Elin – Ultimate Beginners Guide

General Knowledge

By ADanniMPA.

Cities

You can use things that are in cities like beds, crafting stations (as long as you bring the ingredients and have the recipe for it), and other items without having to pay or get any sort of penalty on the World Map (at least for now).

Furniture Tickets

Once you finish quests in cities, you will gain reputation and have a small chance of receiving furniture tickets. The reputation can also be traded for furniture tickets, costing 1 reputation point per ticket from the secretary. These tickets can be used to claim important furniture such as:

• Tax chest.
• Crafting station.
• Bed.
• Shrine (if the city has one).
• Generator (costs a lot of tickets).
• Blessed Well (only found in Noyel; this is an unlimited source of blessed water, which is handy early on and in the endgame).

Delivery Box

If you are having trouble carrying an item, you can pick it up, then open your inventory and middle-click the item to grab it. Then throw it onto an empty tile by right-clicking. Repeat this process until you are near a delivery box to deliver the item straight to your base, and you will get yourself a nice item.

World Map

Mapped by Rooter.

Sleeping & Recipe

Sleeping will restore your stamina and give you a chance to learn a recipe. This chance can be increased by using Ehekatl’s Body Pillow and Easy Sleeper Feats.

From my understanding, higher-tier beds and materials that provide a higher level of comfort will also restore more stamina. You can also bring a bed with you and use the option to use the bed in your inventory or press F5 (assuming you haven’t changed the settings).

The best beds to bring with you, in my opinion, are:

• Hammock (weighs the least and you can get it early on in Tinker’s Camp for 2 tickets).
• Futon (higher comfort level; you can get them from Mifu/Nefu village; weighs more than a hammock but not by much; costs around 4-5 tickets, if I remember correctly).

Both are craftable. Recipes generated are random from what I’ve experienced, as I received a modern bed recipe on my second night without having the blacksmith skill or having done anything else. Another way to get the recipe for a specific item is by destroying that item while having a crafting level at least 5 levels below the required crafting level.

Crafting

The only thing I’ve noted about crafting is that you can still craft an item even if you have less than the required crafting level, but the item produced will be tarnished (reducing its item level and effectiveness, I believe).

Hammer

This is probably the strongest item in the game. You basically can turn anything into almost everything. I won’t go into details on what you can do with it, as there are a lot of possible outcomes that can happen from using it.

This video by Kessel explains the basic knowledge of how to abuse hammer power:

Blessed Water

Blessed Water can be used to bless an item (duh), but why would you want to bless an item, you might ask? These are the effects I’ve noted:

• Weapons will deal more damage
• Armor, light sources, and trinkets will get higher defense stats
• Items that can apply certain effects will have a higher-tier application effect (like enchantment scrolls can be used to enchant to a higher level)
• Items with both negative and positive effects will always give you the positive effect (like the Potion of Mutation will always give you good mutations)

Blessed equipment can still be cursed and will need to be blessed again after removing the curse. You can get Blessed Water by placing a bottle of water into the shrine of the god you worship, or by using an empty potion bottle on the Blessed Well in Noyel.

Curse

You can curse a normal bottle of water to curse an item, or just find cursed water anywhere. Effects of the curse I’ve noted:

• Equippable items that are cursed can’t be unequipped.
• Consumable items might do something unexpected (like spellbooks having a higher chance of failing).
• Items with negative and positive effects will always give you the negative one.

Skills

Some skills are available from the start depending on your character’s race and class, but all skills (to my current knowledge) are available from trainers. As you complete quests, you’ll receive platinum coins. Once you have 5 platinum coins, you can acquire skills. Here are the skills I find most useful and where to learn them:

At Tinker’s Camp, learn:

• Appraising skill – This will save you money by eliminating the need to pay magicians for appraisals. Currently, you can only appraise items up to “Good Quality” at level 20, though this may change. Level up this skill by keeping unknown items in your inventory to be identified. Higher levels mean faster identification times.
• Anatomy skill – This saves time when cooking the best food in the game by increasing the chance of monsters dropping meat and other ingredients.
• Weightlifting skill – This increases your carrying capacity and saves time. You can combine this with strength attributes for even greater carrying capacity.

In Derphy, learn:

• Lockpicking skill – While not crucial in the early game, almost every chest is locked in the mid-to-endgame. Train this skill by attempting to open locked chests (whether successful or not). Alternatively, you can craft a Practice Chest using the blueprint sold by Flama (available at the start or later in Willow when she moves). Practice Chests won’t consume lockpicks even when you fail.

In Olvina, learn:

• Cooking skill – This is essential because it unlocks the Gourmet feat, which at level 2 allows you to add spices to cooked food for additional stat buffs.

These are the skills I prioritize first, though I may add more as I discover other useful ones.

Guild Specific Skills

Some skills are locked behind specific Guilds, and you need to join them first. The useful ones among these skills are:

1. Tactics and Eye of Mind from Fighters Guild: Tactics adds more damage to melee attacks (I’ve only been strictly playing long sword, so I can’t say for sure). Eye of Mind adds critical hit chance.
2. Control Magic and Memorization from Mages Guild: Control Magic reduces the damage from your spells if they hit an ally. Memorization increases the number of spells you can learn from spell books.
3. Greater Evasion from Thieves Guild: From what I’ve seen, this adds more evasion chance, and when combined with the normal Evasion skill, you have a minuscule chance of being hit.
4. Travel from Merchants Guild: While this skill is not mandatory, since you will be exploring the map quite a lot, you might as well take it. This skill gives you more XP when traveling, and in turn, you can get more feat XP.

Feats

Feat XP can be gained by doing almost anything in the game. Here are some important feats you might want to acquire and max out as soon as possible:

• Dream Walker gives you random spells each night. Higher levels mean a higher chance of receiving higher-tier spells.
• Model Follower automatically prays to your God each night (when possible). This feat boosts piety gain and your god’s favor, reducing the time needed to acquire their pet and weapon. You only need level one.
• Easy Sleeper gives you more stamina recovery when sleeping and increases your chance of getting recipes while sleeping.
• Gourmet is only available if you have the cooking skill and at least level 2 to get the benefit of adding additional spices.
• Lucky – anything that can increase luck is a must. Luck basically gives you a chance to reroll for a better outcome, and yes, 100 luck means it will happen once. A higher tier means a higher chance it can happen again.
• Agile – speed, what more can I say?
• Magic Manners prevents accidental item destruction when using AoE spells on yourself (level 1) and your allies and surroundings (level 2).

Tax & Difficulty

Taxes are a problem, I know that. If you ever have an issue with them, just find a pub in one of the cities or ask a guard to direct you to where the informant is, then sell off your fame to them. Doing so will reduce the taxes you need to pay and the difficulty of the dungeons and quests you’ll receive.

Notes:

• For taxes, there are additional factors taken into the calculation, so doing this in the endgame might not make much of a difference in terms of the tax you need to pay.
• For difficulty, I believe there is an item that will lock the difficulty to level 50 (?) if you use it, so selling off your fame might not reduce the difficulty (I can’t say for sure as I haven’t used the item).

Ether Disease

You can treat this by using Ether Antibody, which can be acquired from:

• Miral and Garokk’s Workshop (10 small medals).
  • Farming for medals is not that hard but tedious. You either need to farm the floating bell or do dungeons/quests. In my opinion, medals are better off used as a way to get the storage upgrade and another storage too, as it will give you massive inventory space and freezer capacity (with the upgrade). Or you could get another powerful item they have.
• Fortune Bell (3000 casino chips).
  • To access this place, go to Palmia and get to this location.

And play either one of these minigames:

The easiest one to do, in my opinion, is the left one as it’s a timing game. The slot machine is also a timing game but harder as it’s fast, while the right one is a blackjack table (I have trouble with this one, but if you use the save-anytime mode, you can save scum to get a lot of coins from this). Alternatively, if you join the Thieves Guild, you can steal the basketball minigame and just collect casino chips whenever and wherever you want.

Once you acquire the needed amount of casino chips, go to this merchant.

Notes:

• The Ehekatl Body Pillow is also a good item to get as soon as possible, as it gives you better rest and increases your chances of getting recipes.
• The spices in the casino always come in higher item levels, so if you want to start cooking good food, it’s better to check daily whether they have them or not.

Endgame

Relocation Deed

As you have made a lot of money, you can buy an item called the Relocation Deed for ~20k Orens from an NPC called Scrivener (inside Mysilia or Embassy). As the name suggests, it can relocate any of your bases to any tile on the map.

Why is this important, you might ask? Well, if you are like me, delegating cities for specific tasks – like using the Meadow only for farming, Varnis for mining, ranching, and gold bar production, and a random beach tile for fishing – it’s easier and cheaper to have these three cities near one another.

This saves you time when you want to go to other lands without using or setting up the teleporter. Or, if you frequently visit a specific NPC city and don’t want to travel far to get there, you can relocate all your cities near that NPC city.

Important NPC

NPCs have specific services depending on their names and jobs, along with hobbies that they can only do when recruited to your base. In most cases, you can recruit them by:

• Increasing their affinity by talking to them (which has a chance to lower it too), giving gifts that they like, or fighting them (which also has a chance to lower it). Once you reach affinity 75, you can recruit them as long as your Charisma is as high as their highest stat.
• Finding them on the quest board in your settlement and “buying” them using Gold Bars.
• Buying them from Slavers in Derphy using Orens.
• Capturing them using a monster ball (not recommended).

Some NPCs, like the adventurers, can only be recruited if you have bested them in combat after reaching affinity 75, and you still need Charisma as high as their highest stat.

The Alchemist

Special NPCs who join you after story quests can duplicate items crafted by you.

• Their duplication slot starts at 1 and can be increased up to a maximum of 5 slots through investment.
• No, you can’t use them to cheese-craft items using the hammer, but you will get dust (a trash category item that can be used for defertilizer).
• No, you can’t use duplicated items as offerings to the gods.
• Yes, you can use them to duplicate strong food you’ve made to gain more base attribute XP.
• You can duplicate items that have already been duplicated.

Strange Man

A special NPC will join you after a story quest who can duplicate Magic Books.

• Their duplication slot starts at 3 and can be increased up to a maximum of 10 slots through investment.
• Duplicated books have the same number of charges as the original.
• No, duplicated books cannot be offered to the gods.
• You can duplicate books that have already been duplicated.

Farris

A special NPC will join you after you rescue her from Nymelle. She sells:

• Recipes (most notably the Brewery Barrel)
• Scrolls of Evacuation (which allow immediate travel to the world map)
• Scrolls of Return (which let you teleport to predetermined locations and dungeons you have previously entered, as long as they haven’t despawned)
• Whips of Love (which reset NPCs’ Jobs and Hobbies, though specific jobs/hobbies tied to their core services, like fishing for fishermen, will not be reset)
• And other miscellaneous items (to be detailed later)

Guards

These NPCs serve one main purpose: they can tell you where specific NPCs are located. If you’re having trouble finding certain NPCs, you can ask them about their whereabouts. They can also direct you to quest-related NPCs when you’re doing delivery item quests and don’t know where the recipient is located.

Banker

They provide services to deposit money so you don’t lose it when you die.

Magician

They can identify items for a fee. Godly-tier items need to be identified using the “Identify Artifact” option. They also sell random spell books (usually attack spells).

Healer

As the name suggests, they can heal you and cure negative status effects that can occur if you get damaged by undead enemies or rats. They also sell spell books (usually healing and support spells).

Good Shopkeeper

They sell Coldproof & Fireproof blankets, lockpicks (which you can’t craft as of now), and monster balls.

The Informant

As stated previously, you can use them to sell off your fame to reduce tax and difficulty. They can also tell you news about nearby dungeons. If you’ve been wanting to go to a dungeon and can’t find any, try asking them (adventurers can also be asked about dungeon locations too).

Guilds

Guilds are a way to get certain discounts on various services (vendors and whatnot) and some cool and useful skills that mostly aren’t available from other trainers, as well as money depending on your level with the respective guild.

I highly recommend joining all available guilds as soon as possible (as there are no limitations on doing so at the time of writing). Currently, there are 4 guilds you can join.

Promotion:

• As you earn higher contribution points, you can get promoted by talking to the guild clerks.

Fighters Guild

It’s in the basement of Port Kapul:

Trial:

• Talk to the NPC in the second picture, then hunt any 20 “Yeek” enemies.

Contribution:

• Kill elite monsters (Shiny enemy).

Perks:

• Rank 0: Discounts on various services, access to guild trainer (Dual Wield, Tactics, Eye of Mind).
• Rank 2: Discount at guild trainer.
• Rank 4: Earn extra orens when killing elite monsters.

Mages Guild

It’s in the basement of Lumiest:

Trial

• Talk to the NPC in the second picture, then buy a letter of recommendation from the academy (sold at magic shops, mages, and bookstores, and costs ~1,800 Orens), and lastly give it to him.

Contribution:

• Decipher ancient books (A reliable way to get these books is to go fishing, at least in my experience).

Perks:

• Rank 0: Discount on spellbooks, access to guild trainer (Control Magic, Magic Capacity, Memorization).
• Rank 2: Discount at guild trainer.
• Rank 4: Magic domain change at guild master (Only for extra domains achieved through feats).

Thieves Guild

It’s in the basement of Derphy:

Trial:

• Talk to the Shrouded NPC in the second picture, then reduce your current karma by 100 after receiving the quest.

Contribution:

• Sell items with the “stolen goods” description to any merchant.

Perks:

• Rank 0: Earn more from stolen goods, access to guild trainer (Gun, Marksman, Greater Evasion, Pickpocket).
• Rank 2: Discount at guild trainer.
• Rank 4: Access to black market vendor.

Merchants Guild

Bellow Mysilia:

Trial:

• Talk to Marian (first picture), buy flyers from the guild clerk (second picture), then distribute 30 flyers by throwing them at random citizens in any cities.

Contribution:

• Invest in merchants.

Perks:

• Rank 0: Discount on investments directly to merchants, access to guild trainer (Travel, Negotiation).
• Rank 2: Discount at guild trainer.
• Rank 4: Access to Exotic Merchant.

Combat

For the love of God, get a loom and spinner to get yourself at least one of these two items:

Coldproof blanket & Fireproof blanket

• You don’t want your OP/good gear to be destroyed by magic, do you? Generally speaking, focus on one type of weapon as it’s better to master it rather than changing gear often, which can lead to less damage in the long run. You can use the host skill on a follower to make them not die in battle.

Don’t be Fooled by “Fair” Level Enemies

• Just think for a second – they are “fair,” not “easy,” so they might have the capability to one-shot you or be at the same level of power as you. This is Elona for goodness’ sake! My first 4 to 8 permadeath characters died (or almost died) because I forgot this rule.

Negative Base Attributes

This condition can be caused by taking damage from undead enemies and rats. To treat it, use a Potion of Restore Body or visit a healer in one of the cities.

Auto Combat

You can enter Auto Combat by right-clicking on an enemy. Auto Combat Settings for Multiclass that I use:

Activate Details to see all of it. You may change anything you deem unnecessary. Another good AI for multiclassing is Paladin.

Note: This is not the META auto-combat setting. It’s just that this combat setting always seems to work for me, as I am lazy to micro-manage.

Endgame

In endgame, you will have difficulty dealing damage, but the general rule of thumb is to have these two spells in your slot:

• Bane – This spell reduces the target’s hit chance and their luck.
• Weakness – This spell reduces the target’s defense and evasion.

Hotbar:

In one hotbar, I always have two of the aforementioned spells, Bane and Weakness with Rush (because I’m reckless that way), and a few damage spells.

The three slots I left empty are for other things like healing items (bandages), throwing items (put in amber), or just to use anything really.

Note: Items/spells in the other hotbar can be used when you use auto combat even though the hotbar isn’t changed, but generally speaking, use one hotbar for combat and use the other for farming or gathering.

Talisman:

If you are multiclassing (recommended), you can use Calligraphy Set to imbue your melee weapon with a spell book so it can deal more damage. It will have a low charge (except if you use the Sword Sage class), but you can deal a lot of damage with it.

You can get the Calligraphy Set from Mifu village in the furniture shop or craft it if you have the recipe. Note: Imbuing while in combat takes a considerable amount of time and can be interrupted, but you won’t need to use MP, and it has a 100% chance to hit the enemy.

Book Acquisition:

Once you reach a certain point in the story, you will meet a strange man who will give you the ability to duplicate spell books. Use him to duplicate the Book of Bane and Weakness.

NPCs You Might Want to Consider Bringing:

• Bard: Buff and heal (Farris is a bard).
• Magician: Damage (and some can heal).
• Gunner: Ranged attack (every NPC can use guns, but gunners are better in terms of damage).
• Maiden of Blade: Combination of Bard and Tank. Also Shiva – you can meet her at the Nefu village (need at least 69 Charisma and 75 Affinity, also need to best her in combat to acquire her).

Some Pets You Can Consider Bringing:

• Cerberus: Can apply Dim effect to enemies, giving you additional 25% crit chance and making the enemy harder to cast spells. Can also burn enemies. High carrying capacity ~100.
• Tyrannosaurus: High speed, high damage, and high defense. Has 1-Hit Kill chance. High carrying capacity ~100.
• Shiva: Can teleport to you and receive your damage instead. Tanky and can deal frost damage. High carrying capacity ~100.
• Vorpal Bunny: Similar to T-rex but with more speed and much less defense, with a higher 1-Hit Kill chance (based on observation, though this isn’t confirmed).

Money Making

There are a lot of ways of making money in this game other than dungeon delving and selling loot. I have used two money-making methods in my playthrough.

Fishing

In my opinion, fishing is by far the best way to make money actively. You can use the fish for cooking or use bonito flakes as a spice. You can also get treasure (literal statues of gods, ancient books) and junk items that you can destroy to get resources. You can offer fish to the Goddess of Luck to gain Piety with her.

Prerequisite:

Get Fishing Skills at Yowyn Trainer (This is essential for higher-level fishing to reduce fish bite time, increase the chance of catching double fish, and improve treasure chance).

• Get the Brewery Barrel blueprint from Farris.
• Get a fishing rod.
• Get a Stone Cutter.
• Get bait.

Bait Acquisition:

Copper Dungeon (also train mining).

• Destroy the wall in the copper dungeon to get metal scrap.
• Turn metal scrap into nails.
• Use a hammer on the nail to get bones.
• Turn bones, meat innards, and other materials into bait.

Compost (more steps but more crafting XP and safer).

• Get a composting box (crafted at the carpenter’s table)
• Get tons of food/plant matter either by farming or combat
• Place inside it
• Wait for it to turn into compost
• Hammer to get meat
• Turn the meat into bait

Easy Food / Plant Acquisition:

• Get flowers, hammer said flowers to get special leaves that are categorized as raw food.
• Get branches by hammering logs.
• Craft arrows from “raw food” leaves and branches.
• Then throw the arrows inside the composting box.
• Or just turn the flowers into the composting box (haven’t tested which one is better, but people say arrows are better).

Fish Like There’s No Tomorrow!

• Turn fish into bonito flakes inside the stone cutter.
• Insert bonito flakes into the brewery barrel.
• Wait for some time.
• Sell them all for profit!

Note: Turn these fish into wine immediately or just sell them as is, as it will reduce the price significantly if you turn them into bonito first. My rule of thumb is to check with one of my merchants in the city to see the fish price. If it’s more than 124 (4×31, where 4 is the lowest bonito flake yield you can get and 31 is the usual price of bonito flake wine), I usually just turn them into wine immediately.

Beehive

A passive income that can be quite profitable actually.

Prerequisites:

• Brewery barrel.
• Beehive (you can buy the blueprint from Nino in the Tinker’s Camp).

As soon as you get a queen bee dropped, take it and keep it locked away in one of your chests. Don’t lose it! You need to get to level 30 crafting, but if you have been using my method of fishing money farming, you will get there quite fast.

Once you’ve made it, you can set up your beehives. Each beehive requires approximately 10 flowers (I haven’t tested all combinations yet, but this amount seems to be sufficient) to produce honey efficiently.

After you have set up the farm, you can simply:

• Take honey -> bake in oven -> get sugar -> put in brewery barrel -> make wine.

For maximum efficiency, use Defertilizer by combining Fertilizer + Trash (category item) in a millstone. When used on crops/flowers, Defertilizer will halt their aging process and prevent wilting, giving you more honey in return.

Note: The alchemist can duplicate your crafted beehive, as the queen bee is difficult to farm.

Music

I hadn’t had any luck with music, but you can train your charisma or get extra money (or in this case, Orens) from doing this though.

Prerequisites:

Get to the graveyard and get the panties (counts as an instrument, or craft a lute – either one works; it’s better if you can get a mic from the furniture shop). The panties are dropped by one of the corpses, so just search them all when you are there (I forgot which one dropped it; I will update when I remember).

Get Music Skills at Tinker’s Camp Trainer. Activate the option to keep playing the instrument after finishing in the character menu.

Optional:

Travel to Nefu Village to worship Mommy God Horome for a bonus to music and charisma.

Steps:

• Go to any place that has many Easy or Fair level NPCs (the best location I found is the bee farmer area in Mysilia, or alternatively the Orphanage since there are many kids).
• Continue performing until NPCs become bored (you can’t get XP unless they interact with your performance). Then move to another location with 3 or more Easy or Fair level NPCs.
• Repeat until you become either tired or hungry. When this happens, visit the innkeeper to buy food (the “get me something to eat” option is cheaper and will immediately fill you up) and sleep in their bed.
• Check the quest board periodically for music requests. These often have many Easy and Fair NPCs who can provide money and substantial XP.
• After reaching approximately level 40, you can perform anywhere (but remain cautious – if you see a guard or NPC above Easy/Fair who dislikes your performance, move on).

Benefits:

• Money (at least 300-500/day below level 40, and around 1k-3k between levels 50-60; as mentioned, I stopped around this level due to lack of success).
• Free XP for evasion, charisma, regeneration (if unlocked), and armor skills (though progression is slow).

Religion

In Ellin, there are several God(desse)s you can worship. Why do we need to worship them, you might ask? Well, technically we don’t need to, but we would be missing out on powerful gear, companions, and specific blessings if we chose not to do so.

Piety Gain

Piety is sort of a favor meter with our God(dess) – the more we have, the better their blessing and the closer we are to getting their rewards.

In my current understanding, Piety can be gained through 2 methods: Praying (each day, which can be automated with the Model Follower feat) and Offering to their shrine. Here’s my general rule of thumb on how to offer:

1. Corpses (meat/food items): The more weight it has, the better. I usually offer items that have 0.8 weight or more. Every God(dess), as of the making of this category, accepts Meat.
2. Items: The more expensive the item, the better. For example, my Beloved Mommy Horome also accepts swords. If I were to give her the best sword I can find, the Piety gain would be faster.
3. Books & Rods: These have a static value, so they are quite slow.

Shrine Conversion

You can convert another god’s/goddess’s shrine to the shrine of the god/goddess you worship by offering an item they accept. From what I understand, the better the offering given, the better chance of success (though I can’t say for sure if this is true or just placebo and general good luck on my part).

Notes:

• If you fail, you will receive Divine Punishment, which removes your health and forces a heavy iron ball into your inventory.
• If you succeed, you will gain extra Piety (from what I’ve observed, though I can’t say for certain).

Changing Religion

Changing religion will also grant you Divine Punishment (except if you are a Demigod), so don’t do it twice in a row or you will die. (RIP my second character).

Tips and Notes

1. The altar of the goddess Ehekatl of Luck is the most “lightweight” shrine. Even if you don’t intend to worship her (not recommended, refer to tip #2), you can bring her altar to your base easily if you happen to find one generated in the world.
2. We all loot goblins, right? Or at least I do, so I would suggest you worship Ehekatl of Luck first until you can get her pets (The Black Cat). The Cat can “lick” enemies and chests, improving their loot. If you’ve been doing the fishing money farm, you’ll get there in no time. Yes, you can change to other gods/goddesses afterward, but you would want her cat first.
3. God/goddess gear has blue text on them. Those gear benefits that are blue are only active for those who are worshiping that god/goddess. So if you intend to change to another god/goddess after you get their gear, take a look at the description to see if it’s worth changing or if your build NEEDS that blue text (this isn’t Skyrim, everyone). Alternatively, refer to their respective gear wiki page to see what benefits can still be activated even if you don’t worship them (I’m looking at you, Earth Hammer). Some gear may have “unexpected” results if you equip them (I’m looking at you, Kogitsunemaru).
4. Gods/goddesses have specific Blessings that are tied to certain playstyles, so be sure to see their blessing effects. The power of their blessing (from what I observe) is tied to your faith and will. As stated in Cities, some cities have a shrine that you can use or trade Furniture Tickets for. You can immediately throw them into the Delivery Box, which will send them directly to your currently active base without the need to carry them.