Your First Session

“By nightfall it had roots. By the third day it had a clearing of stillness… She writes that she sat down inside that stillness and wept, and then, being who she was, made a list.” — The Seamkeeper’s Codex, Age IV

This page is that list, for you. Follow it in order and by the end of your first session you’ll have production running, a small defensive force, and your first march on its way home with salvage.

1. Create your Overseer

Pick a username and password on the login screen and register. Your account is your Sanctuary — there’s no separate character creation. You’ll arrive at the Sanctuary view: your Heart-Cairn at the center, production buildings around it, and the resource bar across the top.

2. Read your resource bar

Four resources matter from minute one (full detail: Resources):

Resource	Comes from	Spent on
Spirit Essence	Spirit Well	Nearly everything — building, training, healing
Ironbark	Ironbark Grove	Construction
Astral Ore	Astral Mine + gathering	Higher-tier troops, research
Gold Coins	Alchemist’s Lab	Alliance research, higher-tier troops

Tip

Production never stops, even while you’re offline. Your real first decision is what rate you log back in to.

3. Upgrade production first

Open your Spirit Well and start an upgrade, then do the same for the Ironbark Grove. Every level raises the building’s hourly output on a compounding curve (about +20% per level), so early production levels pay for themselves quickly — and everything else in your Sanctuary is downstream of Essence.

While those build, upgrade the Heart-Cairn when you can afford it. Its level caps how far every other building can go, so it should never fall far behind.

4. Start your first research

Open the Circle of Knowledge and begin a study in the Verdant branch — Verdant Abundance or Resonant Wells are ideal first picks (production bonuses that compound with the building upgrades you just started). Research runs in parallel with construction; an idle Circle is wasted time. See Research for the full tree.

5. Weave your first troops

Open the Sylvan Grove and train a batch of Tier 1 troops. A mixed set is fine to start — you’ll learn what the three types are for in Training & Healing. Tier 1 Ancient Guardians cost 50 Essence and 10 seconds each; they are cheap insurance and your first march escort.

Note

Troops occupy Sylvan Grove capacity (500 at level 1, growing with each Grove level). Train what you’ll use, not the cap.

6. Meet your Guardians

Open the Guardian Den and look over your roster, then open the formation editor and set a formation: up to 2 Vanguard in front, 3 Mystics behind. Any sensible early formation works — matching a Guardian’s element to your main troop type gives their strand a synergy bonus. Details: Formations.

7. Send your first gather march

Open the World Map. Around your Sanctuary you’ll find resource nodes (crystals of Astral Ore and more) and monster nodes — leave the monsters for now. Pick a nearby low-tier resource node and tap March. The send sheet will:

• auto-assign troops based on your chosen Guardians (you can toggle to manual and adjust with steppers),
• show travel time (4 seconds per tile at base speed) and expected haul before you commit.

Send it, watch the column crawl out across the map, and go start another building upgrade while it works. When it returns, your resource bar ticks up: your first salvage.

8. Before you log off

• Queue your longest upgrade so it runs overnight.
• Keep the Circle of Knowledge studying.
• Check the Healing Font is built and idle — you want it ready before your first fight, not after. (Why wounded ≠ dead)
• Say hello in World Chat — and consider an alliance early; even a small one compounds everything you just set up.

Next: Early Priorities & Common Mistakes.