The World
No fast travel: every sector is crossed on foot, one tile at a time.
What you can see
| Range | Shown |
|---|---|
| Within 12 tiles | Everything: rooms in their colours, doors, players, graves, floor items, fights |
| 12 to 92 tiles | Corridors, walls and rock under thickening fog; rooms look like floor |
| Past 92 tiles | Nothing |
Rooms are found by walking near them, reading a recon note, or a job that pays for finding one (Job board).
Sectors
An effectively endless grid of sectors joined at their edges, generated from one seed, so every player explores the same world.
| Size | 100 × 100 tiles |
| Walking | 1 tile a second; about 100 seconds to cross |
| Starting sector | 0:0 |
| Edges | Every edge has at least one boundary portal, joined to the corridors; crossing loads the next sector |
| Distance | Drives |
|---|---|
abs(x) + abs(y) |
Monster level, stat points and group size |
max(abs(x), abs(y)) |
The experience multiplier (Combat) |
Monsters by distance
With d = abs(x) + abs(y): level 1 + d, and d extra points each to its
stats, its technique affinities and its resistances (up to 0.01 a point, never
past a player's resistance caps), spread according to its type. See
Reference: World.
d |
Level | Group |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 1 | 2 | 1 |
| 2 to 3 | 3 to 4 | 2 |
| 4 to 7 | 5 to 8 | 3 |
| 8 and beyond | 9 and up | 4 |
Biomes
Every sector holds all seven, as a 4 × 4 grid of 25 × 25-tile blocks. The tile you stand on decides the biome: its monsters, its rooms and its ground. Each sector also has one base biome, which sets its layout; recon notes and Biome jobs read that one.
| Biome | Layout |
|---|---|
| City | Urban ruins, structured layouts |
| Mountain | Rugged terrain, cliff-dwellers |
| Alley | Narrow passages, tight corridors |
| Garden | Overgrown, organic spaces |
| Labyrinth | Maze-like structures |
| Corridor Zone | Long connecting passages |
| Plaza | Open areas with scattered rooms |
Each biome sets its tile colours, wall surfaces, monster roster and room pool.
Monsters
Three per biome: a heavy hitter (vanguard), a quick one (ranger) and a caster (arcanist). The ranger is the most common, except in the Alley, where the brawler is; the arcanist is the rarest everywhere.
| Biome | Vanguard | Ranger | Arcanist |
|---|---|---|---|
| City | Iron District Enforcer | City Runner | Neon Augur |
| Mountain | Stoneback Behemoth | Cliff Raider | Peak Diviner |
| Alley | Alley Brawler | Alley Knifer | Backstreet Hexer |
| Garden | Rootbound Giant | Thorn Sprinter | Bloom Oracle |
| Labyrinth | Minotaur Remnant | Maze Skulk | Thread Reader |
| Corridor Zone | Bulkhead Crusher | Hallway Stalker | Signal Whisperer |
| Plaza | Arena Breaker | Square Duelist | Echo Prophet |
One belongs to every biome: the Stocker, a delivery drone that restocks the storage rooms. About 1 encounter in 500, anywhere, is a lone Stocker instead of the biome's monsters. It never attacks and tries to escape every turn on its Reflex; whoever lands the killing blow takes its delivery (Stash).
Rooms
Stamped onto the sector, entered through their door, sealed off from the walkable area around them.
| Room | Function | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Meditation Sanctum | Rest and craft techniques (Techniques) | All biomes |
| Fabrication Bay | Fabricate equipment (Crafting) | All biomes |
| Foundry | Craft a material from shards, fuse materials. Only over lava: about one a sector, some have none (Crafting) | All biomes, over lava |
| Market | Trade with players (Market) | All biomes, rare |
| Job Board | Post and take jobs, buy recon books (Job Board) | All biomes, rare |
| Supply Cache | Storage, may contain items | All biomes |
| Utility Closet | Storage, may contain items. Most common outside Mountain | All biomes |
| Maintenance Bay | The only place to prise a shard out of its socket. Uncommon | All biomes |
| Ice Vault | Storage, may contain items. Most common in Mountain | Mountain |
| Water Well | Drink and fill a vessel from the water beneath. Only over underground water (Fluids) | City |
| Irrigation Well | As the Water Well | Garden |
| Meltwater Spring | As the Water Well | Mountain |
| Storage rooms | About a hundred a sector (Stash) |
| Size | One tile each, market included; many characters can share it |
| Doorway | Belongs to the room but is not inside: no resting, fabricating, Foundry crafting or trading there |
| Water | No room is built on it. Rivers and lakes cut through walls into the next sector (Fluids) |
| Market stock | Per market; the next sector's market has its own |
Encounters
| Chance | 6% a step, about one in fifteen to twenty steps |
| Shown | Fights within 12 tiles: a red disc with crossed swords (monsters), a shield split blue and red (players) |
| Walking onto a marker | Joins it, without a prompt |
| On one of the eight tiles around | A window titled A fight nearby (Fights nearby when there are several) with a Join per fight |
| Joining | Side |
|---|---|
| A fight against monsters | With the players present; XP split by damage dealt |
| A duel between two players | A third side, hostile to both |
Stamina
| Walking | About 1 per 10 steps: a full 100 lasts about 1,000 steps, 17 minutes |
| At 0 | Encounters cannot trigger; you can still move |
| Resting | 0.5 a second, only in a Meditation Sanctum |
| Praying at a grave | 10 HP and 10 stamina; each grave once every 30 minutes, a desecrated one once an hour, to the first to reach it |
Stumbling
Every step rolls a stumble before it commits; a stumble cancels the step.
| Stamina | Chance per step | Health cost |
|---|---|---|
| 5 or above | 0.0002, about 1 in 5,000 |
None |
| Below 5 | 0.25, 1 in 4 |
8 |
Below 5 that averages 2 HP a step, and a stumble can kill. A step refused for another reason, such as being in a fight, is not a stumble.
Death
Permanent: no resurrection, and a new character must be made. A grave appears where you died (Graves); the death sequence is in Combat.