Your First Hour

A guided walkthrough from "I just made a character" to "I have a working build and know what I'm doing".

Character creation → choosing your path

Character creation is short. Pick a name and sex, customise your look, hit Finish. There's no profession or skill screen to wrestle with - you drop straight into the world.

The moment you spawn, a Choose Your Path menu opens, with the rest of the screen dimmed and a short welcome note beside it the first time you see it (Finish or Escape clears the note). Choose one of four combat foundations:

• Warrior - melee tank/bruiser. Starts with combat skills, a weapon, a shield, and bandages. Gets the Tempest resonance.
• Mage - spellcaster. Starts with Magery / Eval Int / Meditation, a spellbook, and a casting focus. Gets the Arcanum resonance.
• Ranger - archer. Starts with Archery, a bow, arrows, and bandages. Gets the Hawkeye resonance.
• Tamer - beastmaster. Starts with Animal Taming / Animal Lore / Veterinary / Healing / Wrestling, bandages, and a bonded pet already at your side. Gets the Sylvan resonance. When you pick Tamer you also choose a secondary combat skill - Swords, Fencing, Macing, Archery, or Magery - granted at 50 so you can fight in your own right alongside your beasts. A Mage Tamer also starts with Meditation at 50.

Every path can gather and craft. There is no Crafter or Harvester starter because neither activity uses combat skills or skill points. Every character begins with all eight professions: four crafting trades plus Mining, Lumberjacking, Skinning, and Fishing. Pick the combat foundation you want, then level any profession by doing its work.

Every path also starts with a dye tub and dyes in your pack. Double-click the dyes, target the dye tub, and pick any colour to set it. Then take the piece you want to recolour off - you can't dye clothing while you're wearing it, so drop it in your pack first - and use the dye tub on it. Make your look your own from the first minute.

Right after you choose a path, a Quest Guidance window opens with a moving preview of each mode: a glowing Quest GPS path on the ground, a Classic Arrow at the edge of your screen, or Off for neither. GPS is preselected, your pick is saved the moment you click a card, and you can change it any time under Profile ▸ QOL Features. See Quest Guidance.

After Quest Guidance, a branded choice panel asks which backpack you want. It uses the same crimson controls and gilt surround as the other opening choices, and shows a complete preview of each layout. Resizable Backpack opens a worn leather Lyonspyre pack whose stitched corners, flap, and lower buckle keep their shape while the dark item area grows. Its outer silhouette and handle openings remain clear, so the world shows naturally around the leather instead of a rectangular backing: drag its lower-right corner to make more room and drag items anywhere inside to arrange them by hand. Classic Backpack keeps the familiar fixed bag artwork. Both choices support ordinary item dragging, equipping, targeting, tooltips, macros, and the opening quest highlights. Change your mind at any time under Options ▸ Containers ▸ Backpack layout; items arranged beyond the edge of the classic artwork are kept reachable when you switch back.

You can't close the menu without choosing, and you can't move until you do. Pick a path and it grants your starting skills, gear, and - where applicable - a matching resonance, then sets you loose. That resonance fills every resonance slot, so all your slots are earning from day one.

None of this locks you in. Skills grow with use, talents are re-spendable, and you can re-assign resonance freely later. Your starting path is a combat head start, not a class, and it never limits your professions.

The game also arranges your screen on a brand-new character: on a roomy display, the game view and World Map begin substantially larger, sitting just below the menu with the map docked to the right. Laptop-sized windows automatically use a balanced version that keeps both readable and preserves a lower workspace for your backpack, paperdoll, chat, and hotbar. Move or resize either window and the game never touches your arrangement again.

The native menu at the top of the screen keeps your everyday windows together: Map, Character, Inventory, Journal, Profile, Crafting, World Map, and Debug. Profile and Crafting open the same character and recipe panels as their chat commands. Debug shows FPS, ping, and connection traffic in one popup.

When you pick, the game reminds you how to open the two systems that define your build:

• [talents - your dungeon-talent tree.
• [profile - your character hub; the Resonance tab is where you view and re-assign resonance.

The opening loop

Talk to Tavi the Roadwarden on the road in, then report to Elder Mara in Lyonspyre town. That first turn-in pays a blessed runebook marked to town, a blessed Ethereal Horse statuette, and a blessed cloak of the zephyr. Mara's first task follows right there. After it, she asks what you would like to try next: combat, or one of three gathering-and-crafting lessons. Combat leads into her rat-clearing welcome quest for gold and a skill pick. After that, see Veska the Pitwatcher for The Pit. Head south, then east, to the mine entrance, clear 100g of mobs inside, and come back.

Mara's first task is Know Thyself. The guided view highlights Profile on the menu at the top of your screen. Click it to open your Profile, then the guide walks the eight tabs across the top, one short note each: Profile (your character hub), Ledger (weekly jobs and commissions for marks and standing), Regalia (gem slots that unlock with standing), Stats (your current numbers), Talents (per-dungeon trees unlocked by earning experience), Resonance (per-slot item bonuses and weapon specials), Skills (once learned, never forgotten; save whole versions of yourself), and Presets (one click applies Regalia, Talents, Resonance and Skills together). Click any tab and the guide follows you; the task counts as done when you finish the walkthrough (or skip it, or close the Profile). Report back to Mara for a small purse.

Before Mara offers the rat hunt, she asks what you want to do next. Begin Combat starts the rat quest immediately. Craft / Harvest lets you choose Lumberjacking, Mining, Skinning, or Fishing, then Mara begins a continuous quest handoff to the matching mentor: Hilda for lumberjacking and carpentry, Brennen for mining and blacksmithing, Ysabet for skinning and tailoring, or Maren for fishing, boating, and cooking. Quest GPS draws a path to that mentor, Classic Arrow points toward them, and Off leaves only the map marker. Double-click the mentor once when you arrive. Their full lesson, starter tools, and guidance begin automatically without another quest offer or Accept step. Tracking another quest takes priority. This is direction, not a permanent path choice. You can learn every profession, and choosing a mentor never removes Mara's combat quest.

When you turn in the rat quest, choose either the Tactics or Magery skill reward first. Select a Reward remains disabled until you make that choice; it then changes to Accept Reward so the turn-in order is unambiguous.

When you accept Report to Elder Mara, a short guided view opens the world map and draws attention to the gold quest marker. It stays up while you walk (right-click moves you as normal); choose Finish when you are ready to clear the guided view. This never abandons or untracks the quest. Your quest guidance mode (Quest GPS, Classic Arrow, or Off) is the one you picked on the path-selection screen, changeable any time under Profile ▸ QOL Features ▸ Quest Guidance.

If you took up a trade

The starter crafting and harvesting quests teach the gathering loop hands-on:

At the start of Hilda, Brennen, or Ysabet's lesson, a guided view opens your backpack and points to the loaner hatchet, pickaxe, or skinning knife. Left-click the highlighted tool and click Auto-Harvest: OFF to turn its discipline on. For Mining and Lumberjacking, the guide then opens your paper doll, arranges it beside the backpack above other windows, and waits for you to double-click the tool or drag it onto your character. Choose Skip on this equip callout if you want to dismiss the guide and continue on your own. Skinning is different: its knife stays in your backpack and works hands-free after auto-harvest is enabled.

Maren's First Catch lesson uses the same guided controls for Fishing and adds the boat setup. During playtesting, every fresh character receives Maren's boat deed so the full route can be tested: visit the Dockmaster beside her, choose ADD A BOAT FROM PACK, target the deed, choose LAUNCH, and pick open water. The travel card beside Maren uses FINISH and has your character say "dock" when pressed, opening a nearby Dockmaster that can hear you. Adding the deed reopens that same Dockmaster panel before the guide highlights LAUNCH, and the LAUNCH YOUR BOAT callout includes SKIP if you need to leave the walkthrough. Boat deeds cannot be launched by double-clicking; every player launch goes through a Dockmaster. The starter hull launches with a level-one captain and lookout already aboard. The Vessel panel then opens on that hull and walks you through EMBARK, the floating boat hotbar (which opens automatically when you board), and HELM. The helm tour points out steering by buttons, spoken directions, or hotkeys. Plotting an automatic World Map route requires the Dead Reckoning talent. Maren gives you three spyglasses; raise one from the helm, double-click one in your pack, or type [spyglass. The final callout highlights both the helm switch and your loaner pole because FISHING: ON / OFF and the pole's Auto-Harvest: ON / OFF control the same mode.

The opening catch is 8 plain fish, which becomes 4 plain fillets. Cooking the first Fish Soup uses two, raises Fishing and Apothecary to level 2, upgrades Maren's loaner pole to Moorwood, and leaves the two lower-tier fillets needed for the advanced refine. First Catch then opens the World Map around the nearest real sea-green fishing school, pulls the chart back for context, and keeps a gold sonar pulse on that moving destination until you choose FINISH. Sail fully inside until the School Waters buff appears, then catch 4 Moorfin. The tracker shows a separate 0/4 bar and increases it with every Moorfin landed while your fisher is inside the circle. Moorfin caught while sailing toward the ring remain yours, but do not count for this objective. Left-click that stack and choose Fillet: the four Moorfin plus your two remaining plain fillets become two Moorfin fillets. Cook those into the starred Moorfin Soup to finish the full tier-two chain. The cooking guide reopens the Crafting panel if a relog or accidental close leaves the recipe callout without its window. On the way back, the tracker first asks you to dock the boat. The docking lesson waits until you enter the Dockmaster's real 18-tile service range, or reach Maren on the adjacent pier, then highlights that exact Dockmaster in the world. Double-click the highlighted NPC, or press FINISH to call for docking and open the fleet window, then choose DOCK THE SHIP I AM ON. The guidance closes as soon as the server confirms the berth, the tracker advances to Speak with Maren, and only then does her green turn-in marker appear. Schools open the full seven-tier fish ladder, but they are shared and finite: everyone sees the same rings, the ocean is lawless, and pirates may be hunting the crews working them. Fish Soup is the one recipe you can cook while aboard; other crafting still waits for shore.

When one of the three opening trade lessons reaches its craft step, a guided view highlights Crafting on the menu at the top of your screen. Click it to continue to the recipe area, where the quest recipe is highlighted in green. If your menu was minimized or disabled, the guide temporarily opens it and restores your previous setting afterward. Finish, Skip, or Escape closes the view without changing the quest.

• "A Stool to Rest On" (lumberjacking/carpentry) teaches the whole wood loop in one job at level 1: chop 18 logs, cut them into 9 boards (two logs make one board, the refining rule everywhere), then craft a plain stool from the boards. Hilda gives you a loaner hatchet to start and a loaner saw when you return with your boards; open [craft, where the quest recipe has a green highlight, and build the stool. Finishing the lesson brings both Lumberjacking and Carpentry to at least level 2 without erasing any progress you already earned. To chop wood: equip the hatchet and target a tree, or target yourself to swing at the nearest tree in range. To make boards: single-click a log stack (or double-click your hatchet onto the logs). Moorwood is the parting goal for level 2.
• "The Next Cut" follows A Stool to Rest On and teaches exactly how colored-wood refining works. Chop 14 plain logs and cut them into 7 plain boards, then chop 14 Moorwood logs (your Lumberjacking level 2 bracket is what lets Moorwood rolls land as Moorwood). Keep the plain boards in your pack while you cut the Moorwood: every 2 Moorwood logs plus 1 plain board makes 1 Moorwood board. The result is exactly 7 Moorwood boards, enough to craft the green-highlighted Moorwood bow Hilda requests. Turn in the bow for 250 Lumberjacking XP and 7 spare Moorwood boards. That is the last lesson Hilda has, and she will tell you so: the richer woods you learn at the tree from here on.
• "Steel for the Pit" (mining/smithing) teaches the whole crafting loop in one job: mine 16 iron ore, smelt them into 8 iron ingots at a forge (two ore make one ingot - that is the refining rule everywhere), then forge an iron tear kite shield from the ingots. Every step works at level 1. Brennen gives you a smith's hammer for the craft step; double-click it to open [craft, where the quest recipe has a green highlight. Finishing the lesson brings both Mining and Blacksmithing to at least level 2 without erasing any progress you already earned. To mine: equip the pickaxe and target a vein, or target yourself to mine the nearest vein in range. To smelt: single-click the ore near a forge (or double-click it onto the forge).
• "The Next Rung" follows Steel for the Pit and teaches exactly how colored-metal refining works. Mine 6 iron ore and smelt it into 3 iron ingots, then mine 6 Moorite ore (your Mining level 2 bracket is what lets Moorite rolls land as Moorite). Keep the iron ingots in your backpack while you smelt the Moorite: every 2 Moorite ore plus 1 iron ingot makes 1 Moorite ingot. The result is exactly 3 Moorite ingots, enough to craft the green-highlighted Moorite dagger Brennen requests. Turn in the dagger for 250 Mining XP and 5 extra Moorite ingots. That is the last lesson Brennen has, and he will say so plainly: the rest of the ladder you climb at your own forge.
• "A Cap for the Watch" (skinning/tailoring) is the leather track's opening lesson, taught by Ysabet the Leatherworker. Skinning is the leather gather step and a gathering profession of its own; Ysabet will bring a newcomer to Skinning level 2 if you say "skin" to her. Skin 4 regular hides (double-click the loaner skinning knife to skin every fresh corpse nearby), cut them into 2 leather with the scissors (two hides make one leather), then stitch a leather cap. When you reach the craft step Ysabet hands you a loaner sewing kit; double-click it to open [craft, where the quest recipe glows green. Finishing the lesson brings both Skinning and Tailoring to at least level 2 and hands you a leatherworker's kit.
• "The Next Hide" follows A Cap for the Watch and teaches colored-leather refining. Skin 4 regular hides and cut 2 leather, then skin 4 Moorhides - Moorhide comes off tougher beasts, and your Skinning level 2 bracket is what lets you take it. Keep the leather in your backpack while you cut the Moorhide: every 2 Moorhides plus 1 leather makes 1 Moorhide leather. The result is exactly 2 Moorhide leather, enough to stitch the green-highlighted Moorhide cap Ysabet requests. Turn in the cap for 250 Skinning XP and 5 Moorhide leather. That is the last lesson Ysabet has, and she will tell you as much: the richer skins come off tougher beasts now.

Your gather progress sticks. Once you've mined the ore (or gathered the boards) the quest asked for, that step stays complete - smelting your ore into ingots, or using your boards to craft, no longer knocks the count back below the goal. Finish the gathering, then process and craft freely without watching the objective drop back to incomplete.

The loaner hatchet, saw, pickaxe, skinning knife, scissors, and sewing kit these quests hand you are blessed, so you won't drop them on death, and they can't be sold or duplicated. (Crafting itself no longer needs a tool at all; the loaners are for the gathering and cutting steps.) Harvest tools wear out with use now, though - see Harvest tools wear out. If you wear one out mid-quest, the quest giver who handed it to you will give you a fresh one - but only when you have none left, so there's no way to farm spares. If your pickaxe runs out on "Steel for the Pit," you'll now get an on-screen nudge to return to the quest giver for another, so you're not left wondering why your tool stopped working.

Those tools also carry a quick Auto-Harvest: ON / OFF switch on their menu. Use it to start that tool's discipline or stop automatic gathering; [gather auto:mining, [gather auto:lumberjacking, [gather auto:skinning, [gather auto:fishing, and [gather auto:off do the same from the command line. See Auto-gather on the tool.