The world
Yggdrasil holds the nine realms on its boughs and in its roots. Now its bark is split, and the realms have drifted apart into shards. The only ways between them are gates worn into the world's edge.
You wake in a clearing with nothing, not even a weapon. The Norn-Stone puts one in your hand. What you become after that depends on what you carry, what you make and where you dare to go.
Yggdrasil: Shattered Realms is a persistent sandbox MMO. It is built for hundreds of players in one shared world, where the server decides everything and nothing is given that a player did not make.
The market stands sell nothing of their own. What is on the stands was carried in by somebody, and what leaves is carried out the same way.
Your path
Six ideas the whole game is built on.
No classes. No levels. No stat points. Take up a sword and you fight like a swordsman; swap it for a staff and every ability changes with it. A helm, a chest piece and boots each add one more. A new character arrives with nothing in hand, and a bare hand stays a bare hand however long you have played.
No merchant sells a sword and no monster drops one. Monsters and chests give raw materials. Players fell the timber, dig the ore, refine it at the bench and forge everything anyone in the world will ever wear.
The Destiny Board is a great tree of nearly two hundred nodes. You climb it by doing: fighting with a weapon, gathering a resource, crafting an item. Fame earned that way opens higher tiers of gear and new spells to choose. Everything behind every door is still an item.
Each city keeps its own order book in silver. Post a sell offer, place a buy order and let it wait, or take what is on the stall. Prices are what players make them, and goods earned in a dangerous realm are worth more in a safe one.
Some realms are warded and nothing is lost there. Others are lawless, and what you carry in is what someone may carry out. The finest materials grow only where it is dangerous, so going deeper is a decision about reward.
A woodcutter, a smith, a hauler running goods between cities and a sellsword are all real careers. None of them requires winning a fight, and every one of them feeds the others.
From root to blade
Fell trees, mine ore, quarry stone, reap fibre and skin hides, each trade with its own tool. A worked node runs dry and grows back.
Logs become planks, ore becomes ingots, hides become leather. A tier VIII blade needs tier VIII ingots.
Forge weapons, armour, tools, capes and bags at the bench. The finest pieces carry a history of who made them and whom they have fought.
Sell on the city's order book, haul goods to a richer market, or arm a guild. The economy is the players.
The risk gradient
Every realm carries a tier from I to VIII. The tier sets what a death costs you, and what grows in the ground.
No player may harm another. A death costs you nothing.
Common materials
Open to duels. Slain by a player, you drop your bag.
Uncommon materials
Any death, beast or blade, drops your bag.
Rare materials
Full loot. Any death drops everything: bag, gear and purse.
The finest, and only here
The first shards
Each realm is a small, hand-made place, and you choose your road by running for one of its gates. These three are the first. More will follow, each opening onto three or four others.
Tier II · Warded
A timber town in a clearing of old forest, and where every journey begins. The sawmill runs off the beck, the smithy makes the axes that fell the wood, and the market stalls sell nothing of their own: what is on them was carried in by someone. South-west of the vale road lies Ulfsholt, an abandoned cutting where the wolves have made their den.
Tier V · Contested
The border country south of the town, named for its watch-cairns. Here the law thins: a duel is allowed, and a hauler who loses one loses the load on their back.
Tier VII · Lawless
A drowned fen west of Kaupholt, where the mist hides the reeds and the reeds hide everything else. Nothing is safe in the mire, and nothing you bring is yours for certain. It is also where the richest materials grow.
Combat
Fights are fast and aimed. You choose where every spell lands, and every weapon brings its own.
They hunt as a pack and take turns: one lunges while the others circle.
A winged caster in a grave-black robe. His hands burn black while he casts, and his curses mark the ground before they land.
An old forest spirit that wakes when disturbed. It drags vines through the earth across the ground it has warned you of.
He stands at the gates like a statue, his sword turning in the air around him. He keeps the peace and does not need to see to do it.
The road ahead
Yggdrasil: Shattered Realms is in active development. Much of the foundation is already standing; this is what is built, and what comes next.
Standing now
Next
Later
There is no release date yet. When the gates open, they will open here.
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