Experience & Leveling¶
Experience comes from hunting and useful work: healing, locks, traps, gathering, resurrection, writs, and practiced crafts. Awards become permanent immediately. There is no experience reservoir to fill and no need to wait in town for progress to settle.
EXPERIENCE or EXP shows your level, total experience, the next threshold,
grave-chill recovery, and available Training. The browser Experience panel reads the
same state.
Awards¶
An even-level creature grants a base 90 experience. Easier prey loses 12% per level below you; harder prey gains 8% per level above you, up to 140%. Group members in the same room receive their own half share through their own level-gap calculation; the killer's award is not reduced.
Work teaches through the same direct track:
| Activity | How it teaches | Natural limit |
|---|---|---|
Empath care (BEAR) |
Burden carried away; deeper wounds teach more | Real injury and burden capacity |
| Resurrection | Scales with the life restored | Someone must be dead |
Lockwork (PICK) |
Scales with lock resistance | Once per box |
Trapwork (DEFUSE) |
Scales with mechanism danger | Surveyed, live trap; once per box |
Sleight of Hand (STEAL) |
Scales with the take | A purse empties; discovery has consequences |
Foraging (FORAGE) |
Scales with plant difficulty | Ground is depleted temporarily |
Field Medicine (TEND) |
Scales with bleeding stopped on another person | Your own wounds do not teach |
Work writs (WRIT) |
Included in the turn-in payout | One open writ at a time |
The rising-trail curve¶
Levels run from 1 to 100. Moving from level L to level L + 1 costs:
1,000 + 180L + 20L² experience
That makes early advancement readable while allowing the trail to steepen smoothly.
EXPERIENCE and INFO always show the authoritative next threshold; the full cumulative
table is balancing data and is intentionally not duplicated here.
Crossing a threshold applies immediately, including during combat or work.
What advancement grants¶
- 60 Training for every newly reached level.
- One point of alternating calling-aptitude growth every four levels.
- Higher rank depth for every trainable discipline.
- Recomputed Health, Mana, Spirit, and Stamina where their inputs changed.
Advancement does not automatically hand out a large Health increase; Conditioning is the main source after creation. Nor does a level grant workings: circle study or Savant Wordcraft opens them.
Skipped Training grants are backfilled safely, so a disconnect or unusually large award cannot lose a level's budget.
Grave chill¶
Death leaves a grave chill, but it never removes permanent experience. While the chill remains, one quarter of each new award thaws the debt and the other three quarters advance you normally. Departing your body early deepens the chill; a banked embermark burns away most of it.
This recovery is tied to what you do next, not to a timer or a place where you must wait. See Death & Respawn for bodies, departure, resurrection, and shrines.
Returning characters¶
Characters saved under the earlier progression model keep their attained level and fractional progress through that level. Any unsettled old award reserve is honored in the background. The retired save fields remain intact as a recovery snapshot.