Guardian Growth

“The Ten you stand beside today are greater than the Ten of your grandmother’s watch, and lesser than the Ten your grandchildren will know.” — The Seamkeeper’s Codex, The Ten

Guardians are the only permanently-growing power in your Sanctuary. Troops are re-woven; buildings cap out; Guardians remember.

How XP works

Guardians in a march’s formation earn XP from every battle:

• XP scales with enemy power — 0.5 XP per point of enemy force power. Bigger snarls teach more.
• Winning pays full; losing pays 30%. A hard win out-teaches an easy one; a loss still teaches something.
• Every Guardian in the formation earns — five slots filled means five Guardians growing per fight.

The leveling curve

• Level cap: 30.
• Level 1→2 costs 1,000 XP, and each level costs +6% more than the last (about 5,400 XP for level 29→30).
• Stats rise with level, so a leveled roster compounds with your troop upgrades and research.

Total XP to cap is roughly 79,000 per Guardian — this is a long game. The Scholar’s Legacy research node (Scholar branch) boosts XP gain; take it before your grinding era, not after.

Leveling efficiently

1. Always march five. An empty formation slot is XP nobody earned.
2. Fight the biggest snarl you can safely clear — XP-per-wounded is best just inside your comfort zone. The send-sheet preview tells you where that zone ends.
3. Rotate the bench deliberately or not at all. Spreading XP across all ten feels fair and leaves you with ten mediocre Guardians at the worst moment. Most Overseers level a main five first, then feed the second five with routine gathering escorts.
4. The world boss is an XP event. Enemy power doesn’t get bigger than the Devourer; every alliance strike against it pays Guardian XP regardless of whether the alliance finishes the job that week.

Note

Guardians never die and never need healing — battle costs them nothing. The XP grind’s only real cost is your troops’ wounded queue, which is why Font capacity and Battle Medic research quietly set your leveling pace.