News

What has changed in the realm, newest first.

Directions from the guards, icons on the map and fighters keeping apart

6 October 2026 · version 0.86

People no longer say the same thing every time you talk to them: villagers, traders, guards and monks each have a handful of lines now, and some of them know the name of the place they are standing in. Traders chat about their prices and their goods instead of telling you to look at them.
Fighters no longer stand on top of each other: when a fight begins, one of you steps to the next tile.
Painting the lighthouse is simpler: use either tin on it and the white and the red go on together, in any order. Paint bought straight from the painter's counter works too.
The page can no longer be zoomed by accident (pinching, double-tapping or Ctrl and the mouse wheel); the game's own zoom works as before. Your own name is no longer shown over your character.
The hammer's icon now looks like a proper claw hammer.
The ground no longer shows the edges of big squares of the map: the shading of the grass and other ground is evened out, so walking across the world feels like one place.
Forging at an anvil now needs a hammer in your pack (the general store sells them), and the lighthouse's firebox needs the Forging level of iron, 15.
Tables, chairs and other furniture can now stand on a rug.
You can dye your wool cape. The painter outside Saltcrown sells red, blue and green dye: use a dye on a cape in your pack and it takes the colour (a little Handicraft xp each time), and you can dye it again in another colour. Use two dyes on each other to mix new colours: yellow, purple, teal, orange, brown and black, and some pairs will not mix. The dye is lost, the cape's colour shows in your pack and on your back.
The cape is no longer a plank: it hangs from a collar over the shoulders, widens into folds and ends in a wavy hem.
Market stalls now face the way a market would have them: across the aisle from each other, towards the square or the fountain, instead of all looking south.
Some market stalls are bigger now: a few are two tiles wide under one long awning, and a few are L-shaped corner stalls with a counter on each arm. You can steal from either one the usual way, from any tile beside it.
Guards will tell you where you are and point the way to the bank, the shops, the inn and the smith: ask them what place this is, or where you can find what you need. Soldiers, paladins, harbourmasters and the odd reeve in the villages know the way too. They only mention what is really nearby, and give a direction and a rough number of steps; if somebody nearby has work for you, they can say who, though not what.
The world map shows where the banks, shops and the people who give quests are, with a picture for each kind: tap one to see what it is. Quests you can start are marked with a single icon where they begin, and the icon goes once you have started them. Icons and place names show only on ground you have already seen, and you can switch them on and off at the top of the map.
The world map also names the towns, villages and landmarks you have seen: towns first, villages as you zoom in, landmarks closest.
Conversations now show faces: yours on the left, in your own hair and the helmet you wear, and whoever you are talking to on the right. The face of whoever is speaking shows and moves: the mouth opens, the head nods and the eyes blink, and the words appear as they are said (click them or press Space to see the rest at once). On a computer you can press the number of a reply to pick it, and 1, Enter or Space to go on.
A new quest, The King's Cheese: the cook in the royal kitchens at Aldric's Palace needs three cheeses for the King's supper, and a bad one will not do. Make them with your cheesecloth (a range or a fire to warm the milk at, and a little patience: cheese takes several steps, one a moment), and find out what Sir Cheddar, the royal goat, will eat. Afterwards he gives his milk to anyone who feeds him, once every ten minutes, and the recipe for Royal Cheese is yours.
Wells: draw water from a well with an empty bucket, pot, jug, bowl or vial, as you would at a sink.

Planks, trees, level notices and quest pictures

6 October 2026 · version 0.85

Planks join by use now, no hammer needed: use a plank on another plank to start a pile (2/10), then use more planks on it, or one pile on another. Join two piles that add up to more than ten and you get a full Pile of planks and an unfinished pile with the rest. An unfinished pile is not enough to build with: fill it up, or untie it with a hammer. Every kind of log saws into planks, and the better woods give a little more Carpentry experience.
When you lack the level for something, a notice slides over the chat with the skill's icon and the level you need. Tap it, press Escape or wait a few seconds and it goes; the line stays in your game messages.
Every quest now has a round picture in its corner: a wreck on the sand, a sealed letter, a glowing ingot, and a lighthouse shining over the sea. A finished quest is struck through and wears a gilded frame.
Every quest now lists what it asks of you, with your own levels beside it.
Better trees give more wood and take longer to grow back: an ash gives one to three logs, and every finer tree a few more. Each log earns its full Forestry xp. A finer tree also takes more swings to fell, and the Forestry guide lists what each tree gives and how long it takes to grow back.
A plain click on a person in the street — a man, a woman, a guard, a knight — talks to them now. To fight one or pick a pocket, use the right-click menu.

A light on the point

5 October 2026 · version 0.84

A new quest, A Light on the Point: the harbourmaster of the Port of Falbridge wants a lighthouse on the dark western shore, and you build it. Clear the point of its boulders and ash trees (they stay cleared for you alone, and stand untouched for everyone else), saw planks, tie them into piles, forge the nails and the firebox, build the frame and the walls, have it painted and light it. Once anyone has lit it, the beam shines for the whole realm. Needs Word to Falbridge done first, and it opens the back room of the Marlowe trading house.
A new skill, Carpentry: sawing logs into planks (a saw, one plank a log) and building. Saws, hammers, iron nails and tins of paint, and piles of planks, are on sale in a few shops; a hammer ties ten planks into a pile and unties it again.
New places for it: a rounded headland out on the sand bar west of the Port of Falbridge, a painter's cottage with a hen yard up a lane off the Kingsway outside Saltcrown's north gate (white and red paint for sale), and a back room inside House Marlowe's trading house in Falbridge.

A waterfall in Hartwood, pull rings and reports

5 October 2026 · version 0.83

Hair looks like hair now, not a cap: a fringe over the brow, uneven ends at the temples and the nape, locks that fall in layers and catch the light at the crown, a ponytail that rests against the head, plaits that cross and a coiled bun. Bearded folk grow proper beards, from the sideburns down to a ragged point.
A roof lifts as soon as you step up to its door, so the way in is no longer hidden.
Townsfolk turn to face you when you talk or trade with them, and once you are done they look back the way they were facing: a guard at his post can keep his eyes on the road, not on the wall behind him.
Doors have an iron pull ring on both sides now, and the great city and castle gates a ring on each leaf, inside and out.
You can report a player who is causing trouble: right-click them and choose Report, pick a reason and say what happened. The moderators see where it happened and what they said in public chat; private messages are never sent. Found a bug? Settings has a Report a bug button.
Specialist shopkeepers only buy the kind of wares they sell; the general stores still take anything.
The brook in Hartwood is a proper stream now, three or four strides across and winding down its valley to Hart's Mere. It begins at Hartfall, a waterfall off a rock crag under the east end of the Long Downs: a plank footbridge crosses just below it, and there is a new fishing spot halfway down.
Shores are round now: the water's edge on beaches, riverbanks and lakes curves with the land instead of stepping from tile to tile, with a thin rim of damp sand along it.
On a phone, a shop, bank or trade window moves up above your open backpack, so every pack slot can be tapped.
Shop signs and wall torches under a low roof hang a little lower, so they no longer poke up through the eaves.

The transformation mage, and a few finer touches

4 October 2026 · version 0.82

A transformation mage has opened her cottage in Clyffside, on the east road just south of the wizard's hut: look for the sign with the shears.
Talk to her to change your look: hair, colours, clothes, even whether you are a man or a woman. You see the new you turning in her mirror before you pay. A new look costs 500 coins; changing your mind costs nothing. Your name stays your own.
Everyone around you sees the new look straight away, armour and all.
A new adventurer wakes on the beach in the dark first, and hears the sea before seeing it.
Level-ups are quieter, every tenth level shines a little more, and level 99 sets off fireworks.
Speech over heads sits in the middle of its box and wraps onto more lines when it is long, which helps on a phone. The combat style window folds to its title with a tap and can be dragged wherever you like; on a phone it starts folded.
Armets wear a red plume from the crown down to the nape.
Woodcutters swing with their whole body now: feet apart, a slow wind-up over the shoulder, a fast stroke into the trunk and a jolt as the axe bites.
Better metal now asks for the skill to use it, as it always should have: steel weapons need level 5 Precision and steel armour level 5 Block, black 10, blue 20, green 30, cyan 40 and red 60. Bronze and iron are for everyone, and axes and pickaxes for anyone who can lift them. The item panel shows what a piece requires.
Vegetable gardens grow real crops: potatoes in flower, feathery carrot tops, onion and garlic shoots, staked tomatoes, broad-leaved swedes and fat cabbages. Wheat stands thick and golden with nodding ears, flax flowers blue, and a vegetable you drop looks like itself.
The skills panel has larger tiles, each with its own icon and your level as current/base, and a bar shows how far you are towards the next level, in the panel and in every skill guide.
Altars got a stonemason: a carved stone altar under a crimson frontal, with tall candlesticks, an open book and the gilt sunburst of seven rays. Burying remains takes a moment now: you kneel, dig a hole and put them in. Characters lean the right way when they work, whichever way they face.
Seven new hairstyles for new characters and at the transformation mage's: braid, bun, flowing, curls, two braids, swept and cropped. The ponytail has grown down past the shoulder blades, and long hair tucks in under body armour and capes. Townsfolk wear the new styles too.
Shopkeepers only have so much on their shelves now: usually just one of each ware, more of arrows, shards, bait, food and drink. The shop window shows how many there are; a sold-out ware stays in it, greyed, and comes back one at a time, about one a minute.
What you sell to a shop stays on its shelf for anyone to buy, until the shopkeeper slowly clears it away.
A new skill: Bartering. Every purchase and sale over a shop counter trains it, and a better trader is paid more: from 60 % of an item's value at level 1 up to 75 % at 99. What the shops ask stays the same.
Woodcutters, miners and fishers turn to face their tree, rock or fishing spot. The combat style window no longer vanishes when you fold it.
Everyone has been reshaped: tapered arms and legs, hands with a thumb, shoes with a toe, and a face with eyes, brows, ears and a mouth. Elbows and knees bend now, so walking, fighting, chopping, quarrying, climbing and kneeling look like it, and plate armour follows the bend with new vambraces on the forearms.
The axe bites into the trunk instead of being held up like a torch, the pickaxe's point comes down into the rock, and vegetables, grapes, wheat and flax are picked by hand with a stoop, not chopped with an axe.

Taps, hearths and paintings

4 October 2026 · version 0.81

Every tavern and inn has brass beer taps on its bar now, three pumps to a tap, and the bars face the room as one long counter.
A fire burns in the taverns' hearths, and their walls have paintings: ducks, cows, ships in the harbour towns and the hills outside, in plain wood or dark frames.
Castles, King Aldric's palace, the Accord Hall, the banks, the guild halls and House Marlowe's houses hang gilt-framed portraits, crowns, jewels and oaks, some of them very large, and warm themselves at stone fireplaces. Brightholm Abbey's monks have a fire in the chapter house and the refectory.
A few farmhouses and homes have a picture on the wall, and the larger farmhouses a fireplace.
A fireplace cooks as well as a campfire: use your raw food on it, or stand beside it and click the food.
Barrels and crates got a carpenter: round-bellied staves with iron hoops, and plank crates with braces. Roofs lift properly when you log in or arrive inside a building.
The casks in Highcrown's Seventh Seat, at the wine merchant's and in Stonebeck's Wet Heron have been turned round, so their taps face the keeper instead of the wall.

Casks behind the bar

4 October 2026 · version 0.80

The taverns and inns have rolled in their ale casks: you will find them behind the bar or against the wall from Runmere and Clyffside to Kingsgate, Ravensford and Highcrown's Seventh Seat. Highcrown's wine merchant keeps a cask of red behind his counter.
In Brightholm Abbey's brewhouse the casks now stand at either end of Brother Cellarer's counter, so nobody wanders round behind it any more. The signpost by the abbey's west gate points south to Abbey Bridge, where the bridge actually is.
Highcrown's city wall turns the palace's south-east corner with a single tower instead of two squeezed together.
Wizards keep fewer coins in their robes than they used to.
The farm lane past the chicken farm no longer meets the harbour road from Clyffside at a corner.
Feathers on the ground look like feathers, meat lying about is the colour of meat rather than bronze, and the sea chest on the beach has its lid on the right way round.
The login is a scroll now, and it tells you how many are in the realm right now. The numbers on hit splats sit in the middle of their disc.
The realm has a crest: a crowned lion on blue between two swords, on the front page and in your browser tab, and the title is lettered in a proper old hand.
Barrels and crates have been rebuilt by a cooper and a carpenter: barrels are bellied, of separate staves, with iron hoops and a head of boards; crates are proper plank crates with a frame, a brace on every side and a nailed-down lid.

Brightholm Abbey

4 October 2026 · version 0.79

Across Abbey Bridge from Highcrown, Brightholm Abbey stands on Highmere's north shore inside its low stone wall: the abbey church, the cloister with its well, the chapter house and the dormitory, the refectory, a bell tower, a graveyard with a memorial to the dead of the Sundering, and the brothers' herb garden and orchard. The Abbey road now runs on from the bridge through the abbey, and out of its west gate along the old road towards the Sundering Field.
The monks will talk to anyone. Brother Cellarer sells the abbey's ale and bread in the brewhouse, the bell-ringer keeps to his tower, and the sexton has firm views on burying remains. The sanctum behind the church opens only to those with level 31 Devotion; the abbot waits inside.
In Highcrown, the city gates are cobbled underfoot, the wall's towers no longer crowd together at the Abbey Gate, the West Gate and the palace corner, the wall by the Royal Bank no longer stands in King's Street, and there is room to walk between the city wall and the Collegium's close. The signposts at King's Bridge and on Crown Square point only where roads go, and courtiers carry a little less in their purses.
The old roads out of Clyffside, north towards Runiemi and west to the harbour, no longer zigzag from corner to corner.