🔶 RESERVED — owner is handcrafting this. The Prologue needs the owner's own words (world, tone, the setup before the rules). Placeholder only; do not auto-fill. App: render a titled section with a "coming soon" state or just hold the slot.

Known topic for this section: the Anam — the imparted spirits of past masters that relics carry (the Skills page hints at this as "rumored" and points here for the real lore). Whatever else the Prologue covers, the Anam concept resolves here.

Over the adventure you gather companions, each a different answer to a fight. These are the heroes you come to know — and how they carry themselves in battle.

Class

Paladin

Weapon

Glenn's Longsword

Element

Radiant

Home

Laria

🔶 Placeholder bio — owner blurb pending.

The one you play as — a young Paladin of Laria, a holy warrior built on strength and faith. He wields Glenn's Longsword and the signature radiant attack, Smite. Balanced offense and defense (even STR/CON), with Wisdom/Intelligence as off-stats that unlock his powerful radiant path — the more you invest, the more Smite defines him.

Class

Warrior

Weapon

—

Element

Earth

Home

—

🔶 Placeholder bio — owner blurb pending.

The party's frontline muscle — the heaviest physical hitter (top Strength, with the Constitution to soak blows). Where Elias balances, Falmri commits: raw melee damage and staying power. Built to stand at the front and hit hard.

Class

Mage

Weapon

—

Element

—

Home

—

🔶 Placeholder bio — owner blurb pending.

The party's mage — devastating magical power (by far the highest Intelligence and Wisdom). Fragile up close, but her spells strike where physical defense can't help. The answer to armored and magic-vulnerable foes.

Move / navigateWASD↑←↓→

Confirm / interactEnterL-Click

Open menuSpaceTab

Cancel / backEscR-Click

The game plays two ways at once — keyboard or mouse — and you can switch any time just by using the other.

Keyboard + Mouse (desktop)

• Two modes, auto-switching: moving the mouse switches to mouse mode (a feather cursor appears); pressing WASD/arrows switches back to keyboard mode. Only mouse movement flips the mode — a click never does.
• Left-click = confirm/interact everywhere — walk to a spot, talk, pick a menu option, confirm an attack.

🔶 App: controls diagram from the in-game input icons — WebBootstrap/GUI/Assets/InputIcons/ (keyboard_, mouse_).

Mobile — touch controls (browser)

🔶 PENDING owner confirm on the model (App has the specifics + art). Today's code is tap-to-move (tap a spot → walk there, an expanding "TouchPing" marks it; a virtual cursor drives menus). The owner also referred to a "browser controller overlay" (on-screen d-pad + buttons). Once the model's confirmed I'll write the touch scheme — taps/overlay, the ping feedback, and how menus + combat work by touch — with App's mobile art.

This page names everything you see on screen — the field (walking around) and the battle view — so you always know what you're looking at. 🔶 App: this is the signature annotated-diagram page — a labeled screenshot with callout numbers pointing at each element below.

The Field screen (walking around)

Indicators — the game tells you what you can do:

• Scene-exit markers (new, ON by default) — a floating animated triangle hovers over every way out of the area, so you can always see where you can walk to leave. Toggle them off/on with the △ / Y button (outside battle). They vanish during combat.
• Interact cursor — hover the mouse over something you can use and a small icon appears at the cursor telling you what a click will do: a speech bubble over an NPC (talk), a hand/marker over a chest, door, or lever. If there's no icon, there's nothing to interact with there.
• Things worth grabbing SHINE. Pickups catch your eye with a shine/glow:
  • Treasure chests — glint until opened; an opened chest stays visibly open, so at a glance you know which you've already looted.
  • Item bags — dropped loot from a won fight sits on the ground as a bag, shining until you walk over it.
  • Relics on the ground — a relic waiting to be picked up shines to mark it.
• Input-mode toast — switch between mouse and keyboard and a small icon flashes top-right (~2s) showing which mode you're in now (the game plays either way — see Controls).

The Battle screen (verbose HUD breakdown)

🔶 App: the annotated diagram uses combat_hud_clean.png (frontmatter battle_hud_screenshot). It's a clean capture — the only overlay to add is callout lines/numbers pointing to each region below. Region positions in the image: ① bottom-left, ② bottom-center, ③ bottom-right, ④ far-left column, ⑤ top-right.

Callout map (matches the screenshot):

When a fight starts you're on a tile grid. The HUD reads:

• Your unit panel (bottom-left) — the active character's portrait + name, and three bars:
  • HP (red) — health; hit zero and the character falls.
  • MP (blue) — magic, spent on skills like Smite/Cure.
  • AP (green) — Action Points for this turn (move + attack + skills each cost AP).
• Enemy panel (bottom-right) — the targeted enemy's name + HP/MP/AP (enemy stat detail shows only with the Scan relic slotted; otherwise "???").
• Turn order — units act in initiative order; the rail shows who's up next.
• The action menu (on your turn) — Move · Attack · Ability (skill) · End · Run Away. (Using items needs the Item relic slotted.)
• Grid highlights — when you pick Attack or a skill, the grid lights up: red = the cell you'll hit (auto-targeted), yellow = the reach/range preview. Move shows the tiles you can step to.
• Combat log — toggle the log to see each attack's chance + result (HIT / MISS / CRIT) and damage. 🔶 (full log display pending; opens in the side panel on desktop.)

Outside battle you walk the world, talk to people, and poke at everything.

• Move — WASD/arrows, or click a spot to walk there (see Controls).
• Talk — walk up to an NPC and interact; a speech bubble at the cursor means they'll talk.
• Doors & exits — step onto a doorway/edge to change areas. The scene-exit triangles show every way out (see The Screen).
• Chests & pickups — anything worth grabbing shines; an opened chest stays open so you know what you've looted. Won fights drop item bags on the ground; walk over them to collect.
• Rest — beds (like the one in Elias' house) fully restore HP and MP. Remember where they are.
• Save — from the menu; you can save freely in the village.

Combat is turn-based on a tile grid. Units act in initiative order (higher Agility/Dexterity acts sooner). For what each part of the screen means, see The Screen; here's how it works.

Your turn — the actions

• Move — step across tiles (costs AP).
• Attack — strike an adjacent enemy (most attacks are range 1).
• Ability — use a skill (costs AP + often MP). See Skills.
• End — end your turn. · Run Away — flee the battle.
• Items in battle need the Item relic slotted (see Skills).

AP economy

Each turn you get AP (Action Points); move, attack, and skills each cost AP — plan the turn around it. AP grows with your Stamina stat (1 → up to 5).

How damage & hits work (the short version)

• Damage scales your attack against the target's defense (a ratio — high defense soaks a %, never to zero on a normal hit), plus a little random variance.
• Critical hits deal bonus damage. Yours is higher than most enemies' (~16% vs ~6%), so crits tend to swing fights your way — you'll see "CRIT" in the log.
• Hits are reliable in an even matchup (~95%); a miss (~5%) is the odd unlucky swing.
• Physical resistance (some foes, like the VSlime) halves physical damage. Radiant damage (Smite) ignores defense AND resistance — only magic defense reduces it. That's why Smite answers tanky enemies.

Range & areas

Most attacks are adjacent (range 1). Some skills and enemy attacks reach further — e.g. the Mother Slime's poison cloud is a radius-3 area, so you can be hurt without standing next to her.

Big units take up more than one tile

Some units — large enemies and bosses — occupy more than one grid cell at once (a 2×2 block, for example) instead of a single tile. A big unit is easier to reach (any of its cells counts as adjacent) and easier to catch in an area.

A multi-cell skill can hit the same unit more than once. An area attack resolves cell by cell, so if its zone covers several cells of one large unit, that unit is struck once for each of its cells the area touches. Line a wide skill up across two or three of a boss's tiles and every overlap lands — that's how you pour extra damage into a big target in a single cast.

Example — Elias's Sweep Attack on the Mother Slime. The Mother Slime fills a block of several tiles. Elias's Sweep Attack hits an area of cells at once, so if the sweep overlaps three of her tiles it deals three separate hits in one action — where a plain Attack would strike her only once. Positioning your area skills to catch the most of a big enemy is a real damage multiplier.

Status effects

• Poison — damage each turn; cure with Valerian Powder (or ride it out). Some enemies leave poison trails on tiles — avoid them.

Every attack carries a damage type, and many types also leave a status effect on the target or a hazard on the terrain. This page is the complete reference — some entries are marked ◈ because they belong to the full game and aren't in the free demo yet, but they're documented here so nothing surprises you later.

Damage types

The type decides what defends against it. Physical is blocked by physical defense; every element (poison, acid, ice, fire, radiant, necrotic) is blocked by magic defense — and Radiant ignores physical defense and resistance, which is why it cuts through armored, tanky foes.

Icon	Type	What it is	Element of
	Physical	plain weapon damage — no element, leaves no status	every fighter
	Poison	venom that corrodes over time	Falmri (Earth)
	Acid	corrosive — eats through defenses	Falmri (Earth)
◈	Ice	biting cold that slows and freezes	the Wizard
◈	Fire	burning flame that spreads	the Wizard
	Radiant	holy light — ignores physical defense & resistance	Elias (Paladin)
◈	Necrotic	death magic — curses and dooms	certain foes

Status effects — the two tiers

Each element inflicts a status that sticks for several turns, and every status has two tiers: a base Tier 1, and a stronger Tier 2 it can escalate into. Cleanse clears any status (of either tier) at once, and a couple of elements have a dedicated cure item.

Icon	Element	Tier 1 (base)	Tier 2 (escalated) ◈
	Poison	Poisoned — damage every turn (stacks if ignored)	Confused — takes a random action every turn
	Acid	Acid Covered — corroded; takes extra physical damage & deals less	Vulnerable — all damage taken is doubled
◈	Ice	Chilled — movement reduced	Frozen — can't act for 3 turns
◈	Fire	Scorched — damage every turn	Aflame — heavy damage every turn, and it spreads
◈	Radiant	Blind — accuracy slashed, attacks often miss	Stunned — loses its next turn, takes +50% damage
◈	Necrotic	Cursed — a necrotic curse	Doom — KO'd when the countdown runs out

Each is a separate status. Tier 2 statuses come into play later in the game — ◈ marks them (and the Ice/Fire/Necrotic lines), designed for the full game, not the free demo.

Cures: Cleanse removes any status; Valerian Powder cures Poison, Barbados Extract cures Acid.

💡 Poison is the one you'll actually meet in the demo. The VSlime and the Mother Slime's poison cloud apply Poisoned (Tier 1), and it keeps ticking after the moment that caused it. Carry Valerian Powder, or learn Cleanse (which strips any status at once). Don't linger on poison-trail tiles — they re-apply it.

Terrain hazards

Elements also leave the ground dangerous. Standing on afflicted terrain applies its element each turn.

How a unit takes a type — reactions & effects

On top of defense, a unit can have a built-in reaction to a damage type — and note that Heal and Absorb are effects, not damage types:

• Immune — takes 0 of that type (a Slime is immune to its own poison — you'll see the crossed-out immunity icon).
• Resistant — takes reduced damage (physical resistance halves physical, for instance).
• Absorb — the unit is healed by that type instead of harmed.
• Heal — the restorative effect itself (Cure, Mugwort) — it adds HP rather than dealing damage.

Why Radiant matters: an armored or tanky foe shrugs off physical hits, but Radiant ignores physical defense and resistance entirely — it only answers to magic defense, which those foes barely have. That's the whole reason Smite is Elias's answer to a wall like the VSlime.

Skills are the special abilities you use in battle — beyond the plain Attack. They come in two kinds, and the difference is where they come from, not how they feel to use:

• Class skills — earned on your Paladin class tree (spend SP). They're part of you — permanent.
• Relic skills — granted by a relic you've slotted (a relic is an item you own). They travel with the relic — swappable.

The two kinds at a glance

Class skills (from the Paladin tree)

Unlocked by spending SP on the class tree, walking node to node. Once learned, they're yours for good. Types:

• Action — used on your turn (Smite, Cure, Cleanse, Push Attack). Cost AP, often MP.
• Passive — always on.
• Reaction — trigger automatically (e.g. a counter when hit).

Relic skills (from slotted relics)

A relic is an item you find and own. On its own it sits in your bag doing nothing — you slot it into a Relic Slot (in the Skills menu) to turn on the skill it grants.

Rumored… They say a relic carries an Anam — the imparted spirit of a past master — and to slot one is to receive their skill, which then grows the more you wield it in battle (the mastery you come to feel as Expertise). Whether that's truth or a villager's tale… the Prologue tells more of the Anam.

Demo relics:

• Item — lets you use consumables (Mugwort, etc.) in combat.
• Scan — reveals enemy stat blocks (without it, enemy stats read "???").
• Move — improves movement.
• Health — boosts survivability.
• Berserckounter — a counter-attack (dropped by the Mother Slime).

Same, and different

What they share:

• Both are used in battle the same way (an action on your turn, a passive, or a reaction).
• Both grow with use — every skill and every relic earns Expertise and gets stronger the more you lean on it (see below).
• Both spend the same resources (AP, and MP for the bigger ones).

What sets them apart:

So: class skills are who you are; relic skills are what you're carrying. A relic is the bridge — an item that becomes a skill the moment it's slotted.

Unlocking class skills — the Paladin class tree

Spend SP (earned by leveling, ~3–5 per level) to buy nodes on the tree, moving from unlocked node to adjacent node. The tree mixes skills, ability-score nodes (raise a raw stat), and the Relic Slot node. You pick your path — lean toward the radiant line for Smite/Cure, or the physical line for Push Attack and raw STR.

Unlocking relic skills — the Relic Slot

A Relic Slot is itself a node on the class tree (spend SP to unlock it). Unlocking a slot gives you a place to put a relic; the tree can grant more than one slot. Then, in the Skills menu, drop a relic you own into the slot — now its skill is live.

💡 Pro Tip — an empty slot does nothing. The moment you unlock a Relic Slot, fill it. The Item relic is a great first choice — it lets you drink Mugwort mid-battle, which is a lifesaver.

Expertise — skills grow the more you use them (Medium & Hard only)

Every skill and every relic earns Expertise Points (EP) each time you use it in battle, and at EP milestones it upgrades — hitting harder and/or costing less. It rewards committing to a skill. A relic's expertise travels with the relic itself — move it and the mastery goes along.

Example — Smite climbs as you use it:

⚠️ Expertise is only active on Medium and Hard. On Easy it's off — skills stay at baseline no matter how much you use them (Easy keeps things simpler and story-focused; Medium/Hard add the depth of mastering skills through use).

Your first skills

Early on your SP is scarce, so spend it with intent:

1. A stat node or two to open the tree in your chosen direction (STR line for melee, WIS line for radiant).
2. Push Attack — the cheapest action skill and a strong opener (shove an enemy back).
3. The Relic Slot — unlocking it early is worth it: slot the Item relic and you can heal with Mugwort inside combat, which turns tight fights winnable.

Then the signature payoffs come deeper in: Cure (heal without items) and Smite (radiant damage that bypasses physical defense/resistance — the answer to tanky foes like the VSlime).

Abbreviations at a glance

(“CP” is the old name for JP — you may see it in older material; it’s Job Points now.)

You grow in two independent ways — raising raw stats (your build) and unlocking the skill tree.

XP → Levels

Win fights for XP; fill the bar to level up. Each level grants JP, SP, and AP.

Raw stats vs Battle stats

• Raw stats are what you invest in with JP: Strength (physical damage), Constitution (HP/defense), Agility (dodge/speed), Dexterity (accuracy), Intelligence (magic/Smite + magic defense), Wisdom (supports magic), Stamina (AP).
• Battle stats are calculated from raw stats — HP, attack, defense, accuracy, etc. You never edit them directly; pick a raw stat by the battle stat you want (hit harder → STR; survive → CON; power Smite → INT/WIS).

Elias is a Paladin — lean STR/CON, with WIS/INT as off-stats that unlock the radiant (Smite) path.

The currencies

💡 Spend your JP and SP after every level-up. Leveling grants them, but the power only lands once you actually spend it (JP in Status, SP in the Skill Tree). An unspent pile is wasted power.

Consumables — each does ONE thing

• Mugwort — heals HP (the only HP-restore in the demo). Using it in battle needs the Item relic.
• Irid Liquor — restores MP (for skills).
• Valerian Powder — cures poison.

Equipment

• Weapon — your attack (Elias claims Glenn's Longsword early).
• Armor / accessories — defense and effects. Buying gear isn't wearing it — open Equipment and equip it (see the Pro Tip). Armor is optional but makes fights easier.

💡 Equip what you buy/find. A bought Leather Chestpiece does nothing sitting in your bag — open Equipment and put it on.

Relics — items that grant skills

A relic is also an item you own — but its whole job is the skill it grants when slotted. See Skills for how relics work (and the rumored Anam behind them). In your bag, a relic is just an item until you slot it.

Open the menu with Space / K / Tab (or the on-screen menu button). Each does one job:

🔶 App: annotate a screenshot of each menu (menu_annotated/) showing where each choice lives.

A field guide to what you'll meet in the demo — what it is, what it does, and how to put it down.

The bread-and-butter Waterway foe. No resistances, no tricks — straightforward to fight: physical attacks land fine, and Glenn's Longsword drops one in about two hits. Poison-immune (don't bother), and it hits for a modest 3–5.

How to fight: just attack. The danger is numbers, not any single Slime — a room of two or three can chip a low-level party down, so heal between fights.

The real trash threat, and a lesson in the combat system. Three things make it nasty:

• It halves your physical damage (physical resist ½) — your sword takes roughly twice as long to kill it.
• Every hit poisons you — cure it with Valerian Powder, or ride out the damage-over-time.
• Don't try to poison it back — it absorbs poison and heals from it.

How to fight: radiant damage (Smite) ignores its physical resistance — that's the clean answer once you have it. Until then, grind it down physically and keep your poison cured. It's the enemy that teaches "bring the right tool."

• Spend your JP and SP after every level. Leveling grants them; the power only lands once you spend it (JP in Status, SP in the Skill Tree). Don't sit on a pile.
• Fill every Relic Slot the moment you unlock one. An empty slot does nothing — the Item relic (drink Mugwort mid-battle) is a great first choice.
• Equip what you buy or find. Gear in your bag does nothing until you put it on in Equipment.
• Heal between fights. Mugwort is your only HP-restore — top up before the next room, and rest at a bed when you can.
• Rush the wrong enemy and you'll bleed. The VSlime halves physical damage and poisons you — bring Valerian Powder, and Smite it if you can (radiant ignores its resistance).
• Crits are on your side. Your crit chance beats most enemies' — even fights swing your way with a little luck.
• Save often — free in the village.
• Use your favorite skills. On Medium/Hard, skills grow with use (Expertise) — leaning on one makes it far stronger over a run.