All creatures in Ethernalis, whether hostile, friendly, or indifferent, share the same underlying structure as any other card. What differs is where they live, what they remember, and what they want.
Lives entirely within a single dungeon run. Dungeon NPCs roam, fight, eat, drink, equip gear they find, and respond to the player's presence and recent actions. They belong to that dungeon alone. The most varied kind: guards, monsters, wandering scholars, and everything the theme produces.
Lives on in the wider world, tied to one place or a range of them. What a world NPC knows of the player comes entirely from what that player has demonstrated to the world. Two players who meet the same world NPC will have different conversations if their histories differ.
A recruited NPC who travels with the player. Once recruited, they leave their room and join your party. They move where the player moves, can be equipped with gear from the player's inventory, can be sent to explore adjacent rooms, and can be told to wait in a room when no longer needed. They hunger and thirst alongside the player.
Stationary traders encountered in the dungeon or in the world above. Merchants have a type that defines their stock, a level that reflects their trading experience, gold to make transactions with, and personality traits that colour their pricing and reactions. They restock over time and grow as business passes through them.
Every dungeon NPC acts once per world turn. NPCs sharing a room first have a chance to deal with one another, then needs, behaviour, combat, and movement resolve in the same order.
Before individual actions, one pair in each occupied room may converse, share aid, avoid one another, or begin a feud. A conversation or gift spends one Action Point from each participant, so both continue the rest of the turn with less time to act. Player Action Points are never spent by an NPC exchange.
At the start of each turn, every NPC's hunger and thirst rise by one, before anyone acts. An NPC that has not eaten or drunk in many turns will be deep into its need values before it gets a chance to do anything about them.
Any NPC whose hunger or thirst exceeds 20 searches its own inventory for food or drink and consumes it. If it carries nothing suitable, it searches the room it currently occupies. Separately from this, every NPC proactively picks up one provision per turn from its current room even when not yet hungry, so NPCs that find food stock up rather than waiting until they are desperate. Once need crosses 80 and the NPC has not already complained, it complains out loud. Companions complain to you directly.
Each turn the NPC decides whether to move, and how. An NPC with adequate provisions and healthy stats rests in place. One that is running short of food or drink begins exploring to find more. One at less than 25% health flees instead. It will not fight and will not stand still. Once health recovers, normal behaviour resumes automatically. Companions follow you instead.
If an enemy is present in the same room and the NPC is not in a wounded-flee state, the NPC picks a target and attempts an attack. The attack roll and damage work exactly as they do for you. See the next section for the full breakdown. Stunned NPCs skip this stage while the stun lasts.
After needs and combat are resolved, the NPC either rests or moves. A stationary NPC with a healing item will use it on itself at this stage. A moving NPC chooses where to go according to its mood, as described below. Moving can spring traps or run into locked doors.
The usual state. A wandering NPC moves at random. If it has detected a strong scent in a particular direction it will prefer that direction over a random choice. This is how creatures that hunt by scent find their way toward prey without line-of-sight.
A cowardly NPC avoids any move that brings it closer to where it last saw you, and picks one that takes it further away. A cowardly NPC will pass through connecting rooms, potentially triggering traps along the way. Flight is a preference, not an absolute: if every available exit leads toward the player, the NPC moves anyway. Taking enough damage or certain environmental changes can snap it out of its cowardice.
An NPC below 25% health flees. Unlike a cowardly NPC, which runs from you, a fleeing NPC takes any exit. The NPC does not care which way it goes, only that it leaves. It stops fleeing once its health recovers.
An angered NPC heads toward where it last saw you and closes the distance. It can open doors and will attack anything in its path that is not an ally. An NPC becomes angered when it takes damage from the player, witnesses a companion being harmed, or is affected by certain spells. It does not reset until the NPC is no longer aware of a threat.
Enemies fight by the same rules as you. The same rolls, damage, and elements apply to every creature in the dungeon.
When an NPC attacks, it rolls against its melee or ranged stat, whichever applies to the weapon it has equipped. The roll produces a number between 0 and 99. If that number falls below the NPC's melee (or ranged) value, the attack lands. If it falls above, the attack misses.
A creature with a melee of 60 hits roughly three times out of five. One with a melee of 20 hits roughly once in five. The stat is the direct probability expressed as a percentage. A high-dodge target reduces the effective hit chance further: the attacker must clear both the miss threshold and the defender's dodge.
A successful hit deals physical damage equal to the attacker's strength, minus the defender's defense, plus a die roll. If either side carries elemental damage bonuses, those are added on top of the physical result, and the defender's elemental resistances reduce them independently of physical defense.
This means a heavily armoured defender may shrug off a physical strike while remaining fully exposed to a fire-dealing weapon. Elemental damage and physical damage are resolved in the same hit, not as separate events, but the mitigation that applies to each is entirely different. Build your defenses accordingly.
NPCs carry elemental damage values in the same five schools as the player: fire, ice, acid, holy, and dark. These values come from their base definition and from any elemental weapon they have equipped. When an attack lands, each non-zero elemental bonus is applied to the defender and reduced by the corresponding elemental resistance. An enemy with high dark damage and low holy damage is a fundamentally different threat from one that hits purely physically.
Some attacks, spells, and traps stun their target. A stunned NPC skips its combat stage entirely and has its movement restricted for as long as the stun lasts, then recovers automatically. A creature that would otherwise be dangerous becomes manageable while stunned, but the window is finite. A stunned enemy is a timed opportunity, not a permanent solution.
Each enemy card carries an attack budget, the number of strikes it may attempt on its turn. Most creatures spend one or two. A Noxious Ooze makes a single attack each turn however large it has grown. The budget refreshes at the start of every turn the enemy takes.
Not every enemy is there from the start. Some locations work like clocks: they wait through a fixed interval of world turns, then produce a new enemy nearby if there is space for it. Areas left unattended can grow more dangerous over time, and revisiting a cleared room does not guarantee it has stayed cleared.
A creature left alive does not stay the same. Every enemy gains experience for each turn it survives, and grows in power the longer a dungeon is left unfinished.
Every enemy gains one experience for each world turn it remains alive. The thresholds match the player's own: 100 experience for the first level, and the requirement doubles for every level after. A creature that has haunted a dungeon for a long time is far more dangerous than a newcomer.
Each level raises every combat stat the creature already has by ten percent of its base value, never less than one. Maximum health rises too, and the enemy heals by the amount its maximum grew. Stats the creature does not have stay at zero, so a purely physical brute does not sprout elemental damage from levelling. Growth is based on the creature's natural stats, so its gear and quality do not add to it.
Some enemy behaviours, and the use of some equipment, only appear at a certain level. A creature only begins meditating, arming itself, or reshaping the room around it once it has grown into that ability. An enemy card shows its experience level once it reaches level one, and players in the room see a note when it climbs.
Dungeon NPCs can pick up and equip items they find in the room during their turn. If a better weapon is lying in the same space as the NPC, it may arm itself with it before the player's next action. The same applies to armour, shields, and other wearable items. An NPC that begins the encounter lightly armed may not remain so if the dungeon has left equipment nearby.
Some NPCs are placed with gear already equipped. Their starting stats reflect that equipment. When an NPC is removed from the encounter, the gear it carried falls back into the room where the fight ended.
NPCs use the same stat model as the player. Health, stamina, mana, elemental defences, strength, speed, dodge, sneak: all are tracked per NPC. A dungeon creature with high fire defence is genuinely resistant to fire spells; a humanoid with high dodge is genuinely harder to hit. When an NPC equips or loses a piece of gear, its stats change to match.
An NPC can carry weight equal to forty times its base strength, with a minimum capacity of forty. Equipment bonuses do not raise that limit. An NPC that is overburdened cannot pick up additional items, even if they would be an improvement.
Any gear an enemy carries follows the full item rulebook: quality, material, sockets, and enchantments included. An enemy that spawns or picks up a socketed weapon benefits from that rune exactly as the player would. Enchanted gear works the same in any hands.
Enemies can spawn carrying socketed weapons and armour. The rune school and item category determine the buff, just as they do for the player. An enemy with a fire-runed weapon deals additional fire damage on every hit. One wearing defense-runed armour is harder to hurt. If it appears in an enemy's inventory, the player can loot it and the enchantment travels with it.
If an enchanted item sits in the same room as a hostile NPC, that NPC may arm itself with it during its turn. An enemy that was ordinary at the start of the fight may become significantly more dangerous if the player dropped or left a runed weapon nearby. What the player brings into a room is part of the encounter's risk.
A rune socketed into a location card applies its effect to every creature in that room. The dungeon does not take sides. A fire rune on the floor amplifies the fire damage of any fire attack made within it, whether the player casts it or the enemy does. An enemy spellcaster fighting in a fire-runed room is a more dangerous opponent than the same creature in an unruned corridor. The dungeon's enchantments belong to the space, not to whoever placed them.
When a dungeon NPC is recruited, it leaves its place in the room and joins your party. From that point, it travels wherever the player travels. Carrying a companion is a real commitment: they have needs, opinions, and combat capability of their own. They can be sent into adjacent rooms to explore ahead, and they can be told to wait in a room when the arrangement is no longer useful.
Loyalty gates recruitment. Charisma shapes first impressions and rewards: low Charisma starts meetings colder and reduces loyalty gains, while high Charisma starts them warmer and increases gains from completed quests and mini-quests.
Contracts belong to the player, so two players can hold different progress with the same giver. Active and ready contracts appear in the journal. A completed contract starts a 30-turn cooldown for that giver. A player may abandon active work and ask an ordinary giver for a new offer.
When a player asks an NPC for work, the NPC opens with a short passage of flavour text before presenting the objective. A hermit asks differently than an outlaw; an emissary differently than a wanderer. The narrative is there to give context, not to direct what the player must do.
About one contract in ten asks the player to recover an enchanted item carried by a named enemy. The marked item must be recovered and is surrendered when the reward is claimed. A plain copy of its base item does not count.
Ordinary contracts always pay gold and experience, sometimes with a bonus item. Contracts from notable people may reward you with an event instead. Completing either kind raises loyalty and helps the giver grow in experience.
When no larger task is available, an NPC with enough loyalty may ask for food, drink, a weapon, ammunition, a ranged weapon, or a scroll. Accepting the request writes it to the journal. Completing it hands over the item, closes the journal entry, grants charisma-scaled loyalty, and pays at least 8 gold based on the item's value.
A world NPC encountered for the first time has a brief biography: origin, temperament, current circumstance. Subsequent conversations reflect what the player has done and what the NPC currently knows. An NPC who gave the player a task will acknowledge whether that task is done, and their tone adjusts to reflect it. Conversations respond to what is happening now rather than following a script.
Any conversation can be ended with a blade, not only a first meeting. Draw weapon is offered in every exchange, and choosing it turns the person into an ordinary enemy standing where they stood. A companion is set down in the room first, so a full room leaves nowhere to settle it and the offer fails.
An Evil or Chaotic hero who holds a claim can put the choice to a person whose remaining health has fallen below a third of the hero's own maximum. The chance is 30% plus 10 for each point of Charisma. On success they follow you as a companion at a loyalty of 10, marked as forced labour, and will not heal you until that loyalty is earned up. On failure they turn on you. There is one attempt and no cost, since either answer settles it.
A character with the Thief perk may try to lift something an NPC is carrying. The choice lists what they hold and costs 1 Action Point, and the odds are the same ones used against a merchant, drawn from Dexterity, Patience and stealing proficiency. A success takes the item, and lifting a weapon or armour they were wearing weakens them. Being caught turns them hostile with everything still on them. Companions are not targets; they hand their gear over on request.
Wandering NPCs start with food rations and a water bottle. They begin each dungeon run in a resting state rather than immediately wandering in search of food. A provisioned NPC stays put, conserves health, and has time to settle before the player arrives, greatly improving the odds that it is still alive at first contact. Once provisions run out, the NPC begins exploring to find more.
Three spells can convert a hostile enemy into a compliant NPC mid-dungeon: Animal Charm, Mind Control, and Necrotize. The creature is bound rather than willing. It does only what it is told, and only for a while.
Converts an animal enemy into a charmed NPC. The creature loses its hostile intent, no longer hungers or forages, and becomes immediately recruitable. The charm lasts for 50 × Druidic proficiency level turns before the animal turns hostile again.
Converts a humanoid enemy into a dominated NPC. The creature is immediately compliant, ignores hunger and thirst, and stops moving independently. Recruitment is available at once. The illusion holds for 50 × Illusion proficiency level turns. When it breaks, the creature turns hostile where it stands.
Converts an undead enemy into a necrotized thrall. The bound creature obeys with the same minimal compliance as charmed or dominated creatures. The binding holds for 50 × Necromancy proficiency level turns. When it ends, the creature crumbles into Bones.
A spell-bound creature does not hold conversation. Speaking to one gets only a short line in keeping with its blank, compelled state. It cannot give quests, share information, or respond to any normal social option.
While in a room, a spell-bound creature accepts three commands: Stay (halts movement), Explore (resumes movement), and Come with me (recruits as a companion). Once recruited, the only available command is Wait here, which leaves the creature in the room. No quest options, no provisioning requests, and no loyalty mechanics apply.
Spell-bound creatures do not accumulate hunger or thirst, scavenge for provisions, or pick up and drop items. They move only when the player orders them to explore, and stop when told to stay.
Every binding counts down, one step each turn. What happens when it runs out depends on the creature, and on where it is at the time.
When the countdown expires, a charmed or dominated creature turns hostile and begins moving again. If it was travelling as a companion, it moves to the nearest available adjacent room before turning. If no room is free, the change waits until one opens.
When a necrotized binding runs out, the creature does not turn hostile. It crumbles into Bones where it stands. A necrotized companion leaves your party, and the Bones are left in the room. If there is no space, the change waits until space opens, as it does for a creature turning hostile.
Expiry is never silent and never simply discards the creature. If the room around the player is completely occupied when a companion's binding expires, the change is tried again the next turn. The creature stays in your party until there is space.
An NPC whose loyalty is at its peak, having seen the seeker prove themselves through completed quests, may share something they would tell no one else. Not a rumour. A place.
The reveal can only occur once an NPC's loyalty reaches 100 or above. After each successful quest or mini-quest completion changes loyalty, there is a 5 % chance the NPC chooses to share a historical location. Each NPC can share only one such secret.
When it happens, the NPC names an artifact or beast site you do not know yet. A journal entry records the NPC's name, the name of the site, and a note that it lies somewhere in the region. The corresponding icon becomes visible on the region map.
Artifact and beast sites exist from the moment the world is created. The reveal only uncovers them. A seeker may still find such a site by chance, but earned knowledge provides a map marker.
The revealed location appears in the player's journal alongside other discovered knowledge. If every suitable location is already known, the NPC has nothing new to share.
Living, thinking NPCs remember how they regard one another. Those opinions shape what happens when they share a room, what they tell the player, and how news of the player's conduct travels.
Each relationship has two sides. One NPC may trust another who remains wary in return. Their race attitudes and their faith colour the first impression, so fondness or prejudice already present in a personality can influence a new meeting. See The Faiths of Others.
At most one pair in a room interacts during a world turn. They may chat, praise, or insult one another, then wait five turns before another exchange as a pair. Players in the room hear the combined exchange; meetings elsewhere still change the relationship without producing a distant message.
A living enemy in the room suppresses ordinary conversation and item sharing. NPCs focus on the common threat before private friendship or resentment. Companions occupy their player's room for these checks and can take part in the same social rules.
An opinion left alone slowly returns towards the first impression, one step for every ten turns without an exchange. NPCs kept apart calm down, and friends who stop meeting drift back towards indifference. Someone who dislikes another still speaks civilly more often than not, and civil words from them are worth a little more.
A hostile NPC will not enter a neighbouring room holding the person they dislike, including a companion standing there, and tries to leave if they meet. An NPC holding your contract stays where it is. If escape is blocked, insults can deepen the hostility. A zealot never walks away from a heretic and denounces them instead. A relationship that reaches nemesis becomes a feud, and either side may attack. The feud ends once both have calmed back above hostile. Companions and claim residents cannot walk away, so they may grow hostile and trade insults but never feud. An NPC below one quarter Health breaks off, uses its own healing if it carries any, and otherwise flees.
Trusted NPCs may give one surplus item to someone with a real need. Food, drink, recovery items, and compatible ammunition can pass between them. The donor keeps what it needs for itself, and will not hand over equipped, broken, unique, quest, or story items.
What do you make of the others? lists living NPCs the player has already met or observed. The answer describes the relationship in words such as wary, cordial, friendly, or trusted. Any news? also favours a relevant opinion about another known person when one exists.
An NPC who trusts both the player and another NPC may recommend that person when they have a contract or practical need. The recommendation names the NPC and their present location. On the next meeting, the target acknowledges who sent the player, begins more warmly, and still presents their own work in person.
Completing a contract, helping with a practical need, or abandoning accepted work leaves a memory with the affected NPC. Friendly NPCs can pass one such memory when they meet. The listener's attitude changes, and their next ordinary greeting names the source, such as “Mara told me what you did at the mine.” News only travels through actual meetings and separately for each player.
Roaming NPCs, residents, notable people, and willing companions participate. Merchants, event cards, and mindless creatures held by charm, domination, or necromancy do not form these relationships or join social exchanges.
Now and then, starting a conversation leads somewhere unexpected. A person opens up, asks for comfort, or tests you. How you answer, and how well the words land, changes how they see you.
A moment can begin when you start talking to an NPC. Some arise from plain conversation. Others depend on the person's situation: badly wounded, hungry, thirsty, the dead of night, or just after the two of you have fought. No moment begins while an enemy is in the room or while a finished contract waits to be handed in.
After any moment, no other moment follows for 15 turns. The same person will not share another for 40 turns, and each moment happens only once with each person.
Each reply takes an approach: kind, honest, humorous, flattering, blunt, deceitful, threatening, pious, or practical. The right approach for this person adds up to two dice to its test. The wrong one removes up to two, though a test always rolls at least one die.
A reply marked with a Measure rolls one die per point, adjusted by the approach. Each 4, 5, or 6 is a success and each 1 cancels one. At least one success is needed. The dice are shown, and the reply opens with the result.
Success raises loyalty and failure lowers it. A well-chosen approach adds 3 to the result for each die it earned, and a poor one takes 3 away for each die it cost, even when the roll succeeds. Gains are scaled by Charisma in the same way as quest rewards. Loyalty never falls below 0.
The person's face shows whether an approach pleased or annoyed them. Tell me about yourself may reveal what they value most or cannot abide, such as a straight answer or a liar.
A moment that raises loyalty by 5 or more is remembered as help. One that lowers it by 5 or more is remembered as a slight. Friendly NPCs pass these on by word of mouth. Hearing of a slight lowers the listener's opinion of you by 3.
When a moment ends, the conversation continues with the person's usual options. Leaving early is always possible and usually costs nothing.
A person's background and moral outlook each add one die for an approach they like and remove one for an approach they dislike. A personality that loves helping, hates lies, or despises violence adds or removes another for kind, deceitful, or threatening replies. Notable people have no background, so only their outlook and personality count.
| Person | Welcomes | Resents |
|---|---|---|
| Survivor | Kind, practical | Threatening |
| Wanderer | Humorous, honest | Pious |
| Hermit | Honest, pious | Flattering, humorous |
| Wounded | Kind, practical | Blunt |
| Outlaw | Blunt, deceitful | Pious |
| Rival | Blunt, honest | Flattering, kind |
| Emissary | Flattering, practical | Blunt, threatening |
| Good outlook | Kind, honest | Deceitful, threatening |
| Evil outlook | Threatening, deceitful | Pious |
Not every NPC came from the same world. The people of a surviving village carry different faces, different names, and different things to say than the wanderers clinging to life in dungeon corridors or the defenders holding a besieged tower.
Villagers look different from the people you meet in dungeon corridors. Wanderers, outlaws, and the wounded wear the faces of hardship. The people of a surviving village have their own portraits, showing settled lives.
Villagers have family names. A dungeon wanderer might introduce themselves as Aldric, but a villager is Aldric Millwood. The name has no effect on play, but it tells you this person belongs to a community.
Towers favour survivors, emissaries, and the wounded, reflecting a disciplined garrison under siege. Villages favour wanderers, emissaries, and survivors in roughly equal measure, with a small outlaw presence at the margin.
Settlement residents use the same relationship and word-of-mouth rules as dungeon wanderers. Asking for news or an opinion can reveal who is trusted, who is avoided, and who may have work. Deeds spread only when people meet, so a village develops a social history from the encounters that actually occur there.