The realm · Survival
Survival: thirst, hunger, cold and the bedroll
A body in this realm needs water, food, warmth and sleep. None of them will kill you on their own, but each one left wanting makes you a poorer fighter and a slower traveller.
Thirst
From the moment you step into the realm you grow thirsty: a full belly of water lasts about three hours of play, less in the summer months and less again with drink in your blood. A line at the corner of your screen says how you stand, from Quenched and Fine to Thirsty and Parched.
- Thirsty: your stamina will not fill past seven tenths.
- Parched: your stamina stops at four tenths, and your health drains a little every minute. Thirst alone never kills: it stops at three tenths of your health.
Any drink helps. Water quenches most, milk and ale a good deal, mead and wine less, spirits hardly at all.
Fountains, troughs, wells and rivers
Water is free. Fountains, troughs and wells across the realm carry a Drink prompt: kneel and drink your fill. At any river's or pond's edge, face the water and type /well.
The waterskin
The tackle seller sells waterskins empty, and the taverns sell them full. Drink one from your bag like any drink and the empty skin comes back to you; /fill at a fountain, a trough or the river fills every empty skin you carry. /thirst tells you how you fare.
Hunger
Hunger is the game's own, and the realm shows it beside your thirst: Well fed, Fed, Hungry, Starving. Sit down to a meal at a tavern, eat from your bag, or cook what you hunt and catch at a hearth or a campfire. The radial menu's Eat & drink ring has it all.
The cold
Out of doors at night, in the winter months or in the rain, a body that wears too little grows cold, minute by minute. It takes six pieces of clothing worn to keep the night out, and eight in winter or on a rainy night; a hard winter asks more still.
- Cold: you tire; your stamina will not fill past six tenths.
- Freezing: the cold hurts, a little every minute, though it never kills on its own. Those around you see you shiver, lips blue.
Warmth comes back three times as fast as it went: under a roof (your own house, a tavern, the church, the infirmary, the bank or the town hall), by a fire, or in warmer clothes from the merchants. /warmth tells you how cold you are and why.
The campfire
/campfire lights a fire from two bundles of firewood (a woodcutter's, or your own work with an axe). It burns for twenty minutes, warms everyone within five metres, and cooks like a kitchen hearth: /craft beside it.
The bedroll
A bed to carry, from the tackle seller for 45 groschen. /bedroll lays it out on the ground in front of you as a low bed, and the game's own sleep works on it like any bed: hold the use key, choose to sleep, and rest. Anyone may lie on it, but only you can pack it up. It packs itself when you walk well away from it, leave the realm, no longer carry it, or after three hours, and no two bedrolls lie side by side.
The guide's page on cold and fire has the short version.