Exploration

The scout and the riverboat chart the land and the river while you train other skills.

The newest skill

Exploration runs without your adventurer. At the Explorers’ Lodge by the Trail Gate you hire a scout, and from Exploration 10 you build a riverboat at the landing below it. They travel on their own, online or offline, while your adventurer does anything else.

A trip

Plan: pick a region your level has opened, a distance (near is about an hour, far about four hours, farthest overnight) and food for the road. The riverboat also takes a hold of cargo for the ports.
Out: the chart shows the scout on its route, in words rather than a countdown.
Home: the scout waits at the lodge as long as it takes. Nothing it found ever spoils.
Collect: the trip plays back on the chart with its story and haul, then the summary: the experience, any sites it charted and a lead to follow. The fog lifts from the chart for good.
From Exploration 5 a trip can go off the trail, or up the back channels by boat: more happens there, but a mishap can turn it for home halfway. It still pays its full experience.

What is out there

Six regions, from Willow Grove to the Ancient Reach, each opening at its own level. Landmarks lend their place a small lasting perk, herb patches send seeds home, curios fill the Discovery Log, and a lair holds its own monster: the Oldwood Tusker, fought at Grove Fringe by whoever found it. A site’s first finder is announced to the whole server.

The riverboat charts the river’s own sites. Four ports trade goods from your bank for things you cannot gather, such as saplings, seeds, gems and keys. Four fishing grounds each open a new catch on the shore in town. And the Gnawed Pilings lead to Snapjaw’s Sluice, the lair of the Rustbank Snapjaw, fought at Bramble Hollow.

Kit and relics

Kit is built once at the lodge from the other skills’ goods and kept for good: four pieces for the scout and five for the riverboat, from oiled boots to a stern lantern. Each one makes every trip a little better.

The Waymakers, the first explorers, left six relics behind, one in every region. Any trip into a region may find its relic.

A region is charted in full once all its fog is lifted, all its sites are charted and its curios are found. Its gathering places and waters then give up their finds a little more often.

The ladder

The scout (level 1) and the riverboat (level 10) are in the game. The ship (30), rune train (50), airship (70) and star-vessel (90) are planned and stand greyed on the ladder until they are built.