Survival & Vitals

Your character carries five tracked attributes alongside your skills: Health, Stamina, Sustenance, Hydration and Rest.

Sustenance and Hydration are the survival-game staples, fed by cooked food and clean water. Stamina is the one that decides fights, because it pays for blocking, dodging and attacking all at once, which is why magic armour cutting stamina regen delay in half is a bigger deal than its defence number suggests.

The very first quest, Getting Started, teaches this with Doric: collect one dirty water from a pond, gather ten ash logs and eight stones from around the temple ruins, build a crafting table, and craft a stone club. You hand the club back and get a vegetable soup for it. That is the whole survival loop in miniature, and it is also the last time the game is gentle with you.