ARCANEFAMILIARS

Weaken a wild familiar and throw a BIND, RUNE or STAR CHARM. A Star Sigil bearer binds the astral ones easier, and a Dawn Sigil makes luminous familiars bind half again as easily.

Each Sanctum Warden's Sigil opens the realm a little further: HEW the brambles at Oakridge, ride the TIDE from Volta, SMASH the rock at Emberfall.

You level without limit alongside your familiars. Every level is a talent point to spend in the talent tree.

Every player walks the same world. See who is about, what they are doing, a feed of their deeds, and race them for a legend: once bound, it is gone for a day for everyone.

Rift dens on 132 lands hold colossal familiars ranked one to six stars. Take them on with allies: bring a friend in by room code and Spellbinders of the realm fill the line. Five-star dens can hold a Mythic; six-star rifts wake a Titan.

Leave two familiars at the Hearth in Volta City and come back to an egg. Raise it and see which parent it takes after, and which temperament it hatches with.

The Mythics and Titans stand on no fixed tile. Each haunts one patch of tall grass, answers about one step in twelve, and once anyone binds or beats it, it is gone from the whole realm for a day.

A mine under Oakridge that goes down stage after stage without end. Every stage is cut fresh, familiars can meet you anywhere on its floor and grow two levels a stage, a Delve Warden guards every tenth stair, and checkpoints let a run start from stage 10, 20, 30. The Delve has familiars of its own, found nowhere else: DUSTMITE and CANDLEMOLE on every stage, the rare GLOWBAT from stage 20, and on stages 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 only, the ultra rare AURUMWYRM and HEARTGOLEM. Meet them.

Behind a door in Sky Pass the Ascendants' spire climbs floor after floor, its trainers scaling for ever, the deepest floors answered by the Titans themselves.

Three contracts a week from the guild in Goldmarch: hunts, delve floors and more, set fresh every week from the calendar.

Every spell has an edge of its own, not only a name (51 of them were renamed to sound like spells): FORCE BOLT lands harder when it moves first, REPRISAL when it moves second, WARDSHATTER pierces a raised guard, ZEPHYR never misses, MIND SPIKE always strikes true, PYRE needs a turn to recover, MIST VEIL brings fog. Familiars learn them as they level, and every family line has a signature spell of its own that no other line learns, its trick set by its name. Three field spells, SEVER, TIDE and SHATTER, come from scrolls that are never used up. Any other spell can be kept as a memory orb at the Reliquary in Volta City: give up a familiar of level 100 and one of its spells lives on, a single use that grows stronger (+1, +2, up to +10, each 5% more) every time you give that spell up again. Every spell, and who learns it, is in the guide; scrolls and orbs have their own page.

Levels cap at 150, and that is where the Phoenix Sanctum in Starfall Crater begins: a familiar at the cap can be reborn, back to level 1 with points to place on the stats you choose, a bonus on every stat that grows with each level it climbs again, and a cap ten levels higher than before. Rebirth again from a higher level and the flame gives more. Each one costs more gold, and each one earns a title: REBORN, TWICEBORN, THRICEBORN, ETERNAL. The numbers are in the guide.

Every familiar is born with five hidden inborn values, 0 to 15 each, that it keeps for life and that set how far each stat can grow. The summary's INBORN page judges them the way a stat judge would: a word for each stat (WEAK to PERFECT), a grade for the whole (D to S), its best and weakest stat, and what its temperament favours. Three inborn values pass from parents to an egg at the Hearth, the BLOODLINE talent raises the floor on wild ones, four-star rifts and above are born perfect, and the Astral lands run high. Luminous familiars are 1 in 512 in the wild, 1 in 128 from an egg, 1 in 16 under Astral light. Every roll, shininess and inborn alike, is made by the game server the moment a familiar appears.

Set an auto battle in the options and every battle opens on it: FIGHT for the strongest spell each turn, WEAKEN to wear a wild familiar down to charm range. Then stand in tall grass and pick AUTO WALK: the Spellbinder paces the patch on their own, meeting and fighting what lives there, sending out the next familiar when one falls. It stops at a white-out, when your best familiar drops below the health you set, when a luminous familiar appears, or at any key. When it stops while you are looking elsewhere, the game taps you on the shoulder: a notification on the phone, a pop-up on the desktop.

Your save already follows you between the phone, the PC and the browser. So do the alerts: when a walk ends on one device, every other device signed into the same account hears about it. One you have open answers at once; one sitting closed in a pocket gets a notification. The device you were sitting at is never told twice, and turning ALERTS off in the options silences all of it.

Most lines ascend by level. Others need a MOONSTONE, SUNSTONE, TIDESTONE or STORMSTONE, and the kindred lines read the land, the hour and your bond.

A luminous familiar wears its colours turned round the wheel and glitters on the field. An umbral one is the same beast gone cold, stronger and painted in dusk violet.

The realm keeps your clock. Some familiars only show after dark, some only in rain, storm, sun or fog; the Aether Meadows can fill with snow; the Umbral Realm is always night, the Astral Realm always day.

Twelve towns, each with quarters, shops and townsfolk who know the wider realm: a Sanctuary to mend your familiars, a market, the Hearth, the Guild, and the Conclave at the top of the pass.

Eight familiars take their last form only when they pass to another Spellbinder: a MAGEBEAR becomes an ARCHWIZARD, a SHROUDLING a PHANTOMREX, a BRAWLHOUND a FISTLORD, a COBBLEDOG a MONOLITH, and KILNGOLEM, STEELHIDE, MONKEYKING and WYRMLORD ascend the same way. Trade one, by Link Trade, Surprise Trade or the Market, and it ascends the moment it arrives. No one to trade with? A WANDERER’S CORD from Goldmarch or the harbour does it alone. See all eight.

Every win trains the stat its foe is known for: beat swift familiars for SPEED, bruisers for ATTACK, one to three points a win by the foe's stage, and it keeps growing at the level cap. Up to 100 in a stat and 250 in all, each point worth a little more with every level. Tonics add 10, STILLWATER washes it all away to train again, and a familiar trained to the full wears a gold FULL mark.

One number to trade by: inborn stats, attunement, luminous, a rare trait, rebirths and orb-forged spells add up to a QUALITY from 0 to 100 and one to five stars, from COMMON to PEERLESS. It shows in the vault, the summary, every trade and every Market lot, so a fully attuned, grade-S luminous familiar is plain to see. More.

Every familiar carries one of its line’s three traits, a gift that works on its own in battle: a surge of its element when hurt, a hide that burns its attacker, a body that drinks in TIDAL spells. One in each line is rare. All about traits.

Once a battle, a familiar can SURGE: it becomes its surge element alone for the rest of the battle, shedding the weaknesses of its other element, and spells of that element hit up to twice as hard. Wardens surge their ace. A SURGE CRYSTAL, given after the first Sigil, fills again at any Sanctuary. Now and then a familiar surges into another element entirely.

Every day three lands have a swarm: one of their own familiars fills half of the wild encounters there, and luminous ones are four times as common. The world map marks them, the Portal’s EVENTS lists them, and the land tells you when you arrive.

The first familiar in your party walks one step behind you through every land, and other Spellbinders’ walk behind them. Press A in the open to see how it is getting on. Turn it off under OPTION > FOLLOWER.

Found or join a Circle of up to 20 Spellbinders, with its own chat and its tag over every member’s name. Each week the Circle shares one goal (bind, defeat, clear rifts or hatch eggs together), and every member who helped reach it claims a reward: gold, ESSENCE BLOOMS, STAR CHARMS and a RIFT SHARD.

Every town’s Sanctuary keeps a standing stone by its door. Touch it once and it remembers you; from then on START > WAYSTONES carries you to that town’s doorstep from anywhere, across the Aether Meadows and the Umbral and Astral Realms. 136 of them to find.

Every so many familiars bound earns a prize from the GRIMOIRE: STAR CHARMS, ESSENCE BLOOMS, a TRAIT PRISM, RIFT SHARDS, a STAR SIGIL and gold, at 100, 200, 300, 450, 600 and 800. At 1,000, the LUMINOUS CHARM: luminous familiars three times as often.

Put a familiar or a memory orb up at your price and it sells while you are away: the buyer pays, the lot changes hands, and your gold waits in your inbox. Sort by price, quality or newest; the Market keeps 5% and sends unsold lots home after a week. Link Trades can carry orbs and gold too, so a familiar can be bought for gold alone. How it works.

A bazaar for Spellbinders, one step from anywhere through the PORTAL. Post a listing with the BROKER: up to three familiars you offer and up to three things you want (a familiar, an element, anything luminous, or open to offers) with a short note, and it floats over your head as a bubble for the whole hall to read. Browse every listing, see at a glance who wants what you have, walk up to anyone and ask to trade. Your listing stays up between visits, and a familiar comes off it by itself once it is traded. How it works.

Open START > PORTAL to meet the rest of the realm. LINK TRADE with any Spellbinder online, familiars, memory orbs and gold: both offers show side by side, quality, grade, elements and all, and nothing changes hands until you both agree. The MARKET sells for gold even while you are away. SURPRISE TRADE sends a familiar out and brings a stranger’s back. MYSTERY GIFT holds gifts and codes from the Conclave, and EVENTS lists the festivals running now: double essence, luminous weekends, featured elites. Whatever is sent to you waits in your inbox until you collect it, and every trade runs through the server, so nothing can be copied or lost.

Host a rift and hand a friend the room code; they join from their own copy and fight beside you in a mirrored raid, then run their own loot phase.

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