It is influenced by Ultima Online and old Sierra games, and aims for a similar level of difficulty. PvP can happen anywhere at any time. Death has experience and item penalties, and mobs will pick up and use your items against you when you drop them. Mobs, players, and dropped items are all clippable, and deaths are usually from being trapped in one way or another. Many people have spent weeks or months collecting rare items and then raged-quit after losing them. Historically the game has had a peaceful community, but there have been periods of war in which leaving town was dangerous. Things are currently peaceful for new players, especially if you are polite to other champions.
The game features the following tropes:
- 1-Up: The Amulet of Lifesaving immediately provides the player with an extra life if their hitpoints reach 0.
- An Interior Designer Is You: Many players decorate their vault by building things out of items.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Having a skill in the weapon being used has a chance to deliver 'solid hits', which ignore defense.
- Back Stab: Anyone with the Dagger skill has a chance of delivering these kinds of attacks with said weapons, which give a damage multiplier that can stack with critical hits. While they can be performed from any angle, the chances are highest if the target is struck from behind.
- Bandit Mook: There are Thief enemies, who'll steal all of the player's items if they manage to kill them, and will have to be defeated in order to get them back. Oh, and they can drink any low-level potions they looted from you as well.
- Most humanoid enemies, such as orcs and satyrs, can do likewise, though the latter cannot equip helmets or boots.
- Critical Hit: A part of the combat system. Having a skill in whatever one is using to strike with has a small chance of delivering a critical hit, and using an axe while having that skill increases the damage multiplier of a critical hit. Drinking a Potion of Charging lets you inflict one automatically, but it requires a Drinking Skill of 18.
- Continuing is Painful: Every time a player is killed, any unengraved items will be dropped and may be picked up by any human(oid), player or non-player. There is also a small chance that an engraved item will be dropped, but it will tell you what engraved items dropped when upon respawn, and it will mark any player that has an item engraved in your name.
- Dem Bones: Skeletons are fought in the desert and desert tomb area. Moreover, there are not just human skeletons and Liches, but skeleton wolves and rats as well! Altogether, they are actually the toughest enemy fraction in the game.
- Enemy Summoner: Liches will summon Skeletons and Skeleton Rats. Werewolf will summon white wolves when encountered.
- Healing Potion: The Potion of Life. However, it isn't guaranteed to work if your "Drinking Skill" is below 4. There's also a Potion of Extra Life, which is 5X stronger, but requires a Drinking Skill of 13 to be reliable.
- Horny Vikings: A Horned Helmet is the strongest head armor in the game, and the horns actually give the player the chance to inflict 10 "recoil" damage in response to attacks.
- In-Universe Game Clock: One hour in-game is six hours real-time.
- King Mook: Every boss is an upgraded version of the minions it commands.
- Life Drain: One of the magical effects, castable through a scroll. Moreover, the strongest blunt weapon is a Morning Star of Drain Life.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: There are multiple shields in game, many of which also give the player elemental resistances in addition to raising their physical defense. Furthermore, having training in shield use gives a chance to block attacks, though this chance varies with which side they're attacked from.
- Our Minotaurs Are Different: Minotaur is a boss enemy found at the end of The Maze, who wields the strongest axe of its kind and does powerful headbutts.
- Repeatable Quest: A couple of quest-giver/skill trainer NPCs will have a quest that can be done repeatedly after you do enough quests to obtain their skill. Wodon has you gathering and dropping off dagger-type weapons and pan pipes, while Darklow has you taking down a Master Thief, a fairly high-level boss that tends to hide until you get close enough for him to take you down with dagger attacks.
- Regenerating Health: Out of combat, HP regenerates based on the 'Bind Wounds' skill, which is trained by exiting combat after taking damage, and may be increased by either standing still for a period of time or eating food items (which as of now, there are only eggs.) In battle, carrying a Quartz Rabbit charm allows the player to regenerate 5 HP/minute, while wearing a Glove of Healing regenerates 6 HP/minute, and a Hat of Healing regenerates 8 HP/minute.
- Shield Bash: Having a shield equipped allows its wielder to perform a shield bash as its attack. It's less powerful than a weapon attack, and doesn't have much reach (about the same as a dagger, the shortest-reach weapon,) but like weapon attacks its skill allows for Solid and Critical hits.
- Use Your Head: Satyrs (including Satyr Elders and their boss, Forstyll) as well as the Minotaur all have powerful headbutt attacks.
