Your first hour
Everything a newcomer needs, on one page. Questions this does not answer belong on the forum.
Getting in
Download the launcher from the Download page and run it. Windows may say it is from an unknown publisher: the game is young and not signed yet. Choose More info, then Run anyway. Before that, your browser may warn that the file is not commonly downloaded: choose Keep (in Edge: the ... menu, Keep, then Show more and Keep anyway). The launcher fetches the game (about two gigabytes) and keeps it up to date.
Make an account, on the website or on the game's own login screen.
Make a character. Pick a body and a class:
- Warrior starts with a sword and a shield;
- Mage starts with a staff, fire and healing;
- Ranger starts with a bow, and skill with the bow and the axe;
- Cleric starts with a mace, a shield and healing;
- Cutthroat starts with a dagger and throwing knives;
- Hexblade starts with a sword, fire and shadow;
- Earthwarden starts with a spear, stone magic and stone shaping.
The class is only where you start. Anyone can learn anything by doing it.
Your first minutes
You start at dawn at a river ford, below Wardenrest, the Brightwater Watch's training camp. A banner at the top of the screen takes you through the camp's lessons, one thing at a time, and the gold marks on the map show where: over the fallen log, through the ford and up the slope to the gate, where Warden Ysolde waits. Someone with a gold ! over their head has a task for you: walk up to them and press E to talk. Round the camp you try on your gear, hit a training dummy, use an ability, fight your first rats, gather, cook and smelt, rest, sell, fish, and drive two wolves off at the ford.
Then the Warden gives you a letter for Captain Aldric. The camp's waystone, at the end of the south road, takes you to Brightwater Vale: press E at it, and give Aldric the letter in Brightwater's square. Talk to him again. His first task, Wolves at the Gate, sends you after the wolves south-west of the town.
Know the way of these things already? Skip on the banner sends you straight on to Brightwater Vale with the letter. It asks once more first, and the lessons are not offered again.
- A gold ? over someone means a task you finished is handed in to them. A grey ? means a task still under way ends with them. The minimap shows the same marks.
- Town guards with crossbows watch the roads. A creature that chases you into town will not last long.
- If you fall, you get up again after a few seconds, with half your health.
The keys
Every key can be changed: Esc, then Keys & presets (there is an "Arrow keys" preset there too).
| To do this | Press |
|---|---|
| Walk | W A S D (or the arrow keys) |
| Run | hold Shift (uses stamina) |
| Jump, crouch (sneak), sit down | Space, hold Ctrl, X |
| Turn the camera | hold the right mouse button and move the mouse |
| Zoom in and out | the mouse wheel |
| Pick a target | Tab (the next nearest), or left-click it |
| Attack | F (starts and stops attacking your target) |
| Block or parry | hold Q (with a shield or a weapon to parry) |
| Talk, open, pick up, chop, mine, pick herbs, cut a thread | E |
| Abilities and spells | 1 to 0 on the two bars; hold Alt and press 1 to 5 to switch between five sets |
| Choose which arrows or bolts to shoot (bow or crossbow) | R |
| Spellbook, backpack, tool belt, skills, character | P, I, B, K, C |
| Quest log | L |
| Combine two skills, evolutions | J, V |
| Map, combat focus, emotes (wave, dance...) | M, Z, Y |
| Chat | Enter |
| Hide everything on screen (for pictures) | F10 (again, or Esc, brings it back) |
| Menu: Options, keys, log out, quit | Esc |
New abilities go onto your bar by themselves; to move them, drag them from the spellbook (P). In your backpack, left-click an item to use it: drink a potion, eat bread, put on gear.
How you grow
- Learn by doing. No trainers and no points to spend. Swing an axe at a tree and Woodcutting grows; take hits and Defense does; cast fire and Fire Magic does.
- Gathering has levels. A tree, a vein, a herb or a beast's skin can ask for a level of its skill, and the game tells you which ("You need Skinning 3 to skin a Giant Spider."). Higher ones pay more experience.
- Combine. Two to five skills, spells or abilities (each at level 5 or more) can become something new (J): fire and a sword make a Flameblade. The window tells you what you will make and how unstable it is before you commit. A try that is too weak only fizzles and costs a little mana; only Shadow with Life destroys what went in, and the window asks three times first. The combining guide has the whole of it.
- Evolve. Every skill and spell has branches, opened by how you actually use it (V). Each step can be taken, held, or sacrificed for a doubled next use.
- Tomes. Sister Elowen in the square sells tomes that teach a new school of magic.
Things to know
- Selling is one click. While a shop is open, right-clicking an item in your backpack sells it, at once. Sold something by mistake? The shop's Buy back tab keeps the last ten things you sold, until the servers restart.
- If you die, you lose a tenth of your experience: your class level and every skill can drop a level (your stats are kept, and a perk you lose with a level comes back when you reach it again). Your pack (with the bags in your bag slots) and the coin in your purse fall into your remains where you fell, and each piece you wear has a small chance to join them; quest items, your tool belt and your bank stay with you. The remains are yours alone for 15 minutes, then anyone's for 15 more. Nothing is lost until you have first reached level 10, and never in Wardenrest. The shrine keepers in Brightwater and Thalorion sell the Blessings of the Mind (your experience and perks), the Soul (your worn gear) and the Physical (your pack and purse), and the Amulet of Keeping; each is used up only when it saves you something. You get up 15 seconds later with half your health, at the nearest shrine or safe place (a town, or the waystation on the Eastern Road).
- A party holds up to 5. Only its leader can invite more. A kill counts for the whole party near it. Your party stays together when you take a waystone, and if you log out you keep your place for 5 minutes.
- Raids. About every hour and a half, horns sound on the north road of Brightwater. Two minutes later three waves of goblins, skeletons and a hobgoblin come down into the square, more of them the more people are playing. Everyone who kills a raider is paid at the end, twice as much if the square holds.
- No changing armour in a fight. Head, body, legs, feet and hands cannot be put on or taken off until about 6 seconds after the last blow; the game says "Not in a fight." Rings, the amulet and what you hold change as before.
- A creature's bag. Press E on it. Only you can take from it for the first 30 seconds, and it is gone after 2 minutes. Things you drop yourself stay 15 minutes.
- The Tanning Rack stands in Stonebrook's square. Wolf pelts and the hides of cows and goats are cured into leather there, and leather is made into caps, gloves, boots, leggings, tunics and a satchel. See the Guide.
- Things to find. Tomes of new magic, sold by Sister Elowen in Brightwater's square. Herbs (Brightleaf, Silverroot, Glowcap) in the meadows and by the water: walk up to a plant with three small blossoms and press E. Gems in copper veins and on some creatures, to set into a ring or amulet at an anvil. Armour at Greta's, Brannoc's and Wenna the Pedlar's.
Further out
- Stonebrook, the mining hamlet, is east along the road. It has a smith and a foreman with work.
- The waystone at the end of the west road takes you to Thalorion, the walled city, and its quests. A party that goes in together gets a siege of its own.
- When the council in Thalorion has spoken, Pavogani waits at Thalorion's east waystone, which takes you to the Eastern Road.
- Past the Eastern Road and the mountains behind Thalorion lie five new lands for levels 8 to 20: the Hollow, Mirefen, the Barrens, the Jagged Peaks and the Ember Waste. Each has a camp and its own quests.
Coming soon
Not in the game yet, and no dates:
- A home of your own. Buy a deed and you get your own walled plot with a cottage, behind the Home Gate in Hearthmere. Furnish it, keep your things in its chests, and choose who may visit.
- A beast at your side. Wear down a wolf, a boar or a bear, bait it with raw meat, and tame it. It fights beside you, gains levels, learns new moves and traits, and waits in the stable when it is not out.
- Farming. Till a plot, plant seeds, water them as they grow, and cut the crop when it is ripe.
- Tailoring. Spin flax into thread, weave cloth, and sew robes, hoods, gloves, slippers and bags.
- Pottery. Dig clay, throw it on a wheel and fire it in a kiln: bowls, pots, crucibles and glass vials.
- Jewelcrafting. Cut gems, cast silver and gold, and set them into rings and amulets at a Jeweler's Bench.
- Furniture you make. Beds, tables, rugs and curtains made by hand, for a home of your own.
- Homing spells. A new spell in each school of magic that follows its target.
Playing together and talking
Press Enter to chat.
| Type | To |
|---|---|
/s |
say, to those near you |
/z |
the whole zone |
/p |
your party |
/w Name |
a whisper |
/invite Name, /accept, /leave |
parties |
/hud |
move, size and lock each part of the screen |
/help |
all the commands |
/unstuck |
wedged in the scenery? Hold still 10 seconds and you are taken to the nearest safe place (once every 5 minutes) |
/bug what happened |
tell us about a problem |
Party up for fights you share. A kill counts for everyone in your party who is near, so family on the same task should
/invite each other first. On Thalorion's wall, a party shares the engine crews instead of racing for them.
On an Android phone
The phone version is an early test build, and it plays in the same world as Windows, with the same account. Get it from the Download page. Hold the phone sideways (or upright). Drag in the lower left to walk, drag anywhere else to look around, and tap a creature to target it. Five big buttons sit by your thumb, the rest are behind More, the books and bags open as sheets, and the full-screen map pinches and pans. The keyboard keys on this page do not apply to it.
When something goes wrong
- Can't connect? The front page shows whether the servers are up. If they are, restart the launcher: it checks for updates first.
- Something broken in the game? Type /bug and a few words in the chat. Your name, where you are and the time go with it. Or write to us on the Contact page.
- Forgot your password? Ask Anthony: he can set a new one for you.
- The game says it is out of date? Close it and start it from the launcher, which updates it first.
- Asked for your log? The game keeps one at
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\The Klaus Project\Legends of the Soulbringer\Player.log. Paste that into File Explorer's address bar to open it. - What changed, and what we know is wrong: the patch notes, and the known issues right now.