Equipment
A soldier carries a weapon, wears what armor their calling trained in, and, if their class permits, a shield. Gear folds straight into the soldier's numbers — attack onto their blows and mends, defense and guard onto what they endure — and some pieces teach.
Teaching gear
A weapon with a teaching grants its skill to the bearer, whatever their class. The taught skill can be written into the writ like any other — and even if it isn't, it becomes the soldier's quiet last resort: when nothing above applies, they swing what they hold. (An offensive teaching fires at anyone in reach; a mending one only on a badly wounded ally.)
The armory
The tables below are drawn from the game's own data files — stats from the catalogs, descriptions from the same text the game shows — so they can never disagree with the build you are playing.
Weapons
Some weapons carry an affinity — fire, ice, lightning. An affinity does not add damage of its own; it names the damage. Any skill the bearer uses that has no element of its own is fired as that element instead, which decides what the target's armor can do about it. A skill that already declares an element keeps it: an affinity fills a gap, it never overrides.
| Teaches | Affinity | Attack | Magic attack | In the field | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze Sword | Heavy Slash | — | 10 | — | A plain, dependable bronze sword. The usual issue for a new Fighter. |
| Knight Sword | Heavy Slash | — | 10 | — | A straight steel sword with a cross guard, made to a knightly order's pattern. |
| Bronze Axe | — | — | 12 | — | A heavy bronze axe head on a short handle. Crude, but it hits harder than a sword of the same make. |
| Bronze Bow | Sniper Shot | — | 8 | — | A short bow tipped with bronze. Built for accuracy rather than power. |
| Emberstring Bow | Ember Volley | Fire | 11 | — | A bow whose string is passed through a fire before every battle. Its arrows arrive burning and deal fire damage. |
| Rimeglass Bow | Rime Shot | Ice | 11 | — | A bow with limbs of clouded glass that never warm in the hand. Its arrows carry the cold and deal ice damage. |
| Stormcord Bow | Stormpierce | Electric | 14 | — | A heavier bow strung with cord that never stops humming. Its arrows carry lightning and it hits hardest of the three elemental bows, but it is loud. |
| Bronze Staff | Heal Light | — | 2 | 10 | A short rod capped with a bronze sigil that gives off a faint light. A beginner's focus for healing magic. |
| Wizard Staff | Heal Light | — | 1 | 12 | A tall wizard's staff worn smooth by years of use. Better for casting than for hitting. |
| Cleric Staff | Heal Light | — | — | 10 | A staff with a lantern head, made for healing rather than fighting. |
| Knight Lance | Piercing Thrust | — | 11 | — | A long steel-headed lance with a flared hand guard. Made to land the first blow before the enemy closes. |
| Officers Partisan | Piercing Thrust | — | 13 | — | A broad-bladed polearm with winged flukes, carried by officers at the head of a line. It hits harder than a lance and takes both hands, so no shield can be carried with it, and its wielder acts a little later in the round. |
| Dark Knight Great Sword | Heavy Slash | — | 14 | — | A two-handed sword of blackened steel. It hits harder than a sword, acts later in the round, and leaves no hand free for a shield. |
| Parade Great Sword | Heavy Slash | Light | 14 | — | An order's ceremonial great sword, kept sharp. It takes both hands, so no shield can be carried with it, and its blessed edge deals light damage. |
| Broad Bill Scythe | Heavy Slash | — | 12 | — | A hooked reaping blade on a long haft. It takes both hands, so no shield can be carried with it, but it barely slows its wielder down. |
Shields
A shield adds defense and a much better chance of guarding. How much a guard is worth depends on the shield: a successful guard blocks that share of the physical damage in the blow, and nothing at all of the magic. A soldier with a bare arm can still guard, but only turns aside 25% of a physical hit. A soldier with neither a weapon nor a shield in hand cannot guard at all.
Shields come in two kinds. Light shields are carried by Fighters, Knights, and Cavaliers; Heavy shields only by the Bulwark Knight, who carries nothing else.
| Kind | Defense | Magic defense | Guard chance | Guard mitigation | In the field | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze Shield | Light | 5 | 2 | +15% | 30% | A round bronze buckler. Dented, but it still turns a blow. |
| Knight Shield | Light | 7 | 3 | +25% | 50% | A steel heater shield painted with an order's badge, so the line can tell friend from foe at a glance. |
| Ivory Gold Shield | Light | 9 | 4 | +18% | 50% | A tall ivory shield edged in gold leaf. Light enough to fight behind. |
| Plum Royal Shield | Light | 7 | 8 | +20% | 50% | A royal guard's shield with plum lacquer over a warded core. It blocks spells as well as it blocks steel. |
| Bulwark Shield | Heavy | 9 | 4 | +18% | 75% | A heavy shield. When it guards a blow, the bearer cannot be launched or moved out of position. |
Armor
Armor is its own slot beside the weapon and the shield, in three families — Heavy, Light, and Robe — and a class wears only the families it trained in (see the class reference). Armor is a trade, not another always-higher number: heavy pieces pay for their soak in evasion and initiative, light pieces buy mobility back, and robes ward spellwork while leaving the stride alone.
Some pieces also carry wards: a per-element share of the damage that still gets through. 0% is true immunity — an elemental blow lands and does nothing at all, the one case in the game where a hit that connects deals no damage. 50% halves it. Anything above 100% is a hole: the piece invites that element in. Elements the piece says nothing about arrive at full strength. A ward is a trade like everything else in the slot, and every warded piece pays for its immunity with a weakness somewhere else.
Wards work on damage only. A burn is still a burn: riders roll on their own terms even when the blow that carried them was warded away.
| Family | Defense | Magic defense | Evasion | Initiative | Wards | In the field | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron Hauberk | Heavy | 6 | 1 | −4 | −5 | Electric 125%, Fire 75% | Riveted iron rings over a padded coat. It turns a blade well but slows the wearer. Iron does not burn, so fire does less to it, but lightning runs through every ring and does more. |
| Lantern Plate | Heavy | 10 | 2 | −8 | −10 | Dark 75%, Fire 125% | Full plate from Lanternhold's own forges. Nothing stops a blade better and nothing is slower to move in. It takes less from dark magic, but it heats badly and takes more from fire. |
| Warden's Harness | Heavy | 7 | 5 | −5 | −6 | Blood 75%, Ice 125% | Plate over a warded underlayer, made for the long watch. Weaker against steel than Lantern Plate but far better against magic. It takes less from blood magic, but the plate holds cold and takes more from ice. |
| Scout's Leathers | Light | 3 | 2 | +5 | +3 | Fire 125%, Ice 75% | Boiled leather at the shoulders and shins and soft everywhere else, so the wearer stays quick and hard to hit. Modest protection. It takes less from ice, but leather cured that hard takes more from fire. |
| Nightstalker Jerkin | Light | 2 | 1 | +10 | — | Dark 75%, Light 125% | Blackened leather made to blend into shadow. It stops very little, but it is the hardest armor to land a blade on. It takes less from dark magic and more from light magic. |
| Courier's Brigandine | Light | 4 | 2 | +2 | +8 | Blood 125%, Electric 75% | Small plates riveted between canvas, balanced for a rider carrying orders. The wearer acts earliest in the round. The canvas takes less from lightning, but blood magic slips through the gaps and does more. |
| Acolyte's Habit | Robe | 1 | 5 | — | — | Dark 75%, Fire 125% | Plain wool with an order's sigil at the collar. The cloth is nothing, but the warding sewn into the hem takes less from dark magic. Wool still burns, and takes more from fire. |
| Starwoven Robe | Robe | 1 | 10 | — | — | Dark 125%, Light 75% | Thread woven through a standing ward until the cloth itself holds light. The best robe against magic. It takes less from light magic, but does little against a knife and takes more from dark magic. |
| Chancellor's Vestment | Robe | 4 | 7 | +2 | — | Blood 75%, Electric 125% | Court dress with a scholar's warding and a soldier's lining. The warding takes less from blood magic, but the gold thread draws lightning and takes more from it. |
| Emberforged Plate | Heavy | 7 | 3 | −5 | −6 | Fire 0%, Electric 50%, Ice 150% | Plate quenched in the fire it was made to survive. Fire cannot hurt the wearer, and the metal grounds lightning so it does much less, but the plate holds cold and takes far more from ice. |
| Rimewarden Harness | Light | 3 | 2 | +4 | +2 | Ice 0%, Water 50%, Fire 150% | Leather cured in a winter camp until nothing frozen can get through it. Ice cannot hurt the wearer, and water mostly runs off, but the fat in the cure burns and takes far more from fire. |
| Stormweave Robe | Robe | 2 | 6 | +1 | — | Electric 0%, Light 50%, Water 150% | Spun on a charged loom so current runs around the wearer instead of through them. Lightning cannot hurt the wearer and light magic does much less, but once soaked it takes far more from water. |
What gear changes — and what it never does
Gear moves numbers: how hard a blow lands, how much of it is soaked, how often a guard catches it — and, through armor, how easily a soldier is hit and how early in the round they act. It never changes how a battle is decided — the reading of writs and the sequence of reactions stand regardless of who carries what. Better steel makes the same plan stronger; it does not substitute for one.
A soldier with an empty writ and a teaching weapon still fights — the gear's quiet rule sees to that. A soldier with an empty writ and no teaching simply holds, every turn, until something kills them. If a hireling seems to be doing nothing, check their hands before you check their head.