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The Wild Road
The seven hunting grounds used to be lands apart, walled in by mountains and fog, and the only way in or out was a waystone. They are still where they always were, with their camps, their Grown and their prizes, but now they are one road: a mountain pass at each end of each ground leads over into the next, and a road gate at each ground's camp leads to its home town and back.
The road
Port Tidewrack ⇄ the Burrows ⇄ the Lantern Marsh ⇄ the Glasswind Dunes ⇄ Rime Hollow ⇄ the Cinder Reach ⇄ the Broken Beacons ⇄ the Unlit Reach (the end of the road).
| Hunting ground | Grown | Its home town (road gate) |
|---|---|---|
| The Burrows | levels 6–14 | Port Tidewrack (and its west pass comes down there too) |
| Lantern Marsh | levels 16–28 | Pellan |
| Glasswind Dunes | levels 28–42 | Port Brackwater |
| Rime Hollow | levels 42–58 | Coldhaven or Quillreach |
| Cinder Reach | levels 58–76 | Port Mistral or Port Marrow |
| The Broken Beacons | levels 76–100 | Ravenhearth or Ironvale |
| The Unlit Reach | levels 100–140, from level 100 or reborn | Port Lanternquay or Port Orrin |
A ground's home towns are the towns of the region whose Grown match its levels, so the road out of a town leads to a ground of about the same danger.
The passes
- At each end of a hunting ground the land climbs into a mountain nobody can climb, dig or fly over. At its foot a pass opens in the rock face: a stone arch, with a lantern and a signpost by it. Walk up to it: a line over it says where it goes, as F: to the Lantern Marsh (levels 16–28). Press F (on a phone the use button says GO).
- A pass brings you over the mountain and down at the near end of the next ground, beside the pass that leads back.
- The Burrows' west pass comes down out of the mountains to Port Tidewrack. The Unlit Reach's far end is the end of the road: it has no pass.
- Lava never runs into the ground at a pass, so there is always room to stand at one.
- Walking into the mountain at a ground's end says in the chat where the pass is, as it always said what the mountain is.
The road gates
- Each ground's camp has a road gate at its east edge. It takes the road to the ground's home town; a camp with two home towns asks you which.
- In each home town a road gate stands on the street, east of the waystone. It takes the road out to the ground's camp.
Taking a road
- A road takes a second, standing still: the travel bar shows it. Step off, get hit or fall, and it is broken off (it says why).
- Not if something hurt you in the last 5 seconds: catch your breath first.
- Not with a trade pack: it is too heavy for the mountain road. Carry it the long way, to a port.
- An outlaw (a red name) may take the passes, but no road into a town takes a murderer, as no waystone does: not a camp's gate, nor the Burrows' west pass down to Port Tidewrack. The roads from a town out to a camp take anybody.
- You come down on your feet, on solid ground clear of lava, with no fall to hurt you.
- If the Grown past a pass are above your level, the pass says so before you go, and the line as you arrive says it again: the pass behind you is the way back.
Who may go where
- Every hunting ground is open, at any level. There is no level lock any more: you are warned, not stopped. Die there and you wake up in town as usual (see Death and waking up).
- The Unlit Reach opens at level 100. Its pass and its road gates do not open until you reach level 100, or until Oswin has rekindled you (from level 150, in the Warden House in Aldhearth), and the pass says so. Waystone travel, group travel and the delve gates keep the same rule.
- Waystone travel to a ground (the map, M) works as it always did, and still brings you to its camp.
On the map
The map (M) lists the hunting grounds as the road runs, from Port Tidewrack to the Unlit Reach, each with its levels: one whose Grown are above your level is marked in amber, one you may not enter yet (the Unlit Reach, under level 100 without a rebirth) in violet, and the one you stand in is outlined. Under it, each ground's travel button says its levels and where its road gate is. Inside a ground, the map says how to go on: either pass, or the road gate by the camp.
The mountains and the storm roof
- The mountains at the ends of a ground are drawn as high as they are solid: the rock goes all the way up, with no invisible wall over the peaks. Their near face is drawn through the fog, so you see what stops you.
- The sky over a hunting ground has a roof: a deck of storm cloud along the top of the world, with lightning in it. It is as solid as the mountains: wings and leaps stop under it, for everyone alike.
For old hands
- The land is as it was: the passes and gates stand on it without a block of it dug or built, and a character who logged out in a ground comes back where they were, as do beds, stakes and Homes there.
- The old walls are still walls: only the passes go over them.
See also Regions and hunting grounds for the levels of the open world, and Towns for the home towns.