HARROWTOLL · SALTMERE

Saltmere

THE ROAD TO BELLCROSS

        A SHARED WORLD AT THE EDGE OF THE TIDE

        Harrowtoll

        Every traveller begins on Saltmere. Walk down from Bellwether, explore the caves the sea uncovers, and break the coral guardian of Brine Hollow to open the gate to Bellcross. Other travellers share the island, the tide and the fight with you.

        Keyboard and mouse on a desktop browser. Wiki · World atlas · Movement playtest · Inspect the traveller

        A NEW TRAVELLER

        Stats

        Spread 330 points. Each stat starts between 10 and 100 and can be raised later with experience.

        Starting skills

        Spend your skill points on the skills you start with. You earn one more with each level. An untrained skill still works, at half strength, and cannot be raised.

        Your stat spread and your look cannot be changed after this. Skills can be added later. Every traveller starts with a plain sword, bow and wand.

        The world keeps moving while this menu is open. Your traveller stands where you left them.

        The Bellcross trader

        Sell

          Buy

            Sold to the trader today

              The trader pays half of a thing’s worth and sells everything at its full worth. What travellers sell stays on the shelf for a day, the newest fifty lots, for anyone to buy. The trader will not take your starting kit or anything you are wearing. The task board pays more for what the islands yield.

              The Bellcross scarab seller

              Scarabs

                Scrolls

                  Every spell needs a wand in your hand and a scarab of its level in your pack. About one cast in ten uses the scarab up, and Magic Efficiency makes that rarer. A scroll teaches one spell to a traveller who has trained its school, and is used up when it is read. Scrolls of level V are not sold anywhere: they are found. A scarab seller buys nothing back.

                  The Bellcross task board

                  A hunting task counts the creatures you help break on its island; come back here to claim it. A delivery is paid the moment you hand it in. Every task can be done again.

                  The Bellcross order board

                  For sale

                    Wanted

                      List something you carry

                        Ask for something

                        The board holds what you list until it sells or you take it down, and an order nobody meets comes down after two weeks. Asking for something pays its gold in at once. The board keeps 5 percent of every sale. Everything you buy or earn here waits in your vault, which you reach at any town’s bell. You can have 12 orders up at once.

                        Your vault

                        In your vault

                          In your pack

                            The largest allegiances

                              One vault is yours at every town’s bell, whether or not you are bound to that bell. It keeps what you lay in it, what you buy and earn at the Bellcross order board, and whatever an order of yours held when it came down. Nothing in it is lost when you fall. It holds 60 separate things at first, and gold enlarges it by 20 at a time, up to 200.

                              Trade

                              You offer

                                From your pack

                                  They offer

                                    Nothing changes hands until both of you have agreed to the table exactly as it stands. Any change to either side takes both agreements back. Worn gear and the starting kit cannot be traded. Walking apart or closing this panel calls the trade off.

                                    Report to the keeper

                                    The keeper receives your note, where you stand, the game’s build and, for a traveller, what they last said. Several reports against one traveller mute their chat until the keeper has looked.

                                    The Grandmaster offices

                                    One traveller holds each office in the whole realm. A title carries an aura that is always there round its holder: a friendly one helps their fellowship and allegiance, a negative one weakens their foes. A combat title adds a twentieth to its holder's health and blows. Nobody holds two offices of one kind.

                                    The Bellcross still

                                    A brew never fails. Drink a potion from your pack; every potion shares one pause of twenty seconds. Each brew earns craft points toward the office of the Still.

                                    Saltmere chart

                                    Gold: you and open gates · Grey: sealed gates · White: other travellers · Blue: cave portals. Creatures are not charted. The sea is drawn at its present height.

                                    Traveller’s controls

                                    Every rule, creature and item is in the wiki, which opens beside the game.

                                    W / S
                                    Forward / backward, along your body’s facing
                                    A / D
                                    Turn your body
                                    Drag / wheel
                                    Orbit / zoom. R recenters the camera.
                                    Shift / Q
                                    Hold to walk / toggle auto-run
                                    Z / C
                                    Sidestep left / right
                                    Space
                                    Hold to charge a jump; release to leap
                                    H / G / B / Y
                                    Crouch / sit / lie / stand
                                    `
                                    Draw the weapon you wear, or put it away. Change weapons in your pack
                                    1 to 6
                                    With a sword or a bow in hand, use one of the weapon’s abilities as your next attack; each opens at a level of the weapon’s skill. With a wand in hand, cast the spell on that square of your spell bar at the selected target; Shift with 1 to 5 turns to another of its five pages. One pressed while you recover waits its turn; Esc clears it
                                    -
                                    Spellbook: the spells you know, what each costs and does. Drag one onto a square of the spell bar, or pick it and click the square. Right-click a square to clear it
                                    7 to 0
                                    Your quick keys. Drag a weapon, a piece to wear or a potion from your pack onto a square at the foot of the screen: its key wears the piece or drinks one potion. Right-click a square to clear it
                                    I / K
                                    Pack: worn gear, what you carry and, at the forge, smithing / character: stats, skills, experience and journal. Pack, Character, Allegiance and Friends are the tabs of one window beside the play: each key opens it on its tab, and the same key or Esc shuts it
                                    O
                                    Offices: who holds each title, the craft boards and where you stand
                                    Click / Tab / V
                                    Select what you click / the nearest creature, then the next one out (Shift + Tab goes back) / the nearest remains, then the next
                                    Double-click
                                    Open the remains you click, and take everything once they are open / run to the creature you click and attack it
                                    F / hold F
                                    Attack your target (with nothing selected, the nearest creature). One press is enough: you run to it if it is out of reach and keep swinging until it falls, you let go of it with Esc or you pick another target. Any movement key of your own ends the run, and F begins it again. Moving or guarding pauses the swings and they begin again when you stand in reach / while F is held each swing is a power attack: slower, twice as hard, dearer in stamina, and it breaks a guard
                                    Hold X
                                    Raise your guard. It turns blows from the front, spends stamina and slows you to a walk. If your stamina runs out, or a heavy blow breaks the guard, you are opened: the next blow on you lands twice over
                                    T / J
                                    Select the nearest traveller, then the next / challenge them to a duel, accept their challenge, or yield. A duel costs the loser nothing
                                    E
                                    Open or empty the selected remains, use a nearby portal or gate, turn the gate winch, open your vault at a town’s bell, ring a tide bell, work a forge, or speak to the trader and read the task board in Bellcross
                                    M / Esc
                                    Chart / let go of your target, then menu
                                    Enter
                                    Speak to everyone on your island. /a speaks to your allegiance, /t name, text sends a private message and /r answers one. Click a name in the chat to message, befriend, mute, block or report that traveller. /wave, /bow and /point make a gesture where you stand
                                    L / U
                                    Allegiance: your patron, your vassals and offers to swear / your vault, at any town’s bell: lay things and gold in it, take them out, pay to enlarge it, or bind to that bell
                                    N / P
                                    Friends: who of them is in the world / offer a trade to the traveller you have selected, standing beside them, or accept theirs

                                    Watch a creature wind up. Step away from a sweep, clear a slam, put cover between you and a shot, then strike while it recovers. Movement interrupts your attack preparation. Everyone who lands a blow shares the victory.

                                    Every attack lands. Your weapon skill is rolled against the target’s defense: a good roll hits in full, a poor one glances for a quarter of the damage. A creature’s blows are rolled the same way against your Melee, Missile or Magic Defense, and armor takes a share off each. Attacks cost stamina, which returns in seconds. Health returns slowly on your feet and faster sitting or lying down.

                                    A fallen creature leaves its remains where it fell, with gold, the materials of its kind and sometimes gear. Whoever did it the most damage may loot them alone for two minutes; after that, anyone may. Remains decay after five minutes, or two seconds after they are emptied. Double-click them and you run to them and open them, or walk up, select them and press E. Any movement key stops the run. A click picks the creature the pointer is on, even with remains lying in front of it. The harsher a creature, the better its gear can be: made of better material, to a better quality, with more spells, and sometimes with a property of its own that needs no mana. Very rarely a creature carries a named rare, and the whole realm hears who found it. A creature’s level is shown when you select it. Kills and first visits to landmarks and caves give experience. Spend it on skills and stats in the Character panel.

                                    Dying weakens every stat by 5 percent, to at most 10; the weakness wears off as you earn experience. You also leave a quarter of your gold and your most valuable piece of gear on your body, where it waits two hours, yours alone for the first half hour. Your starting kit never drops. A Gem of Loss worth more than the piece is lost in its place. Bind to a town’s bell for its price in gold to wake there and to recall to it from the Character panel at any time, for nothing. The bond is offered in your vault, which opens at the bell, and it asks you to confirm the price: nothing binds you to a town’s bell by a single press. Away from Saltmere, small tide bells stand along the brow of each island’s high ground, just above the highest tide: ring one for nothing to wake beside it instead. A tide bell opens no vault, takes no recall, and each is marked on the chart.

                                    Once you have left Saltmere, the Character panel also offers a recall to Bellcross from anywhere, once an hour. Either recall takes eight seconds of standing still: a step, a turn or a blow loses it and costs you nothing, and no bell calls you out of a fight.

                                    The tide rises and falls for everyone and covers the low shore; a traveller whose head goes under drowns. The Tidecut Gate stands across the gully below Bellwether. Turn the winch on its walkway to lower the shutter and hold the basin behind it at its present level, or raise it and let the sea back in. The gate moves for everyone. Cliffs have no safety barrier. Falls over 6 meters cause damage and a 16-meter fall is fatal. A fallen traveller wakes at the bell they are bound to, and otherwise on Bellwether green or, once they have left Saltmere, in Bellcross.

                                    The Bellcross Gate leaves Saltmere for good. Bellcross has a forge east of its bell, a trader west of it and a task board to the north, and four gates to the launch islands. The order board stands beside the task board: list what you carry for other travellers to buy, or pay in gold for something you want, and the board trades for you while you are away, keeping 5 percent of each sale. What you buy and earn there waits in your vault at any town’s bell. Each launch island has one sealed gate leading further out. A seal asks every traveller for materials its island yields; when it has them all its guardian wakes, and breaking the guardian opens the gate for everyone. Stepping outward through an opened gate costs a toll in gold. Away from Saltmere the tide climbs far higher: it closes cave mouths and covers the low shore, where the crabs lie hidden until the sea falls.

                                    Swear allegiance to another traveller to become their vassal. You keep everything you earn; your patron gains a share on top of it, and so does each patron above them, up to the monarch. The share grows from a quarter as the bond ages and you both play. Members of one allegiance share a chat and cannot hurt each other.