Before the adventure begins you need to do two things: create a party and choose a difficulty.
Contents
Creating an Adventuring Party
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A standard party is formed by 4 adventurers. You are allowed to make a smaller party, but be warned… you’ll get beaten. Badly.
Later on, up to two companions can join your party. It doesn’t matter if you have a smaller base party; you can never have more than 2 companions joining you.
The proccess of creating a character is straightforward. I don’t like the games where you are forced to make a lot of uninformed decisions at the beginning, but of course this is still an RPG with a lot of depth, and some choices must be made. The good news is most of the choices will come later on, as you level up. And in character creation you can know how everything works by just hovering over stats.
If you’re in a hurry to get into the game you might just create a random party with one click, which will automatically create a reasonably balanced party of four with at least one decent fighter, one decent healer and one spellcaster (other roles may vary). By “reasonably balanced” I mean exactly that: it can face the dangers ahead, but as you learn the ropes of the game you might probably do much better.
A good thing about random parties is they can be edited. You can go through the characters one by one and adjust some details, or completely redesign the characters.
First Choice: Race
In this version of EA, you can choose among five races to create your characters. (Two more races will be added in future versions, and it’s also planned to add separate human cultures).
The race selection screen displays all the information you need to make a choice.
I’ll post here the game information about the non-human races, so you can get a little familiar with them.
Varannari
Tall and athletic natives from the primeval forests of Varannar are easily recognizable by their green skin and strong, long limbs. Varannari are brave, likeable and loyal, but prideful and temperamental.
In Archaelund: Some Varannari were brought to Archaelund by the Mercians as slaves, but escaped into the forests to form nomadic clans and live once more according to their ancient ways.
Most of them, however, are part of human society and have come as colonists or adventurers.
- Trait bonuses: +1 Strength, +1 Endurance
- Trait penalties: -1 Intellect, -1 Self-Control
- Special abilities: Varannari gain a +15 bonus to the Survival and Athletic skills.
Goblin
In the civilized Exiled Kingdoms, goblins are considered monsters due to their renowned wickedness, and attacked on sight.
The Archaelund Marches, however, can’t afford any available force to go to waste, and some goblins a tad less psychotic than their brethren can make a career as scouts and archers. Some of them become jesters for one of the Lords of the Marches, although their awful jokes are often more painful than their dented blades.
In Archaelund: Goblins are a common sight in the largest cities, where they live assimilated into human society. But many others are dangerous outlaws, sometimes led by shamans of their dark religion.
- Trait bonuses: +1 Dexterity, +1 Awareness
- Trait penalties: -1 Strength, -1 Self-Control
- Special abilities: +1 Movement Point. They have innate resistance to fire (+25%) but are vulnerable to cold and shock damage (-25%)
Minotaur
In ancient times a wise and prosper people, nowadays turned into bloodthirsty monsters, roaming ancient mazes built by their ancestors while oblivious to their meaning.
A few of them, however, are intelligent enough to become civilized (under a very generous use of the term) and make a living through their fighting abilities. Minotaurs are large, incredibly strong and aggressive, but often simple-minded and fearful of sorcery or the undead.
In Archaelund: Minotaurs are rare, and sometimes frowned upon. They are often front-line fighters in adventuring parties, or lead bandit groups. However there are exceptions and a small number of Minotaurs insist upon unveiling their ancient past and recover the wisdom of their ancestors.
- Trait bonuses: +2 Strength, +1 Endurance
- Trait penalties: -1 Dexterity, -1 Personality, -1 Intellect, -1 Self-Control
- Special abilities: Minotaurs need two rations per rest. They don’t have a ‘Feet’ slot, and can’t wear boots or shoes. They are also unable to wear most helms.
Batrax
Batrax are small amphibious humanoids, nimble and dexterous, intelligent and innately adept in the magical arts. Unpredictable in the extreme, they can be equally violent or sociable when met in the wildlands.
In Archaelund: Wild Batrax are feared in the coastlands, where they often ambush their victims with sharp harpoons and deadly magic. Some of them, however, claim human ancestry and wish to live among humans and learn their ways, citing a fabulous tale about a human adventurer who spent a night of passion with a Batrax princess. Unlikely as this tale may be, their abilities as scouts or sorcerers are undisputed and has earned them a place in Archaelund.
- Trait bonuses: +1 Dexterity, +1 Personality, +1 Intellect
- Trait penalties: -1 Strength, -2 Endurance
- Special abilities: Batrax can hold their breath longer than other races. Vulnerable to fire (-50% to resistance). Batrax don’t have a ‘feet’ slot and can’t wear boots or shoes.
About Game Difficulties
After your party is created, and before you can begin your adventure, you must select a difficulty for the game. This can’t be changed later. Once again, hovering over each difficulty will give you all the details, but it might be hard for you to determine how relevant are the listed changes.
My advice would be to go with New School difficulty, unless you truly enjoy challenges. As in many RPGs, the game becomes easier as you learn the ropes. For people with experience in old RPGs, Old School might be more enjoyable. It will force you to be more careful.
The other two available difficulties (Explorer and Cruel) are for people that want a more gentle or an extremely ungentle experience. Iron Man mode is not available yet.
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