🌱 ENDALOR Beginner's Guide — Your First Steps in the Dark Lands

Character Creation in ENDALOR

When you launch a new game in ENDALOR, you begin at the character creation screen. You can customize your character's appearance including hair color, facial features, and beard style — purely cosmetic choices that have no impact on gameplay or stats. Take your time here, as your character will represent you throughout your journey in the dark lands. Once satisfied, confirm your build and enter the world of Endalor.

At character creation and upon leveling up, you will be asked to allocate Skill Points across three core attributes: Health, Strength, and Dexterity. For beginners, the recommended priority is to invest first in Health for survivability, then Strength for melee damage output. Dexterity benefits ranged combat and arrow damage — valuable once you craft a bow but less critical in early gameplay when melee weapons dominate.

The Starting Area — What to Do First

You begin ENDALOR near a small starting camp containing barrels, sacks, a Trader (Lizard Man merchant), and scattered resources. Your very first action should be looting everything in this starting camp — open every barrel and sack. You will typically find: Plant Fiber, Wood pieces, Spruce Branches, Red Berries, Herbs, Water Jars, small amounts of Coins, Gem fragments (Topaz, small Diamonds), Health Potions, and occasionally basic crafting materials like Cloth.

Do not rush past the starting Trader. This Lizard Man merchant will buy resources from you at fair prices and sell essential early-game items. Sell your duplicate gems immediately — Topaz sells for approximately 40 coins, Diamonds for 70+ coins. Use this coin to buy Stone if your local gathering is slow, or save it for more expensive items as you progress.

The initial quest objective is straightforward: gather 6 Stones, 20 Wood, and enough Plant Fiber to craft your starting gear. Stone is found by mining rocks scattered throughout the landscape using your Pickaxe. Wood comes from chopping trees with your Hatchet. Both tools should be in your starting inventory.

First Crafting Priorities

Access your crafting menu by interacting with a Workbench. Your first crafting priorities as a beginner in ENDALOR are:

1. Campfire — Requires Wood. Place this immediately to cook food and stay warm. Right-click with Wood equipped to add fuel. 2. Bed — Requires Wood and Cloth/Fiber. Critical because it sets your respawn point. Dying far from your bed means spawning at the world origin point and losing carried gear. 3. Workbench — Required to unlock most intermediate crafting recipes. Build this before attempting any weapon or armor upgrades. 4. Stone Spear — Superior to your starting weapon. Requires Stone and Wood. This becomes your primary weapon for the first phase of the game. 5. Stone Basher — A melee blunt weapon effective against certain enemy types, particularly skeletal enemies. 6. Bow and Arrows — Requires Wood and Fiber for the bow, with Stone Arrowheads and Wood Shafts for arrows. Ranged combat gives you a critical advantage against enemies before they reach melee range. 7. Basic Cloth Armor — Requires Plant Fiber. Provides modest but meaningful protection in early encounters.

Always craft a Bed before venturing away from your starting camp. ENDALOR's respawn system means your Bed is your safety net — without one, death means a long run back to retrieve your lost equipment.

Basic Survival Mechanics

Survival in ENDALOR revolves around three core meters: Health, Food, and Water. Monitoring these at all times is essential for staying alive during exploration.

Health is your combat survivability bar. Restore it by consuming Health Potions (craftable at a Workbench or found as loot), eating certain foods, or resting. Red Berries restore a small amount of food and provide minor healing. Carrots give approximately 5% food restoration. Beetroot provides good sustenance in early game.

Food and Thirst drain passively over time and during physical exertion. Running, fighting, and carrying heavy loads deplete these faster. Neglecting food and thirst causes your character to suffer debuffs and eventually take damage. Prioritize gathering edible plants — Red Berries are plentiful in the starting zones and keep you fed during early exploration. For water, collect it using a Water Jar from rivers, streams, or ponds scattered throughout the world.

Stamina is your action resource and is separate from food and water. Every attack, dodge, and sprint consumes Stamina. Stamina regenerates automatically when you stop acting. The most common cause of death for beginners is exhausting your Stamina bar mid-combat, leaving you unable to dodge an incoming attack. Always manage your Stamina with discipline — keep at least one dodge's worth of Stamina in reserve at all times during combat.

First Enemies You Will Encounter

The world of Endalor is populated with diverse and dangerous enemies. As a beginner, you will most commonly encounter the following enemy types in the first region:

Skeletal Warriors — Undead humanoid enemies patrolling ruins and darker areas. They are moderately aggressive and attack with melee weapons. They drop Dark Cloth, a useful early crafting material.

Lizard Grunts — Reptilian enemies that carry spears and are capable of throwing them at range. They are fast, aggressive, and hunt in small groups. Killing Lizard Grunts yields Lizard Lungs — a critical crafting component required to build a Furnace. Hunt these early and often.

Lizard Spearmen — A more dangerous variant of Lizard Grunts with higher health and better attack patterns. Approach these cautiously and use kiting strategies.

Golems — Rock-based enemies that hurl stones at range. They are tough, tanky, and punish reckless approaches. Golems frequently guard resource-rich areas. They drop Wood, Rocks, and occasionally rare materials.

Deer — Passive animals that flee when approached. Killing them yields good XP (100 XP per kill) and animal drops. A good source of early experience points and resources.

Always engage enemies one at a time if possible. Enemy factions sometimes fight each other — exploit this by kiting hostile groups into rival faction territory and letting them weaken each other before you move in to finish the survivors.

Skill Points and Character Progression

ENDALOR uses a level-based progression system. You earn experience points (XP) by killing enemies, completing objectives, and exploring the world. Upon reaching a new level, you receive Skill Points to invest in your character's attributes.

The three attributes are Health (increases your total health pool), Strength (increases melee damage output), and Dexterity (increases ranged damage and potentially speed-related stats). For a balanced beginner build, invest two points in Health for every one point in Strength through your first five levels. Begin splitting points toward Strength once you feel sufficiently tanky to withstand regular combat encounters.

Level milestones in early ENDALOR are rapid — expect to gain several levels within your first hour of play, particularly if you actively hunt enemies and explore new areas. Keep your Skill Points allocated consistently; leaving them unspent provides no benefit.

Surviving Your First Night

ENDALOR does not have an in-game clock or a sleep mechanic that skips time. However, night-time gameplay presents significantly higher visibility challenges. The world becomes darker, enemies may behave more aggressively, and navigating unfamiliar terrain becomes more treacherous.

To survive your first night comfortably: ensure your Bed is placed and active as a respawn point, have your Campfire lit with sufficient Wood fuel, carry at least 3–5 Health Potions in your hotbar, and avoid venturing into new unexplored territory. The first night is best spent near your base, organizing your inventory, managing your crafting queue, and reviewing your next-day goals.

A Torch is an invaluable early item for night exploration. Craft one from Wood and attach it to your hotbar — it illuminates a radius around you and is essential for underground cave and dungeon exploration at any time of day.