§ 01
Ten Measures
Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Perception, Charisma, Patience, Will, Knowledge, Psyche, and Destiny define your hero. A Measure at 5 grants a gift. A Measure at 1 gives the dungeon a weakness to press.
Turn-Based · Roguelike · Card-Crawler · RPG · Survival
A living dungeon of a dying Old World.
"After all, a well-placed feather can prevent a dragon assault..."
— High Healer Avra Somphe
I.The Descent
Turn a card. Live with it.
Ethernalis is a turn-based roguelike card-crawler set in an Old World on the verge of destruction. Rooms, monsters, relics, even the merchants: everything in Ethernalis is a card. You stand at the center of a five-card cross, reading the room you are in and the four uncertain directions around it.
It draws on classic roguelikes, old text-adventure prose, tabletop character sheets, and survival games. Every dungeon is new, filled with threats, materials, locks, flooded rooms, roaming enemies, and quests. What waits ahead changes every run. What happens to you sticks.
Hunger, thirst, the weight on your back, the dirt on your boots: the dungeon notices all of it.
6
Playable Races
10
Measures
14
Material Domains
72
Perks
II.The Laws Beneath
How the Dungeon Plays
Survival, personality, gear, and movement all feed into each other. Strength helps. So does a dry pair of boots, and a companion who has not run out of bread.
§ 02
Action Points
Moving, attacking, crafting, and handling items all spend Action Points. Your total comes from Dexterity, Perception, and Psyche. Carry too much and you get only one.
§ 03
Distance and Combat
Every enemy stands at a distance. A melee attack closes the gap before it lands. Bows need room, ammunition, and a steady hand, and an enemy at arm's length makes a bow a poor choice.
§ 04
Runes and Sockets
Rooms and lasting gear can hold a rune. A rune in a weapon adds force. A rune in a room changes the place itself: it can heat, chill, bless, darken, or ward whatever happens there.
§ 05
Materials and Quality
Quality runs from Dismal to Masterful. Materials shape an item's description, small stat bonuses, how fast it wears out, what it passes on when crafted, and which creatures fear it.
§ 06
Comfort and Need
Hunger, thirst, cold, dirt, and badly fitting gear all wear down your stats. A tired, hungry hero can lose a fight before it starts.
III.The Old World
Empires, Halls, Forests, Wastes, and the Dark Below
The Old World is old enough to remember every people who believed they would be the last. The human Empire of Laungenburgh is younger than it pretends. Older powers, the elven Ethos, the dwarven cliff-halls of Rotha, and the abyssal Drow of Oxhe, were here long before its first stone was laid.
IV.Those Who Wander
People Don't Wait for You
The people of the dungeon carry gear, eat, sleep, and remember whether you cheated them. They move between rooms, spring traps, break down doors, offer work, trade, and react to how you treat them.
§
Companions
Cards That Follow
Recruit someone and they travel with you. Send them to explore, ask them to wait, trade equipment, ask for healing, and rely on them in a fight if they have the strength to stand.
†
Merchants
Trade Has a Memory
Merchants carry their own coin and have moods of their own. A merchant in good spirits gives better prices, and regular trade earns them new services. Buy, sell, or steal: each has consequences.
*
Timelines
Delayed Events
Events know how to wait. A quest can hang in the air until you have killed the right thing, entered the right room, or crafted the right blade, and only then announce itself.
V.From the Current Build
Screens from the Descent
The interface is laid out like a dark play table. Your character, the cards, the chronicle, inventory, crafting, and the region map all stay close at hand.
The Chronicle
Every Action Leaves a Line
Everything you do is written into your chronicle as you play: each step, each find, each close call. When a hero falls, the region keeps the story.
You head north.
You have reached the Underground Swamp.
A hidden trap reveals itself before your foot finds it.
The merchant catches your hand. The deal is over.
Dancing flames whisper of safety.
You feel safe here for now...
In Development
Follow the Descent
Ethernalis is still being built, and the dungeon keeps finding new ways to kill you. Follow us on Facebook for news, screenshots, and patch notes from the current build.