What the levels were for

Champions

Some maps carry a single monster that is far stronger than anything around it. It is the reason to keep coming back to a field after you have outgrown the levels.

• One champion per map at a time, and it respawns the instant you kill it.
• They drop what the map drops, at hugely better rates, and hand over a chunk of bonus experience on top.
• They are the only source of Relics, which is what opens the boss altar for that region.
• You can spot one by its green aura, and pin down exactly where it is with a Convex Mirror from any tool dealer.

Bosses and altars

Bosses work nothing like the ones you have chased before. None of them spawn on their own. A player brings the Relics to the Ancient Altar in that region, and the boss walks in.

Nobody can steal it

Loot priority on everything the boss drops goes to whoever summoned it, even if that player is lying dead when it falls. If they have left, it falls back to the old rules of most damage first. The no kill steal command works on bosses here too.

How hard

Tuned for one to three players at the boss's own level, which is usually about five above the map it sits on.

What they pay

Unique gear at very high rates, typically 35%. This is the main way gear progresses here.

No cooldown

Summon as often as you can afford the items. The only rule is that a second boss cannot be summoned while the first is still alive.

No tricks

Champions and bosses cannot see through hiding or cloaking, and have no status immunity whatsoever.

MVPs and altars

The Roaming Archaeologist

The world is large and tracking down which champion drops which Relic would be miserable. So there is an NPC who does it for you. You will find her at dungeon entrances, and on any field that has an altar.

• If she is standing on a field, that field has an altar. Ask and she will tell you either way.
• She names the Relics the region's altar wants and where the champions that drop them live.
• She trades Relics for any gear that region's boss drops, without random options. That is your safety net when a boss will not cooperate.
• She also trades Relics for Relic equipment, which cannot be found anywhere else and carries effects nothing at its level can match.
• MVP Trophies buy a card album holding one random MVP card from the same level bracket.
• Listen to her small talk. She explores for a living, and she gossips about what she has found.

Guilds and raids

A guild costs nothing to start. Press Alt and G. There is no Emperium involved. What is new is that the guild itself levels.

Guild levels

Guilds start at level 0 and earn experience toward levels and skill points. The leader spends those on more member slots, on guild storage, and on permanent stat bonuses for every member.

Tax

The leader sets a rate between 0 and 99%, and that slice of every member's base experience goes to the guild instead.

Guild quests

Unlocked by the Steel Wings Favor skill, once a week, handed out at the Steel Wings Headquarters in Luina, west of Aldebaran. Better rewards at higher Favor.

Guild raids

High end instances for five players that pay large amounts of guild experience, and where everything inside can drop commendations. No cooldown, but each run needs a Raid Pass that only leaders can buy. Passes are not tradeable, but guild storage will move them, so a guild can share a stack.

Nightmare dungeons

The dungeons the server is named after. They look like ordinary dungeons and they are not, because of three stats that only exist inside them.

Depth

Each one has three levels. Every step down looks the same and is not: monsters gain huge stats and new skills, and drop better. The dungeon's own champion only appears on the lowest floor, and killing it is how you reach the boss room.

Resistance

The deeper floors give monsters Resistance, and each point cuts all damage you deal by 1%, physical, magical, misc and status alike. Resistance Pierce is the counter, point for point. Forty Resistance against twenty Pierce leaves twenty.

Agony

High level floors drain 1% of your max HP every five seconds per level of Agony. The level is posted before you walk in. Agony Resistance subtracts from it point for point.

Shadow Gear

The answer to both, and it only comes from these dungeons. It equips in the costume tab, so it sits alongside your real build rather than replacing any of it. Outside a Nightmare dungeon it is a small stat bump. Inside, it carries your Resistance Pierce and Agony Resistance, gets much stronger at higher tiers, and takes enchants to shape it how you need.

The boss

Instanced, up to five players, and entry costs items found in the dungeon. Rewards come as chests: enchanting materials, refine ores, convex mirrors and supplies rather than unique gear. They also drop Nightmare Echoes, which spend at the Steel Wings Headquarters in Luina.

Where the first three are

The level 70 tier is the one people reach first, and none of the three entrances are signposted. Pyramid Underground is through the basement of the Morroc pyramid. Capatolina Catacombs is in the centre building of the monastery map, at 192/169. Magma Depths is on the north side of Juno field 03, by the cliffs.

Every piece of Shadow Gear

Shadow enchants

Every piece of Shadow Gear takes an enchant, and the enchant is where the set stops being a stat stick and starts being a build. Each one is tied to a stat, comes in ranks, and like the gear itself it only does anything inside a Nightmare dungeon.

Four ranks on the plain stat line, three on each of the others. The higher the rank the rarer the roll, so a set is usually a mix rather than four of the same.

Challenge dungeons

The ceiling. Monsters above level 150, harder than anything else at the same level, and mostly hidden behind something before you can even get in.

• Everything inside drops Ore Boxes and Herb Boxes, which is a lot of crafting material.
• Each dungeon has its own gear, dropped at a low rate by every monster in it and hidden from Sense, so you will not see it coming.
• Everything can also drop an Emblem of Valor, and you need those to fight the dungeon's MVP.
• Those MVPs expect three to five players. Their reward chests do carry gear: one guaranteed piece from that dungeon, plus ores, convex mirrors, reroll scrolls for random options, and Arcane Dust to spend in Luina.
• Entrances are obscured, gated behind quests, or need special materials every single time. Expect to do detective work.

Reputation

Three factions keep score of what you do, and two of them are at war with each other.

Steel Wings

The order the crown set up to deal with the mess in Midgard, and the one that matters to everybody. You earn it by taking their missions, above all the ones researching the Nightmare dungeons, and it buys faction shops, discounts and further quests. You cannot realistically lose it.

Rachel and Veins

Arunafeltz is in civil war and the two cities want opposite things. Both are shut to you until you earn your way in. Reputation buys shops, discounts, freedom of movement, and soldiers who stop attacking you. It also buys a blessing: more damage dealt and less taken in any dungeon that faction controls, scaling with how much they like you.

The warzone

The land between the two cities is a battlefield, and both sides will cut down a stray adventurer. Killing one side is the fastest way to earn the other, and the fastest way into the negative with the one you killed. Go far enough negative and they start sending assassins after you, more often and stronger the lower you sink.

Neither side

You can hold both cities at positive at once, or ignore the war altogether. Neither is easy. And if you have burned every bridge, an underground black market sells almost everything the factions monopolise, for a price.