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Your First Hour

From "I just made a character" to "I have a working build and I know where I'm going". This is the route the opening quests take you on, and what each step hands you.

Make a character

Character creation is short. Pick a name and sex, customise your look, hit Finish. There's no profession or skill screen to wrestle with. You drop straight into the world.

Choose your path

The moment you spawn, a Choose Your Path menu opens with the rest of the screen dimmed. You can't move or close it until you choose. Five combat foundations:

  • Warrior: melee tank and bruiser. Starts with combat skills, a weapon, a shield and bandages. Gets the Tempest affinity.
  • Mage: spellcaster. Starts with Magery, Eval Int and Meditation, a spellbook and a casting focus. Gets the Arcanum affinity.
  • Ranger: archer. Starts with Archery, a bow, arrows and bandages. Gets the Hawkeye affinity.
  • Bard: performer. Starts with Musicianship, Provocation, Peacemaking and Discordance at 50, plus Macing, Tactics and Healing to fight and mend between songs, a lute, a club and bandages. Gets the Tempest affinity. Instruments are craft-only on Lyonspyre, so the starting lute matters. See Bard talents.
  • Tamer: beastmaster. Starts with Animal Taming, Animal Lore, Veterinary, Healing and Wrestling, bandages, and a bonded pet already at your side. Gets the Sylvan affinity. You also choose a secondary combat skill (Swords, Fencing, Macing, Archery or Magery) granted at 50, so you can fight in your own right beside your beasts. A Mage Tamer also starts with Meditation at 50.

Your path grants its skills, gear and affinity, and that affinity fills every slot, so all six are earning from the first kill. None of it locks you in. Skills grow with use, talents refund freely, and affinity can be reassigned later without losing a level. The path is a head start, not a class.

Every path can gather and craft. There's no Crafter or Harvester starter because neither uses skill points. Every character begins with all eight professions: four crafting trades plus Mining, Lumberjacking, Skinning and Fishing.

Every path starts with a dye tub. Click it once to open a colour picker and choose a colour. Take the piece you want to recolour off (you can't dye what you're wearing), then double-click the tub to use it on the piece. There's no separate dyes item on Lyonspyre. The tub does it all.

Two quick choices

Right after your path, two short panels set up your screen:

  • Quest Guidance shows a moving preview of each way you can be pointed at an objective: a glowing Quest GPS path on the ground, a Classic Arrow at the edge of the screen, or Off. GPS is preselected. Your pick saves the moment you click a card, and you can change it any time under Profile ▸ QOL Features.
  • Backpack layout offers a Resizable Backpack, a worn leather pack whose item area grows when you drag its lower-right corner, or the Classic Backpack with the familiar fixed artwork. Both support ordinary dragging, equipping, targeting, tooltips and macros. Change it later under Options ▸ Containers ▸ Backpack layout.

The game also arranges a fresh character's screen for you: on a roomy display the game view and World Map start larger, with the map docked to the right; laptop-sized windows get a balanced layout that leaves room for your backpack, paperdoll, chat and hotbar. The buff bar starts open. Move, resize or close any of these and the game remembers.

The native menu across the top of the screen holds your everyday windows: Map, Character, Inventory, Journal, Profile, Crafting, World Map and Debug (FPS, ping and connection traffic). Two commands worth learning on day one:

  • [talents opens your dungeon talent tree.
  • [profile opens your character hub. Its Affinity tab is where you view and reassign affinity.

The road in

Tavi the Roadwarden meets you on the road into town and sends you to Elder Mara at her gathering just inside Lyonspyre's gates. Accepting Report to Elder Mara opens the world map briefly and points out the gold quest marker; walk as normal and press Finish when you're done looking. That first turn-in pays a blessed runebook marked to town, a blessed Ethereal Horse statuette and a blessed cloak of the zephyr.

Know Thyself follows right there. It's one continuous lesson: the guided view highlights Profile on the top menu and walks its eight tabs, Profile, Ledger, Regalia, Stats, Talents, Affinity, Skills and Presets, then moves straight into a hands-on Affinity step. Six cards identify the schools as Melee, Ranged, Spellcasting, Loot, Pets or Defense. Your starter school is marked, but you may choose any card. Confirming applies it to all six slots and Mara awakens that school's Weapon track at level 1 on the spot. The guide shows the 2, 4 and 6-slot set bonuses, then sends you back to Mara for one combined turn-in: 250 gold and 5 Wilderness talent points.

Then Mara asks what you'd like next.

  • Begin Combat starts her rat hunt immediately.
  • Craft / Harvest lets you choose Lumberjacking, Mining, Skinning or Fishing, and Mara hands you straight to the matching mentor: Hilda for wood and carpentry, Brennen for ore and smithing, Ysabet for hides and tailoring, or Maren for fishing, boating and cooking. Your quest guidance leads you to them. Double-click the mentor once when you arrive and their lesson begins, tools and all, with no separate Accept step.

This is direction, not a permanent choice. You can learn every profession, and choosing a mentor never removes Mara's combat quest.

Combat: rats, then The Pit

A Welcome to Lyonspyre sends you to an old warrior's house at the water's edge south of town to clear three giant rats from his hall. Turn in to Mara and choose either Tactics or Magery as your skill reward first; the button reads Select a Reward until you've picked, then Accept Reward.

Next, see Veska the Warden for Coin from the Deep. Head south out of town, then directly east, to the mine entrance of The Pit. Clear 500 gold worth of creatures inside and come back. It's a one-time quest and pays 1,000 gold plus 20 affinity XP to every assigned slot.

Turning it in starts A Warden's Commission, your introduction to the weekly Ledger. Open Profile ▸ Ledger ▸ Assignments ▸ Warden's Commission and TAKE The Depths Purge; green stars mark the tab, the board and the job until you do. The job asks for 10,000 gold worth of creatures in The Depths and pays 15 Crown Marks and 60 Standing. Only kills after taking the job count, and you keep the loot. Follow the quest marker to the entrance northwest of town, at 3286, 1853, and step inside. That ends the introduction: the hunt stays on your Crown Jobs tracker and pays automatically when it's done, with no return trip. If you drop the job or the week resets before you enter, take it again. See Crown Ledger.

If you took up a trade

Each mentor's lesson opens with a guided view of your backpack and the loaner tool they've given you: a hatchet, a pickaxe or a skinning knife. Left-click the highlighted tool and click Auto-Harvest: OFF to switch its discipline on. For Mining and Lumberjacking the guide then opens your paperdoll and waits for you to equip the tool (double-click it, or drag it onto your character). Skinning is different: the knife stays in your pack and works hands-free once auto-harvest is on. Skip dismisses any of these callouts if you'd rather carry on alone.

When a lesson reaches its craft step, the guide highlights Crafting on the top menu. Click it and the quest recipe glows green in the recipe list.

Wood: Hilda

  • A Stool to Rest On runs the whole wood loop at level 1: chop 18 logs, cut them into 9 boards (two logs make one board, the refining rule everywhere), then craft a plain stool. Hilda gives you a loaner hatchet to start and a loaner saw when you return with boards. To chop: equip the hatchet and target a tree, or target yourself to swing at the nearest one. To make boards: single-click a log stack. Finishing brings Lumberjacking and Carpentry to at least level 2.
  • The Next Cut teaches coloured-wood refining. Chop 14 plain logs and cut 7 plain boards, then chop 14 Moorwood logs (your level 2 bracket is what lets Moorwood rolls land). Keep the plain boards in your pack while you cut: every 2 Moorwood logs plus 1 plain board makes 1 Moorwood board, for exactly 7 Moorwood boards, enough for the Moorwood bow Hilda wants. Turn it in for 250 Lumberjacking XP and 7 spare Moorwood boards. That's Hilda's last lesson; the richer woods you learn at the tree.

Ore: Brennen

  • Steel for the Pit runs the whole smithing loop at level 1: mine 16 iron ore, smelt it into 8 iron ingots at a forge (two ore make one ingot), then forge an iron tear kite shield. Brennen hands you a smith's hammer for the craft step. To mine: equip the pickaxe and target a vein, or target yourself for the nearest one. To smelt: single-click the ore near a forge. Finishing brings Mining and Blacksmithing to at least level 2.
  • The Next Rung teaches coloured-metal refining. Mine 6 iron ore and smelt 3 iron ingots, then mine 6 Moorite ore. Keep the iron ingots in your pack while you smelt: every 2 Moorite ore plus 1 iron ingot makes 1 Moorite ingot, for exactly 3 Moorite ingots, enough for the Moorite dagger Brennen wants. Turn it in for 250 Mining XP and 5 extra Moorite ingots. That's Brennen's last lesson; the rest of the ladder you climb at your own forge.

Hide: Ysabet

  • A Cap for the Watch opens the leather track. Skin 4 regular hides (double-click the loaner knife to skin every fresh corpse nearby), cut them into 2 leather with the scissors, then stitch a leather cap with the loaner sewing kit she hands you at the craft step. Finishing brings Skinning and Tailoring to at least level 2 and hands you a leatherworker's kit. Say "skin" to Ysabet if you're new and she'll bring you to Skinning level 2 first.
  • The Next Hide teaches coloured-leather refining. Skin 4 regular hides and cut 2 leather, then skin 4 Moorhides off tougher beasts. Keep the leather in your pack while you cut: every 2 Moorhides plus 1 leather makes 1 Moorhide leather, for exactly 2 Moorhide leather, enough for the Moorhide cap Ysabet wants. Turn it in for 250 Skinning XP and 5 Moorhide leather. That's her last lesson; the richer skins come off tougher beasts now.

Water: Maren

First Catch teaches fishing, cooking and your first boat in one lesson, with the same guided callouts.

  1. Launch a boat. Every fresh character receives a boat deed during the playtest. Visit the Dockmaster beside Maren, choose ADD A BOAT FROM PACK, target the deed, choose LAUNCH and pick open water. Boats are only ever launched through a Dockmaster, never by double-clicking the deed. The starter hull comes with a level-one captain and lookout aboard. The Vessel panel then walks you through EMBARK, the floating boat hotbar and HELM: steer by buttons, spoken directions or hotkeys. Maren gives you three spyglasses; raise one from the helm, double-click one in your pack, or type [spyglass. Plotting an automatic World Map route needs the Dead Reckoning talent.
  2. Catch and cook. The helm's FISHING: ON / OFF and the pole's Auto-Harvest: ON / OFF control the same mode. The opening catch is 8 plain fish, which become 4 plain fillets. Cooking your first Fish Soup uses two, raises Fishing and Apothecary to level 2, upgrades Maren's loaner pole to Moorwood, and leaves the two lower-tier fillets you'll need next. Fish Soup is the one recipe you can cook aboard.
  3. Find a school. The lesson opens the World Map around the nearest sea-green fishing school and keeps a gold sonar pulse on it until you press Finish. Sail fully inside until the School Waters buff appears, then catch 4 Moorfin. Only Moorfin landed inside the ring count. Left-click the stack and choose Fillet: four Moorfin plus your two plain fillets make two Moorfin fillets. Cook those into Moorfin Soup to finish the tier-two chain. Schools open the full seven-tier fish ladder, but they're shared and finite, the ocean is lawless, and pirates hunt the crews working them.
  4. Dock and report. Bring the boat into a Dockmaster's range (or reach Maren's pier), stop, and let the hull settle for five seconds. Double-click the highlighted Dockmaster, or press Finish to call for docking, then choose DOCK THE SHIP I AM ON. Once the berth is confirmed the tracker advances to Speak with Maren and her green turn-in marker appears.

The loaner tools

The hatchet, saw, pickaxe, skinning knife, scissors and sewing kit these quests hand you are blessed: you keep them on death, and they can't be sold or duplicated. Crafting itself needs no tool; the loaners are for gathering and cutting. Harvest tools wear out with use (see Harvest tools wear out). Wear one out mid-quest and the giver hands you a fresh one, but only when you have none left. Run your pickaxe out on Steel for the Pit and an on-screen nudge sends you back to Brennen.

Your gather progress sticks. Once you've mined or chopped what a step asked for, that step stays complete; smelting the ore or using the boards never knocks the count back.

Every harvest tool carries an Auto-Harvest: ON / OFF switch on its menu. [gather auto:mining, [gather auto:lumberjacking, [gather auto:skinning, [gather auto:fishing and [gather auto:off do the same from the chat bar. See Auto-gather on the tool.

Where to go from here