Earning XP
XP comes from two sources: killing monsters and using abilities. Each ability defines its own XP-on-use rules — some grant none, so spammable abilities never become free XP engines. The XP required per level grows exponentially: there's no hard cap, but investment plateaus, so endgame is about build expression, not endless grinding.
Leveling Up
Every level grants 2 ability points (spent in your essence skill trees) and 1 stat point (assigned to one of six stats).
The Six Stats
| Stat | Governs |
|---|---|
| Strength | Physical damage dealt |
| Dexterity | Run speed and melee attack speed |
| Wisdom | Mana pool size |
| Intelligence | Mana efficiency — cost reduction on mana abilities |
| Vitality | Health pool size |
| Constitution | Damage reduction and stamina pool size |
Three Resource Pools
- Health — your familiar hearts; a few abilities spend it.
- Stamina — built on the hunger system; used by some abilities.
- Mana — a custom pool that powers the majority of abilities.
Pool sizes scale only from stats and essence passives — never from level directly. A character who invests nothing in Wisdom has a minimal mana pool. Abilities can also actively refill health, mana, or stamina — for yourself or for teammates, which is why support builds are genuinely wanted in groups.
Ability Costs
Active abilities are balanced by any mix of three levers:
- Cooldowns — timed lockouts.
- Resource costs — mana, stamina, or health.
- Material consumption — some powerful abilities burn items from your inventory per cast, tying high-end power back into the economy.
Skill Trees
Each essence is a skill tree — a web of ability nodes with prerequisites. Point into a node to gain or strengthen that ability; investing unlocks its children. Your confluence is a tree too, drawn from the same global ability library, including confluence-exclusive payoffs.
Ability investment is global per character: if the same ability appears in two of your trees, points spent on it count everywhere — you never pay twice. But unlocking a node depends on the prerequisite path within each specific tree, so shared abilities act as bridges between trees while each tree still charges its own toll to go deeper.
Bounded Power
Per-ability point caps, finite trees, the exponential level curve, and doubling duplicate costs mean veterans and committed newcomers converge near the same ceiling. What separates characters is the build, not the hours.