Hidden mechanics

This page lists what the game's data and code do that the game itself never tells you. It collects the "Hidden mechanics" sections of 199 articles: 1291 entries. 85 of them repeat a fact listed elsewhere and are merged into it, and 208 are the per-enemy values every bestiary article lists, leaving 998 distinct facts. Each entry links straight to its full text in the article, where the evidence and the sources are. Claims marked "(inferred)" were not confirmed in the game's code or data.

How to read this page#

• Entries are grouped by theme, then by article. full entry or in the article jumps to the exact entry; also in lists the other articles that state the same fact.
• Articles about systems (damage, status effects, items, talents...) show all their entries. Articles about one enemy, boss, quest, NPC, lore topic or region show four and link to the rest.
• To start, read Damage formula, Poise and stagger, Status effects, Trophy reforging and New Game Plus: these hold the mechanics that change builds most.
• Unused and test data is listed on Cut content.

Combat and damage#

How hits, resistances, staggers, damage over time and sanity really work.

Combat#

• Your companions are untouchable in the story. Outside the maze, team members other than your own hero lose no health or sanity to any hit (see Damage formula#9. Rounding, shields and death). (in the article)
• Long-range hits lose their side effects too. Moves with a distance falloff (such as Viola's shots, 3 to 15 m) scale rage gain, power gain, poise, weakness and sanity damage by the same falloff factor. (full entry)
• Rage on low health is 30%, not 50%. Trophies such as Raw Gem Amulet, Brass Mask and Flamel's Ring (logic type 125, +40%, +55% or +70% by tier) raise rage gain when your health is at or below 30%. (full entry)
• "Loneliness Whisper" halves, it does not roll. Its description talks about a reduced chance of losing sanity. The code simply halves the sanity damage (SanSub) of every hit you take while you carry it. (in the article; also in Trophy effects)
• Combo hits. From the 4th consecutive hit on the same target (combo counter above 3), talents of the "combo weakness" type add extra weakness damage. See Weakness and execution#What drains Resilience. (in the article)
• Boss time challenge "perfect" runs. In the boss time-challenge mode (Obsession Challenge; inferred), any health damage to you (from enemies or traps) marks the run as not perfect. (in the article)

Critical hits#

• The real chance is (rate + 1) / 1001. The game rolls a whole number from 0 to 1000 inclusive and crits when the roll is ≤ the rate. 0‰ never crits and 1000‰ or more always crits. (full entry)
• Crits come in one-second streaks (inferred from the code). Before every roll, the random generator is re-seeded from the current clock time in whole seconds plus the attacker's id. (full entry)
• Armour still reduces the poise-break crit. A guaranteed poise-break crit still goes through the target's move damage reduction (DamageSub, which stays active until the armour window closes), so armoured bosses such as Treasure Thieves (−90% during some moves) take only a fraction of even that crit. (full entry)
• "Bloody" is weaker than it reads. Its text says crit rate is increased by 20%, but the code multiplies your crit rate by 1.2 instead of adding 20 points: Viola's 64‰ becomes 76.8‰ (about 7.8%), not 26%. (full entry; also in Viola talent tree)
• Jerold's finishers can crit. The DLC hero's backstab, execution and plunging attacks roll for crits like normal attacks, unlike every other hero (the table above lists the moves that cannot). (in the article)
• Two crit talent types are never used. The code supports per-move "crit rate +" and "crit damage +" talents (SkillCritRateAdd, SkillCritDamageAdd), but no talent in the shipped talent table uses them. (in the article)
• "Crit resistance" works backwards. The stat is a multiplier on the attacker's crit bonus. 0 means no protection and lower non-zero values protect more. No hero or trophy has it, and its menu label was never translated. (in the article)
• Enemies almost never crit at random. About 2,680 of the 2,747 story enemy placements have a crit rate of 0‰ (2,607) or 1‰ (74; a 0.2% real chance), even though their crit damage is 212-250‰. (full entry)

Damage formula#

• Defence can never cut damage below 30% of the attack value. If the attack is weaker than the target's defence, every hit deals a flat 30%, however much more defence the target stacks. (full entry)
• Flat move power matters early, multipliers late. Each move adds its own flat Attack (61 for Terrence's first slash) on top of the stat-based part, so at low levels most of your damage comes from the move itself. (in the article)
• Hitting several weak points with one swing counts each one. The game runs the full damage calculation once for every weak-point hitbox the attack touches, each at ×2. A wide swing across two weak points deals four times normal damage. (full entry)
• "Damage to Humans/Beasts/Sendrils" only boosts the stat part of a hit. The race bonus multiplies attack stat × BaseRate before the move's flat Attack is added. (full entry)
• Conditional trophy bonuses add up. Equipped trophies that share a logic type add their values before the bonus is applied: Bloodthirsty Eye + Beastheart Stone + Glowing Crystal give +37.5% attack in an abnormal sanity state. (full entry)
• Lunatic states change your stats, and so your damage. In an abnormal sanity state, Terrence gains Physical attack, Viola gains crit damage, and Norwood and Jerold lose resistance. (full entry)
• Each weak point repeats the whole hit. Because the full calculation runs once per weak-point hitbox, a swing across two weak points also gives you Rage and Power twice, drains your sanity twice and deals poise and weakness damage twice. (full entry)
• Race bonuses use the absolute value. The helper that applies "+X‰" bonuses (MathHelper.addValuePermil) takes the absolute value of X, so a negative bonus would still increase damage. No shipped item has a negative value. (in the article)
• "Night's Embrace" turns targets into Sendrils. While a target has one of Jerold's Sendril mark statuses (10101/10102) and is not already a Sendril, this trophy treats it as a Sendril for your damage-vs-race bonuses: a Human or Beast becomes a Sendril only, but a target that is both Human and Beast keeps its Human flag and gains the Sendril flag. (in the article)
• Benita's shield burst. One of Benita's moves (SkillSP2, second hit) removes all of her shields and adds their total as flat damage to that hit, after every multiplier. (in the article)
• Some moves ignore defence entirely. A move whose DefenceType is 0 ("Other") makes the target's defence 0, so the factor is 1. (full entry)
• Dealing damage drains your sanity. In story mode (outside the Dark Forest), each hit you land costs sanity in proportion to the share of the enemy's health removed (SanDamage × damage / enemy max HP). The talent type SanAttackSub reduces it. (full entry; also in Combat)
• Lifesteal is computed on the final pre-rounding damage. Benita's draining moves (SuckHp 1000 to 1500‰, i.e. 100% to 150% of damage dealt), the trophies Father's Love, Glory and Basilisk's Epiphany (+5% to +10%), and the "Discipline"-type trophies that instead cost you 5% to 12% of damage dealt as health all use the damage before the difficulty multiplier and before shields. (in the article)
• Sanity-collapse doubles are glass cannons (inferred). Hostile hero copies created with the "SanMonster" monster type get their max HP halved and their Physical attack doubled (SanMonsterHp 500, SanMonsterPhysicDamage 2000, applied as value × ‰ / 1000). (full entry)

Damage types and resistances#

• "Element Res" is really Fire resistance. The stat the menus call "Element Res" (and "Element Damage" for attack), named "Elemental resistance" (元素抗性) on trophy properties, is property 23. (full entry)
• Attack type and defence type are independent. A move can use one stat for attack and another resistance for defence. In the shipped data they only differ for "Physical attack / no defence" moves, which ignore the target's defence. (full entry)
• Pierce is the enemies' hidden armour. Enemy Pierce resistance is many times their other defences (up to 20×). (full entry)
• No trophy can give you an elemental or Pierce attack. Random trophy properties only roll Attack, crit, HP, defence, the four resistances and the race bonuses (types 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 15, 23-26, 35-37), never properties 19-22 or 31. (full entry)
• Resistance is read from the current maximum, rounded up. The defence value includes buffs, debuffs and lunatic-state changes, is rounded up and can't go below 0. When you are hit, the conditional trophies then multiply it. (in the article)
• Status damage ignores resistances. Bleed, Poison, Burn and other damage-over-time effects deal fixed damage and never go through this calculation. See Status effects#Damage over time formula. (in the article)

Backstab#

• Rear hits deal +25 % damage. Any attack whose attacker stands behind the target's facing plane counts as "from behind". That is any position where the target would have to turn more than 90 deg to face you, not a narrow back arc. (full entry)
• This works both ways: enemies hitting you in the back also deal 1.25x. (in the article)
• The same rule makes plunge attacks strong. Every hero's plunge attack (Drop, move 111) has BackGuardBreak = 2, so a plunge that lands behind the target doubles. (in the article)
• Norwood's oddity. His Backstab row uses 1.25 instead of 2. His backstab does only about 63 % of what an identical move would do with the x2 multiplier. Whether this is intended is unknown. (in the article)
• Zero multipliers are harmless in practice. 356 SkillData rows have BackGuardBreak = 0, so a rear hit from one of them would be multiplied by 0. (full entry)
• How enemies notice you (and so whether a Backstab prompt appears). An enemy acquires a target when you are inside its hearing range or its sight cone. (full entry)

Parry and counter#

• Priority beats timing. A perfect counter window is useless against an enemy move with equal or higher value. Terrence and Viola (value 2) can answer only the 376 basic enemy attacks. Norwood's and Jerold's top moves (value 10) answer everything. (in the article)
• The counter cancels the damage completely. The hit is skipped before damage, status and Sanity are applied. (in the article)
• Parry needs facing. Both fighters must be facing within 90 degrees of opposite. Flanking attackers cannot be parried. (in the article)
• Reflecting beats parrying. The projectile check ignores the middle-third window. Benita and Elena can swat shots all through their box time. (in the article)
• Nine enemy types cannot be parried at all (listed above). (in the article)
• Priority 3 and 5 enemies include the Holy Father (31 value-3 and 6 value-5 counterable rows), Jenny of Exilium (20 and 13), Fused Sprenger (22 and 7), the Usurper (20 and 11), Terror Obsession (18 and 10), Proxy Higgins (7 and 11) and The First Fallen: Handel (69 and 1). (full entry)
• A counter gives no Sanity. Every counter move has SanAdd 0. (in the article)

Poise and stagger#

• Weak points. A few bosses have body colliders flagged as weak points. Hits there multiply Poise damage by (1 + WeakToughnessMultiplier), Resilience damage by (1 + WeakWeaknessMultiplier) and damage by (1 + WeakDamageMultiplier): (in the article)
• The colliders themselves are part of the Unity models. Every other model has the default multiplier of 1 (x2), but no weak-point colliders as far as the data shows (inferred). (in the article)
• Distance falloff. Moves with DamageDisMin/DamageDisMax scale Poise damage, Resilience damage, Rage and sanity damage by sqrt(1 - x^2), where x is the position between the two distances. Beyond the max distance, Poise and Resilience damage drop to 0. (in the article)
• Moves that ignore Poise. 82 moves have ToughnessIgnore = 1 and always cause their hit reaction: every hero's Counter Attack, Backstab, Execution and plunge attack, plus a few enemy moves. (full entry)
• Moves that set their own Poise. A handful of enemy moves reset the user's Poise to a fixed value when they start (ToughnessSet). (full entry)
• Player Poise on Casual. Casual difficulty adds +130 Poise to the player character (+230 on a cloud demo build). Terrence's Poise Regen is 0, while every other hero has 240 (24 % of the pool per second). (full entry; also in Character stats, Characters, Terrence, Norwood)
• Status effects. Jerold's Griminess (status 10031) is the internal name of an older max-Poise reduction status (LogicType 102 = PropertyMaxSub, Param1 = 13, 10 s). (full entry)
• Talents. SkillToughnessAdd adds armour to specific moves (Terrence's Knight's Tenacity on his heavy combos (+15 armour on moves 4 and 5, the Heavy combo after Rising Slash and the one after Spin Attack; one level only), Rising Slash: Tenacity (+38, one level) and Norwood/Jerold/Elena's Health Potion: Patience +100). (full entry)
• Hero doppelgangers. Copies of a player hero that the story controller spawns as "sanity monsters" get -14 Poise (SanMonsterHeroToughnessSub), so every hit staggers them. (full entry)

Weakness and execution#

• Parry into Execution. If a parry box (Benita, Elena) catches an enemy attack while that enemy's Resilience is at or below 35 (ParryWeaknessMin), its Resilience is set to 0 and it reels into a weakened recoil, then into the Weakened state. (full entry; also in Parry and counter)
• Counters into Weakened. If a successful Counter Attack hits an enemy whose Resilience is already 0, its recoil becomes the "hand weak" version, which leads into Weakened (see Parry and counter#What the counter does). (in the article)
• Norwood's Berserker Instinct. While Norwood is in the Abnormal state, the talent gives a chance (talent value 300; read as 30 %, inferred) that a hit sets the target's Resilience straight to 0. (full entry)
• Boss time-challenge fights (ES_StoryChallengeMonsterProperty, used when the story mode is BossTimeChallenge, which is how the Obsession Challenge menu starts every fight, see Obsession Challenge#Stat bonuses by level) add Resilience by challenge level: level 2 +25, level 3 +50 and level 4 +75, nothing at levels 1, 5 and 6. (full entry)
• Stamina keeps regenerating during an Execution. Attacks normally pause stamina regen, but potion drinking, Execute and Backstab are exempt from that rule (unless the post-action regen delay is still running). (full entry)

Difficulty#

• Casual and the Egg reduce damage after every other calculation (armour, resistances, guarding), as the very last multipliers (before rounding and shields; see Damage formula#9. Rounding, shields and death). (in the article)
• Casual does not touch enemy health, damage or AI. The whole difference is on your side. (in the article)
• The settings menu can only lower the difficulty. A Casual save can never earn the 31 Normal-only achievements, even after switching. (in the article)
• In Arcade, choosing Casual loads the Normal enemy table; Casual there only changes the player-side bonuses and the ledge-fall rule. (in the article)

Dodging#

• Jerold's dodge only works if you time it. His basic dodge has no i-frames. Its protection comes from the perfect-dodge follow-up, so a late dodge with Jerold is just a quick step. (in the article)
• Viola's unused longer roll. Viola's dodges have a second, longer i-frame track (skillMuteki2: 0%–60% instead of 0%–46%, and 0%–41% instead of 0%–31%) that turns on with a "SkillMuteki" talent. (full entry)
• Norwood's i-frames start late. His dodge is vulnerable for its first 7.5%, so very late dodges can still be hit. (in the article)
• Dodge cost is fixed at 65 (Elena 48) and does not scale with equipment weight. Trophies reduce it: Eternity and Concentration Rune −15%, Broken Eternity −9%, Chaos Silk −20%. (full entry; also in Stamina)
• Jerold's dodge chain counter. Jerold counts consecutive dodges. After 3 in a row, the game changes his dodge's skill condition until he has gone 1 second without dodging (DodgeResetCntMax = 3, DodgeResetCntTime = 1). (full entry)
• A dodge needs only 1 stamina. Like every action, a dodge can start with any stamina above 0. (in the article)

Guarding#

• Poise is safe, Weakness is not. A successful block or deflect deals 0 poise damage, but the attack's Weakness damage still applies. (full entry; also in Combat, Poise and stagger)
• Guard Break numbers. Across all enemy attack rows, the most common Guard Break is 50 (exactly Terrence's guard, so no chip). About two-thirds of enemy attacks exceed 50 and cause chip damage on Terrence. (full entry)
• Attacks from behind ignore guards. They are never blocked and deal BackGuardBreak × BackDamageRate times normal damage. Most player attacks have BackGuardBreak 1.25, and backstab-type moves have 2. See Backstab. (in the article; also in Backstab, Damage formula)
• Norwood's and Elena's failed guards. A failed guard (diff ≥ 2.5) scales damage by GuardDamageRatio, not GuardBreakDamageRatio. (full entry)
• Norwood's guard break in the Lunatic state. When Norwood is in the Abnormal state (and therefore also when Lunatic; the code tests IsHeroSanNotNormal(10004)), a broken guard also sets his Weakness bar to 0. (in the article)
• Guard regeneration is slow. While the guard is up, stamina regenerates at 10%/s instead of 40%/s. (in the article)
• Talents that change guarding: Terrence's Parry: Enhanced (talent 11203, its text says 30% less stamina consumed on a successful parry; the code applies it as a 300 per-mille cut to the stamina lost on the affected guard move). (full entry; also in Terrence talent tree)
• Parry is part of the guard. Terrence's guard raise has a counter window from 11.7% to 25.5% of the animation, and Elena's guard has a parry window. (full entry)

Rage#

• The 99 cap before the tutorial. In story mode, Rage is held at max − 1 (99) until the hero's Rage tutorial quest is completed. Until then, moves that need a full 100 cannot be used. (full entry)
• Getting hit gives no Rage by default. Taking damage only grants Rage with a talent such as Terrence's Revenge. That gives enemy move's RageAddHit × 500 / 1000. (full entry; also in Combat, Terrence talent tree)
• Long-range falloff. For moves with a damage range (DamageDisMin/DamageDisMax), hitting from beyond the maximum range grants a flat 1 Rage. Between the two ranges, gain scales by sqrt(1 − r²), where r is how far you are into that band. (in the article)
• Low-health bonus. A trophy effect (logic type 125, "HP half Rage add") raises Rage gain by 40%, 55% or 70% depending on the trophy tier (Raw Gem Amulet, Brass Mask and Flamel's Ring carry it). (full entry)
• Flat talent bonuses add to each hit: Terrence Furor +2 / +4, Benita Rhythm: Pure Blood +4, Benita Forced Bloodsucking +5 on backstab and execution, Norwood Craze +15 on backstab and execution, Jerold Craze +5. (full entry)
• Persistence. Your Rage is saved with the hero and kept through rests, loading and switching areas. Respawning after death resets it to 0. (in the article)
• Rage thresholds. Some talents raise the Weakness damage of a move when Rage is above 33% or above 66% of max. Elena's attack audio also changes at the same 33% and 66% marks. (in the article)
• Elena's Rage tiers. Several steps of Elena's double-blade five-hit chains have a Required Rage of 33 or 66 and cost 0, so the chain gets longer as the gauge fills. (full entry)
• Lunatic Jerold loses 10 Rage when he is hit during a move that has armor (the animator's skillToughness flag; inferred wording). (full entry)
• Rage from marked targets and perfect dodges. In the Abnormal state, Jerold gains 10% more Rage from hits on a Sendril-marked enemy (see Sendril marks). (full entry)

Stamina#

• Overspending is free. The game only checks that stamina is above 0. Starting a 180-cost charged attack with 5 stamina left is allowed; you just end at 0. (in the article)
• Exhaustion delay. When the bar hits exactly 0, regeneration is locked for clamp(100 − EnergyRecoveryTime, 0, 100) / 10 seconds. Terrence, Viola, Benita and Norwood have EnergyRecoveryTime 100, so they have no extra delay. (full entry)
• The real regen pause is the animation. Regeneration stays off until the current move's run-exit frame. Chaining attacks keeps the bar frozen; stepping out between swings lets it refill. (in the article)
• Guarding at 0 stamina does nothing. A block or a hit-deflect only counts if stamina is above 0. (in the article)
• Stamina from critical hits. The trophies Oath (+15) and The First Seed (+35) restore that much stamina on each critical hit you land with a weapon (not with throwables). (in the article)
• Free actions. A status of type EnergyDontUse makes every action cost 0 stamina while it lasts. Benita's statuses 10022–10024 and Elena's status 10114 are of this kind. Elena's is applied by her form-change move and is removed when her Power gauge runs out. (in the article)
• Jerold's combo discount. A Jerold talent reduces stamina costs by a per-mille amount once he has chained 3 or more attacks (TalentComboAttackNum = 3). (in the article)
• Wheel of Reversal. For Jerold, this trophy restores a flat 50 stamina every time he triggers a perfect ("extreme") dodge. See Dodging. (in the article; also in Jerold)

Bleed#

• Bloody ignores half the bleeds. It checks a hard-coded list (BloodIdList) that does not include the Huge Fang bleed (10071), the side-effect bleeds or Handel's bleed. A Huge Fang bleed does not raise Viola's crit rate. (in the article)
• Handel's frenzy bleed (10107) starts when he enters his rampage phase together with Dying Frenzy (10108), and drains 0.3% of his HP per second until the fight ends. (in the article)
• Bleed ignores physical buffs and debuffs. Its damage uses base physical resistance, so Corrosion on the target does not change bleed ticks. (in the article)

Burn#

• Fire burns are resisted by physical resistance. Rows 10008, 10037 and 10078 have AttackType 2 (fire) but DefenceType 1 (physical). Only the player-thrown Wildfire burn (10012) and the Fireworks Barrel status (10080) use fire resistance. (full entry; also in Status effects)
• Norwood's Abnormal-state resistance penalty does not apply to enemy burns, because it only affects non-physical defence types (Status effects, Norwood). (in the article)
• Fireworks cancel burns. The Fireworks Barrel's status is in the same family: throwing one at a burning enemy ends the burn and replaces it with the stagger drain. (full entry)
• Boss fire burns scale with the New Game Plus journey, not with the boss. Proxy Higgins' and Fused Sprenger's burns use fixed per-journey trick damage (see above), so their tick depends on the journey, not on the boss's stats. (in the article)
• On Casual player burn ticks are × 0.65, and × 0.5 with the Egg of the Bearer (see Status effects#Damage over time formula, Difficulty). (in the article)

Corrosion#

• Corrosion affects hits, not damage over time. Direct hits use your current physical defence, so Corrosion makes them hurt more. Bleed and Burn ticks use base physical defence, so Corrosion does not raise them. (in the article; also in Status effects)
• Enemy Corrosion replaces Brute Force's penalty. Both are family 103. An enemy Corrosion hit while the Brute Force side effect is active deletes the side effect (defence back up) and starts a 25% Corrosion gauge. (full entry)
• Talents make Brute Force's penalty last longer. Brute Force (20014, 21014) is on the item list of "Prolonged Duration" (ItemStatusTimeAdd; the levels per hero are in Buffs). (full entry)
• The Treasure Thieves weaken themselves. When the Black Sprite King enters its weak condition it applies −40% physical defence (10110) and a Weakness cut (10111) to itself. Both are removed when it changes condition. (full entry)
• The Brute Force penalty is shown with the Corrosion icon (10003) but without the corrosion visual effect. (in the article)

Poison#

• The pool's own poison roots you. Status 10076 is the game's StatusIdSlow: once its gauge is full and it becomes active, you are limited to walking and dodging is restricted, just like on slow mud. A partly built gauge does not slow you. (full entry)
• On Casual player poison ticks are × 0.65, and × 0.5 with the Egg of the Bearer (see Status effects#Damage over time formula, Difficulty). (in the article)
• The first hit decides the damage. The enemy's poison damage is captured on the first build-up hit; refreshing never recalculates it (Status effects). (in the article)
• Where A comes from. Enemy moves and the traps they place use the enemy's poison damage. Tricks and the acid rain (a trap made by trick 10006, with no owner) use a fixed per-journey damage instead: 100/125/150/175 for the rain. (full entry)
• Bomb-man poison explodes in New Game Plus. Tricks 10052-10054 jump from 125 to 800 damage after the first journey. (full entry)
• Different poisons override each other. An instant 10042 hit on someone already poisoned by 10002 ends that poison and starts a new 12 s one. A 10002 hit on someone poisoned by 10042 removes the active poison and leaves only a 30% gauge. (in the article)

Status effects#

• Resistance buffs do not reduce DoT damage. DoT ticks read base resistance, so Antitoxin Potion (+55 poison resistance) and Elixir of Inertia (+55 fire resistance) only reduce the damage of the poison or fire hit, never the poison or burn ticks. (full entry; also in Poison)
• The damage is decided by the first hit. The attacker's damage is read when the gauge first appears. Buffs or debuffs the attacker gets later do not change it, even after many refreshes. (in the article)
• A different variant cancels a running one. For example Viola's aimed-shot bleed (10001) and her red-bullet bleed (10034) are different ids of the same family: landing one on an enemy that is actively bleeding from the other ends that bleed and restarts build-up. (full entry; also in Bleed)
• Refreshes never stack damage. A bleeding enemy hit ten more times still takes one tick per second; the hits only push the end time back. (in the article)
• Item status talents also boost item side effects. The talents "Prolonged Duration" (ItemStatusTimeAdd) and "Improved Effect" (ItemStatusValueAdd) list Brute Force and Elixir of Epiphany among their items. (full entry; also in Bleed)
• Norwood in the Abnormal state takes extra damage from non-physical DoTs: his resistance counts at 50% for the tick formula (Hero10004_Define.SanResistSubRate = 500). With "Adapt to Abnormality: Inertia" the cut becomes 30% / 10% by the code's arithmetic. (full entry; also in Poison, Norwood talent tree)
• Shields soak ticks first. Each HP tick is taken from a skill shield, then from a trophy shield, before it reaches HP (see Shields and protection). (in the article)
• Some DoTs cannot kill. Rows with NotDeath (only the elixir side-effect bleeds 10086/10087) stop at 1 HP. Every other DoT can kill. (in the article; also in Bleed)
• Debuff immunity first, elixir second. The side effects of Brute Force (10084/10085, defence down) and Elixir of Epiphany (10086/10087, self-bleed) are flagged as debuffs, but the attack buffs they come with (10057/10058, 10064/10065) are not. (full entry; also in Bleed, Corrosion, Buffs)
• Trick and trap DoTs grow with New Game Plus. Ownerless sources use the trick's or trap's Damage for the current journey. (full entry)
• Obsession Challenge: in the boss time challenge, any damage-over-time tick that you did not cause yourself (enemy, trick or trap) costs you the "perfect" result, just like a hit. Your own elixir bleed does not (see Obsession Challenge). (in the article)
• Nothing ticks on the hidden or the dying. Statuses are not updated while their bearer is hidden or dying, so no ticks happen. The duration is a clock time, though, so it keeps running: a status that ran out meanwhile is removed as soon as updates resume. (full entry)
• The hero sanity effects start at the Abnormal state, not at Lunatic. Every hero-specific check used by statuses (IsHeroSanNotNormal) is true whenever sanity is not normal, i.e. from 70% sanity down (see Abnormal state, Lunatic state). (in the article)

Blind#

• Blind is not flagged as a debuff (IsDebuffer 0), so Debuff Immunity does not stop it from being applied. (in the article)
• The AI reacts to the start of blindness only. It keeps an internal "was blind" flag, so re-throwing smoke on an enemy that is still blind only extends the timer. It does not trigger a second retreat. (in the article)
• A blinded enemy that is mid-attack still finishes that attack. The lose-target check waits until the enemy is not using a skill (inferred from the IsSkilling check on the same branch). (in the article)

Buffs#

• One buff per family, and the newest wins. Statuses in the same family (StatusType) replace each other. The game never compares strength: it removes the old buff and starts the new one. (full entry; also in Consumables)
• All four resistance elixirs are one family (301). An Antitoxin Potion removes your Fire Resistance, so you can only have one elemental resistance buff at a time. (in the article)
• Elixir of Stamina and Elixir of Energy are one family (303). Drinking one cancels the other. (in the article)
• Health regeneration (300) covers the Large Health Potion's regeneration too. (in the article)
• Different families add up. Buffs of the same stat from different families are summed. Brute Force (+35 attack) plus the maze Attack Up (+17.5% of base) plus Benita's or Viola's skill buffs all stack. (in the article)
• Re-using the same item resets the timer. The duration goes back to full. It does not add to the remaining time. (in the article)
• The item talents are bigger than they look, but miss some items. Every hero has Prolonged Duration (27 items) and Improved Effect (24 items), but the number of levels differs: (in the article)
• The strength bonus multiplies both the flat and the percentage part before rounding up: (in the article)
• Because of the round-up, rank 1 already doubles the Elixir of Sanity. Durations at +10/20/30% become 33/36/39 s (30 s items) and 66/72/78 s (60 s items). (full entry)
• Not covered by Improved Effect: the maze copies (72xxx), Large Health Potion's regeneration, Elixir of Energy, Potion of Wealth, Hound Amulet, Glowstone, Vertebra Nail, Slightly Sweet Roots and Shriveled Holy Fruit. (full entry)
• The talents also boost the drawbacks. Side effects are applied by the same item, so they get the same bonuses. (full entry)
• Side effects share families with enemy debuffs. Epiphany's bleed is in the Bleed family (101), but no enemy puts a Bleed on a hero in the base game, so nothing replaces it. (full entry)
• Benita in her Lunatic state: while she has a Drug Tolerance status (10044-10046), elixir effects flagged DrugFast (HP regeneration, resistances, attack, defence, stamina, sanity) work at half strength. (full entry; also in Sanity loss (status), Status effects)
• Some buffs survive scene changes and saves. The six statue buffs (10091-10096), the stacking death ward, and also the Hound Amulet (10099) and Glowstone (10098) buffs are flagged shared and saved. (full entry)
• Talent text that doesn't match the data. Elixir: Lingering Wind Whisper claims +33.3% / +66.6% duration. The data gives 40 s, then 50 s and 60 s, which is +25% / +50%. (in the article)

Sanity loss (status)#

• Elixirs cancel each other. The Elixir of Hallucination (10074) shares family 306 with Elixir of Sanity (10009, +1/s for 15 s) and Vertebra Nail (10100, +5/s for 3 s). Using any of them replaces the others. (full entry)
• Debuff Immunity does not help against suction. The enemy Sanity Loss (10040) and the Hallucination drain are not flagged as debuffs. Slightly Sweet Roots neither removes nor blocks them. Only the unused Foul Water is a debuff. (in the article)
• Talents make the Hallucination stronger. The Elixir of Hallucination (20021) is on the item lists of both item talents in every hero's tree. Improved Effect (+10/20/30%) raises the drain to 6/6/7 per second (rounded up; Elena's +15/30% gives 6/7). (full entry)
• Sanity does not drain in some places. All sanity loss, these statuses included, is ignored in Arcade mode (except boss fights), in dream stages, after the host has died, and while attacks are globally stopped. (in the article)
• The maze buffs only touch the maze's own drain. The Purifying Saint's "slower sanity loss" buff (10096, -50%; Buffs#Maze statue buffs) and the no-sanity-loss mark (10097) act on the Dark Mist maze's passive sanity drain. (full entry)
• Build-up for pools. Pools and other continuous sources add their build-up per second rather than per hit. Standing in a sanity pool fills the 55% gauge over time instead of in two hits (inferred from the isPeriod scaling of build-up). (in the article)

Shields and protection#

• Trophy shields and the trophy death ward refill only when you rest at an altar. Equipping the trophy does nothing until the next rest (the rest handler is the only code that applies these statuses; inferred that nothing else does). (full entry)
• Shields don't add together. Applying a shield status first sets its pool to 0, then fills it. Re-casting Benita's shield on a half-broken shield gives a fresh full shield, never more (her skill code clears the old shield first). (full entry)
• The big trophy shield blocks the others. Trophy Shield (500), Trophy Shield (small) and the Potion Shield are one family (112). The 500 shield has IsRefresh 0, so while it is up, the game rejects any other member of the family: (in the article)
• Eating a Shriveled Holy Fruit while the 500-point trophy shield is active does nothing, although the fruit is still used up (inferred: the item is consumed before its status is applied). (in the article)
• Wearing Double-star Brooch together with Basilisk's Protection or Halo Pendant is useless. At rest, the 500 shield is applied first and the 250 shield is rejected. (in the article)
• Eating the fruit while the 250-point brooch shield is active replaces it with a full 400-point Potion Shield. (in the article)
• Skill and trophy shields do stack. They are separate pools, so Benita's Holy Soul shield sits on top of a trophy or potion shield. (in the article)
• Benita's Annihilation talent spends both pools. Its damage equals the skill shield plus the trophy shield remaining. Using it empties both pools, which removes your trophy shield until the next altar rest. (in the article)
• Death wards don't save you from falls. The ward is skipped when the HP loss is fall damage. Hits that are meant to kill outright are tagged with a reason that the game never defines. (full entry)
• Debuff Immunity has blind spots. It blocks only statuses flagged as debuffs. (full entry)
• Invincibility doesn't stop statuses or DoT. Norwood's 1.5 s invincibility (status 10082, logic type 115 NoDamage) zeroes the damage of hits and blocks new hit reactions, but AddStatus never checks it (inferred), and the damage-over-time ticks of Bleed, Poison, sanity drain and similar statuses are not stopped either (why). (in the article; also in Sanity loss (status), Status effects)
• The maze death ward is generous. Each use of the Cleansing Saint statue adds a charge, up to 3, and the ward is saved and carried from floor to floor until used. When it saves you, it loses one charge. (in the article)

Stun#

• Blocking does not stop stun build-up. When a hit lands, the game skips its status only if the hit was blocked or parried and the status row has GuardEnable set. Every stun has GuardEnable = 0. (full entry; also in Frollo)
• No resistance. The gauge gain is the raw StackAddPer value. No stat, resistance or difficulty setting reduces it (Status effects#Resistance and immunity). (in the article)
• Getting hit breaks the stun. When a victim leaves the Freeze state for any other hit reaction (a flinch, knockback, launch and so on), the game clears every stun on it at once. (full entry)
• One stun at a time. All six stuns are in the same family (StatusType 109). A stun with a different ID replaces the current one. (full entry)
• A half-built gauge carries over. If a different stun in the same family lands while the current one is still only a gauge (not yet frozen), the old gauge is moved onto the new stun and the new hit's build-up is added to it (AddStatus keeps GetStack() of the replaced status). (full entry)
• Repeat stuns reset the timer. The same stun landing again while active resets its duration to full (IsRefresh 1). The trap stun 10112 is the exception: it has ExcludeOther 1, so further applications are ignored while it is active. (in the article)
• The drain delay counts from the first hit. The short delay before the gauge starts draining (0.1 s for Frollo's stuns) is set when the gauge is created. Later hits do not restart it. (in the article)
• Debuff rules apply. Stuns are flagged as debuffs. While Slightly Sweet Roots' Debuff Immunity is active (10068, 30 s; 10123, 300 s for the + version), no stun can be applied, and eating the roots removes a current stun. (full entry)
• Invincibility does not cancel a stun. Norwood's 1.5 s counter invincibility blocks damage but does not touch status logic (inferred: the stun code never checks it; compare Status effects). (in the article)

Abnormal state#

• The penalty talents are reductions. The English text of "Adapt to Abnormality" can be read as stacking more penalty; in the code each one lowers the penalty by multiplying it by (1 - talent percent). Level 2 of the Norwood talent leaves only -10%. (in the article; also in Sanity talents and trophies)
• Wounds on Viola ignore blocking. The check that lets a block cancel the wound looks at a "guard" flag that this status does not have, so even a perfectly timed block still wounds her. (in the article)
• Benita's resistance starts working as soon as the gauge is full, not at the first potion. The three resistance statuses are build-up statuses (StackAddPer 40 / 35 / 25, StackSubPer 2): a status only counts as present once its gauge has reached 100, and then the potion code halves the heal. (full entry)
• Terrence's dodge restriction is data, not code. Two dodge rows carry a "normal only" flag; the talent adds a permission for those two moves. (in the article)
• An unused Viola constant. Her define file also holds a 30% item-value reduction (SanItemValueSubRate 300) that no code reads; only Benita's 50% version is used. (in the article; also in Viola)
• Norwood's Toughness bonus is a flat point value. It is +10 points (+15 with the talent), not a percentage like every other penalty on this page. (in the article)

Lunatic state#

• The floor is half the maximum, not zero. Refills stop at 50. Lunatic therefore feels like a timer; in the open world the doppelganger or a rest at an altar cancels it. (in the article)
• Hero swapping is disabled. While Lunatic you cannot rotate team members; this matters for builds that rely on a second hero. (in the article)
• The Lunatic slow trophy does not stack. Only one copy counts, so a second one wastes a slot (Sanity talents and trophies#Lunatic survival). (in the article)
• The lock is exactly half, never rounded. Refills stop at 0.5 x maximum (52.5 / 55 / 57.5 with the Sanity talent), while the Lunatic test rounds its bound up (53 / 55 / 58), so the lock can never lift you out. (in the article; also in Sanity)
• The drain is a flat number, not a percentage. A 115-point maximum (three levels of the Sanity talent) gives a longer pool above 0 but the same 0.5 per second. (in the article)
• Boss phase two is player-controlled. Staying above the line keeps the first form; this is why avoiding sanity damage on bosses is a real strategy. (in the article)

Sanity#

• Campaign kills never refill sanity. The "SanKill" gain is zero for every ordinary enemy in chapters 1 to 9, and the only non-zero rows there are the four chapter bosses (+200) and the two club-elite entries (+200). (full entry)
• The sanity cost is proportional to damage dealt. Weak enemies you barely scratch cost almost nothing; a huge-health enemy costs the same total as a small one. (in the article)
• Large damage-to-sanity numbers on bosses are safe. In a boss fight the minimum is pinned at the Lunatic bound, so a "130" boss cannot kill you through sanity. (in the article)
• Sanity potions ignore your defences. The sanity statuses (Elixir of Sanity, Elixir of Hallucination, Vertebra Nail, the ground effects) are tagged with the physical defence type, but their defence scale (Param3) is 0, and the status code multiplies your resistance by that scale before using it. (full entry)
• "Improved Effect" doubles the Elixir of Sanity. It multiplies the per-second value by 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3 (talent levels 1 to 3; Elena has two levels, 1.15 / 1.3) and the result is rounded up, so the 1 always becomes 2: the elixir gives about 30 instead of 15 over its duration. (full entry)
• Benita's potion resistance also halves sanity elixirs. While she is Abnormal or Lunatic and her Drug Resistance status is switched on (see Abnormal state#Effects by hero), every potion-type status tick is halved before rounding up: Hallucination 5 becomes 3, the Elixir of Sanity stays at 1 (even with Improved Effect, 1.1 x 0.5 rounds up to 1). (in the article)
• Statue and frog numbers are on a doubled scale. The code halves every sanity cost and gain printed on these offers (inferred reason: they were written for a 0 to 200 scale), so a "Dedicate 10 Sanity" statue really takes 5 (Maze statues#Sanity is halved). (in the article)
• Several talent descriptions point the wrong way. "Adapt to Abnormality" talents read as additional penalties but are reductions of the penalty (Abnormal state#hm-the-penalty-talents-are-reductions-the-english-text). (full entry)
• Lost Valley and the maze never charge for damage. The code skips sanity-by-damage in Lost Valley scenes, and every maze monster and every Lost Valley placement carries a SanDamage of 0 in the data. (in the article)
• Unused data. The constants for a "sanity first-kill" reduction table (10 / 5 / 1 kills, 100% / 60% / 20%), SanDeadRate 0.6, and the Terrence dodge-close rate 700 are defined but never read. (in the article; also in Lunatic state)

Sanity doppelganger#

• It is always your own hero. The branch that would spawn a story enemy instead is unreachable, because the index is always clamped to the number of heroes you own. (in the article)
• It never appears in boss rooms. There the Lunatic state is handled by promoting the boss to its second phase instead. (in the article)
• Several unlocked heroes randomise it. The copy can be any hero in your party, not necessarily the one you are playing. (in the article)
• It is a glass cannon. Half health, double damage and almost no stagger gauge. (in the article)

Sanity in special areas#

• Maze refills double as a cure. Because the game adds the gap to 50, the cheapest maze sanity source (a single kill) is enough to end the Lunatic state. (in the article)
• Moon vs. Immortal jellyfish jars. The game has two separate jar items. The Moon Jellyfish Jar (maze only) blocks drain. (full entry)
• The Lost Valley drain ignores your sanity stage. Normal heroes lose sanity there at the same rate as Lunatic ones; the only safe places are the circles. (in the article)
• Colossal Grave Lunatic is free. You get Lunatic bonuses without the drain or the doppelganger. (in the article)
• One Lost Valley pays for kills. Story 101 (Lost Valley - Heggem, StoryData StageId 20003) has 16 enemy placements that give +3 sanity per kill, the only non-maze, non-boss area where kills restore sanity. Stories 102 to 105 pay nothing. (in the article)

Sanity talents and trophies#

• Melos Bottles turn the Abnormal state on permanently. Because Abnormal trophies, hero bonuses and the enemy "crazy" flag all key off the state, a bottle plus four +20% attack trophies gives +80% attack for free; the cost is the hero's penalty and being one threshold from Lunatic state. (in the article)
• Lunatic-survival trophies are the only ones that do not stack in this family. The equip code takes the maximum for trophies flagged "no overlay" (the other non-stacking effect is the low-health Rage trophy, see Trophy effects). (in the article)
• Devout is much smaller than it looks. It only affects the damage-to-sanity rule, which exists only in the main campaign. (in the article)
• Improved Effect and Prolonged Duration reach the sanity potions. Both talents list the Elixir of Sanity and Elixir of Hallucination (not the Vertebra Nail). (full entry)

Characters, stats and talents#

Heroes, attributes, leveling and the talent trees.

Characters#

• Fixed pools. Every hero has 100 maximum Rage, Sanity 100 and Power 100 as fixed values that do not come from the six attributes. Elena's Rage bar marks its threshold at 33 instead of 30 (UIRageMin). (in the article)
• Elena is built differently. Her starting attributes add up to 110 against about 70 for everyone else, with Vigor 34 and Endurance 24, so she starts with 1,392 Health and 104 Attack. (full entry)
• Guard stamina ratios. The stamina-cost ratio for blocking (GuardEnergyRatio) is 0.35 for Terrence, Viola and Benita, 0.45 for Norwood and 0.25 for Jerold and Elena. See Guarding#How a blocked hit is resolved. (in the article)
• Hero id gates. Available is read by MS_HeroData.IsAvailableInScene as a "minimum story id" test, which is why Norwood (3) and Jerold (9) behave as later unlocks (inferred from the function name and values). (in the article)

Terrence#

• Three free Health Potion slots. Terrence starts with a capacity of 3 Health Potions, the other heroes with 2; every hero has MpAddNum 4, a separate second potion pool whose exact in-game item I did not trace (unverified). (full entry; also in Characters)
• Flat power rules the early game. At the starting Attack of 59, a Light hit's raw attack is 61 + 59 x 0.8 = 108: more than half is the flat part. (full entry)
• Rage per stamina favours Heavy. A Light hit gives 3 Rage for 65 stamina (0.046 per stamina); a Heavy hit gives 6 Rage for 95 (0.063), about 37% better. A full Heavy chain is 18 Rage, a full Light chain 9. (in the article)
• The Lunge is the most stamina-efficient art. At 59 Attack it deals about 2.65 raw attack per stamina (252 for 95), against 2.35 for Discipline, 1.98 for the full Rising Slash and 1.57 for the short one. (full entry)
• Armour mostly grows with Rage cost. Light attacks have no armour at all, the Heavy chain 26, the 30-Rage arts Lunge and Discipline 64 and the 100-Rage arts (Multi Lunge, Sanction) 94. Rising Slash is the exception: it costs 30 Rage but has only 26. (full entry)
• Rear hits. Every move row has a rear multiplier (BackGuardBreak). Most moves deal x1.25 when they land on an enemy's back and Backstab and the Jump chop deal x2; thrown items have x1. (full entry)
• Counter finisher is tied to its target. The second part of the Counter Attack (power 181) can only hit enemies that were just struck by the first part (power 136); other enemies in the way are ignored by it (Hero10001:IsMutekiForSkill). (full entry)
• Moves that cannot crit or be out-poised. Counter Attack, Backstab, Execution and the Jump chop have CritIgnore 1 and ToughnessIgnore 1: they never crit, and they stagger the target whatever its Poise. The opening hit of Sanction also cannot crit. (full entry)
• Dodge chains fall back. If Spin Attack is not unlocked, Dodge then Heavy simply starts the ordinary Heavy combo. If it is unlocked, Spin Attack (priority 10) wins. (in the article)
• No second Rage payment after Rising Slash. The data row that opens the Heavy combo after Rising Slash carries a 30-Rage requirement, but the chain table sends Rising Slash (and its short and Enhanced versions) straight into the second row of that combo, which has no requirement. (full entry)
• "Not enough Rage" warning only for three moves. Only Lunge, Discipline and Lunge: Knockback have the Tips flag that shows the Rage-insufficient message; the other arts just fail silently. (in the article)
• Stamina recovery. Regeneration is 400 per mille of the bar per second (121 per second at 303 Stamina), but only 100 per mille while guarding. When the bar hits 0 there is no extra lock-out (his recovery-time stat is 100); see Stamina#Regeneration. (in the article)
• Breakables. Every attack row also has a DurabilitySub (40 to 999), which the object code (shell.lua) subtracts from destructible objects' durability. (full entry)

Viola#

• Rage engine. Her Light chain gives 12 Rage per hit (Terrence 3), the Counter Attack, Backstab and Execution 10 each and the Jump chop 5. Bullets give none. Rage per stamina on the Light chain is 0.13, about three times Terrence's. (in the article)
• Arts and counters do not use ammo. The Light Combo shot, Powerful Shooting shot and Counter Attack shot are fired by the code without taking a round (ammo is subtracted only for the Heavy shots and the Dodge shot), yet they use the selected colour's damage row. (full entry)
• Snipe costs Rage, not a round. The aimed shot spends 100 Rage and 80 stamina but takes no round from the magazine; it only needs at least one round loaded to start (or the talent's reload-then-aim variants). (in the article)
• Light Combo's shot is conditional. The bayonet hit goes into the follow-up shot only if the target's Poise is empty after the hit (the normal version deals 30 Poise damage; the white Weakening version only 15). (full entry)
• Rapid-Fire loads min(6, rounds in magazine). One round per animation trigger while Special is held, with a firing phase that spends one round per trigger. (full entry)
• Counter window comes from the reload. Her Counter Attack triggers from moves whose counter level is higher than the enemy's: the Special-button reload (move 1) and the Rapid-Fire preparation (moves 6 to 11) have level 2, while normal attacks have 1. (full entry)
• Lucky Shooter is only for Heavy shots. It is rolled in the function that subtracts a single round (Heavy shots and Dodge shot), with a (200 + 1) / 1001 chance; Rapid-Fire uses a different function with no roll. (in the article)
• Ammo drop maths. A kill gives add = 1 + the Bullets Recycling value (0 / 1 / 2), the chance is add x 100 per mille, so 10.1% / 20.1% / 30.1% (a number from 0 to 1000 is rolled and must be at most the chance), and the drop contains add rounds. (in the article)
• Hold-Heavy starts belong to the Snipe talent. The hold-Heavy entries (move 3 row 1, moves 29, 30 and 31) all need 100 Rage and carry the talent flag, and the Snipe talent opens exactly moves 2, 3, 29, 30, 31 and 32 (HeroTalent TalentPos 110). (full entry)
• Coloured Knockback range. In the data, the red Powerful Shooting: Knockback shot has a falloff range of 4 to 6 m, far smaller than every other red shot (4 to 20 m). It looks like a data quirk (inferred). (in the article)
• Poise is not part of her kit. Her base Poise is 0 and her Poise Regen is 240 per mille, so regeneration does nothing (240 per mille of 0). See Poise and stagger#Hidden mechanics. (in the article)
• Health Potions. She has capacity 2 (HpAddNum), like every hero except Terrence (3); see Characters#hm-only-terrence-has-3-potions-the-extra-slot. MpAddNum is 4 for every hero; what that second pool is was not traced (unverified). (in the article)

Benita#

• The Health tax is a percentage of maximum Health, charged per swing. Light costs 2%, Heavy and the Whip of Monstrance family 3%, the Counter start 10%. It never kills her (minimum 1 Health). (full entry)
• Lifesteal numbers are large. Touch of Whip heals 100% of the damage dealt (150% on its rhythm version). Bloodsucking adds 80% / 100% / 120% to everything for 6 / 9 / 12 s. (full entry)
• Intellect is the attack stat. An Intellect point is worth many times a Strength point for her (rate 1000 against 200), and Intellect also raises Crit damage and all resistances. (in the article)
• Shield strength scales with Vigor. The Holy Soul shield is a percentage of her base Skill shield value. No trophy raises the Skill shield (trophy property types have no Skill shield; trophy-effect shields fill the separate Trophy shield pool). (full entry)
• Wind Prayer says it needs Wind Whisper. The talent text tells you to hold the button while Wind Whisper is active; the skill data only requires Elixir mode 1 and 30 charge (inferred reading: "Wind Whisper" is the mode name). (in the article)
• Wind Prayer's upgrade tiers do not exist. Three Perpetual statuses (30 / 40 / 50 s) are in the data but the code and talents only reach the first, because no talent changes the status the move applies. (in the article)
• Elixirs need only 1 charge. The cost is paid down to zero. Only Wind Prayer actually needs its full 30. (in the article)
• No Rage drain, no Power drain. Pure Blood and Elixir charge stay until spent. Her Rage bar only fills from hits and from Backstab or Execution. The decay routines run only for Norwood, Jerold and Elena. (in the article)
• A trophy can force the Abnormal state. The Sanity check returns the "Unusual" band (stage 1, Abnormal but not Lunatic) for the player's hero whenever a trophy with the always-abnormal logic is equipped (outside the Carriage), whatever the real Sanity is. (full entry)
• Abnormal-state penalties are host-only. The abnormal-state code checks that Benita is the hero the player controls. A Benita controlled by the AI as a team member does not suffer Elixir cost, Drug Resistance or low-Health damage changes. (in the article)
• AI Benita uses Elixirs only when none is running. The combat AI checks for her Bloodsucking, Rejuvenation and Perpetual statuses before using the Stamina elixirs, and for any Shield before using the shield. (in the article)
• Elixir pulses hit. Every Elixir move deals a small 61 + 80% Attack hit around her and gives Pure Blood (10 for the shield). (in the article)

Norwood#

• Heavy attacks cost Griminess to even start. The first row of every Heavy swing requires 20 Griminess and the release spends 25. The Heavy triple needs this for each of its three swings. (full entry)
• Perfect guards refill him. A block whose block parameter is above 1 (the animation's tight timing window, which I take to be the perfect guard; inferred) gives +12 Griminess and 30% of max Stamina (the stamina ratio BlockAddEnergy 300 per mille), so guarding well is a Griminess source as well as a defence. (full entry)
• Liberate is a timer, and the timer is Rage. Entering needs a full 100 Rage. From then on Rage drains by 5% of the bar per second (his RageDecrement is 50 per mille, so 5 Rage per second), meaning 20 seconds if you do nothing. (full entry)
• The Rage guard falls back to the normal guard. The Liberate guard has strength 1000, far above any attack, but each hit it blocks costs 10 Rage; at 0 Rage the code swaps it for the ordinary guard (75). (in the article)
• Revenge is a counter and a finisher. Its first row has armour 999, Guard Break 999 and an interrupt value of 10, with 50% damage reduction while armoured (DamageSub 500; every Liberate punch has the same 50%, as do the two potion-drinking rows). (full entry)
• Intercepting rewrites the move. When a Coffin swing (any of the four families, the dodge swing or Poised Furious Griminess) is hit during its first part at the right time, the game plays a short freeze, jumps straight to the recharge-and-release combos, plays the "stinger" audio and applies status 10082, named "Norwood invincible" in the data, for 1.5 s. (full entry)
• Soul Shackling Eddy gets cheaper and weaker at the start but not at the end. The three parts cost 30, 10 and 10 Rage and their opening hit shrinks (flat power 79, 59, 39) while the closing slam stays 229 flat at a 136% rate in all three. (full entry)
• Coffin swing 3 is a Rage jackpot. One release of swing family 3 gives 50 Rage, almost three times family 1 (18), and it also has the highest flat power (132) and rate (212%) of the four. (full entry)
• Backstab and Execution are weak for what they are. His Backstab uses a x1.25 rear multiplier where Terrence's uses x2 (see Backstab#Damage), so it hits for about 63% of what the same row would with x2. (full entry)
• Execution: Deterrence is a second hit. The talent triggers a sphere (radius 3 m, lasting 0.1 s) using a separate move row (SkillIndex 1108: 150 flat at 136%, Guard Break 999) around Norwood that skips the executed enemy. (in the article)
• Resistances are halved a second time by traps. In the Lunatic state non-physical trap (environment) damage first uses the already reduced resistance and then halves it again, about -75% in total for Fire, Poison, Arcane and Shadow (Pierce is not reduced by the lunatic stat change, so Pierce traps only get one 50% cut; inferred); non-physical status damage (Burn, Poison and so on) uses the base resistance and subtracts 50% once. (full entry)
• Counter move 105 is the strike after a successful counter. The data holds a "parry" row pair (SkillIndex 105, flat 95 and 292 at 250%, 100 Rage). (full entry)
• Only Liberate drains Rage, and Griminess never decays. Norwood's Rage only drains while he is in the Liberate form (Hero10004_Value:Update checks the form first), and his Griminess has no decay or passive regeneration; the Power-decrement stat is only used by Elena's code. (full entry)
• Poise regeneration works for him. He has 240 per mille regeneration (24% of the pool per second), unlike Terrence, so any Poise gained from Casual mode or the +10 Abnormal-state bonus refills in about four seconds when not being hit. (full entry)

Jerold#

• Marks mostly come from enhanced moves. The plain Light, Heavy and dodge-attack rows carry no mark at all, and neither do the plain Esquive, Thrust and Echo arts, which only arm the detonation fuse. (full entry)
• The first mark does not weaken armour. Only marks 2 to 6 lower Physical Defence (-17.5% at six); see Sendril marks#Stacking and the Defence effect. (in the article)
• Detonation damage ignores Defence. Each mark deals ceil(0.3 x Attack + 29) with no damage type: 48 per mark at Attack 62, 89 at Attack 200. The formula, table and the extra Poise and Resilience damage are in Sendril marks#Detonation. (in the article)
• Chain length picks the art. Each swing sets a hidden tier: Light hits give tiers 1, 1, 2, 2, 3 and Heavy hits give 6, 7, 8, 8, 9. (full entry)
• Dodge attacks are chain starters. Light or Heavy after a dodge sets the chain to "one hit done", so the next press is the second hit. (in the article)
• Enhanced Light gains more than enhanced Heavy. At Attack 62 the enhanced Light combo hits for 1.5 to 1.9 times the plain one (81 vs 43 on hit 1), while the enhanced Heavy combo is only 8% to 11% stronger. (full entry)
• Arrival has no upkeep except time. Arts are free, but Rage does not grow, grids never decay and Soul Dew still recovers (apart from during the cast). (in the article)
• Soul Dew only trickles. It recovers at 0.6 per second but each swing adds 3, so Ordeal (30) is usually available within about ten hits. (in the article)
• Move 24 is an unexplained pose. The Special pose has two data rows: move 43 (30 Soul Dew, starts unlocked) is the one the Ordeal uses; move 24 (100 Rage and 30 Soul Dew, guard 999) is unlocked by the Sendril's Arrival talent together with the cast (talent 15104 lists moves 23, 24 and 61). (full entry)
• Rage lost on interruption is small. 10 Rage out of 100, only in the Lunatic state, only for the local player's Jerold, and only when he is hit while performing a move that carries armour (a move with no armour value does not trigger the loss). (in the article)
• Night's Embrace trophy. With this trophy, any enemy that carries a mark counts as a Sendril-type target for the damage-versus-type bonuses, even when the mark came from another source than Jerold (see Sendril marks#Related effects for the rules; animalbase_value.lua 1768-1792). (in the article)
• Shared experience on first join (see also Dedication#Hidden mechanics). (full entry)
• Serene fires bolts. The enhanced Serene finishers launch straight-line projectiles from the first trigger of the move: one bolt for the enhanced Begone, Upraising and the first three Serene steps (moves 35-37, 57-59) and for the plain Star Crossed and fourth step (moves 34, 56), two for the enhanced fourth Serene step (move 60) and three for the enhanced Star Crossed (move 38). (full entry)
• Maze availability. In Deep into the Dark Mist he is only enabled if the Tides expansion has been entered and his join quest is complete (inferred from CheckHeroEnable). (in the article)
• Cosmetic poses. The Ordeal pose cycles through 5 stances (PoseMax 5) in a fixed rotation; they have no effect on gameplay. The internal name of the move is literally "striking a pose". (in the article)

Sendril marks#

• The mark count cap is 6 but the first mark is weak: only the second to sixth hit change Defence. (in the article)
• The detonation is not reduced by Defence; it is flat per mark and scales only with Jerold's Attack stat. (in the article)
• The 1-second fuse means that Serene and Soul Sword arts explode their own marks nearly at once; mark build-up for a big payoff needs plain Light and Heavy swings that do not fuse. (in the article)
• Marks are removed when they detonate, so a long chain of enhanced swings followed by a single art is the efficient pattern. (in the article)
• Lunatic Jerold gains Rage from marked targets only on hits that give Rage at all, so the detonation itself gives none. (in the article)

Elena#

• Power is the ultimate's timer, and it decays by itself. Power starts at 0 every battle. (full entry)
• Imperial Will stretches the buff only a little. Each attack, Flash or Parry applies a 5-second status that lowers Power decay by 3 (from 50 to 47 per mille). (full entry)
• Impregnable costs Power. The automatic block (single-blade) or dodge (dual-blade) is a skill that needs and spends 15 Power, so one full ultimate pays for at most six automatic saves, minus decay. The talent text also says each save shortens the buff. (in the article)
• Rage never decays. Her data has a Rage-decay stat of 60, but the code never applies Rage decay to Elena: only Norwood and Jerold call the decay function. Power regeneration (6) is likewise unused (inferred from the absence of any call). (in the article)
• The Fleeting line does nothing. The code is there: once Elena has chained 3 counted attacks, Hero10007_Value:GetSkillEnergy cuts the Stamina cost by the sum of the ComboAttackSubEnergy talents (type 103), and a hit counts only if its flat power is above 0, so steps 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the dual-blade Light chain do not count (Hero10007:AddSkillComboAttack; the count resets in OnSkillEnd). (full entry)
• Blocking works differently from Terrence. Her GuardDamageRatio is 0 (Terrence has 1). While the guard holds, a blocked attack deals no damage even if its Guard Break beats your Guard of 75. (full entry)
• Demiurge's Curse is a stagger bomb, and only single-blade moves apply it. The curse is applied by the 5th hit of the single-blade Light chain, the 5th and 6th hits of the single-blade Heavy chain, and the Counter after a Parry (skill 25). (full entry)
• The dual-blade Light chain starts weak. Steps 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the chain carry no flat power, just 50 to 80% of your Attack (52 to 83 raw attack at 104). Only steps 4 and 6 hit properly (164). The Heavy chain does not have this problem (112 to 164). (in the article)
• Shadow's Rage costs 34, not 30. The talent text says 30 Rage, but both Shadow's Rage rows have RageSub 34. Hitting with it gives 100 Rage (RageAdd 100), so a hit refills the whole meter. (in the article)
• Perfect dodge details. Dual-blade Dodge combo steps 3 and 5 are the Flash (the slow-motion rules are in Dodging#Perfect dodges (Jerold and Elena)): Elena gets a Rage tick, and with Flash Return a Stamina tick. (full entry)
• Blade of Discipline beat-back is a curse source. If the Blade of Discipline (either version), or the Light-hold switch from dual to single form, catches an enemy attack, there is no slow-down but the enemy receives the Demiurge's Curse status directly. (in the article)
• Ranged parry achievement. "Return to Sender" counts ranged attacks deflected by An Eye for an Eye: ten within ten seconds. (in the article)
• Demiurge's Might. The talent has a base value of 250 and a step of +100. (full entry)
• Dark Mist Morph. Holding Dodge for 0.25 s costs 15 Rage and 48 Stamina to start; releasing costs another 48 Stamina. (in the article)
• Potions. Health Potion capacity is 2 (Terrence has 3); the talents Health Potions: Stock and others raise it. (in the article)
• Death by falling. Quest 10078001 completes if Elena dies from a fall at one specific spot in Arcade stage 1007 (a coordinate box checked in Hero10007_Value:DamageDrop). (in the article)

Attributes#

• One curve, six attributes. The game never tells you that a point of Strength and a point of Vitality are worth exactly the same on the underlying curve; only the hero's weights decide. (full entry)
• Steep up to about 30, flat after 60. The stats are built to reward a spread of roughly 20 to 40 points in each attribute you care about. Moving an attribute from 60 to 99 buys less Attack than 6 points from 20 to 26. (in the article)
• Pierce resistance is 5 times the Defence curve. Intellect and Vitality each carry 250% weight, a total of 500% against 80% to 100% of the same curve for Defence, so at 99 points in both attributes Pierce resistance reaches 1,050 against a Defence ceiling of 210 for Terrence. (full entry)
• Elemental resistances are always four identical stats. Fire, Poison, Arcane and Dark resistance have the same weights for every hero, so you cannot specialise. (in the article)
• Endurance means damage for Jerold and Elena. Their Attack, Crit damage and Crit rate all draw on Endurance; their Strength is a minor source. (in the article)
• Poise has no attribute source. Property 13 (Poise) is 0 for every hero at every attribute setting. (full entry)
• The hidden attribute decides class identity. Norwood's Rage decay value is half of Terrence's (50 against 100 per mille per second), and Jerold's and Elena's is 60. (full entry)
• Values above 99 would break the stats. The attribute table has exactly 99 rows per attribute although the code declares a 200 maximum. A score of 100 or more finds no row and contributes 0 (inferred from MS_HeroAttributeData.GetValue). (full entry)
• Leveling cannot overspend. The 98-point total is a hard limit (Leveling): attribPoints rises by exactly 1 per level-up (playerinfoctrl.lua 10595) and nothing else adds attribute points in the scripts. (in the article)
• A leftover system. The BufferData table (12 rows, internal names for "Blessing" and "Source" buffs) carries numbers of 10, 20 or 40 in its attribute columns for six of its entries, the Life, Attack and Defence "Blessing" (rows 1 to 3) and "Source" (rows 7 to 9) buffs; their Chinese descriptions speak of raising a level by 1 or 2. (full entry)

Character stats#

• Stats screen labels that lie. The English label list in the game has "Buff Duration" for stat 9, but the code uses stat 9 as the Rage decay rate; "Exp Bonus" for stat 12, which the code uses as the Power cap; and a label in Chinese for stat 3 that means roughly "swift-strike damage" while the code uses it as Crit resistance. (full entry)
• Four dead stats. Mana (7), HP on hit (28), Stamina on crit (29) and Mana on crit (30) are never read by combat code. Mana appears only in the save-slot display and debug tools. Only The First Messenger, who cannot be played, has a Mana value (720). (in the article)
• Debug leftovers. The debug tool refers to "DropBonus" and "Resist" properties that do not exist in the stat list, which would evaluate to nothing if called. (in the article)
• Crit resistance is enemy-only. All heroes have Crit resistance 0, which the code treats as "no effect". (full entry)
• Heroes' Resilience is effectively infinite. 10000 maximum plus a regen of 100x maximum per second means a hero's Resilience refills almost as fast as it is drained. Hero stats exist for symmetry with enemies, not because heroes are weakened (inferred). (in the article)
• Elena and Jerold regain stamina later. Their exhaustion value is 92, others 100, so they sit out 0.8 seconds after hitting 0 Stamina (Stamina#Regeneration). (in the article)
• Elena's Power regen is unused. She has a Power regen of 6 per mille but only Jerold's code applies Power regen (inferred from the call sites). (in the article)
• The three type flags work like keys. An enemy with the Human flag (38) takes the Atk vs Humanoid bonus, and so on. (full entry)

Altars#

• Altars advance the story. Some altars complete quests when you open them (table above). The effect happens once, the first time the condition is met. (in the article)
• Opening is saving. The game saves when the altar menu opens, not just when you rest. Closing it without resting still counts as a rest-free visit. (in the article)
• Dropped loot vanishes. Recovery clears the ground, so pick up drops before resting (the same happens when you die, see Drops and loot). Ordinary ground loot does survive saving and quitting; only a rest or a death removes it. (in the article)
• Loading refills potions. When a story scene is loaded (not the very first load, and not inside the maze), every hero's Health Potions are set to maximum again, so reloading a save is another free potion refill (Death and respawn#Level-load refills). (in the article)
• Facing rule. The altar test combines squared distance with a dot product on your facing direction, so you can be standing right next to an altar and still get no button if you are facing away from it. (in the article)

Leveling#

• Experience resets on each level. The bar always runs from 0 to the next row of HeroExp. Experience is never cumulative inside the save data. (in the article)
• Attribute respec. Resetting attributes (see Attributes) sets every hero's free points to level minus 1 and clears all spent points. It runs through a dialog option that consumes one Starry Honey Wine. (full entry)
• Per-attribute cap. Attribute values cannot exceed 99 even if you have spare points. (in the article)
• Dead rows. The experience table has 500 rows, but the game refuses levels above 99. Row 100 holds 0 experience (row 101 holds 19,850, continuing the line), which looks like a data slip; it is unreachable because the game stops at level 99. (in the article)
• Health Potion refill. Dying or resting also refills the Health Potion charges of every hero to their maximum (Terrence 3, the other playable heroes 2, plus any talent bonus; HeroData HpAddNum). See Altars#Recovery (resting). (in the article)
• Both heroes must fall. The penalty only applies when no other hero in your party is alive. If your second hero survives, the game swaps to them and takes nothing (Death and respawn#When one hero falls). (in the article)
• New Game Plus keeps levels. The restart routine removes only items flagged "GamePlusRemove" and resets story progress. Hero levels, experience, attribute points and bones are kept, and the confirm text lists "Achieved Altar Level" among what you keep. (full entry)
• Challenge and Arcade presets. Starting a challenge hero (challenge menu) or an Arcade hero calls a routine that sets every hero's level to the preset HeroLevel of that challenge or Arcade hero, gives the chosen hero the preset attribute list and (unless told not to) maxes that hero's talents. (full entry)
• Level-up tutorial. The first time you reach level 2 a special tutorial pops up. (in the article)

Benita talent tree#

• Four free nodes. Touch of Whip, Backstab, Execution and Reclaiming the Pure Blood start at level 1. Counter Attack, Whip of Monstrance and the rest each cost a Chipped Immundus. (in the article)
• Rhythm Attack is secretly required for the strengthened moves. Seven moves in the skill table carry SkillTalent = 2, meaning two separate nodes must cover them: the four combos of move 4 (the heavy triple, covered by Dance of Whip and by Rhythm Attack) and moves 28, 30 and 32 (covered by Whip of Monstrance: Dexterous, Inhibition and Terminate respectively, and by Rhythm Attack). (full entry)
• Soul Kiss swaps statuses. The bloodsucking status 10013 (parameter 800, 6 s) becomes 10014 (1000, 9 s) and 10015 (1200, 12 s). (full entry)
• Elixir Research stacks on a 40% base. The blessing roll succeeds if a roll of 1-1000 is below 401 + the bonus, so the base chance is 40%, then 70% and 100%. (full entry)
• Wind Whisper and Holy Soul are status swaps too. Wind Whisper's stamina regeneration (status 10019, 40 s) becomes 10020 (50 s) then 10021 (60 s). Holy Soul's shield (10016, strength 200) becomes 10017 (300) then 10018 (400). (in the article)
• Benita pays more for elixir moves in the Abnormal state. Moves that use Power cost 33% extra. Adapt to Abnormality: Elixir shrinks that surcharge by 33.3% then 66.6% (to about 22% and 11%). (in the article)
• Potion resistance. In the Abnormal state each potion adds resistance stacks (40, 35 or 25 per use with the talent levels, statuses 10044-10046). Healing is halved only once the stacks reach 100 and the status turns on, for 30 s (Benita#Abnormal state). (in the article)
• Bloodthirsty Instinct sits on a built-in bonus. Benita in the Abnormal state already deals +15% damage below 50% Health. Below 30% the talent doubles it to +30%. (in the article)
• Optimized Tubes adds 10% to the Power gauge (the game text speaks of "maximum number of Elixirs", but the gauge is not a count), and Shunt Tubes adds 10 Power per Backstab or Execution. (in the article)
• Long Distance Counterattack only switches on the parry hit box for her normal attacks (ParryUse); there is no number. (in the article)

Talents#

• The Condition column decides what a node touches. For move effects it is a list of move,combo pairs. For item effects it is a list of item ids or item types, for stat effects a stat id. A node that lists nothing applies to everything of its kind. (in the article)
• Text and data can disagree. Descriptions are built from TextValue, effects from Value. (full entry)
• Lucky Madness does not use percent. It adds 5 or 10 to the weight of drop entries, and the code that rolls drops does not test the sanity state at all (controllerstorymode.lua:5355-5380 and fs_herodata.lua:401-431: no sanity condition). (in the article; also in Abnormal state, Norwood talent tree, Terrence talent tree)
• Abnormal-state nodes are modifiers of built-in effects, not new effects: they shrink a penalty or multiply a bonus that each hero already has. Their code tests IsHeroSanNotNormal, so they work in both the Abnormal and the Lunatic stage. (full entry)
• Benita's blessing talent is global. The blessing roll reads Benita's talents directly, so Elixir Research helps even when you play someone else (see Blessing#Success chance). (in the article)
• Unused feature: groups. The code supports talent groups (TalentParent, type 999) where children share a parent's level, but no row in the shipped table uses it. (in the article)
• Elena's Sanity nodes are not bought. Seven of them are granted by defeating the seven Obsessed Ones in Arcade mode (each monster row names a talent to add) and are restored in later runs through the achievements for those fights. (full entry)
• Strange messages. The "not enough stone" messages use the labels "Not Enough Immundus" for both the Immundus and the Crystal stone and the bare text "Immundus Crystal" for the Diamond stone; this is a text-table oddity. (in the article)
• Debug switch. A developer flag (DebugTalentOpenAll) forces every node to at least level 1; it is off in the shipped game. (in the article)

Terrence talent tree#

• Level 1 is enough to continue. The tree check only asks that the previous node has any level above 0, so you can pass through the cheap first levels of a chain and spend the Diamond levels later (Talents#Prerequisites and learning). (in the article)
• Three nodes are free. Lunge Attack, Parry and Execution start at level 1. Terrence does not start with Backstab or Rising Slash: each costs one Chipped Immundus. (in the article; also in Terrence)
• Level N always uses the Nth stone type of the node. A level cannot be paid with a different stone (Talents#Immundus stones). (in the article)
• Abnormal-state nodes scale the built-in penalty, not a flat number. In the Abnormal state Terrence loses 30% max Health and gains 10% attack (both relative to base; rules in Abnormal state#How talents reshape these effects). (full entry)
• Furor and the poise nodes add flat points. Furor adds Rage per hit to 12 listed move rows; Knight's Tenacity (+15) and Rising Slash: Tenacity (+38) add to the move's own armour pool; Rising Slash: Inhibition adds +20 to the poise damage dealt. (full entry)
• Devout multiplies the Sanity drained by your own hits by 0.85; its limits are in Sanity talents and trophies#Hidden mechanics. (in the article; also in Viola talent tree, Norwood talent tree)
• Sanction: Broken Sin boosts two moves. The node's condition lists Sanction (move 8) and Discipline (move 9). (in the article)

Viola talent tree#

• Starts with six nodes. Light Combo, Powerful Shooting, Rapid-Fire, Counter Attack, Backstab and Execution are all open from the start. (full entry)
• Break Out only exists with the talent. After a Backstab or Execution the game looks for a status swap; without the node nothing is applied. Level 1 applies status 10038 (crit rate +15% of base, 12 s), level 2 applies 10039 (+20%, 12 s). (full entry; also in Buffs)
• Condemn changes which Bleed Viola applies. Her moves that apply Bleed (status 10034, 10 s) apply 10035 (15 s) at level 1 and 10036 (20 s) at level 2. (in the article)
• Bullets Recycling has a base of 10%. Whenever Viola is the leading hero, every kill already has a 10% chance of dropping 1 special bullet; the talent turns it into 20% for 2 and 30% for 3. (in the article)
• Improved Magazine raises the special bullet cap from 12 to 14, 16 or 18. (in the article)
• Lucky Shooter rolls once per bullet spent: on a 20% success the shot is free. (in the article)
• Adapt to Abnormality: Critical Strike works on the built-in Abnormal-state bonus (+10% of base crit damage). The talent multiplies that bonus by 2 at level 1 and by 3 at level 2, so the real result is +20% and +30%. (in the article)
• Adapt to Abnormality: Stamina acts on a built-in penalty. While in the Abnormal state and carrying the "Wounded (Gunner)" status (id 10004, internal name), exhaustion recovery is slowed by 50%. (full entry)
• Brutality inflicts true Bleed (status 10001) with a 20% chance per critical hit, only in the Abnormal state (and so also when Lunatic). It has a single level; the code checks IsHeroSanNotNormal(10002) (animalbase_value.lua 2476). (in the article)
• Lucky Madness adds drop weight to item types 801 (Raw Stone) and 803 (Blackwater materials); the mechanism is in Talents#hm-lucky-madness-does-not-use-percent-it-adds. (in the article)

Elena talent tree#

• Where the unlock comes from. Each of seven Arcade monsters carries a TalentAdd field in StoryMonster: Heggem's gives Shadow Moon (talent 17401), Adamina Path of Suffering (17402), Exilium Fleeting (17403), Edith Demiurge's Wish (17405), Karst Cave Path of Truth (17407), Katib Eternal War (17404), Blessedland Finale (17406). (full entry)
• Only Elena triggers it. The in-run unlock, and the achievement call that sits beside it in the same function, fire only when the controlled hero is Elena (10007). (full entry)
• Re-granted at stage select. Whenever an Arcade run opens at stage select, every Sanity talent whose achievement is done is set to level 1 for Elena. (in the article)
• Only stage select starts maxed. ArcadeStageSelect raises every talent outside the Sanity page to max level (AddTalentToMaxWithOutSan, which skips talent slots 400 to 499) and then re-grants the earned Sanity nodes. (full entry)
• The three stamina-discount nodes never take effect. Fleeting, Eternal War and Demiurge's Wish (type 103) have the condition string "1", but the game asks for the total with parameters (0, 0), and a non-skill condition only passes when the first parameter is above 0. (full entry)
• The descriptions overstate. Fleeting is called "slightly" and Eternal War just "reduces", yet both are 15%. Shadow Moon (increases) and Path of Suffering (greatly increases) both give +30% HP, so the wording does not reflect the numbers. (full entry)
• Demiurge's Might uses Rage thresholds. +25% weakness-bar damage above 33% Rage and +35% above 66% Rage (the game text calls it resilience reduction), for the single-blade moves listed in Elena#hm-demiurge-s-might-the-talent-has-a-base. (in the article)
• Demiurge's Curse grows by switching statuses. Each level applies a different status instead of raising one stack cap: level 1 uses 10115 (3 stacks, 10 s), level 2 uses 10116 (5 stacks, 11 s), level 3 uses 10117 (5 stacks, 12 s), while the text says 3 / 4 / 5 stacks. (full entry)
• Flash Return restores stamina through a 0.1 second status. The talent turns on status 10118 for a successful Flash dodge. (in the article)
• Imperial Will and Impregnable work together. Imperial Will slows the ultimate buff's Power decay a little and Impregnable spends 15 Power per automatic dodge or block (Elena#hm-imperial-will-stretches-the-buff-only-a-little, Elena#hm-impregnable-costs-power-the-automatic-block-single-blade). (full entry)
• No Sanity. Elena's tree has no node that depends on the Abnormal State; her page 4 is the achievement bonuses above. (in the article)

Jerold talent tree#

• Less Rage is the strongest node. It subtracts a share from the Rage cost of 28 move variants: 16.5%, 33% or 49.5%. At level 3 a 30-Rage Soul Sword move costs about 15. (in the article)
• Bouncy starts at the third hit. The 30% stamina discount applies only once your current combo has landed 3 attacks. (in the article)
• Calming Rage in numbers. Being interrupted in the Abnormal State costs 10 Rage. Level 1 makes that 7.5, level 2 makes it 5. (in the article)
• Sendril Affinity in numbers. The Abnormal State already gives +10% Rage on attacks against Sendril-marked enemies. The talent pushes the multiplier to 15% (level 1) and 20% (level 2); the text "5% / 10% more" is the extra on top. (in the article)
• Sendril Blast applies the short fuse. The talent makes Backstab and Execution apply status 10103 (TalentDarkClearStatusId), the 1-second fuse that detonates the target's existing Sendril marks when it expires (see Sendril marks). (full entry)
• Esquive has one level. Its description mentions leveling up for a longer dodge, but the node has only a single level. (in the article)
• Sendril's Arrival: Brier is narrow. The reserve only triggers when you counter with the Special block while Sendril's Arrival is active and Jerold is in the Abnormal State. (in the article)
• Costs are not smooth. A few nodes skip the middle stones: Less Rage costs Immundus, then a Sea Tooth Bone, then a Diamond. (in the article)

Norwood talent tree#

• How stones really work. Each level eats exactly one stone of the type named for that level, and a node can be bought whenever its "After" node is at level 1 or higher; it does not need to be maxed (inferred from the tile logic in the talent screen). (full entry)
• Effects add up. The game sums the values of every node with the same effect type and matching move. Several of Norwood's numbers therefore stack with the hero's built-in values rather than replace them. (in the article)
• Shield of Griminess is +5, not a multiplier. A perfectly timed guard already gives 12 Griminess. The talent adds 5, for 17 per timed block. The same block also refills 30% of his stamina bar regardless of the talent. (in the article)
• Absorbing Griminess is not tied to damage. Despite its description, the game scales the bonus from a per-attack value on the incoming skill (PowerAddHit): level 1 adds 50% of it, level 2 adds 100%. (full entry)
• Berserker Instinct never works on bosses. It rolls a 30% chance, only on a few specific hits (combo 3 or 5 of the code's HP skill family and combo 3 of its LP family), only if the enemy is not blocking the hit or is hit from behind, and only against enemies that are not bosses. (in the article)
• Obstinate stacks with the base bonus. The Abnormal State already gives Norwood +10 resilience (Toughness); Obstinate makes it +15. (in the article)
• Enhanced Elixir mismatch. The text says 10 Sanity per potion; the number in the data and used by the code is 5. (in the article; also in Jerold talent tree)
• Free Execution, paid Backstab. Execution is a free starting node for every hero, but Norwood (like Terrence) has to buy his Backstab; Viola, Benita and Jerold start with it and Elena has no Backstab node. (in the article)

Items, trophies and crafting#

Consumables, trophies, reforging, alchemy and merchants.

Consumables#

• Potions cannot be wasted on drops. When your potion stock is full, the Health Potion entry is removed from every drop pool before the roll (Drops and loot#How a group is rolled), and a Health Potion on the ground cannot be picked up ("bag full"). (in the article; also in Maze rewards)
• The first kill is a guaranteed refill for four enemies in Heggem; every other regular enemy has the 35% pool. (in the article)
• Potion strength is a flat 35% of the base maximum Health, so potions are relatively stronger the lower your maximum Health, and equipment that raises max Health does not raise the heal. (in the article)
• Revive key rules. The Ancient Silver Key only works if your second hero is dead; otherwise the game shows an error and keeps the key. It does nothing in dream stories. (full entry)
• Maze-only and non-maze items are enforced. The Elixir of Sanity is refused in the maze, and Hound Amulet, Glowstone, Vertebra Nail and the Moon Jellyfish Jar are refused outside the maze and Arcade mode. (in the article)
• Consumables cannot be sold. Their price entries are 0 or -1 (the Bone Whistle has 50, but it is a consumable) and the sell screen only lists materials and bone items. See Items. (in the article)
• Talents. Prolonged Duration and Improved Effect cover most elixirs, with levels that differ per hero (Prolonged Duration +10/20/30% for Terrence, Viola and Benita, +10/20% for Norwood and Jerold, +15% for Elena; Improved Effect +10/20/30%, Elena +15/30%, see Buffs#hm-the-item-talents-are-bigger-than-they-look); Sanity: Enhanced Elixir restores 10 Sanity per potion according to its text, but the data value is 5 (see the talent trees). (full entry)
• Doppelganger. A sanity doppelganger drinks your Health Potions; the Health Potion stock lost this way is dropped again when you kill it (the sanity doppelganger enemy; the drop pool exists, the rest is inferred). (in the article)
• Prices rise with every journey. The same shop row has four prices, one per journey (an Elixir of Health costs 10 / 15 / 25 / 35 Bone Fragments), and journeys 4 and above use the last one. Placed pick-ups also grow. See New Game Plus loot and shops. (in the article)

Items#

• Four of everything. Shop rows, item drops and fixed pick-ups each store four values and the game picks the one that matches the journey (never above 4). In the first journey the later columns are never seen. (full entry)
• Unreachable items. The data contains items that no shop, drop pool or pick-up gives: Medium Health Potion (no effect), Large Health Potion, the "Revive+" item (21027), and the "Frog" item (an internal placeholder with no English name). (full entry)
• Documents are items too. 115 of the 218 materials are readable documents, one copy each. They have no use apart from their text and their quest triggers. (in the article)
• The Egg of the Bearer is a hidden beginner item. While it is in your bag, all damage you take is halved (Casual difficulty multiplies it by 0.65 on top, for 0.325 in total). (full entry)
• Maze copies. Items 72111-72120 are the maze's own copies of six blessed elixirs, plain Elixir of Hallucination, Shriveled Holy Fruit, Hound Amulet and Slightly Sweet Roots+. They do not get the item talents that raise strength or duration. (full entry)
• Blessing is item id +1000. A blessed version is simply the id with 1000 added; the game builds it from the plain item this way when a blessing succeeds. (in the article)

Throwables#

• Trophies that change your attack or health do not touch throwables. Conditional attack bonuses (full or half Health), life steal and the self-damage trade-off, and the energy gain on critical hits, all check "no thrown item" in the code. See Trophies. (in the article)
• Blocked hits still apply the status. A status is only skipped when the hit was blocked and the status has its guard flag set; Burn, Bleed, Poison, Blind and the weakness drain do not have it, so enemies that block still catch fire. (in the article)
• Poison, Burn and Bleed throwables use their own status rows. They do not use the enemy versions of the statuses, so their values (40 per second, 15 s) differ from what enemies use. (full entry)
• From the second journey, Throwing Knives turn into Huge Fangs. The fixed Throwing Knife pick-ups in the first five regions exist only in journey 1, and the Huge Fang appears in their place from journey 2 on. (full entry)
• The Arcade copies (30012, 30013) are identical in power to 30002 and 30004 and are used only in Arcade stages. See Arcade mode. (in the article)
• Ten of each is a hard cap. The bag will not take more; the pick-up message says the bag is full. (in the article)
• Stun Crystal's big weakness hit is for regular enemies only. Its boss value is 10, the same as most throwables, so against a boss it is only a 40-damage item. (in the article)

Bone Fragment#

• Spend or dedicate before risky fights. Bone Fragments are the only currency at risk, so dedicating them at an Altar or converting them into Immundus stones or materials is the only way to make them safe. (in the article)
• Doubling. A Potion of Wealth doubles every dedication item you pick up for 10 minutes, so drink it before a farm run, not after (status and recipe: Currencies#hm-the-potion-of-wealth-doubles-the-four-sizes). (in the article; also in Currencies, Dedication)
• No sell-back loop. A Big Bone sells for 7 Bone Fragments but is worth 200 XP when dedicated, which is 8 times a Bone Fragment's 25. Selling it and dedicating the fragments gives 175 XP, about 12% less (all four sizes: Currencies#The currencies). (in the article)
• The Broken Bronze Whistle costs Bone Fragments too. Using the whistle (item 26001) runs the same loss routine as dying, HostPlayerDeadDrop (ControllerStoryMode:Transfer), so you pay 25-35% of your Bone Fragments for the trip, and no recoverable bundle is made. (full entry; also in Consumables)

Currencies#

• Death costs Bone Fragments only. When you die, the game takes between 25% and 35% of your Bone Fragments (a random fraction, rounded down, plus a 30% chance to round up when there is a remainder). Big Bone, Fractured Body and the other currencies are safe. (full entry)
• Auto-pickup. The four dedication items are always collected automatically; you never need the pickup button, and no auto-pickup trophy is required (ItemScene treats main type 4 as auto-get and attach). (in the article; also in Bone Fragment)
• Selling needs a price. The sell list only shows materials and dedication items whose price is above -1, so key stones, documents, formulas and chests never appear (exchangectrl.lua line 752). The payouts by panel are in Merchants#Selling. (in the article)
• Shop stock resets differ. Rows marked IsRefresh restock after you respawn; other rows have a hard stock that resets only when a new journey starts; NotReset rows (Viola's and the Dark Mist shop) never reset, so one-time buys stay bought. (in the article)
• Cycle cap. Shop prices and amounts index four columns; the game clamps the journey number at 4 (GameLoopMax), so journey 4, journey 5 and later all use the same numbers. (in the article)

Dream Chest#

• Level 6 is rare except in chest 5. Chest 4 gives a level-6 trophy only 6% of the time, chest 5 gives it 42% of the time. Because each tier replaces the one before it, you cannot keep buying the cheaper-quality chest once the next quest is done. (in the article)
• The levels shown are trophy levels, not +N. A "level 6" trophy is the maximum enhancement (+5); see Trophy enhancement. (in the article)
• The odds are fixed per chest, not per chapter. Your bonus drop-rate talents do not change them, since the roll is a shop action rather than an enemy drop. (in the article)
• The roll is deterministic per save. GetRandomTrophyId seeds the random generator with the save's stored seed plus a counter (FS_SaveStory:GetRandomSeed: a seed between 10000 and 99999 plus a counter that grows by 10 with every seeded draw and wraps after 999,999). (full entry; also in Trophy sources)
• No restock limit. The rows have unlimited stock (-1) and never reset, so you can buy as many as you can afford and as many as the 600-trophy cap allows. (in the article)

Immundus#

• You cannot max everyone in one run. The visible supply in the first journey (ground + merchants + Dark Mist stages) is about 64 Chipped, 64 Immundus, 31 Crystal, 12 Diamond and 19 Sea Tooth Bone, against a full five-hero bill of 26 / 86 / 81 / 28 / 19 (Elena's Arcade tree is separate). (full entry)
• Shop prices rise every journey. The same stone costs about 3.3 times as much in journey 4 as in journey 1 (20 to 65, 50 to 165). (in the article)
• In Dance of the Throne (Arcade) stones turn into time. When you pick up a stone in Arcade mode, it is swapped for a hidden "time reduction" item (ids 72001-72004, internal Chinese names only) that shortens your run clock by 30 s (Chipped), 60 s, 90 s or 120 s (Diamond) per stone. (full entry)
• Lucky Madness does not help. Each hero's talent 405 Lucky Madness adds 5 / 10 to the weight of drop entries, but only for the item types it names (Terrence 701 and 706, Viola 801 and 803, Benita 802 and 702, Norwood and Jerold 601-603), at any sanity; the rule is in Drops and loot#Talent bonus: Lucky Madness and Materials#hm-lucky-madness-talent-talent-405-adds-5-level. (full entry)
• Not sellable. Stones have price -1, so the merchant sell screen never lists them. (in the article)
• Limited stack. A stack holds 99; extra pickups are lost and the game prints "bag is full" (AddBagItem). (in the article)

Key items#

• New Game Plus wipes most key items. At the start of a new journey, every item flagged GamePlusRemove is deleted (FS_ItemList:Restart), (the Egg of the Bearer is also cleared explicitly; see New Game Plus). (full entry)
• Lamp progress is kept. Because the lamps and oils are not flagged for removal, your best lamp stays with you across journeys. (in the article)
• Starry Honey Wine is an attribute reset. It sits in the Quest item class (main type 1, id 20029, stack of 10) and survives New Game Plus, but it is the way to respec: it resets your hero's attributes (item text). (full entry)
• Where the descriptions come from. The English text is merged from the game's text files; two Arcade items (Key to the Confessional, Pascal's Wager) still have Chinese description text. (in the article)
• Two items called Patrick's Ring. Item 10006 is the story prop. Items 70026 (Patrick's Ring) and 70030 (Jenny's Ring) are separate crafting parts for the trophy Oath (see Materials); they are placed as pickups in Exilium and are not the same object. (in the article)

Materials#

• Drops are weighted rolls, and an enemy rolls several times. An enemy's DropId is a list such as "10001;10014;10020"; each id is a separate drop group, rolled independently, and an item's chance is its weight divided by the group's total. (full entry)
• Full healing charges make materials more likely. Entries that give health-potion charges (item type 201) are removed from the roll while your potion stock is full, so each material's share goes up. Spend a charge, then farm. (full entry)
• A second set of drops appears when you are unsteady. In a non-normal sanity state (Abnormal or Lunatic), enemies also roll their SanDropId lists (Drops and loot#Sanity drops, Sanity, Lunatic state). (in the article)
• Lucky Madness talent. Talent 405 adds 5 (level 1) or 10 (level 2) to the weight of drop rows of the item types it covers, at any sanity (the text says Abnormal state only; the code doesn't check): Terrence 701 and 706, Viola 801 and 803, Benita 802 and 702, Norwood and Jerold 601 to 603 (the trophy types, although Jerold's own text says "combat items"). (full entry; also in Jerold talent tree)
• New Game Plus shifts the weights. Drop rows have four columns, one for each journey (capped at 4). (full entry)
• Shops mark parts up heavily. The Heggem merchant (Chapter merchants#Stock list 1042) sells Broken Arrow, Broken Rod and Broken Bone Spur (3 of each) at 15 / 25 / 35 / 50 Bone Fragments per journey, but a merchant buys them for 2. (full entry)
• Orphan and unobtainable items. Nitrate Powder (70064), needed twice for the Fireworks Barrel, has no drop, pickup, shop or quest source in the data (inferred: obtained another way, or cut). (full entry)
• No dedication value. Only the four bone items turn into experience at an Altar; parts, herbs and stones never do. See Currencies. (in the article)

Trophies#

• Equipped trophies are not per-hero. One loadout serves all heroes; the bonuses go to the hero on screen. (in the article)
• Level and stats are table lookups. The trophy keeps its original item id when enhanced; its level is stored separately and shifts each property id by one grade step per level. That is why enhancing never changes a trophy's name, only adds "+N". (in the article)
• The "second quality" column is dead data: 1,050 property rows carry a SecondaryValue of 0 (see Quality above). (in the article)

Trophy list#

• Some stock does not scale. Merchant 1902 sells six trophies as the +0 item in every journey, even though +1 to +3 rows exist for them (table in Trophy sources#Merchants). (full entry)
• Item ids encode the level. The +1 to +3 copies add 200, 300 or 400 to the +0 id for most trophies (60025 to 60225); the "destroyed on death" family steps by 10 (61011, 61021, 61031, 61041, 61051, 61061). (full entry)
• Ten Melos Bottles, one slot. The ten Melos Bottles (60068 to 60075, 60079, 60080) share one equip-group id, so only one of them can be worn at a time. (full entry)
• The Melos Bottles are an upgrade ladder. Between two bottles the quest chain takes away the bottle you hold, 1 Condensation Honey and 30 x N Anthozoan Bones (1,350 Anthozoan Bones and 9 Honey in total), then hands over the next bottle; each adds a little more Attack, Crit Damage and Crit Rate than the one before. (full entry; also in Currencies, Key items)
• Unique and undiscardable trophies. 57 of the 94 fixed-stat trophies have Price -1, which blocks discarding them and keeps them off the vendor sell screens. (full entry)
• Death-bound trophies. Those six pots have effect 114: they are removed from your equipment when your last hero falls. (full entry; also in Trophies)
• Eight placeholder trophies. Item ids 67068 to 67075 still carry Chinese developer labels instead of English names, have developer comments instead of descriptions, and appear in no drop, shop, quest or chest table (rows in the table above). (full entry; also in Trophies)
• Strength units. The data's developer comments describe the parameter of effect types 121 to 126 as per-mille (thousandths), and the code agrees: the attack, defence and drain checks call MathHelper.addValuePermil / subValuePermil (logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:2216-2243, common/mathhelper.lua:193-205). (full entry)

Trophy sources#

• Region progress raises the level. Enemy drops use per-region groups, and the same trophy is listed at a higher level in later regions. You do not need New Game Plus to see +1 or +2 versions. (in the article)
• New Game Plus raises it again. Merchants, pickups and drop groups hold one trophy id per journey (the journey is capped at 4), so 33 trophies are given at +0, +1, +2 or +3 by journey (the counts per pattern are in Trophy enhancement#Pre-enhanced trophies in New Game Plus). (full entry; also in Trophies, Trophy list)
• First-kill guarantees. Two groups give a trophy with 100% chance the first time: the female butcher in Adamina (Blood-stained Scissors) and the boar knight (group 50016) in Katib (Strange Gall Bladder). (in the article)
• One trophy per Dream Chest purchase. The shop code rolls once for the whole purchase and the bag routine creates a single trophy, but the price is charged for the full quantity. (full entry)
• Bag limit. The bag holds up to 600 trophies (equipped ones count). A full bag blocks chest purchases, pickups and auto-collection. (in the article; also in Trophies)
• Unlinked drop groups. Groups 40007 (Edith) and 60007 (Blessedland) hold trophies, but no enemy row names them (inferred: boss or event drops set outside these tables). (in the article)

Trophy effects#

• The "Half" in the data names is not 50% for rage. Every rage check uses 30%. Attack and defence "Half" effects do use 50%. (in the article)
• Self-damage trophies cannot kill you, and full-HP trophies shut off the instant you lose a single HP: the check is current >= max. (in the article)
• Defence boosts of 450% are strong but capped by the damage floor. With the 30% floor of the damage formula, the 127 and 128 trophies cut hits by roughly 30% to 60% while you are at full HP (see the worked examples above); weak hits already near the floor gain the least. (full entry)
• A 500 shield plus a 250 shield gives you 500, not 750. Resting adds the 500-point status (10026) first and the 250-point one (10079) second. Both are status type 112 and 10026 has IsRefresh 0, so the second one is rejected. (full entry)
• Shields and death wards are only renewed at altars. The Lua code has no other source (the game engine could still add them elsewhere, inferred), so a half-used ward or shield stays as it is until you rest again. (full entry)
• Melos Bottles change the sanity state without touching sanity. Equipped, they keep the Abnormal-state bonuses permanently active, while your real sanity bar can still sink into the Lunatic state. (in the article)
• Self-damage eats shields first. Discipline, Shimmering Shard and Brooch with Sacred Pattern wear down the skill shield and then the trophy shield you earned by resting before they touch your HP. (in the article)
• Life-steal and self-damage ignore damage over time. Only direct skill hits count; bleed, poison and burn ticks do not, and every hit gives or costs at least 1 HP because of the rounding up. (in the article)
• Wheel of Reversal is Jerold-only, and Night's Embrace is Jerold-only in practice because it needs his mark. (in the article)
• Auto-collect respects the 600-trophy cap, so a full trophy bag is the only thing it refuses for trophies. (in the article)
• Enhancement leaves effect numbers alone. Only stat lines get bigger. (in the article)
• Unused content. Effect 108 (lose a fraction of maximum HP every second) is fully coded but no trophy has it. Effect 117 exists only as a name. Effect 126 exists only on a test row. (full entry; also in Trophy list)
• Two descriptions contradict the code. "Reduced chance to lose sanity" is a flat halving, and "HP below 50%" for rage is really 30%. (in the article)

Trophy enhancement#

• There is no failure, no gold cost and no sacrificial trophy. Enhancement is fully deterministic. The sacrifice mechanic belongs to reforging, which uses no stones. (in the article)
• The sub slot is locked. An old design where a second trophy was fed into enhancement still exists in the menu code (it lists same-type, same-level trophies), but the click is blocked in stone mode, so it cannot be used (inferred: a leftover of an earlier design). (in the article)
• The cap is +5 because of one code constant, not because the stones run out. TrophyStrengthLevelMax = 6 hides trophies at internal level 6 from the list. (full entry)
• Enhancing an equipped trophy changes your stats immediately because the equipment total is recalculated right after each step. (in the article)
• Melos Bottles, the Marcion Puzzle Ball and "destroyed on death" trophies cannot be enhanced, even though they are fixed-stat items. The code refuses them through the data flag alone (EmotionType is 1 for them). (full entry)
• A found trophy's level is stored on its own and also hinted by its item id. Saves keep a separate "Level" value for each trophy, and the pre-enhanced item rows carry the same level in their data (see above). (full entry)

Random trophy properties#

• Rolled at pickup, then frozen. The roll happens when the trophy object is created in your inventory (a drop, a reward or a merchant purchase). (full entry)
• The level does not change the roll. Each "+N" version is a separate item whose property ids already point at the +N pool rows, so the pool comes from the item id, not from enhancing (which these trophies cannot do anyway). (in the article)
• Save-scumming does not help (inferred from the code). The seed and the roll counter are saved with your story. If you reload a save and pick up the same trophies in the same order, they should roll exactly the same values. (full entry)
• New seed when the maze is cleared. Choosing to return to Mist Camp after the last maze floor (the prompt about the Terror Obsessions being dispersed) rolls a brand-new 5-digit seed (10000-99999). A new story also starts with a new seed. (full entry)
• The bottom of each range is unreachable. For example, an Attack +0 pool row reads 20-32, but the lowest possible roll is 21. Every value in between is equally likely (one uniform draw per property). (in the article)
• Consistency check. A developer test save embedded in the game code holds a Raw Gem Amulet +5 (69507) with Attack 93, Crit Rate 14.5% and Crit Damage 14.8%, and Stag Rings +5 (69515) with Stamina 114, Stamina Regen 126 and Crit Rate 12.8%. (full entry)
• Stats stack normally. Random values go into the same stat totals as fixed trophy stats and reforged sub-properties. (in the article)

Trophy reforge cycles#

• The tier, not the category, sets the cycle. Families 10-12 are offense, 20-22 defense and 30-32 endurance, so a Scars trophy with a family-21 first property (Double-star Brooch) reforges into defensive stats. (in the article; also in Trophy reforging)
• Broadly, tiers 11x give the lowest values, 10x the middle and 12x the highest (the ranges overlap, so compare the table). Tier 123, 223 and 323 are the best tier of their cycle. (in the article)
• The sacrifice's level matters about as much as the tier. (full entry)
• Tiers 101 and 111 step unevenly for Atk vs Humanoid/Beasts/Sendril: tier 101 goes +2.5%, +1.5%, +1.5%, +1.5%, +2.5% (6% to 15.5%) and tier 111 goes +2.5% then +1.5% four times (4.5% to 13%). Every other offense tier uses an even step. (full entry)
• Tier 122 is the only tier where Atk vs Sendril (8% to 18%) differs from Atk vs Humanoid and Atk vs Beasts (9% to 21.5%), most likely a data entry error (Atk vs Sendril rows 12421-12426). (in the article)
• Health in the defense cycle grows faster than linearly at low tiers (e.g. tier 200: 35/60/90/125/165/210). That makes a +5 sacrifice especially valuable there. (in the article)

Trophy reforging#

• It is a cycle, not a lottery. After the first reforge the result is fully predictable: one step along the trophy's effective cycle, in the direction set by the sacrificed category. (in the article)
• Cheap steering, one expensive finish. Only the last sacrifice decides the value. Walk the sub-property to the entry just before the stat you want using +0 junk trophies, then make the final step with a +5 trophy. (full entry)
• No duplicates. Stats the trophy already has as main properties are skipped. A trophy with 4 main stats in its cycle (e.g. Figurine of Sorrowful Nun, Brooch with Sacred Pattern) only flips between two values. (in the article)
• The first roll uses the clock. The 1 to 10 random steps come from a generator that is reseeded on every call from the system clock (the last six digits of the Unix time in seconds, reversed), not from the save's seed. Reloading a save does not repeat it. (full entry)
• The sacrifice counts at its current level. The value uses the sacrificed trophy's level as it is now (GetLevel), so a trophy you enhanced to +5 counts as +5, exactly like a trophy that dropped as +5. (in the article)
• No hidden modifiers. The reforge code reads only the main trophy's own data, its current sub-property, the sacrifice's category and the sacrifice's level. (full entry)
• Sub-properties are permanent across New Game Plus (inferred). The New Game Plus item purge (FS_ItemList:Restart) only removes flagged bag items and does not touch the trophy list, so reforged trophies keep their sub-property. (in the article)
• Main level is irrelevant. A +0 trophy reforged with a +5 sacrifice gets the same sub-property as a +5 trophy reforged with a +5 sacrifice. Reforge order relative to enhancement does not matter. (in the article)
• Equipped trophies can be reforged in the main slot, and your stats update at once. An equipped trophy can never be the sacrifice. (in the article)
• Crit Rate and Crit Damage exist in two cycles (offense and endurance) with slightly different values. Both add to the same stat. (in the article)

Alchemy#

• Unlocked recipes are permanent. Every quest id used by ShowQuestId is flagged "not reset" in StoryQuest, so a recipe you have unlocked survives deaths and New Game Plus restarts, and the formula shops do not restock either (NotReset = 1, IsRefresh = 0; fs_savestory.lua:1252-1262, :2150-2175, :3419-3450, ms_transactiondata.lua:27-37). (full entry)
• Crafting is deterministic. No failure chance, no bonus output, no hidden quality. The only dice near alchemy are in Blessing. (in the article)
• A batch is capped by the stack of 10, not by your materials, for every elixir and combat item. (in the article)
• Slot 3 of every trophy recipe is the Raw Stone. Slot 2 is the "other part". The screen has code that replaces the name and icon of slot 2 with "???" until the quest of that ingredient is done. (full entry)
• Any-of unlocks. Crazy Mask appears once you obtain either the Minion Mask or the Noble Hat; Mother's Love with the Tattered Puppet or the Bloody Bandage; Father's Love with Virgo's Whip or the Warm Flesh; Seal of the Pious with the Broken Blessed Tome or the Sea Monster's Scales; Cocoon of Deceit with the Moist Sludge or the Broken Carapace. (full entry)
• The Tristram and Basilisk trophies form a 2 x 3 grid. The three Tristram trophies need Bloodstained Tristram plus one of Sanctus Bell, Eucharist or Cruets; the three Basilisk trophies need Bloodstained Basilisk plus the same three. (full entry)
• Equip groups. Eternity and Broken Eternity share one equip-group id (60040), so only one of the two can be worn. (full entry)
• Making things is counted. Crafting a combat item, an elixir or a trophy each feeds its own achievement counter, and the first craft of anything awards a "first time" achievement. (in the article)
• Crafted trophies are never "unique" trophies. Unique trophies (a UniqueId above 0) refuse a second copy; none of the 39 crafted trophies has one, so you can make as many as the bag allows. (in the article)

Blessing#

• The tutorial overstates the reward. The popup says blessing raises the potion's effect, may reveal how to brew it, and does not always work. Only the last two are fully true: the potency is not raised. (full entry)
• A failure costs only Bone Fragments. The potion is removed from the bag and added back right away, so you lose just the fee. A success also uses up the original potion (it is replaced by the blessed one). (in the article)
• The hidden formula counter. Each potion id has its own counter in your save (bless_times). (full entry)
• A 5% jackpot. Every attempt also makes a second roll from 1 to 100; a result below 6 (5%) counts as a jackpot. (full entry)
• The two rolls are probably the same dice (inferred). Both rolls are made with the same seed value, derived from the clock and the potion's position in the batch, and a roll with the same seed gives the same underlying random number. (full entry)
• Expected cost to learn a recipe by blessing single potions, using the jackpot model above (inferred, rounded): (in the article)
• Without the jackpot (pure successes needed) it would take 50 potions at 40%. Since you get the recipe as soon as the counter hits 20, the cheap potions are the cheapest way to learn their own formula. (in the article)
• Formulas only matter for some potions. Elixir of Health's formula is already covered by the early alchemy quest (15032), so the counter never gives anything. (full entry)
• The rolls follow the clock. The seed uses the last six digits of the system time (reversed) plus the potion's number in the batch, so there is no luck carried over between attempts, and no saved random state to exploit. (in the article)
• Blessed potions are not ingredients. The recipes for Elixir of Energy and others ask for the plain Elixir of Stamina and so on (id comparison), so blessing a potion that you need as an ingredient removes it from the supply (inferred). (in the article)
• Maze copies. Deep into the Dark Mist hands out ready-made blessed Elixirs of Inertia, Antitoxin, Energy, Recovery, Epiphany and Petrification Powder, plus a plain Elixir of Hallucination (item ids 72113 to 72119, see Consumables); they are not made by this service and do not touch the formula counters. (in the article)

Dedication#

• One level for everybody. The code runs the same experience through every hero in your save, including heroes you do not play. A level-up always adds one attribute point to each of them, so team choice never changes your level. (in the article; also in Leveling)
• Jerold follows Terrence. When a save is loaded without a stored Jerold entry, his level and experience are copied from Terrence's (fs_herolist.lua:84-95), so the shared level also covers the DLC hero. (in the article)
• Excess carries over. Offering one Filthy Core (7,500) at level 2 can cross several levels in one go. The leftover stays on the bar. (in the article)
• Waste only at the very top. At level 98 the game limits the offer to the number of bones that finish level 99 (it rounds up, so one bone may overshoot slightly). At lower levels the six-item ticks are not limited. (full entry)
• Only the shown hero is checked for the cap. The "level 99" refusal and the near-cap limit read the level of the hero on screen; since all heroes share the level this is the same number. (in the article)
• Bone Fragments are also your money. Every shop price is paid in the same item (see Bone Fragment and Merchants), so what you spend is what you do not dedicate. (full entry)
• The altar also reacts. The animation plays only if the altar is open (lit) and only when a single bone is offered, so the single-bone ticks of a hold animate and the multi-bone ticks (after 3 s) do not. (in the article)
• The tutorial order. The Dedicate guide (quest 15034) is shown before the Alchemy guide (quest 15035); see Alchemy. (in the article)

Carriage supplies#

• Prices follow the loop, stock never runs out. The twelve basic rows have stock -1 and prices that follow the usual journey steps (median x1.5 / x2.2 / x3.25 in journeys 2-4, see Chapter merchants#How prices and stock change per journey). (full entry)
• Each plant waits on a boss. Adamina Herbs and the Bone Whistle need the Adamina boss quest 21006; Distorting Vine and Trippy Flower need Exilium's quest 31002; Active Symbiote and Eroded Rock need Katib's 51001; Glass Ball and Edith Moss need Edith's 41001; Twilight Weed needs Blessedland's 61001. (full entry)
• The whale oils are only for DLC owners. Rows 99013-99016 have DLCSwitch 1, which the shop checks against the Deep into the Dark Mist DLC flag. The lamp is upgraded with these oils through quests (Key items#Dark Mist lamps and oils). (full entry)
• Whale oil gets dearer by tier but ignores journeys. 5, 10 and 20 Big Bone for the three oils and 30 Bone Fragments for the lamp, the same in all four journeys. (in the article)

Chapter merchants#

• Only two items ever restock, and not everywhere. Elixir of Sanity (stalls 1040, 2009, 3003, 4096, 5117, 6093, 7056) and Elixir of Hallucination (3003, 4096, 5117, 6093, 7056) are the only rows flagged to refill, 12 rows in all, stock 5 each. (full entry)
• Formulas are bought once for the whole save. The 10 "Formula:" rows are flagged NotReset, so a formula you bought is never offered again, even after you start the next New Game Plus journey. Everything else resets to full stock when a new journey begins. (in the article)
• The "discount" line is flavour. The Katib, Karst Cave and Ichthyosauria sprites say they can give a discount, but they use the same price numbers as every other stall (for example Chipped Immundus is 20 / 30 / 45 / 65 at Edith, Katib, Karst Cave and Ichthyosauria alike). (full entry; also in Merchants)
• Starry Honey Wine is sold in four of the seven story chapters. Among the chapter stalls it is only sold at Edith 4096, Katib 5117, Blessedland 6093 and Karst Cave 7056 (and at 9135 in the DLC), one bottle each and always for Big Bone (item description: it resets the character's attributes), so keep Big Bone back if you want a respec. (full entry)
• Throwables never run out. Throwing Knife and Huge Fang rows have stock -1 (unlimited) in every journey. (in the article)
• Heggem's Truth trophy levels up with the journey. Row 11001 sells a different trophy row in each journey (Truth +0, +1, +2, +3, ids 60025, 60225, 60325, 60425) at 100 / 120 / 140 / 180 Bone Fragments, one copy per journey. (in the article)
• Non-Existent Boots cost almost a thousand. Exilium row 31001 sells the boots trophy at 875 / 900 / 950 / 999 Bone Fragments, the dearest chapter-shop item by far, and the price barely rises with journeys. (in the article)
• Concentration Rune uses the rarest coin. Karst Cave row 71007 asks 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 Filthy Cores. Filthy Core is the top dedication currency (see Currencies), and the stall is the only place that trades it for goods. (in the article)

Merchants#

• A stall can run out on the first visit. Immundus is limited per row (1 to 5 per stall). Buy everything in a chapter while you are there if you plan to play only one journey; the stock returns with the next New Game Plus journey, at higher prices. (in the article)
• Dying and resting are free restocks. Because the respawn routine refills elixirs, you can empty a stall of Sanity and Hallucination elixirs, rest, and buy 5 more. (in the article)
• Formula rows are forever. Once bought, a formula (such as Powder of Defence or Wildfire) is never offered again, even in later journeys. The same goes for Viola's six trophies. (in the article)
• Contracts move Norwood and Viola's shelves. Three Broken Slates and three Ancient Relics in the story unlock new rows. Those quests are permanent, so Norwood's tier carries over into New Game Plus. (in the article)
• The whale oil is DLC-only and boss-gated. See Carriage supplies#hm-the-whale-oils-are-only-for-dlc-owners. (in the article)
• Stall copies don't share stock. Ichthyosauria's three identical stalls (9136-9138) each have their own counters. The two Heggem stalls and the pairs of stalls in the other chapters are different lists. (in the article)
• A gap in the Ichthyosauria rows. Row id 93008 does not exist in the data (ids run 93001 to 93011 with that one gap), so the DLC stall 9135 has ten rows, not eleven. (in the article)

Norwood's sundries#

• Level = tier + loop. The trophy level sold is the tier number plus min(journey, 3), so the highest possible is level 6 (+5). Journey 4 sells the same levels as journey 3 but charges more. (in the article)
• The Contract progress is permanent. The quests 75051-75053 have NotReset 1, so Norwood stays at his highest tier when you start a new journey; it is the journey price column that moves instead. (in the article)
• A new tier removes the old one. Each row has both a "show after" and a "hide after" quest, so doing a Contract does not add rows, it swaps the whole block. (in the article)
• The only route to +5. Only tier 3 in journey 3 or 4 sells the maximum level (+5, trophy level 6), for 111 or 150 Anthozoan Bones each. (in the article)

Safe house shop#

• Big Bone is cheap here. Item 40002 costs only 2 Spectre Mushrooms. Big Bone is the currency for the better chapter-stall goods, and the ordinary Black Sprite and Carriage shops buy it back for 7 Bone Fragments. (in the article)
• Only one Dream Chest is on sale at a time. The chest tier advances as each of the four maze bosses falls (quests 4991001 to 4991004; Dream Chest#Unlock order). Dream Chest odds are in Dream Chest#What is inside. (in the article)
• Selling is capped by the bag. Spectre Mushrooms stack to 9,999 and the shop refuses a trophy sale whose payout would push you past that. (in the article)
• Offering is separate from shopping. Tutorial texts 1072-1075 say that offering Spectre Mushrooms makes the Marred in the Dark Mist stronger; mushrooms spent at this shop are only a currency. (in the article)

Viola's collection#

• Prices are fixed. Brass Ring of Handel costs 4 and Figurine of Sorrowful Nun 5 from the start; Contract 1 adds Shimmering Shard (6) and The Rose (10), Contract 2 Fanatical Sand (15) and Contract 3 Brooch with Sacred Pattern (20): 60 Dominator Crystals for the whole set. (full entry)
• One purchase per save. Because NotReset is 1, a trophy bought in journey 1 stays sold out in journey 2. If you want a second copy you cannot buy it. (in the article)
• The consumable block is a New Game Plus gift. In journey 1 the four rows have item 0 and price 0, so they are skipped (GetOnSellItemVirtualList ignores rows with item id 0). (full entry)
• No returns. Viola's own six trophies have no sell price (Price -1), so the sell tab will not take them back. The sell tab itself buys other fixed-stat trophies, but pays in Bone Fragments, never Dominator Crystals (see Merchants). (in the article)

Enemies and bosses#

AI rules, phases, scaling and drops of individual foes.

Every enemy article also has entries of the same kind with its own values (body flags, dark mist levels, drop attack, easy ai, first-kill drop, fixed level, per-placement bonuses, sanity attacks, sanity cost 130, scaling, see how to, status effects, unblockable moves). They are not repeated here: the rules behind them are explained once in the Enemies article and New Game Plus enemy scaling.

Enemies#

• Flat attack dominates early, level dominates later. An enemy hit is attack stat x BaseRate/1000 + flat Attack. (full entry)
• Poise and Resilience never scale. See above and Poise and stagger. (in the article)
• Dark Mist enemies scale with your hero, not the chapter. In the Dark Mist scenes (stories 101-105, scene ids 20000-29999) every enemy's level is its placement level for the current journey plus your hero's level plus 10, and the StoryMonsterProperty bonuses are skipped. (full entry; also in New Game Plus enemy scaling)
• Some chapters drop nothing. Ch.8 has no drop lists, and the Dark Mist rolls find no table (see Drops). (in the article)
• 5 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Enemies.

Scissor Crone#

• Defence-ignoring moves. SP2 have no defence type, so your defence does not reduce them at all. (in the article)

Bosses#

• The phase change is player-driven. A boss does not change at a health threshold; it changes when your sanity falls, which is why a bigger SanDamage means an earlier phase 2 and why Consumables that restore sanity can hold a boss in phase 1. (in the article)
• The 50% heal can undo your work. If the boss is below half health when you turn Lunatic, it is topped up to half; above half nothing is lost. (full entry; also in Edith, Holy Father, Maddened Ascetic, Usurper)
• Not every boss counts sanity. Terror Obsession counts hammer charges, the First Messenger counts health bars, Proxy Higgins uses summons for its second stage, and the Maddened Ascetic rematch starts directly in phase 2. (in the article)
• Several bosses have a second life through a weak point or a hidden counter: Edith needs both hands destroyed before she can be executed (x36 execution damage), Fused Sprenger has a glowing weak point with its own hidden health pool, and Terror Obsession ends in an instant-kill circle once his hammer has been charged eight times. (in the article)
• 3 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Bosses.

Edith#

• Hand damage costs you no sanity. The passthrough subtracts HP from Edith directly, not through the normal hit path that charges sanity, and the hand's own SanDamage is 0. (full entry)
• A forced collapse does not need Resilience damage. Her Resilience is not drained by your hits; it is set to 0 by the hand check. (in the article)
• The x36 bonus lasts 120 s but the collapse is short. The status duration is 120 s; it is removed when she gets up (ClearStatusById(10075)). (in the article)
• Lock-on is off for most of the fight, which is why the camera does not snap to her body. (in the article)
• 2 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Edith.

Elmar (the Butcher)#

• Hitting her costs sanity, but little. Each hit takes SanDamage x HP removed / her max HP from your sanity; her SanDamage is only 20, so killing her from full HP costs 20 sanity. You cannot reach Lunatic through her damage alone. (in the article)
• She never changes phase, even if you are Lunatic. Her model script sets the grade threshold to 0 (hero20012.lua:57-59) while she starts at grade 1, so the phase-change check of Bosses#Boss mode and the phase change can never pass. (full entry)
• She is not "boss-flagged" in the model data. The model row (ES_HeroData 20012) has Boss 0, while the placement in ES_StoryMonster has IsBoss 1. (full entry)
• The Teresa summon is a different case. In the The First Messenger fight (Chapter 8) the same model is summoned without a body collider or lock-on, so it behaves like a roaming hazard rather than a duel opponent (inferred from the call-condition code). (in the article)

Frollo#

• He has an execution and a backstab in his kit. His AI switches to an "Execute" state when the target is in a Weakened hit reaction, and the Execute behaviour can use his execute or backstab move. (full entry)
• Hits on him cost 55 sanity per full HP. That means Abnormal after 55% of his HP and Lunatic only after 91% of it. (full entry)
• His second stat row is a duplicate. ES_StoryMonsterProperty lists two grades with the same values, so even a grade change would change nothing. (in the article)

Fused Sprenger#

• The weak point is a separate, hidden health bar. 4% of his maximum HP, refilled after 20 s. It only counts damage taken through the weak collider. (in the article)
• In a normal story run the weak point only exists after you have the Sand Glass. His script switches the glowing weak-point equipment and its collider off unless quest 52201 is complete (data comment: obtaining the sand glass; see the tip below); it is always on in the maze boss and in boss time challenge versions (hero20034.lua:33-48; hero20034_define.lua:43). (full entry)
• Breaking it switches off one of his best attacks. The teleport branch of the AI is skipped while the weak point is broken (inferred from GetWeakEnable() in attack20034.lua). (in the article)
• The teleport cannot be interrupted. During the vanish his Poise and Resilience are locked at 1, so there is nothing to break. (in the article)
• 4 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Fused Sprenger.

Holy Father#

• There are only two enchants. The check hpPercent > 0.2 stops the third step (10%). (full entry)
• Enchanted moves speed up your path to Lunatic. Besides the sanity you lose for damaging him (85 sanity per full HP, so Lunatic after about 59% of his HP, and Abnormal after 35%), each enchanted hit that lands costs a further 2 to 5 sanity. (in the article)
• Phase 2 defence jump. At journey 1 a hit with an attack value of 300 meets 79 defence in phase 1 (ratio 3.8, factor 0.49, about 146 damage) and 159 defence in phase 2 (ratio 1.9, factor 0.36, about 108 damage), 26% less (using the factor table of Damage formula). (in the article)
• The arena music follows his HP. In phase 1 the boss track plays at its first layer. In phase 2 it plays the second layer at 50% HP or more and the third layer below 30% (Hero20014_Value.ChangeBGMHpRate1/2). (in the article)
• 1 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Holy Father.

Jenny of Exilium#

• Phase 2 comes from your sanity, not her HP. With SanDamage 100, you lose exactly as much sanity as the percentage of her HP you remove. From 100 sanity, you are Abnormal after 30% of her HP and Lunatic after 50%. (full entry)
• While the leap chains run she cannot be staggered. Her script sets the Poise and Resilience floors to 1 for the whole of O, NOP, NO and GiantHand (and for the air drop and air shot), so a hit cannot empty them. The floors are removed when the chain ends. (in the article)
• She passes through everything during chains. The same moves switch on "move through all" and flying, and the model is hidden at some jump points (for example the final leg of NOP and NO, and the laser), so she can vanish between leaps. (in the article)
• After the giant hand she is placed on a fixed arena point. GiantHand ends by setting her position to scene marker 11 (inferred: the arena's centre or her home position). (in the article)
• 2 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Jenny of Exilium.

Maddened Ascetic#

• Phase 2 is controlled by your sanity, not his HP. See Bosses#hm-the-phase-change-is-player-driven-a-boss. (in the article)
• A phase-1 kill is remembered. Killing a boss that never reached phase 2 sets a "killed a boss while not Lunatic" flag for the whole run; if that flag stays unset until the end of the game, an achievement for killing every boss in the Lunatic state is granted. (full entry)
• The phase 2 kill unlocks a line later. Quest 91101 is a permanent flag. In Chapter 5 an NPC (the one that offers to fill the Melos Bottle, inferred) gains a one-time line about this boss's obsession only if you killed him in phase 2. (full entry)
• The rematch starts in phase 2. The Ascetic's script resets him to Grade 1 and immediately adds a grade (so he starts in Grade 2) whenever his placement has no BossFinal flag, in the maze boss and in boss time challenge (hero20007.lua:30-45). (full entry)
• 1 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Maddened Ascetic.

Rosen Cavalier Patrick#

• He barely costs sanity. SanDamage is 5, so killing him from full HP costs 5 sanity, compared with 90 to 120 for the main bosses. Hitting him cannot push you into the Lunatic state from full sanity. (in the article)
• His guard and dodge are real combat actions, not scripts. The AI presses the same buttons a hero would (the Special button for the guard, the counter-attack slot for the parry, the dodge slot for the dodges), so the normal hit-reaction rules apply (inferred from the AI file). (in the article)
• Counter priority decides who wins the clash. The AI checks whether your current move is "counter-attackable" and whether his guard move has a higher counter priority than your move (hitSkillData.CounterAttack > attSkillData.CounterAttack). (full entry)
• The riposte is switched off in journey 1 until he has blocked a hit. While he is in his guard, the check that lets him answer your attack returns false in the story when the journey is 1 or less, it is not a maze boss and not a boss time challenge, and he has blocked fewer than SkillSP_BlockCountToCounterAttack (1) hits since the guard began. (full entry)
• 1 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Rosen Cavalier Patrick.

Terror Obsession#

• The counter is the real boss. The phase is decided by the charge counter, not by sanity or HP: that is why the report shows the change after four charges. HP only opens the charge (85%, 55%, 35%). (in the article)
• The instant-kill circle ignores everything. It sets HP to 0 through its own script, bypassing defence and resistances. (in the article)
• No loop scaling in the story. His story monster row has level 1 in all four columns, so his normal hits are the same on every journey. In the challenge he follows the challenge levels instead. (in the article)
• No sanity at all. Neither hits to him nor his kill change your sanity (SanDamage 0), so he cannot push you into the Lunatic state. (in the article)
• 4 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Terror Obsession.

Elena (first duel)#

• She counters on a timer and on your attacks. Her counter (S1, mirrored by NS1) is a guard that turns into a riposte. (full entry)
• In this duel she cannot dodge. Her dodge branch only runs while her skill condition is 2, the two-sword stance (attack20039.lua:394, and the dodge row ES_SkillData HeroId 20039 skill 102 has SkillCondition 2). (full entry)
• She retreats with a random back or side jump. DP has a 30% chance (25% in the second stance) and a 7 s cooldown, and moves her about 3.6 to 3.7 m sideways or backwards. (in the article)
• No sanity phase, but your sanity still drops. Each point of her health you remove costs you 55 / max health sanity, so dealing 100% of her health costs 55 sanity. (full entry)
• 1 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Elena (first duel).

Elena (second duel)#

• Counter in one-sword stance, dodge in two-sword stance. She counters (S1/NS1, SkillCondition 1) when she has been stuck in hit reaction for more than 2 s or while you start an attack close to her. (full entry)
• Stance memory. The skill condition is stored on her, not on a timer: she stays in two swords until LP2 completes. (full entry)
• Sanity cost 55. Removing all her health costs 55 sanity, so a full-sanity hero ends the fight near the Lunatic line but she never changes (see Lunatic state). (in the article)
• Loot scaling. The Fractured Body count rises with the New Game Plus journey (3, 6, 9, 13), while the Blackwater Crystal stays at 1. (in the article)

Guderian the Guardian#

• Crit bonus is cut to 70%. His Crit-resist stat of 700 multiplies the attacker's critical damage bonus by 0.7 (animalbase_value.lua:2463-2467). A hero with a +200% crit bonus does only +140% to him. (full entry)
• Stances are independent of sanity. Going Lunatic does not change his moves; only the AI's own switches do. (in the article)
• Grapple pull. The grappling claw DP2 (7 to 13 m, 30%, 8 s cooldown) hooks and pulls you in from 13 m, so staying at range is not a free dodge in the scythe stance. (in the article)
• Guard and shield tools. S1 (guard, unblockable follow-up 100 to 120) and NS1 (shield guard-break 150) punish turtling. (in the article)

Maddened Ascetic (rematch)#

• A free second phase. On a normal run the Ascetic only reaches phase 2 if you go Lunatic. Here phase 2 is unconditional, so you cannot use the Lunatic-only timing you learned in Chapter 1. (in the article)
• The loot table is a roll, not a chest. Because the Immundus Diamond sits in its own list with 100% probability, it is the only reward you can count on. (in the article)
• Dark ultimate and the Special blast. The ultimate OP (160 dark, 180 degree cone, 6.5 m, guard break 150) and the Special S (119 dark, -15 sanity, 120 degree cone) are its two dark-damage moves; the Special also removes sanity, as in the first fight (Maddened Ascetic#Moves). (in the article)
• Sanity cost 75. Removing the whole Health bar costs 75 sanity, so you only reach the Lunatic line of 50 after about two thirds of its Health, and at that point nothing changes for the boss (it is already in phase 2). (full entry)
• 1 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Maddened Ascetic (rematch).

Proxy Higgins#

• Two move sets inside stage 2. Every skill row has a style condition. L, NL, O, H1, HP and OP are condition 1; H3, LLL, SP3 and OOO are condition 3; the flowers, heal, water splash, chant and clone moves have no condition. (full entry)
• Stage 3 locks his Health at 1. On entering stage 3 the code sets a minimum of 1 on Health and -1 on Poise and Resilience (hero20040.lua:198-203), so ordinary damage cannot kill him there; his row has FinalHit = 1, so the last blow is handed to a scripted scene. (full entry)
• Stage 1 is an overlay, not a fight. The +9999 values are applied to Poise, Resilience and Defence, not to his Health. Wasting resources on him during the walk gains nothing. (in the article)
• He heals, and the heal has a threshold. NLP ("waters the flowers") is only chosen at 40% Health or lower (SkillNLPHpRate = 0.4), with a 35% chance and a 35 s cooldown. (full entry)
• 3 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Proxy Higgins.

The First Fallen: Handel#

• His Health is clamped in phase 2. When he is promoted, the game sets a minimum Health of max x 0.15 - 1 (SkillNO2HpPer = 0.15, hero20053.lua:74-85, hero20053_define.lua:56), so no hit can take him below about 15%. (full entry)
• He ends the fight himself. Once he is rampaging and at 1.5% Health or lower (SkillOOHpPer = 0.015 in the AI, attack20053.lua:246), he performs the four-part charged slash OO. (full entry)
• He cannot be staggered during his big set pieces. While the chant OP, the berserk start NO2, the charged slash OO and the berserk ender NLP start, the code sets a minimum of 1 on Poise and Resilience (hero20053.lua:379-386), and the chant and NO2 also trigger a slow-motion time scale. (full entry)
• The berserk start buffs him. NO2 gives him status 10108 (physical defence +50% of base, 999 s, so for the rest of the fight; Buffs) and the self-inflicted status 10107 (a damage-over-time status in the Bleed family by its logic type; its damage was not traced) (hero20053.lua:355-361; hero20053_define.lua:53-54; ES_StatusData 10107, 10108). (full entry)
• 2 more in the Hidden mechanics section of The First Fallen: Handel.

The First Messenger#

• Stage 2 can be a multi-part Health lock (inferred). The lock is only applied while IsCallHeroSanEnable is true, which means the list of Nightmare doubles to summon is not yet used up (hero10006.lua:84-90); with an empty list the lock is removed (SetPropertyLockMin(Hp, -1)). (full entry)
• Each stage change restores her Health. Whatever is left of a bar is lost. (in the article)
• Her sanity phase does not exist. Her grade threshold of 4 means the sanity-based promotion test can never pass for her (hero10006.lua:218, controllerstorymode.lua:2259). (full entry)
• The real body. In stage 3 the clones copy her dashes and drags. DP3 (at 60% Health or lower) and NDP3 (30% or lower) call the real body to dash and to drag; the drag is unblockable. (in the article)
• 3 more in the Hidden mechanics section of The First Messenger.

Treasure Thieves#

• No weak points, no Resilience shortcut. Every weak-point multiplier in his model is 0, so a hit on any body part does the same damage, and breaking his armour only gives the guaranteed critical hit. The barrel is the one special target; see the next entry. (in the article)
• The barrel is his weak spot and the weak state is a punishment window. Hits on the barrel collider drain a separate pool of 10% of his maximum Health (1,256 at journey 1, BarrelHpPercent 0.1); when it is empty his Resilience is set to 0 and he is Weakened and drops the barrel (hero20055_value.lua:14-57; hero20055.lua:266-278; whether the barrel collider is the model's weak collider is inferred from the isWeak flag at animalbase_value.lua:2083-2097). (full entry)
• The state-change moves are armoured. Skills 3 and 20 to 24 (NH1, NL1, NLP1, ND1, NDP1, NHP1) carry DamageSub 900, a 90% damage reduction while their armour window is open (Damage formula#6. Damage-reduction moves). (in the article)
• Crit bonus cut to 60%. His crit-resist stat of 600 multiplies your crit damage bonus by 0.6. (in the article)
• 4 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Treasure Thieves.

Usurper#

• Phase 2 is a stat change as well as a move change. The extra 200 Defence roughly doubles his physical toughness at journey 1 (178 becomes 378) and adds 78% at journey 4 (258 to 458). Hit him hard in phase 1. (in the article)
• Unblockable means dodge. In phase 2 the falling lightning (NS2), thunder pillars (NSP2), five orbs (NO2), jumping cut (O2), accelerated cut (OP2), lightning (NOP2) and shockwave (NLP2) are all unblockable; blocking only helps against the plain sword combos LL2, LP2, HHH2, NHHH2 and NLLLL2. (in the article)
• The accelerated lightning cut crosses 53 m. OP2 has an AI range of 8 to 30 m and its dash clip moves him 53.3 m (from the animation data in the boss report; unverified), so keeping distance is not safe. (in the article)
• He counters. His guard SP (5.5 to 10 m, 35%, 7 s cooldown), dodge (6 s cooldown) and parry (200 dark, unblockable) mean button mashing in front of him is punished; use delayed hits. (in the article)
• 1 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Usurper.

World, modes and progression#

Maps, quests, NPCs, lore systems, game modes and unlocks.

Death and respawn#

• The bone penalty is random between 25 and 35 percent and applies only after the last hero falls. (in the article)
• Alchemy trophies of the "destroyed on death" kind disappear only on a team wipe, not when one hero falls. (in the article)
• Ground items vanish on respawn; only the Heggie stash and scene markers stay. (in the article)
• The swap-in after a death keeps the boss-fight sanity percentage, which makes a swap a poor sanity reset. (in the article)
• Rested monsters return on death, but a defeated boss is tied to a quest flag. (in the article)

Drops and loot#

• "Nothing" is a real weight, and full flasks remove the potion row from the total: with full flasks the potion groups simply never pay out. (in the article)
• The Lucky Madness label (+50 %) does not match the data (+5 or +10 weight points). (in the article)
• A first kill replaces rather than adds to the drop list, and the quest flag can be shared between several enemies. (in the article; also in Materials)
• A sanity drop is a second chance: it requires only a non-normal sanity state at the moment of the kill and goes straight to the bag, so it cannot be missed on the ground. (in the article)
• The maze table scales by maze level, the story table by New Game Plus journey. (in the article)

Heggie offerings#

• Every Heggie contains exactly one correct offering, and the game never says which. This table is the answer key. (in the article)
• A satisfied Heggie is permanent only within one journey: starting a New Journey clears the list of finished Heggies (frogFinishList), so all 40 can be pleased again (the achievement counters keep the earlier progress). (full entry)
• The sanity option is a hidden bonus sink: it is blocked below 50 % sanity and strict about the amount. (in the article)
• Reward items depend only on the completed flag, so a saved finished Heggie never gives the reward twice. (in the article)

Traps and tricks#

• A trap's "Damage" column powers its status; it is not HP damage. (in the article)
• Walk-only zones also shrink your dodge roll to 70 % (boss corrosion) or 40 % (mud). (in the article)
• A trap affects every character whose team differs from the team that created it, so the lure and the stun smoke bomb hit the other side (stun smoke: 5.5 radius for 10 s). (in the article)
• Maze depth silently raises the damage of every trick and trap in steps at levels 8, 15 and 22. (in the article; also in Maze rewards, World mechanics)
• The environmental spikes and boulders ignore team and hit for 999 toughness, so they always stagger heroes and monsters alike. (in the article)

World mechanics#

• Flags decide everything. If a door, wall or pickup is missing, check its Show and Hide flags first: a single stray Hide flag removes it permanently. (in the article)
• Hide beats show, and Show needs every flag. (in the article)
• Locked-door hints can unlock things because they may complete a flag. (in the article)
• Journey-based scene pickups: the amount of a pickup differs between journeys in 170 of 1212 rows (usually more in later journeys, though a few rows give fewer) and 58 pickups change identity. (in the article)
• Virtual walls have almost no data (eight rows); most of their behavior lives in the scene. (in the article)
• Mud, the Slow status (10076) and some story rules force walking with a 0.4 dodge-speed factor (Traps and tricks#How a trap works). (in the article)

Carriage#

• The Carriage is combat-free by design. While story id is 99 the code removes attacks (CheckSkillCommandEnable returns false), lock-on, execution and backstab, and enemy AI is never created. (full entry)
• All heroes are loaded. On entering the Carriage the game loads every hero you have unlocked, plus all their skins, so you can see them on the hero select panel and in the outfit menu. (full entry)
• You are always a fresh arrival. Going to the Carriage resets your position and respawn point to the Carriage, clears the kill list of the region you left (see Maps#Travelling), and sets the "called from" story so that the Carriage knows which region to show first. (full entry)
• Carriage arrival scenes. Each region has a small table of "carriage points" describing how Glenn arrives or leaves. The "Transfer" flag marks stops that skip the arrival ride and just place you. (full entry)
• Katib's third point (an area-2 transfer) and the Karst Cave's third and fourth points are hidden return points used by scripts (the third brings you back to the Karst Cave prison after Viola's dream execution, quest 73711). (full entry)
• After the ending you cannot enter the Colossal Grave again, according to the game text. A New Journey is always started from Glenn in the Carriage. (in the article)
• Residents move on. Because residents are tied to quests, the Carriage looks different at each stage: Viola alone at first, then Viola and Norwood together, Benita after Exilium, and Viola and Norwood disappearing once Blessedland's dialog 64230 sends them away (quests 63013 and 63018). (full entry)

Chapters#

• The chapter order the data gives is not the order you play. Chapter ids 4 and 5 are swapped relative to the journal (see above). Stage ids put Edith (10004) before Adamina (10006), so Edith was probably planned earlier in development (inferred). (in the article; also in Timelines)
• Each chapter's boss quest unlocks vendor stock. The vendor in the Carriage sells a new plant per boss, so skipping a boss (when you can) delays alchemy supplies. See Carriage supplies and Alchemy. (in the article)
• Companions leave and come back by "revert" quests. The game removes heroes with "disable hero" quest actions, and later quests list the earlier ones in a revert field; completing the later quest undoes the earlier one and re-enables the hero. (full entry)
• Jerold is gated. Quest actions that enable Jerold only work if the DLC join quest has been completed. (in the article)
• Returning is a quest, too. The chapters are chained entirely by quest flags, such as "boss dead", "cutscene done" and "dialog choice", which is why the same bells open different stops in a New Game Plus run. (in the article)

Maps#

• Region numbering. Everything in the game keys off one id scheme: (in the article)
• The code sorts site rows into groups by this: id 99 is the Carriage, anything above 10000 is a fog zone, multiples of 100 are sites, and everything else is a stop belonging to the site floor(id / 100). (in the article)
• New markers. The save stores a number per site and per stop. A negative number means "newly unlocked, you have not seen it yet". Once the map is opened the numbers are flipped to positive. (in the article)
• The map is reset on every New Journey. Starting a New Game Plus journey rebuilds the map from scratch: only the Carriage and stop 101 are open, all quests are reset, and every door, shortcut, elevator, crate, gate, bridge and altar goes back to its starting state. (full entry)
• Enemy levels scale by journey, not by region. Each enemy placement stores four levels, one per journey, and the journey value is capped at 4. Highest enemy level placed per chapter (bosses included): (in the article)
• In journey 2 and beyond the early chapters jump straight to level 40, 65 and 89, so Heggem is no longer a gentle start. (in the article)
• Content per chapter. Count of placements in the data tables (monsters include merchants, NPCs and bosses). Some rows are scripted or alternative placements, so not all are alive at once: (in the article)
• One scene per chapter, six for the DLC. The eight base chapters are each one large scene (Heggem 10003, Adamina 10006, Exilium 10007, Edith 10004, Katib 10008, Blessedland 10009, Karst Cave 10010, Colossal Grave 10011; the Carriage is 10005). (full entry)

Adamina#

• Raven's Path needs a saved conversation. Quest 25055 has the save action attached (the quest comment says "carriage conversation finished, then save"), so the stop appears on the map only after you have talked with the carriage driver once and the game has autosaved. (in the article)
• Two rows for the Holy Father. Row 2003 and row 2028 both use model 20014; only 2028 carries the final-boss flag and the second-phase quests. (in the article)

Blessedland#

• Both Elena rows are boss-flagged. Rows 6045 and 6077 use the same model and level. The area 1 duel (6077) ends in a scripted cutscene, while the area 2 rematch (6045) is a real kill; see Elena (first duel) and Elena (second duel). (in the article)
• Cutscene extras. The map also holds two Old Monk rows, a Pope body and a Coachman (internal names), which belong to the story scenes rather than to ordinary encounters (inferred). (in the article)

Edith (region)#

• Rekindled Shore opens when the boss Edith dies. Quest 41001 carries the designers' comment "defeat the boss, leave boss mode", and Edith's own row (ES_StoryMonster 4060) completes it. (full entry)
• Elena is everywhere but not fightable. Her seven rows are NPC cameo placements; the playable fight with her is in Blessedland (Elena (first duel), Elena (second duel)). (in the article)

Exilium#

• Banishment Trail is opened by the previous chapter's boss. Quest 21006 is labelled "kill the boss, set respawn point", but it belongs to chapter 2: the Holy Father's death (ES_StoryMonster 2028 in Adamina) completes it. (full entry)
• Quest 35022 is shared. The same quest unlocks Abandoned Pass in Edith (region) and Bloodmist Forest in Katib, so finishing it opens a stop in each (ES_StoryDialog 31196 in Exilium completes it together with 35050 and 35054; its action id 10003 is Benita's hero id, so it makes her a party member). (in the article)
• Quest 34001 fires an action. Its action type 5 with parameter 3072 is a story-event trigger tied to the altars (inferred). (in the article)

Heggem#

• Obscure Village West opens differently in each journey. The designers' own note for quest 13010 reads: in journey 1 killing the boss opens the stop, in later journeys visiting the carriage bell is enough. (full entry)
• Altar quests are story-gated. The three altars that complete quest 14001 do nothing for the plot until the Old Woman scenes are done (quest 15007), so resting early is safe and changes nothing. (in the article)
• Black-fog walls use the boss flag, not a key. The walls' NotRebound quest is 91201, the same flag that is set when the Maddened Ascetic dies and that unlocks its Boss Challenge, see Obsession Challenge (inferred from StoryChallenge row 601). (in the article)

Ichthyosauria#

• Stonefin Shoal needs two flags. The stop requires both quest 95163 (Jerold joins) and quest 41001 (boss-mode exit). Every listed quest must be complete (stop-visibility code, fs_savestory.lua), so you need both. (in the article)
• Two Heggie achievements. The 40 frog rows split by chapter: the 35 Heggies of chapters 1 to 7 count toward Naturalist (goal 35), and the 5 here count toward Dominator's Revelry (goal 5). (full entry)

Katib#

• No altar quests. Chapters 1 to 4, 7 and the DLC have altars that finish a story quest; Katib's altars are purely for resting, dedication and alchemy (see Altars). (in the article)
• Third carriage point has the transfer flag. Point 3 (area 2) is marked as a transfer point (what the flag does is not documented; it is the same flag all four Karst Cave points carry). (in the article)
• Quest 55032 opens a stop elsewhere. It is the unlock for Secret Tunnel of Thanatos in The Karst Cave; a dialog row in Katib (ES_StoryDialog 53255) completes it (Chapters#Katib (chapter 5 in the data)). (in the article; also in The Karst Cave)

The Colossal Grave#

• Almost no ordinary enemies. Besides the boss, the table holds only 10 ordinary enemy rows (two stags, two crows and one each of six other models) next to 16 NPC, cutscene and scenery rows (three hero cameos, three cutscene copies of the First Messenger, Viola's mother and nine Light Motes). (in the article)
• Highest levels of the base game. The few ordinary rows are level 21 in journey 1 and 90 in journey 4, the boss is level 25, and the crows are only level 1 to 30 across the loops. (in the article)

The Karst Cave#

• The stops vanish when the Usurper dies. Both Karst Cave stops are hidden by quest 71003. The Usurper's own row (ES_StoryMonster 7001) completes it, together with 71001 and 71002, so after that point neither stop can be selected on the map. (in the article)
• Relics of the Ancestors can never be picked. It needs quest 73002, the end of the Usurper's defeat cutscene (ES_StoryMovie 88 completes it), and that comes after the Usurper has already completed the hide quest 71003. (full entry)

Deep into the Dark Mist#

• The lamp is a key, not a light. Its tier only decides which of the four areas the keeper lets you enter. (full entry)
• Difficulty is paid for twice. Raising levelAdd costs 25 to 100 mushrooms, but raises every drop table, so higher levels pay back (boss mushrooms rise by 2 per maze level, see Maze rewards#Boss rewards). (in the article)
• The first Border run skips the offering. Every other area asks the question from its first visit. The Border keeps skipping it until you have cleared it once (dialog 4993032). (in the article)
• Shrines never repeat identically. The pity counter guarantees a statue or crate at least every second arena and a fountain at least every third. (in the article)
• Bosses do not repeat inside a run. The kill list is stored per run; the same boss is not drawn again until every boss in a floor's pool is dead. (in the article)
• Enemy levels follow a fixed curve. Almost every enemy has level 3 x maze level + 6 from maze level 5 on, so by the end of the Cave (level 23) they are level 75; at 27 they are level 87. See Maze rewards#Level by maze level. (in the article)
• Death is a full reset of buffs. The hub entry code clears every status, including the extra-life stacks bought from statues. (in the article)
• HP and sanity persist between arenas but statues' buffs last only 300 seconds. (in the article)
• The maze needs the add-on. Entering without it shows the purchase message (UI_COMMON_ACTION_MAZE_WALL); Arcade mode also checks for it for the stages that need the maze. (in the article)

Maze rewards#

• The number of mushrooms per kill is tiny; bosses and crates are the bank. A level 1 kill gives about 1.25 mushrooms, an elite 6 and a Nightmare crate 44-50, a boss 41-50. (in the article)
• Item chance triples over the run. The item share goes 5% to 10% to 15% per roll at maze levels 1, 5 and 16. (in the article)
• Guaranteed trophy. Every boss kill drops exactly one trophy (no "nothing" row), and its tier is fixed by the maze level, not luck. (in the article)
• Low-level trophies are +0. Maze level 1 is always +0. (full entry)
• Trophy strength is a second roll. Within a tier, the small, medium and large versions of a trophy have equal weight, so each drop has a one in three chance of each strength (except Edith's and Frollo's trophies, which have one strength). (in the article)
• Mushrooms are not a score. Nothing in the code converts leftover mushrooms to anything; a won run just leaves you with the coins. (in the article)

Maze statues#

• Two saints, even odds, but buffs are not even. Offer 2 appears about 45% of the time per saint, the last offer about 29%. (in the article)
• Sanity trades are half price and half reward. The percentages in the descriptions are twice the real values. (in the article)
• Stamina recovery buff is the biggest percentage (+35%), attack is the smallest (+17.5%). (in the article)
• Mushroom doubling covers every pickup that uses auto-pickup, probably including the 41 to 100 mushrooms a boss drops (see Maze rewards#Boss rewards); it is the strongest offer when taken before a boss or a Nightmare crate. (in the article)
• Potions are convertible. A Health Potion costs 5 mushrooms and an offering of 250 Health buys 20 mushrooms; mushrooms are the maze's money, see Maze rewards#Spectre Mushrooms. (in the article)

Game modes#

• One number picks the mode. FS_SaveStory.StoryMode has seven values (Normal 1, BossChallenge 2, JumpGame 3, Travel 4, Maze 5, BossTimeChallenge 6, Arcade 7), and dozens of checks like "is this a boss time challenge?" change behaviour: for example the counter-attack delay of Patrick and the Usurper is switched off in the maze and in the Obsession Challenge (New Game Plus enemy scaling#hm-two-bosses-riposte-sooner-in-journey-2-and). (in the article)
• Add-ons are checked by flags. The lobby tests IapData flags: the Arcade button needs the Arcade add-on, a maze-only challenge boss needs the maze add-on, and some Arcade stages need the maze or Tides content (the game says "Add-on content Deep into the Dark Mist is required"). (in the article)
• A mode can borrow your save or ignore it. The Obsession Challenge (custom) copies the hero from your save but writes its results to its own record; Arcade uses level 30 presets and never touches your trophies; the maze uses a separate hero list. (full entry)
• Journeys are a story-only loop. The endless counter only advances when you accept a New Journey in the story (Arcade's own restart also adds 1 but uses the journey 1 column). (in the article)

New Game Plus#

• The journey number is capped in the data, not in the save. The save keeps counting journeys without any limit (the "is loop max" check always returns false), but every table read uses min(journey, 4). Journey 7 plays like journey 4. (in the article)
• Legendary Courier has a loophole. Legendary Courier needs "journey 4 or more without using the Egg of the Bearer". (full entry)
• Level is not your level. Enemies come in at the level in the table, however strong your carried-over hero is. In journey 2 an enemy in Heggem is level 25 to 30 whether you are level 5 or level 70. (full entry)
• Flags decide what is "new". Quest 99999 ("journey 2 or later") is a NotReset flag completed at the start of a restart. Content that appears or disappears in later journeys is gated on it, not on the journey counter. (full entry)
• Loot does not need you to wait for journey 4. Region progress already raises trophy levels in the first journey (+0 to +2); the journeys then push the same drop to +3. (in the article)
• Killing bosses again. Boss-defeat quests are not NotReset, so they clear on restart: the Carriage plant shop rows that depended on them lock again until you kill the bosses once more (Carriage supplies). (in the article)

New Game Plus enemy scaling#

• There is no enemy multiplier, only a level column. Everything scales through the level, so enemy defence and resistances rise with it as well as HP and attack. (full entry)
• Trap damage by Dark Mist floor, not by journey. In the Dark Mist maze (Deep into the Dark Mist) traps and tricks use the journey columns but pick the column from the maze level (the floor's base level plus any mushroom offering, not the floor number inside an area): maze levels 1 to 7 use column 1, 8 to 14 column 2, 15 to 21 column 3, and 22 and above column 4. (full entry)
• Two bosses riposte sooner in journey 2 and later. The game suppresses the counter-attack of Rosen Cavalier Patrick (while in his defence stance) and the Usurper (special stance) until the boss has blocked 1 (Patrick) or 2 (Usurper) of your hits. (full entry; also in New Game Plus)
• Maze, Obsession Challenge and Dance of the Throne ignore the journey. Arcade forces the data column to journey 1 and uses its own monster property table; the maze uses the maze level (Maze rewards#Enemy scaling); challenge bosses use their challenge level (Obsession Challenge#Boss level and difficulty). (full entry; also in Game modes, New Game Plus)
• Levels never adapt to you. The only places where your hero's level feeds into an enemy's level are the Dark Mist side areas described above. Everywhere else the number is fixed in the table. (in the article)

New Game Plus loot and shops#

• A "nothing" row is part of the roll. In the common drop tables the odds of getting nothing really are 24 to 25% on average and are never zero, and they shrink in the late journeys of tables that carry the Blackwater items (Exilium 30006 goes from 30 to 1). (in the article)
• The save decides. The tables are swapped whenever a journey starts or a save is loaded (SetLoop), so loading any save applies that save's journey. Journey 5 and above are the same as journey 4, including prices. (in the article)
• Big Bone takes over from journey 2. The guaranteed beast tables 10015 (Heggem and Adamina) pay 8-10 or 10-12 Bone Fragments in journey 1 but only 3-4, 5 and 5-6 Big Bone in journeys 2 to 4 (4 in Adamina's journey 2), and one of the two rows of table 10014 swaps to Big Bone too. (in the article)
• Prices rise, but the safe house does not. Safe-house and Viola prices do not scale; chapter stalls and the Carriage do. (in the article)
• Instant-kill damage never scales. Three tricks stay at 99,999 damage in every journey (see New Game Plus enemy scaling#Environmental damage). (in the article)

Arcade mode#

• Elena's talents differ between the two ways to play. Stage select hands her all 31 talents of rows 1 to 3 at maximum (everything except the seven achievement talents), so she is far stronger there than in a full run, where the code gives her no preset talents at all (AddTalentToMaxWithOutSan is called only from ArcadeStageSelect). (in the article)
• Only Elena's full clear counts for unlocks. Expert and stage select check hero 10007 specifically. (in the article; also in Dance of the Throne)
• Expert is easier to S than Normal on all seven chapter stages (S thresholds are lower), although its enemies are 5 levels higher. (in the article)
• Elena's stamina-cost talents do nothing. Fleeting, Eternal War and Demiurge's Wish (17403 to 17405) are type 103 with the condition string "1". (full entry)
• The Health and Stamina talents have misleading labels. Path of Suffering is described as a greater Health bonus than Shadow Moon, yet both are +30%. (full entry)
• The combo-stamina talent only works after the third consecutive attack (TalentComboAttackNum is 3), like Jerold's. (in the article)
• Score cap and the damage cap are anti-cheat. A stage score of 32,000 or more, or a physical damage stat above 242, is silently not recorded. This also means heavily damage-boosted hero builds are not possible anyway, since the hero is a fixed preset. (in the article)
• Rank multiplier counts monster deaths, not points. Killing the many weak enemies matters for x1.2 as much as killing a boss, and respawning enemies are excluded so they cannot be farmed. (in the article)
• Casual is a damage cut, not an enemy cut. Enemies are the same as on Normal; the hero's bonuses are in Difficulty#Casual in detail. (in the article)
• Sanity barely matters. Outside boss fights sanity gains and losses are ignored (Sanity in special areas#Arcade mode). (in the article)
• Altars in the mode. The altar text for the mode says resting restores health and Health Potions "or obtains new Talents". Only the Nightmare kills were found to grant talents in code. (in the article)

Dance of the Throne#

• Name mismatch. Players and the menu say "Dance of the Throne"; the code, data tables and debug flags say "Arcade". (full entry)
• Two Elenas share one Chinese name. The playable hero (10007) and the duelling nun boss of Blessedland (20039) both carry the internal name 伊琳娜 (Elena). In Arcade mode the nun appears as a Nightmare opponent that gives Elena her Finale talent. (in the article)
• Elena's stamina-cost talents from this add-on have no effect because of a condition quirk, see Arcade mode#hm-elena-s-stamina-cost-talents-do-nothing-fleeting. The code settles it. (in the article)

Obsession Challenge#

• The sub-mode names are swapped between code and menu. In code "Normal" is the mode with your own save and "Custom" is the preset mode, the opposite of what you might guess. The achievement texts use the menu names. (in the article)
• Colossus difficulty is boss level 89. Levels 20, 40 and 60 for the lower tiers; the jump to 89 plus the weakness bonuses and large HP additions makes level 4 far harder than level 3 for most bosses. (in the article)
• Phase 1 is almost untouched. For bosses with two phases (Ascetic, Holy Father, Jenny, Fused Sprenger, Edith, Usurper, Handel), the HP, resistance and damage bonuses sit on the phase 2 row. (full entry)
• Standard Mode bosses lose HP. At level 5 many bosses have negative HP bonuses (Terror Obsession -1,200, Guderian -2,500, Treasure Thieves -4,000, Handel's phase 2 -4,400, Edith's phase 2 -5,000), and a level-15 base. (full entry; also in Tides of Oblivion)
• The Treasure Thieves get weaker as you raise the level. Their HP bonus is 0 / -1,000 / -2,000 / -4,500 at levels 1 to 4 (while their resistance rises 40 / 60 / 80 / 100). This looks like a tuning quirk of the data. (in the article)
• Time limit is score-only. There is no fail timer in the code searched; it only sets the slope of the score line. (in the article)
• Teresa's special cases. She is the longest fight (960 s limit), is the only boss whose row uses story id 8 and boss id 8001 (the main-story fight), and in Standard Mode you are handed 10 Throwing Knives. (in the article)
• Jerold needs the Tides DLC flag even though the button exists for everyone: clicking Jerold's portrait does nothing when IapData.GetEnterTide() is false, and the portrait is greyed. (full entry)
• Fights use the challenge StoryId/Area. The Patrick, Frollo and Elena challenge fights run in story 699 areas 1, 2 and 3, not in their chapter maps. (in the article)

Tides of Oblivion#

• Where the game checks the Tide flag (IapData.GetEnterTide): the map destination list, the dialogue filter (DLCShow), the lobby logo (only when the DLC_Elena constant is false, which it is not in this build, see Dance of the Throne#How the game gates it), Obsession Challenge's Jerold button, Arcade stages 2002 to 2004, and the Dark Mist maze hero check. (full entry)
• One quest flag unlocks all three bosses. Quest 91209 is completed by Handel's death, and Guderian and the Treasure Thieves reuse it as their challenge unlock, so you can fight them in Obsession Challenge as soon as Handel falls even if you skipped them in the story (inferred from the shared flag). (in the article)
• Names with no English entry. Several expansion enemies appear in the data only with Chinese internal names, so they cannot be named reliably here; see Enemies. (in the article)
• Expansion naming. "Tide" is the code name; "dlcstory1" is the store id; the English title is confirmed from the text sections. Nothing in the files uses a different English name. (in the article)

Achievements#

• Two layers of tracking. Each save keeps counters (achievementList) and an "already counted" id list per counter (achievementStatisticsList). (full entry)
• Counters survive new journeys. Starting a new journey (FS_SaveStory:Restart) does not clear the counters or the "already counted" lists. Everything with a Max above 1 keeps accumulating across journeys of the same save. (full entry; also in Collectibles)
• The achievement screen does not show progress. The progress text of every row is hard-set to "1"; the counters are never read by the screen. (in the article)
• Difficulty gate. RecordAchievement discards the event when the achievement's leastUnlockDiff is higher than the current difficulty. Difficulty ids are Casual 1, Normal 2, Expert 3, and SetDifficulty clamps anything above Normal down to Normal. (full entry)
• Mode gate. In the Obsession Challenge (time-challenge mode) RecordAchievement always returns without doing anything, so no story achievement can be earned there. In Arcade mode it only accepts ids from 60000 to 70000. (full entry)
• Platinum rule. Pascal's Wager (12014) needs 42 finished achievements with id below 20000, which is every other achievement in the first tab. It is awarded by two redundant checks (per-save counter and global count). (full entry)
• Strong Obsession staging. "Defeat a Strong Obsession" and "Kill all Strong Obsessions" refer to final bosses whose grade was raised by Lunatic. When a final boss (not a maze boss) dies, the game checks grade > grade threshold. (full entry)
• Challenge is checked at the end. Challenge (12013) is evaluated only at the end of a run: Terrence's level must still be 1. Gaining a level then losing it by any means is irrelevant; the check is a plain level test at that moment. (in the article)
• Legendary Courier. At the end of a run the game requires journey number at least 4 (BattleData.GameLoopMax) and that the Egg of the Bearer (item 10018) was not used in that journey. (full entry)
• Ingenuity and Great Master. The two +5 trophy achievements are staged: each time a trophy reaches the maximum strength level (internal level 6) the game first tries to bump Great Master if Ingenuity is already complete, then adds one to Ingenuity. (full entry)
• Alchemist needs 17 of 18. The data lists 18 formula quests (Q12014 and Q22405 to Q22421) but the counter stops at 17, so one formula can be skipped. (in the article; also in Collectibles)
• Crafting counters count batch size. Druggist, Merchant in the War and Blacksmith add the quantity you craft in one confirmation, not one per craft. (full entry)
• Beginner and Grandmaster use the word "Immundus" for talent stones. Beginner triggers the first time any talent is raised. Grandmaster adds the number of Immundus Diamonds (item 50004) consumed. (in the article)
• Obsession Challenge naming. The constants behind 50002 and 50003 are called "killAllBossInCustomMode" and "killAllBossInNormalModeVeryHard". (full entry)
• Dance of the Throne checks. Return to Sender needs 10 parried projectiles inside a 10 second window (it compares each new parry to the one made 9 parries earlier). (full entry)
• Casual players. On Casual you can still earn everything that is not flagged above, including the base-game collection counters (Siflers, documents, Heggies), the crafting counters and the Ichthyosauria Sifler and Heggie ones. (full entry)

Collectibles#

• Heggie progress is not permanent. The satisfaction value is stored in a temporary table that the game rebuilds when the area is refreshed (the same routine that respawns monsters and restores health), so partial progress is lost when the area resets (inferred from the routine that clears the table). (full entry)
• The three offers are fixed per Heggie. The order of rewards (+1, 0, -1) is stored in the data, not randomized, so a Heggie always asks for the same thing. (in the article)
• Anthozoan Bones counts every acquisition. Illusion (1000) adds the quantity each time the item is put into the bag, from any source, and spending bones on Heggies or other uses does not reduce it. (full entry)
• The bottles. The Dazzling Melos Bottle (trophy 60075) is handed out by quest 55069 and the Imperishable Melos Bottle (trophy 60080) by quest 55087, both in chapter 5. (full entry)
• Lost Valleys are chapter-bound. The five valleys are stories 101 to 105, entered from chapters 1 to 5. The achievement stores the valley id, so each one counts only once. (in the article)
• DLC counters are difficulty gated. Pieces of Old Days (28 Ichthyosauria documents) is flagged for Normal difficulty and is dropped on Casual. Trading Without Borders (4 Siflers) and Dominator's Revelry (5 Heggies) are not. (in the article)

Skins#

• Model id arithmetic. A hero's outfit is a different model whose id is built from the base hero: 10000 + base index + skin index x 1000. Terrence's outfit is 11001, Viola's 11002, Benita's 11003 and Elena's 11007. (full entry)
• Where the outfit really appears. UpdateSkin is only run in the story battle type, so the outfit is a model swap during the story. (full entry)
• Enemy Elena has her own look swap. In Arcade mode the code turns enemy model 20039 (Elena as a boss, stage 1006) into model 21039 whenever the player's Elena is wearing the default outfit. When the player wears Enigma, the enemy stays 20039. (full entry)
• Flag always on in this build. In this Lua build the add-on records are created with valid = true, and the only assignments to valid anywhere in the SDK helper set it to true as well. (full entry)
• No unlock path for Norwood and Jerold. Both have only their default look: GetSkinMax is 0 for them, so the outfit button never appears. (in the article)

Die or Become the Sendril#

• Both options award the same flags. Each sets 65068 (log step done) and 95061 (Witness and War and Destiny), so neither choice is "wrong" for the achievements. (in the article)
• The sword pickup triggers an ambush that disappears from the log; the line text only says "he is not the only one who wants the sword". (in the article)
• Two sets of sword ids. The quest actions delete the trophies 60076 and 60077 (flags 65079 and 65080). (full entry)
• The Divine Sword trophy's description says every Proxy appoints the Blessedland's best blacksmith to care for it, and that the last one, Israel, vanished fifteen years ago. (in the article)

Find Andrew#

• The reward is given by the hand-in flag 45044, which gives the item with ItemToBag. Her closing line (dialog 41109, "another long wait", she is still waiting for her elder sons) completes 45044 and the Witness flag 95041 together. (in the article)
• You must have read the stele first: the "Yes, I have" option is only shown when flag 45043 is set. (in the article)
• None of the flags in this line is a boss-kill flag, so, unlike the Adamina and Katib lines, nothing in the quest data removes the woman when a boss falls (her spawn entry was not checked). (in the article)

Headless Knight#

• The duel is optional. The boss is not placed in the world until you hand in the head, and the line never forces you to fight someone else first. Skipping the line means you never meet him. (in the article)
• Resting after the ring swaps the figure. Once the ring is handed in (flag 35009), the next altar rest in Exilium sets 34001 (StorySave ids 7-9, altars 1-3). That destroys the thank-you spot 3072 and shows the head spot 3061 (same model). (full entry)
• Two achievements. Defeating him raises Witness and War and Destiny (the latter needs Patrick, Vincent and Eleanor, see Side Quests#Witness: "Finish all the Tales"). (full entry)
• The dialog chain also marks some options as "read" so they grey out after a first listen. (in the article)

Hunger#

• You must have both buds. The second feeding is only offered after both pickup flags (72008 and 72031) and the first feeding flag (75028) are set; one bud alone cannot finish the line. (full entry)
• The rest trigger is a separate step. Reaching the five altars with the line finished and resting at one sets 74001; skipping altars means the cocoon stays. (in the article)
• New Game Plus: the buds are GamePlusRemove key items; every flag resets on a new journey (New Game Plus#What carries over and what is removed). (in the article)

Mother and Daughter#

• Two ways to finish. The Reunion step completes when flag 25074 is set. Either the labour scene (dialog 21202) or the girl's gift scene (dialog 21178) sets it, so you can finish the line without watching the labour. (full entry)
• The labour scene is only offered after the girl has the puppet (flag 25028) and before the Holy Father dies (flag 21006) or the birth has played (flag 23009). It is not saved on quit (ExitGameNotSave = 1), so reloading from the main menu replays it. (in the article)
• The bedside girl is hidden when the Holy Father dies. Monster 2055 is hidden by flag 21006 (or by the labour scene, flag 23009). (full entry)
• The girl's gift needs an altar rest. Her post-boss NPC (monster 2048, row 85 of StoryMonster) is shown only when the Holy Father is dead (21006) and flag 24001 is set. (full entry)
• 1 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Mother and Daughter.

Old Man and the Candle#

• Two reward events. The elixirs (flag 45071) are given with the first hand-in; the recipe (flag 45076) with the Will. The Witness / War and Destiny flag (95042) is set with the first one, so you do not need the Will for the achievements. (in the article)
• Leaving has no cost. "Leave" simply ends the talk; you can come back with the candle later. (in the article)
• The Will needs the candle first. The Will option requires both the Will pickup (62085) and the earlier hand-in (45045), and is hidden once given (45075). (in the article)
• The Will has to be found first. Item 10053 is placed in the Blessedland (pickup 6085) and is shown once flag 65084 is set, which happens when Eleanor's death scene is over on either sword path (see Die or Become the Sendril#The choice). (full entry)
• 1 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Old Man and the Candle.

River of Memories#

• The dam is a timeline, not a quest completion. Flag 93008 has quest type "timeline" (17): the parts are consumed and the flag set only when the cutscene finishes. (in the article)
• The log header has sort order 0, so River of Memories is the first entry in the Branch tab even though it is the newest line. It is also the only side quest without a Witness flag. (in the article)
• The Wall of Silence choice has no failure. Refusing, accepting or ignoring Bravo does not close any other content. (in the article)
• The DLC chapter needs the DLC story flag set; the main log marks it with DLCQuest = 1. (in the article)

Side Quests#

• Everything is a flag. The game has 3,272 quest flags (table StoryQuest). Only 36 of them matter for the side quests; the rest are boss kills, doors, cutscenes and dialog states. (full entry)
• Quit-saves forget some flags. Each flag has ExitGameNotSave. When you save and quit (not at a bonfire), only flags with the value 0 are written to disk. (full entry)
• New Game Plus wipes the slate. Starting a new journey clears every quest flag except those with NotReset = 1. None of the flags used by the twelve side quests has NotReset, so every line can be done again. (full entry)
• Achievement counting is per flag. Witness counts each flag at most once, so a line that can be finished in two ways (see Mother and Daughter) still adds only one. (in the article)
• 4 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Side Quests.

The Pain of Newborn#

• The hand-over buttons are conditional. They only appear once a hidden "check item" flag is true (quest type 16): flag 22601 needs 5 Adamina Herbs in the bag, flag 22602 needs 1 Active Sendril. (full entry; also in Herbalist of Adamina)
• She disappears when the Holy Father dies. Her monster entry is hidden by flag 21006, so finish the line before that boss. (in the article)
• Active Sendril is a normal drop from Marred enemies (see Materials); if you already carry one before she asks, the hand-in option is available as soon as the second request opens (flag 22602 only checks the bag). (in the article)

The Secret of the Four Holy Pillars#

• Showing the sword does not consume it. The hand-in step only sets flags (65037 and the Witness flag 95062), so you keep the Basilisk afterwards and can still use it on Die or Become the Sendril. (in the article)
• The extra questions unlock in order. "Tell me all the things you know" must be read first (flag 65036); "What hell happened fifteen years ago?" and "Proxy didn't show up?" appear after it, and "Leave" is offered once both of those are read. (in the article)
• The trophy is valued more highly than Tristram's Mercy (crit-damage property 66 against 54), so decide before you spend it; the trade-off is laid out in Die or Become the Sendril#The choice. (in the article)

The Tear of Heggem#

• The egg model (monster id 1020, model "egg") is hidden by flag 15009, so it disappears once the cutscene has played. (in the article)
• No script deletes the Tearstone, so it simply stays in the bag as a key item afterwards (inferred: the data has no delete-item action on this line). (in the article)
• The line starts as soon as you hear the egg's first remark (flag 15023), not when you pick the stone up; the stone's location is open from the start. (in the article)
• All flags here are saved on quit. (in the article)

The Wandering Courier#

• Missable. The flag 53010 ("boss intro cutscene finished") is commented by the developers as "not rolled back, used to delete the hourglass and the NPC". (full entry)
• The hand-in scene exists in several copies in the dialog table (dialogs 51140, 51274 and 51294, one per Drake position as he follows you toward the Tower), each setting 55007 and the Witness flag 95051, so it does not matter where you meet him. (full entry)
• The Sand Glass is flagged for removal in New Game Plus like every key item (New Game Plus#What carries over and what is removed). (in the article)

The Woman Looking for Her Child#

• You can pick up the coat before accepting. Picking it up sets flags 12001 and 12018, but the "Hand over" option needs both 12001 and the acceptance flag 15006, so you cannot turn it in until you have said yes. (in the article)
• Declining sets flag 15096. Accepting sets both 15006 (quest started) and 15096, so 15096 effectively means "was asked". It only controls which of her two repeating lines she says; there is no penalty for saying no. (in the article)
• The coat is consumed. The completion flag 15007 deletes one copy of item 10001 from the bag. (in the article)
• Monologue triggers. Two ambient lines ("Those seem to be the John brothers... they're Marred now") only fire after you have accepted, so they act as a clue for the later reveal. (in the article)
• 3 more in the Hidden mechanics section of The Woman Looking for Her Child.

Blessedland NPCs#

• The same NPC has a second "continue?" dialog that is shown only when flag 99999 is complete. Nothing in the dialog tables ever sets it, so it appears to be unused (inferred). (in the article)
• The blind man's topics set the flags 65035-65037 and 65021, which feed the "Find Proxy" quest. (in the article)

Frollo (character)#

• Frollo's four spots are chained by their show and hide flags (the talking ones): 4037 hides on 45007; 4084 shows on 45007 and hides on 45013; 4087 shows on 45026 and hides on 45024; 4089 shows on 45024 and hides on 43007. (full entry)
• Between meetings 2 and 3 the chapter also holds a Frollo-model spot without dialog (monster 4040, shown by 45018 together with log message 10407). (full entry)
• His last meeting ends by starting timeline 2 (action type 25), the cutscene of the ritual, rather than a normal dialog. (in the article)
• Elena (hero 20039) also has seven NPC spots in the same chapter, tied to the same flags, so the two characters' storylines are interleaved. (in the article)
• 1 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Frollo (character).

Glenn#

• The chapter 6 prompt appears only after the Higgins gate has been answered with Yes, because its show flag 63002 is the flag that the gate sets. So Glenn is not available until the point of no return has been crossed (see Blessedland NPCs). (in the article)
• In chapter 9 the first talk sets flag 95101; after that he only repeats two idle lines (dialogs 91009, 91010) about the storm and the pale guy the party should look for, until flag 95103 hides the spot (9003). The second spot (9029) is shown by flag 95137. (in the article)
• The chapter 6 spot (6116) is hidden again by the chapter 7 flag 75034. (in the article)

Gravedigger#

• The attribute reset is a quest action (action type 34, "reset attributes") that follows the removal of the wine and an animation (quest actions 55046 and 55047). (full entry)
• The upgrade check works the same way: quests 52602 and later check for 1 Condensation Honey plus the Anthozoan Bones, so there is no way to underpay. (in the article)

Heggies#

• A failed Heggie comes back. When the mood reaches 1 the code marks the Heggie as dead, not as finished. Dead monsters are cleared when you rest or die and the area is refreshed, and the mood table is reset at the same time. (full entry)
• One DLC Heggie waits for the dam. Heggie 9132 (the Sifler Stone one) is shown only after the dam opens (flag 93008, hidden again once satisfied by 95199), so the Ichthyosauria set of five cannot be finished before River of Memories is done. (in the article)
• The mood resets when you rest or die, so you cannot spread a Heggie over several lives; you start again at its starting mood. (in the article)
• Costs rise with the chapter, roughly. The largest Bone Fragment price per chapter is 5, 5, 10, 20, 15, 30, 30 and 40 (chapter 9), so chapter 4 is a small bump above chapter 5. (in the article)
• 2 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Heggies.

Herbalist of Adamina#

• The reward is not a healing item. An Elixir of Hallucination drains Sanity at once (item text: lose Sanity immediately); see Sanity and Lunatic state. (in the article)
• Quest 95022 completing at the end counts as a Tale for the Witness achievement (Side Quests#Witness: "Finish all the Tales"). (in the article)
• The topic flags 90018 and 90019 (read marks) are set when you hand over each item. (in the article)

Ichthyosauria NPCs#

• The game gives no warning before the Gold Digger's fourth portion, which makes him disappear; taking only three keeps him alive for the Essence at the end. (in the article)
• The questions you ask the Waterside man and the Scavenger-warning topics set "read" flags (90072-90080), which only track which topics were seen. (in the article)
• Bravo's last scene (91236-91240) appears only when the river flag 93008 is set. (in the article)
• The chapter has four Sea Tooth Bone sources: the dying watcher (95219), Bravo (95220) and one pickup that sits at the same spot before the dam (9119) or, if still untaken, after it (9118); the two pickups share completion flag 92218. (in the article)

Katib NPCs#

• The sunflower's "Give it Time Stones" option is hidden by flag 55070 once completed, so you can only trade once. It requires flags 55023 and 55021, which are set by the tips he gives about the Marcions, so you must listen to the trap topic first. (in the article)
• The Marcion Puzzle Ball is given as a trophy, so it can be equipped in a trophy slot (see Trophies). (in the article)

Little Girl of Adamina#

• The girl has two dialog families: if you reach her before the mother quest line is complete she asks for help; afterwards she says goodbye. Which one is visible is decided only by hidden quest flags, so you can walk past her and talk to her later. (in the article)
• Both her final dialog and her mother's labour scene award the same Tale flag (95021), so either route finishes the Tale (it counts once). (in the article)
• A later conversation (dialog 21126) has the girl admit that the Holy Father promised her she would see her mother again if she brought strangers to Adamina. The story notes call the position-triggered movie 1004 of this chapter "the girl's betrayal". (in the article)

NPCs#

• Flags decide everything. Each NPC spot has a dialog entry, a show flag and a hide flag. A spot appears when its show quest is complete and its hide quest is not. (full entry)
• Gold text (a color tag, DBBA7F) marks options that mostly start, hand in or advance a quest (an observed pattern, not stated in the code). (in the article)
• Read flags. Each topic option sets a "read" quest id (the 900xx range), which the game uses to remember which topics you have asked about. (in the article)
• Quest actions. A dialog line completes quests; a quest can give items (action 2), take items (18), show a quest-log message (19), play a movie (7), play a timeline (25), destroy a monster (5), go to a stage (24) or record an achievement (30; flag system: Side Quests#Hidden mechanics). (full entry)
• 3 more in the Hidden mechanics section of NPCs.

Old Woman of Heggem#

• Her dialog is driven entirely by quest flags. When there is nothing new to say she repeats a single lament about her lost son, and that line stops showing once the coat is handed over (hide flag 15007). (in the article)
• The topics set "read" flags (90001-90007), which are used to track which topics you have already seen; they do not give rewards. (in the article)
• Chapter 1 has a second Tale (95012), so chapter 1 supplies two of the 11 Tales needed for the Witness achievement. The second one is The Tear of Heggem. (in the article)

Rosen Cavalier Patrick (character)#

• The first dialog menu has a third option, "Don't be misled by those distractions. Let's go to the Chapel first." It ends the talk without setting the topic-read flags (90023, 90024), so it is the only way to skip his story entirely. (in the article)
• The gold-colored "why did she do this" option only appears after you asked "why are you nailed here" (flag 35012 is needed). (in the article)
• Patrick has four separate quest-driven spots in chapter 3, in this order: 3060 (hidden by 35009), 3072 (shown by 33005, hidden by 34001), 3061 (shown by 34001, hidden by 33006) and 3073 (shown by 33006, hidden by 35021). (full entry)

Teresa#

• The boss form's English name in the text tables is "The First Messenger", not Teresa; her real name only appears in dialog and subtitles. (in the article)
• Teresa's Parchment (item 71024) is placed in chapter 5 (table StoryItem row 267). Its item description is empty because the text is document 30508 in the document list (Documents#Katib (18 documents)). (in the article)

Vincent and Eleanor#

• The two sword options are gated by quest flags 62301 and 62302, which are set when you pick the matching sword up (62302 is also set by assembling the Basilisk, The Secret of the Four Holy Pillars), so an option for a sword you do not have is hidden. (in the article; also in Die or Become the Sendril, The Secret of the Four Holy Pillars)
• A separate NPC with the same model near the same area is a cultist, see Blessedland NPCs. (in the article)

Church of the Blessedland#

• Witch's Notes are contraband. Witch's Notes, written in the Blessedland's language, are common there but strictly forbidden elsewhere by the Church (ItemData 10003), which is why finding one in Heggem is a clue. (in the article)
• The Hound Amulet is a Church military item. It was a noble hunting charm, but the Church's expansion pushed it into military use (ItemData 20031). (in the article)
• Spectre Mushrooms were a Church tool. The Church used them to attract Marred and clear land around the Blessedland (ItemData 40031), the same mushrooms players offer in the Mist Camp (Deep into the Dark Mist#Raising the danger: the mushroom offering; lore in The Dark Mist and Sendrils). (in the article)
• Church keys leave with the Journey. The Elevator, Chapel, Tower, Trinity Hall, Revival Altar and Confessional keys all have GamePlusRemove = 1 and are deleted by the restart (New Game Plus#What carries over and what is removed; ItemData 10028, 72100-72104, 72106; structdata/fs_itemlist.lua:137-148). (in the article)

Colossi#

• The "light of a Colossus" is a literal item tier. Four Immundus grades (Chipped Immundus, Immundus, Immundus Crystal, Immundus Diamond) are described as crystals that grow in a host after the Sendrils consume its energy, so the crystals you spend on talents are, in the fiction, by-products of Sendril feeding on a host (ItemData 50001-50004; StoryGuide 2004). (full entry)
• Sea Tooth Bone unlocks Jerold's hidden talents. The tooth fragment of Ichthyosauria, said to carry the dark glow of whatever the beast swallowed, is used at the altar to activate Jerold's "most hidden" talents (ItemData 50005). (in the article)
• A five-groove door in Ichthyosauria. The Colossus, Humanity, Treasury, Sifler and Heggie Stones each carry a different rune (ItemData 10068-10072). (full entry)
• Colossi leave the map in a New Journey. All five rune stones and the Scarlet Meteor fragments are flagged to be removed from the inventory when a new Journey starts (New Game Plus#What carries over and what is removed; ItemData 10007, 10068-10072: GamePlusRemove = 1; structdata/fs_itemlist.lua:137-148). (in the article)
• 1 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Colossi.

Couriers#

• The Egg of the Bearer is a damage-halving crutch. While the Egg (ItemData 10018, the item id the code calls NoobItem) is in the bag, damage dealt to the host character is multiplied by 0.5, including damage-over-time ticks (gamedata/playerdefine/animalbase_value_define.lua:28; logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:2010-2012, 2022-2024; logic/status/status104.lua:20-21, 45-46; structdata/ms_itemdata.lua:112). (full entry)
• Rankings. The arcade results screen compares you with other Couriers as a percentage (GameText UI_ARCADE_RESULT_RANK_COMPARE). See Arcade mode. (in the article)

Demiurges#

• Elena's appearances. She is a boss entry in the Blessedland story (StoryMonster 6045, the second duel, and 6077, the first duel), again in the Arcade add-on's copy of that stage (StoryMonster 100610060135, story 1006), and a playable hero in that add-on, with an outfit called Enigma. (full entry)
• Frollo's key and the gate. The route to the Blessedland from Edith depends on a Gate key the Demiurges made in secret; you hand it to Frollo to open the Sealed Gate (ItemData 10042; quest 45063 takes it from your bag). (full entry)

Factions#

• Faction flavor is tied to drops, not only dialog. Most faction detail is spread across material and trophy item texts. (full entry)
• The Church's own research notes are collectibles. The Experiment, Interrogation, Meeting Minutes and Secret Record documents (UIQuest 30513-30518, 30612-30619) are the clearest view of the Church's decisions. (full entry)
• Faction items vanish on a new Journey. Key items that mark faction events (Sand Glass, Gate key, Sifler Stone, Eckhart's Cane Sword and others) have GamePlusRemove = 1 and are removed when a new Journey begins (New Game Plus#What carries over and what is removed; structdata/fs_itemlist.lua:137-148; ItemData 10012, 10042, 10071, 72105). (in the article)

Lore#

• A Journey is a loop of at most four. The game's loop limit is 4 (logic/battle/battledata.lua:45), which is why the achievement "Legendary Courier" speaks of the fourth Journey (Achievement 20005). (full entry)
• Sixty story items vanish. When a new Journey starts, FS_ItemList:Restart deletes every item whose GamePlusRemove is 1: 60 of the 375 item rows, nearly all of them plot objects (Scarlet Meteor Fragments, Sword fragments, Pillar keys, the Seal marker, the rune stones and the Egg of the Bearer). (full entry)
• Flags gate the dialog. Every dialog row can carry ShowQuestId, HideQuestId, CompleteQuestId and RevertQuestId; rows such as the Mist Camp menu (StoryDialog 2441-2445) only exist while the lamp flags are set. (full entry)
• Few rows carry a DLC flag. DLCShow is set on only 7 of 3,117 rows (5 with value 1, 2 with value 2); the DLC chapter's 412 rows live in their own StoryId 9 instead (ES_StoryDialog). (in the article)
• 2 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Lore.

Marcions#

• The Stones combine into one item. The Past, Present and Future stones are three separate key items (ItemData 10013-10015); a ritual joins them into the Puzzle Ball, which is what actually opens the mist (UIQuest 10505). (in the article)
• Marcion items are removed on a new Journey. The three Stones and related keys have GamePlusRemove = 1; the coin and the Argil modeling clay do not (New Game Plus#What carries over and what is removed; ItemData 10013-10015, 10045, 10050; structdata/fs_itemlist.lua:137-148). (in the article)
• Katib's mist is not the Sendrils. One character states that the mist there is different from the Sendrils (StoryDialog story 5 row 1187; see The Dark Mist and Sendrils). (in the article)

Seals of Yekub#

• A Seal item exists but is not meant to be held. ItemData 90000, named "Seal of Yekub in", has no description text and is flagged for removal in a new Journey (GamePlusRemove = 1). (full entry)
• Why Sprenger's hourglass matters. Church Investigators gave important Couriers hourglasses whose sand runs when a Marcion curse is near. The Seal reverses the flow (ItemData 10012, 70035), which is why Katib's tower carries so many curses. (in the article)
• The meteor fragment is removed on a new Journey along with Sword fragments and the Seal marker (New Game Plus#What carries over and what is removed; ItemData 10007, 90000; structdata/fs_itemlist.lua:137-148). (in the article)

The Dark Mist and Sendrils#

• Spectre Mushroom offerings raise the zone's level. Four dialog options offer 25, 50, 75 or 100 Spectre Mushrooms (rows 2449-2452). (full entry)
• Zone level ranges. The four mazes use these table levels: Border 1-4, Interior 5-9, Depths 10-15, Cave 16-23 (StoryMaze, columns MazeId, Level; floor by floor in Deep into the Dark Mist#Areas, floors and levels). (full entry)
• Mist Lamps survive a new Journey. On a new Journey the item list removes every item whose GamePlusRemove is 1 (structdata/fs_itemlist.lua:137-148). (full entry)
• Sanity drops from the mist itself, not just combat. The tutorial for the Terror Obsession says your Sanity decays in the Dark Mist and only constant fighting, which builds your Obsession, keeps it up; at the Obsession threshold the Terror Obsession boss challenges you (StoryTutorial 1077). (full entry)
• 2 more in the Hidden mechanics section of The Dark Mist and Sendrils.

Documents#

• The log lists regions in campaign order, but the game selects by story id. The region tabs are sorted by a sort number (Heggem 1, Adamina 2, Exilium 3, Katib 4, Edith 5, Blessedland 6, Karst Cave 7, Ichthyosauria 9), while the game's internal story ids for Edith and Katib are the other way round (Edith = 4, Katib = 5). (full entry)
• Two documents are far from where their region suggests. The last two Ichthyosauria entries, "Treasury Master's Trial" and "Incomplete Ancient Tome", are tied to the Heggie treasury doors (the achievement Dominator's Revelry), not to the main story. (in the article)
• A duplicate item exists. "Erosion Scroll" has two item ids (71104 and 71118) placed under the same quest id; only one log entry exists, so you cannot get a second document from it. (full entry)
• One region blurb is untranslated. The header text for Ichthyosauria (log 30901) exists only in Chinese in the English game text; the other seven region blurbs are translated. (in the article)
• 1 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Documents.

Endings#

• Refuse is locked behind a side quest. There is no hint in the grave itself that a second option exists. The only requirement is the Fulgurant Melos Bottle from the Man in the Mist, which means farming 450 Anthozoan Bones and 5 Condensation Honey in Katib. (in the article)
• The check is on a quest flag, not on the item. Quest 55065 is completed when you receive bottle six. The final prompt (dialog 84102) uses it as a "show" condition, so the bottle can be gone from your bag later and the option remains. (in the article)
• Bottles nine and ten exist in the data (Cyclical and Imperishable, costing 240 and 270 bones) but do not change the ending. (in the article)
• The DLC option is hidden in the base-game dialog. Dialog 83104 is marked as DLC content and also requires flag 95175, so players without the DLC never see a third option. (in the article)
• 3 more in the Hidden mechanics section of Endings.

Timelines#

• There is no clock. The only time phrases (a few months, more than a decade) come from dialog and quest text. Ranges used above are what the text states, not data fields. (in the article)
• The campaign order is enforced by quest flags, not by maps. For example Edith's gate to the Blessedland opens with the Gate key that the Demiurges made in secret and that you hand to Frollo (item 10042, quest 45063; Demiurges#hm-frollo-s-key-and-the-gate-the-route), and this is why the ending of the Edith chapter is the beginning of the Blessedland chapter in the quest chain (10415 shows 45038 and completes 65001). (in the article)
• Region blurbs. The poetic intro for Ichthyosauria in the Documents log (30901) was left in Chinese in the English texts. Every other region blurb is translated. (in the article)

Sources#

Generated by tools/wiki_index.py from the "Hidden mechanics" sections of the articles; nothing is added here. Each article cites its own tables and code in its Sources section.