Guides · Playing together

Hearthwar

Four teams hold four isles over the cloud sea, each round its Homefire. The old Vael forges on the isles still pour metal. Gather it, arm at your Armoury, wall in your fire, then bridge out and break theirs. While your Homefire burns, every death sends you back beside it. Once it falls, your next death is your last.

The Vael Forgeholds from above: four team isles over the cloud sea, each with its Homefire, Forgewell and Armoury, the Dawnwell isles between them and the Moonwell at the heart.

How to get in

From the title menu: under Emberhold, press Hearthwar. Its window has three tabs: Play, Ranks and Record.
Pairs sets 8 players in 4 teams of 2. Fours sets 16 in 4 teams of 4. Each button says how many are waiting.
Your character is the one you play in the Riven Lands, with your name and your look. Your bag stays at home: everyone starts a round with a Wooden Sword and nothing else.

The round

A Hearthwar round in play: the four Element flames round the clock, yours ringed in gold, the count to the gutter beneath, your iron, gold, Dawnspar and Wanestone beside them. — The Flame crown, the gutter count and your metals.

Teams. The four Elements: Water, Fire, Earth and Wind. Each has its colour and its mark (a drop, a flame, twin peaks, three gusts) on your name plate, the crown and the shields over each base.
Bots fill the seats. 30 seconds after the first player sits down, bots take every empty seat. A bot carries a hollow rune before its name. Bots gather, arm, wall in their fire and raid like anyone else; beating one gives fewer Embers, and it never counts for the ranks.
The countdown. 6 seconds, then the forges wake and the fight begins.
12 minutes at most. The last team with anyone standing wins at once. If the clock runs out, the teams still standing are ranked by points: a kill is 1, a final kill 2, a Homefire broken 4.
The Homefires gutter at 9:00. Every fire still burning goes out at once. From then on every death is final, so a round always ends.

The wells

The Vael forges never went out. Three kinds of well still pour metal onto the isles, and what they pour lies on the ground until someone walks over it. A well holds only so much; then it waits for someone to take it.

Well	Where	Gives	Every	Holds at most
Forgewell	Each team’s base	Iron	1.3 s (0.9 stoked, 0.65 white-hot)	40
Forgewell	Each team’s base	Gold	7 s (5 stoked, 3.5 white-hot)	10
Dawnwell	The four side isles	Dawnspar	30 s (20 after 5:00)	4
Moonwell	The centre	Wanestone	50 s (35 after 5:00)	2

In Fours, every Forgewell runs 30% faster: four mouths to feed.
Your own Forgewell keeps you in iron and gold. Dawnspar and Wanestone mean leaving home: the side isles and the centre are where teams meet.
Metal you carry is a prize. Die with it, and it goes to the one who killed you.

The Armoury

Each team’s Armoury is a slate counter with a Maker’s Bench on it, under the team’s banners. Within 6 blocks of it, press the Armoury button on the HUD, or use the bench. The price comes out of your bag, and armour goes straight on.

Ware	Price	Notes
Skystone ×16	4 Iron	The quick bridge.
Oak Boards ×16	4 Gold	Breaks fast to an axe.
Stone Bricks ×12	24 Iron	A wall that holds.
Obsidian ×4	4 Dawnspar	The hardest wall in a round.
Stone Sword	10 Iron
Iron Sword	7 Gold
Dawnspar Sword	4 Dawnspar
Recurve Bow	12 Gold
Arrows ×8	2 Gold
Squall	1 Wanestone	The Emberhold spell: throws a player back and up.
Iron Greaves	12 Gold	Leggings and boots. Kept through a death.
Dawnspar Greaves	6 Dawnspar	Leggings and boots. Kept through a death.
Iron Pickaxe	10 Iron	Kept through a death.
Iron Axe	10 Iron	Kept through a death.
Sunapple	3 Gold
Roast Beef ×3	3 Iron
Stoke the Forgewell	4 Dawnspar	Your Forgewell: iron every 0.9 s, gold every 5 s.
White-hot Forgewell	8 Dawnspar	After Stoke: iron every 0.65 s, gold every 3.5 s.
Hearthward	2 Wanestone	Half a heart every 2.5 s near your Homefire.

The last three serve the whole team. Stoke the Forgewell comes first, then White-hot Forgewell. Hearthward mends everyone on your team within 9 blocks of your Homefire.

Building and breaking

Four blocks go down in a round: Skystone, Oak Boards, Stone Bricks and Obsidian. Only what was put down this round breaks; the isles themselves never do. Right tool in hand, a wall comes down far faster.

Block	By hand	With the tool
Skystone	0.5 s
Oak Boards	1.6 s	0.5 s with an Iron Axe
Stone Bricks	4 s	1.1 s with an Iron Pickaxe
Obsidian	12 s	3.6 s with an Iron Pickaxe
An enemy Homefire	2.4 s

A team’s isle after its Homefire was broken: the fire dark, its banners black. — A broken Homefire.

Breaking a Homefire. Stand at an enemy fire and hold your swing for 2.4 seconds, in plain sight. Dig through the walls first. Nobody can break their own.
Walling in. Skystone is quick to lay and quick to lose. Stone Bricks and Obsidian buy time, and time is what a raid lacks.
Bridging. The void lies under every gap. Bridge to the side isles for Dawnspar, to the centre for Wanestone, and to the enemy when you are ready.

Dying

While your Homefire burns, you wake beside it after 5 seconds, with 2 seconds in which nothing can hurt you.
A death keeps your armour and tools. Everything else goes, and the metal you carried goes to your killer. Wake without a blade and you are given a Wooden Sword.
Once your Homefire is broken, your next death is final. Out, you watch the players still fighting.
After 9:00 every Homefire is out, and every death is final for everyone.

Embers and rewards

The results of a Hearthwar round: the winning team’s flame, the four teams with their players and kills, your Embers and your record. — The results.

Embers by place: 36 for the winners, then 22, 16 and 12, and more for kills, final kills and Homefires broken. A bot is worth less than a player.
Items go to your bag in the Riven Lands: 4 Iron Ingots for a round, 8 Iron Ingots and a Dawnspar for a win.
The day’s caps are shared by Emberhold, Hearthwar and Riftfall: at most 400 Embers a day across every mode, and items for your first three finished rounds. Every cap starts over at midnight UTC.
They are the same Embers Emberhold gives, spent on the same looks: see Embers in the Emberhold guide.

Ranks and your record

Your record for Hearthwar keeps wins, losses, kills, final kills, deaths, Homefires broken, your win streak and your best streak. The Hearthwar window’s Record tab shows it.
The Ranks list players by wins or by best streak, among your friends or everyone. Only players signed in to an account are ranked, and bots never are.
Seasons last 28 days, as in Emberhold. The Ranks start over each season; your record never does.

Commands

/hearthwar in chat, in a round, says which round it is, what it is doing and how many seats are taken. Outside a round it points you to the title menu.

A server’s operators can run a round by hand: /hearthwar start sends the bots to the empty seats now, end ends the round, calm holds the bots back, skip <seconds> runs the clock on, and fire <team> breaks that team’s Homefire.

The other round modes: Emberhold and Riftfall. More ways to play with others: Playing together.

Play nowBreak their fires. Free, in your browser.

Next: Riftfall. All sections: the guides.