Six slots
Your wanderer wears a weapon, shield, helmet, body armour, legs and boots. Weapons care about your Attack level; armour cares about Defence. Every slot contributes — a full set of modest gear beats two great pieces and four empty slots. Tools (your pickaxe and axe) live in their own tool slots and don't compete with combat gear for space.
The ladder: 26 tiers
Equipment comes in twenty-six tiers, one roughly every ten levels: Worn, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Gilded, Forest, Azure, Mystic, Ember, Shadow, Frost, Emerald, Sapphire, Crimson, Obsidian, Ivory, Storm, Ancient, Ashen, Void, Celestial, Bloodstone, Sunforged, Eclipse, Astral and Legendary at the top. Each tier is a genuinely different set — different silhouettes, different construction, not a recolour — so you can read another wanderer's journey off their back. Each tier's weapon and shield have their own shape and name too (a Steel Broadsword is a different weapon from an Iron blade, not just a shinier one), so climbing the ladder keeps changing what's in your hand.
Six qualities
Every piece also rolls a quality that scales its stats. Each grade is half as common as the one below it:
| Quality | Stat multiplier | Relative drop odds |
|---|---|---|
| Worn | ×0.85 | 32 |
| Standard | ×1.0 | 16 |
| Refined | ×1.18 | 8 |
| Rare | ×1.4 | 4 |
| Epic | ×1.7 | 2 |
| Relic | ×2.1 | 1 |
A Relic piece of your current tier can outfight a Standard piece of the tier above — quality is not cosmetic. Duplicates in lower qualities are exactly what the tempering bench is for.
Requirements are soft
Gear above your level isn't locked away: you can wear it early at reduced effectiveness, scaling up to full power as you reach its requirement. A lucky high-tier drop is worth equipping immediately — it grows into itself as you do.
Where gear comes from
- Loot. Monsters drop equipment for their stretch of road; tougher country drops better tiers. Mini-bosses and bosses drop the good stuff.
- Shops. Town stores stock basics and buy what you don't need.
- The forge. Mine ore from the rock fields (copper and tin early; iron, coal and silver in the hills; aethersteel, deepsteel, starforged, frost, void and celestial rock as the road runs east), smelt bars, and smith gear at any of the fifteen town blacksmiths. See the mining and smithing guides for the full production chain.
- The bench. Tempering turns three duplicate pieces into one better piece — the fourth way up the ladder.
Locking and selling
Everything you don't wear is money — sell spare drops at any store. Before you use Sell All, lock the pieces you're keeping: a locked item can't be sold (it still equips and crafts fine), and equipped gear plus your tool-slot tools are always safe. Sold something by mistake? Stores offer buy-back on recent sales.
A sensible progression rhythm
- Walk east until fights stop being comfortable.
- Check the shop and forge in the nearest town for the next tier.
- Fill your weakest slot first.
- Push east again. Repeat for four hundred levels.
Common mistakes
- Chasing tiers and ignoring quality. Three duplicate drops you were about to sell might temper into the Epic that carries you through the next region.
- Waiting to "deserve" a high drop. Soft requirements mean the best answer to a lucky drop is always to wear it now.
- Upgrading armour before the weapon. Faster kills reduce incoming damage more than most armour upgrades do.
- Selling with nothing locked. One careless Sell All can cost a set you were collecting. Lock first, sell second.
FAQ
What's the single best slot to upgrade?
Whichever is furthest behind — but on a tie, the weapon. Damage compounds.
Can I use a weapon above my Attack level?
Yes, at reduced effectiveness that scales up as you level. It's usually still an upgrade over an at-level piece a tier lower.
Do sets have bonuses?
Matching gear is mainly about each piece being current for your level. Tempered armour is identical to dropped armour of the same tier and quality.
Where do Legendary pieces come from?
The far east of the road — its monsters and bosses. Legendary is the 26th and final tier, and the road makes you earn it.
Is there an equipment stash or bank?
Your pack is it — expandable at the store. Locking plus pack expansions is the storage system.