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: a side-scrolling fantasy MMO
Fight, tame and build in a side-scrolling fantasy MMO.
Skill-based combat with rolls, blocks and parries. Creatures to catch and raise, a homestead to build, dungeons for your party, and PvP wilds for anyone who wants the risk.
Now in development
✦ The story
Everything in the After, from the rain to the roots to you, is made from the light of a god that broke apart. Now one of its pieces has decided that separate lives only ever lose each other, and it's gathering everyone back into one.
You wake in Lanternroot just as the world starts to stop.
✦ What you'll do
Precise, punishing combat. Light you drop when you fall. Creatures you catch, raise and put to work. A house and a mine of your own. Dungeons built for a full party, and a PvP wilderness for anyone who wants the risk.
Roll, block, parryRead the swing, answer it, punish the opening.
Drop your lightDie and your experience drops where you fell. Go back for it.
Catch and raise creaturesPets fight beside you with abilities you train.
A homestead of your ownHouse, fields, workshop and mine, worked by the creatures you bring home.
The Deep WildsOpt-in PvP. The deeper you go, the richer the ground and the tougher the players.
Party-only dungeonsOne hidden in every reach, built for a group of friends.Lume
Every creature you defeat releases lume, the light that is your experience. When you die, part of your progress toward the next level is left on the ground where you went down. Go back and pick it up. Levels you've already reached are never lost.
Bosses
The biggest bosses are the size of a hill and hit like it. One of you holds its attention, one climbs to the weak points, one keeps everyone standing. Break its stagger bar and the whole party piles in.
Fair play
Every road out of town checks your level. If you can't survive what's ahead, the gate stays shut, whoever is in your party. The shop sells looks, never strength.
The world
You fight on one clear lane, so you always know what can hit you. Around it the world keeps going: stalls in front, people working behind, other players crossing further back, and routes that climb, branch and hide rooms.
✦ Combat
Every fight runs on the same core: roll through an attack, block it, or parry it on the beat and leave the enemy wide open. Your Calling's techniques sit on top of that, and the bosses test both.
Roll through a swing and you're untouchable for a moment. Block it and it costs stamina. Parry on the beat and the attacker staggers open for a heavy punish. Every Calling has all three, and an empty stamina bar at the wrong moment is how fights are lost.
A Vanguard opens with Dash Strike and, as it lands, presses again to cut into a second target: Second Vector. Returning Edge throws a sweep down the lane and brings it back, so you stand where the return will catch the whole pack.
A lot of fights are about protecting something. A crew is fixing a lift, a shelter is being fitted, a bridge is going up, and the pack is coming for the work. A Threadweaver stitches the rush in place outside the safe lane, or sets a straw Patchling in the gap. A Spellbinder raises a Mirror Screen and catches the caster's bolt in glass.
Wear down the stagger bar, climb onto the body and go for the weak points: the joints of a shell, the winches on a storm ferry, the crown on the head of the thing that won't let the roads close. Each reach also hides a party dungeon with two wings, a mini-boss and a final boss.
✦ Callings
Your Calling is your combat profession, and it's for good: no second class, no swapping later. One teacher trains you all the way, in their own town, and partway up you choose the Path it takes. A safe passage from Lanternroot reaches all teachers early.
Warrior · Weapon and shield, or a great weapon
Close the gap with Dash Strike, cut into a second target mid-swing, and carry force through the blade so the hit lands a step past its reach.
“Plant your feet. Hold the guard. Now push through the pad, not at it.”
Choose your Path
Masters as Anvilheart
Weapon and shield. Takes the heavy hit and shares the guard.
Masters as Earthsplitter
Greatsword, great axe or maul. Cracks the ground the fight stands on.
Rogue · Daggers, sabers, throwing blades
Count the exits before the fight starts. Hook in, cut, and come out on the Far Side of an enemy before it turns.
“Choose your exit first. Then make the cut.”
Choose your Path
Masters as Shadowless
Twin daggers and throwing knives. Through and gone before it turns.
Masters as Silkreaver
Curved sabers and hatchets that curve back. A flurry that keeps a crowd off.
Ranged · Bow, hunting spear, clockwork
Mark the target that matters, read where its guard is thin and put a Facet Lance through the gap. Split Angle sends a second line to its neighbour.
“Turn the sight. Put the bolt on the wooden mark, not my sleeve.”
Choose your Path
Masters as Wildcrown
Bow and hunting spear, with a creature you raised fighting beside you.
Masters as Skypiercer
Crossbow, then repeater, then crystal shooter. Clockwork, never guns.
Healer · Crook staff, mender's mace, thrown needle
Patch a hit before it lands, stitch a lane shut so the pack has to go around, and tie a friend who agrees to it out of trouble.
“Hold the thread loose until you can feel where it pulls.”
Choose your Path
Masters as Neverfray
Wards that soak a hit, and mends that reach two people at once.
Masters as Marionarch
Stitched Patchlings that hold the lane. A Master runs a whole court of them.
Mage · Hand crystal, wand, crystal staff, mirror shield
Learn magic in an orchard where the rain falls upward. Hang a rune in the air, fire a bolt that strikes on the way up, and pin an enemy where it stands.
“Don't push the rain. Hold it where it is, then let it go where you meant it to go.”
Choose your Path
Masters as Worldrender
Crystal staff. Runes rain over an area; a Master's cover the arena.
Masters as Mirrorsworn
Mirror shield and hand crystal. Keeps a blow in glass and sends it back.
Reset your points or switch Paths with your teacher whenever you like. The Calling itself stays; another one means a new character.
✦ Alignment
Every skill and weapon hit takes it on: the damage, the effect, the colour. You hold one at a time and can change it at your teacher, for a fee.
Fire
Hits leave a burn.
Ice
Hits slow the target.
Lightning
Each hit jumps to one more enemy.
Light
Shows weak points and hidden enemies.
Dark
Each hit draws a little health back.
Master your Path and the element goes into your title: Rime Anvilheart, Storm Skypiercer, Umbra Marionarch. Light and Dark aren't good and evil, and no fight needs one particular element. Bosses resist some and fold to others.
✦ Beyond the road
Around the story's roads there's a whole life to build: creatures to win over, a homestead to run, dungeons that need a full party, and a wilderness where other players are the danger.
Creatures & pets
The wilds are full of creatures, and most of them can be caught and brought home. Raise one as a pet and it fights beside you with abilities of its own, getting stronger as you train it. Every species brings something different, so the pet you raise changes how you fight.
Homestead
Build a home and put the creatures you've caught to work. They tend the crops, haul stone, dig ore out of your mine, craft at your benches and help build out the place itself. Every species is good at something different, so who you bring home decides what your homestead produces.
The Deep Wilds · PvP
Past the last warded road lie the Deep Wilds, an open PvP wilderness. The ground is richer, the creatures rarer and the ore better. And the deeper you go, the wider the range of player levels allowed to attack you. Nothing in the story sends you there. It's for people who want the risk.
Party dungeons
Every reach hides a dungeon you can't enter alone: the Dead Letter Office, the Unlit Theatre, the Drowned Lighthouse and more. Each has two wings, a mini-boss, a final boss and a last choice that decides what happens to the place.
✦ The reaches
Each reach has its own towns, wilderness, creatures and troubles. Some roads won't open until you're strong enough to come back from them.
Your first home among the roots. Peach lanterns, upward rain, and a lamp-mender who'd love someone else to take the late shift.
Rain rises into translucent fruit. People tend trees, patch boats, and argue about who's allowed to touch a stored memory.
Glass reefs and coral workshops. Two villages describe the same stair differently, and both of them might be right.
Paperwood roofs, parcel counters and stairs that hang from nothing. Even an impossible door needs somewhere to stand.
Bellwake hangs beneath a colossal broken bell. Warm kilns, brass fittings, and an apprentice whose kettle won't whistle properly.
A sanctuary of dark fronds and warm private rooms. Some people here want company. Some want the curtains closed.
Islands curve around attraction wells, and one beautiful city can't seem to finish breakfast.
Old observatories and narrow roads under folded horizons. That's all we'll say for now.
✦ Between expeditions
You'll keep coming back. Tavi will spot the scorch on your sleeve before you've said hello. Your Lunapuff wants somewhere to nap. The empty stall by the basket lift could be your shop. And the choices you make out in the reaches change who runs a shop, which road stays open and who's still speaking to whom.
✦ Devlog
Combat tests, boss designs, painting the reaches, and the ideas we threw out. Subscribe on YouTube and you'll see each episode first.
✦ The Lantern Codex
Under Lanternroot lies a book with a page for every traveler, and whoever is written there comes back from every fall. Add your name and we'll write when the gates open, with a devlog now and then. Nothing else.
