So you decided to pick up this game because it looked interesting, and within the first 5-10 minutes, you encounter your first enemy, they lop off your limbs, you're plopped ontop a moonlit tower, and the second you come back to your senses and step off the train, yet another entity sliced off your limbs and left you crawling.

Or you faced a one-hit move.

A couple unlucky sickle hits cut your legs off, rendering you unable to do much but crawl.

.


Nothing! This game really is that unforgiving. Surviving in a world this harsh can sometimes just boil down to luck.

Even on Easy(er) mode, you can still have limbs slashed off and runs crippled. But there are plenty of things removed. Your hunger and mind decrease much slower. Traps for the most part are reduced. You can get a good skin bible to start in certain playthroughs. Damage is halved, and there's no ambushes or more difficult phases.

If you're 100% unable to get into the town to begin with, you might want to play on this difficulty. But just so you know, this really isn't how this game is meant to be played. But if you just want the plot and not to experience the anxiety and fear....go ahead. Because this game will still get you, eventually.

[Artist Unknown]



Masochism (or Masoχ-S/M), on the other hand has no saves besides one item, The Book of Enlightenment (which is a random drop). Your enemies are stronger. You're weaker. There are more traps. Your mind and hunger drain faster. Ambushes are more frequent. More boss monsters are active and spawn EVERYWHERE. There's no more clean bandages. And you're on a timer on every screen outdoors once the Moon God notices you....best of all? You're ALONE. Pick the wrong character and you're going to be solo for the majority of it, until you can collect skills like Necromancy or Blood Golem to keep consistently having allies in combat. It's not a mode for newcomers, and even veterans will suffer from the fury of RNGesus screwing them. It really is the mix of "New York Minute" from Max Payne meets a "Broken Sword Only" run from Dark Souls. If you REALLY want to try it, go for it. I suggest at least 2-3 playthroughs to grasp item locations, equipment, enemy fundamentals, so forth.

[Art by DeadFireLord]


That's not what this guide is for; this guide is for the standard Fear and Hunger difficulty, the default and designed way to play through this game. I'll also try to avoid some spoilers, because the fun of this game is surviving long enough to see certain things.

So where to start? Well you have quite a roster of playable characters to start with, 8 out of the 14 "contestants", ranging from obvious spellcasters like O'saa and Marina, to people with physical skills like Marcoh, to people familiar with firearms such as Levi or Karin. Everybody has advantages and disadvantages to being chosen, so lets go over them all.

Difficulties mean the following:

• A character that is "Easy" is by no means a free win against the enemies here. They just have strong advantages you can leverage in the early game to gain more advantages in the mid. You still have to play smart, learn where and how to find allies and equipment, and choose your battles carefully until that point.
  
  Easy characters also tend to have larger amounts of starting equipment, some sort of skill or spell available, that gives them an edge, or in some cases, a trick or skill path only they can do quickly and reliably. Playing an Easy character to start will also give you knowledge about locations, what to expect, and combat, reducing everyone's difficultly in one way or another.
  
  
• Medium characters can vary. Some may lack strong offensive options right out the gate, some may take a little bit of time to get into their playstyle. They start out with some good options, but you'll have to play smart and methodically to maximize their effectiveness. They're still a good pick, but think around how to best utilize their abilities (talking enemies down, ammo management in the overworld, that sort of thing.)
  
  
• A Hard character isn't hard because they're weak. They're hard because their build is a....little complicated to set up. A lot of characters like this? They're the strongest in the game. They'll have a clear path to powerful abilities, good setups for them, but they'll lack the skills/items they need until a few hours in. With a clear goal (and a little bit of luck), any hard character can be broken.
  
  
• Anything with an In-between means that they'll start one way but eventually become more powerful, or they rely on you getting more familiar with how they play first and a little bit of RNG.

Note: Anything in Parenthesis indicates "Easy(er)" mode.
Note 2: Certain things will be explained in another section.
Note 3: Anyone can learn any skill, given the right circumstances. Getting to those right circumstances? Well that's your call....
Note 4: God-based skills have overlap, which will be touched upon in builds but clarified later.

Levi's main strength lies in his ability to use Firearms the most effectively out of anyone in the group. However, his mileage in build can very, since his choices in character creation (and also when recruited) can leave him with a major disability: an addiction to the heroin item. Because of this, he's one of the rare few characters that could theoretically get away with skipping their backstory, as it gets you a small pile of ammo and a pistol with a good skill for it, without picking up the addiction. Should you not, however, you get some major advantages, such as a point of affinity with a God, extra HP, starting out with a gun of your choice....but if you "Take The Mission" in his character creation, you'll gain the heroin debuff which is technically incurable without a whole lot of "if's" that need to be satisfied. If you should be lucky enough to find some heroin, it only stays active for 3 screens before wearing off, and severe withdrawal kills your agility (and thus, your turn order). His Skill Tree can be useless though.

Difficulty: Medium, but if you know all his tricks, Medium-Easy


Levi will always start with a knife, his Army Jumpsuit, 4 shillings, and a lucky coin. The knife sucks, replace it as soon as you can with something else (axe, sickle, pipe/pipe wrench). Guns used in combat also use your ammunition up, so bear that in mind if you're shooting someone in the overworld and they initiate combat. Pistols tend to hover around 200-250 damage, Rifles around 250-300, and Shotguns about 300-350. Levi's armor isn't half bad, with 10% reduction of slashing, 7% of piercing, and a solid 30% against fire.

Skipping the backstory gets you one Lugr Pistol, 10 rounds, the Gunslinger Skill, 1 (4) blue vials, and moldy bread.

Praying to an old god nets you one affinity point with that god. You can choose from Gro-Goroth, Vinushka, God of Fear and Hunger, Alll-mer, Rher, and Sylvian. Levi isn't really the most optimal starter for a caster, but there are advantages to picking up one or two skills/spells from certain trees. Strong choices are Gro-Goroth and Sylvian if you choose this.

Standing Up will get you an extra 25 hp. In laymans terms, an additional hit, and possibly saves you from one or two attacks which can clear 100 hp overall. It won't stop instant-kill attacks. Can be useful.

Your choice of gun and some ammunition.There is a spot in the city where you can get one of all 3 weapons, and a rifle spot early on in the outskirts, so don't overthink this too much. To be fair, the MK1's .303 ammunition is the most common as certain enemies like the Rifleman drop it, so choosing that to start is beginner friendly. The 12 Gauge Trench Gun shells can be fairly rare, and you'll be desperately scrounging for extra ammunition but it can be very useful (more on that later). The Lugr pistol gives you a lot of ammo, but shooting enemies in the overworld has some issues....but what matters is the choice next.

Abandoning the mission gives you nothing: no negative addiction, but no free skill. If you were planing to be a pistol user, you might as well restart and skip the backstory.

Taking the mission buffs your previously chosen weapon with a passive skill for shooing in the overworld, and gives you the heroin addiction issue. Gunslinger gives your pistol shots a chance to dismember an enemy's arms and legs, helping to set up a quick headshot in combat, or at least disabling arms that have a weapon. Rifles can do much the same without the skill, but Marksmanship gives you a chance to instantly kill an enemy. If you took the shotgun, don't bother taking the mission; the Executioner skill is currently universal, so every player can drop enemies with 1-2 shells.

Your last choice is usually the same for most characters. You can choose more food, medical items, or an extra item of personal choice. However I discourage choosing food, as you get plenty of it, and If you save Henryk, you can have a source of infinite food available in certain areas. Healing items is always helpful, having two extra blue vials and bandages is nothing to scoff at. If you plan to take ammo, it's only for the weapon you choose, and you only get 4 more 9mm rounds, 3 .303 rounds, or 2 shells. If you plan to take the shotgun, you'll have enough ammo to instantly kill two enemies with those 4 shells...Or maybe you decide a certain double-locked gate deserve one of these shells. On the overworld, that is.

Should you acquire Trapcrafting as a skill, or find them, Booby Traps can be used instead of a shotgun round to stun an enemy. Just make sure you know how to set up a choke point to get them to step on it, then quickly finish the job before they recover.

As stated, skipping is viable with Levi as it gets you a useful skill and a decent chunk of ammo. Bear in mind that you're unlikely to kill any overworld enemies with JUST a pistol, they'll take plenty of shots to drop, so use it to soften them up with one or two before starting combat.

From your choices, it's really up to you. Levi has a rough learning curve as your addiction can reduce your primary stats (attack and m.attack, same for defenses, agility) by 10 or 30%. So really quick:

• The item Heroin lasts for 3 map transitions.
  
• After the fourth one, you'll have the 10% debuff that lasts for 3 more transitions.
  
• At this point you're going to be attacking LAST. You'll need to HEAVILY buff your agility score.

For those who are okay with the addiction:
Stand Up, Take The Rifle, Take The Mission, Medicine/Ammo (as preferences)

For those who aren't:
Stand Up, Take The Shotgun, Don't Take The Mission, Medicine/Ammo (strongly suggest ammo)
OR
Skip The Backstory (for a Pistol Levi)

For those who want Levi to have a magical edge:
Pray to Gro-Goroth (offense) / Sylvian (healing), Take The Rifle, Don't Take The Mission, Medicine/Ammo

Abella's got a strong lead over a lot of the cast to start, as she starts with a strong weapon: The Pipe Wrench. It deals a lot of damage, has a high chance to hit and crit, and can even stun an enemy 25% of the time. it can slow or even trivialize a lot of encounters because of this, but it's a shallow edge that quickly needs more. She has powerful skills in weapon and trap crafting, but she's also a victim of RNG should loot drops from toolboxes and shelves prove less than useful. BUT! Find the right items, and you can craft one of the best weapons in the game with her. Besides that, she's fairly straightforward to learn, and very solid when mastered.

Difficulty: Easy-Medium, depending on RNG for crafting supplies

Abella starts with a knife (mostly pointless), her trusty Pipe Wrench (keep this equipped), her Sturdy Overalls, 4 shillings, and a lucky coin. The Pipe Wrench has a passive 25% chance to stun an enemy's limb, potentially buying you more time, and it's used in the skill "Wrench Toss", which can guarantee a stun but removes the equipment, forcing you to burn a turn to re-equip it. Blunt damage isn't a bad type to have however, and it deals great damage overall. Her Overalls aren't bad, 30% fire resist and 5% slash/pierce resist.

Abella will start with two blue vials, moldy bread, two rolls of duct tape, and four bolts. She will also gain Wrench Toss and Trapcraft.

Choosing Electronics gets you "Short Circuit", while Mechanics gets you "Wrench Toss". Wrench Toss has unbelievable utility as it can guarantee a stun. Equipping a weapon takes a turn, but once you do....you can throw the wrench again. And equip again. It's a very powerful way to lock down an enemy, but it's only against ONE enemy....but getting anyone else makes Wrench Toss a no-brainer. Short Circuit, on the other hand, isn't critical to start with. It's basically a form of "Lockpicking" that we'll get into with Karin, and it can help speed up the starting spots and gain access to more loot, but it can be safely acquired later.

The wounded man scenario....this is kind of a lopsided choice, as taking him home gets you a really strong early game weapon in the Officer Sword, which is also a key component of a weapon. Being a narc and reporting on him only gets you 10 shillings and a lucky coin. Money only helps on day two, or if you get far enough and know where to look inside the city on day one. It's almost a default choice to help the man, but the extra money can help buy powerful items later. Money is just as RNG as anything else, but you're more likely to get shillings than an Officer Sword from drops.

Making weapons or making traps; Abella's choices are mercifully clear to a newer player, but Weaponcrafting is....not as useful in the early game, as you have to find very specific items. You CAN make one of them if you're lucky to start with the Officer Sword and manage to find a Heroin syringe....it's even a guarantee, but.... You'll have to find the one Bunker in the west area, and defeat a VERY dangerous enemy called Needles. It's either that, or get extraordinarily lucky and find a syringe of Heroin somewhere....Should you defeat Needles, you'll get 3 syringes. Should you find the items, you can make The Sandman's Kiss, an excellent weapon that has a poison effect.

Trapcrafting is best used with Bear Traps, as you can instantly remove (most) enemy legs, and Pressure Plates are very useful to set up shotgun combos (though you'll need a good plan to actually get the one-shot Shotgun setup). Remember to use choke points to force an enemy to step on the trap.

If you're taking Trapcrafting, you may want the Spare Parts option. Otherwise, take the 2 (5!) blue vials and cloth that Medicine provides.

Good Choices
Abella is almost brutally straightforward with her choices. Even skipping her backstory gives you her best skills and some spare parts along with medicine and food. Ideally, you should take Mechanics, Help the Man, Trap or Weaponcrafting (depending on your gameplan), and Medicine (Spare Parts if you're into Trapcrafting). In later runs, once you're more familiar with the map, Electronics for Short Circuit's keypad bypassing can be pretty useful, but losing Wrench Toss isn't ideal.

Marcoh has a lot of things going for him. For one, he's one of the only characters that really doesn't need a weapon if build correctly. He's a physical-forward kind of guy, and he has a pretty wide net for skills to choose from during creation. As such, his learning curve is a little tricky to gauge. If you build him incorrectly to start, he's going to wind up limbless regularly and that'll be a huge downfall for most runs. If built correctly, he can be very tough to stop by the denizens of Prehevil, a one man brawler.

Difficulty: Hard-Easy (pending his build and how far along you get him)

Marcoh will always start with the usual; knife, his clothes, 4 shillings and a lucky coin. You won't really need the knife for him, as Marcoh starts with "Quick Jabs", a hidden skill that lets him attack twice for decent unarmed damage. His Combat Jacket is on par or even better than Levi's jumpsuit; a solid 9% reduction from slash/pierce, only 20% fire resist, but slows your bleed rate by 70%. You won't be at much of risk for not bandaging yourself up faster, and it'll buy you more time to scrounge through crates if you're desperate.

You'll get the skills Bob & Weave, Bare-Fisted, and +1 to your attack and defense. You'll also get your usual 2 blue vials and moldy bread. Doing this does get you two skills from Advanced Training, but both skills aren't exactly necessary. The +1 to attack and defense doesn't change much either. Lets get into why.

This one is very straightforward. You can become a Pickpocket and learn Steal (same skill as 99.9999% of all other RPG's out there), be a Burglar and learn Lockpicking, or get 10 shillings from an Honest Life. Lockpicking is extraordinarily useful, as it renders finding Small Keys a moot point. Stealing for your fist pick is ill-advised, as you....well, have to waste a turn, and a turn not attacking in the early game tends to lead to a bad case of limb loss, bleeding, or death. Lockpicking is also not normally in Marcoh's skill tree, so....take Lockpicking.

Strength, Bulking Up, and Footwork all give a +2 to Attack, Defense, and Agility respectively. Stamina gives you a +25 HP boost. The +2 to attack or defense isn't nearly as useful as it sounds, but +2 agility is a godsend once you find an Small Thing's Amulet, or get an Engraving of the God of Fear and Hunger. Having Footwork and the Engraving will free up an accessory slot that you might've used for the aforementioned amulet. . Once you get to 16 agility, you have an extra attack, so Marcoh will be throwing four fists a round. +25 hp isn't bad either since Marcoh tends to be in the thick of things.

Here you'll gain a skill based on your choice. Accuracy gets you the passive Bare-Fisted Proficiency which does what it says on the box, more accurate punches. Evasion nets you the Bob & Weave, an active skill that you can use in combat. Defense gets you Perfect Guard, which negates limb loss when you're guarding. Offense gets you another passive, Adrenaline Rush, which increases your damage as the fight goes on. Over 3 turns, you gain 5%, 10%, and 30% attack respectively. Not critical in the early game, but for longer fights, that percentage buff can cut longer fights down by a turn or two.

What to do about Riccardo....Oh I know. Flee. "Getting Rid" of him only gives you Killing Intent, which SOUNDS good, but it doesn't seem to work on anything; or at least, anything you'd like it to work on. Flee gets you the skill Escape Plan, which boosts your odds to flee a battle, which is VERY useful to avoid fights you don't want to have happen, or aren't ready for.

Marcoh's choices are a little different. Of course you have the standard medical supplies, but "luxuries" gets you a bottle of pep pills (which gives you double agility, IE an extra attack for the fight), and one syringe of heroin. It's still a better idea for consistency to choose Medicine, but having a guaranteed Heroin syringe has it's uses, and the pep pills can help a lot for boss fights.

Burglar is a no brainer, followed by Footwork or Stamina, Defense or Offense, Flee, and Medicine. If you want a tankier Marcoh, get Stamina and Defense for extra HP and the Perfect Guard. If you get a character with Pheromones, you can put it on Marcoh and he'll power through a lot of game-ending injuries.

O'saa is your typical Glass Cannon Caster....at least, I would say that, but if you don't skip his story, he starts with 125 HP Max (though it's starts at 100/125, alas you can't have everything). Unlike Marcoh and Levi, he just HAS it.

And his backstory is LONG. Don't feel too bad about skipping the full text adventure, but if done right, O'saa can start with the most items of anyone in the roster. (I won't include the adventure here, that's something you can do on your own.) He has great range with his build, so you can fully commit to one God to gain their spell list, and start pooling ritual circles for the others to finalize a build. With skills like "La Danse Macabre", "Meditation" and "Spice Forge", O'saa is the de facto caster, bar none. And there is one additional benefit to choosing him: O'saa can block your paths while in the city, so if you move too fast and get too close to him, he may cast Hurting on you and blow off a limb. You get one warning for this before he'll do it automatically. The only drawbacks are that casting can be resource intensive, requiring Mind and the occasional Rev point, but if you can handle that, O'saa can steamroll the opposition.

Difficulty: Medium-Hard; but if you get to a certain point, Very Easy (once you get his Spice Forge skill)

As stated, O'saa starts with extra goods. Not only does he have his Yellow Mage Robes and the knife, 4 shillings and lucky coin, he also has an accessory: the Beheaded Wizard, also known as Nash'rah. He's very chatty, and comes with a decent unique effect: Spell Reflection, with a 30% chance to. It's not a whole lot, but that 30% can make or break a Hurting spell blowing your limb off. The Yellow Mage Robes don't offer the best physical protection, but it does take a solid 11% off otherworldly damage.

NOTE: O'saa also cannot use a gun of any kind. Guns are beneath a God anyway.

O'saa's choices are interesting, as they're mostly things outside his skill tree.

Straightforward choice for a family heirloom: take the Chac Chac. You can find them with a bit of luck, but this accessory boosts your magical attacks greatly, so it's almost mandatory for O'saa. The Soul Stone is just one extra skill at the Hexen, and you're not exactly lacking once you know how to make them.

This is where you have to make tough choices. Going to Europa gets you +1 affinity with a God, and you are slapping that right into Gro-goroth or Vinushka, or so help me Alll-Mer I will whack you with his Chac Chac. You are squandering his talents if you don't. Eastern Sanctuaries gets you Pyromancy Trick, his first offensive spell he can learn. It's not a bad spell, dealing around 200 damage, only requires 10 mind and has a chance to set an enemy on fire for Damage Over Time, but it's not going to be as useful as whacking limbs off with your Officer's Sword. If you go to his Home Country, you'll pick up Meditation, a passive skill which gets you an extra rev point when using the Guard ability. The last one is one of O'saa's skills, so you can safely avoid it until later. Overall, learning a little more about the Gods can be very useful. Vinushka can get you some decent spells up to Tier 2 and a couple optional ones at Tier 3. Gro-goroth excels at Tier 3 affinity, granting you the legendary Black Orb spell....but you have to make trade-offs when doing ritual circles. Ideally you should pick Gro-Goroth for the sole fact that getting to Tier 2 spells like Blood Golem and Black Smog help your survival out greatly, being a meat shield or poisoning/blinding *all* targets on the screen (if they're vulnerable). Sometimes it can even instantly kill certain targets, since it can hit everything. If you choose Vinushka, You're going to be a little weaker until you can get more skills like Meditation to combo with Roots That Reap, but Combustion is a decent alternative to Hurting if you can get past the extra Mind cost. Speaking of Hurting....

Taking Basic gets you O'saa's skill "La Danse Macabre". Like Marcoh's "Adrenaline Rush" over three turns it buffs your magic damage. Advanced will get you Hurting, whether or not you have affinity with Gro-Goroth. You'll still need one affinity to learn Necromancy, or more to get anything else. However, LDM is also the first skill O'saa learns, so really Hurting is the better choice. You are a blaster class, after all.

Skin-Bibles! There are six in the game, and each allows you to draw on a ritual circle OR use the Engrave skill on someone (we'll talk about that when we get to Marina) but you're allowed to choose from 3 here: Gro-Goroth, Sylvian, and Rher.

What does drawing these sigils do? GG will let you sacrifice an ally on his sigil to gain one more affinity on top of the point you gain for drawing it, but you'll have to fight the party member you put up for it. Sylvian? She will FULLY HEAL YOUR ENTIRE PARTY. This includes EVERYTHING; limb loss, blindness....it won't cure addiction, but this is the 'uno reverse' card for a run going poorly. Gaining two points of affinity with her also yields restorative spells that heal single/multiple people. Rher has it's moments, and an extra 25 max mind can be very useful at tier 2 but his sigil just turns the area you're in to a 'Silent Hill Otherworld' of sorts. Getting to Tier 3 has one advantage in having Golden Gates being unlocked, so you can easily traverse Rher's dimensions thoughout the city and speed things up....you can do this really early too.

So ideally, pick Gro-Goroth or Sylvian to start getting their spells. If you're a speedrunning freak, Rher is the way to go I imagine.

The Armory yields either the Officer Sword (a component for weaponsmithing) or the Iron Spear. The Iron Spear does do a bit more damage, but it's a two-handed weapon....so in a world where you're very likely to lose your arms, take the sword.

O'saa's magical goods are a little....tricky. Tobacco restores 30 mind but needs a pipe to smoke. The Condensed Lavender is rare, and restores a full 100 mind. Lavender can be harvested around the forest, but only Olivia has the talent to craft it into Condensed Lavender in her Skill Tree.

I say Medicine for consistency, as once you get into the city, a good amount of liquor can be found to help restore your mind. But if you find yourself running low a lot, RNG may favor you with a pipe...or!

If you do this correctly, you'll get Not only will you get a pipe, youll get a Small Thing's Amulet, a Thorned Ring (good for poison), Pipe, Wine, extra Tobacco, a Blue Vial, a Lucky Coin....the works. That's right; You're one helmet away from being FULLY equipped, AND you have 4 accessories to start.

This has some advantages....and disadvantages. You actually lose the max health, so you start at 100. BUT! You'll gain La Danse Macabre and Hurting, giving you a powerful offensive spellkit to start. You'll also start with the Magical Goods, but since you skipped, you'll have no pipe. Last, your skin bible is relegated to Rher's. It has it's perks, but losing a point of affinity, the Officer Sword, all the extra supplies....you want power? Pay attention and do your backstory correctly! Then save the history so you don't have to do it again.

Take the Chac Chac, take Europa and your preferred spellcasting God, take Advanced for Hurting, Gro-Goroth or Sylvian for the book, get the Sword, and Medicine or Magical supplies. Get as many soul stones as possible and get Danse Macabre from his skill tree ASAP. Get to Tier 2 Vinushka or Tier 3 Gro-Goroth ASAP. The text adventure completion will determine how strong your O'saa is to start.

O'saa's "La Danse Macabre" is the FUNNIEST thing in the game. The things you do to rain magical death on people, sheesh.

O'saa's "Spice Forge" can be the most broken skill in the game. It's effect is very simple; You augment one of your main characters learned spells with one of three colors. They all apply different effects.

• Adding blue spice to a spell reduces it's mind cost by half or more, or alternatively reduces the Rev cost.
  
• Adding red spice to a spell causes it to cast twice, but targeted spells are randomized. Not all spells can be cast twice in this manner (Blood Golem for example).
  
• Adding white spice instantly casts the spell at the start of combat. (Not sure if a rev point is still required for it to auto-cast, such as with Occultism or Greater Occultism).

This is why O'saa is the most overall powerful of any character. The ability to open up combat by casting certain spells, reducing their costs, or adding extra instances of spells like Black Orb can overwhelm an opponent before they have a chance to react. If you can get O'saa to the point where he's got offensive spells like Black Smog automatically casting to start a fight, it's game over for most enemies. Action economy is king in this game, and preemptively or doubling up on spells will make your life the easiest it's ever been, provided you can keep your character's mind fueled.

Marina is an interesting choice. if O'saa is the powerhouse offensive mage, Marina is a lot more balanced, and in her own ways, potentially one of the strongest contestants to choose. The trade-off is that her gear and HP aren't nearly as good as O'saa, but she'll have better magical range to start. O'saa starts out loaded with equipment but can lack spells, but Marina can start gathering Soul Stones and rush to spells like Black Orb with little fanfare. If you're lucky, you can acquire gear like the Chac Chac and start getting up to O'saa's level, but you'll never quite be as good without abilities like La Danse Macabre.Totally not trying to give you ideas there old sport....~ But O'saa and Marina players gain a huge buff by murdering one another for their skill trees. Still, her skill tree is top notch; Engrave is a one-time boost to your character's stats, Warding Sigil blocks off a tile, turning a narrow path or doorway into a wall....and the occultism skills start Marina off with Rev Points, giving her the ability to cast spells out of the gate or get to 3 Rev Points and it's additional attack, giving her extra flexibility with regular attacks. If you're not quite sure what you're going to build, Marina can work in a variety of ways.

Difficulty: Hard-Medium (RNG will determine this), then Very Easy

As before, Marina will have a knife and her starting outfit, as well as the coins, but she'll also start with Chalk, a vital item to draw sigils onto ritual circles. Once you get skin bibles, you're well on your way. Unfortunately for Marina, her defense is a joke; her blouse gives only 7% otherworldly reduction. With only a knife, no real offensive spells to start, and garbage defense, she's quite a step down from the rest of the party.

NOTE: This includes being the first contestant listed that cannot use Two-Handed Weapons, such as spears. She and the other two who can't wield two-handed weapons can still use all firearms.

Her backstory choices are dead simple, but they set the strong foundation for your playstyle. You're going to have to survive long enough to gather Soul Stones to get her some spells, and better gear, but once you do, she picks up real fast.

You'll get your 1(4) Blue Vials, some Moldy Bread, Engrave, and Necromancy. Having both Engrave and Necromancy is nice to start, but losing max affinity for a god is REALLY not worth it, as well as losing that Skin Bible. It's the entire point of choosing Marina, so do the backstory.

Right out the gate, none of these are bad options....though your mileage will vary. Blood Magic will net you Necromancy, and the ability to raise a few select dead from the starting areas, giving you an ally pretty early. Engrave requires a skin bible, so if you're picking this, her Supplies choice will lean on Reading. Alchemy is good for the early game, as it allows you to learn how to mix herbs you find around the forest, or create blue vials (your standard healing potion). It also unlocks Yellow, White, and Murky Vials (useless, an antidote you find in every fridge in the game, and a molotov that hits everything). The Yellow Vials require 2 golden chanterelles around the forest; mix a yellow vial with a bottle of oil and you'll get the Murky Vial. You can chance not picking up Alchemy here and try your luck with bookshelves (most notably the Mayor's mansion), but Murky Vials can be a really fast way to end fights in the early game. No choice is really bad, but your next choice influences this...

Max. Affinity. With a god of your choice. Do NOT pick Alll-Mer, his tree isn't worth it, and the only thing really worth it, you can get a point of affinity for free if you know where and how (*cough*confessional*cough*). I don't recommend Sylvian, as they only have two tiers of affinity, but it does unlock strong healing magic. Choosing this means you're relying on Necromancy to gain more damage early on. Gro-Goroth is almost a no-brainer choice, it clears a straight path to Black Orb, let alone Black Smog and Blood Golem. Vinushka is the balanced option, with offensive and defensive choices. Rher gets you the Golden Gates and the extra mind, as well as revealing the aura of other contestants and where they're at, in a manner of speaking. Mind Read can be fun but it's just fluff, best for a second or third playthrough proper since Rher offers no offensive magic.

However, we haven't really talked about the last God's spell list, The God of Fear and Hunger (GoFAH for short). Rot is a 1 Rev spell that weakens an opponent, can be useful but not wholly necessary. Mastery over Vermin is okay, but it really helps unlocking bonus conversations and items around the outskirts. Flesh Puppetry is a little silly and hard to gauge, since it relies.....literally on how many dismembered arms you've managed to find off enemies. However, once it's set up, it deals multiple attacks that scale with accrued limbs each turn, so it's fairly solid. Just hold off on using your bodybag limbs for food if you can, as it affects the damage. The +1 agility sets up most avenues to an extra attack. Mischief of Rats is a fairly solid spell to round things off, as it requires no rev but has high stun probability against all enemies.

What you choose will determine your play style, but remember Vinushka requires Sylvian affinity for certain spells.

Straightforward as always. Medicine gets your usual medical supplies, but Reading nets you one Skin Bible, randomly selected. This can be...a little frustrating, as you're stuck either reloading for the one you're looking for, or rolling with it and hoping you get the one you want from a bookshelf sooner rather than later. Despite that, if you took the Engrave skill in the first choice, randomly getting a GoFAH Skin Bible can be amazingly powerful.

Since Marina has so few choices, they need to be chosen with a goal in mind. Did you choose Engrave? You might want to pick GoFAH for affinity, roll for the Skin Bible of said God, and become melee focused to start. Necromancy? Take Gro-Goroth, you have one point already in his tree now, that much faster to get Black Orb and the added helpers you can get pads out your damage. Alchemy? With Sylvian and extra medical supplies, so long as you don't lose limbs or bleed too much, you can take a lot of damage and heal it up. Just remember that Rher has no offensive options, Vinushka has overlapping affinity requirements with Sylvian and Gro-Goroth, and just don't bother with Alll-Mer.

Daan can be a very interesting character to choose, because he can be built two different ways to start. Much like Marina, his make-or-break strategy will be to get as many soul stones as possible as early as possible to slot into his skills on the Hexen. Naturally, being a Doctor nets Daan various ways to remedy most of the medical conditions you're likely to face (blindness, bleeding, infection), and unlike the Brain and Mind flowers you get from Vinushka's tree, Daan's "Organ Harvest" skill uses enemy corpses without ruining the head, so there's a major advantage. Moreover, his "Analyze" skill is effectively a free damage buff against an enemy, requiring no Mind or Rev points to use. He's a little complicated to start, but don't underestimate Daan, as he has strong survivability and the only "resurrection" spells in the game with his Magna-Medicinal Skill.

Difficulty: In a weird way, Hard. You'll be able to patch yourself up, and can quickly gain access to a bunch of remedies or spells but you're not a powerhouse to start. The faster you understand the surrounding areas and gather allies, the easier Daan becomes to play. Alone, he's durable but quick to burn out. With a party, Daan will lead the charge.

Daan starts with a dapper Silk Vest and the usual money. He CAN start with a Scalpel, which does much better damage than the stock knife, but more on that later. His vest isn't particularly strong with just an 8% reduction of otherworldly spells.

For his choices, his first one is critical.

Yes, this one is a little different, as you have technically three choices to start. You're slated between Daan's skills, or Sylvian's to start.

Skipping with Daan actually isn't too bad. He'll start with Pep Pills (gives an extra turn), Green Herb (infection cure), 2(5) Blue Vials and some moldy bread. He'll also get a balance between his skills (Medicinal and Organ Harvest) and affinity with Sylvian (only +1 instead of +2), but this is a solid option for someone looking to get healing spells later, but a good start on harvesting healing organs.

If you choose becoming a pickpocket, Daan slowly realizes he sucks at it, and starts practicing in Sylvian's arts....which gets him +2 max affinity with her. Moreover, you gain Loving Whispers, a solid healing spell that turns all alcohol or mind-restoring items you find basically into extra heals. Naturally, if you plan is to pick up more party members, being in Sylvian's tree is great as once you get Healing Whispers, and become the designated "White Mage" of the group. Sylvian's Skills also include Pheromones, so if you plan to take this round, get this skill and another member as soon as possible to turn someone into a Tank (as in, directing all enemy attacks toward them).

Taking Honest Work leads to an Apprenticeship, which slates you with Daan's offensive or defensive skills. Taking "Memorize" will get you Organ Harvesting and Medicinal, two skills which you need for....well, gathering organs. Medicinal utilizes these organs for various healing effects at the cost of 10 mind (or 7 for the Parathyroid):

• Kidneys remove Poison (Semi-Common)
  
• Livers remove Toxic (rare, but useful to have a couple)
  
• Eyes cure Blindness (one of the rare few ways to cure it)
  
• Hearts cure Bleeding (very common)
  
• Thymus helps with Infections (very common)
  
• Parathyroid Glands cure Fractures (VERY rare)

You can also delay this harvesting for when you actually need to.

Taking "Learn More" gets you the Analyze skill, which is Daan's signature enemy debuff. There are some issues with it though.

• Does NOT work on most Moonscorched Contestants. Only two are affected Mastermind and Coccoon
  
• Does not work on enemies with....interesting heads. Or several. Or none at all.
  
• Doesn't work on ghosts.
  
• Doesn't work on angry mobs.
  
• Doesn't work on someone too high to care. Needles is funny like that.
  
• Doesn't work on VERY powerful entities (think Old God or something that usually can beat them).

So it doesn't work on at least half the boss roster. Who does it work on? Besides the regular humanoids at the start.... Any of the other contestants who aren't moonscorched, the few doppelgangers around, new gods, things with clearly distinguished heads...and things without like the Headless Dogs.

If you're planning to be a healer, it's wise to take Pickpocketing or Honest Work into "Memorizing" for getting around status debuffs. Analyze has the occasional use and can trivialize some tougher enemies, but it's not as critical and definitely benefits from more party members. The only drawback from not taking "Learn More" is having to spend one more Soul Stone to get to it as Analyze is Daan's last skill, and the skill "Precision Stance" isn't necessarily the best, as boosting your accuracy doesn't always solve your problems with an enemy's evasion.

This one will influence your starting gear. If you join up as a Medic, you'll gain a Light Blue Vial (which heals +80 instead of +30), and a bottle of Pep Pills. Joining as Infantry will instead give you a Lugr Pistol with 5 shots, and you'll LOSE the scalpel, leaving the Knife as your only option. You're able to find the gun, but not the Scalpel, and 5 shots won't go as far as you think. I'd advise against joining the Infantry for the better, consistent melee option.

Daan's choice here leans on whether or not you chose to be more of a Doctor or Spellcaster. The usual healing supplies are here, 2 vials and a cloth, but you also have the ability to take Alcohol with you for +50 mind from the Vodka, and +30 from the beer, which only gives you....a little over 2 extra casts of Loving Whispers. Daan will be WITHOUT bandages and no ways to stem bleeding with Medicinal/Organ Harvesting, so you're at risk for bleeding. Choosing Medical supplies either way is usually a good idea, but the healing spells do more work than +30 hp so this is a preference and a gamble.

Daan's choices out of anyone are all technically good. It's up to you how you want to build him:

• Choose Pickpocketing, Medic, and Alcohol for a healing spellcaster (get the Pheromones spell as soon as you can to make someone your designated tank)
  
• Choose Honest Work, Memorize, Medic, and Medicine for a well-rounded Healer
  
• Choose Honest Work, Learn More, Infantry and Medicine for an offensive "Harmicist" (recommended once you know how to get more allies)
  
• Choose Honest Work, Learn More, Medic, and Medicine for a weaker healer but has a way to set up quick kills for the first areas of the game

It is advised to find and have Daan equip items that protect your limbs. If you do this, Daan will be able to freely resurrect slain allies with his Magna-Medical skill, which requires limb sacrifice to use. If you get him to this point, this is where Daan can really flip the table against the denizens of Prehevil.

Karin is different from a lot of the roster. While most everyone else has a way to boost or augment their combat skills or effectiveness, Karin's skill tree is ENTIRELY passive. Persuade can help augment a few talking options in a fight, and a lot of enemies can be forced to "hesitate", buying you more time to kill them, or penalizing their attack/defense, but it's only powerful once you get Karin's last ability of Diplomacy, which turns talking into a free action at the start of combat. Not all enemies can be talked down, but a lot can be slowed down or weakened with a few choice words. However, Lockpicking and Escape Plan are GOAT skills to improve your survival and exploration of the early game. If you head west early and grab Abella, you're effectively a door unlocking god team. With balanced equipment options to acquire through her backstory, Karin can be pretty strong just by getting to later areas earlier....but she takes a while to master, since you'll have to know when to open your mouth against certain enemies. Nothing like bargaining with unspeakable horrors, am I right? Just another day in the life of a reporter.

Difficulty: Hard to start, but once you know dialogue choices, fights can be a little easier. Karin tests your memory, so master what to say to certain enemies early on. Some things you say can make a fight harder. And "Talk-An-Enemy-Down-No-Justsu" doesn't work on everything.

Karin's Pilot Jacket is one of the best starting armors. It'll slow bleeding like Marcoh's Jacket, reduce slashing/piercing/otheworldly damage by 7% and fire by 15%. It provides a bit of protection against everything, and it'll hold you over until you find something more protective.

NOTE: Karin is the second person who cannot use Two-Handed Weapons besides firearms. She's covered wars, y'know.

You'll get a Lugr Pistol, 6 bullets for it, 2(5) Blue Vials, and a Moldy Bread. You'll also get Escape Plan AND Persuade, which is by default a "one or the other" choice she can make. Skipping with Karen is viable, but weaker than just making choices.

As I said, Convincing gets her "Persuade" skill, and running gets the "Escape Plan" skill. This is definitely a "how are you going to approach the start of this game?" choice. Do you want to experiment with how Karin's persuasiveness works, and if it can get you an edge? Or are you going to run and juke the enemy, and want an option if you should fail or get ambushed? Or....

[h1Second Choice][/h1]
You make the choice here. Helping people gets you a LOT of healing items, 4 cloths to stem bleeding and 2 blue vials. Grabbing a pistol will get you a Lugr and 6 rounds. Or you can....run away again. IF YOU CHOSE TO RUN AWAY IN THE FIRST CHOICE, DO NOT CHOOSE IT HERE AS YOU GET NOTHING AND INSTEAD LOSE SUPPLIES. But remember how I said earlier that skipping with Karin is viable? This is kind of why. You can get Persuade, then Escape Plan here.

[Author's Note: They probably should've included Lockpicking here as a choice....]

Karin can get the usual medical supplies, or a Pistol, 5 [7] 9mm rounds, or a Fencing Gambison.

Wait, weren't parenthesis the reason for extra items---

If you chose to grab the pistol earlier, you'll actually net 7 rounds instead of 5. And the Fencing Gambeson, while nothing spectacular, does have a better overall defense than the Pilot Jacket. Just watch out for fire attacks.

Yeah, that's....kind of it for Karin. Skipping her backstory isn't a good idea because, while it gets her a bit of everything, she's better off making the choices for the extra ammo/armor, or medical supplies. Generally speaking...

Do you plan to mess around in combat? Then choose Persuading, Medical Supplies, then MORE medical supplies.

Do you plan to avoid combat with enemies for as long as possible? Run away, help people, then grab either more medicine or the self-defense items. Your choice for the last one.

Do you plan to fight? Then either option, grab the pistol, and grab the ammo/armor.

Yeah that's....kind of it for her. She talks and has a pistol. You'll want to get Lockpicking and Diplomacy as soon as possible. It's critical that you do this because she lacks any sort of actual power. No magic, no real offensive skills besides running away, no firearms training, no martial skills, no doctorate in medicine or botany....not even her best skill to start, Lockpicking.

Everyone has something majorly useful but Karin; she's gotta earn her keep.

Saving the best (and longest to explain overall) for last, Olivia may be a little unassuming, is by far one of the most powerful and unique character in the roster. Her starting skills basically turn the starting forest areas into a cornucopia of items for healing, regeneration, or debuffing/poisoning her enemies. Her skills to start can almost be completely acquired through the opening choices, getting Undergrowth Awareness, Advanced Botanism and Toxicology to start...or you can dabble with some other skills to explore other options. With the ability to do some major healing or debuffing, what's her "weakness"?

Well. Obviously, you would think it's her Wheelchair. She has a unique slot for it in her equipment list; having it equipped prevents you from going up stairs, try to and you'll slide back down at rapid speed. Unequip it, and she'll crawl, but she can go up stairs again. But, if you enter combat WITHOUT it, you cannot attack with her. If an enemy is chasing you near stairs, or is at the top of them, you're very likely to be ambushed and unable to attack. You'll have to get used to pressing C to quickly equip/unequip whenever you're trying to go up stairs and whenever an enemy is around to avoid losing a round in combat with her. Thankfully, even this is fairly balanced, as Olivia going down the stairs has increased speed, and any enemy unlucky enough to be in her way on or near the stairs will be stunned for a second.

But...if you're REALLY good...and lets say Olivia rolls down the stairs and happens to have a shotgun equipped in the overworld...remember when we talked about the Trenchgun having the option to two-shot enemies, but one-shot stunned enemies?
























(Image by Lunaticker on Newgrounds)

You don't even have to fully roll down the stairs; just sliding down one set can be enough to stun an enemy. If Olivia gets a shotgun and some shells, she can start making absurdly quick work of some of the enemies. This doesn't work on everything though, so be cautious about what exactly you're trying to tackle.

Difficulty: Olivia might be the easiest character to play once you get past her disability and choose all her Botanist options. That's not to say overpowered, you're still very much able to die in the early game, but with all the extra supplies and a little know-how, she's VERY EASY.

There are quite a few plants to harvest around Prehevil, so lets start listing them off.

• Blue Herbs can be the most basic source of healing in the game, restoring only a mere 12 HP. There are 19 locations where you can harvest these. Note their locations for later should you acquire Undergrowth Awareness. You can also find them in crates/barrels.
  
• Green Herbs can be used to cure infections. There are only 11 locations to find however, so be cautious using them too early (especially if you're using Dirty Toilet Paper to patch bleeding as it has a chance to cause infection). Can be purchased for 6 shillings. Can also be found in crates/barrels.
  
• Red Herbs are another healing item, but they heal less than or equal to a Blue Herb. Red Herbs are an obvious homage to Resident Evil, as they work better mixed with other plants. Try not to use them for healing unless you are REALLY desperate. Can be found in crates/barrels.

• Lavender restores 5 Mind when used. You'll want to look for "purple herbs", usually hanging around long purple flowers. There are 20 to find, and they can be discovered in crates/barrels. Also has a chance to drop from certain enemies.
  
• Penny Buns are a brown-capped mushroom. Safe to eat, restores 7 hunger. 38 can be found throughout the game, as well as dropped from crates/barrels.
  
• Golden Chanterelles are obvious to find due to their color, and also restore 7 hunger. Only 8 can be found, and it can also be found randomly from crates/barrels.
  
• Fly Amanitas are the red-with-white-speckles mushrooms, and are NOT safe to eat. They'll restore 7 hunger, but you will also be poisoned. This also cannot be used against enemies, and is ultimately a crafting component. 9 can be found, it drops from certain enemies (For whatever good that does), and it's also found within Barrels.

• Dark Blue Roots can be harvested from where you pluck Blue Herbs from. They only heal for a small amount, 3 HP, but they'll slap Regen on your character, which will heal 5% of your body per turn (so +5 for most anyone, +6 if you're at 125 Body with certain characters). Can only be harvested from Blue Herb spots, so use them wisely.
  
• Poison Hemlock is the first offensive plant you can find. It will inflict poison status, which (if my math is correct), will deal approximately 20% per tick of an opponent's maximum HP. 20 of these tall white flowers can be found. Cannot be looted.
  
• Nettle inflicts the Irritation status on an enemy. This will debuff their defenses (physical and magical) by 10%, and drop their accuracy by 30%. The weakest of the offensive plants, but has it's uses later on when you can have other allies apply debuffs. There are plenty of places to find it at least, a whopping 30 locations. Cannot be looted.
  
• Wild dagga is an interesting plant. If you have a Pipe, you can smoke it for +100 mind restored. Against an enemy, it'll debuff them with the Concussion effect (stunned for 1-3 turns). Only 10 can be found, but it can be purchased for 25 shillings. Cannot be looted.

NOTE: Some of these items are "farmable"....but only Vinushka knows how....

Undergrowth Awareness is what unlocks the ability to gather the herbs, but Olivia's other skills are needed to boost her plants to the next level.

Having this allows Olivia (or whoever takes these skills) to combine herbs and lavender into other items.

• You can combine a Dark Blue Root and Red herb into a Mixed Herb which is supposed to grant +2-4 healing and Greater Regen, which is twice as strong as regular regen (so +10 or +12(13?)). 5 health is a little too weak to matter, but 10 can help while you're guarding, and it can really help Blood Golems with their 200 HP.
  
• The other Mixed Herb is made with the Dark Blue Root and Blue Herb. This one will also apply the Greater Regen, and heal you for 50 HP. Between the two mixes listed here, I highly suggest this over a Red/Dark Blue mix, as Red Herbs can be more useful elsewhere.
  
• Condensed Lavender can be made with 2 Lavender and 1 Red Herb. Restores 100 mind. Very useful for spellcasting.
  
• Condensed Blue is made with 2 Blue Herbs and a Red. Heals for the max of any playable character, 125 HP.
  
• Condensed Green will heal AND temporarily prevent Poison, Toxic, Nausea, Infections, and Bleeding. Truth be told, I'm not sure how effective this is for two greens and a red herb, as all the refrigerators in the game carry a white vial for poison/toxin/nausea, and I leaned on green herbs for infection.

Having this skill unlocks the following:

• Condensed Nettle takes two nettles and a red herb. Adds a 1-2 stun effect ontop the irritation debuff. Not bad, but not great. If you're looking for ways to stun without using up your Wild Dagga for mind restoration, this is it.
  
• Condensed Hemlock, like all the rest, takes two Poison Hemlock and a Red Herb. This applies Toxic to an enemy, and if they have no resistance to it, this does roughly 50% a targets HP. This is what makes Olivia really powerful throughout, as doing this level of damage trivializes some tougher enemies who either attack slowly or tank up, as this ignores defensive buffs. You won't get the opportunity to make too many of these, but this is easily a top tier item to craft a few of.

Alchemillia Volumes 1-3 are random drops throughout the game's bookshelves, but Olivia can at least start with Volume 1. Having the corresponding book allows you to craft the following:

• You can mix a blue and red herb for a healing item that gives +75 HP.
  
• You can mix a green and red for the same effects as the condensed (poisons, toxins, nausea, infections), but they lack the preventative measures. You're better off crafting the Condensed Green for it's preemptive status.
  
• Blue Vials can be created with two blue herbs. Restores +30 HP.

• White Vial - Requires a Blue Vial and Fly Amanita, White Vials cure Poison/Toxic/Nausea. A waste of a decent healing item, as White Vials can be guaranteed found in the aforementioned refrigerators. Don't waste your Blue Vials for these unless you're sorely desperate.
  
• Yellow Vial - take two Golden Chanterelles, and you have a yellow vial. It's supposed to be edible, but it's bugged. Not the point for them anyway, as....
  
• Murky Vial - Take one bottle of oil, mix it with a Yellow Vial, and you have yourself a molotov cocktail that hits everything on screen for decent damage, and possibly sets them ablaze with a DOT fire effect. Much like the Condensed Hemlock, extremely powerful.

• Combine two Blue Vials, gets you a Light Blue Vial, which heals you for +80 HP. You get an extra +20 HP from the two, but now you can only heal one person greatly instead of two people moderately. Some enemies do pack a severe punch and may require these to be used or curative spells instead, but you gotta weigh your options.
  
• Brown Vial requires a Light Blue Vial mixed with Pep Pills like its Diet Coke and Mentos. This concoction applies speed, attack, and evasion buffs, giving you 200% Agility, an extra 30% damage, and 50% more evasion. If you're actually flush with Light Blue Vials, it's pretty safe to make one or two of these for a tougher fight to tilt the odds in your favor.

Got all that? Good. Olivia starts out equipped with her trusty Foldable Wheelchair, standard knife and coins, her Turtleneck (Only -5% otherworldy defense), and a One-Winged Necklace which in of itself is a craftable item, and grants a solid 10% resistance to otherworldly damage; but should you reach half health, it'll bolster your defense with the "Last Stand" buff, which reduces physical damage by a whopping 40%. Alternatively, if you find the other one and craft the "Blue Noctuid Necklace", it'll instead apply the "Butterfly Defense", which will halve magic damage instead when down by half hp, giving you a chance to bounce back against spellcasters. The One-Winged Necklace can be a lifesaver of an item.

NOTE: Olivia is the third and final character who can't wield two-handed weapons.

Olivia will have one blue herb, one green herb, mixed blue and red, one bread, and 1(3) blue vials. She will also know Undergrowth Awareness and Advanced Botanism. You'll be able to pick everything up around in the starting areas, but won't be able to make Condensed Hemlock/Nettle. You also lose out on the Alchemillia Vol. 1, which reduces your basic mixing options like Blue Vials. That alone makes skipping the backstory here actually a detriment despite the extra healing items.

You can give in to jealousy and learn Short Circuit, or continue your studies for Undergrowth Awareness. Almost a non-choice, as Undergrowth Awareness is what lets you harvest the plants to begin with. You can either take a form of lockpicking that allows you to bypass or find more items.....or just get a giant pile of items to start with both offensively and defensively. Be smart and Continue Your Studies.

Flirting with the professor only gets you a cookbook. Recipes of the 15th Century Vol. 1 just allows you to make Meat and Vegetable Pies. You're very likely to find this early on, and even if you don't you're likely to make a lot of mushroom stew from Penny Buns anyway, and it fills you up the same. If you tattle, you get nothing, so don't bother. And Concentrating On Your Studying gets you Advanced Botanism. So keep studying!!!

Folklore studies gets you Vinushka's Skin Bible. Toxicology gets you.....Toxicology. I can't really imagine a world where you take Vinushka's book, but it's there.

The only "difficult" choice. You can either get 7 extra items (2 green herbs, 2 blue, 2 lavender, and a red)......or the Alchemillia Vol. 1 with finding something to read. Having all those extra herbs doesn't hurt, but this book fully rounds your kit out for the first areas of the game.

Study, study, study! Become the best Botanist! Olivia is hilariously straightforward. It may be her only inconvenience, she doesn't gain enough from choosing Short Circuit, or the Skin Bible of Vinushka (even if you want to splash Magic, you're better off with Gro-Goroth's or GoFAH's spells), or the Culinary book....none of those choices give her a strong edge, and they don't even combo off one another. So you're basically given almost all of her skills to start except Poison Tip (5 mind cost, applies poison to your blade outside for one combat, 50% chance to proc). Her backstory choices and her final skill are a little dull, I'll admit.

Having extra herbs on hand for the last choice isn't a terrible alternative to the Vol. 1 (if you're chancing bookshelves for it).....but a crafting book in hand is worth two in the shelves. Especially when it lets you create Blue Vials to get your healing game started. STUDY!

• O'saa is one of the best offensive Spellcasters with his Spice Forge power. Getting him to that point and enough spells to cast will make him unstoppable once fully equipped. You also get to have a talking head back you up! If you played the original Fear and Hunger, playing O'saa is almost too easy, but he's a lot of fun.
  
  
• Marina is a strong spellcaster, with the ability to choose any God and get most of thier power immediately. But since her gear is weak, your best bet is to have many allies for extra damage, or getting lucky and finding some firearms or something to boost her offense. Once there, she's can be as effective as O'saa.
  
  
• Olivia needs a little bit of getting used to, but she's absolutely the most broken character without Magic. Knowledge is power, and she counts herself among the smartest, with a massive item pool to use from the local flora. Master her Wheelchair stun and find a shotgun, and you'll make the streets of Prehevil the safest they've ever been. And even if you don't, you'll definitely survive long enough to beat the game.
  
  
• Daan rides the line between a Medic, Combat Medic, or Healing Spellcaster. It's usually better to go one way or another fully with him, but either option for extra healing rounds him out as a strong party leader with good survivability. I'd call him a strong starting point for learning a little bit of everything without having to commit too strongly.
  
  
• Marcoh is your Melee master, not requiring too much to get going, but reliant on some key gear and smart planning to excel. Dead simple, but a bit of a learning curve all the same. Your game plan is to get 16 agility no matter what. After that, you'll be a walking Black Orb of punches and start mauling enemies.....just don't lose your arms. A Marcoh playthrough without arms better have a backup plan fast.
  
  
• Levi is the Firearm Expert, gaining a couple useful skills to boost Rifles and Pistols (though not shotguns due to a bug). Should Executioner ever get patched, Olivia's power will drop and Levi's usefulness will increase. Still, he's got a decent kit out the gate to eliminate threats before they can even try to carve your limbs off. If you plan to use him, conserve ammo during the outskirts as much as possible. You're better off utilizing as much of his ammo as possible against bigger threats in the city itself....and if you're unable to avoid threats, GET LIMB PROTECTION IF LEVI SPECIALIZES IN RIFLES. If you're scared of that, stick with skipping his backstory, pepper an enemy with 9mm rounds once or twice, and swap to a melee option before the enemy reaches you.
  
  
• Abella has a very strong lockdown move with Wrench Toss. Against single opponents or enemies that only have one limb to attack with, she can REALLY slow down an opponent's offense. Trapcrafting and Weaponcrafting are very strong skills in the mid-game, strong enough to make late-game weapons too. But until that point, you gotta pick your fights wisely, because enemies with multiple limb attacks will still overrun her. Choosing her first also limits your party options really early. If you head west, you can recruit her within five minutes if you know where to look. But without, you don't have anyone else you can recruit unless you can reach the city or know where to look on the first night. She really is a push-pull of usefulness, sorry to say.
  
  
• Karin can be tough to start, but she evens out with her Diplomacy skill once you get it, and Lockpicking is very useful. You may want to figure out how to get more skills to boost her damage all the same. She's a little gimmicky, but she's not completely helpless once you know how to play her.

Overall, I suggest characters like Abella, Marcoh, or Karin for a straightforward playstyle to start learning (Abella and Karin having ways to bypass doors helps immensely to learn), Daan and Levi for a little more complexity or versatility, and Olivia, Marina, and O'saa for characters that have huge potential to ramp their power once you acquire the means.

I'll be covering more later if needs be, and cover the list of Contestants, their skills, and more clearly spoiler-based stuff.. I'm mostly doing this for fun in my spare time, so I hope you got some good advice/intel and maybe a laugh or two. Everything past this point will be in a "rough draft" way, so once it's ABOVE this point, it's pretty much ready.

Still reading? Good. Everything beyond this point is for those who are REALLY struggling and just want a good idea of what in the world to do. At the end of the day, I will tell you that discovering what things are on your own is a lot more fun, and I got by for the most part with minimal intervention (I did get lost on where to even go after a point as I felt I had explored everywhere...), so take a breath and think about if you want to continue.

Still do?

Alright. Let's talk what makes every character unique. We'll be re-reviewing some of the skills discussed, but the repetition will help keep things in your mind. First, you need to access The Hexen to even add skills. There are two ways in F&H Difficulty; one exists within the city behind a purple door (I'll let you find that one since I'm not making this TOO easy, just explaining things), and the other exists by going to sleep and talking to Per'kele. The Hexen appears as such.

• The Blue Box in the bottom is your starting point. It provides nothing but a through line to the contestant's skills, indicated by the purple line that appears and stops at where you can start learning skills.
  
• If you've beaten the game in certain ways, you'll unlock the Indigo Boxes. They're powerful skills you can acquire for other contestants on their next playthroughs.
  
• The Yellow Box is the name of the skill highlighted.
  
• The Orange Box is a great compilation of Valve games released back in....oh wait wrong one. This Orange Box highlights the emblem of a God. You'll need one affinity to begin learning their skills. A lot of contestants have ways to do this from the start from your choices.
  
• The Purple Box is roughly highlighting the faded grey circles. Those are the sphere of affinity. There is also overlap with some of the God's skills, and we'll get into that later.
  
• And last but not least, the Red Box highlights how many Soul Stones you have.

Simply put? Your....experience, lets say. You can acquire shards by sacrificing enemy heads. You'll need a bonesaw to "acquire" these skulls.....but certain enemies, "frenemies" (you'll know em when you see em), and contestants can instead be used as a currency for an item. But. Besides three spots you can grab them from, the saws have a 3% chance to BREAK. It's a pretty low chance, but certain enemies will shatter the bonesaw upon your attempt no matter what. So if you break the one or two in your inventory, you're hosed. And no matter how infinitesimally small that 3% chance is....this is Fear and Hunger. You know there's a ghost of a chance you'll be royally screwed and locked out of skills for a good while until RNG blesses you with one more. Bonesaw wisely.

Heads will need to be traded at one particular spot early on, and you'll be given a Soul Stone Shard per head, but you'll find others later. Look for these, and keep a good memory of where to find them for convenience sake.

(Also don't mash through the menu, as you may burn up rare items to trade other things....or awaken something worse.)




Some rarer enemies drop Soul Stones, O'saa can start with it, stolen from a few enemies.....can buy it for 50 shillings....one can be found (in a manner of speaking), and maybe even RNG will bless you with a freebie from a Chest. But for the most part, you'll be taking a saw to just about everything, as it takes 3 heads to make 1 Soul Stone from the Soul Stone Shards.

Use your Soul Stones Wisely! You need to have the previous skill to acquire the next skill in the tree [Author's Note: I will have to test if having a skill without the prior ones in some cases prevent you from proceeding]. And moreover.


A friendly PC dies? The skills you gave them are gone forever. Give it to the wrong character? No way to unlearn it for someone else. So. Use. Them. WISELY.

"Wait. Who?"

This guy. From the train. First guy you see really?

















"Oh. ...HUH?"

Welcome to the spoiler part of the chat.

So once you've done the opening story, you're likely to skip it on repeat playthroughs. But Per'kele, your favorite shadow antagonist from the start of the game, spells it out for you in not-so-many words.....In this world?

It's "Kill or be killed."

Your contestants, playable and unplayable, all have a special "soul". Your soul is what gives you access to your skills. Gods (which we'll cover later), require "affinity", as in doing acts to please them be it drawing their sigils on occult circles, prayer, or....other ways. But first let's tackle skills from the non-contestants. You want their soul and their power?

Kill them.

You DO NOT get their soul if someone else gets the kill. Killing the killer of the contestant will also not get their soul back. It's a first-come first-served system.

Certain enemies don't drop souls either, but encountering and killing a Moonscorched Contestant does count. No matter what happens, Moonscorching of almost all the contestants will occur on the last night of Day 3, and if you sleep then and Day 4 happens, well.....that's a game over too. Your character will Moonscorch and that's all she wrote. What is Moonscorching exactly? All part of the game. I think you'll come to understand it.

Now! We're doing Tanaka first because his soul is the most straightfoward of them all.

Tanaka's path through the Hexen lets you pick +1 Agility to start, then it branches out into +1 Attack and +1 Defense, or +1 M. Defense and +1 M. Attack. Sounds simple, right? The attack boosts and defense boosts are a little hard to understand but generally speaking, the only one that matters is Agility. The +1 Agility is king.

So on your equipment, you may have noticed that there's a defensive stat (+1 from a blouse or turtleneck, +2-3 from jackets, so on), but then you'll see a stat at the top in the text that tells you %'s and a damage type.

The numbers that buff your defense, magical or otherwise? Mostly useless. The percentages are what matter. The numbers that buff your attack? More useful, but let's break it down.

Attack is multiplied by 4, magical by 2. So....what happens when you multiply 1 by 2 or 4? That's right! You get....an extra 2 or 4 damage. It's really the last thing you should ever put your skill points into. Defense is almost the same, but it only reduces damage by 2% to start. Even if you took all the skills, you'd only get 5% total reduction. Getting all the M. Defense also gives you just 5% reduction. You're not really focusing on how high the defense is, you're focusing on what's coming at you.

Agility is what you want. It's the one thing you need. Everyone starts with 10 agility, Levi being the ONLY exception with his Heroin addiction lowering it badly. 10 agility lets your characters usually go to start combat, with a few exceptions (and you'll know it by the ENEMY going first). Getting 16 agility gives the respective character an extra attack. With extra attacks, you can start reliably killing enemies within the first few turns of combat, and it frees up your action economy in a fight to heal or go on the defensive, steal items, talk an enemy down, so on. You can't TALK on an extra turn mind you, and certain skills won't work either. But since your free action is at the end of the turn, you gain a rev point, and that'll let you cast a spell or skill that needs them. There are a few ways to boost your agility:

• +1 from Tanaka (so....he has to die, sorry)
  
• +5 from Engrave with the GoFAH symbol (most powerful way, frees up accessory slot)
  
• +1 on the GoFAH skill tree (combined with Engrave, +6 without items or killing)
  
• Pep Pills will double your agility, require a turn to use, but can be used on the overworld (but fades once you leave the zone you're in).
  
• Brown Vials will also double your agility and grant more buffs, but can only be used in combat.
  
• Marcoh's "Fast Stance" will double your agility.

Bear in mind, you'll get the extra attack at the end of the turn, so provided the first attack isn't lethal or debilitating from the enemy....another thing to consider after a few deaths.

You meet Henryk on the train, same as Tanaka. Henryk is the young man in a sweater vest. His skills are a straight line through.

Tired of eating all the time? This is the skill for you. It may not seem like a critical skill, but this will increase the amount of time you can wander around without starving. By default, you will burn 1 hunger every 20 seconds. This will bump it up to 57 seconds. This makes it a smidge easier to play without having to constantly eat....but it only affects ONE character. So good for a solo run (especially in Masochism mode if you can get the breathing room for it), but nowhere else.

Boosts your melee accuracy by 30%. It's already pretty high to begin with, but this doesn't hurt. Should for whatever reason, a character gets the Blindness effect (besides yourself) and you lack the means to heal it, you CAN give them this skill and it'll help mitigate it with another item, the Eyeglasses.

This is a hard one to quantify. You'll need both THIS and a recipe book in order to craft upgraded versions of four food items, which all grant a status buff.

• The Meatpie+ will give grant the Attack Buff, for 30% more damage
  
• Vegetable Pie+ and Mushroom Stew+ will grant 50% more evasion
  
• Goulash+ will give you 30% defense against the three physical damage types and fire damage

These all last for one battle, or a limited amount of steps on the overworld, so it's advised to eat it and move into an enemy you plan to fight. On the one hand, you have to have the previous two skills which are okay in order to get some substantial buffs. On the other, this will take 3 Soul Stones to get to, you have to kill Henryk as well...but having buffs before combat can seriously tilt the odds in your favor.

There are instances and circumstances where you can make an argument for taking Henryk's skills, but they're still kind of niche. Slow Metabolism can be nice later to conserve resources.

August, the dapper gentleman with a mustache that'd get approval from Sam Elliot, is encountered at the train, but you're unlikely to get access to his skills early. He's a little tricky to find, and you'll see him pop up all over the place, but should you manage to kill him (hot tip, man has an instant kill attack), you'll gain access to the following, straightforward tree.

Taunt an enemy to only attack you. It's Pheromones, but without the mind cost or the ability to target another ally. If you PLAN to have your main character tank, you could set up a turn with Brown Vial for all the buffs, then do this on an extra turn....but if your main character dies, it's instantly game over, so....

Boost your damage by 50% for 3-4 turns. Only costs 10 mind, but you cannot target enemy parts, and taking damage has a fifty-fifty shot of negating this to begin with. And since you tend to get attacked AFTER casting something.....well.....

Devour does what it says on the box. Devour is apparently bugged. Whomp whomp. [Editor's Note: Will test later to confirm still bugged.]

This might be the only thing worth using on his list, and it does have it's uses. Using this ability costs 10 mind, but your character will gain a buff where they cannot be killed once (or if they should somehow reach 1 body otherwise). Basically a scapegoat move, and anything that prevents death is worth looking at.....but the drawback is, this and a similar item, the Hardened Heart, only work once per attack. So if an enemy happens to have multiple attacks, or literally an attack that hits multiple times, it can still get through and kill you. [Editor's Note: Not sure if it stops Damage Over Time effects, must test...]

Ouch. August can be a pretty neat guy, but his skills are very....eh. They don't synergize well with one another, one is broken, and one, while good, requires you to expend 4 soul stones to get to this point. You're honestly better off with buying a Hardened Heart, but that'll set you back 99 shillings, let alone having to find the shopkeep for it. You....CAN find it and steal it, but the requirements are so steep and rare it's almost not worth the effort.

And he can one-shot you. August isn't worth killing for his skills.

This contestant can be met on the first day, back on the train. Should you step out and step back in without taking the map/guide, you'll see him, but you can't exactly take him out here. More than likely, you'll have to get it from his Moonscorched form.

Simple, straightforward skill. Good one to pick up, but only good to use if you have the breathing room in combat to not get gutted right away.

Much like Karen's persuade, this can apply some interesting statuses to enemies. Some will hesistate for a couple turns, some might get more damage but lower accuracy, some may get one or the other.....some may even get faster or stronger. It's a "case by case" basis, learn what it works and doesn't work on.

Enemies will avoid you. Well. Kind of. Exactly FOUR enemies will avoid you. And of them, one may still be willing to attack you in a group. Skip it.

"Do you want someone dead? Like REALLY dead?" Well this skill is the one for you. Pipe bombs are extremely rare, only randomly found on easy mode in chests. Caligura can be robbed of one, but the circumstances to do so are tricky to begin with. Otherwise, you need this skill, and thank GOD you don't need to take Killing Intent to get this. It's already difficult enough to craft this, as you need 2 Bolts, 2 Scrap Metal, and 4 Gun Powder. But if you do, this will deal damage to all enemies, and it does a resounding 400-600. And it WILL hit. These babies can trivialize most any fight, or severely tip the odds in your favor.

Honestly, take Steal and call it a day. You should keep Explosives in mind however, should you find an abundance of the right crafting materials. If you don't, it's a wasted skill. If you do, take it, craft the Pipe Bombs, and hang onto them for dear life until you KNOW something needs to go boom.

Pav and the next contestant are the people that won't be encountered directly on the train (more or less). This one is the military officer among the contestant list, and he's got a straight line of 3 skills.

This is a weird one. It's supposed to restore Mind every 20 seconds, but instead restores Body...but it seems to do neither in certain areas. I did get the Body restoration to trigger at points but not at others....and it seems slower at points as well. It's a hard one to judge, but I guess any extra healing doesn't hurt.

Fans of Fear and Hunger 1 know this skill well enough. Outside combat, you can push the "E" key and go into a dagger-stabbing animation. If you successfully time it while engaging an enemy, you'll get a free shot at one of their limbs. It's a little tricky to get early, but an early limb attack is nothing to sneeze at.

This is a hell of a skill, but requires a full party for maximum value. At the low reasonable cost of 40 mind, you incite your allies to attack again. It can't be used on your extra turn, and you can't target it, but having up to 3 extra attacks in a turn is absolutely nuts. If you can set up a battle with En Garde, you can reduce the number of targets as well, but not a lot encounters synergize with this. But if you run into something that looks like it'll ruin your day, grab a bottle of Vodka and tell your friends to defeat the enemy with OVERWHELMING FIREPOWER!

The Trauma skill is very finicky, but there's no reason not to get En Garde, and Order Charge can outright overwhelm most enemies with a well-equipped team. Keep an eye out for the opportunity to "acquire" this soul.

And winner of "person with the fewest skills" goes to Samarie. You'll be able to catch a glimpse of her and her long black hair early on in the train, but she can be encountered in a couple different locations. Despite only having two skills, they're pretty....how to put it...."eccentric".

Does....exactly what it says. You sacrifice your own blood to the God of Destruction, Gro-Goroth. Only the main character can use it. It will eviscerate your Body down to 1 HP, but you gain +1 affinity with Gro-Goroth. You have to use it on his ritual circle, and it's bugged to not work on the earliest one you're likely to find. But getting to 3 affinity without drawing his circle all over the place requires sacrifice.

Well her first skill was about using her body to gain Gro-Goroth affinity, whats her second----

... ... ... If a proper ritual circle has the mark of Sylvian on it, and you use this skill, you gain +1 affinity. I mean after you draw one, you only need to do this once after drawing a sigil to gain max affinity with Sylvian so...yeah.

Yeah, Samarie....yeah. Ain't got much to say. Both skills are useful, and I'll touch on it again (oh Alll-mer why did I phrase it like that), but once the main character has affinity, anyone can pick up their spells as skills. So once one character....maims or....rubs one out....

Yeah let's go talk about the main characters skills in more detail again.

Once again, from the top, Levi! What do you bring to the table?

Says what it does on the tin. You have perfect accuracy on the overworld by the way, but this boosts it 30% in combat. I don't really recommend using a firearm IN combat, but at least you won't waste ammo if you have this. Guns tend to be only a smidge stronger in combat than melee, but after a point, melee weapons overtake guns handily, leaving them better off as problem solvers BEFORE combat. Speaking of....

Increases the odds of limb loss when shooting people in the overworld. If you're here reading this and don't know why that's good, you skipped ahead. BUT. There are quite a few enemies who resist this. Not to say they'll resist about 10 shots overall, but it won't really work on dismembering them. This won't work in combat, so if you plan to take this, bear that in mind. What's next.....

... ... ... Sonovabit-----It's bugged, remember?

Okayokayokay. Let's say stunning an enemy in the overworld with a landmine or Olivia's wheelchair didn't let you two-tap an enemy. You're STILL at the mercy of RNG to find any ammo to begin with, as 12 Gauge Ammo might as well be diamonds for how often you'll find them. If you have a surplus, it'd be worth it. But until this gets a patch, it's useless, move on.

Your rifle will have a 25% chance outside of combat to one-shot enemies. The prior skill may be useless, but a 25% chance with how much rifle ammo you may scoop up? Makes this worth considering if you have access. Hell, it's one of the reasons you can have an addiction problem with Levi but circumvent a LOT of issues OUTSIDE combat. To quote Peaky Blinders....

"You didn't need all them Tablets. Just needed another f**kin' war, eh?"

Are you Levi? Then you're already probably set up to be a rifleman, or a decent pistol user if you skip the intro. Executioner is useless either way. Do you want Marksman? It's a little steep, and I don't recommend trying to get it unless you know what you're doing since you have to find and kill Levi to get it. But if you really want that one-shot-one-kill skill, it's not an unreasonable skill to pursue. But given how common 9mm and .303 rounds are compared to the 12 gauge, it's reasonable to get either key skill. It's up to how flush you are with ammo, whether or not you want that soul, and if you have the stones to spare.

Throw a Pipe Wrench you have equipped on that character. Stun an enemy with a 5% chance to fail. De-equips it. Use the stun round to equip it. Enemy has one attack with a limb? They're boned. Enemy attacks with MANY limbs? Well you can at least lock one attack path they have. It also deals damage too. It's a strong skill to open the game with.

Unlocks electronic doors. It's either that or bust open the door, but you'll usually need at least 3-4 members to reliably do so. No murder necessary here, she'll just have the skill available for use, so if you have her in your party she'll auto-unlock doors. If you have to kill her, definitely a skill worth picking up with Wrench Toss.

Unlocks two recipes, the Bear Trap and Booby Trap.

Bear Traps are damn good as they maim the legs of most enemies, or trap a few select ones. Some enemies just die, but a few will have zero effect on them. Still over 50% will have SOMETHING happen to them, and it's not punishing to experiment with. Should an enemy be stuck, plug them with a gun from afar, problem solved. If it maims their legs, their head is vulnerable for an easy one-shot.

Booby Traps work much the same, but they have a temporary stun effect instead. If you PLAN to use these, use them with the 12 Gauge for the instant kills, or plan to engage the enemy right after to take advantage of the stun round they suffer.

Both require resources, so lets see. Bear Traps require 2 bolts, 3 Scrap Metal, and a Pressure Plate. A Booby Trap requires 2 less Scrap Metal, but 1 Gun Powder. Gun Powder can be very precious to use for Pipe Bombs if that's your fancy. Otherwise, it can be safely made into Booby Traps. But depending on how many you get of any item here will be your metric about what to craft at all.

This is an interesting one. You Gain Four Recipes: Sandman's Kiss, Reaper's Rake, Lantern Flail, and Meat Grinder.

• The Lantern Flail can be made with 1 Duct Tape, a Broomstick, and an Ornamental Lantern (random drop). It deals decent damage for the early game, and can set an enemy on fire 60% of the time. It's a two-handed weapon though, so no go for the ladies besides Abella.
  
• The Reaper's Rake can be kind of hard to craft. You need FOUR sickles dropped from the locals, 3 Bolts, 2 Duct Tape, and a Broomstick. Solid damage again, but it doesn't caused bleeding. That's right, another bug weapon. Whoops.
  
• A personal favorite, The Sandman's KIss. Requires 2 Duct Tape, a Bolt, an Officer's Sword (and you know a couple ways to get this), and 1 Heroin syringe. What's better than a 60% burning chance? 100% poison chance. The moment you start stabbing a boss with this bad boy, it's the beginning of the end. This is my personal favorite weapon.....but what's the next best weapon?
  
• The Meat Grinder. Instead of a chainsaw, how about a Bench Grinder, slapped together with some Duct Tape, a Saw Blade, and a piece of Scrap Metal? Bench Grinders are VERY rare, only found as a drop in one encounter semi-early on (and you'll know when, the enemy will be USING it), or literally off a table in the late game. But this is one of the best weapons in the game. It attacks 3 times. It will 100% cause bleeding. Were it not two-handed and blocked off from certain characters, this would be THE weapon to find.

It's worth the entire tree. Weaponcrafting makes two fantastic weapons for the end game, Trapcrafting can make your life way easier, Short Circuit gets resources or shortcuts, and Wrench Toss is the best entry level skill in most circumstances. Abella's skill tree is synergistic and rock solid for ANYONE.

Shame she has to give up her soul for it.

Out of the contestants, Marcoh has one of the larger skill trees at 6. Even Tanaka only had 5. What do Marcoh's skills bring to the table?

Marcoh will always start with this skill. Instead of one punch attack, he does two. With 16 agility and Adrenaline Rush, this quickly becomes the JoJo meme he was based on. The better equipped a Marcoh is, the more he'll just punch through any and all enemies. Getting to that point is tough, but Rocky Balboa didn't hear no bell, and NEITHER DID YOU.

Spoiler alert; this is only good for Marcoh, and as it was for melee and gun proficiency, it makes unarmed strikes more accurate. Marcoh kind of functions like a semi-Meat Grinder as stated in Abella's skills. He gets two attacks per use, but only if he's unarmed. His general game plan is to gain more attack with Adrenaline Rush to deal huge damage. The trick is getting to that point. Not missing your punches is a good starting point for Marcoh.

Increases your evasion by 50%. Evasion only evades some attacks, but since certain hits exist in this game, has slightly restricted use.

Guarding now prevents limb loss. Very useful, but getting hit means you aren't beating the ENEMY up. It's also bugged! Don't learn Meditation after this skill, it breaks both of them.

Using this gives you the counter status, which is a 100% chance to counter attack when attacked. It's like an extra attack but with more limb loss.

The "La Danse Macabre" of melee fighters. gain 5%, 10%, then 30% extra attack after 3 turns. It's passive and paired with Perfect Guard, can set up devastating pressure against an enemy, albeit at the cost of healing items. But should you have filled out Marcoh's tree to this point, guarding and counterattacking is quite viable once you slap this on as well. This is when Marcoh begins to shine.

Last, but not least, we have Fast Stance. It grants you the double agility, and the extra attack that typically comes with that. You can in theory get to this point pretty early on with turning the villagers heads into Soul Stones. And it's pretty good up until the mid. Once you reach that point, you should've figured out how to get the 16 agility. But having Pep Pills as a skill is nothing to scoff at.

Marcoh's tree is really only for him. Since he has the ability to punch twice, no one else will be able to get as much value from anything on his tree save Perfect Guard, or Adrenaline Rush for a melee character. Getting his soul is a ways off most times, so Fast Stance may be obsolete by the time you can get it with someone else.

Speaking of people with 6 skills, lets tackle Daan next.

Bit of a fluff skill, but very useful. Upon inspecting a corpse, you can use diagnosis to analyze the corpse and figure out how best to kill the enemy. It's a "hindsight" kind of skill, where you're told how to kill something AFTER it's dead, but having an easier time taking down an enemy on following playthroughs is invaluable.

One time per corpse, remove an organ. This doesn't remove the ability to remove the head, so it's very useful. I went over this in Daan's opening choices, but to refresh your memory, once you have organs, you can use them with Medicinal. "Medicinal utilizes these organs for various healing effects at the cost of 10 mind (or 7 for the Parathyroid)":

• Kidneys remove Poison (Semi-Common)
  
• Livers remove Toxic (rare, but useful to have a couple)
  
• Eyes cure Blindness (one of the rare few ways to cure it)
  
• Hearts cure Bleeding (very common)
  
• Thymus helps with Infections (very common)
  
• Parathyroid Glands cure Fractures (VERY rare)

Boosts your accuracy in combat. The times where your accuracy can be reduced is rare, the payoff for increasing it, doubly so. And if you're blinded, you're just going to use the Organ Harvest and Medicinal to get yourself a new eye anyway. This also costs 5 mind....which could go to using Medicinal instead.

This skill is good, bad, and broken all at once. The good is it's a resurrection spell, capable of bringing back the dead. The bad? It requires not only a massive 50 Mind to cast, you also have to lop off a limb. It will ONLY work in combat. So, what's broken about it? Well, certain pieces of gear can negate limb loss. Equipping them removes that part of the cost. If it stays in the game, this is REALLY good, as you don't want your allies to die. But if the member drops while the rest of the party finishes the enemies off, and....they're gone. Gear and all. Still, bringing back the dead before it's too late is too good not to consider.

For 20 Mind, this inflicts "Weakness" on an enemy. What's Weakness do? It grants a huge evasion penalty and damage increase against an enemy's head. Sounds broken, right? Well it has a couple hiccups.

First of which, the enemy has to have "A" head. Not multiples. And for the most part, it has to be clearly visible. The enemy can't be a ghost or something similar. It does not work on gastropods either. It won't work on gods, or your Moonscorched allies. And it doesn't seem to work on groups.

But these rules are inconsistent. Some enemies it works on you wouldn't expect it to work on, since another masked enemy might've resisted it. Or maybe that misshapen lump does count for a head. Maybe it doesn't. There are a fair few enemies this will work on, but it does nothing against major enemies and most bosses. Still, once set up, you have a clean shot at the enemy's head, which will end the fight pretty quick.

Karin's kit is pretty passive, but there are some good reasons to have her abilities around.

An improved form of the "Talk" skill. Basics of the basics, sometimes a silver tongue can help you out of a bad situation. I can't go into specifics COMPLETELY here, that would spoil the fun of you trying to talk down horrors of all shapes and sizes....but generally speaking, your options can do a few things here:

• An enemy will hesitate, buying you a turn or two. If you ATTACK them, there is a 99% chance you will get them to resume their assault. This can set up a buff turn or two to pop things like Pep Pills or Brown Vials, certain spells, etc. (common)
  
• They will skip 1-2 turns (semi-rare)
  
• They WILL skip 2 turns (rare, one will work with words and one with an item)
  
• They get an attack buff (rare, same one character)
  
• They get faster (same character)
  
• They get an attack buff but penalized accuracy (think of it as taunting them into recklessness, common)
  
• They get an attack drop (semi-rare)
  
• They get a defense penalty (semi-rare)
  
• They just miss more (rare, two monsters)

If you REALLY want to know how to abuse this skill, there's a couple Wiki's around for that. This is just for generalities still. That said, Persuade is an unsung hero of a skill in some fights, but it really shines when you get the later skill Diplomacy.

... ... Makes the "Small Key" item obsolete. Find Karen on day two if you aren't playing her. It will solve a LOT of problems. Lockpicking is a more common need than Short Circuit.


Effectively, tilts the odds to be as optimal as possible to bail from a battle. Can be as low as 10% to as high as 25%, but that's on how many times you've tried to run for it in a certain area. On Masochism Mode, this may be the only way to reliably run. Not much else to say, it's nice on normal or easy, and a near vital boon to have on hard (pending your movement skills).


You get to talk before combat starts. Hey remember the possibility of having a couple free buff turns, or debuffing the enemy? If you're playing Karin, you're taking this ASAP, and learning every which way this skill sets up your fights from the moment you can cash in a save file. If nothing else, you at least get the option to learn more about your enemies.

"Uhhhh....I'm pretty sure it's the Wild Dagga talking, but....we've already been over this. Back Above. I wrote a whole couple chapters to be preemptive about this. ... ... ... Okay fine, we'll do this one more time."











Gives you five recipes, two to concentrate dark blue roots with blue herbs or red herbs, and condensing blue herbs, green herbs, and lavender for more potent effects. Very usefull passive.

Oh hey, her only skill that requires a soul stone AFTER her intro choices. This can only be used on the primary character, so it's got a limited use. Still, a fifty/fifty shot at poisoning an enemy, for the low low cost of 5 mind? And it can be used outside of battle? I never abused it, but this can tilt fights very quickly in your favor if you're lucky.

You'll need this skill to get the wild plants in the areas around Prehevil. This includes the Dark Blue Root, Poison Hemlock, Nettle, and Wild Dagga.

Needed for Condensing Nettle and Hemlock into their bigger, badder brothers. Condensed Hemlock can inflict Toxic, and any Dark Souls veterans will tell you how fast Toxic shreds your HP compared to normal poison. Condensed Nettle can both stun and inflict a harsh defense/offense penalty on an enemy.

Compare and contrast what her abilities do vs the Alchemillia Volumes. You might prefer one form of mixtures to another. Red Herbs are at a premium with Olivia, so be careful how you use them. She's got a decent bit of complexity outside combat, and with a little prep and guesswork you can make fights go your way pretty easy.

Ah, now here are some fun skills to have.

So long as you have a God's respective Skin Bible, you can etch a tattoo into a character's face. And yes, it updates them in the menu. Really this mostly boils down to taking the GoFAH's etching due to the agility boost, but let's clear the air about who gives what here.

• Gro-Goroth gives you +4 attack. Nothing special.
  
• Sylvian gives you a pretty solid defensive buff against magical Otherworldly damage. Most things tend to punch you in this game.
  
• Alll-Mer gives you an okay defensive buff against physical damage. I've tinkered with it a few times, but if your character was about to get beaten down, it's a slim chance this is the reason you survive.
  
• Rher gives you +25 MInd. More spells, more fun. Not completely useless....
  
• Vinushka gives you +4 magic damage. We've been over the damage calculations so read Gro-Goroth.
  
• GoFAH gives you +5 agility, which heavily tilts your escape odds, getting an extra attack....there are some ways to get +1 agility for the breakpoint of 16, but this is one of the fastest ways to get your character into extra turns. If you're lucky with Marina, you start with GoFAH's Skin Bible, so this can be acquired super early.

For 10 Mind, you make a square on the map impassable from an enemy. And you can keep using this to set up a wall only you can cross.

Remember how you can use a gun and most enemies don't? Well this is how you set up a barricade to gun them down. Powerful, if expensive.

You start combat with a Rev Point. Critical for a spellcaster who needs them to cast select spells.

You can either have one person start combat with two rev points, or you can have two characters start with one. See above.

Yeah the Occultism skills are pretty cut and dry compared to the first two, but they're both solid to double up on or spread out the points.

Ah. So we've finally hit the OTHER peak character. Let's get started.

A beast of a passive. While Adrenaline Rush boosts attack damage decently, this grants a HUGE buff to the damage after 3 turns. A must-have for a spellcaster.

Grants you 2 rev points when you guard in battle. This is a bugged skill, as "greater meditation" is supposed to grant you the extra rev point similar to the Occultism skills. Regardless, if I have to tell you gaining that much rev while blocking is insanely good, you haven't been paying attention.

Bugged. Skippable, thankfully.

This is a complex but VERY powerful skill, and it's the de facto one to pick up for anyone maximizing a caster build. You have access to a menu with all your known spells from the Gods, and each spice adds a different effect to a spell. No spell can have two types of spice applied to them, and there's no item to find to invoke these buffs. The buffs are:

• White Spice grants the spell to be cast at the start of battle. This can sometimes bypass the Rev Point cost, but not always. If you plan to be safe while using this, getting the occultism skills may be what you want to acquire. Also be wary; some enemies may get a preemptive attack should you have a White Spice spell go off.
  
• Red Spice doubles the spell you cast. Doesn't work on everything, but think offensive/defensive spells.
  
• Blue Spice is straightforward, reduces the mind cost of spells substantially. Some get reduced 40-50%, some around 75-80%.....if you're worried a spell has a cost too high? Slap this on and cast it 1-2 times more without risk.

We'll go in-depth with what the spices do in the God's skill/spell lists. Needless to say this is the skill to get for anyone wanting to spam spells on enemies.

"Well, well. If it isn't the consequences of my own actions."

Let's take a quick moment to understand the world we're currently playing in on a conceptual level. If you've ever played Dungeons and Dragons, you're fully aware of the fact that Gods, while very powerful and immortal, are slaves and whims to their own machinations. They still have some rules and regulations to follow. In regards to F&H in general, there are two types of gods: the conceptual old gods, and the ascended new ones.

Gro-Goroth, and his partner Sylvian, are embodiments of the cycle of life and death. Vinushka is the result of these cycles, nature. And Rher is that which is deceptive, the uncertainty of the reality. A trickster, if you will.

Then you have the others as of Termina. Alll-Mer is the archetypal "Christ" figure, but instead of being aligned with his creator, he rebelled. And he rebelled both for and against his own cause. Alll-mer is an interesting character to delve into, but as it stands, he's just a baseline religion for us, the audience, to follow through.

The Old Gods can be thought of as constants in reality. Dead or alive, they're constantly powered by this consistency. New Gods can be realized, but since they're not universal, are limited in power....except....

The God of Fear and Hunger was realized in the last game.....they are a paradox of new god powered off the remains of an old god. The God of the Depths was unnamed, but represented the chaotic elements outside the old gods, and what can fall to the wayside. From that, merged with the new gods, formed a god that was both new, but could rival the old gods. The concepts of "Fear" and "Hunger" are ever prevalent not just in human lives, but in any sentient species that can comprehend needs and survival. Ergo, despite not being an old god, it rivals their power by sheer abundance prevalent in the world.

And then there's also Y O U A R E N O T S U P P O S E D T O K N O W M Y F R I E N D P L E A S E C O N T I N U E R E A D I N G A N D R E M E M B E R N O T E V E R Y T H I N G I S C L E A R

In any case, the gods, both old and new, offer boons upon your character should you do actions that please them. While the Old Gods are long since husks, their essence still resonates in this reality. And the New Gods, few as you can indulge in, still offer boons to help yourself along in this festival. For each god, I'll list off how to boost your affinity with them to access all their spells and skills. Not all gods are created equal, and there are some clear stand-outs to offer your worship to.