Past the Claim Line

South of Halcyon there’s always been a road that stopped at the edge of the map. It doesn’t any more. The Ochre Badlands run from just past the South Gate all the way to the edge of the world, and it’s the first place in Gildrook where Contractors can fight each other. Here’s the short version.

Leave Halcyon by the South Gate and follow the Caravan Road on past the toll lodge. The grass gives way to scrub and red earth, and the sky stops raining. A short walk on, a row of rust-red stones crosses the whole land, with a pillar either side of the road: the Claim Line. The Society’s notice by the lodge puts it plainly. Beyond the stones, the Society’s license does not run.

The first stretch past the Line is the Shallows: boarded-up claim offices, a red hill and a long ridge, and the Old and Far Diggings, where there’s coal (Mining 20) and gold (40) among the spoil heaps. Further south the land breaks up. The Dry Wash is a canyon cut deep through a tableland, with narrows four strides across, side gullies, and gem rocks in its walls (Mining 35). Past it lie the Red Flats, bare hot stone under the sun, and then the Red Stair, a stepped mesa of sheer red sandstone. A switchback trail climbs three flights of steps to its flat top, the highest ground in the Badlands, and from up there you can see all of it.

West of the road, the Claim Road leads out across the far south, past wrecked wagons and dry wells, to the Red Claim. Claim-jumpers hold the deepest diggings there behind their stockades: bandits with swords and crossbows, levels 50 and 52, and their bruisers, level 58, in dented adamant with two-handed swords over their shoulders. They fight together, so expect more than one at a time. They drop coins and gems, and now and then rune, the rune two-handed sword rarest of all.

Deepest of all lies the Bottom Claim, a pit with the only runite rocks in the game (Mining 70). It’s a long way from anywhere safe, which is rather the point.

Past the Claim Line, other Contractors can attack you, and you can attack them. How far in you are is your depth: 1 on the first row past the stones, rising as you go south, up to 40 at the edge of the world. The deeper you are, the wider the range of combat levels you can fight. At depth 12, a level-50 Contractor can fight anyone from 38 to 62, and deep enough, anyone can fight anyone. While you’re past the Line, your depth and your range show under your status icons, and Attack appears on every Contractor you can fight.

Attack someone who hasn’t attacked you in the last five minutes and a skull appears over your head, where everyone can see it, for the next 20 minutes you play. Fighting back never skulls you. The skull matters when you fall: you normally keep your three most valuable items, but with a skull you keep none. Your cosmetics and untradeable items are always safe, skull or not.

Whatever you drop is your killer’s alone for a minute, then anyone’s for a minute, and then it’s gone. Fights are one on one, except inside the Red Claim’s stockades, where anyone can join in. Teleports work down to depth 20 and no deeper, so past that you’ll have to walk back. You can’t log out in the middle of a fight, and closing the game won’t save you either: your character stays standing.

The first time you walk over the Line, the game checks you really mean to. If you’d rather it didn’t ask again, there’s a PvP warning switch in the Options tab.

The Sallow Barrows go deeper. Each of the six barrows leads down into a crypt of its own, where barrow wights lie, and on through stone galleries where skeleton knights keep watch, up to the antechamber and the vault door. The door’s old counterweight is seized, and freeing it takes Artisanry 30.

Behind it waits the Barrow King. He puts his braziers out one by one, and in the dark he can’t be hurt, so you’ll need Artisanry 30 to relight them as you go. Mind the bell, too: it swings before it tolls, and whoever is moving when it tolls loses half their hitpoints. Past half his health, the floor gives way beneath you. Bring him down and his crown rolls loose, and you’ll want to carry it to his sarcophagus before he rises again.

He’s a fight for the high 50s on your own, and easier with friends. Everyone gets their own vault, and the door’s “Join a friend” takes you into a friend’s, as long as they have you on their friends list. The barrows’ doors, the vault door and a cold brazier all show as yellow dots on your minimap.

Lay the King to rest and he may give up his regalia, the best caster’s gear a free Contractor can wear. The Gravecrown hood is purple, with a crown of gold grown into its rim. The Gravecrown robe top and robe bottom are faded royal purple girdled in old gold, cold stones glinting down the front and the hems gone to rags. With them come the Sallow amulet and the Book of grave-cold, which you hold beside your staff and open as you cast.

The Halcyon Hotel is open. Walk through the revolving doors at the back of its foyer on Exchange Square into a lobby of black marble and gold, with its own concierge, lifts, a lounge with a pianist, and a bar.

Your room is in every hotel now. Take the lift in Halcyon and you walk into the same room you keep at the Grand Hotel, just as you left it, and its door brings you back down into Halcyon.

On the suites floor, six Halcyon suites line a promenade, each named for a place in the city: the Crown, the Lens, the Exchange, the Basin, the Opera and the Belvedere. Every one has a sitting room, a library, a bedroom, a grand salon, a dining room, a dressing room and a terrace over the Basin, with room for 60 pieces of furniture. Rent one from the Halcyon Lettings Agent for 40,000 coins a month, or outbid its tenant, as at the Grand Hotel. You can hold one suite at a time, in either hotel.

Once you’re signed off from Probation, you can make the Halcyon Hotel your hotel by asking its concierge. Then when you fall, Society Medical brings you to its medical suite instead of the compound. The Grand Hotel’s concierge will switch you back any time. What you drop still lies where you fell.

The Couturier on Concord Boulevard has four new looks, each with its own hat, sold piece by piece. The Opera is a silk opera hat, a tailcoat with satin lapels, striped trousers and spats. The Lido is a straw boater, a flowered shirt, linen shorts and espadrilles. The sailor is a beret with a pompom, a middy blouse with a square collar and bell-bottoms. And the Rosebud is a straw bonnet tied with ribbons, a puff-sleeved blouse, a tiered gingham skirt and Mary Janes.

There are five new everyday looks too, each sold in a shop that suits it. The bellhop has a pillbox cap with a chin strap, a maroon jacket with brass buttons and gold piping, trousers with a gold stripe and polished shoes. Chef’s whites come with a tall pleated toque, a double-breasted jacket, checked trousers and clogs. The winter knit is a pom-pom beanie, a snowflake sweater, wool trousers and fleece-lined boots. The explorer wears a pith helmet, a khaki shirt with pockets, khaki shorts and boots over knee socks. And the detective has a deerstalker, a tweed waistcoat over a shirt and tie, tweed trousers and brogues.

Two-handed swords are here, from bronze to rune. They’re slow and heavy, swung with both hands so there’s no shield, and they give the biggest hit a sword can at its level. Make one at your workbench from three bars (with a leather grip from steel up), buy a black one at the Gullhaven Armory, or take a steel one off the skeleton knights in the Sallow Barrows. The Ogre club still hits a little harder than the rune one.

And the twinblades are now the most accurate melee weapons in the game: +120 Attack for the Twinblade (it was +80), and +130 for the Molten and Lightning Twinblades (they were +84). They hit just as hard as before, and land far more often.

There are new trees to cut. Pines (Woodcutting 22) grow along the road before the Wayside Inn, on the edge of Old Thornwood above the Upper Vale, and on the crest of Gullcoast Heath above Gullhaven. Walnuts (42) grow deep in Old Thornwood and on the Society’s lawns along Concord Boulevard, outside Halcyon’s West Gate. And there are more yews (55): a second beside each of the two on Gullcoast Heath, and three in the churchyard of the pilgrims’ chapel on Pilgrim’s Path. The Woodcutting Steward in the compound will tell you where to go next.

Logs are worth more the higher you climb, too. Walnut logs are worth 90 coins now (they were 50) and yew logs 200 (they were 80), so walnuts and yews pay better than willows. The planks made from them went up to match (walnut 190, yew 400), and so did the furniture and crossbows made from those. The Society’s pieces at Halcyon Furnishings cost more too, from 2,150 coins for the bar stool. And Hester at the Tallow Cross smithy sells axes now, bronze to mithril, beside her pickaxes.

Rare drops come at a few set rates now, so you always know what you’re hunting for. A boss’s unique drops 1 in 128, a regular monster’s 1 in 512, and once you’ve read a unique’s pattern, its part drops 1 in 32.

The World Map’s Key. The World Map has a Key now. It lists every kind of mark on the map and how many there are. Pick one and every bank, anvil, fishing spot or flax patch lights up, and you can step from one to the next. It has a search too: type “bank”, “Lowtown”, “Hatter” or “anvil” and it takes you there. Obelisks and writing desks have their own icons, the barrows have a Dungeons row, and zoomed in, the World Map shows the yellow dots for things you can gather by hand, as the minimap does. And the land sits in open sea now.

Health bars, hit splats and chat stay right over a head wherever it is on your screen. Toward the edges they used to drift off to one side, a long way on the biggest creatures.

The Furnishings Clerk is back behind his desk in the Grand Hotel’s Atelier, with the everyday range: stools, chairs, tables, a chest of drawers, shelves, lamps, and the first rugs, wallpapers and floorings. The Decorator keeps the finer range at Halcyon Furnishings on Concord Boulevard.

Suites. If you hold a suite in one hotel and try to rent or bid for one in the other, the Lettings Agent tells you which hotel yours is in. And when your bid for a suite is the highest, the offer box starts at the least you can raise it to.

The Residence Guard only turn out now if you try the gate. You can walk up to the line, and over it, and talk to the guards in peace.

Membership. The website has a Members page, with what membership gives you.

That’s everything. The Badlands are the biggest place I’ve built, and I hope you enjoy getting lost in them. Watch your back past the Line.