Companions
Heroes, henchmen, summoned minions and owned pets, and how each is called, commanded and dismissed.
Few adventurers walk alone. Rogue gives you four different kinds of company: henchmen hired by role, heroes unlocked through play, minions conjured by class skills, and pets bought and kept as living creatures. The first two make up your companion party and share one limit between them. You may have up to eight companions active at any time, of which no more than two may be henchmen.
Henchmen#
Henchmen are hired help. Unlike heroes they cannot be given gear, renamed or
ridden, never gain levels of their own and keep the kit they came with. They
are also slower than a hero to react in a fight: to heal, to use their skills
and to pick a new foe. henchman shows who is in your hire, where they are and
how long each contract has to run.
Your Guild's Gift#
The first time you join a guild, the guild sends you help at no cost. A healer is sent Fenwick, a cheerful and clumsy fighter. Everyone else is sent Hester, an anxious young healer. They stay with you, through every logout, until you pass level 20, and then take their leave.
The Tidewarden Hall#
After that, help is hired at the Tidewarden Hall in Aurin, west off Sunward
Avenue. Type hire there to see who is free: Hilde (tank), Mirabel (healer),
Ignatius (a mage), Linnea (ranger) and Bertram (support). hire <name or role>
takes one on, so hire hilde and hire tank are the same.
- A contract costs 5 platinum, taken from your purse, or from your bank account if your purse is short.
- It lasts one day of real time, through logouts. Your help is waiting for you at every login until it runs out, and you are told when there is less than an hour left.
- You may have two henchmen in your hire at once, the starter included, and only one of each.
- A henchman comes in at three quarters of your level and keeps pace with you as you gain levels.
- Each henchman takes a share of the experience you earn from a kill: a fifth for hall help, a tenth for Fenwick and Hester.
Calling and Dismissing#
call <name> or call <role> brings a henchman to you, wherever you are. One
who was sent away, lost or left behind comes back, so nobody under contract is
ever lost for good. One who has fallen in a fight gets back up after a while and
comes to you then. Nobody can be called during a fight.
henchman dismiss <name> sends a henchman off for a while; the contract stands
and a call brings them back. henchman release <name> confirm ends a contract
early, with no refund.
A henchman comes back from a dismissal or a logout exactly as they left, with the same health and spell points, so sending one away and calling them again mends nothing. One sent away while down comes back on their feet, as they would at the end of the fight.
Before joining a guild, an explorer may take Fenwick along for nothing, for the
session only, with henchman hire sellsword.
Heroes#
Heroes are unique, named companions unlocked through play. Each has a backstory, a role, and an appearance you can change. Unlike henchmen they can be renamed, geared by you, and given their own entrance and dismissal lines.
hero list shows every hero you have unlocked and hero <name> opens one in
detail. hero list also shows where each summoned hero is.
call <name> shouts for a hero, and they reach you a few seconds later,
wherever you have got to by then. You can shout for a second while the first is
still on the way. hero dismiss <name> sends a hero away at once, from wherever
they are, and there is no wait before you can call again.
A hero comes back exactly as they left: the same health, spell points and endurance, wearing and wielding what they had on. Sending one away and calling them again mends nothing.
A hero has a level of their own, and gains it as a player does. A newly won hero starts at level 1. From then on a hero you have called is given the same experience you are given, every time you are given any: for a kill, for a quest handed in, for anything else that rewards you. An event that raises experience or halves the price of a level reaches them exactly as it reaches you. A level costs a hero what it costs a player, and they take each one the moment they have earned it, with no trainer to visit. A hero that has fallen earns nothing until they are back on their feet. That progress is saved with them between sessions. A hero takes nothing from you: what they are given is their own, alongside yours, and you keep all of what you earn.
Appearance and Roleplay#
hero name <hero> <name> renames a hero. hero short <hero> <desc> and
hero long <hero> <desc> set the descriptions, and
hero race, hero gender, hero eyes, hero hair and hero feature change the
rest of the appearance.
hero entrance <hero> <msg> and hero dismissal <hero> <msg> set the lines shown
when the hero arrives and leaves. Use $N for the hero's name and $O for your
own, and the word clear as the message to return to the default.
Equipment#
A hero carries their own things, and it is you who gears them. A hero starts in the plain kit of a beginner of their class, with a weapon to match, and anything better is something you have handed over. A hero must meet an item's requirements to use it, exactly as you must.
hero <name> inventory shows what a hero is carrying and hero <name> equipment
shows what they have on. Hand something over with give <item> to <name>, or
with hero give <name> <item>, which has them put it on in the same step.
hero take <name> <item> has them take it off and hand it back. A hero takes
things from you and from nobody else, and nobody but you can take anything from
them.
Everything a hero carries is saved with them. They come back from a dismissal or a logout wearing and wielding what they had on.
Telling a Hero What to Do#
Put a hero's name first and they do whatever follows, as you would if you had
typed it yourself: hero ambrose wield cane, hero ambrose unready,
hero ambrose drop cane, hero ambrose give cane to me. They speak and act the
same way, with hero ambrose say <words>, hero ambrose emote <action> or any
emote you know. hero ambrose score shows their score sheet, and
hero skills <hero> lists a hero's skills and what they require. A hero has to
be in the room to hear you.
Fighting Styles#
A hero fights in a style, as you do, and grows in each style by fighting in it.
Every hero begins with Normal, Offensive and Defensive, and comes into the other
styles of their class as they gain levels. hero <name> style shows the styles a
hero knows and their rank in each, and hero <name> style <style> has them take
one up.
Playing as a Hero#
hero listen <name> lets you play as a summoned hero. You see through their eyes,
and every line you type is carried out by them with their full class kit at their
own level and pools. Your own body fights on beside the party, guided by the same
instincts a hero of your class would have. release brings you home, and beginning
a line with / acts with your own body for a single command.
hero return breaks a listen link that has been left hanging.
The hero must be in the room with you when you start. Your body then follows them
wherever they go, and a look shows it standing beside you like any other member
of the party. It can still be killed while you ride: if it falls, your mind is
pulled home to it and the death is yours to deal with in the Underworld.
hero listen with another of your heroes moves your mind straight across to
them, and hero listen me brings you home. hero, autogroup, help
and quit always answer for you rather than for the hero you ride, and quit
brings you home first. In a group led by somebody else, the hero you ride walks
with the group when the leader moves on and your body comes after them. Riding a
hero ends autogroup (see Groups).
Commanding Companions#
hero list shows the state of your party and henchman your hired help.
hire at the Tidewarden Hall takes help on and hero cleanup clears out
duplicates.
Every companion follows one of three AI modes. Aggressive attacks any enemy,
defensive strikes back only when struck, and passive never attacks at all. A
healer set to passive goes on healing.
hero ai <name> <mode> sets it, and hero ai all <mode> sets the whole party at
once.
A mage hero fights in one school of magic. It starts in fire; from level 20,
hero school <name> <fire|ice|air|earth> chooses another, and the choice is kept
with the hero and can be changed again.
Heroes carry no supplies. A skill that would spend a reagent, a lozenge or a lockpick works for them without one, and the same is true of your own character while it is on autogroup or fighting on while you ride a hero.
dismiss <name> sends a companion away, dismiss hero <name> names a hero
specifically, and dismiss all clears the whole party. Partial names are matched,
so the full name is never needed.
Orders#
A companion walks behind you. When you move it comes into the room a moment after you do, and when something carries you off it finds its way to you.
Orders are spoken, so a companion has to be in the room to hear one. Name a companion to give the order to that one alone, or leave the name off and it goes to everyone with you.
hero attack <target> sends your companions at something, and
hero attack <hero> <target> sends just one. They strike first, so the target
turns on them and not on you.
hero halt calls them off. They stop fighting and stand by, taking no part,
until the fight is over. Whatever they were fighting is not told to stop. A
healer who has been called off goes on healing.
hero stay makes them wait in the room they are in, and they stop following you.
hero follow has them fall in behind you again.
hero summon calls back a companion who is somewhere else, whether left waiting
or lost. They run to you from wherever they are and reach you a few seconds
later. hero call with no name does the same.
Nobody follows you into death. If you die, your companions wait where you fell,
and no call reaches them from the Underworld. Once you are back among the living,
go to them and use hero follow, or use hero summon to bring them to you.
When a Companion Falls#
A companion that falls in battle is not lost. It becomes inactive rather than destroyed, and recovers to half its health once the fight is over, announcing that it has recovered.
Recovery#
Heroes and henchmen mend by themselves. Once the party has been out of a fight for five seconds they recover 2 percent of their health, spell points and endurance every second, which is the rate of a resting player, and they do it whether you rest or not. Nothing is recovered this way while you or they are fighting.
Persistence#
The heroes you were travelling with are recorded when you log out and are at your side again when you return, with their progress and everything they carry saved alongside, in the health they were in when you left. Henchmen are not. They leave when you do, and are hired again if you want them.
Minions#
Minions are conjured rather than hired, and they come from class skills rather than from the companion system. Necromancers raise bone minions, bone horrors, corpse puppets and flesh golems; rangers call animal companions; other classes raise stone golems and the like. Each answers to the caster who summoned it.
minions lists a necromancer's active undead and their state.
Minions are not party members, and an enemy does not grow tougher for facing them. Only players, heroes and henchmen count toward that. See Groups for how the scaling works.
The Ranger's Animal#
A ranger's companion is not a party member, but it does occupy one of your eight companion slots. It is a single bonded animal, and a ranger has one of them and only one, for as long as the two of them last.
There are two ways to get one. companion choose lists the five kinds, softest to
sharpest: bear, boar, wolf, serpent and hawk. Choosing gives you a fully grown
adult of that kind, free and instantly. tame <animal> wins a wild creature
instead, which is slower and means going out to find one, but it is the only route
to a cub. An animal raised from a cub at your side is the only one that ever
reaches its prime. Both refuse while a bond already exists.
companion on its own shows the animal's name, kind, level, health, orders and
how far its bond has grown. The animal tracks your own level as you gain it.
The bond outlives the animal. It is not in the world while you are logged out, but
companion call brings it back in when you return, still named and still grown into
whatever it had grown into. If it is killed, calling brings it back too, though not
at once and not in any condition to fight. Rangers learn Revive Animal at level 43,
which does the same instantly and mid-fight.
companion follow puts it back at your heel and companion stay makes it hold the
room while you walk on. companion attack <target> sets it on something by name,
wherever the animal is standing rather than wherever you are, and companion back
breaks it off. companion lunge sends it across rooms at something you are shooting
at range, or at a target you name, and closes it into a real fight when it arrives. Three standing orders decide how forward it is on its own account:
aggressive takes anything in the room that already wants you, defensive fights only
what is fighting you, and passive starts nothing at all unless pointed at something
by name.
companion name <name> gives it a name it keeps through death and growth,
companion dismiss sends it away with the bond intact, and
companion release confirm ends the bond permanently, which is the only way to
free yourself to take another.
companion short, companion desc, companion eyes, companion coat,
companion feature, companion enter and companion leave dress the animal in
words of your own. What you set is kept on the bond, so it survives dismissal,
death and the next time you log in.
The Beast Mastery tree adds to this rather than repeating it. Set Guard sets the animal to hold ground or to shadow and defend somebody other than you, Send to Hunt sends it out for meat, and Feed Companion and Comfort Pet heal it and build the bond between you.
Pets#
Pets are real, persistent creatures owned by you and recorded in the world's ownership ledger. A Merchant brokers the sale and binds the creature to your name. From that moment the pet has its own hunger, thirst, energy, loyalty, cleanliness, health and training.
pet list and pet status report on them, and pet status <name> narrows it to
one. pet call <name> brings a pet to your current room, where it follows you from
then on, and pet dismiss <name> sends it back to its shelter without touching the
ledger record, while pet release <name> is the other kind of parting: it turns the
creature loose for good, erases its record from the ownership ledger, and cannot be
undone. pet stay <name> tells it to stop following and pet heel <name>
resumes.
Care is the whole game. feed, water, groom, walk, play and train each
address a different need, and pet <name> on its own strokes the creature for a
small gain in loyalty. A pet's condition decays in real time while you are online,
more slowly if it is sheltered, and is paused entirely while you are offline.
Neglect it long enough and the pet dies for good, or loses its loyalty and runs
off. There is no resurrection.
abandon <creature> releases a companion creature from your service so that it no
longer follows you or serves as a mount.