The interface

In short: everything you need is on one screen. Your health, turns, gold and potions sit at the top; where you are and your map in the middle; the big action button (with your stance under it wherever a fight lies ahead) and the movement pad at the bottom, under your thumb. Your journal, pack, rumours and character sheet live in tabs, and Settings (on the Hero tab) sets the sound, the text size and more.

How it works

On a phone

The big button says what you can do now:

While you are fallen, a banner above the location card says where you will wake: the inn nearest where you fell (see The daily loop).

Evening opens a sheet wherever you are, for the living and the fallen: a line on where the evening finds you (in camp, by the fire at an inn, or where you fell, and where you will wake), Tomorrow (tomorrow's omen, if any, on a parchment strip with its emblem; then tomorrow's rumours as a list of choices, one of which you can mark as your intention, or "No plan yet"; a choice is saved as soon as you tap it), the dice table if you are alive at an inn, and how long until the new day with a line on the turn bank (see The daily loop). If something goes wrong, the sheet says so itself, with Try again when the evening would not load. When the new day comes while the game is open, it loads the new day by itself within half a minute (at once when you come back to the tab), closes the evening and shows the dawn. On the Rumours tab and the dawn screen, the rumour you chose comes first, marked Your word. At an open lair with fewer than 5 turns left, Challenge is greyed out and the lair says why (see Bosses).

Results of a fight or a choice appear in a card just above the dock, a sentence at a time, at a comfortable reading pace, so a result reads like a story being told. Tap it to close it, or it fades after a while. Everything is also written in your journal. After meeting another hero on the road, the card also offers Ignore and their name (see Crossings and cairns).

In an encounter, each choice shows a one-line hint of its usual stakes under its text (see Encounters).

Your stance

Under the big button sits your stance: Boldly, Steadily or Warily. It holds for every fight until you change it (see Combat). It shows wherever a fight lies ahead: on dangerous ground, and once the day's turns are spent (to set it for tomorrow). In a town, or while an encounter waits for your choice, there is nothing to fight and it steps aside. Tap it to open a sheet with the three stances, each with what it is good against ("Good against swift foes") and what it does; tap one to take it. Changing costs nothing, but not while you are fallen. The sheet also says what you are about to face, as far as you know it: the boss at an open lair or a quest's foe, and its trait, and the kinds of monster you have met that roam this land.

On a day with an omen the location card's tags end with the omen's name and emblem, in gold; tap it to read what the omen does, and again to hide it. On Quiet Roads the Hunt button reads "Free · Quiet Roads" while the day's free hunts last, and the result card of a free hunt says no turn was spent. On dangerous ground the location card lists those kinds too, under its tags ("Roaming here: Wolf (swift), Wild Boar; 3 kinds not yet met"): a kind joins the list once you have fought it. At a lair, the boss's trait follows its name and level, and so does a quest's foe's at the end of its trail (a beast is brutal); both readings change with your stance. A hunt you slip away from (Warily) ends with a plain card and a line in your journal, neither a win nor a fall.

Drinking a potion from the top bar is free: it costs no turn.

The first screen of the day

From your second day on, the first visit of each day opens on the dawn screen: the weather, on your first dawn of a season New this season (a star, and what the season brings in italics on parchment; see Seasons), yesterday's chronicle with a Listen button, after a boss slain a letter from the dragon (parchment with an ash-grey wax seal on its corner, an ember glowing in it, the letter in italics and, in small print, who wrote it and which boss's fall it answers; a Listen once the dragon's voice is recorded; see Bosses), The realm yesterday (the Daily Happenings on parchment, folded to its lead headline, with Read the rest and its own Listen), the day's omen on a parchment card with its emblem drawn in ink (see Omens), your rival's news since you were last here when there is any (footprints; see Rival heroes), and what today holds. After a break, a While you were away card comes first, on the dark panel rather than parchment: a line per duel fought against you (crossed swords, green if you held, red if not, with the gold on the right, and Ignore for the challenger), who honoured your cairn (a cairn of stones), and the realm's news (a crown); the chronicle below it is titled Since you were last here. Set out takes you to the game (see The daily loop). When a season you played has ended, the game first tells it back to you once (see Seasons). Between seasons the game opens on The realm rests instead: the next season (when it begins, in how many days, what is new), then the season just ended (your honour, level and place, your last chronicle on parchment, the hall of heroes with your row marked and the rival heroes apart, and the season's last Daily Happenings), then your honours and account (see Seasons).

After the dragon

When the dragon falls, the fight's result opens a full screen of its own over the game: Dragonslayer, the dragon's fall in the fight's own words, and the Rebirth's offer, with what you keep and what starts again side by side (see Bosses). Begin again… asks once more ("This cannot be undone", with Yes, begin again and Not yet, which has the focus, so a stray Enter never confirms); Stay at the summit closes it. The offer then waits on the Hero tab under your dragon marks, as a green-edged card with Begin again…, which opens the same screen without the victory. After a Rebirth the game reloads around your new start in Oakhaven, the journal's line for it on screen.

A hero still called Playtester gets one more sheet after the dawn: A name of your own, four names to choose from with Roll again, Take this name and Later (see Getting started).

The tabs

• Journal has four pages: the journal (where a letter from the dragon has an ash-grey edge), the Bestiary (every kind of monster you have fought), the Atlas (the land you have seen), see Levels and gear, and Realm, today's Daily Happenings in full, with its Listen. A line about meeting another hero ends with Ignore and their name, or "Ignored" once you have; a meeting with a rival hero says instead that they are a hero of the realm, a character of the game.
• Pack lists your gear, with a tick on the items that count, and your potions.
• Market appears in Oakhaven only (see Oakhaven, settlements and gold).
• Rumours holds your quest (see Quests) above the day's rumours (see Sites and rumours).
• Hero opens with your hero's name in full (the top bar shortens a long one on a phone), or, while you are still a Playtester, Choose a name. Then your stats, gear, today's blessing, your bank balance, a small ash-grey dragon's head with an ember eye for each dragon you have slain this season (with "Dragonslayer", or the count, and "on a new climb" after a Rebirth), the Rebirth's offer while the dragon lies slain on this climb, your rival and the race to the dragon (see Rival heroes), Letters from the dragon once one has come (a line for each boss it answers, opening to the letter with its seal and, when recorded, its Listen; fetched again each new day, when a new letter may have been written), the season, How to play, Report a bug, Settings, your recovery code and, where offered, Google sign-in (see Getting started).

Where a number comes from

Tap Attack or Defence on the Hero tab, or the health numbers in the top bar, to see the breakdown: what your level gives, each piece of gear that counts (with its upgrades), the total in a fight, today's blessing if it adds to that number, and your stance if it changes it. The health sheet also says how you recover health.

Settings

Settings on the Hero tab:

The rest stays on this device. The speaker in the top bar still silences everything at once. The messages show only while the game sends any; where your browser cannot receive them, blocked them, or (on iPhone and iPad) needs the game on the Home Screen first, Settings says so instead.

How to play

How to play on the Hero tab opens the game's guide inside the game: a contents list, then one page at a time with links between pages. It is the same guide the team keeps up to date with every change, so it always matches the game.

If something goes wrong

Tap the speech bubble at the end of the health bar, or Report a bug on the Hero tab; see Bug reports and triage. If a screen ever crashes you see Something broke and a Reload button; nothing is lost.

Notices from the team

Now and then the team has something to tell every player: a change to the terms or the privacy policy, or a pause for maintenance. It comes as a gold banner with a megaphone at the top of the game, and of the join screen and the break between seasons, sometimes with Read more: a page of the website opens in a new tab, a page of the game in its place. The cross at its end closes it, and it stays closed on that device; on another device you see it once more. A change to the terms or the privacy policy is always told this way at least 30 days before it takes effect.

Nothing is counted when you see or close a notice.

On a tablet

The same layout with a bigger map and a bigger pad. Held sideways (or on a wide screen), the screen splits in two: the place, your map and the dock on the left; the tabs on the right, with the journal scrolling on its own so the map never leaves the screen.

Installing it

On an Android phone or tablet, open the game in Chrome and choose Add to Home screen (or Install app). It then opens full screen with its own icon, named Ashen Dragon, like any other app. If you open it with no connection you get a clear "Out of reach" screen with a Try again button instead of an endless loading message; your hero is safe on the server.

With a keyboard

Arrow keys or W, A, S, D move you. H hunts. Escape closes the full map. The keys leave your hero alone while something is open over the game: the dawn, the map, the evening or any other sheet.

Sound

Three kinds of sound, each with its own volume in Settings:

• Sound effects: short sounds for footsteps, encounters, victories, defeats, coins, potions and getting lost.
• The narrator, who reads the big moments aloud (see The narrator).
• Background sound: a loop for each kind of land (wind in the grass, dripping caves, a village's murmur in Oakhaven and the settlements) that fades from one to the next as you cross into different country. It starts with your first tap, and dips while the narrator speaks.

The speaker in the top bar silences all three; the game remembers it on this device.

Tips

• On a phone you can play one-handed: the Hunt button, your stance and the pad are all in thumb reach.
• Close yesterday's chronicle after reading it to get the map higher up the screen.
• Out of turns? Press Evening before you put the phone down: tomorrow's plan takes one tap.
• The Rumours tab badge counts rumours you have not followed yet, plus a quest on offer.
• Your recovery code is on the Hero tab. Write it down: it is the only way back to your hero on another device, unless you link a Google account.
• Text too small on your phone? Settings has a Large size.
• Unsure why a fight went badly? Tap Attack or Defence on the Hero tab to see what counts.