An Oathbound character is sworn, as it is made, to make its own way: everything it has, it gathered, made, bought from the townsfolk or won itself. Tick Take the Oath in the character creator before you choose Create and play (or Play as guest). It is offered only there, as a character begins, never later.
What the oath rules out
- No trading with other players, either way: you ask nobody, and nobody can ask you.
- No Town Market: look all you like, but you neither list, buy, withdraw nor collect.
- No plot offers, either way: you buy no land and sell none, and your plots take no offers.
- Only what is yours on the ground: never another player’s drop, never loot of a creature someone else hurt too (not even once its protection is over) and never what a fallen player carried. What you drop only you can pick up again, and so is what a creature you fought alone leaves: yours alone, however long it lies.
- Nobody carried: a creature others fought too, but you did the most to, leaves nothing for anyone.
- No healing from others: another player’s Shared Healing does not reach you, though you may heal them.
- No building for others, and none by others for you: you build, take apart and clear on land of your own alone, never as another’s approved builder, and you approve no builders on yours; out on common land you take apart nothing someone else built; you row nobody else’s boat, and nobody rows yours.
- No other player’s chests or garden beds: a storage chest or bank chest someone else built never opens for you (as for anyone), and a public chest is not for you.
What stays open
Shops and the townsfolk, stories and their rewards, gifts from the game’s team, things bought for your account, friends, chat and voice, fighting beside others (a creature’s loot is yours when you fought it alone), bosses (your own share of the loot), dragon flights and the Northreach Wilds. In the Wilds you take nothing from a player you fell (what they carried lies there for others), and fall there and what you carried lies for your killer, as anyone’s does.
The knot and the board
A knot, ⌘, sits by an Oathbound’s name: over their head, in the chat, on friends’ lists, when someone inspects them and in the rankings, beside a Pioneer’s star when they have both. The Oathbound are ranked with everyone, and among themselves on a board of their own: choose Oathbound under Board.
Breaking the oath
An oath can be broken, but never by accident, and never taken again. In Settings choose Break your oath, then type the words I break my oath and your password (a guest, who has none, types their character’s name). The oath ends 24 hours later; until then you are Oathbound still, Settings says when it ends, and Keep my oath takes it back. Once it has ended, the knot and your place on the Oathbound board are gone for good, and you trade and use the markets as anyone does.