The Guide

The journey

The river is the road to the place where nobody grows old, and the old woods, the codru, grow on every isle along it: upstream the mountains, downstream the Delta, and beyond it the sea. Boats are the only way along it, and the sturdier the boat, the safer the crossing.
Each wood has a guardian and each guardian is a gate. When you slay one, youth without age takes you: you wake at level 1 with no experience, no weapon and no armour, and a purse of 20 gold plus 20 for every guardian you have slain (at most 120).
You keep your name, your kin, your companion, your gems, your bank, your animal, your boat, your tally of guardians slain and your past lives, and you choose one gift that lasts forever.

A first life starts on Willow Wood, and nobody leaves it before the balaur has fallen by their hand: the dock master will not cast you off, boat or no boat. Once it has, the river is yours, and every new life wakes in the wood whose guardian ended the last one. A death is not a new life: you wake at dawn where you fell.
Buy a boat at the docks and sail to any open wood, a turn a crossing; each wood remembers how far you got with its deeds within a life.
Each wood beyond Willow asks two things of you before its guardian: a deed with a price in it, met on a hunt from level six, and then the gate creature it wakes.

Crossing the river by your own choice takes a boat: the boatwright at the docks sells them for gems. A chosen crossing can be ambushed by river robbers: 40% / 20% / 5% with a reed raft, a fishing boat or a sail boat, plus 3% for every guardian you have slain. The raftsman halves it; the horse ends it. A rider needs no boat: when the horse is given, the boat and its gifts stay at the docks.

The tale says that whoever passes every guardian is given the horse of Youth Without Age, the one that carries its rider where no boat goes. 1 have ridden it.

The Other Realm

Past the palace the rider may go where boats cannot: the Other Realm, a sixth stop that plays by other rules. Steps replace turns, as many as a wood gives.
Each step opens three doors: a trial against a creature as deep as you stand, a riddle of the realm's own that opens the door when answered right and slides you back a step when not, or a bargain paid in gold, gems, charm or favour.
There are no masters below the doors: when your lessons fill the bar, you rise where you stand. The road is measured in depth, 0 to 30; the Gate-keeper waits at the bottom and counts as a guardian when it falls, with a title of its own. It is the one guardian whose fall takes nothing: no Valley, no new life; you keep every level, blade and coin. A lost fight does not slay: it throws you back to the Gate with your purse gone.
The horse, once earned, is yours in every life: no boat, no ambush, any open wood from the stables, and the best boat's extra turns.

Journeys beyond the Gate

Some roads are not seen until the Gate of the Other Realm has fallen in your telling; then they open to the rider, one at a time. A journey is a long road of doors to a summit, with a creature at the top under a spell.
Each journey names three creatures on three woods; each one's fall leaves a soul shard, which goes into your chest. Bring all three to the foot of the summit, where an old helper of heroes can bind them into what they once were. Only then is the summit fight real; without it the first blow slides off and the road throws you back a few steps.
With charm enough, you may also talk to the creature instead of fighting it. Words cost charm there, and a wrong one costs more to take back. Either way counts as a guardian fallen.

When the tale is told

Every telling of the tale has an end. Reach it, and you choose: stay in the wide world as you are, or begin the whole tale again from Willow Wood.
Begun again, every wood, deed, key and relic waits to be won anew, and the guardians you have slain come back harder. What you have earned stays with you: your name, your gifts, titles and looks, your friends and your keepsakes, your bank and your chest. The choice waits in Settings for as long as you like.

The day

Dawn breaks 2 times per real day.
Each dawn refills your life and gives you 20 forest turns (more with certain gifts, kins and boats). Unused turns are lost at the next dawn.
Some chances come only once in a whole game, and some go for good once taken or missed. Read what you are offered before you choose.

Fights

Each hunt spends a turn and meets a foe near your level, or one time in about 15 a meeting on the path instead: the meeting costs no turn, though some choices in it do, and say so. You choose how to hunt: from level 2 carefully, for weaker prey that mostly lets you strike first and pays a fifth less; plainly; or, from level 3, for something bigger: a level above you, it mostly strikes first and pays a tenth more.
Fights go in rounds: strike once, strike five times, cast an ability, or flee. A landed blow of yours does half again 10 times in a hundred; a miss is punished with a riposte 15 times in a hundred. Fleeing works 33 times in a hundred, more on the path of Cunning or with the raftsman, and a failed flight gives the foe a free blow.
Win: experience and gold, sometimes a gem. Die: you lose the gold in your purse and 10% of your experience, and stay dead until dawn unless the shades let you back.
A flawless fight against a foe at least your level gives the turn back.

Packs

Once a guardian has fallen, the woods no longer send one creature at a time: about 12 hunts in a hundred meet two, and from 4 guardians slain, up to three.
You strike the one in front; every one of them strikes you. Each pays its own experience and gold as it falls, and what you earned stays yours if you run.

The night watch

When the keeper opens the event, the apple tree in any village along the river is yours to guard from level 3: a night's watch costs 3 turns, one night a day, and gives about 30 chances in a hundred on the first night and more each night after, up to three nights.
Wound the thief and follow him: his blood leads past the fences to a crack in the ground, and down there is the Thieves' Hollow: 3 fights, each a step up, the last against the thief. Win and you bring back a golden apple; die in the Hollow, or leave the trail cold, and the thief is gone.
The watch comes round now and then, whenever the golden apples ripen again: each time, everyone without an apple gets three fresh nights, and the chances start again from the first night's.
What the apple is for, you will learn on the road. Keep it in your chest until then.

The stolen sun

Sometimes the keeper lets the zmei steal the sun and the moon.
While the sky is dark every creature runs 1 level up, and every foe slain by anyone on the river counts toward a number the keeper set; whoever lands the last one is named on every board, and everyone wakes with 2 gems.
The smith will beat your likeness in copper for 10 gold a level, and the creatures strike at it instead of you some of the time.

Feast days

When the keeper turns the holidays on, each feast day brings something to the woods: two turns more at Christmas and the New Year, easier courting at Dragobete, more gold at Easter, three times the strigoi on St. Andrew's night, twice as many at Halloween, a little more gold and a lucky clover on St. Patrick's Day, and on each of them something only that day brings. The line at the top of the village says which day it is, and in the days before, which feast is coming and when.

Each holiday also brings a colour for names and a mark around them, in the Adornments, on sale in the days around it. While you have no colour or mark chosen, the holiday ones you own take turns by themselves, each on its own days.

The village

The healer closes wounds at 1 gold a point of life, whatever your level, and sells partial heals; at level 1 she asks nothing of a newcomer (a rider is no newcomer). A room at the inn heals too, for turns instead of gold.
The smith sells weapons and armour that add to attack and guard and takes 75% of your old piece off the price.
The bank keeps gold safe from death, pays interest at dawn if you left no more than 4 turns unused, and lends up to 20 gold per level.
Until you reach the game's last level, gems drop about once in 25 fights won in the woods.

Yana

Yana came to the village a newcomer herself, and an old woman by the well watched over her first dawns. She never went for the guardian. She stayed, raised her two, and to this day nobody is sure whether the village keeps her or she keeps the village. Yana does not help strangers. She watches them. From her doorstep by the well she sizes up every new face, and while she is deciding whether you are a danger to her children, nobody in the village dares start a fight within sight of her door: they have all seen what happens to people who upset Yana. Her watch ends when she has made up her mind about you. If either of her two has taken to you, she comes down to the landing to see you off the first time you sail, and a keepsake from each friend comes with her letter.

The chest

Every village keeps a chest with your mark on it.
Gear and gold left there survive death and the Valley, so a hero may leave fine iron before the lair and find it in the next life.
The chest obeys the smith's rule: a piece above your level plus 2 stays in the chest until you grow into it. Each village's chest is its own.
The chest also keeps what you cannot spend: the guardians' relics, the soul shards found on journeys and the keepsakes given to you, the same in every village.

The lottery

The innkeeper also keeps a jar: a slip costs 5 gold per level, up to 5 a day, and at dawn one slip comes out of the day's jar and takes it all, less the house's 10%, straight into the bank.

Bringing a friend

If you tell someone about Old Woods and they name you at the door, you receive 2 gems when they reach level 4.

Clans

Heroes may band into clans once they have put down a guardian of the river, whatever their level after. Founding one costs 500 gold and 3 gems; a clan holds up to 30 heroes, and its tag stands before every member's name. A clan has a hall with a fire of its own to talk around, a motto, a war chest and a book of what went in and out of it. A clan led by one who brought back the zmeu's egg carries its mark beside its name.

At the door

Ask to join from the clans list. The leader and the officers get a letter that someone is knocking, and you wait at the door until one of them lets you in or turns you away; either way, a letter tells you. While you wait you may knock at another clan's door instead. A hero belongs to one clan at a time.

Ranks

The leader holds the clan's seat: only the leader spends the war chest, lays feasts, sets the siege bounty, dyes the tag, and raises or lowers the others.
Raise makes a member an officer; lower makes an officer a member again. Make leader hands the seat to an officer, and the old leader becomes an officer; the hall asks before it does.
Officers let heroes in or turn them away, cast out plain members and set the motto, as the leader does.
Members talk at the fire, give to the war chest and carry the week's goal.

Leaving

Anyone may leave a clan at any time. A leader who leaves hands the seat to the next in rank, the highest level first; the last one out closes the hall, and its fire and war chest go with it. A hero who is cast out gets a letter.

The war chest

Every member may give gold and gems to the war chest. What goes in never comes back out to anyone: the leader spends it on the hall, on feasts and on siege bounties, and every member has the good of it. The chest's book shows the latest gifts and spending.

The hall

The leader builds on the hall from the war chest, one level at a time.
The hearth (1000 gold and 2 gems): every member may heal whole at the hall, once a game day.
The training yard (2000 gold and 4 gems, then 5000 gold and 8 gems): every member has one forest turn more at every dawn, for each level.
The banner (1000 gold and 2 gems, then 2500 gold and 4 gems, then 5000 gold and 8 gems): every blow a member strikes in a siege takes 10% more off the beast, for each level.
The dyed tag (600 gold and 1 gem): the clan's tag worn in a colour of the leader's choosing.

The week's goal

Every week the clan has a goal, and it changes with the week so every kind of player can carry it: one week beasts slain in the forest (30 for every member), the next errands paid at the inn (3 for every member). A clan smaller than 2 counts as 2. Reach it and 150 gold for every member and 1 gem go into the war chest.

Feasts

Once a game day the leader may lay a feast from the war chest, for 200 gold for every member and 2 gems: every member has 2 more forest turns that day, and a letter says so. A member who has not woken to the day yet has the turns at their dawn.

Sieges

When a beast besieges the village and falls, the clan whose members took the most off it wins a laurel, and its strikers get twice the gems the others do.
Before a siege the leader may set up to 20 gems from the war chest aside as a bounty. When the siege ends, won or lost, the bounty goes to the clan's member who struck hardest, or back to the chest if none of them struck.

Rivals

A duel won against a member of another clan counts for your clan: the hall shows this week's wins and all of them, and the Hall of Fame shows the rivalry between clans. Duels between heroes of the same home do not count.

Points

Points buy adornments only, never strength: a mark on both sides of your name, a colour for it, a flourish after your title and more, in your settings. The keeper gives them, and heroes may give theirs to one another. Whoever supports the realm receives points as thanks: 10 for every dollar.

Charm

Charm is what the river thinks of you. Some meetings in the woods ask for a choice: help and your charm grows by one, rob and it falls by one, gold going the other way. Charm survives the Valley and never drops below nothing.
Every wood's inn has two people you can court, once a day, for a chance at another point. Men court one, women the other. With 15 charm you may propose. Each spouse brings a different gift, and it goes with you into every wood; only the free room and going upstairs stay in their own wood's inn. A married sleeper is guarded by the spouse everywhere.
A marriage costs one charm every morning, never more, and the spouse leaves when your charm falls under 7, half of what it took to propose.
The game offers ways to keep a marriage going; finding them is up to you.
Neglect the marriage and it fades a point a morning; the inn tells you as it cools, and on the last morning there is a bundle packed by the door.
A ring closes your own spouse's inn to courting, and it does not go unnoticed elsewhere: another wood's partner turns a married suitor away for 3 days, and once they relent every talk risks word reaching home, 25 times in a hundred, with the spouse gone and half your charm with them. No second marriage while the first stands.

• Willow Wood: the barmaid — a free room, and a steadier guard in every fight of the day
• Willow Wood: the fiddler — a free room, and a steadier guard in every fight of the day
• Sunken Wood: the fisher's daughter — a free room, and two more turns every dawn: she knows the channels
• Sunken Wood: the lighthouse keeper's son — a free room, and wounds that close a little every round, all day
• Stone Wood: the shepherdess — a free room, and a steadier arm every dawn: warm milk and a sure hand
• Stone Wood: the shepherd — a free room, and two more turns every dawn: he knows the short paths
• Deep Wood: the woodcutter's daughter — a free room, and two more turns every dawn: she knows where the paths really go
• Deep Wood: the charcoal burner's son — a free room, and a steadier guard in every fight of the day
• Storm Wood: the salt boiler's daughter — a free room, and a steadier guard in every fight of the day
• Storm Wood: the sail maker's son — a free room, and a steadier arm every dawn

Kins

• Isle Folk — Balanced. A quarter more gold from every foe.
• Highlanders — More life, a little less attack. Shrug off the first blow of every fight.
• Wood Folk — More attack, a little less life. Slip away from a losing fight once a day.
• The Learned — More attack, weaker guard. Books taught you where to strike: your first blow goes through the foe's guard.
• The Fated — Firmer guard, and you learn faster. Strigoi fear you and drop more.

Paths

Your first master asks which path you walk. Skill grows one per level; uses per dawn are skill ÷ 3 plus one; abilities cost 1, 2, 3 or 5 uses and last for the fight.

Might — Hit harder, and harder still.

• 1 Heavy blow — half again the damage for three rounds
• 2 War cry — the foe's guard breaks: your blows land half again as hard for five rounds
• 3 Fury — double attack for five rounds
• 5 Berserk — triple attack, half guard, five rounds

Cunning — Make the foe miss, then make it pay.

• 1 Feint — the foe strikes at 70% for five rounds
• 2 Poisoned blade — double damage for five rounds
• 3 Vanish — the foe cannot find you for five rounds
• 5 Ambush — triple attack and guard for five rounds

Grit — Outlast anything.

• 1 Stone skin — double guard for five rounds
• 2 Second wind — heal your level in life every round, five rounds
• 3 Thorns — bark and thorns: your guard doubles and every wound you take is returned, five rounds
• 5 Iron will — nothing can hurt you for five rounds

The masters

When your experience is enough, a master waits at the edge of the fields. They are your equal, gear included. Beat them and you gain a level; lose and they leave you breathing.

Company

The camp hires out companions (one at a time, they stay with you through the Valley, at one price whatever your level), mercenaries (one at a time, until dawn; a new one replaces the old, and the old one's pay is not returned) and animals (forever; one at a time, swapped like boats: only the difference in gems up, two thirds of it back down). A companion, a mercenary and an animal can all be with you at once, and their gifts add up. Each wood's camp has its own faces, and what you hired travels with you.
The docks sell boats for gems: extra turns every dawn, bought back at 66%.
The inn rents rooms: 2 gold per level for a guarded bed until dawn, and 5 turns asleep in it for a full heal.
On the home wood the smith renames his wall after every guardian you slay; every other wood's smith has a look of his own.

Companions

• Codrin the Forester — knows the shortcuts: one more forest turn every dawn (300 Gold · 2 Gems)
• Ilinca of the Herbs — closes your wounds a little every round (400 Gold · 3 Gems)
• Marin the Raftsman — fleeing costs you nothing: the turn comes back (300 Gold · 2 Gems)
• Tudor the Mountain — stands between you and the worst of every blow (500 Gold · 3 Gems)
• Doina the Fiddler — her songs sharpen your arm (400 Gold · 3 Gems)
• Luca the Bone-Reader — reads the foe's weakness before it moves (600 Gold · 4 Gems)
• Ana of the Nets — closes your wounds a little every round (400 Gold · 3 Gems)
• Petre the Lamplighter — his lamp shows you where to strike (400 Gold · 3 Gems)
• Gheorghe the Shepherd — stands between you and the worst of every blow (500 Gold · 3 Gems)
• Maria of the Springs — closes your wounds a little every round (400 Gold · 3 Gems)
• Ion the Hunter — his eye finds the soft place; your arm follows (400 Gold · 3 Gems)
• Sanda the Weaver — mends your boots every night: two more turns every dawn (300 Gold · 2 Gems)
• Vlad the Trapper — reads the foe's weakness before it moves (600 Gold · 4 Gems)
• Lina of the Herbs — closes your wounds a little every round (400 Gold · 3 Gems)
• Mihai the Woodcutter — stands between you and the worst of every blow (500 Gold · 3 Gems)
• Radu the Birdcatcher — knows the paths the trees keep: two more turns every dawn (300 Gold · 2 Gems)
• Anca of the Sails — closes your wounds a little every round (400 Gold · 3 Gems)
• Costel the Diver — reads the foe's weakness before it moves (600 Gold · 4 Gems)
• Nicu the Anchor-Smith — stands between you and the worst of every blow (500 Gold · 3 Gems)
• Dora the Weather-Reader — tells you when to strike; your arm listens (400 Gold · 3 Gems)

Mercenaries

• a hired sword — hits alongside you until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a herb-woman — heals you a little every round until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a shield-bearer — stiffens your guard until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a reed cutter — swings a hooked blade beside you until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a marsh healer — closes your wounds a little every round until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a punt man — plants his pole between you and the worst blows until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a goatherd — swings a crook beside you until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a mountain healer — closes your wounds a little every round until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a quarryman — his shoulders take what was meant for you until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a sawyer — swings a long saw beside you until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a herb gatherer — closes your wounds a little every round until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a log driver — plants his pike between you and the worst blows until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a harpooner — throws beside you until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a sea healer — closes your wounds a little every round until dawn (10 Gold × level)
• a rope maker — binds the worst blows before they land, until dawn (10 Gold × level)

Animals

• a village dog — noses out coins the foes drop (5 Gems)
• a hawk — you learn more from every fight it watches (8 Gems)
• a black cat — finds shiny things twice as often (8 Gems)
• an otter — dives for the coins the foes drop (5 Gems)
• a pelican — you learn more from every fight it watches (8 Gems)
• a marsh frog — finds shiny things twice as often (8 Gems)
• a sheepdog — noses out the coins the foes drop (5 Gems)
• an eagle — you learn more from every fight it watches (8 Gems)
• a marmot — digs up shiny things twice as often (8 Gems)
• a boar hound — noses out the coins the foes drop (5 Gems)
• an owl — you learn more from every fight it watches (8 Gems)
• a squirrel — finds shiny things twice as often (8 Gems)
• a gull — snatches the coins the foes drop (5 Gems)
• a cormorant — you learn more from every fight it watches (8 Gems)
• a hermit crab — finds shiny things twice as often (8 Gems)

Boats

• a reed raft — one more forest turn every dawn (4 Gems)
• a fishing boat — two more turns and a steadier arm each morning (8 Gems)
• a sail boat — three more turns and a strong arm each morning (14 Gems)

The balaur

At level 15 the lair opens.
Slay the balaur and youth without age takes you: you keep your tally of guardians slain, your gems, your kin and your animal, choose one gift, and wake at level 1 with a bigger purse.
Every guardian measures itself against whoever comes for it. In the smith's best weapon and armour you win about three fights in four; with anything less, far fewer. Companions, hired hands and your path still give you a small edge.
Foes in the woods grow a little with every guardian slain.

• Life — Five more life, forever.
• Time — One more forest turn every dawn.
• Strength — One more attack, forever.
• Guard — One more defence, forever.

The village square

Whoever is awake talks in the square. Plain words, three hundred characters at a time. The keeper reads it and may remove a line.

Beside each name stand the country's flag, ♂ or ♀, 👻 for one of the dead, 🛡 for a warden and 🧪 for a tester, whose hero is shaped on the tester's bench and stays off the Hall of Fame and the news. 🎗 is a friend of the realm who gave to keep it standing. Every gift, once or every month, warms it a step: 🎗 🎗 🎗 🎗 🎗 🎗 🎗 🎗 🎗 🎗, from grey through copper and silver to gold, and a crown 👑 at the twelfth.

Tap a line and ☺ shows after it: tap ☺ to answer with one of seven marks, one each: 👍 👎 ❤ 😂 😮 😢 🔥. Tap your mark again to take it back, or another to change it.

Letters

Letters find a hero wherever they sleep. Each hero you write to is one conversation: it reads as a chat, the newest letter at the bottom, and you answer from inside it.
Letters between heroes open at level 4, or once you have slain a guardian; until then you may only answer the keeper and the wardens, who can always write to you. Up to 40 letters a day, 2000 characters each.
Burning a letter or a whole conversation clears it from your side only; whoever wrote it keeps their words. You may refuse a hero's letters, or show one to the keeper.
Some letters wait for the keeper's eye before they arrive, and contact details are blanked out of them: the woods are no place for addresses.
The keeper's answers to your petitions arrive as letters too, with what you asked above them. Under any letter written to you, ☺ answers it with one of the marks instead of words.

Duels at the inn

You may attack a sleeping player, up to 3 times a day, anyone within 3 levels and in your woods. It costs a turn.
Sleepers come in two kinds. Whoever did not pay for a room today sleeps in the village: fair game, seen from the village square, no bribe, no guard. Whoever paid for a room sleeps upstairs at the inn: the innkeeper must be paid to say who is there, gold by your level, less with charm, or one gem, and they fight at the room's guard.
A spouse guards either kind. Newcomers who have slain no guardian and attacked nobody are under Yana's watch for their first dawns; attacking anyone ends your own shield for good.
Every duel has a stake: 8 to 24 gold for each level of whoever loses it, paid from the purse, never the bank; a purse that holds less gives all it has. Win as the attacker and the whole stake is yours, with some experience. Win as the sleeper and you keep what the attacker paid. A beaten sleeper wakes at one life; a beaten attacker dies as in the woods.

The shades

The dead fight shadows with their soul as life.
Each win earns about 20 favour; 100 favour buys a return before dawn, once a day, whole and with the turns you had left when you fell.
The shades remember you: favour is kept across deaths, dawns, the Valley and every wood, but never above 150. Once you hold that much, the shades have nothing more to give until you spend some.

Haunting

The dead can also haunt.
For 40 favour a shade sits at a living player's door and they wake 2 turns short at dawn. Once a day, within 3 levels, never a newcomer, never someone upstairs at the inn.

The stocks

Now and then the stocks go up on the green: someone has been crooked with the river and was caught.
While they sit there in a burlap sack for all to see, anyone may throw tomatoes at them: 5 a day, a turn apiece. About one in 5 hits, and if none has by then, the last one in the basket always does. A bullseye wins a prize from the crowd, and then your basket stays down until the one you hit is let out.
If you ever end up in the sack yourself, you will know why.

The keeper and the wardens

The keeper keeps the realm, and may name wardens to help: players you will see marked with a shield in the square.
Wardens answer petitions, remove a line from the square, silence a player there for a few hours, tidy an offensive name or bio, and may shut the door to an account for up to a month, always with a reason you will read. Every such act is written in the keeper's ledger.
The keeper alone touches the world, the economy and your personal details, and only the keeper hands out gems or points.
If something was done to you unfairly, the red line at the bottom of any page reaches the keeper directly.

Letters are private: nobody reads them unless one is reported or trips the realm's safety checks; then the keeper reads it, with the few letters around it, to judge it fairly.

Keep yourself safe. Letters and the square carry words only: links, phone numbers, addresses and handles on other apps are blanked out. Never give anyone your address, your school or your phone number, and never agree to meet someone from the realm. If anyone asks for these, for secrets or for pictures, report the letter.

What walks the woods

The smith's stock

Each time you slay the balaur, the smith renames the stock: the same fifteen weapons and armours, weakest to best, only under new names. There are ten sets of names, so after the ninth balaur they stop changing. The list below is the stock as you see it now, by your own tally of balaurs slain.

The smith sells nothing whose bonus is more than your level plus 2, however much gold you bring: wealth buys comfort, not a skipped climb.