How a life begins
You pick one life at the door. It decides where you wake, what you already know, and a mark you keep. After that, anyone can learn anything.
There are no classes. A start is a morning, not a job.
Every named character has the same kind of life ahead of them: a body, skills, and special gifts called Virtues that you buy later. A gravedigger can learn the forge. A serf can learn to speak to the dead. A heretic can spend years at a bench and become a smith. The door does not forbid any of that.
What the door does lock in:
Walking in as a shade is not one of these lives. A shade can look around, search, carry, and craft, but cannot trade, and does not improve. Binding a name is the moment you pick an origin.
You improve by doing the thing. Then you spend what the work paid you.
There is no character level and no maximum. Use a skill and it rises. Each new level takes longer than the one before it.
Each new skill level gives you 1 Insight. On the Self page you spend Insight on your body: 3 Insight buys one point of any attribute. You are improving the person you already are.
Constitution is health and how long you can work. Intellect and Will are mana. Strength is what you can carry, and a small part of a blow. In a fight, Melee, the weapon, and whether you still have the energy to swing matter more than raw Strength. A smith with a real blade should beat a strong farmer with a stick.
A Virtue is a named gift you buy when the right skills are high enough. It costs Insight. You can give it up later and get 4 Insight back. While you keep it, part of the practice you put into those skills also improves the Virtue. Anyone from any start can buy any Virtue. The start only changes how soon you are close.
On Self, skill levels are written as Roman numbers. Level 10 is X. Level 14 is XIV.
Other Virtues are on the same list: Dragonblood, Ashen Heart, Blood Binder, Pale Step, Iron Will, Deepdelver, Beastlord, Oathbreaker, Warden of Stone, Crow-Eyed, The Long March, Sword-Saint, Wyrm-Speaker, Hollow Saint. Self tells you what each one needs when you are close.
A banner is a player house. You raise one at your own hall or in Grimhollow. It costs 80 silver, and you already need a Seal, a Charter, or Leadership level 3. The lord names a war. People have twelve hours to answer. After that, fights at the enemy’s hall are not murder. Fights on the road still are. The war ends when one side yields, or after seven days. One house per character.
Practice raises the skill. A teacher, a book, or the opening story gives you the spell.
Necromancy is a skill like smithing. No start is required. You raise it by doing death-magic: raising, binding, or cutting a shard from a soul also gives Necromancy practice. At level 10 you can buy Grave Tongue. At level 14, with Blood Lore at 8, you can buy Soul-Eater and consume a corpse. Digging a grave, filling it, or lying in it is not something you do later on the map. That happens once, and only in the gravedigger’s opening.
Alchemy rises when you brew. A bench or a healer’s table is where you do it. Standing in a good workroom can make the potion stronger. It does not give you Alchemy levels by itself.
Recipes. Easy crafts, the ones that need skill level 2 or less, are known to everyone. Harder crafts, level 3 and up, stay hidden until someone teaches you or you find the method. Runed tools also need the Runecarver Virtue.
Spells are separate from skill levels. Having Ash Lore at 3 does not put a spell in your book. A person, a page, or your opening story does. The four schools are Ash Lore, Blood Lore, Whisper, and Arcana. Casting spends mana and adds corruption. Corruption is the ash shown on you, not the dust in your bag. At 20 corruption the world treats you as ash-marked. That is not the same as the heretic’s starting mark, which you brought with you.
Some openings teach spells if you ask. Walk past the teacher and you leave without them. You can still raise the skill later, and someone who is allowed to teach can still give you the spell.
The Cart’s Survivor. You wake at the Crossroads.
You were loaded onto a corpse-cart with the grey rot and you were not dead. Two people have ever climbed off that cart. You are one. The pit has been watching you since.
Mark you keep: Rot-Touched. Grey rot cannot take you. The dead nearby mistake you for one of them. You heal a little faster than other people. You are hardy and you already know a little about plants. You are not strong, and you do not start knowing how to fight or smith.
You wake face-down on the cart. Two men have a list. You can listen, sit up, or try to remember the house where a woman counted spoons and left you off the meal. Remembering too far can give you a second mark, The Arithmetic, and it hurts your mind.
Speak and they have to write a name. Your own name can earn you a torn page from their tally. A false name stains you a little and leaves you with a borrowed name. Stay quiet, roll into the ditch, or go all the way to the pit.
In the ditch you may find a dead person’s purse: 9 silver and a wolf’s tooth, if you take it. Bury what you find and people think a little better of you. You can earn the same kindness by cutting a hanged body down at the gibbet.
The pit is the dangerous branch. Go down and you meet the man who keeps it. He will offer you 40 silver and an old charter if you accept a hold he has on you. Refuse and you leave cleaner, with your mind steadier. You can also steal his book and read the page with your name, or carry it to Grimhollow unread. Standing in the pit is the only opening that starts you on Necromancy. You do not have to go down. Refusing it does not stop you learning Necromancy later.
However you arrive in Grimhollow, Aldhelm can take you in. Tell him you came off the cart, say nothing, or ask for work. All three end with the title The Eleventh, a wool cloak, bread, a little silver, and his goodwill. Asking for work also gets you a little healing.
Staying alive, herbs, and later the Virtue Plague Doctor, which still needs a lot of Alchemy. Necromancy is a side door through the pit, not your job. Fighting and smithing start from nothing.
The Burnt Tallies. You wake in the Ashen Fields.
The manor burned, and the tallies with it. You walked away from the fire. Maren copied the books twice, because she does not trust fire. The debt is still written down. You start with no silver.
Mark you keep: Tally-Marked. Any settlement can look you up. Goods cost more. Work is easier to find. You are the strongest start for labour and the weakest for books and magic. You can still buy Intellect later. Nothing stops you.
In Grimhollow you pick a door.
Maren is not surprised. She offers a bought freedom, a favour, or a job. The favour is a locked iron box from the shrine at the Crossroads. Bring it unopened and she tears up the tally in front of you. Open it and she will know. Ask her to burn her copy and she will not. Leave after that and she is against you. Take the mill work and you leave employed: a little silver, bread, another knife, and practice at crafting. Employed is not free. She says so.
Aldhelm will write your name in a book that is not a debt. Let him and you take the title Named, and he sends you to Maren before she hears about the fire from someone else.
Bran at the forge does not care that the tallies burned. He would rather you build a wall than take a wage, because a tally can be copied and a wall cannot. Listen to him and you leave with that lesson. The bellows are the practical way out of his shop.
Hands. You already know the easy wood, cord, and stone crafts, and you have swung something before. Master Smith is a long way down the forge, and your body is the one pointed at it. Buying anything hurts, because of the tally. Asking for work is always a true offer.
The Second Half. You wake on the Ashen Waste.
Nine hundred people said a sentence and the sun stayed down. You were twelve, in the ninth pew, and you said the second half first. You are carrying a page that will not burn.
Mark you keep: Ash-Marked. Ash spells hit harder. Corruption climbs faster on you. The cult knows you on sight. You have the best mind for magic and the worst body for a wolf, a ditch, or a cold night. Eat before you wander.
Ash Lore already at 3 means you can attempt ash work that other people still have to be taught. You are also closer to the Virtue Ashen Heart than anyone else. The cost is the ash on you.
The temple is still saying the sentence. Stay, meet the priest’s eyes, and he takes you aside. Your page is not his. His was another verse. He will not take yours. Ask him to teach you and he spends an hour on the meaning, not the chant. You leave with the title Acolyte of the Second Half and two spells: Ash Ward and Ash Spark. This is the only opening that puts those spells in your book. Leave without asking and you still have Ash Lore. You do not have the spells.
Deny the page and he tells you the Canticle is a contract with nobody’s name at the bottom. Ask who signed it and he tells you to look at the ground. That is knowledge, not a spell.
Leave the temple and pick a road. North is Grimhollow: walk in, or circle the roofs first. East is the warm caldera, alone, and it stains you. The Standing Stones are the older lesson, and they appear on your map.
Rites. You can walk out already holding Ash Ward. Soul-Eater is not yours unless you later practice Necromancy and Blood Lore like anyone else. Smithing starts from nothing, and the cult will still recognise you at the anvil.
The Warm Place. You wake in the Ashen Fields.
A scale-shaped burn on your chest has never been cold. Healers called it a birthmark. A woman on stilts in the fen charged you to say otherwise. Something in the east already knows you are warm.
Mark you keep: Dragon-Marked. Fire hurts you less. You heal faster. Wyrms notice you. Ash magic dirties you twice as fast as it dirties other people. You start able to fight. You do not start knowing ash magic at all.
The heat under your ribs is a direction. You can measure it, refuse it, or follow it east.
Put your hand on the mark and say no. Say it twice and the heat stops, your nose bleeds, and something far east notices. You can take a second mark, Wyrm Refused. The mark goes cold. The story is clear that cold is worse. One refusal, without the second no, does not leave that mark.
East, on the waste, a thing the size of a horse is waiting. It is not a hound. Fight it and the mark burns it off your arm. You can limp home or follow it to the rim and see the red heart of the caldera. Stand still and it may set down a gold-capped tooth from a man buried in the Barrow of Kings. The woman in Hagfen buys teeth. Speak a few words of ash to it and it goes to its belly.
Send it east with word that you are coming and the thing in the caldera opens an eye. You take the title The Answered, and you are on a list. Tell the creature to stay and it follows you to Grimhollow. Aldhelm comes out with a book. You are still The Answered, and the village has seen what walks behind you. That creature is not a tamed beast from the Beastlord Virtue. It obeyed one sentence.
Reach Grimhollow without it and you choose what to show. Hide the mark. Show it and let them decide. Or ask for the healer and say nothing: you are patched up, and it costs 4 silver.
Climb to the woman on stilts, show her the mark, and you leave with the title Claimed, and Hagfen on your map. Ask what the truth costs and you pay her 6 silver for a clearer answer. She tells you not to touch the ninth jar.
The first fight, fire, and being noticed by what lives in the east. The mark does not let you eat souls, and it does not let you lie down in a grave. Those are other people’s stories, or a Virtue you buy years later.
The Ninth Row. You wake in the Barrowfields.
You have dug the Reach’s dead for eleven years. Tonight nine graves were ordered. Eight are finished. The ninth has your spade in it, and your name on the board, written three months before anyone knew you would be ill. The handwriting is not Maren’s.
Mark you keep: Grave Hands. Digging gives you more. Corpses do not make you jump. Necromancy, once you learn it, costs you less. You do not start knowing Necromancy. You do start as the best digger: crafts that need Scavenging 3 are already yours. Other people have to be taught those.
Filling this grave, or lying in it, happens here and only here. It is not a button you get later, and other origins never get it. Consuming a soul is a different thing. That is the Soul-Eater Virtue, years later, on a fresh corpse, and any origin can buy it.
Fill it and go to town. You learn that the hole fits you. You gain a start in Necromancy. You do not get the title yet.
Lie in it until dawn. This is the largest gift of Necromancy practice in any opening. It hurts your mind, adds corruption, and leaves you tired. Climb out and you take the title The Ninth, a second mark called Slept in Stone, and the memory of a room with no door. It is still not Necromancy level 10. Cover the grave without lying in it and you practice digging instead. You can leave as a person who only buried a board.
There is a stone in the chalk with a scale-mark. Copy it onto your arm, take the slab if you can carry about eighty pounds, or fill the hole and go. Lose the slab and stay quiet, and it costs you. Ask who moved it and you are practicing talk.
Keep digging and you can open a room under the tenth row. Dig it out and you find ectoplasm and silver shavings, and the Barrow of Kings appears on your map. Or close it and tell someone. Or close it and tell nobody. All three can end with the title The Ninth. Silence is the cheaper way to stay alive.
The board can go to Maren or to Aldhelm. Hide the digger’s record and trust nobody, and you still get the title, with the paper in your pack. Read Maren’s charter and you may understand that your name was written as a payment. Take the charter and go looking for who left it. Tell her to burn it and you do not get the paper. Tell Aldhelm the ground spoke and he trusts you, and you leave with the charter and a real start in both Necromancy and Lore. Tell him you were only doing the job and he pays you 20 silver. Follow the question of who is selling the land and you leave with the charter, the record, silver, and the best welcome in the story.
Digging, and later Grave Tongue, because your mark makes death-magic cheaper once you have learned it. You can also ignore the grave, fill it, and live as a scavenger. Deepdelver is the Virtue for that road. Soul-Eater is still level 14, plus Blood Lore, for everyone.
The Door in the Tree. You wake in the Whispering Wood.
You were walking home. A door had grown into an oak that never had a door. You went through because you were cold. You came out where the ash falls upward. You were not born in the Reach. The wood had already decided to keep you.
Mark you keep: Pale-Touched. At night you are much harder to see. The fae do not attack you first. You cannot lie to them. In this wood your sanity slips faster than other people’s. You have the best eyes and the quietest feet. You are the weakest body. You already know the first whisper-work. The Virtue Pale Step wants high Whisper and high Stealth, and you are the only start with both already begun.
You can study the hinges, go through, or try to go home. Home is not there anymore. Spend the night and walk toward chimney smoke and you can enter Grimhollow with the title The One Who Came Through. No spells. You left the lesson behind.
Through the door, someone has already used a cup. Drink, and the wood’s magic comes with a cost to your mind. Finish the cup and the cost is worse, and the lesson is larger. Put it down and apologise, or wait to be spoken to, and you are treated as a guest.
Ask its name and then listen. You can leave as Name-Bearer with the spell Whisper Step. Ask who else has a mouth in this bargain and you learn about a second speaker, and the Standing Stones appear on your map. You do not get a second spell from that question.
The window looks like a way home. Put your arm through and you come back sunburned for seven days, badly shaken. Turn around on purpose, and choose the Reach, and you can take the title The One Who Turned Around. Stay, and mean it, and you become The One Who Stayed, with two spells: Whisper Step and Pale Sight.
The grammar is forty lines. Learn all of them and you become Grammar-Bearer, with three spells: Whisper Step, Pale Sight, and Borrowed Face, plus paper and ink. It costs your mind and adds a lot of corruption. Learn the first twenty-seven and stop, and you are Half-Taught: Whisper Step only, and less damage. Both are real endings.
Ask what it wants and it offers a road, not a home. Walk that road and you are The Line-Walker, with Whisper Step, and both the Standing Stones and the Barrowfields on your map. Ask what you are paid and you get the same title, 30 silver, and less respect. Map six doors instead and you leave with a map scrap and Hagfen revealed, and no new spell. Go to the woman on stilts and you learn what she keeps in eleven jars. Ask to be taken to the priest and the ash temple appears on your map.
Not being seen, and the quiet magic of the wood, if you stayed for the lesson. Grammar-Bearer is the only way to leave an opening already knowing Borrowed Face. Walk straight to Grimhollow and you are still unable to lie to the fae, and you will need a teacher for those spells.
The roads are the same. The mark is not.
After the opening, everyone shares one continent. Villages are already there. Shops run out of silver. Quests do not draw you a path. Other players use the same roads. Killing on a road is murder. Hunger, cold, and sickness use the same clocks for everyone.
What stays different is the mark, the body you started with, the skills you did not have to grind, the spells the story did or did not teach you, and the title under your name. Titles from the opening are names, not permissions. The Eleventh, Named, Acolyte of the Second Half, The Answered, Claimed, The Ninth, Name-Bearer, Grammar-Bearer, Half-Taught, The Line-Walker, The One Who Stayed, The One Who Turned Around, The One Who Came Through. Master Smith, Grave Tongue, Soul-Eater, and the Ashen Crown come later, from practice, and any of the six can earn them.
A second mark from the story sits beside the first. You only have the ones you chose: The Arithmetic, a borrowed name, the habit of burying the dead, a hold accepted in the pit, a wyrm refused, a command spoken in ash, or a night slept in stone. They do not replace Rot-Touched, Tally-Marked, Ash-Marked, Dragon-Marked, Grave Hands, or Pale-Touched.
Objects, recipes, and what each item is for are in the item manual. The rest of the world, in short, is on About the game.