How to play

The first five minutes

You can play without an account. As a guest you jump into Quick play with ready heroes. To keep your own hero, level up and join stories, you need a free account.

• On the home screen, press the Heroes plaque and choose New hero.
• Build your hero step by step and give them a name at the end.
• Return to the home screen and press Classic Story. The first chapter is waiting.

Creating a hero

The creator has nine steps. At each step the panel on the right explains your options and the miniature in the middle changes with your choices. Whenever you are unsure, take the suggested option.

• Class: what your hero does in battle and in the story. Fighter, Cleric or Rogue are easy first picks.
• Species: human, elf, dwarf and more. Each species brings small traits and also changes how your hero looks: skin tone, ears, horns or a tail.
• Background: your hero’s earlier life. It adds to ability scores and skills.
• Abilities: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. Use the standard array or roll for them.
• Skills, equipment and spells: you choose as many as your class allows.
• Appearance and name: choose your hero’s name, cloak colour and height. The miniature comes from your class and carries the weapon you equip. In a hurry? The Randomize everything button fills in every step for you.

Game modes

Ejderha has three modes. They all share the same rules and the same heroes. Experience and items earned in one mode come with you to the others.

• Free Story: a real, live narrator runs the table. They open scenes, call for checks and set up battles. If you want to narrate, read the Narrating guide.
• Classic Story: the Ash Crown campaign, two chapters so far. The game narrates the scenes and you decide. Play solo or with friends.
• Quick play: a single dungeon without a story, for a short evening of battle. Choose from the Seal Crypt, the Smugglers’ Cave, the Forgotten Chapel, the Castle Dungeon and the Sunken Village. Guests can play too.

The story screen

The scene text sits in the middle. Your party is on the left, your quests and the people you have met are on the right. Below the scene you find the question What do you do and your options.

Some options call for a check. Next to the option you see which skill is used and a difficulty word: easy, medium, hard or very hard. The exact number stays hidden, just like at a real table.

At a table every player votes. When everyone has voted, the majority wins. The table owner can decide on their own if needed.

• Use the keys 1 to 9 to pick an option.
• If a topic makes you uncomfortable, press the X card in the top bar. The scene moves on without any explanation needed.
• Scenes have their own sounds: the hearth crackles in the inn, a bell tolls at midnight. Turn sound off with the speaker button in the top bar. Every sound has a caption in the scene.

Dice and checks

When the outcome of something is uncertain, a twenty sided die is rolled. Your hero’s bonus for that task is added. If the total equals or beats the difficulty class, you succeed.

With advantage, two dice are rolled and the higher one counts. With disadvantage the lower one counts. The server rolls the dice, everyone sees the result at the same time and nobody can change it.

Combat

When swords are drawn, the game moves to the dungeon table. Turns alternate between the two sides and every unit acts once per round. If one side is larger, it acts several times in a row once the smaller side has used its turns. The turn strip at the top shows the upcoming moves, and the line under each portrait marks its side. On your turn your hero’s card and actions appear at the bottom.

Each turn you can move once and use one action and one bonus action. If your attack roll equals or beats the target’s Armour Class, you hit. A natural 20 is a critical hit and the damage dice are rolled twice.

A hero who drops to zero hit points falls but does not die at once. On each of their turns they make a death saving throw. A companion’s healing or a potion brings them back up.

• Tap a square on the grid to move. Blue squares show where you can go.
• After choosing an attack or a spell, tap the target.
• The End turn button or the space bar passes the turn to the next creature.
• The Quick resolve button lets bots finish the rest of the battle.

A 3D or a 2D table

Combat can be played in two views. On the 3D table the miniatures move inside a model of the room. On the 2D table the same room appears as a map drawn from above, and the tokens carry your heroes’ portraits. The rules and the dice are the same in both.

Your first battle suggests the view that suits your device. If the 3D table runs slowly, the game offers once to switch to 2D. You can change your choice at any time in the combat settings or in the table lobby.

Items and the market

Magic items come from dungeon chests, dungeon rewards and story rewards. They stay in your hero’s inventory and travel with them into every mode. The Inventory tab of the character sheet shows each item’s card, rarity, effect and history.

Some items only work once you attune to them. A hero can be attuned to at most three items, and attunement happens outside an adventure on the character sheet. Rings and cloaks must be worn, weapons and armor are equipped. Wand charges return on a long rest.

In combat, potions, scrolls and wands are in the Other menu. Drinking a potion is a bonus action, and you can give it to an adjacent ally too. Scrolls and wands do not spend spell slots. To read a scroll, the spell must be on your class list.

At the market you buy gear, healing potions and low level scrolls with gold. Items sell for half their value. In quick play a hero earns at most two magic items in twenty four hours.

• At a table, loot is dealt in turn, by a roll or by the host. The host picks this in the lobby.
• You can give an unbound item to a friend at the same table. Use the Give an item section in the table lobby.
• Items bound to a hero cannot be given, sold or dropped. Magic items from the narrator and from the story are bound.

Playing with friends

On the Tables screen open a new table or join with the six letter code you were sent. Up to six heroes sit at a table. Bots can fill empty seats. On the Friends screen you add friends, see who is online and call them to your table. If you cannot meet at the same time, sit at a play by post table: everyone writes on their turn and you get an email when it is yours.

When everyone has picked a hero and said ready, the table owner starts the game. The turn timer is set when the table is opened. When time runs out a bot plays that turn, the game waits for nobody.

If your connection drops, do not worry. When you come back you continue where you left off. Meanwhile a bot runs your hero.

Safety and respect

Everyone at the table should have fun. Before joining you can tick topics you do not want to see under Subjects the narrator leaves out. Your choice is never shown with your name. At a table of two, keep in mind the other player may guess it.

• X card: skips a scene without any explanation.
• Report: sends a player or a message to the moderators.
• Mute: the narrator can stop a player from writing if needed.

Accessibility

In the Accessibility section of the Settings plaque on the home screen you can enlarge text, turn on high contrast, switch to colour blind friendly colours and reduce motion. Your choices are saved in this browser.

Every screen works with the keyboard. In the main menu the arrow keys and a gamepad’s d pad work too.