Dungeon Talents¶
Talents are progression you earn per region, not per character. Kill a monster inside a dungeon, or in its attached wilderness or ocean zone, and its gold feeds a pool tied to that one place. Cross a threshold, earn a point. Spend points on the archetype trees to specialise. The catch: a point only does anything while you're standing in the zone that minted it.
Per-dungeon, not per-character
Points earned in The Pit do nothing in The Depths. Points earned in the Wilderness do nothing on the Ocean. That's the whole idea - every dungeon is its own progression box. You build for the place, not for the character.
How you earn points¶
Land the killing blow on a creature inside a zone and its corpse-gold value counts toward your next point in that zone. Reach the cost of the next point and it's yours. Leftover gold carries into the next purchase.
Costs climb linearly with how many points you've already banked in that zone:
Cost curve
cost(n) = 200 + n × 200
where n is the number of points you've already earned in that zone. The first point is cheap; every point after costs 200 gold more than the last.
| Point # | Gold cost | Cumulative gold |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 200 | 200 |
| 2 | 400 | 600 |
| 3 | 600 | 1,200 |
| 5 | 1,000 | 3,000 |
| 10 | 2,000 | 11,000 |
| 20 | 4,000 | 42,000 |
| 30 | 6,000 | 93,000 |
| 50 | 10,000 | 255,000 |
A single boss can pop several points at once if its corpse-gold overflows multiple thresholds in a row.
When a point lands, a golden burst plays at your feet and the talent-level chime fires. Clear multiple thresholds on one kill and the bursts stack.
How you spend points¶
Points unlock nodes in the per-archetype trees. There are eleven archetypes, each with its own tree:
| Tree | Theme | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Melee | All-weapon melee + defensive shell | (covered across the weapon pages + Defensive) |
| Archery | Bows, crossbows, throwing | Archery |
| Magic | Spell damage + abjuration | Magic |
| Swords | Sword-family offensive specialisation | Swords |
| Macing | Mace/maul/staff offensive specialisation | Macing |
| Fencing | Spear/kryss/dagger offensive specialisation | Fencing |
| Taming | Pets, summons, beastcraft | Pet / Taming |
| Healing | Bandage, spell-heal, and veterinary care | Healing |
| Ocean | Naval combat - cannons, hull, sails | Ocean |
| Utility | Detection and other non-combat senses | Utility |
| Bard | Songs that sharpen your blade or the whole party's | Bard |
Most trees run two main paths (Offensive and Defensive) plus a short Efficiency column:
T1 (5 ranks × 1pt) Entry scalar - no prereq
T2 (3-5 ranks × 1pt) Secondary scalar - prereq: T1 same path
T3 (1 rank × 2pt) Feature node - prereq: T2 same path
T4A (1 rank × 2pt) Fork choice A - prereq: T3 (locks T4B)
T4B (1 rank × 2pt) Fork choice B - prereq: T3 (locks T4A)
T5 (1 rank × 3pt) Capstone - prereq: EITHER T4 fork
The T4 fork is one or the other - pick a side and the other locks. None of it is permanent; refund and re-pick as often as you like.
30-point cap per dungeon
You can SPEND at most 30 points into any single dungeon's tree. Anything earned past that is still tracked, just locked out of allocation. Thirty points fills roughly two archetype paths - an Offensive lane plus a Defensive one - or one fully-specced archetype including its Efficiency column.
Active abilities vs. passives¶
Most T1/T2/T3 talents are passive scalars: they apply on their own while you're in the dungeon. T4 forks usually pair one passive with one active. T5 capstones are nearly always actives on long cooldowns. Actives bind to the in-game hotbar; passives just work, no setup.
Any active you've unlocked wears a big "+" badge in its top-right corner in the tree. The "+" means this can go on your hotbar - click it to start assigning, then click a hotbar slot to drop it in.
Hotbar pages - one row per build
The talent hotbar ([hotbar) holds multiple pages of slots - it starts with 5, so the ◄ N/M ► arrows sit right on the bar. Park a different build's actives on each row and flip between them. Your slot keybinds always fire the current page, so swapping pages swaps your whole ability set in one move. Set how many pages you want (up to 5) from the right-click bar options, alongside slot count and orientation. Each page keeps its own bindings, and your current page is remembered between sessions.
Assigning to a slot, and resizing the bar
Assignment starts in the talent tree so you never have to search a screen-length hotbar list: click the "+" badge on an unlocked active, then click the hotbar slot where you want it. Every slot lights up with a gold glow during placement, and you can click anywhere inside any glowing slot. An ordinary left-click on an empty slot does nothing; right-click a bound slot if you want to clear it. To resize the whole bar, drag the small grip in its bottom-right corner: out to enlarge, in to shrink. The size sticks per character. You can still dial in an exact size, slot count, orientation, and page count from the right-click bar options.
Every active carries a fixed cooldown, listed right on its node. The cooldown is dungeon-wide - walking out and back in won't reset it.
Loadouts (3 saved specs per archetype)¶
Every dungeon-and-archetype pairing gives you three save slots. Save your current Offensive / Defensive / Efficiency spend into a slot, name it (12 characters), and one click later you're in a completely different build with nothing re-spent. Saved builds stay with your character.
Reset and refund¶
- Refund one rank: right-click a talent to push one point back to your pool. Drop a talent to rank 0 and anything above it in the chain that depended on it refunds automatically - you never end up holding a talent whose prerequisite is gone.
- Reset tree: wipes every rank in the current dungeon back to zero. Your earned points stay untouched - you lose the allocation, not the points.
Talent changes require you to be out of combat. Spending, refunding, resetting, and loading a saved build are all blocked while you're fighting - break off for a few seconds first.
Reset and refund never destroy earned points. Experiment freely.
The dungeon zones¶
Every zone below keeps its own pool. Gold progress and points are tracked separately in each one.
| Zone | What it covers |
|---|---|
| The Pit | The Pit dungeon |
| The Depths | The Depths, both levels |
| Sunken Temple | All four levels of Sunken Temple, including The Tideheart, sharing one pool |
| Pale Cathedral | Pale Cathedral, every room of it |
| Ocean | Anywhere you're on a boat |
| Wilderness | Every land tile that isn't inside a dungeon |
A boat deck always counts as Ocean, a dungeon counts as that dungeon, and everything else on land is Wilderness. Sunken Temple and Pale Cathedral don't draw on Wilderness points: progress you've made in the Wilderness stays in the Wilderness, and walking into either place doesn't bring it along.