Player’s Handbook

Player’s Handbook

Build 25 development reference · Reviewed 28 October 2026. This edition describes implemented source behavior; it does not announce a new downloadable game build.

Welcome to Tales from Oddwater. The Company’s home is Oddwater; the road beyond belongs to the Crooked Mile. This is your reference for assembling a party, learning magic, exploring, fighting and bringing everyone home.

Use the chapters when a rule is needed. Wick can explain the control in front of you; this book explains how the pieces fit together. Creature statistics and behind-the-scenes systems live in the companion volumes.

The Company

A campaign is one Company and their saved history. An adventure is a book in the library. An expedition is one run at a chosen difficulty. Individual hero levels, Company Rank and adventure difficulty are separate kinds of progress.

Four heroes travel in the active party. A new Company starts with Alaric, Markovia, Vestin and Mystere, with Thoradin and Spargle in reserve. You begin with 40 gold, three provisions and four Healing Potions. Recruitable heroes join the reserves; choosing who travels is your decision at the Guild.

Play Guided Prologue introduces Wick and the Old Road before reaching Town. It can be turned off when creating a campaign. Skip Movie skips the film; Skip Prologue ends the guided opening and takes the Company to Town. Continuing a campaign or changing books never replays the opening.

Hero improvements and Company belongings travel between books. Each unfinished expedition retains its own route, encounters, camps and history. Returning to Town does not end it. Resume brings your current Company back with their current wounds and supplies. Defeat does not end an unfinished expedition: return to the Temple for recovery and resurrection, then resume the book to revisit its unresolved encounter. Previously visited unfinished adventures remain resumable; never-started and completed books do not become unfinished runs.

Heroes and statistics

These are base level-1 statistics with starting weapon attunements, before level growth, training or equipment upgrades. Recruits arrive above level 1, so their actual health and Attack will be higher.

HP is remaining life. At zero, a hero falls and cannot act. Ordinary healing, rest and new expeditions do not resurrect them. AC is the target number an attack must meet. Attack adds to the attack die; damage is rolled separately after a hit. Initiative is a base speed score. The opening roll adds a battle-long bonus to the winning side; higher adjusted values act earlier. Mana fuels spells, while stamina fuels martial skills. Neither refills automatically each round.

Recruitment minimum levels are Xov 3, Juniper 4, Holga 5 and Kobol 6. Juniper, Holga and Kobol also catch up to the lowest active hero’s level when it is higher. Recruits join the reserves at full normal health for their level, with their starting equipment and no free purchased training. They never replace an active party member automatically. Kobol starts with an Earth weapon attunement and Earth armor ward.

At the Guild's Company page, select an active slot, select a reserve, then confirm SWAP MEMBERS. Selection alone makes no change. To change the active party's order, select a hero and use Move Up or Move Down; each press swaps adjacent slots, and the hero stays selected. Unavailable edge arrows are gray. Each hero retains their own health, resources, level, training, spells, equipment and attire. Reserves receive no ordinary active-party XP rewards and do not supply the living active specialist requirements of challenges. The first living active hero leads applicable dialogue; party order does not replace Initiative in combat.

Life in Oddwater

Prepare in Town before setting out. Select the relevant hero before purchasing their training, spells or equipment; gold and the Pouch are shared.

Recover restores living active heroes’ HP and mana or stamina and cures Poison, free. It does not revive the fallen or replace spent shared items. Bring a reserve into the active party if they need recovery.

Get a Room is an optional 10-gold stay and room-assignment puzzle at the Guild fireplace. The price covers the whole booking; returning to an unfinished reservation is free. Six guests take rooms, but only four remain the active adventuring party. Settle In recovers the living booked guests and readies their personal draughts. Fallen guests remain fallen.

Pick up a guest from their portrait or occupied room, then choose an empty room to place them. Placement releases the guest. The raised portrait and name show whom you are holding. Selecting another occupant picks up that guest without moving anyone. Choose the held guest again, Cancel, or B/Escape to put them back. To exchange two placed guests, choose Swap, select the other guest, review both destinations, then Confirm Swap. Undo restores the previous arrangement.

Innkeeper’s Requests opens the requests above the board. View / Select toggles this panel without changing your held guest or swap preview. Rules & Legend shows room directions and furniture; Requests returns to the requests. Reset Rooms is in the sheet. Close the sheet to return to the board, or close the board to leave with progress saved. Settle In succeeds when every request is satisfied.

A completed stay prepares Rested: +10% earned adventure XP, rounded up after other adventure adjustments, for the next expedition you enter, including a resumed run. It follows that expedition through Town visits, saves and party changes, ending at final completion or deliberate reset. It does not stack or improve another book. There is one booking per expedition; free recovery remains available.

The adventure library

The shelf contains ten numbered books. Populated describes current playable content, not a promise that balancing and polish are finished. Development previews are intentionally incomplete; coming-soon books cannot launch.

Book 1 · Populated adventure

The Forsaken Woods

Woodland roads, rival paths and the beginning of the Company’s journey.

Book 2 · Populated adventure

The Heart of the Forest

A wounded forest and a wizard’s tower, where roots and wards have opinions.

Book 3 · Populated adventure

The Lost Dungeons

Rival ruins, underground halls and dangers that have not stayed buried.

Book 4 · Populated adventure

The Burning City

A city on fire, with uneasy allies and a path beneath the streets.

Book 5 · Development preview

Black Tundra

Ten traversable locations; a provisional boss and elemental-crossing puzzle. Further content is in development.

Book 6 · Partial implementation

Boglands

Ten locations, connected passages, four moral encounters and a tarot reading are implemented. Further encounters and recruitment are in development.

Book 7 · Coming soon

Trouble in the Meadows

Cover artwork and a library preview are available. No playable module or locations are implemented.

Book 8 · Coming soon

The Titan Forge

Cover artwork and a library preview are available. No playable module or locations are implemented.

Book 9 · Coming soon

Harvest of the Moon Stare

Cover artwork and a library preview are available. No playable module or locations are implemented.

Book 10 · Coming soon

The Floating Citadel

Cover artwork and a library preview are available. No playable module or locations are implemented.

Begin with The Forsaken Woods. Completing it unlocks the Heart; completing the Heart unlocks the Dungeons; completing the Dungeons unlocks the City. Earned story access remains permanent. Black Tundra and Boglands are development entries outside the four-book difficulty gate.

Choose Venture Forth, browse to a book and open its preview. Start, Resume or Replay launches the selected expedition; merely inspecting a book changes nothing. The shelf marks unfinished expeditions with IN PROGRESS and directs a Company without an unfinished run toward NEXT ADVENTURE. You may still browse and choose manually.

An available introduction film plays on the first Basic launch. Skip begins exploration; Replay Intro Video later returns to the book without starting a new expedition.

Exploration and discovery

Move along an illustrated location and use the named interaction when you reach something of interest. Talk opens a conversation; Confront starts an encounter that requires an explicit choice. Walking near a character does not spend a reward or complete a conversation.

At the exit, Travel continues the journey when required obstacles are resolved. Some branches exclude one another for that expedition; other passages are ordinary shortcuts or return routes. Read the choice before committing.

The Map is a reference and travel interface. Inspecting it does not permit travel during combat or bypass a required interaction. The star marks your last visited adventure location, question marks hide unavailable locations, plus signs mark unlocked unresolved places, checkmarks mark resolved places and X marks an excluded branch. Previewing a destination does not move the Company; activate an enabled Travel control to go there.

Camps recover living active heroes and cure Poison once per campsite per expedition. Declining a camp preserves it for later. A used camp can remain visible without offering another rest. Boats and doors may deliver the Company to a matching passage rather than the normal entrance.

Challenges offer approaches, requirements and displayed bonuses. A normal check succeeds when d20 + modifiers meets or exceeds the difficulty number. Natural 1 and 20 do not override that comparison. Specialists must be alive and active; reserves cannot perform their role. Leaving an unresolved optional challenge makes no attempt.

Puzzles ask you to understand and manipulate an authored situation. Follow their own instructions: some resolve by an answer rather than a die roll, and their retry rules vary. Hazards can use a displayed chance or inflict a stated consequence. A decorative flame is not a timer unless the instructions say it is.

Successful ordinary d20 checks on a raw natural 20 add 10% to positive gold and XP already awarded, rounded up after other scaling. Explicit risky approaches can increase successful gold and XP by 25% or 50% before that bonus. Failed ordinary challenges grant no positive rewards. Nonlethal injury cannot reduce a living hero below 1 HP.

Resolved encounters and treasures award once per expedition. Each living active hero receives the full XP award; it is not divided between them. Reserves and fallen heroes receive none. An object remaining in the scene does not mean its rewards can be collected again. Saved puzzle progress and settled outcomes survive reopening and loading.

Party chatter and perception

As the Company walks, a small parchment panel may show one adventurer's remark or an optional Perception Check. Walking and the usual controls remain available. Stop within the panel's display area to keep reading; there is no timer or close button. Leaving the area ends the remark. Conversations, encounters, maps and menus take priority.

Chatter comes from one living member of the active party. Reserves and fallen heroes do not speak from the road. Speakers rotate through the active party, and a character's personal line is used only for that character. Chatter grants no reward and does not complete an interaction or open a route.

A Perception Check rolls one d20 for the Company, initially with +0 against DC 12. A result of 12 or higher succeeds. The die spins in place inside the panel even when Free Dice is on; your saved dice preferences and other rolls keep their usual behavior. The settled die remains beside the result.

Success reveals an optional observation and grants exactly +2 XP to each living active hero present when the check was committed. This amount does not increase with difficulty, Rested or a natural 20. Failure grants nothing and causes no penalty. These observations never replace a required clue or interaction, and XP still requires a chosen Guild level-up.

Each placement happens once per expedition. Returning to Town, changing the party, switching books or resuming committed progress does not reroll it or grant its XP again. An interrupted check retains its result; if its panel is still active when you return, it shows the settled result. Deliberately walking away may mean missing the observation.

For expeditions saved before this feature, newly added chatter and checks are skipped without rewards in locations already visited. Unvisited locations remain eligible; a fresh expedition includes the new placements. Existing route progress is preserved. Manual Save/Load and Leave Without Saving keep their usual checkpoint behavior, including an intentional return to an older save.

Combat

A battle begins with an encounter preview. Choose Roll Initiative: each side rolls two D6. The higher total grants that side a battle-long Initiative bonus equal to the difference; ties grant neither side a bonus. Choose Begin Combat to start. The guided opening keeps its own authored sequence.

Combatants act in descending adjusted Initiative order. Ties use higher base Initiative, then stable party/enemy roster order. The order remains fixed throughout the fight. A living combatant normally takes one action per personal turn; some enemies take multiple strikes.

An attack rolls d20 + Attack + modifiers against current AC. Meeting AC hits. Natural 20 always hits and maximizes the damage die without doubling damage. Natural 1 is a critical miss and may cause a brief setback. Automatic spell effects need no attack roll; group spells resolve each target independently.

Choose a target before confirming an action. Targeted ally spells and items show the selected recipient. Cancellation or an invalid target spends nothing. Using a shared item spends the acting hero’s turn, not the recipient’s.

Alaric, Markovia, Thoradin, Xov, Juniper and Holga attack in melee. Vestin’s crossbow is ranged; Mystere, Spargle and Kobol use spell attacks. Attunement changes damage element, not contact type. Damaging melee contact can trigger retaliation even when the strike defeats its target.

Defend spends an action for +3 AC until the hero’s next turn begins. It reduces only damage whose rule explicitly recognizes Defended; it is not universal damage reduction. Personal Defend adds separately to party protection. Shield Wall and an ordinary party armor buff use the stronger protection rather than adding together.

An active artifact can replace a personal skill; a passive artifact preserves it. Inspect the action for its current cost and recipient.

Read the target plate, roll result and condition names as an action resolves. Help shows current statistics and exact status durations. Additional condition lines marked +N remain active even when not all fit on the plate. Animations and colors present the result; they do not change the roll. BLOCK identifies actual protection; an ordinary miss remains MISS. Victory and Defeat clear stale transient feedback rather than showing an old condition message over the ending.

Combat history shows one compact event line beneath initiative. Use the arrow tabs to browse earlier or newer events without spending an action. Very long captions shorten to fit; the result panel retains roll details.

Auto-Advance Messages offers Off, On and Party Only. Off waits for Continue; On advances results automatically; Party Only advances your chosen actions but pauses between automatic actions. Blind Mode hides the top initiative/history display while retaining the battlefield, results, targets and actions. Both change presentation, not rules.

Some encounters have environmental effects between rounds. Read the opening and inspect their warnings. Victory ends the fight and records its rewards once; reopening a report never pays again.

Elements and conditions

Damage elements

The six elements are Fire, Frost, Void, Holy, Wind and Earth. An unattuned weapon deals physical damage. Weapon attunement changes weapon damage; a learned spell retains its own element.

Weakness increases elemental damage by half, rounded up. Resistance halves it, rounded down, with at least one damage for a positive elemental hit. Weakness and resistance cancel when both apply. Physical resistance affects unattuned physical damage; it does not automatically resist elemental weapons or spells. Resistance is not general invulnerability and does not usually prevent a condition unless its rule explicitly says so.

When physical or elemental resistance actually reduces damage, the log identifies (resists) beside the result. The displayed number remains actual HP lost. Defend, an opening-hit block or weakness/resistance cancellation alone does not produce this marker. A Frost weakness changes Blizzard's damage, not its Freeze chance.

Common conditions

Active buffs and debuffs appear in the top party status frames and beside enemy health plates. Each reserves two condition lines; +N indicates additional active effects. Open Help or the character sheet for the complete list and exact duration. Brief battlefield messages announce changes. In the spell or pouch menu, select party members or enemies to change targets; use Back/B to close without spending an action.

FROST RESIST means Frost resistance prevented a Freeze from an effect that permits that defense. RESIST means the status was avoided normally. Frozen and Locked turns count as completed turns where a duration uses completed turns.

Armor buffs such as Stone Mantle and Smoke Bomb, Gale, Camouflage and Thorn Skin count duration at the recipient's turn beginnings. A two-turn effect ends as the second upcoming turn begins; its application is not an extra tick. Gravity Well instead lasts through the target's next two completed turns. Shield Wall has its separate enemy-turn window.

Briar Balm and Polymorph

Briar Balm heals one living ally immediately and schedules two separately rolled healing pulses at the beginnings of their next two turns. Each pulse cures Poison and Sapped, is capped at maximum HP, and counts even at full HP. Recasting heals now and replaces the schedule with two future pulses. Different allies can have Balm at once. The caster falling does not cancel another ally's Balm, but the recipient's death or leaving combat discards unused pulses.

Poison resolves before Balm. If the recipient survives, Balm arrives before Frozen or Locked skips; lethal poison cannot be undone by a later pulse.

Polymorph: Goat preserves the enemy's original name, HP and defenses but prevents its whole action for two turns, including multiple strikes and special actions. After the second skipped turn, normal form returns without an extra action. Any positive damage, including poison, breaks it; misses, zero damage and nondamaging effects do not. Each caster can maintain one goat. A new valid target releases the previous one; recasting refreshes the duration. Bosses are immune, and an ineligible attempt spends no mana or action. Goat overlaps Frozen and Locked skips instead of postponing them until afterward.

Spellbook

Learn spells permanently at the Temple for the selected hero's class. Starting spells are already learned. Each cast spends an action and the listed mana. These are base learning prices. Kobol can learn ordinary Mage spells as well as his exclusive rune spells.

Spell	Who can learn it	Gold	Mana	Effect
Blizzard	Mage; Mystere starter	20	1	One enemy: d4+1 Frost damage; 40% Freeze chance on a survivor.
Ember	Mage; Spargle starter	20	1	One enemy: d8+3 Fire damage.
Winter Circle	Mage	30	2	All living enemies: independently rolled d6+2 Frost damage.
Void Lance	Mage	35	2	One enemy: d10+4 Void damage.
Gale	Mage	25	1	All living enemies: -3 Attack until each one's second upcoming turn begins.
Stone Mantle	Mage	25	1	Living party: +3 AC and Defended until each one's second upcoming turn begins.
Quiet Focus	Mage	20	0	Spend a turn to regain 1 mana.
Mending	Cleric; Markovia starter	0	1	One living ally: d8+4 healing; cures Poison and Sapped.
Dawn Chorus	Cleric	30	2	Every living ally: independently rolled d6+3 healing; cures Poison and Sapped.
Recall the Fallen	Cleric	45	2	Revive one fallen ally with d6+3 HP.
Radiant Word	Cleric	25	1	One enemy: d8+3 Holy damage.
Briar Balm	Druid; Juniper starter	20	1	One living ally: d4+1 healing now and at the start of their next two turns; each pulse cures Poison and Sapped.
Polymorph: Goat	Druid; Juniper starter	0	2	One eligible enemy loses its next two turns. Positive damage breaks it; bosses immune; one goat per caster.
Briar Lash	Druid	25	1	One enemy: d6+2 Earth damage.
Thorn Skin	Druid	35	1	Living party returns 2 Earth damage after damaging melee contact until each recipient's second upcoming turn begins. No AC bonus.
Hurl Stone	Kobol starter	0	1	One enemy: d10+3 Earth damage.
Fault Line	Kobol starter	0	2	All living enemies: independent d6+2 Earth damage; each damaged survivor has a 35% Off Balance chance.
Gravity Well	Kobol only	45	2	One enemy: -3 AC through its next two completed turns. Refreshes; only the stronger of this and Off Balance applies.
Rune Detonation	Kobol only	80	3	All living enemies: independently rolled d10+4 Earth damage.

Thorn Skin applies normal elemental defenses to its retaliation. Ranged attacks, spells, Poison and Burning do not trigger it. Recasting refreshes the duration without stacking damage. Stone Mantle grants Defended status without adding another armor bonus; Smoke Bomb provides its armor bonus but does not grant Defended.

Artifacts

Artifacts belong to the Company and are equipped through the Guild. A hero has one artifact slot, and each artifact can have only one wearer. Class compatibility limits who can use it. Active artifacts replace the wearer's personal skill; passive artifacts preserve it.

The Horseshoe does not use a purchased ward slot or halve damage again when a hero already has a Fire ward. An ARTIFACT ACQUIRED receipt identifies a newly owned artifact; an artifact already owned produces no second acquisition.

Supplies, recovery and retreat

The shared pouch

Combat items use the acting hero's action. Select an active recipient, then choose the item from Pouch. Healing and resource items need a living recipient; Angel Feather needs a fallen ally. The actor spends the action; an ally who receives it keeps their own turn. Returning to Actions without using an item spends nothing. Ineligible or ineffective use spends neither the item nor the action.

A healthy actor may administer a potion to an injured ally. A poisoned or Sapped living hero can receive healing to cure the condition even at full HP. Healing Potions do not revive the fallen; use Angel Feather or Recall the Fallen. Angel Feather clears Poison and Sapped, leaves mana/stamina unchanged, and receives the normal shop discount but no healing-item bonus. Shop supplies use four rows per page; use MORE ITEMS and ITEMS to browse.

Fallen heroes

A fallen hero remains fallen until resurrected. At the Temple, resurrection costs 30 gold per hero and restores full HP without automatically refilling mana or stamina. Recall the Fallen revives an ally in combat for its stated HP roll. If no unlocked Company member remains alive, the Temple gives emergency mercy to the first active hero: 1 HP for free. The others still need resurrection.

Returning and fleeing

An ordinary voluntary return to Oddwater costs one provision. If none is available, it costs 10% of current gold, rounded up, capped at 50 gold and at the gold you have.

Flee is available on a valid hero turn and requires a provision. It consumes one provision plus 5% of current gold, rounded down, returns the Company to Town with their wounds, and leaves the encounter undefeated. The ordinary Town-return cost is not charged again. An engulfed hero cannot initiate Flee; another eligible hero can.

Defeat costs 10% of current gold, rounded down, and brings the fallen to the Temple. If the last living hero dies while striking the final enemy, the Company is defeated and receives no victory loot. Defeat and retreat do not award completion Reputation.

Levels, training and equipment

Experience and levels

The level cap is 12. Each level adds 3 maximum HP and +1 Attack. Living heroes gain the added HP; fallen heroes stay fallen. All level-ups are chosen at the Guild and cost 60 times the current level in XP, subtracting that cost. Level 2 costs 60 XP; a level-2 hero needs 120 XP for level 3; a level-11 hero needs 660 XP for level 12. Earning XP does not automatically grant levels. Existing earned levels are retained.

XP progress is individual. Gold is shared. Living active heroes each receive the full displayed XP grant from an ordinary reward, while reserves and fallen heroes receive none.

Guild training and Blacksmith upgrades

Training and equipment ranks are separate from hero levels. The prices below are base prices before Company discounts.

Health training also adds 3 current HP to a living hero. Resource training adds one current mana or stamina. Weapon improvements do not change the damage die; these upgrades do not change Initiative.

Attunements and wards

Weapon attunements cost 60 gold per element per hero. Ownership is individual. Equip an owned element free at the Blacksmith; only one is active. Physical is always owned and free. Markovia starts with Holy, Mystere with Frost, Spargle with Fire, and Juniper and Kobol with Earth. Learned spells keep their own elements.

Armor wards cost 45 gold per element per hero and are separate purchases from weapon attunements. Up to two wards may be equipped at once. Equipping, unequipping or clearing an owned ward costs nothing and preserves ownership. Kobol starts with an Earth ward.

Only purchases made during your current continuous Blacksmith visit can be refunded, at their actual paid prices. Leaving or loading ends that refund window. An owned choice from an earlier visit can still be equipped free but cannot be refunded.

Difficulty, rank and attire

Each adventure offers Basic, Advanced, Expert, Master and Master+. To earn the next Company-wide tier, complete the preceding tier in every required story adventure: currently all four books. Each individual book must also have its own preceding tier completed. Earned access remains permanent when the library grows.

For a fresh Company, play Basic in story order: the Woods, the Heart, the Dungeons, then the City. Later books become tougher alongside your progress. Optional fights may be substantially harder than the main route. Use the Guild to turn XP into levels, improve equipment and refill supplies before advancing.

Advanced is intended for the Company after their Basic adventures. Enemies are harder to hit, so accuracy bonuses, armor reduction and automatic spells become more valuable. Your levels, training and equipment keep their normal benefits.

Expert and above recommend level 12 with substantial training and equipment. This is advice, not a level gate. Expert is a clear step beyond Advanced. Master asks for heavy investment, careful tactics and regular recovery, even at level 12. Master+ is an exceptionally difficult fixed endgame: excellent equipment, full supplies, suitable wards and careful resource use give the Company their best chance, but do not assure victory. If a tier proves too difficult, replay a completed lower tier for rewards and preparation. Enemy status effects generally become more likely at higher tiers, so resistance and tactical counterplay still matter.

Use Choose Difficulty on a book's introduction to start, resume or replay. Completed tiers can be replayed for normal gold, XP and completion Reputation. A new expedition resets that book's route obstacles, camp uses and reward availability while preserving the Company, completion history and other books.

Replacing an unfinished expedition asks for confirmation. Cancel preserves it; Confirm starts the selected tier afresh. Starting a fresh tier or replay restores living active heroes, while fallen heroes still require resurrection. Replays use fixed settings for their selected tier. Master+ never compounds difficulty or resets the Company.

An interrupted battle retains the enemy balance settings it started with. Updated difficulty settings apply when a new battle begins.

Reputation and rank rewards

Reputation belongs to the whole campaign, separately from individual XP and adventure difficulty. Successful completion pays once per expedition, including replays.

Company Rank derives from accumulated Reputation. All earned benefits remain active at higher ranks. Reputation continues accumulating after Rank X.

View the full set in Company Ledger > RANK REWARDS. Select a card for its details, then Close to return to the ledger.

Discounted prices and increased healing or gold round up. At Rank VI, Potion/Smoke/Provisions/Beans cost 6/9/14/11 gold. At Rank VIII, Guild stat training costs 14/27/68/135/230 gold. These discounts do not change Temple, Blacksmith, attire or XP leveling costs. At Rank VII, a Healing Potion rolls its usual d8+4, increases that amount by 10%, then caps it at maximum HP; spells, resurrection and resource restoration are unaffected.

Veteran's Map reveals campsites without unlocking travel or marking a place visited. Supply Cache preserves ordinary stack limits and one-time chest rewards. Scavenger's Charter applies to ordinary event, dialogue, puzzle, treasure and combat gold, including trapped treasure. It excludes other special challenge or completion awards, chest overflow conversions, wishing-well grants and Moonbones returns. It does not increase XP or reduce any costs or retreat penalties.

Attire

Attire is cosmetic and never changes combat statistics. Base attire is always owned. Purchasing and equipping are separate actions: buying an outfit never equips it automatically. The Shop and Character Sheet share the same ownership and selection, and equipped artwork changes immediately.

Current purchasable outfits cost 10 gold each: Alaric's Unhelmed and Gladiator, Thoradin's Tavern Brawler and Holy Warrior, Mystere the White, Pyro Spargle, Battle Markovia, Geared Vestin, Hydra Xov, Juniper's Wild Growth, Battle Armor Holga and Kobol's Spike. Recruit attire becomes purchasable when its hero joins; Battle Armor Holga has no extra rank or difficulty requirement. All ten current heroes have Gilded attire. Rank III owns those choices even before a hero is recruited; recruitment still controls whether that hero can join the active party.

Games beyond the road

Oddwater Arena offers standalone practice bouts using living active heroes at full temporary health and resources, with their own improvements. The Arena lends two Healing Potions and one portion of Coffee Beans per attempt, plus fresh personal draughts. Afterward your original Company state returns. Yield has no retreat cost; an interrupted bout ends safely instead of resuming.

The daily Company gold entitlement is 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 for Basic through Master+. A win pays only the improvement over what was already claimed that day. The reset is 16:00 UTC. Bouts award no XP, Reputation, adventure progress or new difficulty access. Replays remain available after the purse is exhausted.

Moonbones is an optional dice-table game. Its current stake is 10 gold, with a 20-gold total return for a win. In up to four rounds, combine a d20 and d6 using a valid sum or difference from 1 to 20 to claim Moon (1–6), Eye (7–13) and Crown (14–20). Claim all three to win. You may reroll the d6 once per game; its replacement stands. Duplicate signs still spend a round.

Closing an unfinished paid game preserves its dice and progress, not a refund. Wins grant no XP or ordinary reward bonuses. The testing configuration currently has no win cap; a future production cap is not active in this reference.

Records and saving

The Character Sheet describes a hero’s statistics, equipment, attire and conditions. The Company Ledger keeps discoveries, expedition outcomes, gains, losses and Reputation. The in-game Monster Manual counts defeats by creature across the Company’s adventures. The website Monster Manual is a separate, spoiler-filled reference.

After combat, the Oddwater Eye opens that adventure’s latest combat report: participants, outcome, rounds, actual damage and healing, critical hits and recorded rewards. Overkill and overhealing do not count. Reading reports changes nothing.

Each campaign has Quick Save, Auto-save and three manual slots, plus separate interruption recovery. Venture Forth writes Auto-save before opening the library. Use Game Menu > Save / Load for explicit saves and loads. Selecting a slot previews it; it does not load automatically. Quick and manual slots support Save, Load and Delete; Auto-save supports Load and Delete.

An explicit successful Save or Load establishes the session checkpoint. Save & Leave preserves current progress. Leave Without Saving returns the resume state to that checkpoint, preserving other slots. Venture Forth Auto-save and interruption recovery do not move the checkpoint. An unexpected shutdown uses interruption recovery instead.

Campaigns stay separate. Rename keeps progress and slots. Deleting a campaign or save slot requires confirmation; deleting a slot leaves the running adventure and interruption-recovery save intact. Saves are local, with no cross-device synchronization. Apple TV’s local development saves are cache files that the operating system may purge.

New encounters are not forced into cleared locations behind an existing expedition, and old rewards are not paid again. Start a fresh expedition to see every new addition.

Controls and Wick’s help

Click or tap visible controls. Hold an exploration arrow, use A/D or Left/Right to walk; E interacts with a nearby point. Drag or swipe the library to browse. The eligible named action takes priority over Travel.

Right-click, touch and hold or focused R3 opens contextual help without activating a control. Inspect even an unavailable action to learn why it cannot be used. Close help, then make a fresh input to act. Long factual references and ledger lists may scroll. Ordinary story passages use complete fixed reading frames, without generated Previous/Next overflow pages. Real collections and help lessons retain their authored pages. Combat history uses its separate single-event line and browsing arrows.

Open Game Menu > Help · Wick’s Guide to review lessons and controls. Automatic guidance and Tutorial Effects can be switched off independently; factual help remains available. Wick’s spirit points at the relevant control. Closing a card dismisses it without performing the action, spending supplies or awarding anything.

Supported adventure-framed artwork can be enlarged with the same inspection gesture. Close with a fresh click/tap, Escape, Back or R3. This preserves the current page and pauses/resumes its presentation. Town backgrounds, hearths and scenery are not selectable artwork controls.

Settings include audio, movie subtitles, dice animation, combat message pacing and Blind Mode. Subtitles default on and are a device preference. Presentation choices never change accuracy, damage or difficulty. Modal controls keep priority: a reference shortcut is not a way to bypass a required encounter.

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