Your First Hour

This route gets a new character through orientation, one training decision, a first hunt, recovery, and loot. The examples are directions rather than solved builds; your live TRAIN sheet is authoritative.

1. Read the character

LOOK
STAT
INFO
SKILLS
TASKS
HELP

TASKS is the newcomer checklist. It points through safe Coldhollow streets and introduces people who teach the basic verbs while awarding useful early experience.

At each town's public meeting point, a temporary directory shows shop and service NPC names, room numbers, and exact travel commands. Read it with READ DIRECTORY or LOOK SIGN. The stationary town guide can answer navigation and public game-help questions:

TALK GUIDE
ASK GUIDE ABOUT WHERE IS HALVARD
ASK GUIDE ABOUT TRAINING
ASK GUIDE ABOUT WRITS
ASK GUIDE ABOUT COMBAT
ASK GUIDE ABOUT A LEAD

TRAVEL GUIDE finds a reachable guide. The guide can give exact directions or offer a clue and one next step, according to how much help you want. Repeat PLACES LEAD as you walk to continue a clue. HELP TOWNGUIDE explains the questions you can ask. The sign lists public services without revealing hidden places.

Lost in town? PLACES lists reachable local services, their distances and travel commands. WHERE BANK gives a first step; TRAVEL INN walks to a training inn. On the map, places searches mapped services and local directory asks for nearby public services. For exploration, PLACES LEAD (or the map's lead button) offers one hint toward an unvisited public place. Repeat it as you walk; finding the place adds it to your remembered places. You can ask for exact public-service directions whenever you need them.

Reeve Halvard Tamm posts starter work at The Reeve's Office in Coldhollow:

TRAVEL HALVARD
WRIT LIST
WRIT TAKE 1

Read the posting before choosing its number. Ordinary beginner hunting writs use rated targets at or below your level; WRIT LIST CHALLENGE explicitly previews harder work. Your writ includes the known approach and difficulty. WRIT WHERE repeats the briefing, WRIT TRAVEL walks to the approach, and WRIT RETURN walks back to the desk. Check the ground and ASSESS each creature before advancing; a route is not a promise of safety.

2. Train one coherent plan

Enter a training room at an inn, then:

CHECK IN
TRAIN
TRAIN <skill>

Three examples:

WizardWarriorRogue

Start with Channeling, one or more ranks in Wizard's Wheel, and a little Conditioning or Awareness. SPELLS shows which working the next circle rank actually buys; 3310 Needle Spark is the opening Wizard bolt.

Choose one weapon family, then add Conditioning and the defense that matches your equipment: Armor Training, Shield Training, Evasion, or a deliberate combination.

Choose a weapon and defense, then begin Stealth and Awareness. If boxes are the goal, develop Lockwork and Trapwork together rather than assuming one skill safely replaces the other.

Every calling has its own prices and per-level limits. There is no public three-tier cost table to memorize.

3. Read and fit the road kit

A new character enters with a mundane weapon matching their most trained weapon skill and a worn canvas backpack. Great Weapons earns a greatsword; Unarmed Combat keeps your hands empty. Ties favor your calling's usual weapon when possible. With no weapon training, these are the calling defaults:

Calling	Issued first kit
Warrior	short sword and hide buckler
Rogue	dagger and tinker's lockpick
Monk	dagger (you may still train toward empty-hand combat)
Ranger	short bow and arrows
Bard	rapier and tin whistle
Paladin	mace and hide buckler
Wizard, Cleric, Empath, Sorcerer, Savant	runestaff

INVENTORY
GLANCE
WEIGH
LOOK IN BACKPACK
PUT <item> IN BACKPACK

Tools, arrows, and spare gear start inside your backpack. It holds up to 20 items and 40 pounds. A greatsword or bow keeps the other hand free, with any issued buckler packed away.

The kit is deliberately ordinary: it makes the first choice usable without replacing later equipment, training, crafting, or trade. Visit the Coldhollow market and SHOP when you want another weapon or armor. Wear only armor the character can support, and use WEIGH if movement or recovery feels slow.

An empty-handed character uses Unarmed Combat. That is excellent for a trained Monk and a warning for a new sword user who forgot to wield the sword.

4. Learn combat tempo

The gentlest ground is beneath Shuttered Lane. Go DOWN to the safe Cistern Stair, then DOWN into the lit old drains. Read one creature before committing:

ASSESS RAT
STANCE READY
KILL RAT
RECOVERY
HEALTH

Five stances trade pressure for protection:

• ASSAULT commits hardest to the attack.
• PRESS leans forward without giving everything away.
• READY is the balanced center.
• BRACE favors survival while keeping options open.
• GUARD is the emergency defensive extreme.

Do not switch mechanically on every timer. Read the opponent, your posture, and whether another creature has entered.

Warning

The Cistern Stair is safe; the drains below are not. A single creature can still kill a new character. If a fight goes badly, move UP toward the stair, recover, and try again.

5. Work the remains in order

SKIN RAT
SEARCH RAT
GET COIN

SKIN must happen before SEARCH, because searching a kill turns out its loose possessions and lets the remains decay. Pelts, gems, jewelry, coins, and occasional boxes feed different parts of the economy.

6. Recover and treat injuries

Sit or lie down in safety, use HEALTH and EFFECTS, and bind dangerous bleeding with TEND. Recovery nodes, food, warmth, posture, and local comforts all affect the pulses.

POSTURE SIT
TEND
HEALTH
EFFECTS

Remedies use six body zones and three jobs—Bind, Knit, Renew. See Health, Wounds, and Care before buying a shelf at random.

7. Cast according to tradition

Circle callings use SPELLS, then a catalogue code:

SPELLS
INCANT 3310 RAT

The code is an address; SPELLS separately prints the ranks and mana required.

A Savant uses form-and-element wordcraft instead:

WORDS
INCANT BOLTAR IGNIS RAT
INCANT SELOS PETRIS

Only the Savant memorizes and scribes compositions. See Magic for both traditions.

8. Open a box safely

If a box drops, do not jump straight to the lock:

SURVEY CHEST
DEFUSE CHEST
ANALYZE CHEST
PICK CHEST
OPEN CHEST
LOOT CHEST

DEFUSE is needed only when SURVEY finds a mechanism—but a weak survey can be fooled. The Lockpicking and Treasure page explains the qualitative readings and tool wear.

The loop from here

Take local WRIT work, assess, hunt, work the remains, sell, train, follow the Saga when it interests you, and push outward when the current ground becomes comfortable. Use ROUTES to read reachable roads, mileage, and signed hunting branches.

The level 1–15 hunting-road guide continues through the Frostspine Warren, Outwall, Emberford, Wether Fells, Highreach, Runmede road pockets, and Hollowrun. From level sixteen, Three Roads After Fifteen lays out staffed mountain, coast, and sunward journeys through level thirty. Roads Beyond Thirty separates the Hallward, Singing, and Marchhold fronts from the contiguous Crownward ladder through level one hundred.

Talk to people on the way. Build rapport with FEED and TALK; some townsfolk are mentors, and Phoenix Sagas is built to remember more than the things you killed.