How Aethermoor Works

The Story Board is where your chronicle unfolds. You describe what your character does — explore a crypt, barter with a merchant, confront a warlord — and the Chronicler writes the next passage. Every prompt shapes the world.

Create a character, choose their race, and pin them as your active adventurer. All loot, wounds, and experience go to whoever is active. You can switch at any time from the Players page — selecting a new character automatically deselects the previous one for that storyboard.

• Gain XP from combat victories, looting, scavenging, and simply spending time in the world.
• Every 5 minutes your active character is bound to a Story Board, they earn +20 XP passively — even in silence, the isle teaches.
• Every 5 levels grants +5 max health. Higher-level characters access better loot pools and deadlier encounter tables.
• A character's level determines what rarities they can find — no legendary blades at level 1.
• All characters begin with 100 HP and 50 mana. Mana is reserved for future magic systems.

When you create a character, you choose a race from the living pantheon of Aethermoor. The six Wounded Houses — Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Tieflings, Liches, and Beastfolk — are the core bloodlines, each with deep lore and unique flavor.

Beyond the six houses, ten more races walk the isle: Dragonborn, Halflings, Merfolk, Gnomes, Fae, Goblins, Centaurs, Minotaurs, Vampires, Dryads, and others. Read their full entries on the Races and Wounds pages.

Every blade has a sharpness percentage from 0% to 100%. A sharp weapon is a deadly weapon. A dull one is a liability.

Your character can wear armor across eight slots: head, chest, arms, legs, hands, feet, shoulders, and back. Each piece reduces incoming damage, making the difference between a scratch and a mortal wound.

• Equip armor from your backpack. Equipping a new piece in an occupied slot automatically replaces the old one.
• Unequipping a piece returns it to your backpack as a generic armor entry.
• Some armor is race-locked and can only be worn by its intended bloodline.

Whetstones restore a weapon to 100% sharpness in a single use. Each whetstone has a limited number of charges based on its rarity.

When a whetstone runs out of uses, it crumbles and is removed from your pack. Whetstones can be found as loot drops in the world.

Healing potions are your lifeline in the wild. They restore a percentage of your maximum health instantly and can be found as loot, bought at apothecaries, or scavenged from the dead.

• Potions of the same name stack in your backpack, saving precious space.
• Potions are never auto-used. You must open your backpack and drink them manually.
• Apothecaries and merchants often carry potions. Blacksmiths do not — they only deal in steel.

Encounters are resolved with a combat spinner. You and your enemy each roll a random attack number. The higher number wins the exchange and deals damage.

• Your attack roll is boosted by your weapon's sharpness bonus.
• Enemy damage scales with the encounter difficulty and the foe's tier.
• If you attack a named creature or declare intent to fight, combat begins immediately — the isle does not ask twice.
• You can flee mid-fight, but the isle extracts a toll: 5 HP of damage as you scramble away. You cannot flee if it would kill you.
• Encounters block the story. When an enemy appears, you cannot continue the chronicle until you resolve it — fight, flee, or hide. The Chronicler waits.

Not all enemies are equal. When you name a target in your prompt — "I challenge Zeus" or "we hunt the dragon" — the Chronicler recognizes the threat and scales the fight accordingly.

These multipliers apply to both enemy health and enemy attack damage. Fighting gods is possible — but the isle will make you earn it.

When a character's HP reaches 0, they die. A dead character cannot be set as active, cannot fight, and cannot earn XP. Their belongings remain in their pack, frozen until someone remembers their name.

Civilization still clings to the isle in the form of merchants, blacksmiths, apothecaries, tavernkeeps, and wandering traders. When the Chronicler drops you at a shop, you can browse wares, buy with your coin, or sell what you no longer need.

• Merchants sell general goods. Blacksmiths sell weapons and whetstones. Apothecaries sell potions. Taverns sell food and rest.
• Selling items returns half of what a vendor would charge for the same item. The isle's economy is cruel but consistent.
• Stealing from a shop forces immediate combat with the owner. If you win, you can scavenge the shop's shelves for spoils. If you lose, you leave in a coffin — or not at all.
• Loot and scavenge points appear contextually — a corpse, a drawer, a hidden niche. Search them to claim what the isle has left behind.

Where you are matters. The Chronicler infers the current biome and scenario from your prose, shaping both loot drops and experience gains.

Dangerous places and meaningful moments reward more essence. The biome and scenario combine to multiply every XP gain — from loot pickups to combat victories to quiet vigil.

The Hexed Atlas is a honeycomb map of the Broken Isle. Each hex hides a region with its own name, terrain, and forbidden chronicle. Touch a hex to unseal it and read what the cartographers dared not publish.

Your Backpack holds everything your character carries. Equip weapons, use potions, sharpen blades with whetstones, equip armor, and manage your inventory at any time through the dock that hovers at the bottom-left of the screen.

• Only one weapon can be equipped at a time. Equipping a new weapon automatically unequips the old one.
• Potions restore health instantly. Keep a stock for hard encounters.
• Items can be destroyed to free up space — but the isle does not give refunds.
• Your backpack has limited space. Once full, you cannot pick up new loot or scavenge finds until you make room.

You do not have to wander alone. Add allies to your band and invite them to shared storyboards. Every member sees the same chronicle, contributes their own prompts, and faces the same dangers.

Scrolls are sealed chronicles — preserved records of your storyboards that you can revisit, rename, or listen to. When a storyboard grows too long or you wish to begin a new tale, seal it as a scroll and store it in the archives.

• Scrolls preserve every entry, every loot drop, and every battle of a completed storyboard.
• You can narrate a scroll with text-to-speech, letting the Chronicler read your tale aloud in your browser's voice.
• Scrolls can be renamed and deleted. Deleting a scroll does not affect your characters or their inventory.

Every item the isle yields carries a rarity. Higher rarities mean stronger stats, deeper lore, and steeper prices. Your character's level gates what rarities can drop — the isle does not waste legends on the unworthy.

The isle trades in three metals. Carry coin to barter, bribe, and buy your way out of trouble.

Platinum exists only in legend — 1 platinum equals 10 gold, and is reserved for the rarest of transactions (Rebirth Runes among them). Coin is shared per character: every adventurer keeps their own purse.

The Global Chat is the isle's open hearth — every adventurer who walks Aethermoor can speak here. Boast of kills, beg for whetstones, recruit a party, or simply trade rumors with strangers.

• Messages are tied to your account, not your character — you speak as yourself, not your latest avatar.
• Be kind, be cunning, but be civil. The Chronicler watches the hearth too.

To walk the isle you must first bind your name to it. Accounts are sealed with a username and an email — neither can be claimed twice. Once a name is taken, it belongs to its bearer forever.

• Verify your email after signing up. A raven carries a binding sigil to your inbox — until you confirm it, you cannot sign in.
• Forgot your seal? Use Lost the Seal on the sign-in screen to request a recovery sigil and forge a new password.
• Your account holds every character, every scroll, every coin. Guard your credentials as you would a Rebirth Rune.

1. 1Create a character on the Players page, choose a race, and pin them as active.
2. 2Head to the Story Board and begin your chronicle. Describe where you are and what you seek.
3. 3Manage loot, potions, weapons, and armor from your backpack dock. Keep your blade sharp and your skin covered.
4. 4Invite allies, explore the Maps, read the Races, and survive the Broken Isle.