A wayfarer's guide to the six lands of Aurelan — the whole saga of the Anchors, every soul who walks it, and every foe who would still its hours.
Long ago the First Keepers raised great Anchors — bells, clocks, beacons — so the world might keep its hours, "the glad and the grieving alike." Now one of their own is silencing them, one by one. You are the Keeper who answers.
Six sister-mechanisms cast by the same hand — each stamped "— A." When one falls silent, time pools, stalls, and curdles into the Lull. A Keeper's touch can ring them true again.
Two of the eldest Keepers. Aldric keeps the Isle's Bell and mercy in his heart. Aldous lost his family to a fever in a single afternoon — and decided the Hours themselves were the wound.
Aldous's order, marked by a closed eye. They believe time is the world's wound and silence the cure — and dream of the Long Hush: every clock stopped, the world frozen in one painless, eternal moment.
Once, even a sword-swing waited on the bell. No longer — blades now move in real time. But the world still turns on the toll (one tick per hour): crops, the forge, the weather, and the great World Bosses. Quick of hand, patient of hour.
⚔ levels & HP shown are the foe's; 🪙 each land ends by gifting the next leg of the road — a mount, a faster gait, the flight-roads, a recall-token. Bosses are server-shared on the Isle, and local elsewhere.
The Hours run quick where they touch a blade, and slow where they hold the world. Here is how a Keeper fights, prepares, and makes a living between the tolls.
Ordinary foes fight in real time. You trade blows on a swing timer, close the gap and break away at will, and your abilities cool down in seconds. Trash falls in moments and rises again on a short timer — there is always something to fight.
The world keeps the old slow time: in prod the bell tolls once an hour, and on each toll crops ripen, the forge cools, gather-nodes regrow, the weather and the day turn — and the World Bosses take their dreadful turn. Press ~ for Dev mode (a tick every ~3 seconds) to watch a whole day wheel by.
You mended the Great Bell and chose how the hours should run — so small things quickened while the ancient hungers kept their glacial pace. A World Boss is a tick-paced siege: worn down in real time, but its killing breath charges across the hours.
Each soul's signature strike (slot 3) opens a skill-shot minigame; guard (4) softens the next blow; the third ability heals or rallies; and the high slots add an AOE strike — perfect for a boss's adds — and an AOE support for the party. The rotation then deepens as you climb: an instant nuke (L5), a bleed (L7), and a brutal execute finisher (L12) that crushes a foe below a third of its health.
A signature strike isn't a button — it's a skill-shot. Land the combo three-beat timing, the pierce one clean strike, or mash the flurry. Your run is graded on four-to-five aspects — Timing, Precision, Consistency, Finesse — that compound into the damage. A flawless strike lands for double and then some.
Before a boss, channel your prep — stand still ~6–10s while a glowing cast bar fills, and nail the sweet-window flourish to grade it. 🔪 Sharpen · 👁 Study Foe · 🛡 Brace (soak the AOE) · 💪 Embolden (bonus health) · 🧴 Anoint Blade (bite harder vs bosses) — and don't forget to 🍲 eat a War-Supper. "Did I remember to eat?!" is a real question.
Everything you stack shows in two HUD panels — Buffs and Debuffs — shimmering emoji chips with timers, so you always know what you carry into a fight (and that the 🌙 night is biting harder).
A boss winds a devastating AOE cast that fills one notch per tick — a glowing, stalled bar creeping over the hours, with a danger-circle on the ground. When it tolls to 100%, all within are struck. Brace, step clear, or fall.
Marquee bosses like the Maw of Hours are hard tick-gated sieges — no flood of DPS fells them faster than the hours allow; a true multi-day realm event in prod. Lesser world bosses you can burn down in a single sitting.
The cast resolves even while you're logged off. Linger in the circle mid-cast and the rolling hours can catch you — you may wake to find you fell. The target panel's recommended buffs tell you exactly what to bring.
Gathering trades are learned the first time you work a node; the crafting trades at the Artisan's Guild; Cooking at any campfire. Every art climbs to level 20, and a steady hand at the skill-check earns richer yields.
Pluck herbs, glow-caps and tide-berries from the wilds — F at a glowing sprig.
Cast at a shore spot and set the hook on the bite. Patient fish for patient folk.
Step up to any campfire (F) and cook the day's forage and catch into hearty heals and battle-fare — Herb Stew up to the Hunter's Feast.
Break copper and iron veins from the rock — three good strikes to a vein.
Cut rare reagent-herbs — silverleaf, moonbell — that bloom only in quiet places.
Forge ore into rarer blades and plate at the Guild — daggers up to the Keenedge Blade.
Brew greater tonics and warding draughts from gathered reagents.
Rest at any town innkeeper to bind your hearth, then recall there from anywhere with H. A warm ember-stone that never quite burns out.
Six tilled beds at your homestead: plant a seed and the crop advances one stage per tick — even while you sleep. A stash bank chest keeps your hoard safe.
Return after the hours have turned and a gilded recap tells the tale — what the village did, what the boss did, whether it caught you — with a Share / Save PNG to keep.
Idle five minutes and you drift Away — the camera turns a slow cinematic orbit, a region sigil glowing at your feet. Add friends by name and see who is online, away, or abroad.
Each land you save ends by gifting the next leg of the road. There is no free-flying mount you steer through the air — instead the world opens up in stages: a steed to ride, a spur to ride fast, and finally the flight-roads, where great wind-riders carry you between the lands.
In Eldermoor (Lv ~5), the stablekeep Maelis gifts you the Keeper's Saddle at the end of The Keeper's Road. Open your bag (B), click the saddle into the Mount slot, then press G to ride. Any saddle or steed you later earn rides from that same slot.
In the Sunder Peaks (Lv ~30), Astronomer Cael fits your Strider with the Skyclock Spur at the end of The Long Road Ahead. It's a passive relic — just keep it in your bag and your mount gallops far faster. No equipping needed.
On the Gloam Coast (Lv ~45), Harbormaster Sela Wrack opens the flight-roads of Aurelan at the end of The Farthest Shore. From then on you can summon a wind-rider at any town roost you've discovered (Brackenford, Stonewake, Wrackhaven and more) and soar between them — true point-to-point flight across the world.
In the Ashen Reach (Lv ~50+), old Keeper Hesperin gives you the Wayfarer's Token. Press H anywhere to whistle a wind-rider down to you and ride to any roost you know — you're never far from the open sky again.
The instanced dungeons each hide a rare mount on their final chest (a small drop chance) — the Tideclock Steed and its kin. Win one and it auto-rides from your Mount slot, a bragging-rights steed for the deepest delvers.
Aldous lays down his staff. "I only wanted it to stop hurting." The last lever of all time is under your hand — and the choice, first offered on the Isle, returns one final time, for the whole world.
Restart every Anchor. The world wakes — sharper, fiercer, alive. Grief returns, and so does healing. Clocks are meant to run.
The gentler, slower world Aldous begged for. The refuge endures; nothing breaks what does not move. Some call it mercy, some cowardice.
The Isle's own third way. Hours that must be felt run free; hours that must be borne stay slow. The hardest keeping of all.
Capstone reward — the title ⏳ Keeper of the Last Hour: +24 dmg, +12 def, +80 HP, wards the night. There is no honour in the Waking Lands to equal it.