One member.Every system.Every choice.

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Anatomy of a character

What this means for you: every member starts with a fixed race and a changeable profession, then earns a class through essences. A character (the game calls them members) is the unit you build, dispatch, level up, and send into combat. Three layers stack onto every member:

• Identity: race and sex (set when the member is created, never changeable) and profession (rolled or picked at creation). Every member, your champion included, starts Unclassed: the class (archetype) is picked later, once the member has two essences equipped.
• Build: archetype, skill points, equipped essences, gear, and the mutation and branch state those essences project. This is what changes day to day.
• Inheritance: soul tree, patron blessing, faction standing, alliance perks. Longer-running systems that buff or gate the individual member.

Most of the wiki is about how those three layers add up. This page is the table of contents. If you just want to know what to do with a new member, read Recruiting and your roster, then How your class is chosen.

Identity layer · permanent

Race

What this means for you: race sets a member's starting stat spread and nothing you do later changes it. Eleven races. Each one rolls a different range for the five base stats (ATK / DEF / SPD / INT / VIT) and weights which profession a Tavern recruit tends to roll.

Each race also carries a titan-link (Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Void), the member's element. A few combat and world systems read it, but it does not limit which essences a member can equip and it does not change their essence branches. Pick essences for the class you want, not for the titan-link. Race and sex have no change path, not even for your champion.

Build layer · picked after two essences

Archetype (class)

Do this: equip two essences on a member, then pick a class in the Choose Archetype picker that opens. Every member starts Unclassed and fights on a basic ATK-only attack with no skill tree. Binding a second essence opens the picker, which suggests the classes those two essences pull toward; you can also choose Decide Later and use the gold Choose Archetype button on the member's Combat tab when you are ready. Thirteen archetypes are live (Striker, Guardian, Caster, Assassin, Healer, Controller, Summoner, Shapeshifter, Ranger, Warden, Enchanter, Phantom, and the Corrupted, earned at floor 15 of the Soul Descent), each with three specialization paths. Picking one assigns the member's base action, unlocks a skill tree of about 37 nodes, and decides which two stats drive that member's damage.

• Seasonal classes: Shapeshifter (Spring), Warden (Summer), Enchanter (Autumn) and Phantom (Winter) show in the picker greyed out until you unlock them through that quarter's seasonal grant or the season pass.
• Marshal and Brawler: not live yet. When they switch on they are earned rather than picked from the start: Brawler at Proving Grounds stage 100, Marshal at stage 250.
• Two stats per archetype: every archetype's basic-attack damage reads a primary + secondary stat (weights sum to 1.0). Strikers blend ATK + SPD, Guardians ATK + VIT, Casters INT + ATK, Healers INT + VIT, Wardens INT + DEF, and so on. Full single-stat dumping loses about 30% damage; parity allocation matches the old baseline.
• Signature passive on the secondary: each archetype gets a class-specific passive driven by its secondary stat: Striker SPD → Combo Chain, Guardian VIT → Aegis Pulse shield, Caster ATK → Spell-Blade chip damage, Healer VIT → Empath Bond, Phantom INT → Phase Heal, and more.
• Subclass = stat identity: subclasses matter for stat strategy, not just skill-tree branches. 12 keep the parent's blend, 14 pivot to a different secondary (e.g. Berserker = ATK + VIT, Bulwark = DEF + VIT, Evoker = INT + SPD), and 10 opt into a 3-stat blend with a unique tertiary passive (e.g. Blademaster = ATK + INT + SPD with Quickstep dodge).
• Threshold unlocks: crossing specific stat values unlocks new combat behaviors, e.g. Striker 500 ATK → Heavy Cleave, Healer 400 INT → Group Heal, Phantom 300 SPD → Rapid Phase. The Growth tab tracks them with progress bars.

What you can undo: the first class pick is free. Changing class later costs 500 gold or an Archetype Reroll Scroll (you still need 500 gold on hand to open the change), refunds the whole archetype skill tree, and can be done as often as you like. Once picked, the class no longer depends on essences: swapping or unequipping essences never changes it. A skill-only respec (same class, points refunded) costs 500 gold. Stat-point reallocation is a separate button on the Growth tab: every member's first stat reset is free, then each one costs 500 gold. Levels and equipment carry over through all of these.

Build layer · the day-to-day knob

Levels & skill points

What this means for you: skill points are scarce, so spend them on your class's core nodes first. Every member starts with 5 skill points and earns 1 more per sub-level, up to a lifetime cap of 130. A full archetype tree wants about 198 SP, so you can never max everything. Every build is a forced tradeoff. Skill points only become spendable once the member has a class; Unclassed members have no tree.

Spend them on the archetype tree (always), the essence branches the equipped essences project (often), and a member's profession tree (a separate SP pool, capped at 18). Mercenaries earn no skill points. Ranking up is manual: at sub-level 10 with full XP, both essence slots filled and a class picked, use Advance Rank on the Growth tab.

Build layer · two slots that shape the build

Essences

Do this: fill both essence slots on every member as early as you can; the second one is what unlocks their class. Every member has two essence slots (your champion can earn a third, the Third Flame, from Founder's Road). Slot 1 fires the essence's primary effect; slot 2 fires that essence's own authored secondary effect, which is a different effect rather than a weaker copy. The essence drives three things at once:

• Stat bonuses: each equipped essence adds its stat bonus to the member.
• Slot triggers: on-attack, on-hit, on-kill, and passive procs that fire during combat: status effects, buffs, damage tweaks.
• Skill-tree branches: once the member has a class, each equipped essence projects a 5-node mini-branch into their archetype tree. Two equipped essences = two extra branches visible. Swap the essence and the branch's invested points freeze.

While a member is still Unbound (essence rank 0, before their first rank-up) you can unequip and re-equip essences for free as often as you like. The first rank-up binds their essences for the cycle. The live build has 87 essence definitions. Of the 14 Virtue essences, only Courage, Mercy and Hope can be pulled until the weekly Virtue schedule starts on 28 September 2026.

Build layer · the deepest crosslink

Essence mutations

When an essence is slotted, it also mutates the member's equipped skills. Eight elemental categories (Flame, Frost, Storm, Shadow, Holy, Nature, Void, Arcane) each project a category-flavored twist onto every active skill the archetype owns. A Flame essence makes your strikes chain Burn; a Frost essence layers Freeze; a Shadow essence steals Curse stacks.

Roughly 728 unique mutations (13 archetypes × 7 actives × 8 categories). Most builds quietly inherit a dozen of them without thinking about it.

Identity layer · the parallel non-combat track

Profession

What this means for you: a member's profession decides which buildings you can construct, so recruit for the professions your base needs. Every member has one of 32 professions across 18 underlying categories (Blacksmith, Alchemist, Hunter, Bard, Engineer, Cartographer, Sky Captain, and so on). It runs on its own skill-point pool (cap 18, max reachable 17) and a separate trunk-plus-leaf skill tree.

• Level 1 → 10: earns +1 SP per level, plus +5% yield / -3% duration / +10 profession power. XP comes from profession quests, profession chain quests, and Training Intensive.
• Mastery Trial: unlocks at level 10. +5 SP, opens up the mastery-gated leaf nodes, +20 profession power. Only ONE Master per profession across your whole faction at a time.
• Leaf actives: every leaf has a daily-cooldown active. 3 are wired today (Miner Gemstrike, Healer Field Triage, Bard Rallying Tune); the rest are flavor stubs awaiting design.

Who can change it: only your champion. Open the champion's Identity tab, then Founding Choices, and swap profession for free as often as you like (level and XP carry over; the profession tree is refunded and mastery resets; your home region does not move). Every other member keeps the profession they arrived with for life, and a soul refine does not change it either. To get a specific profession, recruit for it: the Tavern's Seek a Profession (200 gold) rerolls every candidate with the profession you choose.

Build layer · slotted equipment

Gear & material refinement

Members equip weapons, armor, and accessories. Each piece has a base tier (T0 to T5). Material refinement (turning lower-tier materials into higher-tier ones at your buildings) is a crafting system, not the same thing as a soul refine further down this page. It is gated by your buildings' tier range: a region whose resource tier range tops at T2 cannot host a T4 refinery.

Equipment rolls a small affinity tilt that compounds with the essence + race + archetype stack. Most members' loadouts are recipe-crafted, not loot-dropped; see the crafting wiki for the recipe graph.

Prestige layer · per-character

Soul refine, soulfire & the Soul Tree

What this means for you: soul refine is a late choice (it opens at the Low Gold rank), not something to do in your first days. A soul refine (the game's per-member prestige; not the same as material refinement) resets that member to Unbound 1, which also unlocks their essence bindings again. They keep their archetype and their profession, but their archetype skill tree and skill points are cleared. You can optionally sacrifice equipped essences for extra soulfire, and the game saves the previous loadout. The payout is soulfire, which that same member spends on their own Soul Tree.

Each character has their own tree with 206 permanent passive nodes across 5 branches; nothing is shared across the roster, and soulfire can't be moved between members. Allocating into Might raises that one character's ATK; allocating into Mastery shortens that one character's dispatches. The Soul Tree survives every refine, so each climb back up from Unbound starts stronger than the last.

Inheritance layer · faith-aligned

Patron blessing

Consecrate a patron shrine and your roster inherits a patron blessing. Wardens reward growth and the long vigil; Riders reward travel and light; the Conclave rewards the forge and endurance; the Coven rewards hexes and wards; the Seers reward sight and stillness; the Tide Mother rewards the deep and its cycles.

The blessing only applies to members in regions where the consecrated shrine's patron holds sway. Cross-region members are still your characters, just without that specific buff.

Inheritance layer · per-region

Faction loyalty

Each region tracks loyalty toward the patron faiths: Greenwood Wardens, Sunlit Riders, Ironpeak Conclave, Bleakfen Coven, Ashwalker Seers, and the Tide Mother. The dominant faith colors what that region surfaces.

Loyalty doesn't buff existing characters directly. It does not gate the Tavern either: recruiting is only limited by your roster cap.

Inheritance layer · brotherhood-wide

Alliance perks

Your alliance's leader equips perks at the Alliance Hall. Active perks apply to every member of the alliance, including yours. Some are flat numerical buffs (gather rate, refining speed), others unlock systems (extra caravan slot, alliance-wide tomes).

You don't pick your alliance perks. You pick your alliance.

The verbs that consume their time

What characters actually do

A member spends their time on one of three things at any moment:

• Dispatched: out on a quest, gather run, hunt, or patrol. The queue runs on real-world timers, even while the app is closed.
• In combat: auto-battle resolves their archetype actions and slotted essences against an enemy family (and its affix, if rolled).
• Working a building: assigned to a refinery, workshop, or watchtower. Their profession governs the output rate.

Plus the Heartbeat feed: when an NPC agent arrives, the member you assign to handle them gets the rewards (or the consequences).