The living world
A world that remembers what you did to it
One shared world per server, shaped by everyone who plays on it. These systems are planned: they come in the slices after the first, and this page says what they are meant to be.
Zones that remember
PlannedEmberfold will not look the same a year from now
Every zone keeps a long memory of what its players do, and the land changes with it: over minutes, over days, over months.
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Trails worn into the grass Planned
Where crowds walk, the ridgegrass gives way to a trail, and the trail to ruts. The path to the Cinder Basin will show how many went before you.
Scars where bosses fall Planned
Fight the same boss in the same place again and again, and the soil there cracks and scorches and the trees round it grow twisted.
Life that follows the crowd Planned
Busy places thicken with growth. The flocks, the drifting skeinflies and the light over a place shift with what happens there.
Marks that stay Planned
A great event leaves a landmark behind, and it stays for good.
The world as it was Planned
Newcomers find the world as it has become and take it as normal. An old map, or a ghostly overlay of the land as it first was, lets anyone look back.
One shared world
PlannedOne world per server, and everyone walks the same one
There is no private copy of the land. What a crowd does to a valley, every player on that server walks through afterwards.
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If your server spends a season farming the Hornfall Scree under Emberfold's north rim, everyone on it walks through what is left. If the herders' meadow is left in peace, everyone sees it grow back.
Land that tires
PlannedFarm a land too hard and it runs thin. Leave it, and it returns.
Overused ground depletes; neglected ground is reclaimed by what grows there. The world answers how it is treated, not only who wins its fights.
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Push a place too hard for too long and it begins to fail. Its life thins, its creatures move away, and something that does not belong may take hold where they were.
Decay will have a floor, so no zone is ever broken for someone arriving late, and restoration quests will let players bring a tired land back.
Ground that answers
PlannedSpells that break the ground, grass that parts as you pass
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The ground breaks Planned
Spells that strike the ground will shatter it where it makes sense: dirt and stone thrown up, a crater and a scorch left behind.
The grass answers Planned
The ridgegrass will part round your legs and round your spells, and burn under fire.
Gathering and crafting
PlannedTake what the land gives, and make something of it
Gathering is a blow aimed at the land instead of a monster. What you gather goes to your bag and into recipes.
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Gathering Planned
Strike an antler-tree with an axe and it gives up its tinewood, until it is spent and falls.
Crafting from what you gather Planned
Recipes turn gathered materials into things you use, the wagons that carry trade among them. It sits beside the crafting you already do on items with currency.
Living towns
PlannedHearthrib grows on what you trade there
The more players trade in a town, the more it grows. If it goes quiet, it declines. The details are still being designed.
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Towns that grow Planned
Buy and sell in Hearthrib or Shellmoor and the place expands: it grows larger, new buildings rise by themselves, and the land round it reshapes.
Merchants who level up Planned
A merchant who trades well levels up and brings out more valuable things.
Raids to hold off Planned
When raiders come for a growing town, its players defend it. Over time, a town that holds rises to its next level.
Quiet towns decline Planned
When trade dries up, the town's fortunes fall with it, and it loses its rank.
Carts and herds
PlannedHaul goods between towns, and tend the land's herds
Trade will be carried by players, cart by cart, from town to town. Farming will follow. Both are planned, and their details are still being designed.
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Cart trade Planned
Buy goods in one town and haul them to another behind a loamstrider or a shellbearer. The farther you carry them from where they were made, the more they are worth.
A wagon of your own Planned
There is no wagon handed to you. You choose one, craft it and upgrade it part by part: wheels, axle, bed, cover and the beast that pulls it.
Fields and herds Planned
Fields, crops and herds are planned. The Hornbound already drive their loamstriders across the terraces and tap the resin weepers; the Tidecrowned keep kelp in rows in their tide gardens.