Eldritch Echoes

v0.1.0 — First Public Release

World & Exploration

The first version ships with 59 locations in the Downtown district. Movement uses the cardinal directions plus up and down. LOOK describes the current location — its exits, inhabitants, and items on the ground. EXAMINE gives a detailed description of almost any entity or object you encounter. SEARCH uncovers hidden items in a location or within a specific object.

Weather and time-of-day cycle continuously, adding atmospheric flavor and having minor effects on combat and exploration. Those effects are intentionally subtle in this release.

Locations are either PvP-safe or PvP-open. The basic rule: streets are open for conflict, indoor locations are not.

Characters & Progression

Characters are built around five base attributes — Strength, Agility, Intellect, Willpower, and Luck — chosen at creation. These determine derived stats like maximum health, maximum sanity, attack and defense ratings, magic capability, and more.

Experience is awarded for winning fights against mobs or other players and for completing quests. On leveling up, the player receives attribute points to spend freely.

Turn-Based Combat

Each attack targets a specific hit zone — Head, Body, Legs, or Feet. Armor covers particular zones, so unarmored areas take full damage. Damage comes in physical and magical types, and protection values are tracked independently per zone and per type.

At the start of each turn the player chooses a combat stance:

• Balanced — no modifier; available in PvE only.
• Aggressive — increased damage, reduced defense.
• Defensive — increased defense, reduced damage.
• Tactical — increased attack, reduced defense and damage; a high chance to apply a tactical advantage bonus against the opponent on the next turn.

Unarmed attacks deal base damage derived from the player's stats. Melee adds the weapon's bonus on top of that. Firearms ignore base damage entirely and deal weapon damage only. A weapon in the off-hand adds a bonus to the damage.

Some mobs trigger a horror check on engagement — a sanity damage roll resisted by Willpower, adjusted by equipment modifiers. Aggressive mobs attack on sight, but an automatic stealth check against the mob's awareness can let you slip past.

In PvP, stances counter each other in a rock-paper-scissors fashion: Aggressive beats Tactical, Tactical beats Defensive, Defensive beats Aggressive. Unlike PvE mode, PvP stances don't have other effects apart from countering each other — that will be expanded in a future release. Retreating from a PvP fight is possible but significantly harder than escaping a mob.

Sanity

Sanity is a second health bar alongside hit points. It drops from horror checks in combat, from casting spells, and from certain events in the world. It regenerates slowly while resting or sleeping.

Magic

The magic system mechanics are implemented, but the world has no magical items available in this first release. That will change in future updates.

Equipment & Items

Characters can equip weapons in a primary and secondary slot, armor across four slots matching the hit zones (head, body, legs, feet), and accessories in four slots (hands, neck, two fingers). All items have a condition that degrades with use, moving from Pristine down through Good, Worn, Damaged, Battered, and finally Ruined.

Items can carry consumable effects — potions and similar items are activated with USE. Quest items are tracked separately and cannot be dropped or lost.

Each player has a personal stash in their hotel room, accessible via the STASH command. Shops sell weapons, armor, accessories, and other goods, though they are not particularly useful in this release as there is no reliable source of in-game money yet.

Quests & Journal

9 quests are available, covering a tutorial arc and a set of Downtown investigations. The tutorial starts automatically on first login. Completing quests rewards experience, money, or items. Some quests are connected by narrative — finishing one investigation may quietly open another, even when the link between them is not immediately obvious.

NPCs are found at specific locations. Some offer services — currently limited to healing — gated by the player's level.

Respawn & Death

Dying in combat against a mob respawns the player at a safe zone with no equipment and a small experience penalty. Everything carried at the time of death remains on the body at the death location. After a period of time, the body is automatically moved to a safe location with all its contents intact — except for items that reached Ruined condition from the death's durability damage.

Multiplayer

Multiple players share the world in real time. PvP duels can be initiated in PvP-open zones. Death in a player duel is consequence-free: no experience penalty and all equipment is preserved.