Parties

Invite

• By name. Any member can invite an online hero by name, from Nearby players or from Friends. An invitation lasts 30 seconds.
• By link. Choose Invite friends to copy a join link. Without a party, this also starts one with you as leader; inside a party, only the leader can share the link. Your friend opens it, plays as a guest or signs in, and joins on entering the world.

A link works for 24 hours while the party has room. The leader can disable it, and removing a member disables it too. A link never takes a hero out of a party they already belong to.

Lead

Only the leader can remove members, choose Make leader beside another member, or disband the party. If the leader leaves, leadership passes on, preferring a member who is online.

Offline members keep their places, except a guest below level 2, whose hero is not kept. Switching to another hero on your account keeps your place, and your leadership if you lead.

Guests

Guests can join parties and fight beside you. They can read the global Chat and Trade channels, but writing in chat, keeping friends and giving items need an account. Read how guest progress is saved.

Shared rewards

Rewards are not split. When a creature falls, every hero who fought it in the last 30 seconds receives the full experience and gold and rolls for their own item, and so do their party members. Each must be alive and within 16 tiles. See creature rewards.

Party members nearby share quest kills and the credit for defeating a story guardian. Items drop for each hero separately. To hand one over, choose Give in Bag (I) beside another registered hero, within 2 tiles.

Private expeditions

The dungeon depths, ruins and mines are private: your party shares one copy. It belongs to the hero who led the party when you first went in, and stays theirs if the leadership changes. If that hero leaves the party, everyone else returns to the entrance. Before leaving, they can choose Give expedition beside another member so the party keeps its progress.

Guardians gain health for every extra hero fighting them nearby, so a bigger party faces a tougher guardian. Their blows stay the same.

Travel together

• Teleport. Choose Teleport on a teammate’s party card to travel to them, even in another area, though not into their personal home or another class’s guild hall. Both of you must be alive, online and 5 seconds out of combat; then stand still for 2 seconds. Moving, being hit or Escape cancels it. Your checkpoint and base portal stay as they were.
• Base portal. While you are in a party, B opens a portal to its Company Hall instead of your home. Only you and your party can see and use your portals.
• Company Hall. The hall offers every room that any current member has earned, even members who are offline. Each vault stays private to its owner, and the leader chooses the furnishings. Its wilderness gateway lists the members’ private wildernesses to visit. Read about homes.

Defend

Toggle the shield on a teammate’s card to defend them. While you stand within 2 tiles and in sight, you take each enemy blow meant for them, whole: it passes your own armor and wards and can defeat you. Blasts, breaths and other area attacks still reach them.

Each hero can defend one teammate and have one defender. Defending costs no energy and leaves your abilities and class defense free. When you walk a survivor home, you and your party guard them without the toggle.

Every wilderness region has two party sites that open only for two or more heroes of one party, standing within 10 tiles of the site. Anyone can find and read one. While your party is too small, the site’s Nearby row offers Invite.

Site	How it opens
The sealed crypt	Two companions hold the Sun and Moon seals at the same moment.
The margrave’s sarcophagus	Two companions lift the head and foot handles together.
The raised drawbridge	Two companions turn the east and west winches together.
The cursed coffer	One companion breaks the curse in three stages of 3 seconds while the others keep its spirits away.
The abandoned supply wagon	One companion searches it while another stands close by.

A held seal, handle or winch lasts 6 seconds, long enough for a companion to take the other. Taking one needs 5 seconds out of combat, and fighting, being hit or stepping away lets go. Clear the area first.

Opening a site wakes its foes. They match the highest level in your company, within the region’s range, and a larger company meets more of them. When they fall, each companion claims a share once: gold, experience and a piece of equipment. Party members who arrive later share too if they are alive within 16 tiles. The site returns 10 minutes later. See party site gold by level.

Bands that hunt parties

Some roaming bands come only when another member of your party travels with you: the Rootfang pack, the wandering ogre, the drake brood, the old stoneback, the Emberwing’s shadow and the captains of the Red and Iron Pennants. Defeating one counts as a party feat.

Captain Ilsa Marrow

Captain Ilsa Marrow keeps the ledger of companies in the square of Lantern’s Rest. Her requests need a party:

• Bring a Companion, at any level. Complete a party site or a party-only fight with a friend who joined through your link, or whose link you used. You and your friend each earn her finder’s fee once.
• Strength in Company. Complete a party site or win a fight against a band that hunts parties.
• Shoulder to Shoulder. Complete a site opened with seals, handles or winches, complete a cursed coffer, and defeat a band that hunts parties.

Friends

Add a friend by any of their heroes’ names, even while they are offline. They accept the request in Party & Friends (P). Friendships belong to accounts, up to 200 of them, and you get a notice when a friend enters the world. Keeping friends needs an account.

Chat

Press Enter to open Chat. Messages hold up to 240 characters.

Channel	Reaches	Who can write
Nearby	Heroes within 16 tiles in your area	Registered heroes
Party	Your party, wherever they are	Registered heroes in a party
Chat	Every region	Registered heroes from level 5
Trade	Every region	Registered heroes from level 5

Guests can read Chat and Trade but not Nearby or Party messages. You can mute Chat or Trade in the Chat window.

The Mercenaries’ Guild hires out healers, ranged fighters and defenders. Its doorway is in the south wall of the merchant’s hall in Lantern’s Rest. Inside, Captain Maelis Corran hires out her people only to heroes who have proved they can lead a fight.

Complete The Guild’s Proving for her, then choose one of nine mercenaries. A guild contact then also waits in your home, so you can hire without walking to town. Each of your heroes earns the right to hire with their own proving.

The roster

• Support: Sister Wren, Fenna Mossweft and Lirael Reedsong. They heal you, your party and themselves, and some ward you when foes close in.
• Ranger: Ysolde Farshot, Corvin Ashby and Morrow Vane. They fight from a distance and stay close to you.
• Defender: Brakka Ironhide, Grusk Thornhide and Hadrik Stoneward. They fight beside you, meet whoever attacks you, and guard you when you call.

Guild training

Each of Captain Corran’s quests teaches every mercenary you hire the guild’s next training. Abilities from earlier training stay.

Training	Quest	Suggested level	Defeat
1	The Guild’s Proving	5	Goblin scavengers in Lantern March
2	Blooded among the Ferns	15	Wolves in Greenweald
3	Shamblers at the Causeway	25	Moss shamblers in Mosswater
4	Deserters’ Pay	35	Orc sentries in Crownridge

The fee

You pay the guild once, when you hire. The fee grows with your level, up to level 40, and you must carry the gold. Each hero hires one mercenary at a time; dismissing it returns nothing, and hiring again costs the fee again. See gold by level.

On the road

Level

Your level, up to 40. Its abilities grow stronger as it rises.

Fights

Foes already fighting you, your party or itself, and the foe you select. It never starts a fight of its own.

Experience

Takes 10% of the experience you earn from defeated foes. Quest experience is all yours.

Gold

Takes 25% of the gold you find, win or are paid: kills, quests, contracts, caches, party sites, public activities and escorts.

Not shared

Sales, trades, your vault and gifts at home.

When you fall

It steps away while you are down or out of the world, and returns beside you.

Knocked out

It leaves your service. Hire again at the guild or at home, for the fee.

Select your mercenary’s party card to open the Mercenary window. It shows your mercenary’s abilities, the fee you paid and what it has taken so far.

Guard

Ask a defender to guard you with O, or the flag on its party card. For 8 seconds it stays at your side and takes each enemy blow meant for you, as long as it stands within 2 tiles and in sight. Blasts and other area attacks still reach you, and it lets a blow through rather than drop below 25% health. You can call again 30 seconds after each call.

It cannot guard while stunned or asleep. While guarding, each defender reaches first for its guarding abilities, as far as its guild training has taught them:

• Brakka Ironhide: Taunt, Shield Wall and Brace.
• Grusk Thornhide: Briar Ward, Grasping Thicket and Entangling Roots.
• Hadrik Stoneward: Holy Ward and Binding Light.

In a party

A mercenary fills one of the party’s eight places, and a party takes one mercenary. To join a party that already has a mercenary, dismiss yours first.

Travelling alone with one shows its card beside yours, but party sites, Party chat and the Company Hall still need another hero.

How foes treat it

Foes go for heroes first. They turn on a mercenary only when no hero is near enough to notice, when it blocks their way to you, while it guards you, or when it taunts them. A foe your mercenary strikes first comes after you, and guards who fight an outlaw hero fight that hero’s mercenary too.