The world and the map
In short: the land around Oakhaven goes on forever. It is made of named regions (forests, marshes, mountain ranges, steppes), each dotted with settlements and sites. The further you walk from Oakhaven, the tougher and richer it gets. You only see on your map what you have explored yourself.
How it works
Regions and places
The world is a grid of places, one step apart. Places group into regions of a few dozen places each, such as The Whispering Wood of Wolfton or The Rotting Marsh of Shadefield. Every place in a region shares its terrain, so the land has shape: you can tell when you leave a forest and enter the steppe.
Each place also has a small detail of its own (a mossy hollow, a lonely milestone, a collapsed mine), shown under its name, so walking through a region still feels like moving.
Settlements are single safe places scattered through every region, each with its own name (Kelburn, Upper Shadeden, Yarburn Cross). Nothing hunts you there, and each has a waystation bed, a trader and locals who know of a site nearby (see Oakhaven, settlements and gold). The market, blacksmith, temple and bank are only in Oakhaven.
Oakhaven sits in the middle of The Vale of Oakhaven, gentle open country, always the same.
There are over 350,000 possible region names, and the world has no edge, so nobody will chart all of it. Every season is a new land: regions, names, settlements, sites and boss lairs are laid out afresh, so your old map will not help you. Only Oakhaven, its vale and the boss lairs' distances stay the same.
Terrain
| Terrain | What lives there (examples) | Getting lost |
|---|---|---|
| Plains | Wolves, bandits, boars, plains ogres | Rarely |
| Dark forest | Giant spiders, dire wolves, treants | Often |
| Caves (hills) | Goblins, bat swarms, cave trolls | Often |
| Abandoned keep | Skeletons, gargoyles, wraiths | Sometimes |
| Swamp | Leeches, hags, mire crawlers | Sometimes |
| Mountains | Rock golems, griffons, wyverns | Sometimes |
| Tundra | Ice wraiths, yetis, frost wolves | Sometimes |
| Desert | Scorpions, fire elementals, sand wyrms | Sometimes |
Each terrain has its own set of monsters and traits; see Combat.
What roams here. On dangerous ground the location card lists, under its tags, the kinds of monster that roam this land that you have already met, with their traits, and how many you have not: "Roaming here: Wolf (swift), Bandit (cowardly), Wild Boar; 2 kinds not yet met". A kind joins the list the first time you fight it (your bestiary remembers it, see Levels and gear). It tells you what a hunt here is likely to meet, so you can set your stance before you press Hunt (see Combat); it never names a kind you have not met.
Distance rings
How far you are from Oakhaven matters more than where you are. The land is divided into square rings 5 steps wide. Ring 0 is Oakhaven's surroundings; ring 1 starts five steps out, and so on.
- Monsters are about your level in ring 1, weaker closer in and stronger further out.
- Every ring out adds +30% gold and XP per fight.
- From ring 3 encounters give better loot.
- Boss lairs sit on fixed rings; see Bosses. A lair is never a settlement: it is always wild ground of its region's kind.
Moving and getting lost
Each step north, south, east or west costs one turn. Every step can also bring an encounter (see Encounters) or the day's treasure cache (see Sites and rumours).
Sometimes you get lost and end up a few steps off course. It happens more the further out you are and in forests and caves, and much less on open plains. Very rarely you get hopelessly lost, stumble back to Oakhaven and lose 5 turns.
A compass, sold in Oakhaven, halves your chance of getting lost. In the Long Fog it is 2× as high all day, and the day's weather is fog (see Omens).
Your map
The map in the location card shows the places around you. It is an old chart: explored ground is painted in the colour of its terrain with little ink drawings, unexplored ground is blank hatched paper, dotted lines mark where regions meet, and region names are lettered across what you have explored of them. Your position is the red ring; a dashed X marks a place you have heard a rumour about, a red pennant your quest's next stop (see Quests), and a small pile of stones a cairn where a hero fell this season (see Crossings and cairns).
Tap the map to unroll the full chart, a much wider view. Tap any place on it to read its name, terrain, and any rumour, quest stop or cairn there.
You explore a place by standing on it. A watchtower reveals everything around it at once (see Sites and rumours).
Tips
- Settle into a region you like: plains and the Vale are the safest places to hunt; forests and caves get you lost.
- Deeper rings pay better but hit harder. Step out a ring when fights in your current one feel easy.
- Buy the compass before you start walking long distances; lost steps are wasted turns.
- The full chart is the best way to plan a route to a rumour, a quest stop or a boss lair.
- A settlement near your hunting ground makes a good base: a bed, a few potions and a rumour, without the walk home.
- Glance at what roams a land before you hunt there, and set your stance for the trait you meet most.