Important Journal Information

This is an edited copy of information that can be found in the player's journal provided to all characters upon creation, here for easy viewing.

Knowledge is Power.

Advancement

Gaining Experience (XP)

The maximum character level is 8. To get there, a PC can gain experience from exploration, advancing through dungeons, working a steady job or through a DM. Killing monsters, while a means to advance through dungeons, does not grant XP in itself. There are two factors which limit the pace of advancement. First, each PC has an XP cap which is only lifted over time. This cap increases whether the PC is being played or not. Second, a dungeon grants zero XP and severely reduced treasure if a PC revisits within one week.

Class Abilities

Many class abilities were added or expanded. Paladins can Detect Evil, Rangers can use Tracking, Wizards have had Opposed Schools reshuffled and can Research new spells, Rogues can craft Poisons and so on. There are new and altered prestige classes to try whilst powerful feats also await PCs who stay true to a single class instead. Some abilities have a few restrictions. For instance, the crafting of Scrolls requires a material component, the Sneak Attack bonus is reduced for all heavy and ranged weapons and specialist wizards lose their bonus slots if they don't memorize spells from their chosen school. There are new spells such as Detect Magic and Obscuring Mist, but more importantly there have been severe changes to the duration and effects of existing magic. Several abilities can be utilized through the Craft menu, so be sure to look there as well.

Other Changes

PCs are able to pay taxes to earn legal rights, to buy or rent horses as the quickest way to get around, and to use Special Moves in combat.

For changes to resting, dying and death, as well as possible emote, voice and language commands, please see the individual topics.

Your character starts the game not with a sum in GP but with a couple of Coin items stored inside a Coin Pouch. This system is used because it gives a more accurate impression of the value of goods. Many NPC merchants still use GP to report prices. In these cases your coins will be converted automatically.

Coin Pouch

Your coin pouch is used to hold the coins you plan to use. It's the first target for pickpockets, but only the coins in your pouch can be used to pay NPCs.

For a quick tally of coins both in and outside the pouch, you can use the @coin voice command.

Relative Values

There are four types of coin in Impiltur, made with copper, silver, gold and platinum alloys.

• The smallest unit is 1 copper piece.
• 50 cp makes 1 silver piece.
• 1000 cp, or 20 sp, makes 1 gold piece
• 10000 cp, 200 sp or 10 gp makes 1 platinum piece

Background

Coins minted in Impiltur show the face of a past monarch and have names (both official and unofficial) other than the metal they are made of:

Copper Piece (cp)

Monarch: Imphras II

Coin name: Sardil

Slang: King's Thumb

Silver Piece (sp)

Monarch: Ilmara

Coin name: Halanth

Slang: Shining Lady

Gold Piece (gp)

Monarch: Imbrar

Coin name: Balan

Slang: Lost Lucky

Platinum Piece (pp)

Monarch: Imphras I

Coin name: Torntar

Slang: Founder

Death

Dead characters take on a spirit shape and leave a portable body item behind. They can be restored to life through magic or buried in a lasting grave.

The Body

The body can be carried by other PCs, to be revived or buried in a suitable location. A buried corpse gets a tombstone, which can be engraved and stays around forever unless the PC is deleted or the body is exhumed. The body cannot be looted without the cooperation of the deceased.

The Spirit Shape

While in Spirit Shape, your PC is under the protection of a Greater Sanctuary effect. Only PCs in your party have the mechanical ability to see or hear you. Take care you don't haunt someone who can't tell you're trying.

For a comatose PC, this shape represents an unremembered out-of-body experience until a Revive spell is cast. You can use this approach to avoid being nominally dead.

For a properly dead PC the shape represents either the soul or spirit of the departed. This may be anything from a harmless, invisible entity to a most vengeful ghost, depending on your intertactions with the world.

While dead, you cannot pick up items, though you can drop them (for instance, to facilitate looting the body). You cannot rest, but may be able to use certain feats (like Summon Animal Companion). You can't cast spells but won't be targetted in turn either. Area of Effect abilities can still affect you. You can't leave the area your body is in or gain XP, but can open doors and trigger traps. You can even fight if desired, though that's often a bad idea.

For more information about the Death and the Spirit Shape and the roleplay possibilities and restrictions surrounding it, please be sure to review the Ghost & The Dead PC guide.

Death Penalties

Other than the cost of priestly services, there are two penalties for dead PCs. They are XP suppression and attribute loss.

XP suppression lasts several days after being restored to life and halves all new XP gain. For each death in Spirit Shape the duration increases. In addition to XP reduction, you won't be able to use Restoration or Greater Restoration spells to cure attribute loss while this effect is active.

Attribute loss may happen whenever you use Respawn or Revive to return to positive HP. The likelihood is greater in the latter case. This will permanently cost you 1 point in a random attribute, until cured. If any of the base attributes ever drops below 3 because of this, your character will be permanently dead.

A Restoration spell offers a temporary attribute bonus equal to all the points you've lost in your career. Greater Restoration offers a permanent cure but is far more rare and expensive.

Return to Life

Your options are the Revive spell, suffering both penalties, or the Resurrection spell which only comes with XP suppression and fully restores all past attribute loss. It is, however, more expensive even than Greater Restoration.

Because permanent cures to attribute loss are expensive, your PC may weaken over time. That by no means invalidates your character. They are the marks of experience.       

The Easting Reach uses a bleeding system and allows characters to respawn under certain conditions.

Bleeding

When a PC's hitpoints drop below 1, they fall to the ground and begin to bleed to death. A character in this state is barely conscious and in agony, lacking all ability to take actions.

Any attackers will be tempted to turn to other, more pressing threats. A high Charisma score increases these chances.

A bleeding character loses 1 hitpoint per round until they stabilize or reach -10 HP. Stabilizing happens when the PC makes a successful Constitution-based roll, at which point they start to heal 1 hitpoint per round instead until their HP total is positive once more.

Others can help the recovery through healing spells and kits.

Negative 10

When a PC fails to recover before reaching -10 HP, they lose consciousness. If they are potentially able to respawn, they will stay unconscious for 5 turns before dying. Otherwise death arrives after mere seconds.

The Respawn button appears if a second PC, not engaged in combat, stands next to the fallen character for a while to offer assistance. It represents a regain of consciousness and a recovery from near death. It is possible that the character is permanently marked by the experience, losing a single point in one of their attributes. There are no other penalties, but the PC will be unable to respawn again for several days, depending on character level.

Respawning

If respawning is not an option because there is no help or the ability is on cooldown, the character becomes either comatose or dead and will need at least a Revive spell to recover. This is your RP choice to make, for mechanically the two states are the same.

Permadeath

There is only one condition through which your character may be made involuntarily permanently dead (permadead) and this is if any of their base attributes drops below 3 (as a result of respawning or revival).

The Death topic describes character death and the mechanisms of attribute loss in greater detail. The First Level topic explains how the respawn rules differ for level 1 characters.

Emotes

Emotes are performed by entering the ;  (semi-colon) command followed by an emote from the list below. They are not integrated into normal text but can be assigned to a macro.

Some emotes have multiple versions. For example, ;cheer will play one of three cheering emotes. In these cases you can also choose a specific one (e.g. ;cheer2).

Emote List

• angry - threatening
• back - fall down onto your back
• beg
• bored
• bow
• cast (cast1, cast2) - overhead and forward spell casting
• chair - sit as though on a chair
• cheer (cheer1 - cheer3)
• chop
• chug
• cower
• cross
• crouch
• dodge
• drink
• drunk
• duck
• follow
• front - fall onto your stomach
• gaze
• laugh
• left - look left
• listen
• low - disable trap
• mid - open lock
• point
• pour
• pray
• read
• right - look right
• salute
• scratch
• shift
• sit - on the ground
• sleep
• smoke (smoke1- smoke3)
• spasm
• steal
• talk
• taunt
• think
• tired
• wave
• worship
• zzz - floating Zs

First Level Benefits!

As a first level character, you have a few benefits over others. They are meant to help you find your way and get a feeling for your abilities and surroundings in a relatively forgiving environment.

• You have access to the store in the starting area. This offers a wide range of goods at low prices to help you set up your character. During your first session, you get an additional discount on all purchases. Tracking some of these items down in-game can be difficult, so you'll do well to grab what you can.
• You gain a bonus to the treasure you find whilst dungeoneering.
• You can use a special version of the Respawn ability (see also Dying) a set number of times. This comes with a reduced chance of permanent injury, has no cooldown period and can be used even when you're off alone. If you aren't in a party at the time, you'll regain consciousness at a temple instead of the place where you fell.
• You can use the @leader voice command. This will teleport you to your party leader as long as you aren't inside a dungeon at the time, saving you the trouble of working out how to get to their location.

All of these benefits are lost once your XP total reaches 1000.

Language System

The Easting Reach uses a language system without tokens. This works by typing voice commands into the chat bar. No free bonus languages are assigned, so your PC will not know any languages until you select them.

Management Commands

Before you can use languages you have to select them. This is done with the following commands:

[V] - A command to view the languages you've currently learned and the amount you can still learn.

[I] - A command that lists all available languages or, if you enter a specific language (e.g. [I] Easting), gives additional information about that language.

[L] - A command that, followed by the name of the language, has you learn that language. Languages cannot be unlearned.

[U] - A command that, followed by the name of the language, selects that as your active language to use.

Basic Commands

To use a language, start your text with the [ command. No closing brackets are needed. If you want to exclude something from translation (such as names or emotes) you can put that inside { } brackets.

You can use the [A], [F], [D], [S], [M] and [1-5] commands to throw your voice to your animal companion, familiar, dominated creature, summoned creature, possessed familiar's master and the first 5 henchmen you control. This can be combined with a language function ([A] [I speak draconic).

Choosing Languages

You do not learn languages based on race or class, but can select them if desired. This means that you could play an elf who doesn't speak elven, or a fighter who knows the secret tongue of the druids.

You have this freedom, but please consider that some language choices must be anchored firmly into a character's background and may have consequences. Said fighter did not just stumble upon druidic secrets, nor will druids readily allow their secrets to spread.

Not all foreign languages have been included. Most of the regional languages belong to the lands around Impiltur or larger nations. If your character hails from far away, you may have to choose the next best thing. No one else is likely to understand your native tongue anyway.

Understanding Languages

Some languages seem gibberish, whilst others are vaguely recognizable. The latter are more commonly heard in Impiltur or related to Common.

Characters can sometimes identify or even understand snippets of other languages, particularly with a high Intelligence. They are automatically informed when this happens.

Because languages are not just about intelligence but also about exposure, you may also try to interpret them manually:

• Characters speaking Easting or Damaran can try to interpret the other language in full.
• All characters can try to interpret every other word in the Common tongue parents Chondathan, Damaran and Illuskan, and every third word in Easting.
• Local (Impilturan) characters can try to interpret every third word or so in lookalike languages, particularly if their background suggests dealings with the nationality in question.

Resting and Quality Rest

Though it does not advance server time in any way, a character's Rest is treated as a long period of low activity rather than a quick pause to regain breath. Because of this, PCs cannot rest whenever and wherever they like.

There are resting locations throughout the module, each belonging to one of three basic types. Characters can rest in a bedroom, at a campsite or in a dungeon. Each has its own properties.

Bedrooms

Resting in civilization often costs money, but a PC gets safety in return. This allows them to recover all of their lost hitpoints and replenish all their spells. It's possible to rest again just 30 minutes after the last rest.

Campsites

Resting in the wilderness is possible if you find a good location. PCs can also create one by deploying a campsite kit. They may then rest if it's been 60 minutes or more since the last time. There is a chance campers are harrassed by wild animals or small bands of monsters. Moreover, the HP and spells a PC recovers vary with the quality of their rest.

Dungeons

Resting in a dungeon is only possible if you find a defensible position. The environmental threats and resting quality are even worse than that of the wilderness, though the 60 minute period remains the same.

Resting Quality

Your resting quality is determined by several factors, including the armour you wear, the quality of the food you carry, your Constitution attribute and Survival skill and the possession of a tent.

Together, these factors determine how many hitpoints you regain and how effective your spell recovery is. In the wilderness, you may be unable to recover your highest level spells after a poor night's rest. In a dungeon, you may even lose your second-highest level spells as well.

Ambush

When animals or monsters attack, they will sneak up to the party and surround one of its members. Characters who are not resting at the time make a Perception check to notice this and raise the alarm before the enemy gets too close.

A rest attempt may be interrupted once without resetting your rest timer. You can try to rest again after an ambush or recover from a misclick.