Getting Started in Northwind

Province of Quebec, Canada
February 6, 1723

The lands of Quebec, Canada are natural and untamed. From the tall mountain peaks and snow-capped tundra to the green grasses and abundant wildlife, amidst the tensions flaring between New France and the British Empire, the colonization of the New World continues. Colonists from all walks of life and countries, seeking new lives and new opportunities, continue to expand their influence as the native tribes struggle to adapt to their neighbors.
It is into this world that you begin your adventures...

Getting Started

When first spawning in Northwind, you will be located on the Beauval Isles map. This island provides the most hospitable environmment for new players, being abundant in trees, animals, and basic ores for you to harvest and begin your adventures.

Take some time to familiarize yourself with the game mechanics, including Health, Hunger, and Stamina, as well as the Effects that can affect them. Northwind also features a temperature mechanic, which requires you to maintain warmth through wearing appropriate clothing, staying near fires, and staying dry and out of the water— this is more important in the northern islands, where the cold climate can quickly drain a player of their warmth and result in the player freezing to death.

Continue to familiarize yourself with the game's interface, as well as equipping tools and weapons to your hotbar to help expedite pulling out items and equipment. The full list of controls can be found on the Controls page.

You are starting as a...
Colonist
Native

Colonist

You are a Colonist, arriving fresh off a ship to Quebec to stake your claim in the New World. The lands around you are unfamiliar, unknown, and your hopes and dreams are all but a seemingly daunting impossibility. But, through time, effort, and hard work, you can carve out your legacy on the Canadian frontier— after all, no reward is without risk, and there is plenty of it in your new home...

As a colonist, you begin in the colonist settlement of New Bordeaux with a map, and a tutorial in the top right corner of your screen. Chiefly, find the Bank of Beauval in New Bordeaux, which serves as a depositing location for up to 100.0 units of space. Bank tellers are also able to insure a weapon against looting by other players on islands with looting enabled; this is only recommended once you have gained a comfortable amount of pounds, have the income to spare, and are looking to travel to another island. Bank inventory transfers between islands, but not between roles.

Before anything else, make sure to have a few key essential items! These will come in handy as you traverse the terrain and explore the Beauval Isles, and generally when you begin to explore beyond the island:

• A torch, which can be crafted or purchased from the Silver Starling Inn, for visibility at night and in dark areas.
• A few bandages, which can be crafted or purchased from the Silver Starling Inn, to heal after taking damage and to negate the Bleeding effect.
• A couple of wooden splints, which can be crafted, to negate the Broken leg effect after taking fall damage.
• A map (which should already be provided) to navigate through the islands. Your map will automatically fill with geography names and animal and uncommon tree and ore locations as you find them.
• Up to three bowls of veggie soup, which can be purchased at the Silver Starling Inn, which restores 1/3rd of your hunger and provides a temporary cold resistance buff.

Having familiarized yourself with New Bordeaux and its vital businesses, you can proceed with the tutorial. It will guide you through the basics of the various professions found in the game and completing Contracts for those professions. These professions include:

• Woodcutting
• Woodworking
• Hunting
• Leatherworking
• Mining
• Smithing
• Fishing
• Farming
• Cooking

Almost all of the merchants you interact with during your time ingame double as contractors, who provide contracts for specific guilds.

Raising Pounds

Upon completing the tutorial, you will be free to play the game as you see fit. In order to gain a solid foothold before venturing out into Quebec, we recommend that you continue to complete basic contracts to gain a sufficient amount of pounds to support yourself, which you should have already gained a basic knowledge of through completing the tutorial.

The most basic type of contract is a Hauling contract, which requires you to carry crates from the dock of your settlement (in this case, New Bordeaux) to the contractor. Crates can be purchased from the dock platform beside a dock manager for five (5) pounds, and can be sold to a contractor for ten (10) pounds, with a net profit of five pounds to the player. To hasten the amount of goods carried at one time, you can purchase or craft a sled, which can hold up to three crates at a time.

The second most basic is a Harvesting contract, which requires you to supply an amount of a specific resource or item. You will only be able to take harvesting contracts for resources and animals that your tier is able to harvest. As the sell value of every item ingame is worth half their base value, contracts will almost always reward more in payment than selling items needed for a contract directly to the merchant.

Contracts & Reputation

After completing a contract, you will be rewarded with pounds, an amount of experience in the relevant profession, and Reputation with the profession's relevant guild. For instance, the Woodcutting and Woodworking professions are both associated with The Woodsmen guild. Players who have gained a high enough amount of reputation can redeem their amount for rewards by speaking to a contractor for the related guild. When redeeming a reward, the reputation meter will be exhausted by the tier level selected, requiring the player to complete more contracts to restore their reputation meter to that level.

The process of completing contracts, as well as the tasks associated with their completion, is long, arduous, and tedious, but they will always provide experience in a profession, which bestows players with new abilities in harvesting resources with each successive tier. In addition, the gradual increase in both profession experience and contract payments as you complete contracts means that you will be able to fulfill better contracts, as well as being able to unlock reputation rewards faster. Continue to complete contracts for the various contractors until you have gained a comfortable level of proficiency in key professions and a comfortable amount of pounds.

Gathering Resources

As you begin to move into more difficult contracts, such as Harvesting contracts that might require you to gather animal pelts or ores, you might note the length of time it takes to skin an animal or mine a deposit node. Unlike other games, how slow or fast a resource is harvested is not dependent on the material of the tool being used. Instead, Northwind has two different tiers of tools, the regular variants and the superior variants. Superior tools accomplish the same functions as their standard versions, but do so faster and/or with less effort required. They can only be gained through being redeemed for reputation with certain guilds, but the effort involved is well worth the reward and allows grinding to be far more easier.

As you continue to gather resources, you might also note that you do not have sufficient capacity to store much of the required items. To counter this, craft or purchase from the Silver Starling Inn a sled & chest, which provides up to 200 units of space and can only be dragged by yourself. However, if you do not secure the chest, it is possible for other players to take items from it. You can combat this by purchasing a padlock and padlock key and linking them together, then affixing the padlock to the sled & chest. Note that if players possess a lock pick, they can lockpick their way through and gain access to the chest's contents; it is thus recommended to store any valuables in the bank.

Upgrading Clothing & Weaponry

Once you have gained at least five hundred (500) pounds, begin to invest in some new items, such as clothing and equipment by purchasing them, or crafting your own using a tanning rack or anvil. The ratio between how prepared a player is for the environment and their progression rate is reasonably linear; the more space and better clothed a player is, the more prepared they will be to venture onto new islands with resources that provide better progression.

Importantly, players should purchase a scarf, snowshoes, and purchase or craft a cloak, such as a medium fur cloak to protect against colder weather. You should also purchase a medium fur knapsack from a leatherworker, namely Philippe Juneau in Compagnie de Chasse, forgoing the small fur knapsack which can be used for some time, but is recommended to be replaced as soon as reasonably possible.

By now, you should be looking into upgrading not only your clothing and carrying capacity, but your weaponry as well. Weaponry is an important part of Northwind's gameplay, being required to not only hunt, but also to attack and defend yourself from other players. Six types of weapons exist, covered across the munitions and melee categories, being firearms including rifles, muskets, and pistols, bows, throwables, and melee weapons including one-handed and two-handed weapons.

As with all ingame items, the appearance of a tool or weapon does not dictate any aspects such as durability; rather, the materials seen on any item are instead cosmetic and used purely for aesthetic value, though this often means such items are given a value far beyond their base value for using specific and occasionally expensive materials, being traded for payment in player-run economies.

Choosing Weapons

Depending on both player preference and intended combat style, you can select which type of weapon you wish to use. Firearms are most often used in player-versus-player combat, taking longer to reload but being able to inflict more damage; muskets provide medium to long range accuracy, with rifles being the longest ranged and most accurate. Pistols are most used as a backup and as a hunting weapon, with most players relying more upon melee weapons and bayonets fixed upon muskets for close-in combat. Unlike bows and melee weapons, firearms must be maintained by applying gun oil at a sawing bench; the less durability a firearm has, the less accurate it is.

Rather than using an entire musket or another firearm, players who wish to focus more on hunting or stealth more often use bows and arrows, which are quieter and do not have to be maintained like firearms; their ease of use and rapid reloading also make them capable of occasional if not sustained combat. Melee weapons are almost always viewed as a backup, but are a go-to when the range between players has closed significantly; depending on your playstyle, a fast one-handed, heavy-hitting two-handed melee weapon, or even a musket with a bayonet fixed can ward off or kill an attacker. It is uncommon if not unheard of to see a player using a throwable melee weapon such as a spear or throwing knife, as the need to have the player stand still, the difficulty in judging the distance, and thus aiming the weapon accordingly vastly reduces its effectivity in combat.

Building

Once you have properly established a foothold, you can look into constructing a house using a hammer, planks, and a sawing bench. Houses allow players to store items, place beds to serve as spawn locations, and can act in lieu of a bank to safely store items and valuables. It is recommended for houses to be built on flat, even terrain; they cannot be built within safezones, and are also subject to moderation by the Northwind moderation staff.

Official prohibitions imposed by the Northwind moderation staff. These must be adhered to when building.

• Building houses that are created for the purpose of offensive use but are also by and large unraidable by normal standards. In other words, houses that serve only to impede the gameplay of others while allowing them no recourse (being practically unraidable) are by definition abusive.
• Inverted roofs are not allowed.
• Impenetrable trap houses that prevent a player from leaving are not allowed.
• Houses that block a resource, map location, cave, or other important areas on the map are not allowed.
• Using a standing base/raid tower/combat building in a no-building zone on Rupert is not allowed.
• All parkour is banned for any house (this includes stamina drain and ladders for entrances)
• Houses built on water from the water building bug are not allowed.
• Building a 1x1/ 1x2 or any type of house to use as a spawn anchor is not allowed.

Punishment: Minimum 7 day ban, potential wipe of your house save.

Players who do not have the Enhanced building pass available from the ingame Store are allowed:

• A 5x2.5x5 tile house
• Up to 300 props
• Up to 3 houses

Without the Enhanced Building pass, players are limited to building one-story houses with roofs, or two-story houses; whether these houses can support complete roofs will depend on if the house is two tiles or wider, as the build height for buildings other than roofs is restricted beyond the second height tile. Players without the pass cannot save buildings such as campfires and their variants, sleds, sleds & chests, and other buildings located outside of the build zone.

Players can load and unload a house into the game by holding [F] on the button found in the House menu; only one house can be loaded in at a time. After being loaded in, a house cannot be unloaded for 180 seconds (three minutes).

Players are able to destroy buildings using a cannon, which can fire a cannon ball that damages any building that it contacts; given enough damage, the building will eventually be destroyed, which can cause other buildings that it supports to be destroyed as well.

Padlocks & Safes

Along with sleds & chests, padlocks can be used to lock house doors and chests, which can be done by holding [F] over a door or a chest that was built by you. Only you are able to place or remove a padlock from a door or chest; when padlocked, a door will not open, and chests cannot be opened by other players. However, it is possible for players to lockpick their way through a padlocked door or chest to gain access.

Official prohibitions imposed by the Northwind moderation staff. These must be adhered to regarding padlock use.

• Repeatedly removing a padlock while it is being picked and replacing it in order to cancel out the lockpicking time. Applies for anything that can be padlocked.
• Locking people in a room is bannable.

Punishment: Minimum 1 day ban.

Unlike padlocked chests, safes provide top-tier security in being accessible only to their owner. Though they are materially expensive to build, they can store up to 200 units of space, and can effectively function as a bank without transferring items across maps.

Despite providing a safe location to store items, chests, safes, and any other form of storage is not considered entirely secure because of the ability to destroy a building; this is often done by players raiding player faction bases and large houses. As with any other container, chests and safes will drop their contents when destroyed, allowing raiding players to take their stored items. Thus, the only completely secure form of storage is through the banking system.

Travelling Beyond Beauval

With a sufficient understanding of the fundamental mechanics of the game, it is time for you to depart the Beauval Isles. To do so, you must build or purchase a rowboat from the shipwright at the New Bordeaux Docks. Row your boat to the edge of the map, where you will be given a Travel prompt; hold [F] to open the islands menu and select another island to travel to. Following the Beauval Isles, it is highly recommended to go to Cantermagne Island in order to continue progressing through the game at a decent pace, with the island being somemwhat more hospitable than the others, but posing enough risk to allow you to become familiarized with the remainder of the game's elements. Bear in mind that, because light looting is enabled on Cantermagne, it is recommended that you insure your weapon at a bank if you deem it necessary to do so; oftentimes, the cost of purchasing a new weapon such as a Charleston musket or Sharpe pistol is lower than the amount it would cost to insure the same weapon.

Continue to progress through the game accordingly, with your next stop likely to be the Isle of Rupert with the occasional scouting run to Stonemore Island, or Ellesmere Island, considered the most difficult to traverse of the islands. With such knowledge at hand, you will be able to establish yourself in Northwind, and can grow to prosper and survive in the harsh environment of the New World.

Native

You are a Native, a member of one of the indigenous tribes within the region. Your people have lived on these lands for hundreds of generations, and the ground beneath your feet is familiar. But, in a new era riddled with newcomers who disrespect your kinship of Mother Earth and the Spirits, it has become your task to persevere and survive, maintain your balance with Nature, and— if necessary— defend it and your fellow tribespeople with your life, even when the first traces of your time-honored lifestyle begin to fall...

As a native, you begin in the native settlement located in Irosonee End with a hatchet and Snowshoes. Unlike the Colonist role, you are not given a tutorial, and will instead have to figure the mechanics of the game out on your own. For starters, locate the banker found in the Irosonee End camp, which allows you access to store up to 100.0 units of space in a secure storage; this storage transfers between islands, but not between roles. Additionally, locate the totem found at the tip of the island, which allows you to protect a weapon for five real life days, preventing it from being looted by other players.

Before proceeding, make sure to craft and obtain a few key essential items to assist you in your exploration:

• A torch for visibility at night and in dark areas.
• A few bandages to heal after taking damage and to negate the Bleeding effect.
• A couple of wooden splints to negate the Broken leg effect after taking fall damage.
• A stone hatchet (which should already be provided) to be able to cut down trees, attack animals, and harvest stone rocks from boulders.
• A few berries, which can be obtained from berry bushes, to sate your hunger until you acquire a proper food source.

Because native players are not given a tutorial, it is essential for you to gain a proper understanding of the crafting mechanic. Without access to colonist businesses, you will need to craft almost all of your necessary items. This is aided by the ability to rely solely upon handcrafting for aid items, weapons, and tools, as well as some basic clothing and equipment. The core materials you will require in your early time as a Native will be stone rocks, logs, and flax leaves. You can gather both rocks and logs by using your hatchet, which allows you to carve stone rocks out of boulders and fell and chop trees into logs. Flax leaves are gathered from flax plants, which can be found along the shorelines of almost every island.

Hunting & Equipment

Begin by gathering materials to make a bow, quiver, and either wood or stone arrows, as well as a tribal knife. These will be essential in allowing you to hunt animals for pelts to create better clothing and equipment, and meats for consumption. Additional animal drops, such as teeth, antlers and feathers can be used to create tribal clothing and accessories that can be traded to Colonist players and, in the case of antlers, decorative wall mounts.

Once you have crafted a bow, quiver, arrows, and knife, fill the quiver with arrows and equip the bow and knife. Begin by finding the nearest animals, these being a fox, rabbit, and deer that can be found along the shores of the island. Gather pelts and meats from these animals, as well as antlers from deer and, later, moose, to craft clothing and equipment at a tanning rack, cook foods, and craft melee weapons. You will also be able to cook meats for consumption by building a campfire and spit to cook them.

Traveling Beyond Beauval

Continue to harvest and gather resources to upgrade your equipment and form a provision of food supplies until you are adequately prepared to venture out beyond Beauval. Most, if not all native recipes can be completed using items that can be found in Beauval, although others, including crafts using more exquisite pelts, will require you to visit other islands. You will be able to do this by crafting a canoe and rowing it to the edge of the map, where you will be given a travel prompt; press and hold [F] to access the travel map, where you will be able to select another island to go to. If traveling to an island other than the Beauval Isles, remember to protect your weapons at a totem to prevent them from being looted.

As Natives forego the Colonist profession system in Woodcutting, Hunting, and Leatherworking, you will be able to harvest practically any tree, skin any animal, and craft anything using these acquired items, which comes in useful especially when encountering animals with rare pelts. However, you are unable to mine anything beyond rocks and the most basic ores. Furthermore, native players are unable to use any colonist crafting stations other than tanning racks and cooking stations, due to lacking the proficiency necessary to use them; they are also unable to use a hammer to construct or repair buildings. As such, you might be more reliant upon Colonist players, as well as transferring items through houses built as a Colonist, to provide you with items that only Colonist players can craft, such as lanterns, kilts, and climbing picks.

Beyond the Basics

Once you are confident enough in your proficiency to be able to handle most if not all of the mechanics and gameplay of Northwind, you can freely proceed beyond the basics made here. However, you might also be having some extra questions, such as how to obtain Colonist items as a Native, and vice versa, as well as how to prevent your padlocked storage containers from being lockpicked. Here are a few extra pointers:

• You are able to spawn Colonist-built houses as any role, including as a Native. You can easily use this to transfer items between your Colonist and Native roles, though bear in mind that Natives are not able to place padlocks to lock chests and doors.
• If your Colonist lacks proficiency in a particular profession, see if you can ask another player with a sufficient profession level to craft the item for you. It is highly recommended to refuse to make any payment transactions, such as trading pounds or bartering items, prior to the item being crafted and traded.
• If you have enough resources, you can build a safe to securely store your items. Remember that if the floor or base underneath the safe is destroyed, the safe will also be destroyed, and its contents will be dropped in a remains sack.
• Nowhere is safe— not even Beauval! Keep your valuables in the bank to keep them properly secure; you are able to increase your bank inventory space by completing treasure hunting contracts for the Quebec Banking Association on Cantermagne Island, Stonemore Island, and the Isle of Rupert.
• Weaponry insurance or protection will lose time in real life starting from the moment at which the weapon is insured or protected. Uninsuring a weapon does not refund the initial cost.
• Keep higher tier weaponry that you do not intend to use in combat in your bank inventory. If you do intend to use such weaponry, expect the cost to insure the weapons to be high— you risk losing the weapon if it is not insured.
• Perishable food items in a certain role's inventory will only lose edible time when you are in a server.