Collect wood and coal to create torches, you can make these on your person or a workbench if you have one. You can carry torches in either hand or both giving you more light in dark places.
You can torches from either hand ( check your key binding for the keys ).

It is advisable the you surround your base with torches to prevent enemies spawning close by.
You should also plant torches when exploring underground, again to stop enemies spawning behind you. Never walk around aimlessly in the dark unless your fully kitted.

Wood can be picked up of the ground in piles of sticks or chop down trees if you have an axe.
Coal is located at the mouth of the many caves that are dotted around, You shouldn't have to delve too deep to find it.

You are free to either take over a pre-existing building or bunker or build your own from scratch, Creatures can do damage to your building and there are no defences available other than the weapons you carry.

For your first play through find a house with 2 floors preferably with a ladder to the second floor, use the second floor to plan your workstations and storage. Allays keep the inside and outside well lit and try and double skin the lower floors with see through bars. At night is when the most creatures will spawn and attack you, Keeping out of sight and doing internal base maintenance tasks is a good idea. You could also build a mine straight down from within your base and mine during the night, Again keep this well lit to stop anything spawning in.



An example of using blocks to escape out of a tunnel system.


Building a mine in your own base.

Energy and health are shown on the hud bottom left. Energy is reduced as you run or use your weapons, If your energy is too low then your run speed and swing speed are reduced.

Energy will recover at a rate depending on your health bar, The lower the health bar the slower the recovery.

Your health bar increases with food and water and decreases when attacked or naturally over time if you don't eat.

If you look at your character props you will see Vitamins,Minerals,Protein,Carbs And Liquids. Your 'Mean' health as classed as the mid point of these 5 attributes, So it it important to have a balanced diet that covers all food groups. The 'Mean' health is shown on your health bar as a small red triangle and it will either drag your health down towards it or upwards if it is off the scale. You will also hear coughing and stomach rumbling if you are hungry.

The Resurrection potion is the only potion that you can make on a camp fire, all of the others require various levels on cauldron to brew.

its a simple recipe of Lavender,Chamomile,Grass and clay. Wherever you drink the potion will be marked as your re spawn point if you die. This is indicated on the map with a house icon.

There are various workstations that you should get build and prepared once you have selected your base location.

Campfire
Kiln
Forge
Furnace
Anvil
Workbench
Cauldron

You should target getting these build in the first few days before you start trying to loot or explore too much.

Charms are gold items, hearts, starts, etc,etc that you can find mostly by looting. You probably wont use them for the first few days of playing but you should collect and store them as they become important later on particularly for your cauldron and enchanting.

Once you reach the stage of making a cauldron you cannot let its fire go out, Make sure you keep it fed with wood or coal, A fully upgraded cauldron will loose all its magic if the flame goes out.

You make a cauldron using steel with the furnace. Once you light your cauldron it will require various ingredients to make it more powerful, These ingredients are randomly selected and have varying difficulty's of finding.

Each upgrade stage will open up more potions that you can make allowing you broader access through the world and eventually ascending to the next.

At the cauldrons max stage it will allow you to convert any charms to enchantment scrolls, These scrolls can then be added to your weapons to improve various characteristics.

Demo of enchanting.

Gardening is an important aspect of the game, You should plant your crops in clay for the best / fastest growth results. You have perks available that allow you to increase the yield from your crops.
Using a knife is the harvest crops and get the best yield, Although any swing weapon will do it.
You can convert your harvested crops back into seeds and grow bigger crops if you wish.

There are nine plants that do not grow naturally or have seeds that can be looted. You have to either figure our the combinations or spend skill points on learning them. Each time you start a new map the combinations to grow these mutations change so you cannot learn them.

The combinations always follow simple methods, eg plant a carrot and surround with 2 wheat.
as the plant grows and matures it will change to the mutation allowing you to harvest, Once harvested you can then convert to seeds and plant as many as you wish.

Mutated plants are used by the cauldron to produce the more advanced potions, So its a process that you have to go through.

Remember that when you view the perk / combination there is also a button that lets you pin the recipe to the HUD rather than having to remember to constantly refer back.

You can gain significant XP from harvesting mutated plants.

Each workstation can take Runes in a variety of ways.

Fuel Slot - This reduces the amount of fuel the workstation requires.
Time Slot - This increases the speed of manufacture.
Materials - This increases the output, allowing you the chance to receive more that you requested.
Level - Items will be 50 levels higher per rune slot.

So for example you may add a Level 5 rune to the anvil and make a Hammer, this hammer will be 250 levels higher than your current level making it much more powerful.

Or you may add a level 10 rune to the Materials slot on your cauldron, Each charm you convert to a Enchantment scroll has a 50% chance to produce 2 enchantment scrolls. Very worth while.

Normally you find level 1 runes when you are looting ( wood rune ). You can upgrade / exchange these for higher level runes at an obelisk ( check the section on obelisk).

You can find an Obelisk as you explore the world, You probably want to mark this on your map as you may be visiting it allot ( you could also place a teleport nearby to make the journey quicker ).

An Obelisk allows you to exchange items for other items, Simply select what you want and then place the items you would like to offer.

Please also be aware that you can place enchanted weapons in the obelisk and get back some charms, although the trades are never in your favour.

There is a teleport network spread across the map, This allows you fast travel from place to place. You can also pickup and move a teleport and even carry them across an ascension.

Its advisable to move a teleport to your base and then use it to explore and loot other interesting places that it leads you to.

Gaining access to the teleport network is easy, you just need to find any teleport and open it.
There are potions on the cauldron that help you locate your nearest teleport as well as other potions that will aid you in your travels.

In each world there is an ascension device, This connects your world to another and allows you to travel through. It is important that you plan what items you take as well as the time of day you decide to go. Each world that you ascend to can differ significantly from the one you leave.

There is no way back once you ascend.