Builds

Art in progress

A character is three things working together: the skills you use, the gear you wear and, later, the passive tree. Today there are two attacks, three spells and a dash; gear makes them into a build. The build planner puts one together before you play it, with the game's own numbers. The passive tree and characters that persist between sessions are the next step on the roadmap.

Decided by Alex on 25 October 2026: the passive tree is where a fallen's white settles, drawn as the heaven it remembers. It is called the Rose (26 October 2026). The faction you choose at the top adds its own few skills on top of any build and takes nothing away (see the overview).

Decided by Alex on 26 October 2026, after the build planner was made:

• Attributes, as in Path of Exile. Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence come from your archetype, the Rose and gear. Each gives a small bonus, and gear and skill gems require them, so a build leans toward its part of the Rose.
• Skills are gems in skill slots, as in Path of Exile 2. You find skill gems and put each in a skill slot of its own, and every skill has its own support slots for gems that change how it behaves. Nothing is socketed in gear, so changing armour never breaks a skill.
• The first Rose has about 120 places, with one start for each archetype.
• The rules come first, in the game's simulation and the planner, so builds can be tried on the website. The game's own screens for the Rose and gems follow.

Decided by Alex later on 26 October 2026, after the first Rose turned every build into the same one:

• Attributes come from levels, not the Rose. Every level after the first gives 5 attribute points to spend as you like, and the Rose gives none. Requirements are sized so that a build in one attribute spends about two thirds of its points meeting its own gem and gear, and a build across two about nine tenths; the rest buys what each attribute gives, which is a choice between defence and damage. Armour and support gems ask less than weapons and skill gems, so a caster can wear armour and a build can run supports of a second attribute.
• A passive point every two levels, 49 by level 100, with 18 keystones on the Rose. A fully built fallen lights no more than a tenth of the Rose, so the Rose grows with the points. Its shape is on the Rose.

Archetypes

The quarryman listens to the stone before he strikes it.

A new fallen remembers nothing, but its hands reach for something. Where it wakes, she puts that tool in them, and its teachers wait at the first fires of the faithful. They teach it a trade, one of the ways of killing that men learnt below, and that trade is the archetype you start with: where you stand on the passive tree and the skills you reach for first, never what you may become. Every way of killing below is open to any fallen, so it may learn any other trade later, and any trade takes any faction at the top. Six to start:

• The Quarryman. Taught by the quarrymen who cut the stone that hides the fires. Hammers and mauls, made for stone; heavy armour; slams that crack the ground. Strength.

• The Sellsword. Taught by the sellswords the faithful hire to keep their doors at night. Sword and buckler, the quick cut and the parry. Strength and dexterity.

  He kept the door all night, and nobody knocked.

• The Huntsman. Taught by the huntsmen who keep the roads between the fires. Bows, throwing blades and traps, speed and the long shot. Dexterity.

  He taught it to wait, and it had been waiting longer than he had lived.

• The Hedgewitch. Taught by the hedgewitches who keep the fires lit through the winter. Fire, frost and the storm, called by their old names. Intelligence.

  She called the frost by its first name, and it came.

• The Sexton. Taught by those who bury the faithful's dead and know every name; the fallen calls them back in its own white. Curses and rot, minions and damage over time. Dexterity and intelligence.

  The sexton knows every grave, and which ones are empty.

• The Penitent. Taught by the faithful who bleed in cellars for the burned. A flail in one hand, warcries and auras, and power paid for in your own blood. Strength and intelligence.

  Every scar on her back is the name of someone burned.

Alex chose the world's trades and five of their names on 25 October 2026; the Sellsword and the rest were marked for him by a Claude stand-in, at his request.