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Home raids and defence
The deeper a Home lies, the more it draws the Grown. Once it is far enough down, they come for it: first you hear the rock knock, then they claw their way towards the Home Stone in waves. Build defences, hold your Home, and it pays you in Wane-amber. Let them put the stone out, and it goes cold for a while.
Raids only come for Homes (see Homes and land), and only while you are there to fight.
When raids come
- Not near the surface. A Home less than 40 rows below the ground is never raided. A starter Home is safe.
- The deeper, the more. From 40 rows down a Home starts to draw the Grown, and it draws more the deeper it lies. Every stratum of The Deep draws more again, down to the Upper Deep's floor: a Home in the bands below draws as one there does, and is raided by the band's own Grown, with the Might of their depth. The Heat a Home has gathered draws them too.
- Only while you are near. No raid ever starts while everyone of the Home is away. Everyone of the Home means its owner, the owner's other characters, the owner's group and guild, and friends the owner lets build there. Away means offline, or farther from the Home Stone than three times the radius of its land. If you never visit, nothing comes, but nothing is earned either.
- At most once every 20 minutes. A new Home also gets 20 minutes of quiet after its stone is set down. After that, every minute there is a chance a raid starts.
- A cold Home is never raided.
Want one now? Ring a hand bell on your land: the next raid comes at once, as long as the 20 minutes are up. The bell tells you how long is left if they are not.
A raid
- The warning (30 seconds). Everyone of the Home who is online hears it, wherever they are. The Home Stone's glow shakes red, and any alarm bells on its land ring.
- The waves. Two waves come, three in the Deep, four for a tier 3 Home there. Each wave has an elite in it. A boss comes with the last wave of a tier 3 Home, or of one with 800 Heat or more. The next wave comes 8 seconds after the last Grown of a wave falls, or after a minute anyway.
- Where they come from. They come out in open air just outside its land, never within 6 tiles of a player, and never two on one tile. Where there is no open air, they come out of open floor at the edge of its land. A Home sealed in the rock does not stop them: they claw a hole two tiles high through ordinary blocks just inside the edge and come out of that. Only if the whole edge is Home brick, Ironbound or other blocks they never break do they find no way in, and the raid ends with no result. One that gets stuck outside its land claws its way to the edge too.
- What they do. They go for the Home Stone, and for anyone who gets in their way. On its land they dig through ordinary blocks to get there: dirt, stone, deepstone, wood and wooden doors. What they break drops whole, so you can build it again.
- What they never break. Home brick, Ironbound blocks, iron gates, chests, workbenches, furnaces, anvils, cauldrons, beds, the Home Stone itself, or anything at all off its land. In the bands they claw through the band's own rock too, but never through a tile of a band's seal.
The raid box at the top of the screen (above the buttons on a phone) shows the warning's count, the wave, how many Grown are still standing and the Home Stone's life. Its life also shows over the stone itself.
The Home Stone's life
A Home Stone has 800 life for each tier: 800, 1,600 or 2,400. Every blow takes a little off. Small Grown take 5, the bigger ones 8, elites 16 and bosses 36, at any depth. Depth shows in how tough the Grown are, not in how hard they hit the stone.
How it ends
- Held, when every wave is down. If the Grown of the last wave are still standing 90 seconds after it came, they sink back into the rock, and the raid is held for less: every share (amber, loot, gold, bolts, ores and the chance of a trophy) is cut to a half, plus a half of the part of the raid's Grown you killed. You get:
- A raid chest by the Home Stone, with a share for each of the Home's people who stood by it for 30 seconds of the raid in all (the warning counts). Dropping by for a moment earns nothing, and once you have stood your 30 seconds the share is yours even if you go offline before the end. Right click it to take yours. A stranger who helped gets the experience and loot of their kills, but no share. A chest left unopened crumbles after 30 minutes, and the shares still in it come by letter.
- Your share holds Wane-amber (more the deeper the Home, the higher its tier and the more Heat it has), deep loot and gold, ballista bolts, embersteel ore in the Deep, and voidglass from the third stratum down. Now and then it holds a trophy to mount at home. In the bands below the Upper Deep the Wane-amber stops growing, and the share holds the band's own materials instead (each band's page says which); the band's great one may lend the chest its trophy.
- The Home gains Heat.
- Lost, when the Home Stone's life reaches 0. The stone goes cold for 30 minutes and the Home loses a quarter of its Heat. While it is cold you cannot rest there, Grown can be born on its land again, ballistas and ward lanterns stop working, and no raids come. It lights again by itself when the 30 minutes are up (nothing lights it sooner), and your Home's land banner shows the minutes left. Your claim stays, and so does everything you built.
- No result, when nobody of the Home has been near it for 60 seconds, or when the Grown find no way in at all. The Grown sink back into the rock, and nothing is won or lost.
Widening its land with an ember core in the middle of a raid does not heal the Home Stone: it keeps the same share of its (larger) life.
A raid does not survive the world being restarted. A raid that is on when the server stops ends with no result: nothing is won or lost, and the owner is told at the next login.
Defences
Defences can only be placed on your own Home's land (or on one whose owner lets you build), because the Home Stone feeds them. Traps and turrets never hurt players.
| Defence | What it does | Made at |
|---|---|---|
| Home brick | A block no raider can break. | Furnace: 6 stone and an iron bar (or 3 deepstone and a charcoal) make 4 |
| Ironbound block | Nothing breaks it: no raider, no boss, no siege, no blast. It needs an iron pickaxe or better to mine. | Anvil: 2 embersteel bars, a Wane-amber and 2 Home brick make 2 |
| Iron gate | A door, two tiles high, that raiders cannot break. It opens only for whoever hung it, their group and guild, the names they list (right click it), and the Home's owner, who can always open it, change its list and take it down. On ground nobody holds any more, anyone can break it, and it fades like other builds. | Anvil: 6 iron bars |
| Home spikes | Set on the floor. A Grown standing on them is hurt and slowed. | Anvil: 2 iron bars and 2 stone make 4 |
| Ballista | Shoots bolts at the nearest Grown within 10 tiles it can see, on its own Home's land only. Right click it with ballista bolts in your bag to load it: it takes as many as it holds (60 at most). Bolts fly through people. | Anvil: 6 planks, 4 iron bars and 2 Wane-amber. Bolts: 6 sticks and an iron bar make 12 |
| Ward lantern | Grown within 5 tiles of it are slowed and take a quarter more harm. It also lights the room. | Anvil: 3 Wane-amber, a crystal and an iron bar |
| Alarm bell | Rings when the Grown come. Everyone of the Home on its land fights harder (+15% harm) until the raid ends. Right click it to hear how the Home stands (it answers its own people anywhere, and others only close by). | Anvil: 3 iron bars and 2 copper bars |
| Hand bell | Not a block. Ring it on your land to call the next raid now. | Anvil: 2 iron bars and a plank |
The ballista and the ward lantern work only while the Home Stone is lit. Spikes work while any Home holds the ground. All of them work on any Grown on its land, not just raiders, and only while a raid is on or someone is near the Home Stone.
Machines wound, people slay. In a raid on their own Home the spikes and the ballista kill its raiders, as they always did. On any other Grown (one that wandered onto your land, or a raider once its raid is over) they only wound: they never take it below a tenth of its life, and a ballista spends no bolt on one held there. Finish it yourself: the kill, its experience and its loot are yours. See Emberwork machines.
On a Home's land the Grown dig through ordinary blocks, but never soil with a crop growing on it, and never emberwork.
Defences on the wire. Lay emberwire at a defence and it waits for the wire: Home spikes sink into the floor while their wire is cold and spring up while it is warm, a ward lantern goes dark while its wire is cold, and a ballista holds its bolts. With no wire at them they work as above. The Home Stone itself warms wire laid beside it from the raid's warning until the raid ends. See Emberwork.
On a phone, tap a ballista, gate, alarm bell or raid chest to use it (a tap never digs them), or stand by it and press USE: the button says LOAD, DOOR, BELL or OPEN.
A Home Stone walled in Home brick cannot be reached. The Grown claw at the wall until you cut them down, or until they sink back into the rock. A wall of plain stone only slows them.
Wane-amber
Wane-amber comes only from raid chests. The Grown of the deep carry it in them: Wane gone hard and golden. It makes the ballista and the ward lantern, Ironbound blocks, and also ember cores to widen your Home's land (at a Furnace: 6 Wane-amber, 2 iron bars and 2 charcoal).
Tips
- Your first raid comes at 40 rows down. A ring of Home brick around the Home Stone with an iron gate in it holds a whole raid at bay. You still have to cut the Grown down, or wait them out, to win.
- Spikes in front of the gate and a ballista behind the wall do the work while you fight.
- Wire from your Home Stone to a chime is an alarm you hear from anywhere on your land; a Home plate wired to sunk spikes springs them under the raiders and never under you.
- Stay within three radii of the Home Stone: walk off for a minute and the raid ends with nothing to show for it.
- Raids in the Deep are harder, but pay much more.