The Adventurer's Guide
The Wudlands is not a place that welcomes the faint of heart. It is a world of dark forests, crumbling dungeons, desperate choices, and things older than memory that do not wish to be disturbed. You will enter it as a wanderer with little more than your wits and whatever courage you can muster — and the world will test both without mercy. What you find, what you survive, and what stories are told of your passing are entirely yours to shape.
To step into the Wudlands, you will need a Polkadot wallet for login and to track your on-chain character progression. The following wallet extensions are supported: Polkadot.js, Nova Wallet, Talisman, and SubWallet. Install one of these compatible wallets in your browser to begin your adventure.
The Wudlands is made up of adventures — self-contained stories written by contributors from across the world. Each adventure is its own corner of the Wudlands: a haunted tower, a cursed merchant road, a court intrigue, a dungeon that has swallowed three expeditions before yours. You choose which adventure to enter, read the opening scene, and from that moment every decision is yours. Where you go, who you trust, when you run — all of it matters. The world does not forget what you choose.
Some adventures are locked when you first arrive. A story may require that you have already survived another before its gates will open to you. This is not an obstacle — it is the shape of the world. Certain ruins cannot be understood without knowing what fell in the war that built them. Certain factions will not speak to you until you carry a name they recognise. Complete what lies before you, and the deeper roads will open. The platform will tell you plainly what stands between you and the next chapter.
Entering an adventure requires a small coin — an on-chain fee that grants you the right to explore it again and again, up to three times by default. Each adventure costs approximately $0.80 for three exploration attempts. Think of it less as a toll and more as the price of a seat at the storyteller's fire. If you have exhausted your plays and wish to return, you may pay the fee once more and your count is restored. The road is always open to those willing to walk it again.
Love, Admiration & the Art of Minne
Gold buys a bed for the night. Scars prove you survived. But neither will get you through a locked gate when the woman who holds the key has decided she is not interested. There are things in this world that cannot be taken by force or purchased at a market stall — the regard of someone who has no reason to give it, the warmth of a fire you were not supposed to sit beside, a name spoken well in a room you will never enter. If you have ever wanted more than survival — if you have wondered what it would feel like to be admired, sought after, remembered — then you already understand what drives half the wanderers on these roads.
They call it Minne. The old poets gave it that name — the Minnesingers who sang of knights who crossed mountains and fought monsters not for treasure but for a single moment of favour from a woman who probably would not even be watching. You know the feeling, even if you have never heard the word. You have done something difficult and thought of a specific face while doing it. That is Minne. It does not care whether she is a noble lady behind a castle wall, a matriarch who runs a merchant city with a calm that frightens her rivals, a wizard who has lived three hundred years and finds most people tedious, or an elven enchantress who has not given anyone a second glance in longer than your grandfather has been in the ground. They are all unreachable in their own way. That is the point. The reaching is the thing.
Do not expect doors to open simply because you knocked. Women of wealth and power have seen wanderers before. They have watched a great many of them try, and they remember every one who wasted their time. What opens a door is a name that arrived before you did — a deed someone thought worth repeating, a problem solved quietly, a moment where you stood between something dangerous and someone who mattered. Your fame tells them what kind of person is standing on their step. Your notoriety tells them whether to call for wine or call for the guard. The infamous are sought after in their own right — not merely tolerated but actively pursued by those who understand that a dangerous name, properly courted, is worth more than a loyal one. A matriarch does not send for someone fearsome because she has no choice. She sends for them because she wants to be the one they owe a favour to. Merchants go out of their way to be seen as generous before you have asked for anything. Lords make offers unprompted. There is a particular kind of attention that only infamy earns — people working to get ahead of you, to be remembered well by you, to place themselves on the right side before the wrong side becomes obvious. It is not so different from being admired. It simply arrives with better wine and more nervous smiles.
What follows once you are inside is yours to navigate. Flirtation, jealousy, courtly games, seduction, the particular silence of someone who is making you wait to see what you will do with the waiting — all of it is part of this world, and none of it is simple. A gesture of devotion earned through two nights of real danger in someone's name will land differently than one offered at the first drink. These connections leave marks. A lady's favour can open a city gate, call in a debt that has been owed for years, or hand your enemies exactly the leverage they needed. The world pays attention to who you are devoted to. It forms opinions. What you pursue and how far you take it is entirely your choice — but the choice, once made, belongs to the story.
| What to Know | How It Works in the Wudlands |
|---|---|
| Choices | Every decision you make carries weight. A door left unopened, an offer refused, a stranger left to their fate — the story remembers. Do not expect choices to be decorative. Some will save you. Some will cost you dearly. A few you will regret for the rest of the adventure. |
| Fame | Your reputation is a living thing that walks the roads ahead of you. It runs in two directions. Choose the path of the honourable and people will speak your name in daylight — ballads at the inn, a farmer who offers you his barn without being asked, a city gate that opens just a little faster. Choose the other road and you earn something darker: a name that kings lower their voices to say before they send for you, that innkeepers write down after you leave, that mothers use to hush their children. Both kinds of fame open doors. They are simply not the same doors. |
| Notoriety | Fame tells the world what kind of wanderer you are. Notoriety tells it how far that word has travelled. A fresh adventurer may be known and feared in a single valley — cross the next ridge and you are a stranger again. As your deeds accumulate and your name spreads, it moves ahead of you: merchants in distant towns who have never met you will have heard something, gatekeepers will pause before they speak, lords will have already decided whether to receive you before you reach the hall. The higher your notoriety, the fewer introductions you need — and the fewer surprises you can afford. |
| Adventure Dependencies | Some roads in the Wudlands are closed until you have walked the ones before them. A sealed vault may require you to have recovered the key in a previous adventure. A faction leader may refuse to speak until you carry the proof of an earlier deed. These dependencies are shown clearly before you attempt an adventure — you will never find yourself locked out without warning. Each prerequisite adventure stands on its own and is worth completing for its own sake. The chain of stories is meant to feel like a natural journey through the world, not a series of gates. |
| Survival | Hunger, thirst, exhaustion, disease, and cold are not abstractions in the Wudlands. Some adventures will track them. Push too hard without rest and your hands will shake at the wrong moment. Ignore a wound and it will slow you down before it kills you. These things exist not to punish you but to make every decision — do I press on or make camp, do I spend the last of my rations now or save them — carry real stakes. |
| Combat | Not every fight is one you are meant to win. Knowing when to run is as valuable a skill as knowing when to stand. In most encounters you will have the option to flee — though retreat rarely comes without a price. Your pride, your purse, or a piece of your equipment may not follow you out the door. There are moments, however, when the story has already cornered you — when the ambush was sprung before you realised it was coming. In those scenes, there is no stepping back. Read the road carefully. Sounds heard through a door, a companion's warning, a wrongness in the air — these are not decoration. They are the story telling you to be ready. |
| Shelter & Refuge | The Wudlands offers no permanent home — not yet. You cannot plant a flag and call a ruin yours. What you can find are places to endure: a cave to wait out the storm, a barricaded inn to hold through the night, a collapsed watchtower that keeps the wind off long enough to dress your wounds. These shelters exist within the story and belong to it, not to you. That said, some adventures hide something rarer — a place that might, if you earn it, become a retreat. A room above a tavern whose owner owes you a debt. A forgotten hermitage deep in the forest that no one else has found. These must be discovered through the stories themselves. The Wudlands does not hand out homes. It lets you find them. |
| Escape Route | Every adventure in the Wudlands has a way out. No matter how deep in the dark you find yourself — overwhelmed, lost, out of resources — there is always a path that leads somewhere you can call an end. It may not be the ending you wanted. It may cost you something to reach it. But it is there. You will never be stranded without a road home. Using an escape_route on your own term, does count as a playthrough and does consume one of the three replays. |
| Plays & Entry Fee | Each adventure requires a small on-chain fee to enter (approximately $0.80 for three attempts). That fee grants you the right to experience it up to three times — enough to find different paths, try different choices, and see what the story holds from another angle. If your count runs out and you wish to return, pay the fee again and your plays are restored. The Wudlands does not close its doors to those who want to walk the same road twice. |
Character & Party
Before you set foot in the Wudlands you must decide who you are. Your race shapes how the world reads you — the weight of your footfall, the colour of the fear or respect in a stranger's eyes, the doors that open and the ones that do not. Several races are available at the start, each carrying their own history, their own burdens, and their own quiet advantages. Choose carefully. You will wear this choice for the rest of your time in the world.
You begin without a class. The Wudlands does not hand you a title on the first day — you must earn the right to one. Spend time in the world, gather experience, build skills through what you survive, and in time the shape of who you are becoming will grow clear. Classes will be available to choose from as the platform matures into its alpha release. When the moment comes, you may find that the choice is not simply made at a menu — some paths require a teacher. A swordmaster who will only take you on once you can prove you are worth her time. A grey-robed scholar who asks three questions before he opens his door. Finding the right person to name you what you already are is itself part of the journey.
You need not walk the Wudlands alone. Adventuring parties of up to four can travel together, but a group is not simply a collection of people — it is a formation. Before you move out, a marching order must be set. Who walks at the front? Who guards the rear? This is not a formality. Enemies most often come from ahead, but the road is full of things that do not fight fair. Something may drop from above onto the middle of your column. A figure may step out of a hidden place and drive a blade into whoever stands between your vanguard and your rearguard. And the last person in the line — the one watching the road behind — is the one who gets taken first when something follows quietly enough. Think about who you put where. It may save their life. It may cost them one.
Every character begins at an age you choose. The Wudlands tracks time. Each adventure, by default, adds one month to your character's life — and those months do not come back. Old age is not a distant abstraction; it is a horizon that moves toward you with every story you enter. As the years accumulate, their weight will be felt. There are those who have found ways to hold it off — life potions rumoured to restore something of what time has taken, to push the horizon back a little further. Whether you find one, afford one, or trust whoever is selling it is another matter entirely.
| What to Know | How It Works in the Wudlands |
|---|---|
| Race | Several races are available at character creation. Each carries its own strengths, history, and the way the world reacts to your face. Your choice is permanent — the Wudlands does not let you be someone else. |
| Class | You begin classless. Classes become available in the alpha release, chosen only after you have gathered enough experience and skill to earn one. Some may require you to find a teacher willing to take you on — they will not all be easy to find, and not all of them will find you worthy on the first meeting. |
| Party Size | Up to four adventurers may travel together. A party is only as strong as the decisions it makes as a group — and the first decision is the marching order. |
| Marching Order | The formation your party travels in determines who faces what first. The front takes the brunt of head-on threats. The rear is exposed to anything that sneaks up from behind. The middle is not safe either — attacks from hidden positions, aerial threats, or ambushes from the flanks strike wherever the story demands. Set your order with care and revisit it when the terrain changes. |
| Age & Time | Your character starts at an age you choose. Every adventure adds one month to their life by default. Old age accumulates and eventually makes itself known. Life potions exist that can restore some measure of youth — but they must be found, and nothing in the Wudlands comes without a cost. |
| Carrying Equipment | What you can carry has limits, though they are not rigid walls. Riding dogs and backpacks extend what you can bring into the field. Exceed your soft limit and the weight will tell — slower movement, quicker exhaustion, choices made harder by the burden on your back. Carry what you need. Leave behind what you can afford to lose. |