Mytherra

Mytherra is a world of fifty mythologies. The World Tree is withering, and the realms' guardians hold the Seeds of Light that can save it. You explore on foot, fight creatures, meet the people of every realm, and grow from a wanderer into a hero.

Your first steps

1. Create a hero. Pick a name, a race and a class (Knight, Shooter, Mage or Paladin) on the title screen. You can keep several heroes; each one remembers its level, gear and where you left it.
2. Wake at the Crossroads. Every road leads to this plaza and its great Ceiba tree. Standing beneath the Ceiba heals you, and it is where you return if you fall.
3. Talk to the Keeper. The Keeper beneath the tree starts your story. A short tutorial (you can skip it) shows you how to move, talk, fight, defend, cast, loot, equip and read your journal.
4. Follow the golden arrow. An arrow at the edge of the screen points to your next goal.

Saving

The game saves on its own as you play, in this browser. Clearing the browser's site data deletes your heroes, and they don't follow you to another device yet.

To start over, delete the hero on the title screen (the × next to its name) and create a new one.

A good first hour

• Hunt the training wolves near the Crossroads, then head into a realm whose creatures show their names in green or yellow. The world gets harder the farther you walk from the Crossroads, so the realms close to it are the gentlest.
• Spend your attribute points (K) as soon as you level up.
• Visit the realm's town: the elder has quests, and the merchant sells gear and potions. Shops close at night.
• Keep a few health potions (H) for emergencies.
• Learn your three blessings (keys 4, 5 and 6) and where the nearest temple is: praying (P) there fills your faith in seconds.

Mytherra plays with a keyboard and mouse, or with touch on phones and tablets held sideways.

Keyboard and mouse

Phones and tablets

Holding the device sideways is best. Held upright, a prompt asks you to rotate it, and Play upright anyway switches to a layout of its own, with the hero and map above the view and the stick and buttons below it. Use the joystick on the left to walk, or tap where you want to go. Tap a creature to attack it. Swipe with one finger to turn the camera and pinch to zoom. The buttons attack, defend, cast your spells and blessings, pray, drink potions, use things and take you home. The ☰ Menu button opens the rest, and a Chat button opens the chat. Every button is at least 44 px, so it is easy to hit.

The screen

The game view keeps its shape. Whatever room is left around it holds the panels: in a column beside it on a wide window, in a band above and below it on a tall one, and floating over it when there is no room.

• Minimap: where you are, the time, and where the sun or moon is. Click it to walk there. Zoom it out to the whole world with its + and − buttons, the wheel or a pinch, or press the ⤢ button (Shift + M) for a big map you can zoom and drag. It also shows your route, your next goal, other heroes, the guardians you have found (coloured by danger) and the temples you have explored.
• Your hero: the realm and your level, then four labelled bars: Health (red), Mana (blue), Faith (gold) and Stamina (yellow; orange when you are tired), and an Experience bar (with your points out of what the next level needs: fill it to level up). Below them: your states (wet, burnt, frozen, buried), the blessings that are active with the seconds left, "Blessed" when you stand on blessed ground, and your current quest. Tap the realm's name for more: the realm's mythology, the weather, your stats and how many guardians you have defeated.
• Always in view (under the action buttons): Bag (inventory), Torch (with its fuel) and Run.
• Menu: journal, attributes, two sliders for the music and the sound effects (0 to 100 percent, remembered; N and U still mute), help and log out. If the row does not fit, it folds behind the ☰ Menu button.
• Character screen: a Wiki button (this guide) opens in a new tab.
• Action buttons: one grid with Attack (F), Defend (X), your three spells (1 2 3) with their mana cost, the health potion (H), Use (G), Home (Y), the mana potion (J), your three blessings (4 5 6) with their faith cost, and Pray (P). A button fills like a clock while it cools down.
• Chat, at the bottom.
• Windows (inventory, journal, attributes, shop and conversations) open in the middle of the game view and always fit inside the window.
• Names: heroes have their name and a health bar; villagers have a soft cyan name and no bar; creatures show their name in the colour of their danger.

Your hero is a race and a class. The race gives a head start, a blessing and a few lifelong traits; the class decides how you fight. Four races and four classes make sixteen heroes, and every combination plays differently.

Races

Classes

Every class starts with simple, worn gear. Better pieces come from guardians, chests, quests and the merchants.

The sixteen heroes

Race and class each add attribute points and carrying capacity, so every combination starts with different numbers. This is what a new level-1 hero has:

Levels and attributes

Defeating creatures and finishing quests gives experience. Each level makes you stronger and gives you 3 attribute points to spend in the Attributes panel (K):

Reassign all points gives back the points you spent yourself. The points your race and class gave you stay where they are.

Stamina

Running and every blow use stamina. When it runs out you slow to a walk until it recovers. Stamina only comes back while you stand completely still, so pick your moment.

Carrying

Everything you carry has a weight. Your limit is 45 kg, plus your race and class bonus, plus what you gain with each level and 6 kg per Strength point. You can't pick up or buy anything that would take you over it ("Too heavy"); if you move points out of Strength and end up over the limit, you slow right down until you lighten your load. Gold weighs nothing.

Faith is a third bar next to health and mana. It powers your blessings, timed boosts on keys 4, 5 and 6. Everyone has three: one from your race and two from your class.

The faith bar

Your faith bar sits under mana in the hero panel. A hero of any class but the Paladin starts with 40 faith; a Paladin starts with 96. Each level adds a little, and the Religion attribute (K) adds 10 more maximum faith per point and makes faith come back 10 % faster per point.

Getting faith back

• Slowly, on its own: about ten minutes from empty to full.
• On blessed ground: within a few steps of a temple, or of the World Tree at the Crossroads, faith comes back in about fifteen seconds. A "Blessed" chip appears in your hero panel while you stand there.
• By praying: press P and your hero kneels. Praying alone fills the bar in about sixteen seconds; praying on blessed ground, in about five.

You can't walk or guard while you pray. P, an attack, a spell or a blessing key stands you up (and that press only stands you up). Praying isn't possible from a boat or a mount. Dying ends every blessing and any prayer; faith itself is saved with your hero.

Blessings

Press the key, pay the faith, and the boost lasts a few seconds before the blessing has to cool down. A ring of light spreads on the ground and a chime sounds in that blessing's own key. Blessings add up, but they are not saved: they end when you die or log out.

Temples

Every one of the fifty towns has a house of worship in its own tradition, and it shows on the minimap once you have explored the place.

The Paladin

The Paladin is the class built around faith: a sword-and-shield fighter with more faith than anyone (and two spells that use it well). It starts with a worn longsword, chainmail, boots and a shield, and wears a white and gold surcoat with a blue cape.

Nothing attacks for you: every blow is your decision. Click a creature and your hero walks into reach and strikes once (F strikes whatever is in front of you). Each weapon has its own rhythm, and clicking faster doesn't swing faster.

Reading the danger

A creature's name colour tells you how dangerous it is for your level:

Weapons

Defending

Hold right click (or X, or the Defend button) to raise your guard. It only stops blows from the front. Raise it just before a blow lands for a perfect block: no damage, and the attacker is pushed back. Otherwise a shield lets a little through and a parry without one stops about half; either way the attacker staggers. You move at half speed while guarding, and you can't attack at the same time. Armour softens every hit.

Spells

Each class has three spells on keys 1, 2 and 3. Spells cost mana and have a cooldown; after casting one, all your spells wait a moment.

Blessings

Keys 4, 5 and 6 are your blessings: timed boosts that cost faith instead of mana, one from your race and two from your class. They are explained on their own page, Faith and blessings. Pray (P) to get faith back; you can't move or guard while you kneel.

Weather and magic

Rain weakens fire: fireballs do half damage, and in any rain they can fizzle out. Snow weakens fireballs a little and makes Frost Nova stronger; sandstorms weaken frost. You can't fight from a boat or a mount, but Heal, War Cry and Lay on Hands still work.

Potions

Health potions (H) heal half your health. Mana potions (J) restore half your mana. Merchants sell both, and creatures sometimes drop them. Mana also comes back slowly on its own.

Falling and going home

If you fall, you wake beneath the Ceiba at the Crossroads with full health, and every blessing you had ends. Standing near the Ceiba heals you quickly, and its ground is blessed, so faith comes back there too.

Once a day you can return home on purpose: press Y (or the Home button) and stand completely still for 10 seconds while rings of light rise around you. Moving, fighting, taking damage, sailing or riding interrupts it.

You wear six pieces of gear: a helmet, armour, legs, boots, a weapon and a shield. Better gear means more damage and more protection.

Finding gear

• Guardians drop the best items; the stronger the guardian, the better the drop.
• Chests on islands spill gold, gear and a potion when you open them (once per hero).
• Merchants in every town sell gear that changes every 10 minutes. They sleep at night: the shop closes at about 19:20 (a sign at the door says so) and opens again at dawn.
• The fence, one of the night folk, deals after dark and pays more for your spare gear (see Night in the towns).
• Quests reward experience, gold, an item and a health potion.

Loot jumps out of a defeated creature and lands around it. Click an item to walk over and pick it up; walking over it does nothing. Items go to your bag: drag one onto its slot in the Inventory (I) to wear it, and drag it back to take it off. Every kind of weapon and armour has its own picture, in the bag, the shop, on the ground and on your hero: ten kinds of sword, an axe, a crossbow, spears, clubs, staffs, bows and a boomerang, and three kinds each of helmet, body armour, leg armour, boots and shield. Steel, plate and gold shine like metal.

Quality

Gold

Creatures and guardians drop gold, chests hold it, and quests and night jobs pay it. Spend it at the town merchant, who also buys your spare items back. Potions cost 8 gold plus the realm's level; during a drought they cost almost half as much again.

Mounts and boats

Horses, camels, reindeer and llamas wait in the wild. Click one to walk over and ride it; right click (or X) to get down. You travel much faster mounted, but you can't fight (Heal, War Cry and Lay on Hands still work).

Rowing boats wait on the shores, built of lapped planks with oars and a curled prow, in three paint jobs. Click one to board, sail anywhere on the water, and step onto land to leave it. The treasure chests on islands are planked and iron-banded, and the coins inside glow when the lid opens.

Sharing with friends

When you play together, loot on the ground is shared: whoever grabs it first keeps it. You can also drop items from your bag for a friend to pick up.

Forty-nine realms, one for each mythology, surround the Crossroads, fifty places in all. Each has its own climate, trees, flowers, houses, music, town, people, house of worship and guardians. Stone roads link every town to the Crossroads; oceans, lakes, rivers and islands fill the rest, and mountains rise with snow on their peaks.