxes one tower.
Once you upgrade specific buildings to Tier 3, they begin hosting ANNUAL EVENTS: narrative occurrences that fire roughly once per year and deliver substantial in-the-moment bonuses.
HOW THEY WORK: ⬢ Trigger conditions: building must be at Tier 3 AND match the event's seasonal timing (some fire at season start, mid-year, year-end, or random week). ⬢ Most events are guaranteed (100% chance per year); a few are conditional (50-75%). ⬢ Each event posts a Front Desk feed entry with narrative flavor + applies its mechanical effect immediately.
THE 8 EVENTS:
⬢ LEGENDARY BARD NIGHT (Tavern T3, random week, 100%) A legendary bard performs at the tavern. All adventurers gain +15 morale.
⬢ CELESTIAL CONVERGENCE (Observatory T3, season start, 100%) A rare alignment boosts all arcane stats by +2 for 4 weeks across the entire roster.
⬢ TOURNAMENT OF ARMS (Training Yard T3, mid-year, 100%) Annual guild tournament. Winner gains +3 to their highest combat stat. All participants gain +5 morale.
⬢ THE LOST TOME (Archive T3, random week, 75%) Scribes uncover a forgotten recipe + grant Scribes a 500 XP bonus.
⬢ SPIRITUAL AWAKENING (Sanctum T3, year end, 100%) One adventurer has a spiritual breakthrough. Their effective potential ceiling rises by +5 (capped at the natural tier maximum).
⬢ MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGH (Infirmary T3, random week, 50%) The Chirurgeon discovers a revolutionary treatment. ALL injured adventurers are immediately healed.
⬢ TRADE FESTIVAL (Marketplace T3, season start, 100%) A regional festival boosts all market sell prices by +25% for 3 weeks.
⬢ MASTERWORK INSPIRATION (Workshop T3, random week, 60%) A crafter has a flash of inspiration. The next crafted item is guaranteed A-quality or higher.
WHY THESE MATTER: Annual events are part of the long-term incentive structure for upgrading buildings to T3. Many T3 mechanical bonuses are valuable but incremental; the events are large, narrative, memorable. A guild with all 8 T3 buildings receives 7-8 substantial bonuses per year on top of all the per-week mechanical effects.
Plan your construction queue with these in mind. The Sanctum T3 awakening alone (a free +5 potential boost) can dramatically reshape a roster across 5+ years.
Every guild has limited space for materials. Your Warehouse determines how much of each material you can stockpile.
Without a Warehouse, storage is modest. Each tier of the Warehouse building dramatically increases your per-material cap, which matters more than you might think. Trading, crafting, and gathering all generate materials, and hitting your cap means excess is lost.
The Warehouse also unlocks quality-of-life features at higher tiers, including automatic overflow handling. If your guild trades heavily or runs multiple gathering operations, investing in Warehouse upgrades pays for itself quickly.
Check your current storage cap in the Guild Hall under the Warehouse building detail. If you find yourself bumping against limits during trades, this is the building to prioritize.
The Crown regulates commerce between guilds. Your Trade Routes building determines how many trades you can execute each week and how many materials can move in a single transaction.
Without Trade Routes, your guild can conduct only a handful of small exchanges. Each tier expands both the frequency and volume of your trading, from modest bartering to the kind of large-scale material transfers that fund serious construction projects.
The building tier roadmap in the Guild Hall shows exact capacity values for each tier. If you find yourself wanting to trade more than your limits allow, upgrading Trade Routes is the solution. These limits apply to all guild-to-guild material trades, both those you initiate and those you accept.
A well-managed roster is key to success:
⬢ ROSTER CAP: Limited slots. Higher guild tiers = more space. ⬢ CONTRACTS: Longer contracts cost more but save renewal hassle. ⬢ RELEASING: Sometimes you must let someone go. Low potential or budget reasons. ⬢ DEPTH: Aim for 2+ full parties so one can quest while another trains/recovers.
Don't hoard D-Tiers. Make room for better prospects when they appear!
A roster tells you who is here. The MOVEMENT LOG tells you who left, and when, and why.
Every arrival and departure is written down. Coming in: hires, recruits, and trades. Going out: dismissals, expired contracts, trades away, retirements, release clauses, desertions, and deaths. Each line carries the name, the role, the level at the time, the reason, and the week and year it happened.
WHAT IT IS FOR: ⬢ THE SEASON YOU CANNOT REMEMBER: Twelve weeks after the fact, "when did we lose the second healer" has an answer. ⬢ CHURN: A log that reads as expiry after expiry is a Receptionist problem, not a recruiting problem. ⬢ THE TRADE YOU REGRET: The log keeps the level they left at. The rival's profile keeps what they became.
It is also on the Front Desk, badged with what you have not read. Most Guild Masters find it the week they first ask where somebody went.
Your Guild Commander is a designated adventurer who serves as your guild's face: the second-in-command whose leadership radiates through morale, recruitment, and weekly counsel.
CHOOSING A COMMANDER: Any roster adventurer can be designated. Pick someone with strong Leadership, Charisma, and Trustworthiness. The commander score also weighs their chemistry with the roster, their relationships, their career record, and their tenure in the guild.
WHAT THE COMMANDER DOES: ⬢ RECRUITMENT APPEAL: A charismatic Commander attracts more applicants (visible in Recruit tab). ⬢ MORALE PRESENCE: Their leadership stabilizes guild-wide morale and deters desertion. ⬢ WEEKLY BRIEFING: They file a weekly note in their own voice: reactions to the week's events, roster advice, and warnings about flaws, transfers, and poach risks. ⬢ AUTO-DEPLOY DIRECTIVE: Optional: when enabled, the Commander auto-deploys idle parties to suitable quests on week-end ticks. Saves micromanagement for guilds with many parties. ⬢ MERCENARY-BRAND WARNINGS: The Commander warns when your transfer count is approaching the threshold for the Mercenary Brand stigma. ⬢ COMMANDER TRUST: A private trust rating between you and your Commander. It grows when you act on their advice (signings they endorsed, role gaps filled, optimizer suggestions applied) and erodes when adventurers die avoidably. Higher trust brings more candid, personal counsel.
THE COMMANDER CHRONICLE: Your Commander keeps a memory of significant guild events: deaths, tower milestones, raid outcomes, financial crises. These memories resurface in their weekly briefings as recollections, building a multi-year history that flavors the guild's narrative arc.
THE COMMANDER'S LEDGER: Every concrete recommendation your Commander makes (re-sign this veteran, pass on that recruit, rest the wounded, reinforce a thin garrison) is written into their Ledger and later graded against what actually happened. Act on a suggestion and it is marked followed; leave it and it is marked ignored. Weeks on, the Ledger settles up: if a risk they flagged comes to pass, the entry turns to vindicated and their next briefing will remind you. Heeding sound counsel builds trust. Watching an ignored warning come true builds it faster.
STANDING ORDERS: From the Commander tab you can give each party a standing directive to auto-accept the quests, contracts, or joint operations that suit it. The Commander then deploys those parties on your behalf at week's end and reads each posting's risk before committing. Set it once and the Commander keeps the rota; leave it off to weigh every deployment yourself.
UNREST & MUTINY: Trust runs both ways. A poor fit (clashing chemistry, a losing record, a temperament flaw) lets unrest gather in the ranks week by week, climbing from grumbling to insubordination and, if never addressed, toward an ultimatum and open mutiny. A sound appointment never nears it; a bad one warns you across many weeks, leaving room to set things right or make a change before it breaks.
WHERE TO FIND IT ALL: The Commander's voice reaches you in two places: a short briefing at the top of each Week Summary, and the Commander tab itself: home to the Ledger, the trust meter, the chronicle, your correspondence, and the roster's leading contenders.
CHANGING COMMANDERS: You can rotate Commanders, but changes reset accumulated trust and unsettle members holding a Commander Clause. A Commander who served at least 26 weeks leaves a permanent legacy buff when they step down. Think of the Commander as a long-term partner. Pick deliberately, not casually.
Managing dozens of contracts manually each year is tedious work, which is exactly why your Receptionist can handle it for you.
CONTRACT AUTO-RENEWAL: When enabled, your Receptionist will automatically negotiate contract extensions at week 48 each year for all flagged members. You control a master toggle (on/off for the entire guild) and can opt individual members in or out.
Not everyone will renew. Your Receptionist evaluates each member's disposition. Only those who are content or loyal will agree to extend. Members who are unhappy, who have been offered wages beyond your budget cap, or who have already refused once will be skipped.
Your Receptionist's skill affects negotiation quality. A skilled Receptionist negotiates closer to market rate; a novice may overpay. You can set a budget ceiling to prevent excessive wage commitments.
The system reports which members renewed, which were skipped, and why, so you can intervene manually where needed before contracts expire at year's end.
Your gold is running low! A bankrupt guild is a dead guild.
Survival tips: ⬢ WEEKLY WAGES: Everyone expects payment. Budget carefully. ⬢ QUEST INCOME: Keep parties questing. It's your main revenue. ⬢ SELL MATERIALS: Convert surplus to emergency gold. ⬢ CUT COSTS: Release expensive adventurers if needed. ⬢ EMERGENCY FUND: Try to keep 4-8 weeks of wages in reserve.
If gold hits zero: no wages → morale crash → mass desertion → game over.
Guild Master, I have good news. You've accumulated enough renown and gold to advance your guild to the next tier.
Open the Guild tab and look for the "Charter Upgrade" section. Upgrading your tier unlocks: • More party slots for larger operations • Higher roster and staff capacity • New building slots and operational licenses • Higher-tier quests with better rewards
Don't sit on this. A guild that stagnates is a guild that falls behind its rivals.
Ah, I see your guild's renown is growing. Let me explain something important that many Guild Masters overlook.
Your renown directly generates passive gold income every week: a "Standing Bonus." The higher your renown, the more gold flows in automatically.
Check your Treasury tab to see the breakdown. You'll find a "Standing Bonus" line. That's your renown at work.
This creates a virtuous cycle: complete quests to earn renown, which earns you gold, which funds more adventurers, which complete more quests. Understanding this loop is the key to a thriving guild.
At Guild Tier 5, you must choose a Specialization: a defining identity for your guild that grants powerful bonuses at a cost.
THE FOUR PATHS:
⬢ VANGUARD ORDER (Combat) +10% quest/raid success across all parties +5 OVR to your top 5 adventurers (elite-squad bonus) Patron quest renown 2x → 2.5x for elimination/protection quests Penalty: -10% market sell price (warriors, not merchants)
⬢ ARTISAN COLLECTIVE (Crafting) +25% crafting speed on all jobs +1 quality tier on quality rolls (D→C, C→B, etc.) Refinement produces +1 extra output per batch Master Commission: +1 concurrent faction crafting commission Penalty: -10% quest gold (focus is the workshop, not the field)
⬢ MERCHANT CONSORTIUM (Trading) +15% sell price on all market transactions Treasurer skill XP gain doubled Bulk market orders arrive instantly Penalty: -5% combat XP from quests (counting coins, not swinging swords)
⬢ WAYFARER'S LODGE (Exploration) +15% quest discovery (more quests appear on the board) +10% tower damage reduction Penalty: -10% passive income from buildings (focus is the field, not the guild hall)
Each specialization grants meaningful bonuses while imposing a penalty in another area. There is no "best" choice. It depends on how you want to run your guild.
REORGANIZATION: You can change specialization later, but it costs 50,000g + 500 renown + 8 weeks of reorganization. During reorganization, ALL bonuses AND penalties are suspended (you operate vanilla until the new spec activates). Choose carefully. Switching is expensive.
The Crown does not permit guilds to operate beyond their proven capability. Your guild tier determines the maximum difficulty of quests and raids you are authorized to undertake.
As you advance through guild tiers, Ser Aldric grants increasingly powerful Combat Licenses that raise your operational ceiling. You can view your current license limits in the Crown Admin panel under each tier's detail view.
This means early guilds will face appropriately scaled challenges. And ambitious guilds must earn the right to take on the realm's most dangerous work. The Crown also requires demonstrated combat readiness before certifying higher tiers: a track record of completed quests, successful raids, and, at the highest tiers, proven tower descent capability.
If Aldric denies your certification for combat readiness, it means you haven't yet completed enough operations at your current license level. The remedy is straightforward: go do the work, then reapply.
Your Guild Hall's appearance evolves as you invest in buildings.
As the total level of all your buildings increases, your guild hall transforms through several visual tiers, from a humble Makeshift Camp to a Grand Citadel. Each tier features a unique banner, icon, and flavor reflecting your guild's growing stature.
Individual building cards also show visual styling based on their tier: ⬢ T0: Unbuilt, grey ⬢ T1: Constructed, basic styling ⬢ T2: Upgraded, enhanced visuals ⬢ T3: Mastered, premium styling
A tier distribution bar shows how your buildings are spread across tiers, and next-tier progress indicates how close you are to the next visual upgrade. This is cosmetic. But it's a satisfying reflection of your guild's growth.
An adventurer has been injured. They cannot quest or train until they recover.
Injury severity affects recovery time: • Minor: 2-3 weeks • Major: 3-5 weeks • Critical: 6-10 weeks
Hiring a Chirurgeon professional reduces injury chance and speeds recovery.
A dark day. An adventurer has fallen in service to the guild.
Their name is added to the Memorial. Never forgotten. Death is permanent. This is why we train, why we prepare, why we never send the unprepared.
Some adventurers may miraculously survive lethal blows. Those with high Survivability and Heroism have better chances.
This is grave news, Guild Master. A rivalry between two of your adventurers has festered into something far worse: a Nemesis bond.
Unlike a healthy rivalry that can push warriors to greatness, a Nemesis relationship is pure poison. These two despise each other with a hatred that endangers everyone around them.
The consequences are severe: • -10% party damage when deployed together • -15% morale for both when in the same party • +15% injury risk from reckless behavior • They cannot both serve as captain
You must NEVER deploy Nemeses in the same party. Separate them immediately. If the hatred runs too deep, you may need to let one of them go.
I have seen guilds torn apart from within by feuds like this. Do not let it happen to yours.
You will lose people. The question is whether you look.
The MEMORIAL is a Guild sub-tab. Every adventurer who dies in your service gets a card there: how they died, what killed them, where, and what they had done for you before it happened. Beside the fallen count sits the retirements count, which is the number you want to be larger.
WHAT IT IS NOT: It is not a scoreboard, and it is not your lifetime loss total. The Memorial is capped. The most recent fallen keep their full cards; older entries degrade to names, and beyond that the roll is trimmed. A save restored from the web keeps fewer still. Your guild's true death count is tracked separately and never regresses, so a thinned Memorial has not forgotten anything that matters to the record.
Read it before a Tower run. The Memorial is the honest argument against the party you were about to send.
Kill a thing once and you have a story. Kill it forty times and you have a file.
The BESTIARY is a Registry sub-tab, and it fills itself. Every creature your parties meet in a hex battle is recorded against its own entry: how many you have faced, how many you have felled, the range of power you have seen it at, which regions it works, and the year and week you first wrote it down.
WHAT THE FILE IS WORTH: ⬢ WEAKNESSES AND RESISTANCES: What the thing takes badly, and what it shrugs off. Match your damage types to the file, not to a hunch. ⬢ DANGER RATING: What it did to the last party that met it. ⬢ ITS SKILLS: The moves it brings, so a telegraph in the battle log means something. ⬢ GUILD SLAYERS: Who on your roster has killed the most of that family.
An entry you have never met stays fogged. The Bestiary is not a manual handed to you at the start. It is your guild's own memory, and it is only as good as your guild's own scars.
Somebody has to keep the count. In this guild it is the Historian, and the Historian keeps it on everyone.
The HISTORIAN sits in the Registry and totals your guild's confirmed kills by creature family. For each family it names your own champion: the adventurer on your roster with the most of that thing to their name.
THE REALM SLAYERS: Below your own tally is the board that matters. It ranks the twenty-five deadliest adventurers in the realm by lifetime confirmed kills, and it does not restrict itself to your hall. Rival guilds' fighters sit on that list beside yours.
It is a useful humiliation. A Guild Master who has never looked at the Realm Slayers board can believe their best sword is the best sword. The board settles it, and it settles it in front of everyone.
Kills accrue in a hero's career record, so they survive a trade. Sign a slayer away from a rival and the count comes with them.
Every adventurer has a Class determining their combat Role. Balance is crucial:
TANK : Absorbs damage (Knight, Warrior, Paladin, Holy Knight, Stone Druid, Oath Paladin, Warden, Drunken Monk, Aegis Warden) HEALER : Restores health (Priest, Holy Paladin, Harmony Druid, Bard, Balance Monk, Tide Shaman, Arch Priest, Oracle) MELEE : Close damage (Monk, Rogue, Assassin, Barbarian, Crusader Paladin, Earth Shaman, Lancer, Blood Knight, Dragoon, Berserker, Hexblade) RANGED : Long damage (Archer, Ranger, Fire Mage, Frost Mage, Arcane Mage, Warlock, Sorcerer, Void Mage, Summoner, Beast Master, Totem Shaman, Northern Ranger, Geomancer, Chronomancer)
A balanced party: 1 Tank + 1 Healer + 3 Damage dealers. Check the "Role" column when recruiting!
Auto-generated reference for all 56 adventurer classes. Roles, primary/secondary stats, damage types, passive tags, and class abilities, all derived directly from class data. Hand-written explainers are planned for a future pass.
Combat in Gargadusa's Tower runs on eight damage types. Each class deals one or more of them. Enemies carry zero or more weaknesses and resistances. The interaction of class type vs enemy profile is one of the main levers between an easy fight and a wipe.
THE EIGHT TYPES
PHYSICAL: Warriors, Knights, Archers, Monks, Rangers, Lancers, Barbarians. The default martial type. Few enemies are broadly resistant; orc-class brutes are the main hard counter.
FIRE: Fire Mages, Sorcerers, Warlocks. Effective against swarmers and undead (wolves, goblins, rat swarms, skeleton archers).
ICE: Frost Mages, Tide Shamans, Frostguards, Northern Rangers, Mistwalkers. Punishes the largest brutes (ogres, orc warchiefs) and quenches elementals and dragons.
ARCANE: Arcane Mages, Sorcerers, Bards, Chronomancers. Cuts through martial enemies that resist physical attacks.
HOLY: Priests, Paladin variants, Holy Knights, Balance Monks, Arch Priests. Strong against cult enemies, the undead, and anything tagged Shadow.
NATURE: Druids, Shamans, Rangers, Beast Masters. Niche but reliable against swarmers.
SHADOW: Rogues, Assassins, Warlocks, Void Mages, Blood Knights, Hexblades. Resisted by Holy-aligned enemies; strong against various rare targets.
LIGHTNING: Lancers, Stormcallers, Levinguards. The rarest school in the guild registers. It finds the seams in hired steel and brings harpies and drakes out of the sky; giants and old stone shrug it off.
STATS BEHIND THE DAMAGE
Stats and damage types are two separate axes. A class's primary and secondary stats drive its raw OVR: the big number on the recruit card. Damage type only kicks in once a fight starts, scaling that base power up or down based on the enemy lineup.
Heavy melee classes lean on STR + CON + DEF for raw output. Precision damage flows from DEX + AGI + SPD. Elemental and arcane classes need ARC + INT. Divine and primal classes scale with WIS + ARC. Two classes with the same damage type can have completely different stat profiles: Rogue (Shadow, DEX-based) and Warlock (Shadow, ARC-based) prove the point. Stats determine "how hard can they hit," damage type determines "does this hit land for more or less against this enemy."
WEAKNESS AND RESISTANCE
When a fight starts, each adventurer's damage type is checked against the entire encounter:
weakCount = enemies in the fight that are weak to your type resistCount = enemies in the fight that resist your type totalEnemies = enemies in the fight modifier = ((weakCount − resistCount) / totalEnemies) × 20%
If the whole encounter is weak to Fire, your Fire Mage swings for +20%. If the whole encounter resists Fire, that same Fire Mage swings for −20%. Mixed encounters scale proportionally: three goblins (weak to Fire) plus three orc warriors (no Fire interaction) average to +10% for your Fire Mage.
The ±20% scalar is the same for every type. There are no "double-effective" cases. Flexibility is the lever, not raw multipliers. Each adventurer's modifier is calculated independently, then averaged into the party's final encounter outcome.
MULTI-TYPE CLASSES
A handful of classes can deal more than one damage type: Frost Mage (Ice + Arcane), Crusader Paladin (Physical + Holy), Ranger (Physical + Nature), Blood Knight (Physical + Shadow), Bard (Arcane + Holy), Sorcerer (Arcane + Fire), Earth Shaman (Physical + Nature), Beast Master (Physical + Nature), Stormcaller (Lightning + Arcane), Northern Ranger (Ice + Physical), Hexblade (Physical + Shadow + Arcane).
These classes do NOT deal "split" damage. Instead, when a fight starts, combat picks whichever of their types gives the best modifier against the current encounter. A Crusader Paladin facing undead swings as Holy; the same paladin facing Physical-resistant orcs swings as Physical. The single best type wins for that encounter.
This is the strongest reason to recruit multi-type classes: they're never "wrong" against any enemy lineup. The cost is opportunity: slots they fill could have held a stat-specialist single-type class.
SCOUTING THE MATCHUP
The quest board lists each contract's known opposition by name; a hired Guild Tactician reads their weaknesses and recommends which damage types to bring. The sharper the tactician, the more specific the read. Class synergies can also grant flat damage-type bonuses on top of the encounter math. See the Class Abilities Guide for the synergy chart.
A balanced roster should cover at least four damage types so no encounter shape catches you flat-footed. Two Physical specialists, one Fire, one Holy, and either an Arcane or Shadow specialist is a common starting baseline.
Every class has a Passive ability (always active) and an Active ability (charges over time, activates once per quest when ready). Here is the complete reference.
A hero's ROLE, not their ability slots, decides what they do in a fight. A Healer heals the party every round, a Tank holds the line, and fighters attack. That never stops, whatever abilities are slotted, and the Passive always applies. Some Active abilities can only be cast on the battlefield by the fitting role (a damage Active on a Healer, or a healing Active on a fighter); when that happens the Active still adds its smaller strategic effect and the hero keeps doing their role's job every round.
COMMON CLASSES
Knight P) Shield Wall — Takes 10% reduced damage while defending allies A) Taunt — Forces enemies to target this unit for 1 round (of 12 per battle), reducing party damage taken
Warrior P) Battle Hardened — +5% damage for each injury sustained in career A) Rallying Cry — Boosts party attack power by 15% for this encounter
Monk P) Inner Peace — +15% resistance to morale loss after failed quests A) Flurry of Blows — Deals 150% normal damage to one enemy
Rogue P) Cunning — +10% critical hit chance on all attacks A) Backstab — Deals 200% damage if attacking from stealth
Archer P) Steady Aim — +8% accuracy and +5% damage as a ranged attacker A) Volley — Hits all enemies for 75% damage each
Fire Mage P) Pyromaniac — Fire spells deal 12% more damage and have a chance to ignite A) Meteor Strike — Deals 180% damage to all enemies
Frost Mage P) Chilling Presence — Attacks slow enemies, reducing their damage by 8% A) Blizzard — Deals 60% damage to all enemies with a 30% chance to immobilize
Priest P) Divine Favor — +10% healing effectiveness to all healing spells A) Mass Heal — Heals all party members for 25% of health
UNCOMMON CLASSES
Paladin P) Aura of Protection — Party members take 8% less damage A) Lay on Hands — Fully heals one ally
Crusader Paladin P) Zealous Charge — +15% damage on first attack of each encounter A) Smite Evil — Deals 175% damage to unholy/undead enemies, 125% to others
Holy Paladin P) Beacon of Light — Healing also restores 20% of healing done to self A) Divine Shield — Grants immunity to damage for one ally for 1 round (of 12 per battle)
Barbarian P) Bloodrage — +2% damage for every 10% health missing A) Whirlwind — Hits all enemies for 120% damage
Assassin P) Shadow Step — +20% evasion chance and guaranteed crit from stealth A) Death Mark — Marks a target so the next attack against it deals 250% damage
Ranger P) Pathfinder — Party travels 15% faster and has +10% to avoid ambushes A) Rapid Fire — Fires three arrows at single target (60% damage each)
Arcane Mage P) Mana Efficiency — Spells cost 15% less mana and have +5% base damage A) Arcane Barrage — Launches a volley of arcane missiles (3 hits at 70% each)
Warlock P) Life Tap — Deals 5% of damage dealt back to self, but +15% spell damage A) Soul Drain — Drains enemy life, dealing damage and healing self for 100%
Sorcerer P) Wild Magic — 10% chance for spells to deal double damage, 5% to fizzle A) Chain Lightning — Lightning jumps between enemies (100% to 75% to 50% damage)
Harmony Druid P) Natural Recovery — Party regenerates 3% health per round (12 rounds per battle) A) Rejuvenation — Places a heal-over-time on all allies (5% per round for 4 of 12 rounds)
Earth Shaman P) Stone Skin — +12% physical damage reduction A) Earthquake — Shakes the ground dealing 90% damage and stunning enemies
Bard P) Inspiring Song — Party has +10% morale and +5% to all rolls A) Battle Hymn — Powerful song boosting party damage and defense by 12% for encounter
Lancer P) Reach Advantage — +10% damage and strike first against melee enemies A) Piercing Thrust — Armor-piercing attack dealing 150% damage ignoring 50% defense
Stormcaller P) Static Charge — +10% Arcane damage; attacks chain to a second enemy A) Chain Lightning — Arcs through all enemies for 100% damage each
RARE CLASSES
Holy Knight P) Divine Bulwark — +15% damage reduction A) Consecrate — Sanctifies ground dealing 80% holy damage per round for 3 of 12 rounds
Blood Knight P) Sanguine Bond — Heals for 15% of damage dealt to enemies A) Blood Boil — Sacrifices 20% health to deal 200% damage to target
Balance Monk P) Yin-Yang Mastery — Can both deal damage and heal equally effectively (+8% to both) A) Tranquility — Fully heals self and cleanses all debuffs
Void Mage P) Void Touched — +10% spell damage but -5% healing received A) Void Rift — Opens a rift dealing 120% damage and reducing enemy damage by 20%
Summoner P) Bound Familiar — Summons fight alongside, effectively adding +20% party damage A) Greater Summon — Calls a spirit that crashes down on a small area for 100% damage
Beast Master P) Pack Leader — Companion beast adds +15% damage and scouts for ambushes A) Feral Command — Commands beast to savage attack dealing 180% damage with bleed
Stone Druid P) Earthen Fortitude — +18% damage reduction and +10% resistance to magic A) Stone Form — Transforms into stone, becoming immune but unable to act for 2 of 12 rounds
Totem Shaman P) Spirit Totems — Totems provide +8% party damage and +8% damage reduction A) Totem of Wrath — Places a totem that blasts enemies for 70% damage per round for 4 of 12 rounds
Tide Shaman P) Tidal Restoration — Healing creates a splash effect healing other party members for 30% A) Healing Tide — Summons healing waters restoring 20% party health per round for 3 of 12 rounds
Dragoon P) Dragon Blood — +12% damage and resistance to fire/ice effects A) Jump — Deals 170% damage to a target area
Reaper P) The Harvest — The Reaper shows the whole party where to strike for the kill — +15% critical hit chance for the entire party. A) Reap — A brutal finishing strike dealing 180% damage to one enemy
Spellward P) Mana Bastion — Takes 14% less damage, and the spell-energy it soaks is channeled back into the party as healing — reducing party injuries by up to 6%. A) Warding Shield — Raises a warding shield over the whole party that absorbs 20% of incoming damage.
Frostguard P) Frozen Armor — +14% damage reduction A) Frost Nova — Freezes all enemies for 85% damage with a 30% chance to stagger them
Enchanter P) Runic Blessing — Empowered gear: +10% party damage and +6% party defense A) Shield Ward — Wraps the party in an absorbing shield that soaks 25% of incoming damage
ULTRA RARE CLASSES
Oath Paladin P) Sacred Oath — +12% party damage and defense while this unit is alive A) Divine Intervention — Resurrects a fallen party member at 50% of health
Drunken Monk P) Drunken Style — +25% evasion but attacks have -10% accuracy A) Fortified Wine — Grants +50% damage reduction for 2 of 12 rounds
Berserker P) Unrelenting Fury — +25% damage A) Rampage — Deals 4 attacks at 80% damage each
Northern Ranger P) Arctic Survival — +20% effectiveness in cold/mountain quests A) Frozen Arrow — Fires an enchanted arrow dealing 140% damage and freezing target
Arch Priest P) Divine Mastery — +20% healing effectiveness and +10% to all divine spells A) Guardian Spirit — Summons a spirit that heals lowest HP ally each round for 4 of 12 rounds
Geomancer P) Earthen Affinity — +15% damage with earth spells and +10% material drops from quests A) Crystalline Barrage — Launches crystal shards dealing 130% damage with armor shred
Warden P) Nature's Guardian — +15% damage reduction and regenerate 2% health per round (12 rounds per battle) A) Entangling Roots — Roots all enemies in place reducing their damage by 30% for 3 of 12 rounds
Hexblade P) Cursed Blade — Attacks apply curse stacks. At 3 stacks, deal bonus 50% damage A) Hex Strike — Strikes with dark energy dealing 160% damage and applying all 3 curse stacks
Oracle P) Prescience — +15% chance to avoid negative events and +10% loot quality A) Glimpse the Future — Reveals enemy weaknesses granting +25% party damage for encounter
Chronomancer ⏳ P) Temporal Mastery — +10% party speed and -10% ability cooldowns for whole party A) Time Stop — Freezes time allowing party to act twice before enemies respond
Dark Warden P) Grave Bulwark — +15% damage reduction, and converts 15% of damage soaked into party healing A) Curse of Frailty — Weakens all enemies, reducing their damage by 18% for 2 rounds
Spellblade P) Arcane Resonance — The Spellblade's enchanted edge resonates through the whole band — the entire party deals +8% damage and takes 4% less damage. A) Spellstrike — An arcane-infused strike dealing 160% damage and ignoring 40% defense
Watcher P) The Doomscryer — The Watcher's prophetic sight guides every blow — the whole party deals +10% damage. A) Scry — Exposes enemy weaknesses: the party deals +15% damage for 2 rounds
Singularity Mage P) Event Horizon — Crushing gravity drags at every enemy: all foes fight at ~8% reduced combat power, and the whole party takes ~4% less damage. A) Gravity Crush — Crushes all enemies for 90% damage with a 40% chance to stagger them
LEGENDARY CLASS
Aegis Warden P) Unyielding Presence — +20% damage reduction for entire party and +15% morale preservation A) Aegis of the Absolute — Makes all party and raid members invincible for 60 seconds. The user is injured for 3 weeks after use.
Necromancer P) Undying Legion — The undead bolster the ranks: +15% party damage A) Army of the Dead — Raises an undead legion for the battle: the party deals greatly increased damage and the undead absorb half of all incoming blows. The Necromancer is drained for 2 weeks after.
Two things decide what a hero does in a fight. Magnitude (how hard they hit or how much they heal) is the average of the two best stats on their class's offense list, and gear lifts the party's overall power. Tempo (how often and how soon they act) runs on speed, which sets their place in the turn order and their chance at a second action. Speed and agility together set how many hexes they close each round, and the finesse triad (dex, agi, luck) sharpens crits. That is why two healers of equal OVR are not equal: a fast one reaches a falling ally and can cast twice in a round, while a slower one arrives late and heals less however high their wisdom. Check the "In battle" section of a hero's Stats tab. A quick, far-reaching healer can hold a party alone, but a slow one is better paired with a second healer to cover the early rounds.
A hero's damage, or a healer's healing, is the average of their two best stats from one list. Which list depends on the class: ⬢ Healers use Wisdom, Arcane Attunement, Charisma and Intelligence. ⬢ Any other class that trains Arcane Attunement uses Arcane Attunement, Intelligence and Attack Awareness, plus Strength if it trains Strength too (Hexblade, Spellblade and Earth Shaman). ⬢ Ranged classes use Attack Awareness, Dexterity, Agility, Speed and Wisdom. ⬢ Melee and Tank classes use Attack Awareness, Strength, Dexterity, Agility and Speed.
Only the top two count, so raising a third stat on the list adds nothing to output until it overtakes one of them. The Output stats box, in the "In battle" section of a hero's Stats tab, lists every stat that could count and highlights the two that count right now.
The rule reads base stats only. Gear lifts the party's overall power, so a stat pushed high by equipment can still sit outside the counted pair.
Two things keep a hero alive in a fight: how much health they carry, and how much of each hit they shrug off. ⬢ Health is built from Constitution, Vitality and level, and Constitution counts for more than Vitality. Tanks draw the largest pool from the same stats, and classes that fight from range the smallest. ⬢ Each hit is softened by the average of the hero's two best stats from Defense Awareness, Endurance, Arcane Resistance and Durability. Arcane Resistance softens every hit, not only magic.
Only the top two count, so raising a third stat on the list adds nothing until it overtakes one of them. The curve flattens as the pair climbs, and no hero ever shrugs off a hit entirely. Constitution and Vitality do not soften hits, because they already build the health pool. The Defense stats box, in the "In battle" section of a hero's Stats tab, lists all four and highlights the two that count right now.
A hero's role and some passive abilities change damage taken on top of this. The Class Roles & Combat page lists the role multipliers. The rule reads base stats only. Gear lifts the party's overall power, so a stat pushed high by equipment can still sit outside the counted pair.
Smart questing maximizes gains and minimizes losses:
⬢ RANK MATCHING: Send parties stronger than the rank's band, and check the Risk badge before you commit. Until Scouting Post T3, both read off your scouts' estimate ⬢ DURATION: Longer quests pay better but tie up your team ⬢ DANGER LEVEL: Higher risk = better rewards, but more injuries/deaths ⬢ SEASONAL: Special quests appear during festivals. Don't miss them.
Never send exhausted or injured adventurers. Rest matters.
Failed quests hurt morale. Don't overreach!
Battle Doctrine is the standing orders a company carries into every fight. Without it they fight on instinct: strike what is nearest, hold until it falls. An order sheet is where you tell them otherwise.
You will find the desk in the Registry, under Tactician. It opens with a War Room and grows with it.
WRITING ORDERS: An order is one sentence: IF something is true, THEN do this. "If any ally is below 15%, withdraw toward safety." Your company reads the sheet from the top each turn and obeys the FIRST line whose condition holds, so the order you put first is the order that matters most.
HOW MANY YOU MAY WRITE: The War Room sets the guild's authoring budget: one order at the first tier, two at the second, three at the third. A hired Tactician adds more as their skill grows. The inkwell at the foot of the sheet shows what is left.
HOW MANY THEY REMEMBER: Writing an order is not the same as a soldier keeping it. Each member carries only the top few lines and forgets the rest: ⬢ RANK: a D-grade adventurer remembers two orders, a B three, an A four, an S five. The rawest recruits keep one. ⬢ WITS: Intelligence shifts that by one either way. At 70 and above they keep one more; below 35, one fewer. Nobody ever falls below a single order. ⬢ DRILLED ORDERS: an order your Tactician has drilled costs no memory at all, and every member keeps it however far down the sheet it sits.
So the order of the lines matters twice: it decides which rule fires first, and which rules survive at all.
STANCES: Three curated doctrines sit on the shelf beside the sheet: Aggressive, Protective and Conservative. Attaching one writes its orders onto the page in a single stroke, and you may edit every line afterwards. A stance attaches whole, even past your authoring budget: the surplus still marches, you simply cannot rewrite it until the guild can carry more.
THE TACTICIAN'S DISCRETION: Hand your Tactician the pen and they compose the sheet themselves, from what they drill and who is marching. Their lines appear in their own hand. Take the pen back whenever you wish, and the orders stay as written.
THE LINE: The Formations page is where you set where each member stands. A placement saves a rank and a flank, not an exact tile, so the shape holds on any battlefield: on a wider field the line stretches to fit. Front, middle and rear each carry three flanks, and every drawn hex is a position you can use.
WHERE IT APPLIES: Doctrine and formations ride every hex battle: quests, raids, the Tower, garrison skirmishes, the Crown Cup, Rival Challenges and the Practice yard. Rival guilds fight on instinct, so a well-written sheet is an edge over them.
TESTING WITHOUT COST: "Test doctrine" on the order sheet spars your orders against a training dummy. No experience, no injuries, no gold. It is the cheapest way to learn whether a line does what you meant it to.
The last line of every sheet is one you cannot edit: otherwise, fight by instinct. A doctrine is not a script for the whole battle. It is the handful of moments where you would rather they did something other than the obvious.
Your adventurers just resolved a quest — a real battle, decided by their stats, gear, and abilities.
Want to see how it went? Open the Week Summary and click the completed quest to read its Tactical Debrief: your party's effective power vs the quest's Required OVR, what helped, and the risks you ran.
Tower and Raid fights have their own battle logs too. For the full picture, press H and read "How Combat Works & Battle Logs."
Congratulations! Your renown has earned a new Guild Tier.
Higher tiers unlock: • More party slots • Better quest rewards • Access to professionals • New buildings • Eventually... the Tower itself
Keep building your renown through successful quests.
Morale affects everything. Happy adventurers perform better and are less likely to desert.
Morale rises from: • Successful quests • Level ups • Rest and fair wages
Morale falls from: • Failed quests • Injuries to friends • Poor working conditions
Watch the Morale indicators in the Roster tab.
Every adventurer has innate Traits: special qualities that affect their performance.
Traits can boost damage, reduce injuries, improve gold earnings, or provide many other benefits.
Adventurers gain additional traits when reaching A-Tier (OVR 82+) and S-Tier (OVR 94+) status. Nurture your best!
Every adventurer is born under a zodiac sign that gives them a personal Drive: their first ambition. It fills on its own as they quest and train. Fulfilling it grants a permanent reward and opens the Crossroads, where you choose their Calling: some roads evolve the class into something rarer and stronger; others forge a Legend with a famous title and a passive the whole party shares.
A chosen road climbs in tiers. Complete the Calling's deed to earn their signature, then the Ascension's deed to summon the Proving: a personal trial pinned to the Quest Board, matched to the hero's own strength. They must fight it in person; they cannot die there, and a failed trial can simply be attempted again.
Committed heroes want to be used. A benched Calling breeds Restlessness: morale bleeds, an obsession can take root, and at the final threshold the hero abandons the road (at the Ascension stage, that road is lost for good, though the Crossroads will take them back for another). See the journey through and they ascend: a new class or a hard-won title, lasting fame, and a permanent place in your guild's story.
Every adventurer who wants something is a light. Put them all in one sky and you can finally see what your guild is reaching for.
The STAR CHART is a Registry sub-tab. Each hero carrying a Drive or walking a Calling road becomes a star, grouped into eight constellations by the KIND of deed their ambition demands: valor, mastery, wealth, faith, and so on. Brightness tracks progress. A star near completion is loud, and carries its name.
WHAT TO READ IN IT: ⬢ THE SHAPE: A sky crowded into two constellations means your guild only ever offers two kinds of work. Ambitions stall when the deeds never come. ⬢ RESTLESSNESS: A hero on a road they cannot advance builds frustration, and frustration bleeds morale. The chart marks them before the morale panel does. ⬢ BEST NEXT DEEDS: The Alignment panel names the specific work that would move the most stars at once. One raid can serve six ambitions if you pick the right raid. ⬢ THE CROSSROADS: A hero standing at a fork shows their offered roads as unlit arcs.
Click a star and that hero's dossier opens beside the sky, on the page where their journey lives. The chart has a Ledger view too, which is the same data as a list. Use whichever you actually read.
You can also chart the sky as a picture and keep it. Guilds have framed worse.
Most adventurers get better. A few become something else.
Twenty LINEAGES run through the class roster. A hero on an eligible class who follows their Calling to its end reaches ASCENSION, and on the far side of it they are a different class entirely. A Knight becomes a Frostguard or an Embersworn. A Paladin becomes an Oath Paladin or a Dark Warden. A Rogue walks the single road to Assassin.
THE FORK IS A CHOICE: Four lineages branch. The Crossroads offers the roads that hero is eligible for, and taking one bars nothing until you walk away from it. Abandon a road partway and it is closed to them for good, though the hero can return to the Crossroads and pick a different one.
WHAT ASCENSION DOES: The class changes. The kit rolls fresh from the new class's full option set, with a floor: neither ability slot can come back rarer than what that hero already had. The class signature is the likeliest outcome, but a pool variant that clears the floor can land instead. Variety, never a downgrade.
That roll is sealed to the hero. Reloading before the Proving resolves will not shake a different kit loose, so do not spend the evening trying.
Ascension also grants a permanent TITLE, and titles carry fame. An apex class is not a stat bump. It is the end of a story that hero has been telling you since you signed them.
You've hired an Astrologer. They can interpret the zodiac signs of your adventurers.
Sun Signs reveal core personality and negotiation tendencies. Moon Signs show how they respond to stress and failure.
Understanding these helps you manage morale and predict behavior during difficult quests.
The colored badge on each applicant shows their Potential: the most important stat in the game.
⬢ S-Tier (94+ ceiling): Future legends. Extremely rare. Sign immediately. ⬢ A-Tier (82+ ceiling): Elite performers. Worth premium contracts. ⬢ B-Tier (70+ ceiling): Solid professionals. Your guild's backbone. ⬢ C-Tier (55+ ceiling): Average. Useful early, replaceable later. ⬢ D-Tier (40+ ceiling): Below average. Filler only. ⬢ F-Tier (below 40): Desperate cases. Avoid if possible.
An F-Tier can NEVER reach A-Tier heights. Potential is destiny. Prioritize it over current OVR.
As adventurers complete quests, survive raids, and clear tower floors, they build a personal reputation: their Fame.
Fame is not a single number you assign. It is earned through deeds: quests completed, bosses defeated, critical successes, years of loyal service. The most accomplished adventurers rise through fame tiers, from Unknown to Legendary and beyond.
Famous adventurers bring tangible benefits to their party: improved quest rewards, better raid outcomes, and reduced tower casualties. But fame has a cost: renowned adventurers expect higher wages and are more likely to attract poaching interest from rival guilds.
When a party's collective fame reaches extraordinary heights, they may earn the distinction of "Party of Heroes": a legendary status that unlocks special quests worthy of their reputation. Only one party in your guild can hold this title at a time.
The Hall of Fame is your guild's permanent record: a curated tribute to legendary adventurers and milestone achievements that persist across years, generations, and even New Game+ runs.
THREE COMPONENTS:
⬢ LEGENDS: Individual adventurers inducted into the Hall. Inductions happen automatically on retirement-class events (forced retirement at age 60, certain peak-achievement triggers) AND can be manually nominated by you for any roster member who's earned it. Up to 20 Legends are tracked.
⬢ YEARLY AWARDS: Annual recognition for top performers across categories (Quest Master, Iron Will, Gold Standard, Critical Ace, Star Player, etc.). Awarded at year-end ceremonies. Up to 20 yearly awards retained.
⬢ MILESTONES: Permanent guild-level achievements that fire ONCE in your guild's lifetime. The 18 milestones include: • First Blood (first quest), The Price of Glory (first death), Dragon Slayer (first tower boss), Strength in Numbers (first raid) • Rising Renown (Guild Tier 3), Established Force (T5), Regional Power (T7), Legendary Guild (T10) • Champion of Hiltcrest (#1 ranking), Century of Quests (100 total), Legendary Undertaking (500 total) • Into the Depths (Tower Floor 25), The Blade Within (Floor 50), At Gargadusa's Throat (Floor 75), The First Sword Falls (Capricorn defeated) • Flawless Year (a full year zero deaths), Fortune Favors the Bold (100,000g accumulated), Guild Architect (all buildings maxed)
INDUCTION CEREMONY: When an adventurer is inducted, the HoF Ceremony Modal plays a multi-section eulogy: ⬢ Their career stats (quests completed, level, top performer count) ⬢ A category badge (Quest Master / Iron Will / Star Player / Manual nomination / etc.) ⬢ A short generated tribute: their name, class, signature accomplishments ⬢ If manually nominated, your custom inscription is included in the eulogy
PERSISTENCE: Hall of Fame data survives save/load cycles AND New Game+: your previous run's Legends and Milestones carry forward as guild lore. Across multiple NG+ runs, the Hall becomes a multi-generational record of every adventurer your dynasty has elevated.
WHY IT MATTERS: The Hall is purely narrative. It has no mechanical effects. But for many players it's the most meaningful UI surface in the game: a permanent record that no save corruption, no roster wipe, no NG+ reset can erase. When you induct someone manually, take a moment to write a tribute that future-you will appreciate.
Welcome to the Recruit tab: your gateway to building a legendary guild.
Here you'll find adventurers and staff seeking employment. Each displays: • Name and Class: their identity and combat specialization • Role: Tank, Healer, Melee, or Ranged • Category: Adventurer or Staff type (Bartender, Crafter, etc.) • Potential: their growth ceiling (F-Tier to S-Tier)
Use your Scout to reveal hidden stats before signing. Never hire blind!
Staff applicants appear alongside adventurers in the Recruit tab. They don't fight. They support your guild:
INTELLIGENCE STAFF (hire early): ⬢ BARTENDER: Reveals applicant traits via the "Rumor" column ⬢ RECEPTIONIST: Shows personality via the "Impression" column ⬢ ASTROLOGER: Predicts party fit via the "Teamwork" column ⬢ INSTRUCTOR: Estimates career runway via the "Outlook" column ⬢ SCOUT: Narrows recruits' hidden stats to ranges (exact values reveal on signing)
OPERATIONAL STAFF: ⬢ TACTICIAN: Boosts quest and raid planning ⬢ QUARTERMASTER: Manages equipment logistics (bulk equip, auto-repair) ⬢ TREASURER: Handles guild finances and market trades ⬢ OVERSEER: Oversees building construction projects ⬢ MASON / CARPENTER: Construction crew specialists
PRODUCTION STAFF: ⬢ CRAFTERS: Blacksmiths, Leatherworkers, Alchemists, etc. forge equipment ⬢ GATHERERS: Miners, Lumberjacks, Foragers, etc. collect materials weekly ⬢ CHIRURGEON: Speeds injury recovery, reduces death chance ⬢ COOK: Boosts party power on quests ⬢ CHRONICLER: Improves renown gains
Staff unlock progressively as you build guild infrastructure and advance tiers. Hire a Bartender, Receptionist, or Astrologer early. Their intel columns help you make smarter hiring decisions.
The Treasurer is a dedicated staff member who manages your guild's market trades and financial systems. Unlocks at Treasury Tier 1.
WHAT THEY DO: ⬢ AUTO-TRADE: Each week, the Treasurer executes material buy/sell rules you've configured in the Treasury panel. Set thresholds (e.g., "sell Iron when stockpile > 500", "buy Cloth when below 100") and they handle execution. ⬢ SPREAD BONUS: Treasurers earn you better-than-market prices. The bonus scales from +0% (novice) to +12% (expert) on every trade they execute. ⬢ TRADE XP: Their skill grows from successful trades. More volume = faster XP gain. ⬢ ENDOWMENT FUND CAP: At Treasury T3, the Endowment Fund (0.5% weekly interest on gold above 50,000g) has a Treasurer-skill-scaled cap on weekly returns.
WHERE THEY LIVE: Treasurers are stored in your roster (alongside adventurers, bartenders, receptionists), not in the staff list. You hire them through the Recruit tab like any staff applicant.
SKILL TIERS (5): ⬢ APPRENTICE (0-29): basic auto-trade, no spread bonus ⬢ JOURNEYMAN (30-49): +3% spread bonus, more rule slots ⬢ TRADESMASTER (50-69): +6% spread bonus ⬢ MASTER TREASURER (70-84): +9% spread bonus, larger trade volumes per rule ⬢ GRAND TREASURER (85-99): +12% spread bonus, maximum rule limits
WHEN TO HIRE: ⬢ You have surplus materials piling up and don't want to manually click sell every week. ⬢ Your guild's economy is large enough that small spread bonuses add up to meaningful gold (rule of thumb: 100k+ in weekly trade volume). ⬢ You're at Treasury T3 and want the Endowment Fund to actually grow.
A skilled Treasurer pays for themselves quickly. The wage is a fraction of the spread bonus they generate.
When you approach an applicant to sign a contract, you enter negotiations. This isn't a simple "hire" button. Applicants have preferences and demands.
THE BASICS: ⬢ WAGE: Each applicant has an asking price influenced by their ability and personality ⬢ TERM: Contract length (in years). Longer terms lock in a wage but commit you longer ⬢ CLAUSES: Special contract conditions the applicant may request (or you can offer)
PERSONALITY MATTERS: An applicant's zodiac Sun Sign shapes their negotiation style. Some are aggressive negotiators who escalate demands if rejected. Others are patient and open to counter-offers. Moon Signs affect how they handle rejection: some leave permanently, others cool down and return.
REJECTION CONSEQUENCES: If negotiations fail, the applicant may: ⬢ LEAVE: Walk away permanently (gone from the pool) ⬢ COOLDOWN: Refuse to negotiate for several weeks, then return ⬢ ESCALATE: Come back with higher wage demands
Your Receptionist and Bartender skills can influence negotiation outcomes. A skilled Receptionist reads applicants better, helping you understand what they'll accept.
Your Bartender is now gathering intel! A new "Rumor" column appears in the Recruit tab.
Rumors reveal hidden traits about applicants: • Combat style: "Devastating Blows", "Quick Reflexes", "Glass Cannon" • Work ethic: "Never Gives Up", "Tireless Worker", "Lazy" • Social traits: "Party Favorite", "Inspires Others", "Loner" • Talents: "Hidden Genius", "Prodigy", "Late Bloomer"
Higher Bartender skill = more accurate rumors. A dash (—) means no intel yet.
Your Receptionist is now reading visitors! A new "Impression" column appears in the Recruit tab.
First impressions reveal personality: • Positive: "Eager", "Professional", "Confident", "Friendly" • Neutral: "Reserved", "Quiet", "Standard", "Calm" • Warning signs: "Shifty", "Arrogant", "Nervous", "Impatient"
Higher skill = better reads. But remember: first impressions can deceive.
Your Astrologer is now reading the stars! A new "Teamwork" column appears in the Recruit tab.
Teamwork ratings predict party chemistry: • Excellent: "Great Teammate", "Party Glue", "Lifts Others" • Good: "Reliable Partner", "Team Player", "Supportive" • Average: "Does Their Part", "No Issues", "Functional" • Poor: "Lone Wolf", "Clashes Often", "Difficult" • Leadership: "Takes Charge", "Rallies Others", "Commands Respect"
Mix carefully. Too many lone wolves and your party falls apart.
When your Scouts aren't actively scouting a specific applicant, they can be set to Watch Mode: a passive monitoring state.
In Watch Mode, Scouts automatically: ⬢ MONITOR: Keep tabs on the recruit pool for notable arrivals ⬢ REPORT: Flag high-potential applicants or unusual activity ⬢ GATHER INTEL: Passively collect background information
Watch Mode is less thorough than a direct scouting assignment, but it ensures your Scouts are never sitting idle. Think of it as having eyes on the door even when you haven't pointed them at anyone specific.
To activate Watch Mode, leave a Scout unassigned. They'll default to passive monitoring.
Once a year, your Reception hosts the Trial by Fire: an annual recruitment spectacle where prospective applicants prove their worth in combat.
At Week 30, ten random applicants from your recruit pool are selected as candidates. You draft them into two teams of five (Team Fire and Team Steel), then watch them battle it out in a 10-round arena fight.
All ten candidates are fully scouted regardless of which team wins. The winning team each gain +2 to their OVR (a permanent stat boost across the board), and the top performer on the winning team earns the Proven trait.
Drafting is where the strategy lies. Unscouted candidates show "??" for their OVR. You're making educated guesses based on class and gut instinct. Already-scouted candidates show their real OVR, giving you an edge if your scouts have been busy.
The Trial by Fire is unlocked by upgrading your Reception to Tier 2.
Not every applicant deserves your attention. If you've scouted someone and decided they'll never join your guild. Dismiss them.
HOW IT WORKS: ⬢ Click any recruit to open their detail panel ⬢ Click the DISMISS button to remove them from your active recruit list ⬢ Dismissed applicants are hidden from view but not gone. They still age and may depart naturally
VIEWING DISMISSED: A counter in the filter bar shows how many applicants you've dismissed. Click it to toggle visibility. Dismissed applicants appear faded with a restore option.
RESTORING: Changed your mind? Click a dismissed applicant's detail panel and hit RESTORE to bring them back to your active list.
This is purely a quality-of-life feature: a way to keep your recruit list focused on candidates you're actually considering. Dismissed applicants are automatically cleaned up when they leave the pool through natural means.
When you hire staff, they begin gathering intelligence on applicants. Each staff type adds a column to the Recruit tab with their own specialty. The higher a staff member's skill, the more reliable their reads.
RUMOR (Bartender): Your Bartender works the tavern and picks up gossip about applicants. Rumors fall into several categories:
Combat reputation: "Great Swordsman", "Heavy Hitter", "Battle-Hardened" suggest strong fighters. "Glass Cannon" means high offense but fragile. "Weak Arm", "Clumsy Swinger", "Green Fighter" suggest low combat ability. "Tactical Mind" and "Patient Duelist" hint at calculated fighters, while "Reckless Charger" and "Wild Swinger" are aggressive but undisciplined.
Work ethic: "Hard Worker", "Relentless Grinder", "Never Quits", "Focused Worker" are positive signs. "Lazy but Talented" means high ceiling but inconsistent effort. "Total Slacker", "Easily Distracted", "Takes Breaks" are warning signs.
Social reputation: "Natural Leader" and "Cool Under Fire" are strong traits. "Crowd Favorite" suggests charisma. "Hot Temper", "Drinks Too Much", and "Loose Lips" can cause party friction. "Quiet Type" and "Loner" aren't necessarily bad. Just reserved.
Talent assessment: "Hidden Talent", "Rising Star", "Sleeper Pick" suggest high potential that isn't obvious from stats alone. "Overrated" and "Sure Thing" can be misleading. "Raw Potential" means unpolished but promising. "Past Prime" and "Washed Up" suggest decline.
Vague rumors: "Seems Reliable", "Probably Fine", "Nothing Special", "Average Joe". These tend to appear when your Bartender's skill is low. They're not necessarily wrong, but they're not very useful either.
Staff-specific: When evaluating staff applicants, you'll see labels like "Reliable Worker", "Keen Eye", "Quick Learner", "Experienced". These reflect the applicant's professional reputation.
A dash (—) means your Bartender couldn't dig up anything on that applicant.
IMPRESSION (Receptionist): Your Receptionist reads applicants when they walk through the door, picking up on personality and demeanor.
Fire personalities: "Bold", "Energetic", "Competitive", "Confident", "Commanding", "Charismatic", "Cheerful", "Adventurous", "Optimistic". These applicants tend to be driven and assertive.
Earth personalities: "Steady", "Patient", "Reliable", "Calm", "Precise", "Diligent", "Disciplined", "Professional", "Driven". Grounded, dependable types.
Air personalities: "Chatty", "Curious", "Witty", "Clever", "Charming", "Diplomatic", "Friendly", "Independent", "Thoughtful". Social and intellectual types.
Water personalities: "Warm", "Protective", "Nurturing", "Gentle", "Empathetic", "Kind", "Intense", "Perceptive", "Focused". Emotionally attuned types.
Vague reads like "Hard to Read", "Unremarkable", "Typical" usually mean your Receptionist needs more experience.
TEAMWORK (Astrologer): Your Astrologer reads the stars to predict how well an applicant will mesh with a party.
"Great Teammate", "Party Glue", "Lifts Others", "Team First", "Natural Fit". Excellent team players who strengthen any party. "Reliable Partner", "Team Player", "Supportive", "Cooperates". Solid contributors who work well with others. "Does Their Part", "No Issues", "Functional". Adequate but unremarkable in groups. "Lone Wolf", "Solo Player", "Clashes Often", "Difficult", "Poor Fit". May cause friction in parties. Not always bad fighters, but hard to integrate. "Leads Well", "Takes Charge", "Rallies Others", "Commands Respect". Natural leaders who can elevate a party's performance.
OUTLOOK (Instructor): Your Instructor evaluates an applicant's physical condition and estimates their remaining career years.
"20+ Years", "Long Career", "Prime Years Ahead", "Decades Left". Young and healthy, many seasons ahead. "10+ Years", "Solid Runway", "Good Years Left", "Mid-Career". Established but still have productive years left. "1-2 Years", "Limited Time", "Winding Down", "Near Retirement". Nearing the end. May still be worth hiring for immediate impact, but don't expect longevity. "Uncertain", "Hard to Say", "Unclear", "Unknown". Your Instructor couldn't get a clear read. Usually means they need more experience.
IMPORTANT: All intel depends on staff skill. A novice Bartender's "Sure Thing" might be completely wrong, while a master Bartender's "Hidden Talent" is almost always right. Invest in your staff and their reads become invaluable.
Adventurers wear equipment to boost their stats. Each piece occupies one of six slots: weapon, offhand, armor, helm, and two accessory slots.
WHAT MAKES A PIECE: ⬢ QUALITY: Common → Rare → Epic → Legendary. Higher quality = stronger stat bonuses. ⬢ DURABILITY: Degrades with use. Broken gear loses its bonuses until repaired. ⬢ CLASS REQUIREMENTS: Some pieces require a specific class to equip. ⬢ SET PIECES: Some items belong to sets. Equipping multiple pieces from a set unlocks set bonuses (visible in the Sets overview). ⬢ IMPROVEMENTS: Crafters can apply improvements (Sharpen, Reinforce, Enchant, Padding, etc.). Pairs of improvements form Synergies that grant bonus stats. See "Gear Improvement Synergies" in this library.
DEPLOYMENT FREEZE: While an adventurer is deployed (on a quest in week 2+, on a raid past the deploy week, on a contract, on a dispatch), their gear is locked. You can't equip, unequip, swap, or vault their items until they return. Gear is freely editable in town and during the deploy week of any deployment. Plan ahead.
GETTING EQUIPMENT: ⬢ CRAFT: Hire a Crafter (Blacksmith, Armorer, Tailor, Jeweler, Alchemist, Enchanter). Better Crafters forge higher-quality gear; the technique you choose (Standard, Meticulous, Rushed, Experimental, Masterwork) shapes risk vs reward. ⬢ LOOT: Quest, raid, and tower rewards drop equipment. Tower depth correlates with rarity. ⬢ MARKET: Some items are tradeable with rival guilds. ⬢ FACTION VENDORS: High-standing factions sell exclusive equipment.
QUARTERMASTER: Hire a Quartermaster (Armory T1) to bulk-equip your roster in one action. Higher-skill Quartermasters add gear suggestions, pre-quest auto-equip, and auto-repair.
A well-equipped B-Tier can outperform a naked A-Tier. Equip thoughtfully.
Crafting requires materials: raw, refined, rare, and magical.
MATERIAL TIERS: ⬢ BASIC (raw): Wood, Stone, Iron Ore, Hides. Cheap, plentiful, foundational. ⬢ REFINED: Treated Wood, Steel, Leather. Crafters refine Basic materials into Refined; refinement quality depends on crafter skill. ⬢ RARE: Refined Silver, Polished Gems, etc. Higher-tier crafting requires these. ⬢ MAGICAL: Essences and arcanum, mostly produced via Mage's Tower buildings (Alchemy Lab, Enchanting Chamber, Rune Circle).
SOURCES: ⬢ GATHERERS: Hire staff specialized in specific resource types: Miner, Lumberjack, Forager, Farmer, Fisher, Hunter, Trapper, Salvager, Essence Harvester. Each produces specific materials weekly. Higher guild tiers unlock rarer gatherers. ⬢ QUEST + RAID REWARDS: Many quests pay materials directly, with raid rewards typically including rarer types. ⬢ MARKETS: Buy any material from the open market. Watch for AMM saturation penalties when buying or dumping in bulk. ⬢ TRADING: Rival guilds may offer material trades. Higher Trade Routes tier = more trades per week.
REFINEMENT GRADES: When a Crafter refines materials, the result is graded based on their skill: Crude → Standard → Fine → Superior → Pristine. Higher grades stretch further during crafting and produce better quality finished items. Hire skilled Crafters and they pay for themselves in material efficiency.
STORAGE: Per-material caps depend on your Warehouse tier: 1,000 (no Warehouse), 2,000 (T1), 5,000 (T2), or 10,000 (T3) per material. Existing stockpiles are NEVER reduced by tier downgrades; over-cap stocks are preserved. At Warehouse T2+, materials over the cap are auto-sold at half market value (with a grace-week warning before any sale).
Keep your Crafters supplied. No materials = no equipment. Materials trade is also a viable income stream. Surplus = gold.
When an adventurer is deployed away from the guild hall, their gear is FROZEN. You can't equip, unequip, swap, or vault their items until they return.
WHEN GEAR LOCKS: ⬢ ON A QUEST: locked from week 2 onward (deploy week is still editable) ⬢ ON A RAID: locked once the raid passes its deploy week ⬢ ON A FACTION CONTRACT or JOINT OPERATION: locked once underway ⬢ ON A FACTION DISPATCH: locked once dispatched
WHEN GEAR IS STILL EDITABLE (yes, even though they're "busy"): ⬢ IN THE TOWER: tower battles resolve in a single session; no inter-tick swap window exists ⬢ GARRISONED: stationing, not deployment; legitimate "swap gear at base" preserved ⬢ AT A GUILD EVENT: single-week event by design
WHY: Pre-fix, players could send Party A on a 14-week Saga with a Legendary, hot-swap that Legendary onto Party B's 5-week Expedition mid-Saga, then swap it back before resolution: 100% artifact uptime across two parties at zero cost. Field-Lock closes that loophole and matches the fiction (the adventurer is in the field with the gear; you can't reach into their pack from the guild hall).
THE UI: Equip / Unequip / Swap buttons disable on a locked adventurer with a clear blocker label and tooltip. Bulk-equip surfaces (Sets overview "+N owned" buttons, Quartermaster auto-equip strategies) silently skip locked adventurers and proceed to the next eligible one. No item is wasted.
PLANNING: Gear is freely editable in town and during the deploy week of any deployment. If you want to swap a Legendary onto a quest party at the start, do it before the second week tick. After that, you're committed.
When two specific improvements are applied to the same piece of equipment, they form a SYNERGY, granting extra stats beyond what each improvement provides on its own.
Some synergies are slot-restricted. Spellweave only forms on armor. Runic Edge only on weapons. The list below notes each synergy's eligible slots.
ALL SYNERGIES:
WEAPON / OFFHAND ⬢ Sharpen + Balance → PRECISION EDGE: +2 Dex ⬢ Rune of Power + Sharpen → RUNIC EDGE: +4 Atk (weapon only) ⬢ Potency Boost + Stability → ALCHEMICAL PERFECTION: +3 Res, +2 Atk (also armor)
ARMOR / HELM ⬢ Reinforce + Padding → FORTRESS ARMOR: +3 End ⬢ Reinforce + Minor Enchantment → WOVEN ENCHANTMENT: +1 Def, +1 Res, plus durability regeneration each quest (also offhand)
ARMOR (only) ⬢ Reinforced Stitching + Arcane Lining → SPELLWEAVE: +2 Arc, +2 Def, +2 Res ⬢ Minor Enchantment + Arcane Lining → ARCANE RESONANCE: +3 Arc, +2 Res (also weapon/offhand)
ACCESSORIES / HELM ⬢ Gem Socket + Fine Setting → JEWELED MASTERPIECE: +3 Lck, +2 Cha
DISCOVERY: The first time you create each synergy on a piece of gear, your guild discovers it. Once discovered, the synergy is named on every item where it's active. Until then, the equipment detail panel will show "??? Unknown Synergy": a hint that you've stumbled onto something new.
When your crafters forge an item, you can choose a Technique: an approach that affects the outcome.
⬢ STANDARD: The default. Balanced results with no modifiers. ⬢ METICULOUS: Slower and uses more materials, but significantly improves quality chances. ⬢ RUSHED: Faster completion, but higher chance of poor quality or failure. ⬢ EXPERIMENTAL: A gamble. Can produce exceptional results or complete failures. ⬢ MASTERWORK ATTEMPT: Requires high crafter skill. The only way to reliably aim for the highest quality tier.
COMMISSIONS: Factions, the Crown, and rival guilds may commission specific items from your crafters. Delivering a high-quality commission earns bonus rewards. Missing the deadline costs reputation.
SIGNATURE ITEMS: Exceptional crafted items (A-Tier or S-Tier quality) automatically become Signature Items: uniquely named pieces that carry the crafter's legacy. These are tracked in your guild's history.
REFINEMENT: Materials can be refined before crafting. The grade of refined materials (from Crude to Pristine) depends on your crafter's skill and affects the quality of finished items.
A crafter without a bench is a crafter with opinions.
STATIONS sit on the Guild tab beside the Guild Hall. Each one serves a set of professions, and each upgrades through three tiers. Ten stations cover the whole trade:
⬢ THE FORGE: Blacksmith ⬢ THE TANNERY: Armorer ⬢ ARCANE TABLE: Enchanter, Runesmith, Diviner ⬢ JEWELER'S BENCH: Jeweler ⬢ THE LOOM: Tailor ⬢ APOTHECARY: Alchemist, Herbalist ⬢ SCRIPTORIUM: Scribe, Cartographer, Chronicler ⬢ INFIRMARY: Chirurgeon ⬢ THE KITCHEN: Cook ⬢ CONSTRUCTION YARD: Mason, Carpenter
WHAT A TIER BUYS: Station tier feeds the QUALITY BONUS on everything that bench produces. It is one of five terms, alongside your crafter's enchanting skill, the buildings behind them, the grade of the refined materials going in, and your guild specialization. The Quality Forecast on the crafting panel shows the sum before you commit.
Upgrading a station is the quietest power spike in the guild. It does not add a recipe or a role. It moves every roll that bench will ever make, for the rest of the run.
The Dwarves do not answer advertisements. They answer work.
Somewhere in your second or third year a letter arrives from Brunnhilde Ironhold, and the Deepforge begins measuring you. Take their contracts. Take the raid into the Old Halls when it posts to the Raid board. Clear it, and the Compact is offered: a delegation quarters at your guild, and you may build the DWARVEN FORGE.
WHAT THE FORGE COSTS: T1 (8,000g, Tier 4) opens the Compact panel on the Guild tab. T2 (20,000g, Tier 5) and T3 (40,000g, Tier 6) widen what the crew will do. Every tier also makes your equipped gear wear slower, up to 15% at T3.
THE FOUR SERVICES: ⬢ AUTO-REFINE (T1): The crew works your Workshop refining targets for Blacksmith, Mason, Armorer and Jeweler recipes you have no artisan for. Coverage, not supremacy: a recipe whose professional you HAVE hired stays free and stays yours. ⬢ SMART LOGISTICS (T2): Parties get kitted out before they march, and worn or broken gear on deployed squads is flagged. ⬢ AUTO-CRAFT TO LOADOUT (T2): Weekly forging to fill empty slots on your roster. Simple work only. Fine crafting stays the craft of your own artisans. ⬢ AUTO-UPGRADE (T2): Strictly better gear you already own gets swapped onto fighters in town. Never a downgrade, never a set piece, never a soul-bonded blade, and never anyone in the field.
WHAT IT COSTS TO RUN: A weekly retainer while any service is on, plus a per-piece fee on refining and forging. Both shrink as Compact STANDING grows, to a quarter off at the top. Standing comes from finished contracts, won Compact raids, each Forge tier, and simply keeping the crew busy. Auto-Upgrade is free: it moves what you already own.
RUNE-WORK (T3): The crew opens a shelf. DWARVEN RUNES are rare components your own crafters spend for a quality floor and a shift, and there is a small stock of one-time Legendary commissions. Runes also come out of salvage once the Forge stands at T3, and off the back of the recurring defense raids the Old Halls keep asking for.
Remember what the Compact is. The crew teaches and supplies. The masterwork stays yours.
Ah — the Runesmith's craft. A fine question, for it trips up many a Guild Master.
Runestones and Glyphs are ACCESSORIES: magical trinkets you craft and then equip, exactly like a ring or amulet. They are not sockets or charms slotted into other gear — they ARE the gear.
WHO MAKES THEM: The RUNESMITH, an advanced crafting profession. The role unlocks once your Enchanting Chamber reaches Tier 2 (around guild Tier 4), which also opens its Advanced recipes. Expert and Master recipes follow at Enchanting Chamber Tier 3.
RUNESTONES (Accessory 2 slot — offensive, arcane): ⬢ Minor Runestone (Advanced) — Str / Arc ⬢ Greater Runestone (Expert) — Str / Arc / Int / Wis ⬢ Primordial Runestone (Master) — Str / Arc / Int / Wis / Lck
GLYPHS (Accessory 1 slot — defensive, arcane): ⬢ Warding Glyph (Advanced) — Def / Res / Arc ⬢ Runic Talisman (Expert) — Arc / Res / Def / Wis
Because the two sit in different slots, an adventurer may wear ONE of each at once — a Glyph in Accessory 1 and a Runestone in Accessory 2. A favored pairing for casters and battle-mages.
HOW TO USE THEM: ⬢ Build and upgrade the Enchanting Chamber, then hire a Runesmith. ⬢ Gather the reagents — stone, refined metal, and magical essence for the lesser pieces; relic fragments, stabilized essence, polished gems, mithril, and alpha trophies for the greater. These are mid-to-late-game materials. ⬢ Craft the piece at the arcane bench, then EQUIP it in an adventurer's accessory slot like any other gear. The stat bonuses apply at once.
DO NOT CONFUSE THEM WITH "RUNES": The Runesmith also inscribes Runes — of Power, Protection, Swiftness, Arcana, and Fortune — but those are IMPROVEMENTS etched onto existing weapons and armor (via the Improve action, by a high-skill Runesmith), not standalone accessories. Same craftsman, two different trades.
PAIR WITH THE RUNE CIRCLE: Build a Rune Circle and your equipped gear — Runestones and Glyphs among it — gains RUNIC ATTUNEMENT, growing stronger the longer one adventurer carries it. Keep a piece bonded a full year and SOUL BOND grants it a permanent +2 to all stats. Patience rewards the devoted.
Grimoires are legendary tomes of immense power, salvaged from the depths of raid dungeons. They are among the rarest treasures in all of Irda. And among the most dangerous.
HOW TO OBTAIN Grimoires have a 10% chance to drop upon completing a successful raid or winning a tower floor. You can hold a maximum of 15 at a time. They cannot be crafted or purchased. Only won.
HOW TO USE Open the Guild tab and find the Grimoire panel. Select a grimoire and choose an adventurer to absorb it. The grimoire is consumed permanently.
THE SIX GRIMOIRES
GRIMOIRE OF SALVATION (25% drop rate) Binds a one-time death ward to an adventurer's soul. The next time they would suffer a fatal blow (on a quest, in a raid, or even from grimoire overload), the ward shatters and they survive instead. One use only. One per adventurer.
GRIMOIRE OF METAMORPHOSIS (20% drop rate) Permanently rewrites an adventurer's combat identity, changing their class entirely. A Warrior becomes a Mage. A Healer becomes a Ranger. Their stats remain, but their roles, abilities, and synergies change to match the new class. Use this to fix a recruitment mistake or reshape your roster.
GRIMOIRE OF ENDURANCE (20% drop rate) Defies the passage of time. Extends an adventurer's career by 30 years and prolongs their prime by 15 years, pushing back the age at which their stats begin to decline. One per adventurer. Ideal for your most valuable veterans.
GRIMOIRE OF CAPRICORN (15% drop rate) Raw power, distilled. Permanently grants +10 to ALL 23 stats, allowing adventurers to break past the natural cap of 99 (up to 199). Can be used multiple times on the same adventurer. But beware. After the first absorption, each subsequent Grimoire of Capricorn carries a cumulative 5% death risk. The second has a 5% chance to kill, the third 10%, and so on. A Grimoire of Salvation can save them from this fate.
GRIMOIRE OF DUALITY (10% drop rate · ultra rare) Tied for the rarest, and the most versatile. Grants an adventurer a permanent second class. They gain the roles and synergies of both classes simultaneously, making them extraordinarily versatile. A Paladin/Mage. A Ranger/Assassin. One per adventurer. Choose the combination wisely.
GRIMOIRE OF POTENTIAL (10% drop rate · ultra rare) Awakens what an adventurer could become. Raises their maximum potential tier by one step in every category: a B-Tier becomes an A-Tier. It grants no stats on its own. The adventurer must train to reach the new ceiling, and ceilings only go up. One per adventurer. An S-Tier adventurer cannot receive it.
RISK & REWARD The Grimoire of Capricorn is the only grimoire that carries a death risk on absorption. All others are safe to use. But even a safe grimoire is a permanent decision. Once absorbed, it cannot be undone.
These tomes contain fragments of power from something ancient and terrible. Use them with respect, Guild Master.
The Academy is a Guild Hall building (#32) that trains youth prospects: recruits aged 14-17 who aren't ready for the field but show extraordinary promise.
ENROLLMENT: Youth prospects appear in the Recruit tab's "Academy Prospects" subtab. Scout them like any recruit. Promising candidates can be enrolled into a semester (cost in gold + room and board weekly).
CURRICULUM (5 paths): ⬢ CORE DISCIPLINE: Drills in role-core stats. +50% role gain, -10% non-role. ⬢ ELECTIVE STUDIES: Cross-train in another role's stats. +20% target stats. Risks role drift (~20%/semester at high roleAffinity). ⬢ GENERAL STUDIES: Balanced. +10% all stats, no penalty. Safe but unspecialized. ⬢ MASTER'S APPRENTICESHIP: All assigned instructors' specialty stats gain +100%, all others halved. The specialty set is the UNION of every assigned instructor's spec: multiple distinct specs = a wider stat boost. High variance, high reward. ⬢ SCHOLAR'S PATH: +40% mental/social/arcane/heroic. Physical reduced. Chance to gain traits.
SEMESTER EVENTS: During each semester, random events fire: Growth Spurt, Breakthrough, Hit a Wall, Mentor Bond, etc. They modify stats and shift the trainee's potential trend (cumulatively shifting their current potential tier up or down).
GRADUATION: At age 18, trainees graduate. You see their final stats and tier, then choose to sign them or release them. Released graduates may be claimed by rival guilds after a deadline.
ACADEMY BUILDING TIERS: ⬢ T1: +3% stat growth, +10 max recruits, +1 instructor slot. Unlocks the Academy training system. ⬢ T2: +6% stat growth total, +15 max recruits, +2 instructors. Curriculum Specialization: focus a discipline (Combat / Magic / Support) for +3 OVR on graduation. Prodigy Watch: 5%/semester chance a top-potential category upgrades a tier. ⬢ T3: +9% stat growth total, +20 max recruits, +4 instructors. Bloodline Legacy: when a 5+ year veteran retires, 20% chance a relative enters the prospect pool with the Family Legacy trait.
INSTRUCTORS vs MENTORS (they stack; you want both): ⬢ ACADEMY FACULTY are GUILD-WIDE. Seat up to your instructor cap across four role slots (Tank/Healer/Melee/Ranged) on the Academy Faculty strip above the prospect list; a seated instructor teaches EVERY prospect of that role, shapes their potential each semester, and drives Master's Apprenticeship's specialty set (the union of all seated instructors' specs). If a role slot is empty, your highest-skill instructor falls back in. ⬢ ADVENTURER MENTORS are PER-PROSPECT. On a prospect's Configure tab, assign one roster adventurer to mentor that single trainee for a morale boost + a stat-growth bonus that rises with mentor level, is capped by mentor OVR and is halved if the mentor doesn't share the trainee's role. A mentor ADDS to the faculty. It never replaces an instructor and cannot cover the no-instructor potential penalty.
Neither substitutes for the other: seat role instructors for the whole Academy, then add a mentor to a prospect you want to push.
A well-run Academy is your long-term talent pipeline. Graduates start with years of training already done.
A Career Track lets you aim a trainee at a specific graduation class instead of leaving it to chance. Set one on a prospect's Configure tab and the Academy steers that student toward the chosen class, but a track is never a guarantee: it heavily WEIGHTS the graduation roll, it does not decide it.
A track only bites once the trainee's ROLE matches the track's role. A cross-role track, aiming a trainee at a class in another role, must first convert the role through Elective Studies before it does anything. Once the role matches, a hidden Class Affinity meter starts to fill, and that meter is the single biggest lever on the odds: at empty it multiplies the target class's weight in the roll by 2x, and at full by 8x.
Four things raise Class Affinity each semester the role already matches: ⬢ +8 simply for training another on-role semester. ⬢ +6 more when the curriculum is Core Discipline or Master's Apprenticeship. ⬢ +5 more when a role-matched instructor is seated on the faculty. ⬢ +3 more while the trainee's morale is 60 or higher.
The Career Track card on the prospect's profile shows the live on-track chance, the affinity meter, the role-conversion and class-roll odds, and the semesters remaining. Read them together: a high affinity late in training is what turns an aimed track into the class you wanted.
Two numbers on that card are easy to mix up. The large percentage is the chance to graduate as the target class. The affinity meter below it runs from 0 to 100 for every class: full, it makes the target class 8x as likely in the graduation roll, and empty, 2x. Rarity lowers the starting odds, so for a low-odds class a full +22 semester may lift the percentage by only a couple of points. An ultra-rare class climbs slowly, and at F-Tier potential it stays at zero however full the meter gets. With all four bonuses the meter fills in five semesters, so only a trainee who joins at 14 or 15 can max it.
The Public Education Bounty is an optional custom-difficulty setting, switched off in every preset. When you enable it, the Crown rewards your guild with renown for lifting the least-promising recruits: every student who first enrolled at F-Tier and then graduates earns a bounty in reputation.
The bounty is paid only when you SIGN such a graduate to your roster. It scales with the number of semesters that student trained, so a longer development pays more, up to a cap of 500 renown. Releasing the graduate to the market instead forfeits the bounty entirely: the Crown pays for adventurers you keep and put to work, not for ones you let walk.
When the setting is on, the exact amount appears on the Graduation Ceremony's Sign card the moment you decide, so you never have to guess what a signature is worth. Turn the whole system into a public-education mission and the Academy becomes a way to earn standing by developing talent nobody else believed in.
A companion setting, the Tier Growth Bounty, pays renown for every potential tier a student climbs between enrolling and graduating, whatever tier they started at. It follows the same rules: off in every preset, paid only when you sign, forfeited on release, capped at 500 renown. A tier gained only through the assigned class's rarity floor does not count. The Crown pays for the student's own growth, not for the luck of the class roll.
Beyond individual training, entire parties can train together as a unit.
Party Training builds coordination, chemistry, and unlocks group tactics that individual training cannot. When a party trains together, members build familiarity that translates directly into better chemistry scores and combat synergy.
To start Party Training, go to the Parties tab, select a party, and assign a training regimen. The party must be idle (not on a quest or raid) and fully staffed.
Benefits of Party Training: ⬢ Improved chemistry between all party members ⬢ Faster relationship building (friendships, bonds) ⬢ Group tactical improvements ⬢ Instructor bonuses apply to the whole party
Parties that train together fight together better. If you have a core party you rely on for tough quests, invest in their group training between assignments.
Welcome to the Markets, your trade hub with the wider realm.
Here you can: ⬢ BUY MATERIALS: Get crafting resources when Gatherers can't keep up ⬢ SELL MATERIALS: Convert surplus into gold ⬢ GUILD TRADES: Rival guilds may offer deals or want your adventurers
Market prices fluctuate weekly. Buy low, sell high.
Watch for bulk penalties. Dumping too much at once crashes prices.
Over 30 rival guilds compete for glory, quests, and adventurers in Hiltcrest.
Click any guild in the Rankings to view their full profile: ⬢ ROSTER: Their adventurers (details revealed by scouting) ⬢ TOWER PROGRESS: How deep they've delved ⬢ TRADE OFFERS: Propose deals or browse their trading block ⬢ TRUST LEVEL: Your relationship, from Hostile to Allied
SCOUTING RIVALS: Your Scouting Post building determines how much intel you can gather. Higher tiers reveal more about rival rosters, strategies, and vulnerabilities. Division Intel shows activity summaries and threat assessments.
TRUST: Trust builds through fair trades and shared Alliance Quests. It decays from rejected offers and broken deals. Higher trust unlocks better trade terms and cooperation opportunities. From Tier 4, your lowest-trust rival may become your Nemesis: a persistent antagonist who competes aggressively against you.
TRADING: Each trade proposal shows a Deal Assessment meter indicating fairness. Rivals have zodiac-based personalities affecting their willingness to negotiate.
Other guilds may want to buy your adventurers. Or sell you theirs.
When you receive an offer: ⬢ ACCEPT: Get gold (or a player swap) but lose your adventurer ⬢ REFUSE: Keep them, but lose renown with that guild
You can also browse other guilds' rosters and make offers.
Smart trading: Sell aging C-Tiers to fund signing young A-Tiers!
Sell too many adventurers and your guild earns a Mercenary Brand: a reputation stain that makes new recruits wary.
How it works: ⬢ Threshold: 3 non-justified transfers per year at Tier 1, scaling +1 per guild tier ⬢ Duration: The brand lasts 1 full year (52 weeks) once earned, then expires ⬢ Penalty: -20 satisfaction in all contract negotiations while branded ⬢ Your Commander will warn you when you're approaching the threshold ⬢ The transfer counter resets each new year: a clean slate to earn (or avoid) it again
Justified transfers (no penalty): ⬢ Selling adventurers with revealed flaws (bully, drunkard, coward, etc.) ⬢ Selling adventurers with Prima Donna or Mercenary Heart traits ⬢ These transfers don't count toward the brand threshold
Other transfer consequences: ⬢ -10 morale across the entire guild per transfer ⬢ -5 renown per transfer ⬢ Adventurers with the Mercenary Heart trait are 25% more likely to receive poach offers ⬢ Loyalists are 30% less likely to be poached
Think of transfers as a scalpel, not a machete. Trim the roster with care.
From Guild Tier 4, a rival guild can be designated as your Nemesis: your persistent antagonist in the realm.
Your Nemesis is automatically selected based on who dislikes you most and competes closest to your level. Once established, the rivalry intensifies:
⬢ COMPETITION: Your Nemesis earns bonus Annual Renown when in the same division, pushing harder to beat you ⬢ POACHING: They may attempt to lure away your adventurers with better offers ⬢ QUEST SNATCHING: They occasionally steal quests you were eyeing ⬢ TAUNTS: When they pull ahead, expect pointed letters reminding you of their superiority
The rivalry tracks wins, losses, and consecutive weeks ahead or behind. It adds a personal edge to the season. Beating your Nemesis feels earned.
Under certain conditions, the rivalry can be resolved diplomatically through Alliance Quests. But some feuds are meant to last.
At the highest tiers of guild certification, the Crown authorizes joint operations between allied guilds. These Alliance Quests are among the most challenging and rewarding content available. You don't request them: each week, an allied guild you have at least 30 trust with has roughly a 10 percent chance to propose one.
When one is proposed, it appears on your Quest Board tagged Alliance Quest (only one can be listed and only one active at a time). Assign a party to it like any other quest. Alliance Quests pair your guild with partner guilds who contribute reinforcements: 2 to 3 adventurers from their roster (3 once trust reaches 50) who add roughly 30 percent of their average OVR to your party's effective power. The strength of these reinforcements depends on your allies' capabilities, making trust and diplomacy investments pay off in tangible combat power.
The stakes are real. If an alliance quest fails, your partner's reinforcements can be killed. And the trust damage from losing someone else's people is severe. Choose your battles carefully and ensure your parties are ready.
Alliance Quests unlock at Tier 9 certification (which also requires an Expedition HQ at Tier 3 and a Tavern at Tier 2) and require established relationships with partner guilds. Completing one with your nemesis guild carries a chance to ease that rivalry. They represent the pinnacle of cooperative frontier operations.
Each of the six factions tracks your Standing: a measure of trust and reputation that determines what they'll offer you.
STANDING TIERS: Standing progresses through 7 tiers as you complete faction quests, fulfill contracts, and make aligned choices. Higher tiers unlock vendor items, permanent upgrades, faction secrets, and Whisper Chains: fragments of deep lore about the world.
CORRESPONDENCE: Faction leaders communicate through letters delivered to your Front Desk. Letters may contain: ⬢ REQUESTS: Favors or tasks that boost standing when fulfilled ⬢ INTEL: Information about rival factions or world events ⬢ WARNINGS: Consequences for actions that displease the faction ⬢ OFFERS: Exclusive deals or recruitment opportunities
THE INNER CIRCLE: Each faction has 4 named characters: a Leader, Lieutenant, Contact, and Apprentice. Build individual relationships with each through correspondence. Characters age, and when one passes, their successor takes over through the faction's succession system.
OATHS: At higher standing, factions may ask you to swear Oaths: binding commitments with real obligations. Oath-breaking carries severe consequences, but fulfilling them earns powerful rewards.
Every faction tracks your Standing: a numeric measure of trust ranging from -100 (Hostile) to 750+ (Exalted). Standing progresses through 7 named tiers, each unlocking new mechanics.
THE 7 TIERS:
⬢ HOSTILE (below -50) No faction quests available. +20% vendor prices. No favor access.
⬢ UNFRIENDLY (-50 to -1) Limited quest access. +10% quest failure penalty. +10% vendor prices.
⬢ NEUTRAL (0 to 99) Standard quest access. Base rewards. Basic vendor access.
⬢ FRIENDLY (100 to 249) +5% gold rewards on faction quests. Rare quest access. -5% vendor prices. Minor favors available.
⬢ HONORED (250 to 499) +10% gold, +5% renown on faction quests. Priority quest access. -10% vendor prices. Standard favors available.
⬢ REVERED (500 to 749) +15% gold, +10% renown. Exclusive contracts. -15% vendor prices. Major favors + faction title.
⬢ EXALTED (750+) +25% gold, +15% renown. Legendary quests + faction's exclusive equipment line. -25% vendor prices. All favors unlocked + legendary title. FACTION SECRET: each faction reveals a unique piece of tower lore at Exalted.
PROGRESSION: Standing rises through faction quests, contract completions, gift letters, and aligned choices. It falls through ignored requests, broken oaths, hostile actions, and Crown discovery (Underworld faction).
WHISPER CHAINS: At specific tier thresholds across multiple factions, you receive fragment letters that piece together the realm's deepest lore. See the Whisper Chains entry for details.
Don't try to max all 6 factions. They have rivalries (Crown ↔ Underworld, Temple ↔ Underworld) where standing gains in one cost standing in the other. Pick your alliances and lean in.
Each faction maintains a vendor offering exclusive goods to guilds with sufficient standing.
THREE SECTIONS: ⬢ ROTATING STOCK: A selection of items that refreshes periodically. Browse regularly for deals. ⬢ PERMANENT UPGRADES: One-time purchases that grant lasting bonuses to your guild. Standing-gated at increasing tiers. ⬢ EXCLUSIVE INVENTORY: Legendary equipment unique to each faction. Powerful, and worth the investment.
FACTION IDENTITY: Each faction's vendor operates differently: ⬢ THE CROWN: Loyalty discounts. The more standing you have above the requirement, the cheaper items become. ⬢ THE MILITARY: Earn Requisition Points from military quests, then spend them on special consumables. ⬢ THE TEMPLE: A tithe system rewards faithful buyers with occasional free items. ⬢ THE MERCHANTS: You can attempt to Haggle for discounts. Success depends on your Receptionist or Bartender's skill. ⬢ THE NOBLES: Seasonal inventory. Rotating stock favors items appropriate to the current season. ⬢ THE UNDERWORLD: Powerful goods, but every purchase generates Heat. Too much Heat risks Crown discovery and a standing penalty.
Invest in permanent upgrades early. Some provide passive income or standing gains every week.
As your guild grows in influence, you'll interact directly with Aldric, the Crown Administrator, the realm's chief bureaucrat.
CROWN CONTRACTS: At Tier 8+, the Crown offers special contracts with escalating rewards: ⬢ STANDARD CONTRACTS: Available at Tier 8. Earn Crown Tokens on completion. ⬢ ELITE CONTRACTS: Tier 9. Higher difficulty, more tokens. ⬢ SOVEREIGN CONTRACTS: Tier 10. The Crown's most demanding assignments.
Crown Tokens can be spent at the Crown Requisition Shop for exclusive items and bonuses.
ALDRIC'S COMMISSIONS: Periodically, Aldric sends personal commissions: specific tasks with deadlines. Completing them earns his Favor, which unlocks milestones. Missing deadlines costs Favor.
SOVEREIGN CHARTER: At Tier 10, if the Crown approves your certification, you receive the Sovereign Charter: a prestigious recognition granting permanent guild-wide bonuses including improved contract gold, elite recruitment chances, and a trust floor with all factions.
Aldric's letters often include personal postscripts commenting on your guild's recent activities. He notices everything.
Aldric, the Crown Administrator, occasionally sends personal commissions: specific tasks delivered by letter to your Front Desk. Completing them earns his Favor; missing the deadline costs Favor. His Favor is the bureaucratic currency that smooths future certifications, unlocks letters of introduction, and (eventually) earns the Sovereign Charter.
HOW THEY WORK: ⬢ DELIVERY: Aldric mails 2-4 commissions per year, typically near season transitions. Read them in your Front Desk Correspondence (filter "Crown" tab). ⬢ DEADLINE: Each commission has a deadline (10-20 weeks). The clock starts the moment the letter arrives. ⬢ TRACKING: Active commissions show in the Crown Admin panel with their target value, current progress, and weeks remaining. ⬢ COMPLETION: Hit the target before the deadline, the commission auto-completes and his favor rises (+3 to +6 depending on commission). ⬢ FAILURE: Miss the deadline, lose Favor (-1 to -2). Aldric never forgets.
THE 6 COMMISSION TYPES:
⬢ TOWER EXPEDITION (T4+, 12 weeks, ±5/-2 favor) Advance at least 3 floors in the Tower from current depth.
⬢ BUILD GOLD RESERVES (T2+, 10 weeks, +4/-1 favor) Accumulate at least 10,000g in your treasury.
⬢ QUEST EXCELLENCE (T3+, 16 weeks, +5/-1 favor) Complete 5 quests successfully WITHOUT a single failure.
⬢ DIPLOMATIC STANDING (T4+, 20 weeks, +6/-2 favor) Reach Friendly (100+) standing with at least 3 of 6 factions.
⬢ SAFE OPERATIONS (T3+, 13 weeks, +6/-1 favor) Complete a full season with zero adventurer deaths.
⬢ ROSTER EXPANSION (12 weeks, +3/-1 favor) Recruit 5 new adventurers within the deadline window.
WHY HIS FAVOR MATTERS: Favor smooths the political process at higher tiers. Sufficient Favor + a clean track record opens up the Sovereign Charter at T10. Burning Favor through deliberate missed commissions, OTOH, can stall certifications even when your stats meet the threshold.
Aldric is not your friend. He is, however, an ally if you make yourself useful. Read his letters carefully. His postscripts often reveal what he actually thinks about your guild's recent decisions.
When you achieve Guild Tier 10 (the Mythic Order) and the Crown approves your final certification, Aldric grants you the Sovereign Charter. It is the highest honor a guild can hold in the realm.
WHAT IT GRANTS: ⬢ TRUST FLOOR (10): No rival guild's trust toward you can drop below 10. Permanent diplomatic stability across all 31 rivals. ⬢ +15% CROWN CONTRACT GOLD: Crown contracts (the highest-paying quest type) pay you 15% more. ⬢ +5% QUEST GOLD (all quests): A flat boost to every quest reward your guild collects. ⬢ +10% ELITE RECRUIT CHANCE: Significantly higher chance of A-Tier and S-Tier applicants appearing in your recruit pool. ⬢ +10% CERTIFICATION APPROVAL: A bonus that applies if a probationary Tier 10 certification is revoked and you reapply for it.
WHY IT MATTERS: Sovereign Charter is the closest thing to a permanent late-game capstone. Once granted, the effects never expire. The trust floor in particular reshapes diplomacy: even your nemesis can never refuse you an audience past trust 10.
HOW TO EARN IT: The Sovereign Charter is granted as part of T10 certification, NOT as a separate quest. Your T10 certification application must be approved (the Crown can deny based on standing, conduct, alliance quest record, and other factors). On approval, the Charter delivers as a formal letter from Aldric and its effects activate immediately.
WHEN YOU SEE IT: The Charter status is visible in the Guild → Charter Upgrades section after T10 approval. Aldric's correspondence will reference it in postscripts ("P.S. A Sovereign Charter holder. Do you know how few guilds in the history of this district have achieved that?"). It's worn quietly but its effects compound across every system.
The Charter is rare. Few guilds reach Tier 10. Fewer still navigate the certification politics cleanly. If you hold it, your guild has earned a place in the histories.
Your Front Desk collects all incoming correspondence in a unified inbox.
Letters arrive from multiple sources: ⬢ FACTION LETTERS: Communications from faction Inner Circle members ⬢ CROWN DECREES: Official correspondence from Aldric and the Crown ⬢ TRADE OFFERS: Proposals from rival guilds ⬢ SAGE WISDOM: Guidance from the Great Sage
MANAGING YOUR INBOX: ⬢ FILTER TABS: Sort by All, Unread, Action Required, or by source (Factions, Crown, Trade, Sage) ⬢ PIN: Mark important letters to keep them accessible ⬢ ARCHIVE: Clear old letters from your active view ⬢ ACTION REQUIRED: Some letters need a response. Look for the badge.
Letters older than 2 years are automatically archived to keep your inbox manageable. Check your correspondence regularly. Some opportunities have deadlines.
As your guild builds relationships across Hiltcrest's factions, their inner circles begin to trust you with fragments of dangerous knowledge. These fragments form Whisper Chains: threads of hidden truth that connect to reveal the deeper mysteries of the world.
HOW THEY WORK: Each Whisper Chain has a set of contributing factions. When you reach the required standing with enough of those factions, their contacts begin sending you fragment letters through correspondence. You don't need every faction listed. Just enough to meet the threshold.
⬢ FRAGMENTS: Letters from faction contacts containing pieces of a larger puzzle. Read them in your faction correspondence. ⬢ SYNTHESIS: Once you've read enough fragments, the Great Sage connects the dots and delivers a synthesis letter revealing the full picture. ⬢ REWARDS: Completed chains grant renown, faction standing bonuses, and unique strategic insights.
THE FIVE CHAINS: ⬢ THE CRYSTAL NETWORK: 3 of 4 factions at Friendly standing. Reveals the truth about tower crystals. ⬢ THE OTHER TOWERS: 3 of 4 factions at Honored standing. Uncovers the scope of the invasion. ⬢ THE CODEX & THE RITUAL: 3 of 3 factions at Revered standing. Discovers how to seal a tower's portal. ⬢ SURFACE BREACH DOCTRINE: 3 of 4 factions. Triggered by a surface dungeon crisis event. ⬢ THE TWO IMMORTALS: 2 of 2 factions at Exalted standing. Reveals who the Sage and the Broker truly are.
TRACKING PROGRESS: Visit any faction's page to see the Whisper Chains panel. Highlighted faction badges indicate fragments you've already received. Dimmed badges show factions that could contribute but haven't sent their fragment yet.
The truth is out there, Guild Master. You just need enough friends willing to share what they know.
Each year, the guilds of Hiltcrest compete for glory through the Division system and Crown Cup championship.
DIVISIONS: Your guild is assigned to one of four Divisions, each aligned with a faction Patron: ⬢ MERCHANTS DIVISION · Patron: The Merchant Consortium ⬢ TEMPLE DIVISION · Patron: The Holy Orders ⬢ MILITARY DIVISION · Patron: The Military Command ⬢ NOBLES DIVISION · Patron: The Noble Houses
PATRON BONUS: Quests and raids that match your Division's patron faction earn double Annual Renown. This is a significant strategic advantage. Lean into your patron's quest types.
ANNUAL RENOWN: Throughout the year, your guild accumulates Annual Renown through quests, raids, and other activities. This resets each year and determines your Division placement.
THE CROWN CUP: At year's end (Week 51), the top guilds from each Division qualify for the Crown Cup: a championship tournament. Registration, battle, coronation, and rewards play out in a special event sequence.
RIVAL CHALLENGES: Mid-season, exhibition matches pit you against contextual opponents: the guild chasing you, the division leader, or a wildcard rival. Choose a wager tier and battle for bonus gold and renown.
SEASON NARRATIVE: The season unfolds in phases with milestone announcements: midseason reports, pace projections, clinch scenarios, and magic numbers as the Crown Cup approaches.
Each year in Hiltcrest follows a competitive season with distinct phases.
SEASON PHASES: The year unfolds through Opening, Midseason, Stretch Run, Final Push, and ultimately the Crown Cup. Each phase brings different narrative beats: Aldric's midseason letters, pace reports, clinch scenarios, and magic numbers as the championship approaches.
DIVISION INTEL: Your Scouting Post determines how much intelligence you receive about division rivals. Higher tiers reveal activity summaries, patron alignment, roster events, and threat projections, displayed inline in the standings table.
SEASON HISTORY: Full 52-week tracking shows each guild's trajectory throughout the year. Sparklines in the standings table visualize cumulative renown over time, and pace projections estimate where each guild will finish. Past seasons are archived for reference.
The competitive season gives structure and drama to each year of play, turning the Annual Renown race into a compelling narrative arc.
Renown measures how much work you did. The LADDER measures how good you are. They are not the same number, and the realm keeps both.
Three times a season a rival calls you out on its own. The Ladder is the other direction: open any CCL rival's profile and DECLARE. Pay the purse, name your wager, and they answer.
WHAT MOVES YOUR RATING: Every guild carries a rating. Yours is earned and moves only on matches you actually fight. Rivals now duel each other every week whether you are watching or not, so the board is alive between your challenges instead of frozen at everyone's roster power.
⬢ BEAT A STRONGER GUILD and the rating jumps, and the annual renown pays up to 1.6x. ⬢ BEAT A WEAKER ONE and it barely moves, and the renown pays 0.4x. Farming down the board is not a strategy. ⬢ WALK AWAY and it is a loss. A declaration you decline to fight costs rating exactly as if you had lost it. There is no free look.
THE GRUDGE: Meet the same opponent repeatedly and the fixture escalates through four tiers: Exhibition, Grudge, Feud, Vendetta. Each one multiplies the wager AND both sides' rewards, up to half again at Vendetta. Check your purse before you declare at the top of a grudge, because the stake scales with it.
THE BRAKES: ⬢ THE PURSE: 750g, spent at declaration, never refunded whatever happens. ⬢ THE COOLDOWN: Six weeks before you can call the same guild out again. ⬢ THE BUDGET: Twelve declarations a season, and no more. ⬢ THE COMPRESSION: Ratings pull back toward the middle at the season turn. A title has to be won again.
STRENGTH OF THE REALM: At the CCL finals the realm's highest-rated guild is crowned, with a podium and a strongest-in-division so the prize is reachable even when a juggernaut sits on top. It pays gold and standing, never renown. Two crowns, two lenses, one finals. The Crown Cup asks what you achieved. This one asks what you are.
You've grown strong. Perhaps strong enough to learn the truth.
Beneath our world lies Gargadusa's Tower: 100 floors of darkness protecting a Portal that spawns all monsters in the realm.
When you reach Guild Tier 6, raise your War Room to Tier 2, and have trained your finest adventurers... the Tower awaits. At its depths, General Capricorn guards the Portal. But that is a tale for another time.
You've reached Guild Tier 6 with a War Room at Tier 2. Gargadusa's Tower is now accessible.
The Tower has 100 floors of increasing danger: ⬢ Every floor is a boss fight: send strong parties ⬢ Named bosses appear at floors 10, 20, 30, and so on: stronger and more dangerous ⬢ Discover lore about the Tower's origins as you descend ⬢ Compete with rival guilds for floor records
Death is common here. Only send your best, fully equipped and rested.
The guild that reaches Floor 100... faces General Capricorn.
Surviving the Tower requires planning:
⬢ MATCH POWER: Your party OVR should exceed the floor's ROVR by 10%+ ⬢ COMBAT STRATEGY: Choose Cautious (30% less injury, 15% less rewards), Balanced, or Aggressive (30% more injury, 20% more rewards). Strategy is locked for the duration of an ascent. ⬢ OVERWHELMING FORCE: At 2x the floor's power requirement, your guild achieves Dominant Victory with minimal casualties (8% injury, 0% death). ⬢ MAJOR BOSSES: Named bosses at floors 10, 20, 30... are significantly harder ⬢ EQUIPMENT: Bring your best gear. The Tower destroys the unprepared. ⬢ REST: Never send injured adventurers. Heal between climbs. ⬢ RETREAT: Sometimes pulling back saves lives
The Tower demands sacrifice. Even flawless victories carry risk. But overwhelming power and cautious strategy can bring your guild home alive.
Once you've cleared a tower floor, monsters drift back over time. Floor decay reclaims your territory unless you hold it. Garrison is how you keep the ground you've won.
HOLDING THE LINE: Station a party on a 10-floor band ending at your deepest cleared floor. While held, those floors are FROZEN: decay timers stop and reclamation is blocked, so your record stays put. A held band also earns ANNUAL RENOWN every week, scaled to depth (roughly +2/week at Floor 10 rising to +10/week at Floor 90). This is Annual Renown for the CCL standings race only. It can NEVER inflate your permanent guild renown or tier progression.
SUPPLY & UPKEEP: A garrison isn't free. Each week it draws gold UPKEEP scaled to depth and party count, paid from your treasury, though a supplied hold also earns Military requisition for its service. If you can't cover the upkeep the hold goes UNDER-SUPPLIED: patrols pause and the watch tires twice as fast. Keep reserves ahead of a deep hold or it grinds itself down.
SALVAGE PATROLS: A supplied garrison sends patrols into the held floors on an irregular cadence, hauling back materials. Deeper holds yield richer hauls. Some of what they drag out carries the Tower's own energy; let those materials pile up in your stores and the deep starts to take an interest, while selling or spending them eases the pressure. Holding deep is a standing choice, not a free income tap.
SKIRMISHES & FATIGUE: The Tower pushes back. Every so often a held band faces a probe your squad repels for permanent renown and a little salvage; a hard-fought week wounds someone, and a genuine overrun breaks the hold and loses the band. Every week on station raises FATIGUE through bands (Fresh, Worn, Weary, Exhausted), which weakens the squad. From the Worn band on, RECALLING converts fatigue into REST DEBT: the party comes home needing recovery weeks before it can act again. Rotating home has a real cost now, so plan it.
VETERANCY & THE WARDKEEPER: Tenure cuts the other way. A squad's average weeks-on-station grows it from Green to Seasoned to Wardens, and higher veterancy fights harder and patrols better. A single adventurer who serves 39 cumulative weeks on the wall earns the permanent WARDKEEPER badge: a mark of the long watch.
FORTIFY & EXPAND: Invest gold and materials to FORTIFY a hold with an outpost (Tiers 1–3) for tougher defense, richer patrols, and slower fatigue. A fortified primary unlocks a SECOND garrison on a shallower band behind it: over-extension for a second income stream, and a fall-back if the front is overrun. That second hold carries a DOCTRINE, chosen when you establish it, that specializes BOTH holds: fewer probes, richer salvage, or steadier nerves.
MANNING & CALL-UP: Deep bands recommend MORE than one party. A single party can still hold, but fights at reduced strength. A stationed garrison isn't idle reserve either: when you ascend a floor within or just above a held band, you can CALL UP the wardens to join that fight, picking exactly who comes. Extra bodies add casualty exposure, not raw power (tower strength is a squad AVERAGE), so call up your strongest wardens rather than your bench.
THE COMMANDER'S EYE: Your Commander watches the wall. When a hold runs fatigued they advise ROTATING it home; when a deep band is under-manned they advise MUSTERING more parties. Heed them and their trust grows; ignore a warning that later comes true and it costs you.
REQUIREMENTS & WHEN TO HOLD: Garrison unlocks via Expedition HQ Tier 3. Reach for it when: ⬢ You've hit a deep floor and want to defend the record while your roster heals. ⬢ You need steady Annual Renown for division standings without constant questing. ⬢ Late-season Crown Cup positioning where every renown counts.
Recall from the Tower panel at any time. Below the Worn fatigue band they come home clean; above it, expect rest debt. The wall asks something of those who hold it.
A fortified hold has quarters. Quarters can be staffed.
Station a Cook, a Blacksmith or a Scout at the wall and they lend the watch a passive service for as long as they stay: ⬢ THE COOK: Slows the steady fatigue drift, so the squad lasts longer before it has to rotate. ⬢ THE BLACKSMITH: Stiffens the outpost's defense against probes and shortens the injuries the wall does hand out. ⬢ THE SCOUT: Turns probes aside before they land, cutting how often the hold is tested at all.
Outpost tier sets how many can quarter there, one of each type at most, and a T0 hold has no quarters at all. Fortification is the price of admission. Their service scales with their skill, so a veteran Blacksmith on the wall is worth noticeably more than a fresh hire.
The cost is simple and it is real: a detached staffer does NO other guild work while posted. The Cook on your wall is not cooking for the hall.
SCOUTING EXPEDITIONS: A garrisoned watch can also be sent BELOW the wall to survey floors you have not reached. While its scouts are out, the hold stops freezing decay. The front line runs bare for the weeks of the survey, and the time it accrues lands on the ledger the moment they return.
A front that was already near reclamation can fall while the party is away. That is not a bug in the wall. That is the wager you made when you sent them down.
Intelligence is not flavour text. On the decade floors it is damage.
Every tenth floor holds a named boss, and a named boss can have a WEAK SPOT exposed before you ever knock. When it is, the boss takes measurably more punishment for the whole fight. The Known-Boss-Intel rail shows the badge, and the expedition report says so afterward, so you can see what the intel bought.
WHERE A REVEAL COMES FROM: ⬢ AN EXPERT SCOUT: Skill 80 or better, working the Tower. The same rung that unlocks tactical advice. A scout detached to a garrison is doing another job and does not count. ⬢ FACTION TOWER INTEL: Faction standing opens floors progressively. The deeper your standing, the deeper the intel runs.
Any one source is enough. They do not stack, so a second reveal on the same boss buys you nothing.
The lesson holds beyond the Tower. Scouting is not preparation for the real work. Against a decade boss it IS part of the damage, and a guild that skips it is choosing to fight the same fight harder.
Once in your guild's lifetime, at Week 5 of Year 1, Aldric extends an unusual invitation: come observe the strongest rival guild's tower assault. This is a one-time scripted event, designed to introduce new Guild Masters to the Tower system before they're ready to attempt it themselves.
WHAT HAPPENS: You receive a letter from Aldric framing the observation as a courtesy from the Crown ("It would be educational"). Accepting opens the standard Tower Battle modal. But the parties are the rival's, not yours. You watch their 6 parties (30 adventurers) attempt the next floor of THEIR tower run.
WHY IT'S MEMORABLE: The battle is not abstract. Real adventurers from a real rival guild fight a real tower boss. Real consequences land: ⬢ DEATHS: If the rival's adventurers die during the battle, they are removed from that guild's roster permanently. ⬢ INJURIES: Same for injuries; tracked as if it were a normal tower attempt. ⬢ FLOOR ADVANCE: If they succeed, the rival's tower progress advances on their record. If they fail, they take the standard tower setbacks.
You are observing real fiction. Even if you skip the battle (the "Skip" option), the consequences still apply. Aldric reports back what happened. You don't get to dodge the outcome by closing the modal.
WHAT YOU LEARN: ⬢ How tower battles read on screen: UI familiarity before your own first attempt. ⬢ How rival guilds size up at full tier (the observed guild is your strongest rival). ⬢ A first taste of the tower's tone: boss names, narrative beats, the weight of party deaths. ⬢ Aldric's perspective on your status: he's invited you specifically as someone he expects to make tower runs eventually.
ONE-TIME ONLY: This event fires exactly once and then never again. The flag is persistent across save loads. Even loading a save from a save where the event already happened won't re-trigger. Make the most of it; treat it as a guided tutorial that happens to have stakes.
After this event, you're on your own with the Tower. The next time you witness a tower battle, it'll be your party in there.
The scholars agree on one thing: the Portal beneath Gargadusa's Tower will not stay contained forever.
WHAT THE COUNTDOWN MEANS: The Tower tab shows "Years Until Doom" — the time remaining before the realm is overwhelmed. If that year arrives with the Portal still open, your run ends in defeat. Seal the Portal — descend the Tower and defeat General Capricorn on Floor 100 — and the Doom is averted forever.
YOUR RUN'S DEADLINE: The deadline is chosen at New Game. The default is 1,000 years — the canonical doom of the lore, generous enough that most runs resolve long before it matters. Lower it for genuine time pressure, or turn it off entirely (the counter shows ∞ and the realm endures indefinitely).
The countdown does not change mid-run. It is a promise you made your guild at its founding — plan your ascent accordingly.
When you have conquered the Tower and sealed the portal, a new path opens.
The Great Sage offers you the chance to begin again: not as a novice, but as a veteran. You may carry forward five of your most trusted adventurers into a new generation, along with a powerful perk that shapes how the next journey unfolds.
Your veterans retain their hard-won experience, but the world resets. A new guild, a new frontier, a new chance to build something greater. New Game Plus is not forced onto easy mode: before you begin you re-choose the full difficulty (every slider and sandbox setting) and the game mode, so you can carry your legends forward into a harder run, an Academy-only challenge, or any combination you like. Each generation is tracked. And each perk offers a fundamentally different way to approach the game.
Some perks grant raw power. Others grant longevity. Some carry a curse alongside their blessing. Choose wisely. Your perk defines the character of your next run.
New Game Plus is the reward for those who finish what they started. The Tower may be sealed, but the realm still needs heroes.
Guild Masters can now compete in shared worlds. From the main menu, choose MULTIPLAYER to browse public leagues, join a friend's league by code, or found your own.
ONE WORLD, MANY GUILDS: Every guild in a league shares the same world — one market economy, one free-agent pool, one Academy youth pool, and shared CCL divisions. When two guilds bid on the same free agent, the signing resolves as a sealed-bid contest: the highest offer wins.
HOW TURNS WORK: Play your week as normal, then press READY instead of Advance Week. The world advances when every Guild Master is ready — or when the league's turn timer expires. You can keep managing your guild while you wait.
FORMATS: ⬢ COMPETITIVE — Race rivals and each other for victory: conquer the Tower first, or hold the highest score when the year limit falls. ⬢ CO-OP TOWER — One shared Tower and a common Doom clock. The coalition wins together by sealing the Portal — or is overwhelmed together.
Founding or joining a league starts a fresh save; the league's difficulty applies to everyone. Once linked, your league lobby lives on the CCL tab under "My League."
In a competitive league the rivals are not simulations. You can call one out.
A GUILD DUEL is an asynchronous five-on-five between two real Guild Masters. The challenger issues, names a wager and may attach a taunt. The defender accepts with a party of their own, or declines. The server resolves the fight and settles it, and both sides watch the same replay of the same battle.
THE STAKES: Three tiers. Friendly costs nothing. Above that, 500g and 15 annual renown, or 1,500g and 30. The winner takes 1,000g and 30 annual renown on top; the loser still walks with 250g and 10. The ledger keeps every result, so a guild's duel record follows it around the league.
WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE YOU ISSUE: ⬢ THE PARTIES ARE SEALED. Neither side sees the other's five until the fight resolves. You are wagering on your roster, not on a scouting report. ⬢ THE SERVER FIGHTS IT. The result is settled once, centrally, for both of you. There is nothing to reload. ⬢ THE DEFENDER CHOOSES. A decline is a legitimate answer and costs them nothing but the look.
Duels carry their own rating, separate from the single-player Ladder and authoritative on the server. It moves on every duel that resolves.
You do not need a league to bring a friend into your world. You need their code.
A GHOST GUILD is a friend's guild exported as a short code and imported into your run as a fully simulated rival. It joins a division, competes for annual renown, appears in the standings, trades, scouts and gets scouted, and can be made your Nemesis like any other house. Up to four at once, and unlike the realm's own guilds a ghost can be removed again.
Import mid-year and it joins the smallest division immediately. The divisions rebalance to fit rather than dropping anyone.
Ghosts also take a challenge. Their profile carries a duel button: Friendly stakes only, with a cooldown between meetings. It is an exhibition against a friend's actual roster, not a ladder fixture.
THE CHRONICLE: At each year's end your season can be rendered as a single image: the standings, what your guild did, who carried it. It is made when you ask for it and it is yours to keep. The same is true of the Star Chart's sky.
Send someone your code. Take theirs. A frontier is a better story with a name in it you recognize.
The Crown has found a use for your heroes that does not cost you any of them.
WHAT THE LISTS ARE
In the Endless Swamp, west across the Shallow Sea, a dormant spire sheds crystal shards that do one thing no other shard does: they copy a soul. Iris Ren of the Athenaeum found it. The Crown built a program on it. Lisanna, Chartkeeper of the Celestial Lists, takes an impression of a hero (the Twinning), weighs it (the Reading), and sends the reflection to fight the reflections of other guilds, across every save on the platform. The Crown says it is learning how the realm's best fight. Believe that or do not. The reflections fight either way.
Nothing comes back. No wound, no death, no coin. Your hero stays in your hall.
THE TWINNING ⬢ Open the Twinning tab beside your Guild, or use the button on a hero's dossier ⬢ Each Twin receives a Reading: a Weight that measures the whole soul, not the OVR alone. Two heroes of the same OVR rarely weigh the same ⬢ Re-twinning a hero replaces the old reflection in place and keeps its record ⬢ A fallen hero can be Twinned from the Memorial while the impression is fresh. The Severance volunteer cannot ⬢ Fifty places, no more. Choose
THE WATCH AND THE TILT ⬢ Five Twins whose combined Weight fits Capacity make a legal team ⬢ Your Watch is the team that defends your rating while you are away ⬢ A tilt is one match. The Ascent is the ranked ladder: serve, fight, climb ⬢ Duels are thrown gauntlets between guilds and never touch the ladder ⬢ Conjunctions convene weekly as brackets. The Grand Conjunction crowns each season
THE CHART ⬢ The weekly Chart sets Capacity, Weights and the Ascendant Sign. Balance is data, never a patch ⬢ The rank tiers read like a star chart: the Zenith above the Meridian, then the High, Middle and Low Houses, and below the horizon the unplaced ⬢ Seasons run equinox to solstice: the Vernal Rising, the High Sun, the Autumn Reckoning, the Long Night
The Temple will tell you it is not easy about any of this. The Athenaeum will tell you the reflection is only an image. Both are right. When the Chart praises your reflections, go and say something kind to the person whose face they wear.
Every adventurer is defined by 23 stats across 7 categories. Their Overall Rating (OVR) is simply the average of all 23.
The categories: ⬢ PHYSICAL: Raw athletic ability (STR, DEX, SPD, AGI, CON) ⬢ VITALITY: Toughness and recovery (VIT, END, DUR, REC) ⬢ MENTAL: Intellect and fortune (INT, WIS, LCK) ⬢ SOCIAL: Personality and teamwork (CHA, LDR, TMW, TRU, LOY) ⬢ COMBAT: Battle awareness (ATK, DEF) ⬢ HEROIC: Courage under fire (HRO, SUR) ⬢ ARCANE: Magical aptitude (ARC, RES)
All stats range from 1 to 99. No single stat is useless, but some matter more depending on the adventurer's role and the quests you send them on.
The body is the foundation. Physical stats determine raw combat output and resilience.
⬢ STR (Strength): Powers melee damage. Key for Monster Bounties and Stronghold Assaults. ⬢ DEX (Dexterity): Sharpens attack precision. Important for Retrieval missions and ranged fighters. ⬢ SPD (Speed): How fast they move. Critical for Supply Runs and Ritual Interruptions. ⬢ AGI (Agility): Nimbleness. With SPD it sets how many hexes a hero covers each round, and it sharpens critical hits. The primary stat for Retrieval quests. ⬢ CON (Constitution): Raw toughness. Adds more to a hero's health pool than any other stat, and is vital for Escorts and Settlement Defense.
Melee fighters want STR and DEX. Tanks want CON. Everyone benefits from SPD.
Vitality stats determine how long an adventurer stays standing. And how quickly they return when they fall.
⬢ VIT (Vitality): General life force. With CON it builds the hero's health pool. ⬢ END (Endurance): Stamina for long engagements. Essential for Deep Delves and Guard Duty. In a fight it softens every hit the hero takes, when it is among their best two of DEF, END, RES and DUR. ⬢ DUR (Durability): How injury-prone they are. At 50 DUR, injury chance is normal. At 99, it's halved. At 1, it's 50% worse. It also softens every hit in a fight when it is among the hero's best two of DEF, END, RES and DUR. This is the single most important stat for keeping adventurers off the injury bench. ⬢ REC (Recovery): Healing speed when injured. High REC means fewer weeks in the infirmary. At 99, recovery time is halved. Minimum recovery is always 2 weeks.
If you're tired of losing adventurers to injuries, look at their DUR and REC first.
The mind is as sharp a weapon as any blade.
⬢ INT (Intelligence): Powers Investigation quests and supports magical healing calculations. ⬢ WIS (Wisdom): Complements INT for investigations. Also key for Curse Removal and Escorts. ⬢ LCK (Luck): The invisible hand. Your party's average Luck is added as a bonus to every quest outcome roll. Higher Luck means more critical successes and fewer disasters.
Healers rely on WIS and INT. Luck benefits everyone equally. A lucky party is a living party.
Social stats govern how well an adventurer works with others. And whether they'll stick around.
⬢ CHA (Charisma): Force of personality. A captain with high CHA can reduce desertion chance by up to 50%. Also critical for Political Escorts. ⬢ LDR (Leadership): The primary captain stat. Determines captain effectiveness: the best captains boost party power by up to 8% and reduce injuries by up to 20%. ⬢ TMW (Teamwork): Directly scales party power. Average party TMW of 99 gives +25% OVR. Average of 1 gives -25%. This affects every quest your party runs. ⬢ TRU (Trustworthiness): Contributes to captain score. Trustworthy captains inspire confidence. ⬢ LOY (Loyalty): Minor captain score factor. Loyal adventurers are less likely to cause problems.
When choosing captains, check LDR first, then TMW and TRU. When building parties, high average TMW is free power.
Combat awareness is what separates a trained fighter from a fool with a sword.
⬢ ATK (Attack Awareness): Offensive instinct. Combined with STR, DEX, and ARC to calculate damage dealt. The primary stat for Monster Bounties, Den Raids, and Stronghold Assaults. ⬢ DEF (Defense Awareness): Defensive instinct. In a fight, the best two of DEF, END, RES and DUR decide how much each hit is softened. The primary stat for Escorts and Settlement Defense.
Damage dealers want ATK. Tanks want DEF. Simple as that. But don't neglect DEF on your damage dealers. Dead adventurers deal no damage.
These are the stats that matter when everything goes wrong.
⬢ HRO (Heroism): The will to push beyond limits. During quests, any adventurer can trigger a heroism check: success grants a 20% progress bonus. HRO above 70 also grants a small chance of miraculous survival when death would otherwise claim them. ⬢ SUR (Survivability): Battle instinct for staying alive. Low SUR dramatically increases injury and death risk. High SUR reduces both. It also factors into whether a veteran eventually retires from adventuring.
SUR is arguably the most important stat in the game. An adventurer with high OVR but low SUR is a tragedy waiting to happen.
Magic flows through Irda's ley lines, and some adventurers are attuned to it.
⬢ ARC (Arcane Attunement): Magical sensitivity. Required for Arcane Disturbances, Curse Removal, and Ritual Interruptions. Also factors into healing calculations alongside WIS. ⬢ RES (Arcane Resistance): Resistance to the arcane. In a fight it softens every hit, not only magic, when it is among the hero's best two of DEF, END, RES and DUR. It also works alongside ARC for Curse Removal and provides protection during Arcane Disturbances.
Even non-magical parties benefit from one member with decent ARC and RES. You never know when a magical quest will appear on the board.
OVR is your adventurer's Overall Rating: the average of all their stats. It's the single number that determines combat effectiveness across quests, raids, and tower battles.
But raw OVR is just the starting point. Your effective OVR in combat includes: ⬢ EQUIPMENT: Gear bonuses raise your effective OVR. ⬢ STAT AFFINITY: Parties whose strengths match the quest type gain +5% OVR. Mismatched parties lose 5%. ⬢ CHEMISTRY: Party synergy modifies OVR from -8% to +15%. ⬢ SYNERGIES: Active party synergies (Combat Academy, Medical Wing, etc.) add further bonuses. ⬢ TEAMWORK: Average party TMW stat scales OVR by -25% to +25%. ⬢ MORALE: Demoralized parties lose up to 15% OVR. Excellent morale grants +10%. ⬢ GUILD UPGRADES: Buildings and faction effects add percentage bonuses. ⬢ CAPTAIN: An appointed captain's effectiveness modifies the party's OVR.
Match your party composition to the quest type and keep morale high for best results.
Quest success depends on your party's effective OVR vs. the quest's Required OVR (ROVR).
The ratio of OVR to ROVR determines the outcome range: ⬢ CRITICAL SUCCESS: OVR 1.5x+ ROVR. Full rewards x1.5, no injuries. ⬢ SUCCESS: OVR matches ROVR. Full rewards, minor injury risk (10%). ⬢ PARTIAL: OVR 70-99% of ROVR. Half rewards, moderate injury risk (30%). ⬢ FAILURE: OVR 50-69% of ROVR. No gold, renown loss, high injury risk (50%), small death risk (2%). ⬢ CRITICAL FAILURE: OVR below 50%. No rewards, major renown loss, severe injuries (80%), significant death risk (10%).
Luck adds a bonus to the outcome roll. A lucky party can punch slightly above its weight.
Yes — there is a real combat system. Every quest, raid, and tower fight is resolved from your party's effective power, and your heroes' stats and abilities are not cosmetic. They change the numbers behind each fight.
WHAT FEEDS A FIGHT: ⬢ STATS & EQUIPMENT — feed each hero's OVR, the backbone of party power. (See the OVR entry.) ⬢ PASSIVE ABILITIES — a passive like "+10% crit chance" raises your party's odds of a stronger result on the outcome roll. ⬢ ACTIVE ABILITIES — an AoE ultimate fires when it's charged, adding burst impact in raid and tower battles. ⬢ SYNERGIES, CAPTAIN, MORALE, CHEMISTRY — each nudges effective power up or down. (See Class Synergies and OVR.)
WHERE TO SEE THE FIGHT: ⬢ QUESTS — after a quest resolves, open the Week Summary and click the quest to read its Tactical Debrief: your effective power vs the quest's Required OVR, the factors that helped, and the risks you ran. ⬢ TOWER — Tower assaults play out as a full animated battle, blow by blow, with each hero's damage, healing, and standout hits. The result is kept in the Tower tab's recent reports. ⬢ RAIDS — raids record notable battle events you can review afterward in the raid report.
Bottom line: stats and abilities absolutely matter. Open a quest's debrief or run a Tower floor to watch them at work.
The Tower, raids, and duels play out on a hex grid: a battlefield of six-sided tiles where position matters as much as raw power.
HOW A BATTLE FLOWS: ⬢ ROUNDS & INITIATIVE: Units act in turns, fastest first. Higher SPD means a unit moves and strikes earlier in the round, and the very fast can act more than once. ⬢ MOVEMENT: Each turn a unit advances toward its target, then attacks the moment a foe is within reach. Where it stands, front line or back rank, decides who it can hit and who can hit it. ⬢ ROLES ON THE FIELD: Tanks anchor the front and soak blows, melee strikers press in, archers and mages loose from the back, and healers hang behind the line to mend.
You don't steer each step. Your party composition, stats, and classes decide how the fight unfolds. Watch it in the Tower's animated battles and raid reports, or read the after-action log to see who moved where and landed the telling hits.
On the hex grid, three things decide how a unit fights: how far it moves, how far it strikes, and how often it acts.
⬢ MOVEMENT (SPD + AGI): How many hexes a unit covers each turn is set by its Speed and Agility. Quick, nimble adventurers close distance or reposition fast; slow ones plod. This is per-unit, not per-class. A fleet-footed tank can outpace a sluggish mage. ⬢ ATTACK RANGE (CLASS): How far a unit can strike is set by its class. Melee bruisers must reach an adjacent hex; archers and mages loose attacks from several hexes away; healers tend the wounded from mid-range. ⬢ EXTRA ACTIONS (SPD): Very high Speed can grant a unit an extra action within a round, letting it move and strike more than its share.
The upshot: field a front line that can reach the enemy and a back line that can strike over it. A ranged unit left exposed will be closed on; a melee unit that can't reach the fight does nothing.
No two fields are the same field. Twenty-nine boards are in rotation, and which one you get is drawn from the region you are fighting in.
Standing stones. Sunken bog. A ridge line. Cavern pillars. Scorched ground. A flooded channel, broken ramparts, a boulder garden. The board is chosen before the first move and it does not change under you.
WHAT THE GROUND DOES: ⬢ BLOCKED: Nothing crosses it. It shapes the lanes, which decides who reaches your back line and how long it takes them. ⬢ HIGH GROUND: Worth taking, and worth killing for. Deeper floors put more of it on the board. ⬢ HAZARD: Light, standard, or severe. Standing in it costs, and a route through it is a decision, not an accident.
Terrain is why the same party can post different results against the same enemy on two different weeks. A ranged line that dominates an open field can be walked down in a cavern hall. Read the board in the replay when a fight goes badly. Very often the answer is that your formation was correct for a field you were not standing on.
The board is recorded with the fight, so a replay shows the ground you actually fought over.
When quests go badly, adventurers get hurt. Or worse.
Injury chance is modified by many factors: ⬢ DUR (Durability): The biggest individual factor. High DUR dramatically reduces injury chance. ⬢ SUR (Survivability): Low SUR increases both injury AND death risk. ⬢ CAPTAIN: A good captain reduces negative events by up to 20%. ⬢ MORALE: Demoralized adventurers take up to 20% more injuries. Excellent morale reduces them by 10%. ⬢ DIFFICULTY: Higher game difficulties multiply all injury and death chances.
When an adventurer is injured, REC (Recovery) determines how many weeks they spend healing. High REC can halve the recovery time.
Death is rare in questing, but the Tower demands sacrifice. Tower descents carry inherent risk even for dominant parties. Use Cautious strategy to reduce injuries at the cost of rewards. SUR above 50 grants a chance at miraculous survival, and HRO above 70 adds a small additional miracle chance. Keep your SUR stats high.
Every party needs a captain. Not all captains are created equal.
The captain score is calculated from five social stats: ⬢ LDR (Leadership): 30% weight. The dominant factor. ⬢ TMW (Teamwork): 25% weight. Ability to coordinate. ⬢ TRU (Trustworthiness): 20% weight. The party's confidence in them. ⬢ CHA (Charisma): 15% weight. Presence and authority. ⬢ LOY (Loyalty): 10% weight. Commitment to the cause.
A perfect captain (all 99s) provides: ⬢ Up to 8% party OVR boost ⬢ Up to 20% reduction in injuries and deaths ⬢ Desertion protection (CHA reduces chance by up to 50%) ⬢ Occasional progress boosts and setback mitigation
Your best leader isn't always your best fighter. Sometimes a mediocre warrior with high LDR and TMW is worth more as captain than your strongest damage dealer.
Morale ranges from 0 to 100 and affects everything.
⬢ DEMORALIZED (0-19): Quest power -15%, injury risk +20%, 5% desertion chance per week. ⬢ LOW (20-39): Quest power -8%, injury risk +10%, 1% desertion chance. ⬢ NEUTRAL (40-59): No bonuses or penalties. ⬢ GOOD (60-79): Quest power +5%, injury risk -5%. ⬢ EXCELLENT (80-100): Quest power +10%, injury risk -10%.
What changes morale: ⬢ Quest success: +5 (critical: +10) ⬢ Quest failure: -8 ⬢ Minor injury: -5 | Major: -10 | Critical: -15 ⬢ Level up: +8 ⬢ Rest complete: +3
Keep your adventurers winning and healthy. Morale spirals: a demoralized party performs worse, gets injured more, and becomes even more demoralized.
Adventurers are not static. Their stats change with age.
⬢ UNDER 33: Prime growth years. Stats improve most readily during this phase. ⬢ AGE 33-37: Growth stagnates. Stat gains become harder to achieve. ⬢ AGE 38+: Decline begins. Stats start deteriorating with age.
An adventurer's Potential tier (D through S) represents their ceiling: the maximum OVR they can naturally reach through training. Higher potential means more room to grow. That ceiling can still rise under rare, dangerous circumstances. See "Limit Break" in this library.
This is why young adventurers with high potential are so valuable. A 19-year-old with B-tier potential and OVR 45 will outgrow a 35-year-old with OVR 60 within a few years. And keep climbing while the veteran fades.
Every adventurer earns Experience (XP) and levels up. A level-up is what raises their stats, so to understand growth you first understand XP.
THE LEVEL CURVE: The XP needed for the next level climbs steeply: 100 × level^1.65, rounded. ⬢ Level 1: 100 XP to reach level 2 ⬢ Level 3: 613 XP ⬢ Level 5: 1,423 XP ⬢ Level 10: 4,467 XP ⬢ Level 20: 14,018 XP The cap is level 200. Early levels are cheap, so a rookie can gain several at once.
WHAT EARNS XP: Quests and raids are the main engine (a quest pays roughly its ROVR × 10, before outcome and bonuses). Faction contracts, tower floors, garrison duty and training all add XP too. Training is the DIRECTED source: you choose which stats its levels will favor.
WHAT A TRAINING PROGRAM PAYS: Base XP is a flat chunk plus a small share of the current level's cost: ⬢ Fundamental (Lv 1+): 150 + 2% of the level cost ⬢ Intermediate (Lv 3+): 400 + 4% ⬢ Advanced (Lv 5+): 750 + 6% ⬢ Elite (Lv 8+): 1,100 + 6.5% ⬢ Mastery (Lv 12+): 1,500 + 8% That base is multiplied by intensity, class match (1.5×), instructor, buildings and difficulty. The flat chunk dominates for rookies; the percent keeps veteran training from ever paying nothing.
WHAT A LEVEL-UP ROLLS: Each level, every stat rolls a gain, capped by the adventurer's potential ceiling for that stat: ⬢ A class PRIMARY stat: 70% chance of +2, otherwise +1. ⬢ A class SECONDARY stat: +1. ⬢ Any other stat: 40% chance of +1. So class identity shapes growth: a Knight's levels pour into Strength and Vitality, a Mage's into Arcane and Intelligence. A stat already at its ceiling stops climbing.
TRAINING FOCUS: A completed program stamps a Focus. For its charges, the program's stats roll one tier higher: a primary becomes a guaranteed +2 with a 30% chance of +3, a secondary rolls like a primary, and any other focused stat becomes a guaranteed +1. Any level-up spends a charge, including levels earned on quests, so training and deployment reinforce each other.
WORKED EXAMPLES: ⬢ A level-1 recruit runs a Fundamental program (base 152 XP) at Standard intensity, matching their class (1.5×). They earn 228 XP. Level 1 to 2 costs only 100, so they gain a level, roll their stats, and bank the rest. ⬢ A level-20 veteran runs an Advanced program (base 1,591) at Intensive (1.25×): 1,988 XP. Level 20 to 21 costs 14,018, so that is about 14% of a level. For veterans, training tops up growth and sets Focus while quests do the leveling.
A guild master learns to read a face at a glance. Study your adventurers' portraits — the same marks follow each of them everywhere, from the roster to the party board to the war table.
Four small marks may appear in the corners, and the frame itself can change color:
⬢ AMBITION READY (top-left) — a Crossroads or Proving awaits them. A choice that will shape who they become. ⬢ RENEWAL DUE (top-right) — their contract is in its final year. Re-sign them before they walk. ⬢ ABILITY CHARGED (bottom-left) — their signature ability is charged and ready for the next deployment. ⬢ PERSONAL NOTE (bottom-right) — you have set down a note about this one.
The frame speaks to loyalty. An amber edge means restlessness — morale is slipping and they have begun to look elsewhere. A red, pulsing edge is a warning: they are ready to walk, and you have little time left to mend it.
These marks show only on your own adventurers, only when there is something worth acting upon, and only where the portrait is large enough to read them clearly. Arm each one — or silence them all — in Settings, under Display.
Every adventurer carries class abilities: a passive that is always active, and an active "ultimate" that charges over weeks and fires in combat. Two adventurers of the same class will not always share them, because each one ROLLS a passive and an active from their class's pool when they join your guild.
Rolls range from Common to Epic. Higher-potential adventurers, the ones you develop through the Academy and training, have better odds at the rare, powerful abilities. So investing in an adventurer's potential pays off twice: in their stats AND in the abilities they are likely to roll. (Your existing roster keeps the abilities they already have; new recruits and graduates roll from the pools.)
Not happy with a roll? REAWAKEN a slot. A Tome of Awakening grants a Reawaken charge: re-roll one ability, then keep the old or take the new (you never lose a good ability against your will). A Tome of Mastery grants a charge you spend by CHOOSING the new ability yourself. Tomes come from: ⬢ Successful raids. The hardest raids, the Mythic class that opens at guild Tier 8, can also yield a Tome of Mastery. ⬢ The first clear of Tower floors 10, 20, 30, 40, 60, 70, 80 and 90 (Awakening) and 25, 50, 75 and 100 (Mastery). ⬢ Any faction vendor where you stand Honored or better: one Tome of Awakening a season, paid in standing, not gold.
Or build The Wellspring and set an adventurer on a Mastery Path: have them complete quests and raids with their mentor in the party, and they earn a Reawaken the hard way. An adventurer holds at most 2 unused Reawaken charges. At that cap a Tome can't be used on them, and a path finished then earns nothing.
These abilities matter everywhere: quests, raids, the Tower and the Crown Cup all read them. The legendary Aegis Warden even wields TWO actives: a rolled one plus its guaranteed Aegis of the Absolute.
Chemistry measures how well your party members work together. It can swing your effective power by -6% to +12%.
Chemistry tiers (based on average pairwise score): ⬢ TOXIC (below -40): -6% OVR. Active conflict sabotages every action. ⬢ DISCORDANT (-40 to -10): -3% OVR. Friction and miscommunication. ⬢ NEUTRAL (-10 to 15): No modifier. Professional competence, nothing more. ⬢ HARMONIOUS (15 to 35): +4% OVR. Smooth coordination. ⬢ BONDED (35 to 55): +7% OVR. Deep trust: they anticipate each other. ⬢ TRANSCENDENT (55+): +12% OVR. Legendary synergy.
What builds chemistry between two adventurers: ⬢ Zodiac compatibility (up to ±15 points) ⬢ Relationships: friendships, bonds, romances (up to +20 points) ⬢ Shared quest history (up to +12 points, scales logarithmically) ⬢ Moon sign behavioral synergy (up to ±10 points) ⬢ Age dynamics: mentorship bonds or peer bonds (up to +8 points) ⬢ Morale alignment: both happy or both struggling (up to ±8 points) ⬢ Class synergy bonuses (+8 points) ⬢ Ambition alignment (up to ±6 points)
In combat, chemistry triggers special events: ⬢ Bonded+ pairs: 15% chance of emergency saves (prevents an injury) ⬢ Harmonious+: 20% chance of combo strikes (+5% damage) ⬢ Transcendent: 25% chance of rallying cries (stabilizes morale) ⬢ Discordant: 15% chance of friction fumbles (+3% injury risk) ⬢ Toxic: 20% chance of sabotage (+5% injury, -8% damage)
Build chemistry by keeping the same parties together. Break it by forcing enemies into the same group.
Every adventurer is born under a Sun Sign bound to one of four elements — Fire, Earth, Air, or Water. When two of them share a party, the harmony or friction between their signs nudges party Chemistry by as much as ±15 points.
Fire and Air feed each other; Earth and Water nourish each other. Fire clashes with Water, and Earth with Air. Two adventurers of the same element get along comfortably.
Beyond the elements, every sign shares a special bond with its opposite on the wheel — those pairs draw together most strongly of all.
Employ an Astrologer and they will chart the precise sign-by-sign reading for you.
When you make bad decisions with your parties, the game doesn't just reduce success. It multiplies danger. This is the recklessness system.
Every risky choice stacks a multiplier on injury and death chance: ⬢ PARTY OVR < 60% OF QUEST ROVR: ×2.5 multiplier. Suicidal underpowering. ⬢ PARTY OVR 60-80% OF ROVR: ×1.8. Severely underpowered. ⬢ PARTY OVR 80-95% OF ROVR: ×1.3. Slightly underpowered. ⬢ NO TANK: ×1.5. No one absorbing hits. ⬢ NO HEALER: ×1.4. No sustained recovery. ⬢ NO DAMAGE DEALER: ×1.2. Can't end the fight. ⬢ EACH INJURED MEMBER DEPLOYED: ×1.3 per injured adventurer. ⬢ EACH DEMORALIZED MEMBER: ×1.15 per member below 30 morale. ⬢ UNDERSTAFFED: ×1.2 per missing member below 5.
These multiply together. A party of 3 at 60% OVR with no healer and one injured = 2.5 × 1.4 × 1.3 × 1.4 = ×6.37 injury/death multiplier.
Recklessness tiers: ⬢ CALCULATED (≤1.0): Green. No penalty. ⬢ RISKY (1.0-1.5): Yellow. Manageable. ⬢ RECKLESS (1.5-2.5): Orange. Expect injuries. ⬢ SUICIDAL (>2.5): Red. You will lose people.
Send full, healthy, well-composed parties, or pay the price.
Every adventurer's Potential tier sets a ceiling on the stats training alone can reach. Limit Break is the one way to raise that ceiling itself — mid-career, and only by surviving real danger.
This system is part of the V2 Composition & Risk Model, the default ruleset for new games (check Settings → Rebalance Ruleset if you're unsure yours is active).
RISK-FORGED GROWTH: Win a quest, raid, or tower floor where your party's effective power was below roughly 120% of what the fight demanded — a costly win, not a comfortable one — and every survivor comes home with a few bonus stat points, spent on whichever stats still have headroom below their current ceiling. A safe, dominant win grants nothing.
LIMIT BREAK — SHATTERING THE CEILING ITSELF: On an even more dangerous win (party power below roughly 95% of what the fight demanded), an adventurer who is already near their current ceiling — 90% of the way there or closer — has a chance to break through it. Their Potential tier rises one full step (F→D→C→B→A→S), and their stat ceilings regenerate to match.
⬢ ONLY THE NEAR-CEILING QUALIFY — plenty of headroom left means nothing to break through yet. ⬢ AT MOST ONE BREAK PER FIGHT — a costly, chaotic win still only forges one adventurer's ceiling. When several qualify, the lowest current tier goes first. ⬢ RARER THE HIGHER YOU CLIMB — common enough near the bottom of the ladder that a scrappy recruit can claw upward; vanishingly rare near the top. No one breaks past S-Tier. ⬢ TWICE IN A CAREER, NEVER MORE — every adventurer can limit-break at most twice, however long they serve.
Risking a fight you might lose is how the truly exceptional are made.
Certain class combinations unlock real mechanical bonuses. Each synergy targets a specific combat system — damage types, healing, injury prevention, critical hits, or tactical advantages. These are not cosmetic.
Known synergies: ⬢ Aerial Assault — 2+ of Lancer/Dragoon/Ranger/Northern Ranger → +4%/+7% Physical damage ⬢ Apex Predators — 2+ of Northern Ranger/Beast Master/Hexblade/Dragoon/Blood Knight/Reaper → +4%/+6% crit chance ⬢ Arcane Convergence — 2+ of Frost Mage/Fire Mage/Arcane Mage/Summoner/Stormcaller → +6%/+10% Arcane/Fire/Ice damage ⬢ Arcane Erudite — 2+ of Arcane Mage/Chronomancer/Summoner/Geomancer/Sorcerer/Singularity Mage → +4%/+7% ARC/INT contribution ⬢ Arcane Mastery — 2+ of Arcane Mage/Sorcerer/Chronomancer/Geomancer/Totem Shaman/Spellward/Spellblade/Stormcaller/Watcher/Enchanter/Singularity Mage → +5%/+8% Arcane damage ⬢ Astral Sight — 2+ of Oracle/Chronomancer/Geomancer/Totem Shaman/Watcher → +4%/+7% result floor ⬢ Blade Dancer — 2+ of Hexblade/Assassin/Lancer/Spellblade/Mistwalker → +4%/+7% DEX/SPD contribution ⬢ Bloodlust — 2+ of Barbarian/Berserker/Blood Knight → +5%/+9% OVR when injured ⬢ Bulwark — 2+ of Knight/Paladin/Lancer/Stone Druid/Warrior/Warden/Aegis Warden/Spellward → +5%/+8%/+11% injury reduction ⬢ Dark Pact — 2+ of Warlock/Summoner/Void Mage/Hexblade/Necromancer → +5%/+9% Shadow/Arcane damage ⬢ Divine Chorus — 2+ of Priest/Arch Priest/Oracle/Bard/Balance Monk → +4%/+7% healing ⬢ Elemental Storm — 2+ of Fire Mage/Frost Mage/Tide Shaman/Earth Shaman/Geomancer/Stormcaller/Levinguard/Lancer → +4%/+7%/+10% elemental damage ⬢ Evasive Maneuvers — 2+ of Assassin/Monk/Drunken Monk/Beast Master/Mistwalker → +4%/+6%/+8% ambush avoidance ⬢ Event Horizon — 2+ of Singularity Mage/Chronomancer/Watcher/Void Mage → +4%/+6% result floor & +5%/+7% ambush avoidance ⬢ Fortress — 2+ of Knight/Warrior/Paladin/Holy Knight/Oath Paladin/Aegis Warden/Frostguard/Embersworn/Levinguard → +4%/+6% injury reduction ⬢ Frenzied Onslaught — 2+ of Berserker/Barbarian/Sorcerer/Warlock/Dragoon → +4%/+6% first week power ⬢ Holy Shield — 2+ of Priest/Arch Priest/Holy Paladin/Aegis Warden/Oracle/Bard → +4%/+7%/+10% healing ⬢ Hunter's Eye — 2+ of Archer/Ranger/Northern Ranger/Beast Master/Hexblade → +4%/+7% DEX/ATK contribution ⬢ Immovable Object — 2+ of Stone Druid/Warden/Drunken Monk/Aegis Warden/Holy Knight/Dark Warden/Frostguard → +6%/+10% injury reduction ⬢ Inferno — 2+ of Fire Mage/Warlock/Sorcerer/Dragoon/Embersworn → +5%/+8%/+11% Fire damage ⬢ Inner Peace — 2+ of Monk/Balance Monk/Drunken Monk → +4%/+7% injury reduction ⬢ Inspiring Presence — 2+ of Bard/Paladin/Lancer/Arch Priest/Priest/Enchanter → +4%/+7%/+10% morale bonus ⬢ Iron Wall — 2+ of Knight/Warrior/Oath Paladin/Spellward → +4%/+7% DEF/CON contribution ⬢ Killing Strike — 2+ of Rogue/Assassin/Berserker/Blood Knight/Dragoon/Reaper → +4%/+6% crit chance ⬢ Living Legends — 2+ of Oath Paladin/Drunken Monk/Berserker/Aegis Warden/Hexblade → +4%/+7% morale bonus ⬢ Marksman's Eye — 2+ of Archer/Ranger/Northern Ranger → +5%/+8% DEX/AGI contribution ⬢ Martial Discipline — 2+ of Warrior/Monk/Balance Monk/Drunken Monk/Barbarian/Berserker → +4%/+7%/+10% STR/ATK contribution ⬢ Measured Shot — 2+ of Archer/Ranger/Northern Ranger/Arcane Mage/Summoner/Chronomancer → +4%/+7% result floor ⬢ Nature's Bond — 3+ of Harmony Druid/Earth Shaman/Tide Shaman/Totem Shaman/Warden/Dryad → +4%/+5%/+7% healing & +3%/+5%/+7% Nature dmg ⬢ Oath of the Realm — 2+ of Oath Paladin/Crusader Paladin/Holy Knight → +5% Holy dmg & +3%/+5% morale bonus ⬢ Ordained — 2+ of Arch Priest/Holy Paladin/Balance Monk → +4%/+5% healing & +3%/+5% injury reduction ⬢ Permafrost — 2+ of Frost Mage/Tide Shaman/Northern Ranger/Frostguard → +4%/+6% Ice dmg & +3%/+5% injury reduction ⬢ Primal Forces — 2+ of Earth Shaman/Geomancer/Stone Druid → +4%/+7% Nature damage ⬢ Prophetic Freeze — Frost Mage + Oracle → +7% result floor ⬢ Sacred Vanguard — 3+ of Holy Knight/Holy Paladin/Knight/Paladin/Crusader Paladin/Oath Paladin/Aegis Warden → +5%/+8%/+11% Holy damage ⬢ Scout Team — Rogue + Ranger → +8% ambush avoidance ⬢ Shadow Cabal — 2+ of Warlock/Void Mage/Hexblade/Blood Knight/Rogue/Assassin/Necromancer/Reaper/Dark Warden → +5%/+8%/+11% Shadow damage ⬢ Shadow Network — Rogue + Assassin → +7% crit chance ⬢ Spirit Bond — 2+ of Beast Master/Totem Shaman/Stone Druid/Harmony Druid/Warden/Ranger → +5%/+8%/+11% Nature damage ⬢ Temporal Insight — 2+ of Oracle/Chronomancer/Void Mage/Watcher → +5%/+8% result floor ⬢ The Conclave — 2+ of Spellward/Spellblade/Stormcaller/Watcher/Enchanter → +5%/+8%/+11% Arcane damage & +3%/+5%/+6% result floor ⬢ The Pale Court — 2+ of Necromancer/Reaper/Dark Warden → +5%/+8% Shadow damage & +4%/+6% injury reduction ⬢ Twilight Edge — Hexblade + Void Mage → +9% Shadow/Arcane damage ⬢ Vanguard Assault — 2+ of Crusader Paladin/Blood Knight/Dragoon → +5%/+8% first week power ⬢ Verdant Wardens — 2+ of Stone Druid/Warden/Tide Shaman/Beast Master/Harmony Druid/Dryad → +4%/+7% injury reduction ⬢ Wild Hunt — 2+ of Beast Master/Ranger/Northern Ranger → +5%/+8% ambush avoidance
Recruit with synergies in mind. Each synergy targets a different combat system — stacking the same type (like injury reduction) is capped, so diversity is rewarded.
Not every adventurer is what they seem. Some carry hidden flaws: personality defects that mechanically undermine your guild.
Common flaws (visible at recruitment): ⬢ DRUNKARD: 15% chance to be unavailable each week. (Pisces affinity) ⬢ BULLY: Drains 3 morale/week from lower-OVR party members. (Leo affinity) ⬢ HOTHEAD: +25% chance to form rivalries after quest failures. (Aries affinity)
Uncommon flaws (hidden until 4-8 weeks of service): ⬢ GLORY HOG: Steals +30% XP for themselves, -15% for the party. (Leo affinity) ⬢ COWARD: 12% chance to flee quests above their OVR, -20% party OVR when fleeing. ⬢ GAMBLER: Loses 20% of their personal gold earnings. (Sagittarius affinity)
Rare flaws (hidden, severe): ⬢ KLEPTOMANIAC: 10% chance per quest to steal 15% of party gold. ⬢ CURSED: +15% injury chance for the entire party. (Scorpio affinity) ⬢ INSTIGATOR: Drains 2 morale/week from ALL guild members. Visible. (Scorpio affinity) ⬢ LIABILITY: +20% death chance for themselves.
Higher potential adventurers are MORE likely to have flaws: ⬢ S-Tier: 30% | A-Tier: 25% | B-Tier: 20% | C-Tier: 15% | D/F-Tier: 10%
Zodiac-aligned flaws are 25% more likely on matching signs. Scout thoroughly before signing. That S-tier prodigy might be Cursed.
Adventurers form bonds, for better or worse, through shared experience.
Positive relationships: ⬢ FRIENDSHIP: After 3+ shared quests at 60%+ success. +5% damage, +10% morale stability, +5% injury reduction. ⬢ MENTORSHIP: Senior guides junior (8+ age gap, 3+ level gap). +15% XP for the protege, +8% mentor morale. ⬢ BATTLE BOND: Forged through shared hardship (injuries or critical failures together). +10% damage, +8% death reduction. ⬢ ROMANTIC: Evolves from friendship after 6+ more quests at 70%+ success (15% chance). +15% morale, +10% injury reduction. Severe grief if partner dies. ⬢ SWORN OATH: Forged through epic campaigns at 80%+ success. +12% damage, +12% death reduction.
Negative relationships: ⬢ RIVALRY: Similar role, similar OVR, competitive personality. +8% damage (showing off) but +5% injury risk. ⬢ GRUDGE: Blame after failures. -5% damage, -10% morale, +8% injury risk. ⬢ NEMESIS: Escalated rivalry (20% chance after major failure). -10% damage, +15% injury risk. Cannot both be captains.
Relationships start at 50/100 strength and grow with shared quests (+10 on critical success, +5 on success, -5 on failure). After 8 weeks apart, bonds slowly decay.
Keep successful parties together to build bonds. Separate enemies. Bonded pairs grant 15% chance of emergency saves in combat. That is lives saved.
Difficulty doesn't just make monsters hit harder. It reshapes the entire world around your guild.
⬢ NORMAL: The standard experience. A fair fight. ⬢ C-TIER: The frontier pushes back. Contracts pay less, injuries linger, and every death stings. ⬢ B-TIER: The economy turns against you. Gold is scarce, progress is slow, and your healers will earn their keep. ⬢ A-TIER: A punishing grind. Resources are thin, losses are devastating, and only the most disciplined guilds survive. ⬢ S-TIER: A war of attrition against the world itself. Every coin matters. Every death echoes for seasons.
The real challenge is economics. Higher tiers don't just make combat harder. They squeeze your treasury from every direction. Contracts offer less. Upkeep climbs. Recovery takes longer. The margin for error shrinks until there is none.
Difficulty is chosen at game start. You can adjust individual sliders mid-game via Settings > Adjust Difficulty.
Raids unlock at Guild Tier 3 once your War Room reaches Tier 1. They are not quests. They are war.
Raids require 3 full parties (15 adventurers) in a single raid group. A second raid group unlocks at Tier 5, and a third at Tier 7.
Raid types unlock as your guild grows: ⬢ LEGENDARY BOUNTY: 4-8 weeks, 1.2x risk. Available at Tier 3. ⬢ MYTHIC DUNGEON: 5-8 weeks, 1.3x risk. Available at Tier 3. ⬢ WORLD THREAT: 6-10 weeks, 1.5x risk. Available at Tier 5. ⬢ FACTION WAR: 6-12 weeks, 1.8x risk. Available at Tier 7. The highest stakes.
Raid outcomes: ⬢ DECISIVE VICTORY: 1.5x rewards, minimal injuries, near-zero death. ⬢ VICTORY: Full rewards, moderate injury risk. ⬢ PYRRHIC VICTORY: 0.7x rewards, heavy injuries. ⬢ STALEMATE: 0.3x rewards, moderate injuries. ⬢ WITHDRAWAL: Minimal rewards, renown loss. ⬢ CATASTROPHIC FAILURE: No rewards, renown loss, 2.5x injuries, 20% death multiplier.
Choose a strategy: Aggressive (1.2x reward, 1.3x risk), Balanced, or Cautious (0.85x reward, 0.7x risk). Spend provisions: healing potions (-25% injury), elixirs (+10% success), tonics (+15% rewards), herbal extracts (-1 week duration).
Successful raids have a 10% chance to drop a Grimoire: a legendary consumable. Five types exist: Salvation (negates one death), Metamorphosis (change class), Endurance (+30 years career), Capricorn (+10 all stats), and Duality (add a second class).
Every so often (rarely, and never on a schedule), the frontier is gripped by a MAJOR WORLD EVENT. These are not the small weekly happenings; they are slow, sweeping crises and windfalls that unfold over many weeks and change how the whole town lives while they last.
You are warned first. An event is TELEGRAPHED about a week before it takes hold (a rumor, a notice, a letter) so you are never blindsided. The next week it begins in earnest, runs its course over several weeks, and then it passes. Every event ends; none of them last forever.
WHAT THEY DO: ⬢ SOME ARE CRISES: a blight on the roads, a cruel winter, a war-band at the gates. A crisis can LOCK certain systems while it holds: you may not begin a new tower descent, launch a new raid, or send fresh caravans. Locks only block NEW commitments. Anything already underway finishes normally, and every lock lifts the moment the event ends. ⬢ SOME ARE BOONS: a bountiful season, a stroke of luck. These help you: cheaper gathering, faster expeditions, a windfall of recruits or coin. Make the most of them before the window closes. ⬢ SOME ASK A QUESTION: a decision that lands on your desk with real trade-offs, or a gamble you can press for growing risk and reward. Weigh the cost; a free answer is rare.
HOW TO ANSWER A CRISIS: ⬢ COUNTERPLAY QUESTS: many crises post special quests on the board, marked as the crisis's own. Clear them to break the event early instead of waiting it out. A besieged guild that puts down the war-band lifts the siege by force of arms. ⬢ HOLD THE LINE: if you cannot break it, endure it. Keep your treasury solvent, your roster rested, and your standing strong with the factions who can soften the blow.
Every event you live through is recorded in the CHRONICLE, on the Events tab of the Reports panel. The town's understanding of these events deepens over time. Read an old crisis again years later, and you may find you see it very differently than you did the day it struck.
Build the WAR ROOM and the Quest Board gains a second face: the WAR TABLE, a living map of the frontier. Its grammar is simple. You assign a resource to a place. A party to a quest, a convoy to a region, a patrol to a frontier. Orders that fit that shape are given from the map; everything else is a drill-down away.
REGION CONTROL. Seven frontier regions keep a seasonal score of who works them. Win quests and raids in a region to build PRESENCE; rival guilds build their own. The leader HOLDS a region once it clears the bar, and the race line shows your score, the leader's, and the mark you need. Control resets with the season. It is a contest, not a conquest.
SUPPLY LINES. Survey a region by completing quests there, then charter a standing convoy from the region panel. It hauls the region's goods on a cycle for a weekly upkeep. Roads run safer through a region you hold and riskier through a rival's. Guards cost gold but cut the ambush risk. The seasons work the roads too: winter closes lanes and stretches the far routes, and the region panel carries the road's odds as they stand and a note when the season is moving them. A line whose upkeep the treasury cannot cover waits at the depot until the coin comes back.
FRONTIER PATROL. Station a full party as a region's protector. The commitment is real (a stationed party takes no other work), but the post is productive: each week it takes the best board quest in its region within the risk ceiling you set, at normal rewards. Between quests it stands watch, builds presence toward control, and drives off frontier trouble when it comes looking.
WHY HOLD A REGION: ⬢ PATROL QUESTS resolve easier on held ground and harder on a rival's. ⬢ THE BOARD TILTS. New work favors regions you hold. ⬢ CONVOYS run safer roads, and a held frontier sees fewer incidents.
WHEN THE FRONTIER FIGHTS BACK: ⬢ NAMED THREATS. A stationed frontier can breed a menace with a name, and it stays. While it lives the patrol turns to THE HUNT and takes no board work; that pause in the income is the price of the hunt, not a fault. It strikes every few weeks, and three repels BREAK it. A loss wounds a member and emboldens it. After enough strikes it moves on unbroken. Until then it raids the roads and chokes the region's trade. ⬢ THE ORDERED ASSAULT. Once a threat has grown bolder, the region panel lets you order the patrol to storm its lair. The buttons state the odds before you commit. Allied guilds that trust you march under your banner. A repulse wounds two and emboldens it, so the patrol must be at full strength and unhurt to be ordered out. ⬢ THE HOLD CAP. Your certification tier sets how many regions you may HOLD, and it begins at one. A patrol past that cap still works its region and still builds presence; it simply will not take the hold, and the station picker warns you before you commit. ⬢ REGIONAL OUTPOSTS. In a surveyed region you may raise an OUTPOST, in three tiers. It steadies the patrol, guards the convoy road, and buys warning before a new threat's first strike.
The season turns and every hold resets with it. The race begins again each year, so a frontier standing open at the turn is the calendar, not a defeat.
The loop closes on itself. Patrol a region, win its work, take the hold, and the region starts working for you. Long service is remembered: a member who keeps the watch long enough earns the permanent FRONTIER WARDEN name.
The Operations category of your guild's buildings enhances raids, quests, and field operations. These are physical structures you construct, each one unlocking new capabilities.
What does "Operations" mean? Think of it as your guild's investment in fieldwork infrastructure. These buildings support: ⬢ RAIDS: Bonuses to raid success and party power ⬢ QUESTS: Faster quest discovery, preparation speed, and rumor generation ⬢ TOWER: Improved tower damage and death prevention ⬢ FIELD: Gathering bonuses, scouting speed, injury prevention ⬢ RECOVERY: Faster rest and injury healing for returning adventurers
Operations buildings include: ⬢ War Room: Unlocks Tacticians, boosts quest and raid planning ⬢ Scouting Post: Unlocks Scouts, improves intel and applicant evaluation ⬢ Expedition HQ: Enhances raid and tower operations, T3 capstone multiplies all Expedition effects ⬢ Cartography Hall: Unlocks Cartographers, boosts quest discovery ⬢ Pathfinder's Lodge: Unlocks Hunters, Trappers, and Salvagers. Reduces quest travel time
Each building can be upgraded through multiple tiers via the Construction system, with higher tiers requiring better materials and more skilled Overseers.
Each Guild Tier unlocks capacity, features, and costs. Growing too fast can bankrupt you.
⬢ TIER 1 (Local Outfit): 35 roster, 4 parties, 12 staff. Free. ⬢ TIER 2 (Established): 40 roster, 5 parties, 20 staff. 100 renown, 5,000g. ⬢ TIER 3 (Regional Actor): 45 roster, 6 parties, 30 staff. 250 renown, 15,000g. RAIDS UNLOCK. Wages +15%, 100g/week overhead. ⬢ TIER 4 (Regional Power): 50 roster, 7 parties, 40 staff. 500 renown, 35,000g. Nemesis rivalry. ⬢ TIER 5 (Institutional): 55 roster, 8 parties, 50 staff. 1,000 renown, 75,000g. Guild Specialization. World Threat raids. Wages +35%, 400g/week. ⬢ TIER 6 (National Force): 60 roster, 9 parties, 60 staff. 2,000 renown, 150,000g. THE TOWER UNLOCKS (also requires War Room T2). ⬢ TIER 7 (National Legend): 70 roster, 10 parties, 70 staff. 4,000 renown, 300,000g. Faction War raids. Wages +60%, 1,000g/week. ⬢ TIER 8 (Continental): 80 roster, 11 parties, 80 staff. 8,000 renown, 500,000g. Crown Contracts unlock. ⬢ TIER 9 (Continental Legend): 90 roster, 12 parties, 90 staff. 15,000 renown, 1,000,000g. Elite Crown Contracts. Wages stay +60%, 2,500g/week. ⬢ TIER 10 (Mythic Order): 200 roster, 15 parties, 100 staff. 30,000 renown, 2,000,000g. Sovereign Charter.
Higher tiers pay adventurers 15-60% more in wages AND add flat weekly overhead. A Tier 10 guild with 100 adventurers burns gold like kindling. Make sure your income sustains growth before upgrading.
Professional staff are force multipliers. Each role has mechanical bonuses that scale with skill level.
Quest support staff: ⬢ COOK: +5% party OVR (up to +7.5% at high skill). Requires Mess Hall. ⬢ CHIRURGEON: -15% injury chance (up to -22.5%). The most important hire. Requires Infirmary. ⬢ CHRONICLER: +10% renown gain (up to +15%). Requires The Stacks. ⬢ CARTOGRAPHER: -10% ambush chance, +5% travel speed (up to -15% and +7.5%). Requires Cartography Hall. ⬢ DIVINER: +15% critical success chance (up to +22.5%). Requires Enchanting Chamber.
Training staff: ⬢ INSTRUCTOR: Stat bonus (+5% to +40%), XP bonus (+10% to +75%), trainees (2 to 8) based on skill tier. F-tier instructors are barely worth hiring. S-tier instructors are transformative. Requires Training Yard.
Intelligence staff: ⬢ SCOUT: Scouting speed: 4 weeks (Novice) down to 1 week (Expert+). Can run Watch Mode for passive monitoring. Always available. ⬢ BARTENDER: Reveals relationship dynamics and morale intel. Requires Tavern. ⬢ RECEPTIONIST: Market and rival guild intelligence. Requires Reception. ⬢ ASTROLOGER: Zodiac readings, celestial forecasts, quest bonuses. Always available. ⬢ TACTICIAN: Risk assessments and combat strategy analysis. Accuracy scales from unreliable to near-perfect with skill. Always available.
Guild operations staff: ⬢ QUARTERMASTER: Bulk equip/unequip, gear optimization (+5% to +20%), auto-repair at high skill. Requires Armory. ⬢ OVERSEER: Required for all construction projects. Controls build speed (-15% to -35% time), material waste reduction (-10% to -30%), and quality outcomes. Gains XP from completed projects. Always available. ⬢ TREASURER: Auto-trades materials weekly based on player-set rules. Spread bonus (+0% to +12% profit), scales sell/buy rule limits with skill. Requires Treasury T1.
Craft professionals: ⬢ BLACKSMITH: Weapon/shield repair, ore refinement, sharpening and tempering. Requires Workshop. ⬢ ARMORER: Armor/helm repair, leather tanning, reinforcement. Requires Workshop. ⬢ ENCHANTER: Magical crafting, essence extraction, enchanting. Uses charge system. Requires Enchanting Chamber. ⬢ JEWELER: Accessory repair, gem polishing, gem socketing. Requires Workshop. ⬢ TAILOR: Cloth armor crafting, weaving, silk spinning. Requires Workshop. ⬢ ALCHEMIST: Potions, elixirs, oil extraction. Requires Alchemy Lab. ⬢ SCRIBE: Scroll crafting, +10% quest intel accuracy. Requires The Stacks. ⬢ MASON: Stonecutting, structural specialist for construction crew. Requires Construction Yard. ⬢ CARPENTER: Woodworking, framing specialist for construction crew. Requires Construction Yard.
Resource staff: ⬢ GATHERERS: Miners, Lumberjacks, Foragers, Farmers, Fishers, Hunters, Trappers, Salvagers, Essence Harvesters. Each produces specific materials weekly. Higher guild tiers unlock rarer gatherer types. Require various resource buildings.
Staff have 10 stats across two categories: Work (FOC, FIN, END, INS, RSV) and Social (CHA, LDR, TMW, TRU, LOY). OVR is the average of all 10. Role Effectiveness is a weighted score: each role values certain stats more heavily. Primary stats (highlighted in cyan/amber) matter most for that role's performance.
Staff have their own potential tiers (F through S). S-tier potential (0.5% rarity) caps at 99. F-tier caps at 40. Hire staff with high potential and let them grow.
The Quartermaster manages your guild's equipment logistics. Unlocks with the Armory building (T1, available from Guild Tier 2). If you're drowning in gear and spending half your time equipping adventurers one by one. This is the hire that fixes it.
What they do: ⬢ BULK EQUIP/UNEQUIP: Equip or strip gear from your entire roster in one action. Available at all skill levels. ⬢ DURABILITY WARNINGS: Alerts you when equipped gear is about to break (skill 30+). ⬢ GEAR SUGGESTIONS: Notices adventurers with empty slots and recommends available gear (skill 50+). ⬢ PRE-QUEST EQUIPMENT: Automatically optimizes party loadouts before quests (skill 70+). ⬢ AUTO-REPAIR: Keeps equipped gear maintained weekly at a 15% cost premium (skill 85+). ⬢ OPTIMIZATION BONUS: Passive equipment effectiveness bonus: +5% (skill 30) up to +20% (skill 85+). ⬢ SUPPLY SHORTAGE MITIGATION: Reduces chance of supply shortage events during construction from 12% to 3%.
Skill tiers: ⬢ STOCKKEEPER (0-29): Bulk operations only. 225g base wage. ⬢ ARMORY WARDEN (30-49): Durability warnings, +5% optimization. 450g base. ⬢ EQUIPMENT MARSHAL (50-69): Gear suggestions, +10% optimization. 675g base. ⬢ MASTER QUARTERMASTER (70-84): Pre-quest equip, +15% optimization. 975g base. ⬢ GRAND QUARTERMASTER (85-99): Auto-repair, +20% optimization. 1,350g base.
Priority tip: A Stockkeeper is still valuable. Bulk equip alone saves enormous time. Don't wait for a high-skill hire. Get one early at Tier 3 and let them grow.
Every class maps to one of four combat roles. In a battle, the role shapes how much damage a unit deals, how much it takes, and how much healing it does. The multipliers below apply on top of the unit's own stats.
⬢ TANK: Deals 0.7x damage but takes only 0.7x, built to hold the front line and soak blows. Wants CON, VIT, DEF, END. ⬢ HEALER: Deals 0.4x damage, takes 0.5x, and mends allies at 2.0x. The party's lifeline from the back rank. Wants WIS, ARC, INT. ⬢ MELEE: Deals 1.2x damage and takes 1.0x, the frontline striker who trades blow for blow. Wants STR, DEX, ATK, SPD. ⬢ RANGED: Deals 1.1x damage and takes 1.1x, hitting hard from afar but exposed once enemies close the gap. Wants DEX, ATK, ARC.
Common classes: Knight (Tank), Warrior (Tank), Monk (Melee), Rogue (Melee), Archer (Ranged), Fire/Frost Mage (Ranged), Priest (Healer).
The classic party: 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 2 Melee, 1 Ranged. Missing a Tank or Healer triggers recklessness penalties, but class synergies can reward unconventional builds.
Adventurers don't fight forever. When a veteran reaches level 5 and age 30, they become eligible for voluntary retirement, transitioning into a permanent guild staff role.
HOW IT WORKS: ⬢ Open an adventurer's Activity tab (roster page) or Dossier to see the "Career Transition" section. ⬢ The game scores every unlocked role and shows the top 3 fits, ranked by aptitude. ⬢ Each role shows the adventurer's projected effectiveness score, their strongest matching stats, and any class affinity bonus. ⬢ Click "Retire as [Role]" to open contract negotiation. Once signed, the adventurer leaves your roster permanently and joins your staff.
WHAT DETERMINES FIT: Adventurer combat stats are converted into 10 staff stats: ⬢ FOC (Focus) = average of INT + WIS ⬢ FIN (Finesse) = average of DEX + AGI ⬢ END (Endurance) = average of CON + END ⬢ INS (Insight) = average of WIS + ARC ⬢ RSV (Resolve) = average of SUR + HRO ⬢ CHA, LDR, TMW, TRU, LOY carry over directly.
Each role weighs these 10 stats differently. A high-INS adventurer excels as a Scout or Astrologer. A high-FIN adventurer makes a better Crafter. A high-END adventurer thrives as a Gatherer.
CLASS AFFINITY: Certain classes have natural affinity for specific roles. A Ranger retiring as a Scout or Hunter gets a significant bonus. A Mage retiring as an Astrologer or Enchanter is a natural fit. These bonuses are factored into the aptitude score automatically.
FORCED RETIREMENT: At age 60, adventurers retire automatically (with a chance of early retirement from age 50). You'll be given the choice of which role to place them in. Plan ahead. An aging veteran with the right stats can become your best staff member.
TIPS: ⬢ High-level adventurers convert better: level directly boosts aptitude scores. ⬢ Retired staff wages are capped at 1.5x their former adventurer wage. ⬢ Staff have their own potential tier (minimum C-Tier), so retired adventurers always have room to grow. ⬢ Check the Career Transition section BEFORE an adventurer ages out. You might discover a future master Enchanter hiding in a veteran Mage's stats.
Every retirement role values different staff stats. Here's what matters most for each category. Primary stats (highest weight) are listed first.
GUILD STAFF: ⬢ SCOUT: INS (0.20), FOC (0.15), TRU (0.15). Wants: WIS+ARC for Insight, INT+WIS for Focus. Rangers and Rogues excel. ⬢ ASTROLOGER: INS (0.25), FOC (0.15), CHA (0.10), TRU (0.10). Wants: WIS+ARC, INT+WIS. Mages and Druids excel. ⬢ TACTICIAN: INS (0.20), FOC (0.15), LDR (0.15), TMW (0.10). Wants: WIS+ARC, INT+WIS, Leadership. Knights and Paladins excel. ⬢ BARTENDER: CHA (0.20), INS (0.15), TMW (0.15), TRU (0.10). Wants: Charisma, WIS+ARC. Bards and Gladiators excel. ⬢ RECEPTIONIST: FOC (0.15), INS (0.15), CHA (0.15), LDR (0.10), TRU (0.10), LOY (0.10). Wants: balanced social stats. Bards and Rogues excel. ⬢ INSTRUCTOR: LDR (0.20), RSV (0.15), CHA (0.10), FOC (0.10), INS (0.10), TMW (0.10). Wants: Leadership, SUR+HRO. Warriors and Monks excel. ⬢ QUARTERMASTER: FOC (0.20), TRU (0.15), END (0.10), INS (0.10), LDR (0.10). Wants: INT+WIS, Trustworthiness. Warriors and Knights excel.
ALL CRAFTERS (shared weights): ⬢ FIN (0.25), FOC (0.15), END (0.10), RSV (0.10), TMW (0.10), LOY (0.10). Wants: DEX+AGI for Finesse, INT+WIS for Focus. Class affinity varies by craft type: Mages make great Enchanters, Rogues make great Jewelers, Warriors make great Blacksmiths.
ALL GATHERERS (shared weights): ⬢ END (0.25), RSV (0.15), FOC (0.10), INS (0.10), LOY (0.10). Wants: CON+END for Endurance, SUR+HRO for Resolve. Rangers make great Hunters, Druids make great Foragers, Barbarians make great Miners/Lumberjacks.
QUICK REFERENCE · Adventurer stats that matter most: ⬢ INT + WIS → Staff roles (Scout, Astrologer, Tactician, Quartermaster) ⬢ DEX + AGI → Crafter roles ⬢ CON + END → Gatherer roles ⬢ WIS + ARC → Insight-heavy roles (Scout, Astrologer, Tactician) ⬢ SUR + HRO → Resolve-heavy roles (Instructor, Gatherer) ⬢ CHA, LDR, TMW → Social roles (Bartender, Instructor, Receptionist)
Welcome to your Front Desk: the nerve center of your guild.
Here you'll find: ⬢ LIVE FEED: Real-time updates on quests, injuries, training, scouting, and more ⬢ CORRESPONDENCE: Letters from factions, the Crown, rival guilds, and the Great Sage ⬢ QUEST RESULTS: Detailed breakdowns of completed quests and raids ⬢ CALENDAR: Current week, season, and upcoming events
FEED TABS let you filter by category: All, Quests, Combat, Training, Scouts, Academy, and more. The "This Week" tab shows only current-week events.
PRIORITY PINNING keeps important entries (scout intel, crisis events, tower results) visible even when filtering by category. Toggle it with the Pin button.
Check here regularly. The Front Desk keeps you informed of everything happening in your guild.
The Recruit tab is where you build your guild's future.
Here you'll find adventurers and staff seeking employment: ⬢ ADVENTURERS: Warriors, mages, healers, and rogues ready to quest ⬢ STAFF: Support personnel like Bartenders, Crafters, and Gatherers
Use your Scout to reveal hidden stats before signing anyone. Look for high Potential. It determines their growth ceiling. A high-potential recruit will eventually surpass a stronger veteran with low potential.
The Registry shows everyone currently employed by your guild.
Click any adventurer to see their full details: ⬢ STATS: All attributes that define their capabilities ⬢ MORALE: Their current happiness and loyalty ⬢ GEAR: Equipment they're wearing ⬢ LOG: History of their accomplishments
Keep your roster balanced. You need Tanks to absorb damage, Healers to restore health, and Damage dealers to finish fights.
Adventurers cannot quest alone. They must be organized into Parties of 5.
A balanced party includes: ⬢ 1 TANK: Absorbs damage, protects others ⬢ 1 HEALER: Restores health during battle ⬢ 3 DAMAGE: Melee or Ranged attackers
Each party needs a Captain. They provide leadership bonuses. Choose someone with high Leadership and Charisma.
Create your first party, then head to Quests!
The Academy tab has two main functions: training your active adventurers and developing youth prospects.
ADVENTURER TRAINING: Your roster members can train between quests to improve their stats. Training has tiers that unlock with adventurer level, and intensity levels that control risk vs. reward: ⬢ LIGHT: Safe but slow. No injury risk. ⬢ STANDARD: Balanced gains with minor injury risk. ⬢ INTENSIVE: Faster gains but moderate injury risk. ⬢ EXTREME: Maximum gains at high injury risk.
WHAT A LEVEL-UP GRANTS: Training earns XP; the LEVEL-UP itself is what rolls the actual stat gains. Every level rolls a gain on each stat, and a class's primary stats gain the most, so quests and any other XP source raise stats too, not training alone. Training's real jobs are paying XP quickly and setting a Focus that steers which stats those level-ups favor; higher levels also unlock the training tiers above. See "How XP & Leveling Works" in the library for the exact per-level rolls.
AUTO-TRAINING: Once you've assigned training programs, you can enable Auto-Training to keep adventurers training automatically when they're idle. This saves you from manually re-assigning every week.
INSTRUCTORS provide bonuses when assigned to training. Match their specialization to the program for extra gains. Higher-tier instructors handle more trainees with better bonuses.
YOUTH ACADEMY: If you've built the Academy building, you can also enroll youth prospects (ages 14-17) for long-term development. See the "Academy" entry in Guild Management for details on the youth prospect system.
PARTY TRAINING: Parties can also train together to build coordination and unlock group abilities. This is separate from individual training and helps build party chemistry.
Equipment makes the difference between victory and defeat.
Here you can: ⬢ VIEW GEAR: See what each adventurer is wearing ⬢ CRAFT ITEMS: Use materials to forge new equipment ⬢ MANAGE INVENTORY: Organize your guild's armory
Better equipment means higher stats. A well-equipped party punches above its weight. Hire a Crafter to unlock crafting!
This is your guild's crafting hub. Active jobs, available recipes, and commissions from factions and the Crown all live here.
To start crafting: pick a workshop station, choose a recipe your crafter can handle, assign them, and select a technique. Meticulous is slower but higher quality, Rushed is fast but risky, and Experimental has a chance to discover new recipes.
Keep an eye on the Commissions board. Factions and the Crown post requests with deadlines and bonus rewards for delivering specific items on time.
Quests are your primary source of income and renown.
Each quest shows: ⬢ RANK: your scouts' threat estimate, F to S. F is under 40 party OVR, D 40-54, C 55-69, B 70-84, A 85-99, S 100+ ⬢ DURATION: How many weeks to complete ⬢ REWARDS: Gold, materials, and renown gains ⬢ DANGER: Risk of injury or death
A rank is an estimate, and scouts sometimes misjudge a contract. Each Scouting Post tier narrows the estimate, and at T3 the board shows the exact ROVR (Required OVR). Before you send a party, check its Risk badge, which weighs your party against that estimate. Going below the band is risky. Never send exhausted adventurers.
Each party card has a COMMANDER'S ORDERS button. Expand it to set standing orders; your Commander can then auto-accept and deploy that party to suitable quests for you.
Raids are massive undertakings requiring multiple parties working together.
Unlike regular quests: ⬢ RAID FORCE: Each raid requires 3 full parties (15 adventurers) deployed together ⬢ LONGER DURATION: Multi-week campaigns (4-12 weeks depending on raid type) ⬢ GREATER REWARDS: Rare materials, massive gold payouts, and a chance to find a Grimoire ⬢ HIGHER RISK: More dangerous than standard quests; choose Cautious / Balanced / Aggressive strategy ⬢ TIER GATING: Raids unlock at Guild Tier 3 with a War Room (T1). Higher-tier raid types (World Threat, Faction War) unlock at Tier 5 and Tier 7
Only attempt raids when your guild has multiple strong parties. Coordination is key!
The reason why we're all here.
The Tower is the ultimate challenge: 100 floors of darkness leading to the Portal that spawns all monsters.
This is a massive undertaking: ⬢ RAID FORCE: Requires 6 full parties (30 adventurers) ⬢ DEATH: Enter unprepared and it could mean the end for some ⬢ RIVAL COMPETITION: Race against 31 rival guilds (House Valorheim among them) for glory ⬢ SCOUT INTEL: Your scouts can reveal boss weaknesses
The Tower unlocks at Guild Tier 6 AND requires War Room Tier 2. Seal the Portal before the 1,000 Years is up or Gargadusa wins.
The Markets let you buy and sell materials and equipment.
Trading options: ⬢ BUY MATERIALS: Purchase what you need for crafting ⬢ SELL SURPLUS: Convert excess materials to gold ⬢ PRICE FLUCTUATION: Market prices change based on supply and demand
Watch for scarcity. When materials are rare, prices spike. Stockpile when cheap, sell when expensive. A savvy guild master profits from the markets.
Six factions shape the politics of Hiltcrest. Each has its own leadership, values, and rewards for those who earn their trust.
⬢ THE CROWN: The ruling authority. Standing earns Crown contracts and administrative influence. ⬢ THE MILITARY: Hiltcrest's garrison. Rewards combat-oriented guilds with requisition points. ⬢ THE TEMPLE: The spiritual order. Offers blessings and tithe rewards to the faithful. ⬢ THE MERCHANTS: The trade consortium. Savvy guilds can haggle for discounts. ⬢ THE NOBLES: High society. Seasonal goods and social connections for those in their circles. ⬢ THE UNDERWORLD: The shadow market. Powerful items, but dealings carry risk of Crown discovery.
STANDING progresses through 7 tiers, from Hostile to Exalted. Higher standing unlocks faction vendors, exclusive equipment, permanent upgrades, and Whisper Chains revealing deep lore.
Each faction has an Inner Circle of 4 named characters you'll correspond with through letters. Build relationships, swear oaths, and navigate faction politics. Be warned: some factions are rivals, and favoring one may cost you with another.
Your guild competes with over 30 rivals across the realm.
The Rankings tab shows: ⬢ OVERALL STANDINGS: Guilds ranked by total Renown ⬢ DIVISION STANDINGS: Your division's Annual Renown race (resets each year) ⬢ RIVAL PROFILES: Click any guild to view their roster, tower progress, and trade options ⬢ SPARKLINES: Visual trajectory of each guild's seasonal performance
You're assigned to one of four Divisions (Merchants, Temple, Military, or Nobles). Your Division Patron grants a 2x Annual Renown bonus on matching quests and raids.
At year's end, the top guilds from each division qualify for the Crown Cup: a championship tournament for ultimate bragging rights. Past champions are remembered in the Crown Cup history.
The Guild tab is your administrative headquarters.
Key sections: ⬢ TREASURY: Income, expenses, payroll, financial projections, and your Financial Health indicator ⬢ BUILDINGS: Construct and upgrade guild infrastructure through the Construction system ⬢ UPGRADES: Advance your Guild Tier to unlock new capabilities ⬢ GRIMOIRES: Assign legendary tomes to your adventurers ⬢ SETTINGS: Rename guild, adjust audio, and save/load your game
Keep your finances healthy! The Treasury now tracks a rolling average of your income and expenses, showing projected runway. If gold runs out, adventurers desert.
That color is Class Rarity: a fixed trait of the class itself, not something that shifts with training or level.
⬢ Zinc (grey): Common ⬢ Green: Uncommon ⬢ Cyan: Rare ⬢ Purple: Ultra Rare ⬢ Gold: Legendary
Rarer classes are born stronger. Every stat gets a flat bonus baked in at generation: Uncommon adds +5 over Common, Rare +10, Ultra Rare +15, Legendary +20. Since OVR is just the average of every stat, a bonus applied to all of them lifts OVR by the same amount. That is a straight +5, +10, +15, and +20 OVR head start before a single week of training. Think of rarity as a power Floor: it raises the starting line, but it does not touch how high the adventurer can eventually grow.
However, don't confuse this with Potential. The Potential badge (F through S) borrows the same palette at the low end (zinc, green, cyan, purple), then breaks from it at A-Tier (yellow) and S-Tier (orange). Potential is the training Ceiling; Class Rarity is the starting Floor. A Common-class recruit can still roll S-Tier Potential and outgrow every Ultra Rare in your hall. Read the badge, not the color alone.
Legendary classes (Aegis Warden, Necromancer) never appear among your recruits. They're the rarest thing in the game, reserved for the far endgame.
Yes, always. The Proving is never just a one-time window.
If it falls off the Quest Board unclaimed, the game notices the adventurer is still waiting on their trial and posts a fresh one the following week, matched to their current strength. Nothing is lost.
If you deploy them and the party comes up short, the same thing happens: the hero steadies themselves (a small morale hit, but they cannot die here) and a new Proving is set for the next attempt.
Either way, the hero holds their place. Restlessness stops entirely once a Calling reaches the Proving. Note, the neglect-and-abandon risk only applies to the earlier Calling and Ascension stages, before the trial is even summoned. So there's no rush and no risk in letting it wait for the right party.
There is no single feature called a "shared quest." Three different systems let you fight beside someone else, and they open at very different points in a guild's life. Here is the whole family in one place.
⬢ Joint Operations. The earliest of the three, and most likely what you are after. The Military runs its own campaigns and will let you send a party along. Look on the Quest Board under the Contracts tab with the faction filter set to Military. They also appear in the Military faction panel, and the lieutenant will sometimes write to offer one directly. You need the Military faction discovered and 100 standing for the Extended Patrol Sweep. Breach Strike Team opens at 250 standing, Dungeon Clearance at 500.
⬢ Alliance Quests. A rival guild fighting alongside you. These need Tier 9 certification, which in turn requires an Expedition HQ at Tier 3 and a Tavern at Tier 2. You cannot go looking for one. A guild you have built genuine trust with (30 or more) proposes the operation, and it appears on your Quest Board tagged as an Alliance quest. One at a time, and not every week. Assign a party as you would anywhere else. Their two or three adventurers march with yours and add roughly a third of their average strength to your party's effective power; trust of 50 or more sends the full three. Their people can die out there, and losing someone else's hero costs you dearly, so read the Alliance Quests entry before you commit.
⬢ Co-op leagues. A real ally rather than a simulated one. From the main menu choose Multiplayer, create a league, and pick the Co-op format. Every guild in the coalition shares a single Tower: whoever clears the front floor opens it for all of you, and you run against the same Doom Clock together. This one needs a live league connection, not merely a save file.
And one thing that is not shared, since it is the most common mix-up: no ordinary quest ever takes two of your own parties. If that is what you meant, you want Raids. Those field exactly three parties as a single group, and they open with a War Room.
Yes, you don't need to extend each member by hand. Enable Auto-Renewal from your Receptionist's panel: the master toggle flags your whole roster at once, and at week 48 your Receptionist renews every eligible contract automatically.
Use the ↻ icon to opt individual members in or out and check the Auto-Renewals dashboard to see who will renew before contracts expire.
Note: only loyal or content members agree to extend, a skilled Receptionist negotiates closer to market rate, and your budget cap can skip anyone who'd cost too much.
Yes. Indestructibility (no durability loss, never breaks) is only one perk of set gear.
Every set also grants stacking stat bonuses based on how many pieces of that set the same hero has equipped — usually a bonus at 2 pieces, a stronger one at 3, and the strongest at a full 4-piece set.
⬢ Guardian's Bastion — defense/vitality (tank set) ⬢ Berserker's Fury — strength/attack (damage set) ⬢ Archmage's Regalia — arcane/intelligence (caster set) ⬢ Shadow Stalker — dexterity/agility (rogue set) ⬢ Divine Light — wisdom/vitality (healer set) ⬢ Fortune's Favor — luck/charisma (treasure hunter set)
Crafted sets your artisans can build together (Forgemaster's Legacy, Apothecary's Wisdom, and others unlocked by tower progress) work the same way — tiered stat bonuses plus indestructibility, just earned through crafting instead of drops.