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Wiki Systems Companions

Companions

Henchmen, heroes, summoned minions and owned pets, and how each is called, commanded and dismissed.

Rogue has four kinds of companion: hired henchmen, heroes, class summons and owned pets. Heroes and henchmen make up your companion party, up to eight at once, of whom one may be a henchman.

Under the hard rules every character plays by, you may have one henchman in your hire, henchmen are a quarter weaker, and no player is given a hero any more. A character who won heroes before those rules came in keeps them. A group takes only one of each hero and one of each henchman: join a group that already has yours out and yours goes home.

Henchmen#

Henchmen are hired help. Unlike heroes they cannot be given gear, renamed or ridden, never gain levels of their own and keep the kit they came with. They are slower than a hero to react in a fight: to heal, to use their skills and to pick a new foe. They deal a quarter less damage than they otherwise would and last three quarters as long. ask <name> about background (or about work or beliefs) gets them talking when they are beside you. henchman shows who is in your hire, where they are and how long each contract has to run.

Your guild's gift#

The first time you join a guild, the guild sends you help at no cost. A healer is sent Fenwick, a cheerful and clumsy fighter. Everyone else is sent Hester, an anxious young healer. They stay with you, through every logout, until you pass level 20, and then take their leave.

The Tidewarden Hall#

After that, help is hired at the Tidewarden Hall in Aurin, west off Sunward Avenue. Type hire there to see who is free: Hilde (tank), Mirabel (healer), Ignatius (a mage), Linnea (ranger) and Bertram (support). hire <name or role> takes one on, so hire hilde and hire tank are the same.

Calling and dismissing#

call <name> or call <role> brings a henchman to you, wherever you are. One who was sent away, lost or left behind comes back, so nobody under contract is ever lost for good. One who has fallen in a fight gets back up at half health a few seconds after the fight ends and comes to you then. Nobody can be called during a fight.

henchman dismiss <name> sends a henchman off for a while; the contract stands and a call brings them back. henchman release <name> confirm ends a contract early, with no refund.

A henchman comes back from a dismissal or a logout exactly as they left, with the same health and spell points, so sending one away and calling them again mends nothing. One sent away while down comes back on their feet, as they would at the end of the fight.

Before joining a guild, an explorer may take Fenwick along for nothing, for the session only, with henchman hire sellsword.

Heroes#

Heroes are named companions, each one of a kind, with a backstory, a role and an appearance you can change. Players are no longer given heroes; this section is for characters who won them before the hard rules came in. Unlike henchmen, heroes can be renamed, geared by you, and given their own entrance and dismissal lines.

hero list shows every hero you have unlocked and hero <name> opens one in detail. hero list also shows where each summoned hero is.

call <name> shouts for a hero, and they reach you a few seconds later, wherever you have got to by then. You can shout for a second while the first is still on the way. hero dismiss <name> sends a hero away at once, from wherever they are, and there is no wait before you can call again.

A hero comes back exactly as they left: the same health, spell points and endurance, wearing and wielding what they had on. Sending one away and calling them again mends nothing.

A hero has a level of their own, and gains it as a player does. From then on a hero you have called is given the same experience you are given, every time you are given any: for a kill, for a quest handed in, for anything else that rewards you. An event that raises experience or halves the price of a level reaches them exactly as it reaches you. A level costs a hero what it costs a player, and they take each one the moment they have earned it, with no trainer to visit. A hero that has fallen earns nothing until they are back on their feet. That progress is saved with them between sessions. A hero takes nothing from you: what they are given is their own, alongside yours, and you keep all of what you earn.

Appearance and roleplay#

hero name <hero> <name> renames a hero. hero short <hero> <desc> and hero long <hero> <desc> set the descriptions, and hero race, hero gender, hero eyes, hero hair and hero feature change the rest of the appearance.

hero entrance <hero> <msg> and hero dismissal <hero> <msg> set the lines shown when the hero arrives and leaves. Use $N for the hero's name and $O for your own, and the word clear as the message to return to the default.

When nothing is happening, a hero now and then does something in their own way. hero idle <hero> add <action> gives a hero an idle action of your own, and once a hero has one they use only yours. Write it as an emote without the name in front: hero idle ambrose add hums a hymn under his breath is seen as "Ambrose hums a hymn under his breath." $O stands for your name. hero idle <hero> lists them, hero idle <hero> remove <number> takes one away, and hero idle <hero> clear gives the hero their own habits back. A hero keeps up to ten, each up to 160 characters.

Equipment#

A hero carries their own things, and it is you who gears them. A hero starts in the plain kit of a beginner of their class, with a weapon to match, and anything better is something you have handed over. A hero must meet an item's requirements to use it, exactly as you must.

hero <name> inventory shows what a hero is carrying and hero <name> equipment shows what they have on. Hand something over with give <item> to <name>, or with hero give <name> <item>, which has them put it on in the same step. hero take <name> <item> has them take it off and hand it back. A hero takes things from you and from nobody else, and nobody but you can take anything from them.

Everything a hero carries is saved with them. They come back from a dismissal or a logout wearing and wielding what they had on.

Telling a hero what to do#

Put a hero's name first and they do whatever follows, as you would if you had typed it yourself: hero ambrose wield cane, hero ambrose unready, hero ambrose drop cane, hero ambrose give cane to me. They speak and act the same way, with hero ambrose say <words>, hero ambrose emote <action> or any emote you know. hero ambrose score shows their score sheet, and hero skills <hero> lists a hero's skills and what they require. A hero has to be in the room to hear you.

Fighting styles#

A hero fights in a style, as you do, and grows in each style by fighting in it. Every hero begins with Normal, Offensive and Defensive, and comes into the other styles of their class as they gain levels. hero <name> style shows the styles a hero knows and their rank in each, and hero <name> style <style> has them take one up.

Playing as a hero#

hero listen <name> lets you play as a summoned hero. You see through their eyes, and every line you type is carried out by them with their full class kit at their own level and pools. Your own body fights on beside the party, guided by the same instincts a hero of your class would have. release brings you home, and beginning a line with / acts with your own body for a single command. hero return breaks a listen link that has been left hanging.

The hero must be in the room with you when you start. Your body then follows them wherever they go, and a look shows it standing beside you like any other member of the party. It can still be killed while you ride: if it falls, your mind is pulled home to it and the death is yours to deal with in the Underworld. hero listen with another of your heroes moves your mind straight across to them, and hero listen me brings you home. hero, autogroup, help and quit always answer for you rather than for the hero you ride, and quit brings you home first. In a group led by somebody else, the hero you ride walks with the group when the leader moves on and your body comes after them. Riding a hero ends autogroup (see Groups).

Commanding companions#

hero list shows the state of your party and henchman your hired help. hire at the Tidewarden Hall takes help on, and hero cleanup clears out duplicates.

Companions have three behavior settings. Aggressive attacks any enemy, defensive strikes back only when struck, and passive never attacks at all. A healer set to passive goes on healing. hero ai <name> <mode> sets it, and hero ai all <mode> sets the whole party at once.

A mage hero fights in one school of magic. It starts in fire; from level 20, hero school <name> <fire|ice|air|earth> chooses another, and the choice is kept with the hero and can be changed again.

Heroes carry no supplies. A skill that would spend a reagent, a lozenge or a lockpick works for them without one, and the same is true of your own character while it is on autogroup or fighting on while you ride a hero.

dismiss <name> sends a companion away, dismiss hero <name> names a hero specifically, and dismiss all clears the whole party. Partial names are matched, so the full name is never needed.

Orders#

A companion walks behind you. When you move it comes into the room a moment after you do, and when something carries you off it finds its way to you.

Orders are spoken, so a companion has to be in the room to hear one. Name a companion to give the order to that one alone, or leave the name off and it goes to everyone with you.

hero attack <target> sends your companions at something, and hero attack <hero> <target> sends only that one. After the first blow, whom they fight follows the usual threat rules.

hero halt calls them off. They stop fighting and stand by, taking no part, until the fight is over. Whatever they were fighting is not told to stop. A healer who has been called off goes on healing.

hero stay makes them wait in the room they are in, and they stop following you. hero follow has them fall in behind you again.

hero summon calls back a companion who is somewhere else, whether left waiting or lost. They run to you from wherever they are and reach you a few seconds later. hero call with no name does the same.

Nobody follows you into death. If you die, your companions wait where you fell, and no call reaches them from the Underworld. Once you are back among the living, go to them and use hero follow, or use hero summon to bring them to you.

When a companion falls#

A companion that falls in battle is not lost. It lies out of the fight and gets back up with half its health once the fight is over.

Recovery#

Heroes and henchmen mend by themselves. Once the party has been out of a fight for five seconds they recover 2 percent of their health, spell points and endurance every second, which is the rate of a resting player, and they do it whether you rest or not. Nothing is recovered this way while you or they are fighting.

Persistence#

The heroes you were traveling with are recorded when you log out and are at your side again when you return, with their progress and everything they carry, in the health they were in when you left. A henchman's contract runs through logouts until it ends, and they are waiting for you at each login.

Minions#

Minions are conjured, not hired, and come from class skills. Necromancers raise bone minions, bone horrors, corpse puppets and flesh golems; other classes raise stone golems and the like. Each answers to whoever summoned it.

minions lists a necromancer's active undead and their state. minions lead sends them into each room ahead of you, minions follow puts them back behind you, and minions dismiss lets them go, all of them or one you name.

Minions are not party members, and an enemy does not grow tougher for facing them; only players, heroes and henchmen count toward that. See Groups for how the scaling works.

The ranger's animal#

A ranger's animal is not a party member, but it does take one of your eight companion places. It is a single bonded animal, and a ranger has one and only one, for as long as the two of them last.

There are two ways to get one. companion choose lists the five kinds: bear, boar, wolf, serpent and hawk. Choosing gives you a fully grown adult of that kind, free and instantly. tame <animal> wins a wild creature instead, which is slower and means going out to find one, but it is the only route to a cub. An animal raised from a cub at your side is the only one that ever reaches its prime. Both refuse while a bond already exists.

companion on its own shows the animal's name, kind, level, health, orders and how far its bond has grown. The animal tracks your own level as you gain it.

The bond outlives the animal. It is not in the world while you are logged out, but companion call brings it back in when you return, still named and still grown into whatever it had grown into. If it is killed, calling brings it back too, though not at once and not in any condition to fight. Rangers learn Revive Animal at level 43, which does the same instantly and mid-fight.

companion follow puts it back at your heel and companion stay makes it hold the room while you walk on. companion attack <target> sets it on something by name, wherever the animal is standing rather than wherever you are, and companion back breaks it off. companion lunge sends it across rooms at something you are shooting at range, or at a target you name, and it joins a real fight when it arrives. Three standing orders decide how forward it is on its own account: aggressive takes anything in the room that already wants you, defensive fights only what is fighting you, and passive starts nothing at all unless pointed at something by name.

companion name <name> gives it a name it keeps through death and growth, companion dismiss sends it away with the bond intact, and companion release confirm ends the bond permanently, which is the only way to free yourself to take another.

companion short, companion desc, companion eyes, companion coat, companion feature, companion enter and companion leave dress the animal in words of your own. What you set is kept on the bond, so it survives dismissal, death and the next time you log in.

The Beast Mastery tree adds to this rather than repeating it. Set Guard sets the animal to hold ground or to shadow and defend somebody other than you, Send to Hunt sends it out for meat, and Feed Companion and Comfort Pet heal it and build the bond between you.

Pets#

Pets are real, persistent creatures owned by you and recorded in the world's ownership ledger. A Merchant brokers the sale and binds the creature to your name. From then on the pet has its own hunger, thirst, energy, loyalty, cleanliness, health and training.

pet list and pet status report on them, and pet status <name> narrows it to one. pet call <name> brings a pet to your current room, where it follows you from then on, and pet dismiss <name> sends it back to its shelter without touching the ledger record, while pet release <name> is the other kind of parting: it turns the creature loose for good, erases its record from the ownership ledger, and cannot be undone. pet stay <name> tells it to stop following and pet heel <name> resumes.

feed, water, groom, walk, play and train each meet a different need, and pet <name> on its own strokes the creature for a small gain in loyalty. A pet's condition decays in real time while you are online, more slowly if it is sheltered, and is paused entirely while you are offline. Neglect it long enough and the pet dies for good, or loses its loyalty and runs off. There is no resurrection.

abandon <creature> releases a companion creature from your service so that it no longer follows you or serves as a mount.

Thralls#

A necromancer can hire a thrall, one of the bound dead, to carry for them. Thralls are hired in the Hall of Thralls, beneath the Necromancer's Guild in the Aurin cemetery, which only necromancers may enter. price there shows your fee, which rises with your level, and hire thrall pays it, from your purse first and then your bank. You keep one thrall at a time.

A thrall is not a hero, a henchman, a pet or a minion. It takes no share of experience, does not join your group or count toward party scaling, never fights, and nothing in the world fights it. It follows you and carries what you hand it with give <item> to thrall (or thrall 2 where another player's thrall stands in the room). It takes nothing from anyone else, picks up only what you tell it to, and will not touch coin.

Command What it does
thrall Lists every order it takes.
thrall inventory What it carries.
thrall get <item> / thrall get all Picks something up from the floor, or everything lying loose.
thrall drop <item> / thrall drop all Sets something down, or everything it carries.
thrall give <item> / thrall give all Hands something back to you, or everything.
thrall dismiss Hands everything back and leaves, wherever you are.

An item is named as it would be for your own get and drop: by name, as the second of several, by its place in thrall inventory, or all of a kind.

A thrall serves until you dismiss it, log out or lose your link. Before it goes it puts what it carries back into your hands, and sets on the floor at your feet whatever you cannot carry. If you die it does not follow you to the Gates; it waits where you fell and comes back to your side once you live again.