How the Game Works
A practical handbook for progression, Item Power, combat, threat, loot and the economy—with the numbers we can support and clear limits where we cannot.
Additional stats & source comparisons ↓
Start here: the progression loop
Your first goal is to make your equipment, unlocked services and route work together. Follow the story to open areas and merchants, replace or improve weak equipment, then revisit suitable missions for the specific rewards your build needs. A good farming route has accessible prerequisites and the correct reward pool—not just a high recommended level.
This handbook covers the published 1.1.1.0 snapshot. Published means a source reports it; derived means we show the calculation; disputed means sources disagree. None of these labels means we independently tested the mechanic in the game.
- Finish the opening mission and follow its next-quest links. Check prerequisites before travelling to a later region.
- Compare new gear by Item Power, its actual effects and its attack or artifact behavior. Keep useful alternatives before salvaging.
- Unlock the Town Merchant, Enchantsmith and Blacksmith through their quests. Their services solve different problems.
- Spend enchantment points on compatible equipment. Read the actual tier benefit before paying for an upgrade.
- Pick a target item or book, check whether it is a regional drop, a first-completion reward or a repeat reward, and use the map and Run Planner to choose a route.
- Reassess threat, resistances, currency space and merchant costs when progression slows.
Sources: MetaBot · Progression and conflicting upgrade requirements · MetaBot · Research methodology
The numbers on your character are different systems
| Term | What it describes | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Hero level | XP progression, from 1 to 100 | Track unlocks and the Blacksmith ceiling; it is not your current equipment power. |
| Individual Item Power | The power of one equipment piece | Compare its power with your other options; its effects and base behavior still matter. |
| Overall Item Power / gear score | An equipped-gear-derived measure used against enemies | Use the game's displayed value. The exact slot weighting and rounding have not been established here. |
| Recommended area level | A progression recommendation for a region or encounter | A planning reference, not proof that every quest in that region is unlocked. |
| Threat | An encounter setting with 20 published numerical rows | Changes enemy and loot conditions; it is separate from Easy / Normal / Hard. |
| Rarity | Common, Rare, Special or Unique | Describes effect rules and loot classification; orange does not guarantee the best item for every build. |
| Tier I / II / III | The strength of an effect, enchantment or talisman | Read the relevant entry; these tier systems have different acquisition and upgrade rules. |
Sources: Wikily · Hero level and base stats · MetaBot · Gear, rarity and tutorial extracts · Wikily · Threat levels and difficulty · Wikily · Rarity and effect capacity
Hero levels, experience and unlocks
You start at level 1. Reaching level 100 requires 99 level gains, awarding 99 Enchantment Points in total. Those points are a reusable equipment resource; levelling does not mean every old item automatically becomes level-appropriate.
The published XP curve grows with level. The formula below is for one transition from current level L to L + 1, not cumulative XP. Reported progression totals use rounded transition values. XP-source multipliers of 0.75 for mobs and 1.0 for quests multiply their own underlying rewards; they are not fixed XP amounts per kill or quest.
XP for next level = 2000 × (1 + 2 × [0.05 × (L − 1)] / [1 + 0.05 × (L − 1)])| Hero level reached | Published cumulative XP | Milestone |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | One artifact slot; three talisman slots |
| 5 | 9,076 | Second artifact slot |
| 10 | 23,646 | Third artifact slot |
| 20 | 59,587 | Blacksmith ceiling: Item Power 30 (published formula) |
| 50 | 193,496 | Blacksmith ceiling: Item Power 75 (published formula) |
| 100 | 449,647 | Level cap; 99 earned Enchantment Points |
Sources: Dungeons.tools · Hero level and XP · Wikily · Hero level and base stats
Item Power and gear scaling: what we know
The tutorial describes your power as coming from equipped items and affecting damage dealt to mobs and damage received. A weapon also has its own attack sequence and base damage. A stat-table number is therefore a comparison baseline, not a promise that every hit in your current area will show that number.
Compare like for like: the same attack, target, area, difficulty, threat, active buffs and equipped setup. A three-hit combo total is not damage per second. Attack timing, additional targets, critical hits and status conditions can change the result. Unique variants sometimes have different attack data, so inspect the individual weapon entry.
The Blacksmith publisher gives a ceiling of floor(hero level × 1.5) for upgrades: level 20 → Power 30 and level 100 → Power 150. That is a service ceiling, not an established maximum for all dropped gear. Rarity-dependent internal power offsets are also published, but their translation into every displayed power value is unresolved.
| Reported claim | Evidence status | How this guide handles it |
|---|---|---|
| Damage scaling can reach ×1.75; Very Low appears below 80% of recommended power | Player datamine report; full code formula not supplied | Useful leads for testing, not a verified damage calculator |
| Drops may reach +9 power above level | Same player report; precise level reference and full roll rules unresolved | Not presented as a universal drop cap |
| Armour weight labels do not supply hidden health/defence stats | Player report; distinct from each piece's power and effects | Do not invent a flat armour bonus from Light / Medium / Heavy alone |
Sources: MetaBot · Gear, rarity and tutorial extracts · Dungeons.tools · Blacksmith cost and upgrade formulas · Player datamine report · Gear scaling claims (unverified) · MetaBot · Research methodology
Rarity, effects, enchantments and Storm Called
An effect is a property on the item. An enchantment is applied using a compatible book and the Enchantsmith. A fixed Unique property, a randomly rolled effect, an enchantment tier and an item's power are separate things. Changing one does not establish that the others changed.
Gear archetypes help determine candidate effect pools. An archetype is not a permanent character class. When checking a build, read the condition on every bonus: jump/roll damage, critical chance, wounded targets and companion bonuses do not apply to the same events.
Storm Called items can have an additional effect. This does not mean every storm reward is guaranteed to roll one, nor does it establish unrestricted reroll access to every effect. The exact probability and every slot's legal pool remain unverified.
| Rarity | Published regular effect rule | Caution |
|---|---|---|
| Common | 0 random effects | Wikily excludes the storm extra; do not infer ordinary Common reroll eligibility from a service table alone. |
| Rare | 1 random effect | A rolled tier is separate from item power. |
| Special | 2 random effects | Blue rarity is a distinct tier between Rare and Unique. |
| Unique | Sources disagree: 1 random + fixed, or 2 random + fixed | Wikily differs from MetaBot's random-slot table. Inspect your item; the Build Lab flags the disagreement. |
Sources: Wikily · Rarity and effect capacity · MetaBot · Gear, rarity and tutorial extracts · Wikily · Soul Storms
Threat levels and loot quality
The published tables contain 20 numerical threat levels. The game-facing presets are Very Low, Low, Standard, High and Very High; a universal preset-to-number conversion has not been established. Record both what the game shows and the encounter context when comparing runs.
Threat influences loot rarity weights and available effect tiers, alongside enemy encounter conditions. Higher threat should be evaluated against how safely and quickly you can finish the encounter. More desirable loot weighting alone does not prove better rewards per minute.
Unique has zero weight in the published ordinary rarity rows at threats 1–3. Effect tier II enters at threat 3, tier III at 6, and tier I is absent at 20. These are table eligibility statements, not guarantees that every item rolls the highest tier or that a named quest reward uses the ordinary random roll.
| Threat milestone | What changes in the published table |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | Only tier I effects; Unique weight 0 |
| 3 | Tier II begins; Unique weight still 0 |
| 4 | Unique receives non-zero weight |
| 6 | Tier III begins |
| 20 | Tier I effect weight reaches 0 |
Sources: Wikily · Threat levels and difficulty · Dungeons.tools · Threat and source-adjusted rarity weights
How to read drop rates without misleading yourself
A rarity weight is not a drop probability by itself. The newer published model first adjusts base weights for the reward source, multiplies by the threat row, then normalizes. That gives a conditional rarity share for an eligible gear roll. You still need the chance of a gear roll and the selected item pool to estimate a particular weapon per kill.
For example, at threat 8 the Common/Rare/Special/Unique multipliers are 0.5 / 1 / 0.7 / 0.5. Starting with normal-mob weights 50 / 25 / 20 / 5 gives 25 / 25 / 14 / 2.5. Boss base weights 0 / 30 / 20 / 10 give a different result. The following percentages are our arithmetic using those published inputs; they exclude player modifiers and guaranteed rewards.
Conditional rarity share = (source-adjusted base weight × threat multiplier) / sum of all four adjusted weights| Threat 8 example | Common | Rare | Special | Unique |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal mob gear roll | 37.59% | 37.59% | 21.05% | 3.76% |
| Boss gear roll | 0% | 61.22% | 28.57% | 10.20% |
Sources: Dungeons.tools · Threat and source-adjusted rarity weights · MetaBot · Gear, rarity and tutorial extracts
Easy, Normal and Hard difficulty
Difficulty is a separate control from threat. MetaBot reports unchanged loot rules across these three difficulties. Do not assume selecting Hard directly adds a rarity bonus. The reviewed sources do not publish reliable numerical incoming/outgoing damage multipliers.
Wikily describes difficulty as party-wide and unavailable to change during a boss fight. Choose the setting before committing to an encounter. If combat feels unexpectedly difficult, inspect equipped power, the area's recommendation, threat and enemy resistances before assuming one setting is responsible.
| Difficulty | Damage received | Damage dealt |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | Reduced | Increased |
| Normal | Standard | Standard |
| Hard | Increased | Reduced |
Sources: Wikily · Threat levels and difficulty · MetaBot · Gear, rarity and tutorial extracts
Combat resources, healing and equipment roles
Melee attacks, ranged shots, active artifacts and passive talismans serve different roles. Check an enemy's damage modifiers and status immunities before building around a single element or debuff. A resistance multiplier is not the same thing as complete immunity to a status.
Food healing values are Pumpkin Pie 50%, Apple 40%, Carrot 30%, Melon 20% and Potato 10% of maximum health. TNT has a reported three-second fuse. Treat the combat table as an unmodified baseline; gear and temporary effects can alter it.
| Baseline resource or action | Published value | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Health | 100 before modifiers | A percentage heal depends on maximum health. |
| Soul capacity | 100 before modifiers | Souls fuel applicable artifacts; this is a combat resource, not a merchant currency. |
| Roll cooldown | 2.5 seconds | Plan an escape before spending the roll. |
| Health potion cooldown | 20 seconds | Avoid treating it as unlimited immediate recovery. |
| Critical hit damage | ×1.5 baseline | Critical chance and critical damage are different bonuses. |
| TNT carried | 3 | A throwable replaces the ranged action when used; its blast can hurt allies. |
| Artifact slots | 1 initially; 2 at level 5; 3 at level 10 | Check each artifact's cooldown and soul cost separately. |
Sources: Wikily · Hero level and base stats · Wikily · Consumables
Currency caps and what to spend
A block of Emeralds counts as nine. The newer currency source lists bosses, minibosses, Soul Corrupted enemies, dungeon/rift chests and storm objects among Echo Shard sources. It does not list quests as a direct shard payout. Completing a quest can expose you to those separate reward events.
Watch the 100-shard cap when planning expensive upgrades. Fully upgrading all three vendor professions from level 1 costs 175 shards under the shard-based schedule: 25 + 60 + 90. That is more than one full wallet, so you must earn and spend in stages. This total is derived, not an additional service fee.
Before claiming large rewards or salvaging a batch, inspect currency space and your next useful purchase. The exact handling of currency overflow has not been verified here; this guide does not promise overflow storage or refunds.
| Resource | Published cap | Primary uses / sources |
|---|---|---|
| Emeralds | 9,999 | Buy merchant stock and upgrade item power; loot and salvage replenish them. |
| Echo Shards | 100 | Upgrade vendors, reroll effects, enchant gear and pay for restocks; encounter and chest rewards supply them. |
| Enchantment Points | 99 earned across levels 1–100 | Allocated to gear enchantments; disenchanting/salvaging returns invested points. |
| Souls | 100 baseline; capacity can be modified | Spend on applicable artifact actions. Not a vendor-upgrade budget. |
Sources: Wikily · Currencies · Dungeons.tools · Currency caps and reward rolls · Wikily · Blacksmith services and settlement unlocks · Wikily · Enchantsmith services and unlocks · Wikily · Town Merchant stock and unlocks
Inventory, salvage and keeping useful gear
The published inventory limits are 80 items per equipment category, 100 quest items and 200 enchantment books. A merchant purchase needs room in the relevant category. Favouriting useful equipment helps protect it from accidental salvage; some categories cannot be salvaged.
Salvage pays Emeralds and returns invested enchantment points. The newer published formula uses Item Power P ≥ 1 and rarity factors Common 0.5, Rare 0.8, Special 1.2 and Unique 1.6. Storm Called gear has a reported ×2 salvage multiplier; starter equipment returns zero. Displayed examples truncate fractional Emeralds.
Emerald salvage value = floor(30 × [1 + 1.5 × √(P − 1)] × rarity factor × Storm multiplier)| Example at Power 20 | Common | Rare | Special | Unique |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal salvage (derived) | 113 | 180 | 271 | 361 |
Sources: Wikily · Inventory and salvage · Dungeons.tools · Salvage formula
Which merchant solves your problem?
Each profession appears at five settlements. Unlock conditions differ by profession and settlement. Vendor levels are shared between that profession's locations, so moving to another outpost does not mean paying for the same profession's levels again.
Published sources disagree on upgrade prerequisites: Wikily and Dungeons.tools list Echo Shards, while MetaBot also describes a level-15, 300-Emerald, 50-Spring-Stone, four-book requirement. We cannot reconcile those records. The detailed merchant pages display the conflict and the exact shard schedule; do not add the two schemes together.
| Problem | Service | Currency |
|---|---|---|
| I need a replacement item | Town Merchant: buy available stock | Emeralds; paid refreshes use Echo Shards |
| I like this item but its power is low | Blacksmith: power upgrade | Emeralds |
| I want to change a rolled effect | Blacksmith: reroll | Echo Shards; repeated rerolls become more expensive |
| I own a compatible book and want its ability | Enchantsmith: apply or improve enchantment | Enchantment Points plus Echo Shards |
| I need my invested points back | Disenchant or salvage according to the relevant service | Points are returned; do not assume every spent currency is refunded |
Sources: Wikily · Town Merchant stock and unlocks · Wikily · Blacksmith services and settlement unlocks · Wikily · Enchantsmith services and unlocks · MetaBot · Merchant services and conflicting upgrade requirements · MetaBot · Progression and conflicting upgrade requirements
Books, enchantment tiers and talismans
Books are reusable unlocks according to the Enchantsmith reference. Owning a book does not make it compatible with every item. Find its allowed equipment types, compare tiers I–III, and check your Enchantsmith level and available points before applying it.
Book acquisition can be a named quest reward or a selection from a shared book pool. A pool with six equally weighted entries means one in six within that selection; it does not mean every defeated enemy has a one-in-six chance to drop your book. First-completion and repeat reward conditions are shown separately in this wiki.
Talismans gain XP while equipped and have their own level I–III progression: 18,480 XP from I to II, then 73,920 more to III (92,400 total). Up to three can be equipped. Five of the 24 published talismans summon companions; the others supply passive benefits. Talismans are excluded from Blacksmith power upgrades.
- Open the book's entry and confirm compatibility.
- Read its acquisition conditions and complete any prerequisite quests.
- Compare the next tier's benefit with the point requirement.
- Check the Enchantsmith's tier unlock and shard charge.
- When changing equipment, recover allocated points through the documented refund route instead of assuming they transfer automatically.
Sources: Wikily · Enchantsmith services and unlocks · Dungeons.tools · Enchanting costs · MetaBot · Talismans, levels and XP · Wikily · Blacksmith services and settlement unlocks
Quests, regions and farming routes
An area's recommended level and a mission's prerequisites answer different questions. Recommended level describes expected progression; prerequisite missions and particular objectives control recorded access. Some services unlock partway through a mission, such as the Little Howl Hamlet Town Merchant at the Return to the Overworld objective.
For a farming target, distinguish regional equipment pools, direct boss drops, quest completion rewards and book pools. A quest mentioning a boss does not turn its quest reward into that boss's personal drop. A parent region's loot is not automatically a separate interior's loot.
The map links regions, markers, loot targets and ordered mission objectives. The Run Planner tracks your own completed missions and access. It is a manual planning aid, not a connection to your save. Select a mission to see its prerequisites and full checklist; follow objective order when an NPC or gate has not appeared.
| Region | Recommended level | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Brave Haven | 1 | Recommendation; check the individual mission prerequisites. |
| Honeycomb Fields | 2 | Recommendation; check the individual mission prerequisites. |
| Howling Woods | 6 | Recommendation; check the individual mission prerequisites. |
| The Deep Dark | 14 | Recommendation; check the individual mission prerequisites. |
| Rainy Plains | 21 | Recommendation; check the individual mission prerequisites. |
| Frozen Highlands | 26 | Recommendation; check the individual mission prerequisites. |
| Singer's Meadow | 33 | Recommendation; check the individual mission prerequisites. |
| Humbler Huskland | 36 | Recommendation; check the individual mission prerequisites. |
| Lullaby Hills | 42 | Recommendation; check the individual mission prerequisites. |
| Cinder Crags | Unknown | Recommendation; check the individual mission prerequisites. |
| Ravines | Unknown | Recommendation; check the individual mission prerequisites. |
| Squid Coast | Unknown | Recommendation; check the individual mission prerequisites. |
Each region links to its own published source and coverage notes.
Sources: MetaBot · Progression and conflicting upgrade requirements · Wikily · Town Merchant stock and unlocks
Travel, multiplayer and getting unstuck
Discovering a minecart station unlocks it for travel. Returning to Brave Haven leaves a portal to the place you departed, according to the travel reference. Party teleporting depends on a valid target and cooldown; a map marker is not itself proof you have unlocked its station.
The published party limit is four. Online and Offline hero types are selected at creation and are reported as non-convertible; check which type your group needs before investing in a character. The reference describes controller-based couch co-op.
A downed teammate can trigger Soul Imbalance. Once soul sick, surviving players lose two health and one soul per second. Revive all downed teammates to end it; defeating the summoned enemies alone is not the solution. A full wipe returns the party to Brave Haven and respawns enemies.
Soul Walls hold an ambush closed until its enemies are defeated. If a barrier remains, check remaining encounter enemies and your current objective. That is a mechanic-based checklist, not a claim that all stuck gates are working correctly.
Sources: Wikily · Fast travel · Wikily · Multiplayer and Soul Imbalance · Wikily · Ambushes and Soul Walls
Later world systems: storms and Sift tides
The Final Souldown is the recorded Soul Storm unlock. Storm generators sustain the encounter; a Shield Generator protects its associated generator until removed. Storm rewards are a route to Storm Called equipment, but the extra-effect probability is not established.
Two timings appear in the storm source: a 20-minute event every 40 minutes, and tutorial text describing roughly 40 minutes per hour. This site does not turn either into a claimed live countdown.
Sift tides change run conditions. Flow uses ordinary recovery behavior. Thrive adds one soul every two seconds and accelerates artifact cooldown recovery, without a published exact multiplier. Endure pauses soul regeneration and brings tougher enemies. Record your observed tide in the planner instead of assuming a fixed live schedule.
Sources: Wikily · Soul Storms · Wikily · Sift tides
A practical checklist when progression slows
These are planning recommendations derived from the documented systems, not guaranteed optimal strategies. The best choice depends on your actual equipment, encounter and available rewards.
- Check the game's displayed Item Power and inspect each equipment slot. A new hero level does not repair an old loadout.
- Check the enemy entry: an elemental resistance or status immunity may undermine your chosen effects.
- Separate difficulty from threat. Change one variable at a time when comparing combat results.
- Read the next enchantment tier; a targeted upgrade may matter more than buying a random replacement.
- Confirm the target's reward source and mission access before repeating a route.
- Compare upgrade and reroll costs with replacing the item; reroll history makes repeated attempts progressively expensive.
- Check currency and inventory capacity before a long farming session.
- If a service is missing, follow its settlement unlock requirement rather than assuming all outposts open together.
Sources & data coverage
Original explanations and numerical facts from the linked references. Published mechanics are not independently verified in game; disputed and unknown fields remain identified.
- Wikily · Hero level and base stats
- MetaBot · Progression and conflicting upgrade requirements
- MetaBot · Research methodology
- MetaBot · Gear, rarity and tutorial extracts
- Wikily · Threat levels and difficulty
- Wikily · Rarity and effect capacity
- Dungeons.tools · Hero level and XP
- Dungeons.tools · Blacksmith cost and upgrade formulas
- Player datamine report · Gear scaling claims (unverified)
- Wikily · Soul Storms
- Dungeons.tools · Threat and source-adjusted rarity weights
- Wikily · Consumables
- Wikily · Currencies
- Dungeons.tools · Currency caps and reward rolls
- Wikily · Blacksmith services and settlement unlocks
- Wikily · Enchantsmith services and unlocks
- Wikily · Town Merchant stock and unlocks
- Wikily · Inventory and salvage
- Dungeons.tools · Salvage formula
- MetaBot · Merchant services and conflicting upgrade requirements
- Dungeons.tools · Enchanting costs
- MetaBot · Talismans, levels and XP
- Wikily · Fast travel
- Wikily · Multiplayer and Soul Imbalance
- Wikily · Ambushes and Soul Walls
- Wikily · Sift tides