WARDENFALL
01🏰 Overview02🗺️ Regions03⚔️ Military04⏳ Turns05💥 Combat06🗡️ Espionage07🤝 Diplomacy08⚖️ Trade09📜 Messages10🏆 Scoring11🏛️ Tax & Tech12🎯 First Moves13🧭 Expeditions14🛡️ Heroes15🕳️ The Delve16🏴 Conquest17🔮 The Deeper Game

Every rule · every number · every edge

THE PLAYER’S GUIDE

The complete mechanics of Wardenfall — how the realm cycles, how battles resolve, and where the gold really comes from. Read it, and you will beat people who didn’t.

New here? Take the 2-minute tour first — then come back for the numbers. (⌘F works.)

Chapter 01

Overview

Five resources, one shared realm, fifteen turns a day — the machine under everything.

Your empire

You control a barony in a shared realm. Every player competes for land, gold, and dominance across daily cycles.

Your five core resources

Gold buy regions, units, and fund operations
Food feeds your population and military each day
Population grows your tax base and score
Popular Supportaffects Coastal region gold output (support% × base)
Turns your action budget; 15 per cycle, reset at midnight Eastern (EST/EDT)

You start with: 100,000g · 2,000 food · 500 population · 75% support · 50 soldiers.

Plus 35 regions: 10 Coastal, 10 River, 10 Industrial, 2 Mountain, 1 Desert, 1 Urban, 1 Technology.

New player shield

Your empire is protected for 7 days after founding. During this window nobody can attack you.

Use the shield period to build your economy, buy regions, and grow your military before entering the war phase. The shield icon in the top bar shows how many days remain.

You CAN attack others during your shield — you just can't be attacked back.

The daily cycle

At midnight Eastern (EST/EDT) every day the realm cycles

  • ▸Your income is applied (gold produced − maintenance)
  • ▸Food is consumed by population and military
  • ▸Population grows (Urban regions + natural growth)
  • ▸Popular support shifts based on your tax rate
  • ▸Technology regions raise your tech level
  • ▸Industrial regions produce military units
  • ▸Market prices update based on realm-wide supply
  • ▸Your 15 turns reset

The cycle countdown in the top bar shows time until next reset.

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Chapter 02

Regions

Land is the engine. Eight kinds of country, each paying out its own way.

Region types

Regions are your land base and primary income source. Each type plays a different role

COASTAL800g buy+150g/day (× support%)−10g maintHighest income, support-dependent
RIVER500g buy+80g/day + food bonus−8g maintDual-purpose income + food
MOUNTAIN450g buy+70g/day (stable)−8g maintReliable; +1% industrial output each
DESERT350g buy+60g/day−5g maintImmune to Doomfire
URBAN600g buy+20g/day+15 pop/day−12g maintPopulation engine
INDUSTRIAL700g buy+10g/day+3 units/day−20g maintMilitary production
TECHNOLOGY1200g buyno goldraises tech−30g maint+2% efficiency per tech level
WATCHTOWER800g+ + timberaids scouting−8g maintBoosts Expeditions (scout finds & survival); price ramps steeply per one owned
WASTE50g clearnothingliability−5g maintCursed; cleanse to clear it

Buying and selling

Regions are bought and sold on the Market page and the Empire page. Prices are dynamic — the global market adjusts based on how many of each type all empires collectively own.

Scarce regions→ price rises
Abundant regions → price falls

Sell price is roughly 60% of buy price. Regions stolen in combat are transferred at no cost.

THE EXPANSION PREMIUM: past 100 total regions, every further purchase costs a growing premium that climbs with your holdings (shown on each land row in the Market). It applies to every land type equally, advances within a bulk order, and never touches selling. Small realms feel nothing; sprawling ones pay real money to sprawl further.

Tech level

Each daily cycle your tech level rises by 1 until it reaches the number of Technology regions you own (hard cap 10). So 2 Technology regions take you to tech level 2; 5 regions to level 5. Tech level adds a 2% efficiency bonus to all gold production per level, stacking multiplicatively.

Tech level also contributes 600 points per level to your score — the highest per-unit score value in the game. Technology regions are expensive (1,200g base) and get steadily pricier: each one you already own raises the cost of the next by 25%, on top of normal market swings — so stacking efficiency gets harder the deeper you go.

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Chapter 03

Military

Grain feeds them, gold arms them, industry breeds them.

Unit types

Five unit types, each with different combat roles

SOLDIER100g buysell 60gATK 1.0×DEF 1.0×5g/day maint2 food/dayBalanced, cheap
CAVALRY200g buysell 120gATK 2.0×DEF 08g/day maint1 food/dayPure offense
BALLISTA150g buysell 90gATK 0DEF 2.0×3g/day maint0 food/dayPure defense
KNIGHT250g buysell 150gATK 1.2×DEF 1.2×6g/day maint1 food/dayVersatile
TREBUCHET350g buysell 200gATK 0DEF 010g/day maint1 food/dayDoomfire + special ops

Maintenance, food & the conscription cap

Every unit costs gold maintenance and consumes food each day. Run out of food and your army STARVES — soldiers desert and popular support craters. Rivers grow food; a big army needs a big breadbasket (or the market).

Ballistas are the only zero-food unit — pure defensive value at low upkeep.

Industrial regions automatically produce 3 military units per day — the cheapest way to build army size over time.

CONSCRIPTION: your population is your army supply. A policy dial (50–150%) caps your offensive army at population × rate. Holding above the 50% peacetime baseline costs daily popular support — and the cost DOUBLES above 100% (total war). Free industrial production is clamped to the cap.

If the granary runs dry, "Swords to Plowshares" retires regular soldiers to the fields for food — no gold, no support hit.

Force composition

Early game: Soldiers + Ballistascheap, covers both offense and defense
Mid game:Add Cavalry for raiding; Knights for sustained campaigns
Late game:Trebuchets for Doomfire capability and Pillage support

Never go all-offense (Cavalry only) — you'll be demolished by any Ballista-heavy defender while you're away.

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Chapter 04

Turns

Your action budget — and why patience is a weapon.

Turn budget

You receive 15 turns per daily cycle. Turns reset at midnight Eastern (EST/EDT) regardless of how many you used.

Turns do NOT carry over — unused turns are lost at reset. Check the cycle countdown in the top bar to plan when to act.

Turn costs

Every offensive action costs exactly 1 turn

Military attack1 turn
Doomfire1 turn
Withering Curse1 turn
Spy mission1 turn
Demoralize1 turn
Stir Revolt1 turn
Pillage1 turn
Send aid (gift)1 turn

Buying regions, trading on the market, sending messages, proposing alliances, and changing your tax rate are all free. Sending aid to an ally is the one diplomatic action that costs a turn.

Strategy

With 15 turns you can run 15 covert ops, or 15 attacks, or any mix.

A common pattern: spend 2–3 turns on spy missions to gather intel before committing the remaining turns to strikes. Knowing the target's turns remaining tells you whether they can retaliate this cycle.

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Chapter 05

Combat

How battles actually resolve, blow by blow.

Military attack

Commit 10–100% of your forces against a target empire. The attacker and defender's forces clash — casualties are dealt to both sides.

Victory: steal regions from the defender (lowest-count regions taken first).
Defeat:your forces took heavier losses, no regions won.

The more forces you commit, the harder you hit — but uncommitted forces stay home for defense. Never commit 100% unless you're sure no one will counter-attack.

Defenders don't stand alone: their military allies muster 15% of their forces to the wall, and their ALIVE, AT-HOME Heroes join the garrison — each fighting at full raid power. Heroes who hold a lost defense take wounds like any battle.

Doomfire

Cost: 5,000g + at least 1 Trebuchet unit.

An arcane cataclysm that scorches a rival's land into cursed Waste — it converts approximately 8% of the target's regions. Waste produces nothing, costs 5g/day maintenance, and hurts your score — the victim can cleanse it for 50g per region on the Empire page to clear the penalties. Desert regions are immune to Doomfire.

Doomfire notifies the defender with your name.

Withering Curse

Cost: 2,000g.

A wasting curse that decimates a large percentage of the target's Soldiers. No regions won or lost — purely an attrition move to weaken their defense before a follow-up military strike.

Best used as a setup: wither their soldiers, then military attack the same cycle.

Notifications

All overt attacks (military, Doomfire, Withering Curse) send an inbox message to the defender with your empire name and the damage dealt. You also receive a personal operation report in your Messages.

Covert operations use a different notification system — see Espionage.

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Chapter 06

Espionage

What the knife in the dark can do — and what it costs when it slips.

Covert operations

All covert ops cost gold + 1 turn. Covert actions are ANONYMOUS — the defender is alerted, but your identity stays hidden unless their counter-intelligence unmasks you.

Spy Mission 300g gather intel on target (see below)
Aristocrats' Gala 150g cheap social recon
Demoralize 500g −10 popular support on target
Stir Revolt 800g −50 population and −15 popular support on target
Pillage 1,200g steal from the target's unbanked treasury
Gold Heist 1,000g steal a slice of their loose gold
Food Heist 1,000 food steal from their granaries
Trinket Heist steal an UNSECURED trinket from their trove
Sabotage 1,500g destroy a chunk of their Watchtowers

Back any op with extra gold (500g per level, up to 8 levels) for +6% success per level — up to +48%.

Spy mission intel

On success, each of 9 intel pieces rolls independently

Total region count 90% (publicconfirms Rankings data)
Population 85% (publicconfirms Rankings data)
Turns remaining 65% (tacticalcan they retaliate?)
Popular support 60% (economicCoastal gold multiplier)
Gold 45% (economicfuzzy ±8%)
Food 38% (military sustainabilityfuzzy ±8%)
Total unit count 28% (threat assessmentfuzzy ±8%)
Region type breakdown 18% (strategicwhat to target)
Military breakdown 12% (crown jewelexact unit composition)

Expected: ~4–5 pieces per mission. All numeric values are approximate ±8%. Full intel report is also sent to your Messages inbox.

Espionage strategy

Spy before you strike. Knowing the target's turns remaining tells you if they can retaliate this cycle. Their military breakdown tells you whether to send Cavalry (vs. Soldiers) or Knights (vs. mixed forces).

Demoralize stacks — hitting Coastal-heavy empires repeatedly tanks their primary income source.

The heists can net positive: you steal more than the op costs while the target absorbs the full loss. Banked gold (Treasury) and secured trinkets are safe — only loose wealth can be lifted.

DISPATCH A THIEF: send a Thief Hero on a heist and they add success odds, slip past some Watchtowers, and fatten the haul — but if the op fails they're "made": wounded and out of action for a while.

DEFEND YOURSELF: Watchtowers resist ops, and the Spymaster building line (Watch-House → Lodge → Hall of Whispers) adds detection — unmasking who attacked you — plus op resistance, and unlocks a Counter-Espionage Sweep that jams incoming ops for hours.

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Chapter 07

Diplomacy

Truces, trade, and the alliance that musters to your walls.

Alliance types

Four proposal types, all requiring the target to accept before becoming active

Military Alliancethe full bond, ENFORCED. Three things at once: enforced non-aggression; mutual defense (when your ally is attacked, 15% of your forces join their defense, and theirs join yours); and shared conquest (every fortified Realm either of you discovers shows on both boards). Break it first on the Diplomacy page, then attack.
Trucehonour system. Attacks still work, but the attacker pays −5 popular support for dishonor and the truce voids instantly. The defender is notified.
Trade AgreementENFORCED. Unlocks the Trade page for direct player-to-player buying and selling between both parties.
Tech Agreementshared research. Both baronies gain a real +1 tech level for as long as the pact holds; it counts toward production, combat, everything. No cap: every active pact is another +1.

Proposal flow

Search for your target by barony name or username using the empire picker on the Diplomacy page, select a proposal type, and send.

The target sees the proposal in their Incoming Proposals panel and can Accept or Reject. Either party can break an active alliance at any time — status is set to BROKEN and both parties are notified.

You can only have one alliance record per pair of empires. To propose a different type, the existing one must be broken first.

Sending aid (gifts)

Use the Send Aid panel on the Diplomacy page to give resources to a partner — a one-way transfer, no payment required.

Gold and foodrequire an active Trade Agreement with the recipient
Military unitsrequire an active Military Alliance with the recipient

Each gift costs you 1 turn. You cannot send or receive gifts while under the 7-day new-player shield. The recipient is notified by in-game message; gifts are private and do not appear in the public realm feed.

Strategy

Alliance clusters win realms. A solo player with 30 regions loses to two allied players with 18 each who coordinate attacks.

A Military Alliance is the strongest bond in the game: your ally's spears muster to your walls when you're hit, and every fortified Realm either of you finds is a Realm you can besiege together — coalition sieges split the spoils by contribution.

Trade Agreements are the diplomatic currency of mid-game: they open the Trade page, letting you offload surplus food or buy discounted units from industrial allies.

Truces with aggressive neighbors buy time — but they're not enforced, so a dishonorable player can still attack you.

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Chapter 08

Trade

The realm-wide markets — and the merchant who knocks when you least expect him.

Player-to-player trading

The Trade page lets empires buy and sell directly — but only if an active Trade Agreement exists between them. No agreement, no access.

Tradeable goods: Food, Soldiers, Cavalry, Ballistas, Knights, Trebuchets.

Listings are visible only to your trade partners. Any partner can purchase any of your listings.

Listing mechanics

To create a listing: select item type, enter quantity and price per unit. The listing posts immediately and expires in 24 hours.

Inventory is checked at purchase time — if you spend your stock before someone buys, the purchase fails.

When a trade completes: gold transfers instantly from buyer to seller, goods from seller to buyer. Both parties receive an inbox notification.

Pricing

The trade table shows a "Ref" column — the current global market buy price for that item. Listings at or below market show in green; above market in red.

Why buy from a player instead of the global market?

  • ▸Players sell food cheaper than the market floor when they have surplus
  • ▸Bulk units at below-market prices from military-heavy allies
  • ▸Instant delivery at a negotiated price

The global market has infinite supply but dynamic pricing. Player markets have limited supply but flexible pricing.

The Roaming Trader

From time to time a travelling merchant sets up outside your walls — a panel appears on the Market page while their cart is in town (roughly a day's window).

  • ▸The Trader BUYS your unwanted trinkets and hero equipment for gold — below their true value, but instant coin for gear you'll never use. Fused items sell for more.
  • ▸The Trader also SELLS a small rotating stock — handy fusion fodder if a piece matches something you already hold.

Equipped gear and secured trinkets are never sold by accident — only spares.

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Chapter 09

Messages

Heralds, reports, and the paper trail of war.

Your inbox

The Messages page is your in-game inbox. All notifications land here — you never need to check a separate app.

What generates a message

  • ▸Someone attacks you → notification with attacker name and damage
  • ▸Someone runs a covert op on you → vague system alert (attacker identity hidden)
  • ▸A trade listing you posted sells → confirmation with buyer name and gold received
  • ▸You buy someone's trade listing → confirmation with seller name and total paid
  • ▸A spy mission succeeds → your personal intel report
  • ▸An alliance proposal arrives → notification to accept or reject
  • ▸Admin broadcasts → realm-wide announcements

The Messages link in the nav shows a red (N) count when unread messages are waiting.

Sending messages

You can send direct messages to any empire from the Messages page. Use the search box to find a player by barony name or username — no need to look up IDs.

Messages are free and don't cost turns. Use them to coordinate attacks, negotiate alliances, or arrange trades before posting a listing.

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Chapter 10

Scoring

What the ladder actually measures. Climb it on purpose.

How score is calculated

Score is calculated from eight components

Land (region type × strategic value)

TECHNOLOGY130 pts/region
COASTAL120 pts/region
INDUSTRIAL115 pts/region
URBAN110 pts/region
RIVER90 pts/region
MOUNTAIN85 pts/region
DESERT70 pts/region
WASTE−30 pts/region(liability)

Military

TREBUCHET22 pts/unit
KNIGHT16 pts/unit
CAVALRY14 pts/unit
BALLISTA9 pts/unit
SOLDIER4 pts/unit
Population:pop ÷ 8
Support bonus:(support% × pop) ÷ 2,000
Technology:tech level × 600
Wealth:gold ÷ 150
Food:food ÷ 80
Heroes:sum of living hero levels × 1,000

Renown & Collection — deeds and hoards count

Two further pillars reward how you PLAY, not just what you hold.

Renown — your battle record

Every raid won8 points; frequent, so each is a small brick
Every realm conquered1,200 points; the rare pinnacle

Collection — your hoard

Trinketsscored by rarity, and CONVEXLY with fusion level; a fused Lv2 is worth more than the two Lv1s it ate, a Lv3 more than two Lv2s
Whispersevery story-thread you have ever solved also counts

A barony that fights and collects visibly outranks a quiet one of equal size.

What this means strategically

Technology regions are the highest-scoring land in the game (130pts each) and also raise tech level, which multiplies all income. Expensive at 1,200g but worth prioritizing mid-to-late game.

Population contributes directly to score AND boosts it via the support bonus. Urban regions are the fastest way to grow population.

Gold has a low score weight (÷150) deliberately — hoarding gold shouldn't dominate rankings. Empires that convert gold into land and military will outrank gold hoarders.

Heroes are the hardest-won asset in the game and are a marquee score pillar: every level of every living hero is worth 1,000 points (about 1.7 tech levels), summed across your whole roster (an unclaimed recruit scores nothing until you claim and name it). Levelling a hero through raids — and unlocking extra hero slots in the deep realms — is one of the fastest paths up the rankings, not just a combat boost.

Waste actively hurts your score (−30 pts/region) and drains 5g/day in upkeep. On the Empire page you can cleanse it for 50g each: this clears the region and stops both penalties. The land itself is spent — you don't get a usable region back — but the bleeding stops.

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Chapter 11

Tax & Tech

The two quiet dials that run your whole economy.

Tax rate

Set on the Empire page (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%).

Support delta per cycle

0–10%+3 support/day(people love you)
11–20%+1 support/day(comfortable)
21–30%0 support/day(neutral)
31–40%−2 support/day(grumbling)
41–50%−5 support/day(unrest)

Tax revenue

Gold per cycle = population × (tax rate ÷ 100)
Example: 1,000 population at 20% tax = +200g/cycle

The support trap

Popular support is a multiplier on Coastal region output. At 50% support, your Coastal regions only produce 75g/day instead of 150g/day.

High tax → support falls → Coastal income collapses. This is the central economic tension of the game.

Recommended default: keep tax at 20%. It gives +1 support/day, enables natural population growth, and still generates meaningful tax revenue. Only raise it temporarily if you need a gold surge.

Technology level

Your tech level rises by 1 each daily cycle until it reaches the number of Technology regions you own (hard cap 10). Hold 5 Technology regions and you climb to level 5 over five cycles; buy more to raise the ceiling. Tech level adds +2% to all gold production per level (multiplicative).

Level 1:+2% all gold
Level 5:+10% all gold
Level 10:+20% all gold

Tech level also adds 600 score points per level — the highest score-per-unit return in the game.

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Chapter 12

First Moves

Your first week, in order. Steal this plan.

Day 1: point the machine

You start LANDED AND FUNDED — 35 regions, 100,000 gold, and a 7-day shield nobody can break. Don't sit on it; point it somewhere.

Priorities in order

  1. 1Keep tax at 20% or lower (support must stay healthy — it multiplies your Coastal gold)
  2. 2Buy Soldiers — 300–500 is a real deterrent for when the shield drops
  3. 3Add 1–2 more Technology regions: tech multiplies ALL your gold and is the highest score-per-region in the game
  4. 4Recruit a scout or two and send them out — your first raid target is a day away

Your Industrial regions are already forging free units daily, and your Rivers are growing food. The engine runs itself; your job is to aim it.

Day 1, continued: claim your Hero

Go to the Heroes page and claim your first Hero — Warrior, Ranger, Mage, or Thief. It's free, permanent, and the single most compounding thing you own: every raid levels them, every level raises your score by 1,000 points, and their gear, skills, and orders swing every fight you take.

Send them on every raid you run. A Hero on the bench earns nothing.

Days 2–7: raid, ally, watch

RAID — when a scout reports a location, hit it with a comfortably large war-party + your Hero. Materials fund your first buildings (Treasury first — it pays interest and protects your gold); trinkets and gear start your collection.

ALLY — propose Trade Agreements with baronies your size, and one good Military Alliance: allied spears join your defense, and every fortified Realm either of you discovers is shared.

WATCH — go to Rankings and note who's big, who's undefended, and who has no shield icon. Run a 300g Spy Mission on anyone you're curious about. When your shield drops on day 7, you'll already know the board.

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Chapter 13

Expeditions

Scouts out, war-parties after — the loot loop that feeds everything else.

Scouts & the unknown

Once your barony reaches Tech Level 1 (one daily cycle with your starting Technology region), you can recruit scouts and send them beyond the realm's borders to find places worth raiding.

  • ▸Recruit scouts with gold on the Expeditions page.
  • ▸Send them on a Short, Medium, or Long journey.
  • ▸Longer journeys cost more (gold + food provisions), take longer, and are more dangerous — but they reach farther, richer places.

Each scout returns on its own timer… and not all of them come home. Watch them on the Expeditions page.

Raiding a discovery

A returning scout reports a location. You can send a war-party of soldiers to raid it — or walk away, no cost.

  • ▸Raiding costs a turn plus food provisions.
  • ▸Your soldiers are AWAY and UNDEFENDED until they return — a rival can strike while they're gone.
  • ▸Bigger war-parties win more often and lose fewer troops.

Win, and you haul home materials, gold, and — rarely — a trinket. Lose, and you count the dead. The richer the prize, the deadlier the odds.

Materials, trinkets & the Treasury

Raids yield building materials and the occasional trinket.

  • ▸Trinkets are rare keepsakes that grant a quiet, lasting bonus to your barony while you hold them. The more dangerous the raid, the better the find.
  • ▸Spend materials to build a Treasury — it pays interest each cycle on all the gold you hold (up to its capacity) and a higher Prime rate on anything you bank; banked gold is also safe from the Covert Bomb. It secures your trinkets and raises your standing. Higher tiers raise both rates, the capacity, and your trinket protection.
  • ▸Your banked gold (Treasury) and banked food (Granary) are now SPENDABLE: any purchase — units, land, food, buildings, scouts, raid provisions, covert ops — draws from your loose funds first and dips into the reserve only for the shortfall, so you never have to withdraw before you buy. The reserve stays safe from raiders; only SELLING and GIFTING are still paid from loose funds.

Unsecured trinkets are vulnerable, so a Treasury is worth building.

Where to raid for what

Each location yields its own mix of materials, and the journey length biases which you discover: Short journeys mostly find Tier 1, Medium mostly Tier 2, and Long journeys reach the dangerous Tier 3 sites — the only source of Wardenstone.

TIER 1 — close & safe (lots of one material, a trickle of a second)

  • ▸Derelict War Caravan — Stone (lots) + a little Iron
  • ▸Collapsed Mine — Iron (lots) + a little Stone

TIER 2 — a healthy haul of two materials, a little of a third

  • ▸Abandoned Ruins — Stone + Iron · a little Timber
  • ▸Blackwood Thicket — Timber + Stone · a little Iron
  • ▸Barbarian Camp — Iron + Timber · plus conscript survivors (free soldiers)
  • ▸Abandoned Logging Camp — Timber + Iron · a little Stone
  • ▸The Old Quarry — Stone + Timber · a little Iron
  • ▸Smelter's Hold — Iron + Stone · a little Timber
  • ▸Sunken Trade-Post — Timber + Stone · a little Iron

TIER 3 — dangerous & rich (the only Wardenstone sources, best trinkets)

  • ▸Drowned Temple — Wardenstone + Stone
  • ▸The Wardenwood — Wardenstone + Timber
  • ▸The Warden's Vault — Wardenstone + Iron · a guaranteed trinket (brutal odds)

Need something specific? Stone & Iron: most Tier 1–2 sites. Timber: the Thicket, Logging Camp, Old Quarry, Trade-Post, Barbarian Camp, and the Wardenwood. Wardenstone: Tier 3 only. (The material tooltips in-game list this for you too.)

The Expanded Lands

The sites above are the NEAR realm — the beginning, not the end. Win the Warden's Vault at Brutal odds and the map itself expands: the Pale Steppe, the Ashscar, the Saltmarch, and the Witherwood open in sequence, each with its own raid sites, its own far-realm materials (Greathide, Cindercoal, Warden-Resin, Flux-Salt…), richer trinkets, and crueller odds.

The deep realms are where the best hero gear drops, where extra Hero slots are won, and where the materials for the highest buildings come from.

Getting started

  1. 1One daily cycle takes you to Tech Level 1 — Expeditions unlock.
  2. 2Recruit a scout or two and send them on Short journeys first — cheaper and safer.
  3. 3When a location turns up, raid it with a comfortably large war-party (and your Hero).
  4. 4Bank the materials you bring home toward your first Treasury.
  5. 5Never send your whole army out at once — undefended baronies get punished.

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Chapter 14

Heroes

Not just numbers — names. Your champions, their gear, and their orders.

Claiming & classes

Heroes are named champions who fight alongside your armies — claimed free on the Heroes page, named by you, and permanent.

WARRIORthe line-holder: heavy strikes, heavy armor, holds when others break
RANGER the marksman: multi-shots, first strikes, keen eyes for loot
MAGE the arcanist: novas and firebolts that hit whole packs at once
THIEF the shadow: fast, evasive, devastating openers, and the best looter

Class is permanent. Every raid they survive earns XP; every level adds power, unlocks skills — and adds 1,000 points to your score. Extra Hero slots are won in the deep realms.

Attributes, skills & orders

Six attributes drive a Hero's combat channels — STR (physical damage), DEX (crit + initiative), INT (spell power), VIT (health), WIS (nerve + faster cooldowns), CHA (morale) — with each class leaning on its signature pair. Spend earned points on the Heroes page.

Levels unlock a growing kit: passive skills that always apply, and active skills used in battle.

STANDING ORDERS set how a Hero fights on raids

Cautious second rank: HALF the wounds, ~65% damage and XP
Balanced fights where the line needs them
Aggressive leads every charge: +30% damage and XP, +35% wounds

Field a loot-bonus Hero as a cautious quartermaster, or let a veteran earn the risk premium.

Equipment & the Realm Armory

Raids drop hero equipment across nine slots — weapon, armor, helm, charm, two rings, cloak, boots, gauntlets, belt. Rarer gear falls in deeper realms.

The Heroes page armory shows your realm's WHOLE pool, filterable by slot, with every piece labelled by who wears it — equip, reassign, or strip gear in one click. Click an empty slot and your best spare piece that fits is offered automatically.

FUSION: mash two identical pieces (or trinkets) into one of the next level — stronger than either, and it frees space. Fused gear keeps climbing to Lv5.

Heroes wounded in battle recover with time; a fallen Hero is mourned at the Memorial — and the darker buildings can bargain with death itself.

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Chapter 15

The Delve

A turn-based descent — your Heroes against the dark, room by room.

A turn-based descent

The Delve is a click-by-click dungeon crawl for your Heroes — Wardenfall's take on a mini Darkest Dungeon. Send a party of up to four Heroes into a themed site — the Sunken Crypt, the Witherwood Warren, the Freebooters' Keep, the Hollow Grove — at one of three depths.

It costs 2 turns to begin, and you can run one Delve at a time. Your Heroes go in with their REAL record — current HP, gear, level, and skills all in play — and come back changed: richer, wounded, or shaken.

The crawl

Each site is a fog-of-war map you explore room by room. You see the room you're in and the ones touching it; step into an adjoining room to reveal and face what's there — a FIGHT, a TREASURE, an EVENT, or a CAMP — winding toward the BOSS that guards the best of the loot.

  • ▸A found MAP lays the whole layout bare (contents stay hidden).
  • ▸A found COMPASS marks where the boss waits — zoom the map (＋ / －) to keep it in view.
  • ▸CAMP to heal your party and steady frayed nerves before the deep gets deeper.

DREAD: every hit and every horror frays a Hero's nerve. At 100 Dread they hit a breaking point — some turn Fearful, some turn Resolute. Camp, and good play, keep the line from cracking.

Combat & the fallen

Battles are real turn-based fights: an initiative order, each Hero's class skills (cleaves, marks, novas, backstabs, and their earned active skills), crits, damage-over-time, stuns, and guards. Hover a foe to preview the damage a strike will land.

A Hero can be DOWNED — out for the rest of that run — but Heroes do NOT die in a Delve. A downed Hero is carried out wounded (race the clock back to the entrance before they bleed out). Retreat at any time and you keep half your spoils.

Depths, spoils & the deep that remembers

Three depths, each tuned for a stronger party

Shallowan average party of level ~25 in uncommon gear
Deep an average party of level ~35 in rare gear
Abyssalan average party of level ~45 in fused gear (Lv2+ legendary / Lv3+ rare)

Win and you haul home gold, crafting materials, and Hero XP; the boss drops the richest prizes, including boss relics. And THE DEEP REMEMBERS: venture the same site over and over and its denizens grow stronger with each descent (a visible +% on the site card) — and so does the reward.

Getting started: unveil a Delve site (your first is free; more come from scout finds and Whispers), pick a depth and a party of up to four, and descend. Bring the recommended party — Abyssal will put careless heroes on the floor.

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Chapter 16

Conquest

Fortified Realms, living sieges, and the regent’s fate in your hands.

Fortified Realms

Conquest is the endgame: fortified REALMS — procedurally-generated fortress territories with garrisons, regents, and land worth taking.

You DISCOVER Realms by raiding (a won raid can surface one). A Realm you find is private to YOU and your military allies — no one else can see or besiege it. Tiers run 1–4; the recommended force climbs from ~2,000 soldiers (T1) to ~16,000 (T4).

The living siege

March REGULAR soldiers on a Realm — they travel in real time (1–3 hours by tier), arrive, and make camp. From there, your call

WAIT the garrison starves faster the more you outnumber them; a patient siege turns a bloody storm into a walkover. But camping isn't free: the walls answer with arrow-storms, sorties, fever, and wall engines.
STORMassault the fortress NODE BY NODE (gate, walls, yard, keep…). Every node is a turn-based battle you command blow by blow: your columns and your Heroes against defenders who telegraph their next move. Hover a target to preview exactly what your strike will do.

Break the keep and YOU choose the regent's fate — his head, his ransom, his knee, or his garrison in your colors.

Spoils, risk & coalitions

Victory claims the Realm's LAND, gold, and godstone, split by contribution. Your fallen are really dead (regulars die first; ★ veterans march home at rank) — and your committed army is AWAY and undefended while it sieges.

Reinforce a siege mid-campaign, or rally a COALITION with your allies to crack a high-tier Realm together. Each Realm you break raises your notoriety: the next fights harder and pays richer.

Siege progress holds within the day; the daily reset clears the field.

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Chapter 17

The Deeper Game

Whispers, great powers, Titans — the game beneath the game.

Whispers & the Codex

Your scouts sometimes return with more than maps — they surface WHISPERS: short story-threads that advance as you play (no extra busywork) and end by revealing a secret on the CODEX, your star-map of mysteries.

Whispers pay story, gold, titles, and relics — and some of them unlock things nothing else can. When a Whisper offers you a choice, read it twice.

The seven great powers

Seven great powers watch the realm from beyond your borders — the Pale Horde, the Saltsworn, the Ashen Covenant, the Witherwood Coven, and three guilds of service. You MEET them through raids: a won raid can surface a first-contact encounter.

Each rises and falls on a Hostile↔Allied ladder. Court the ones that match how you play (war, commerce, industry, the arcane — or plain gold tribute) and their ALLIED perk is permanent while you hold it: cheaper upkeep, more food, stronger raids, defenders mustering to your aid. Anger one to Hostile and it raids you back. Daily.

The realm fights back

The realm is alive, and it will not always wait for you

World Eventsa Titan or a Blight marches. An omen gives days of warning; a war council convenes; every barony pledges troops, gold, and food. Repel it for realm-shaking spoils; fail, and the realm is rampaged.
Crossroadsdilemmas land on your dashboard with real stakes: a rich unescorted caravan, riders at the frontier, a plague rumor. Choose, and live with it.
Daily Contractsthree objectives a day, paying gold and timed badge-buffs; clear all three for bonus turns.
The Cemeteryyour war dead leave GHOSTS, and dark rites can raise them: a Spectral Host the size you choose, marched into battle. Every power down this road has a price.

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You know the rules now.

Most of your rivals don’t.

Free to play · no download · ~30 seconds to start