Every hero starts from a class and an ancestry, and grows through skills, gear and the passive web.
A class sets your starting attributes, skill, gear and place on the passive web. It does not lock you in: any class can socket any skill glyph, and the web lets a build drift towards neighbouring classes.
Raised in the burnt holds of the Cinderreach, Ravagers trust in heavy steel and thicker skin. Strength builds; life, armor and raw physical damage.
Cleaving StrikeSworn protectors of the Lantern Compact. Wardens blend armor and Ward, sacred flame and steady shields, and anchor any group.
Radiant StrikeScholars of the shattered Lattice who pull fire, frost and storm from its broken threads. Intelligence builds; spells, Ward and mana.
Ember BoltWhisper-trained agents of the Thornwood courts. Shades poison, curse and summon, wearing enemies down instead of meeting them head-on.
Blight DartTrackers of the Saltreach marshes. Stalkers master bows, traps and evasion, striking from range before the fight reaches them.
Piercing ShotPit fighters and sellswords of Gullhaven. Skirmishers dual-wield, block and strike fast, trading blows they mean to win.
Twin Slash
Choose one of five ancestries: the adaptable Hearthborn, the tall and long-lived Vaelin, the stout Durrak, the ember-marked Ashkin or the beast-blooded Wildborn. Each brings a small bonus, its own height and its own skin tones. Then pick a body, hair style and colours.
Armour shows what you wear. Helms, robes, cloaks, belts, shoulders and tabards each change the figure, and cloaks and robes move as you run and turn.
Every human in the world, heroes, companions, townsfolk, guards and human enemies alike, moves on a layered animation tree rather than one animation at a time. A walk that turns into a jog or a sprint picks up at the same point of the stride, so no step is skipped, and each stride is matched to the speed over the ground.
Weapons stay in hand at a run: a crossbow levelled in both hands, a two-handed axe, sword or staff carried across the body, a shield held up on the left arm. Attack or cast while running and the swing plays on the upper body while the legs run on; standing, it plays on the whole body, and the two blend as you stop or set off mid-swing.
Every blow is felt. A hit makes a figure flinch over whatever it is doing, chest and head knocked away from where the blow came, and a heavy blow knocks it back. Bodies lean into turns from the feet up, lean forward setting off and rock back pulling up, the head leads a turn, and townsfolk and guards turn their heads to a hero passing close by.
Feet find the ground. The animations are made on flat ground, so on a hillside the ground is read under each ankle: the hips sink as far as the lower foot needs, each knee bends to reach its own ground and a planted foot tips to lie along the slope. It works on open ground within about 32 metres of the camera; on bridges, house floors and in dungeons the animation's own legs stand. Eyes blink every few seconds, now and then twice, and glance about every second or two, and long hair swings on a spring: it trails behind a runner, swings out on a hard turn, lifts in the wind and settles.
Skin carries light under it, so shadow edges are soft and warm, with pores and a faint fuzz up close. Hair shines in bands along its strands, brows and lashes are darker than fair hair, eyes are wet and catch the light, and cloth has a soft sheen at grazing angles and a faint weave.
Skills live in glyphs socketed into your gear. Red, green and blue sockets take strength, dexterity and intelligence glyphs. A glyph gains experience with you and grows stronger with its level; right-click a piece of gear and choose Unsocket all to take its glyphs out. There are 49 to find.
Link a support rune to a glyph and it changes the skill: more projectiles, a wider area, chains, ailments, life leech. 36 runes, most with a cost to weigh against what they add.
594 nodes in clusters around notables, with 14 keystones that change how a build works. You earn a point each level and from some quests, and can refund points.
Every node of the web shows a painted emblem. Each of the 14 keystones and 49 notables has its own: the Glass Lantern a lantern burning in its cage, Stone Heart a heart of rock split by glowing cracks, Bloodbound a heart bound in chains, Wellspring a flask of mana, Hourglass Heart an hourglass. A cluster's small nodes share their cluster's emblem, each class's start has a crest, and the backbone's nodes carry a jewel for the attributes they give.
A node you have not taken waits greyed. It brightens once it is in reach or on the path you are planning, and shows in full colour once taken, and its card shows the painting beside what it gives. The emblems are modelled and lit in 3D, in enamel, gilt, steel, bone, glass and glowing stone.
The 14 keystones. Each one opens its entry in the wiki.
Every keystone gives something big and takes something back.
Your spells blaze brighter, but your body is fragile.
Nothing moves you, including your own legs.
Steel becomes flame; flame remembers you.
Skills cost Life instead of Mana.
You never strike critically, but every blow counts.
At level 14, Elder Maren sends heroes to the Trial of the Lattice beneath the Nine Sisters. Its way in, the Sisters' Stair, is an old stone tomb-mouth just outside the ring of stones south-west of Harrowford, and the Group Finder's "Go to the Trial" takes you in from level 10. The Trial is walked alone. Completing it opens a specialisation: two per class, each with four notable passives that push the class in one direction. A Ravager can become a Bloodreaver who feeds on wounds or an Earthshaker who breaks the ground; an Arcanist a Stormcaller or a Pyreheart.