What Starborne is
Starborne is the studio's dark-fantasy flagship, and the world every other Starborne title is built from. It is the game of the novel Eclipse of the New Gods: a cursed valley, a widowed blacksmith, a daughter born with starlight in her blood, and an order of quiet clerks who walk into villages, count everything in them, and leave nobody behind.
The game is in development. It is not finished, and it is not yet something you can play from the first scene to the last. Places, names and systems are still being built and rebuilt, and some of what exists today will look different by the time it ships. So this guide does not pretend to be a walkthrough. It is a guide to the world: where the story happens, who lives in it, what the long road through it is meant to look like, and how the book and the game fit together. Everything here comes from the story canon the game is built on.
The goal of the adventure
The spine of Starborne is a chase across twelve regions. Each region hides a dungeon, each dungeon guards a Veil Medal, and each medal is a new ability rather than a bigger number: a lantern that carries light into places the dark has claimed, a nail that freezes running water into a bridge, a lens that sees through illusions. Every medal opens a road that was closed before.
Gather all twelve and the sealed way into the Ministry finally opens. Beyond it stands the Black Glass Observatory, where the Veil was torn, and the one who tore it. That is the whole adventure in a sentence: win twelve medals, open the Ministry, face what counts the living.
The world in brief
The world is called Aethel. It has always lived beside the Veil, a thin membrane between our world and the Umbral, a dimension of living darkness. Generations ago the Ministry of Concordia drove a sliver of black glass into the Veil at the Observatory, hoping to harness that darkness for order and peace. The Veil tore. Through the Tear, shadow bleeds into Aethel, and it bleeds hardest under the Blood Moon, when the Veil thins and the Umbral pours out.
Shadow does not only breed monsters. It corrupts what it touches: animals stretched into eyeless predators, people hollowed into husks who still go through the motions of their old trades, and things from the other side that have no earthly shape at all. The full picture is in The world of Aethel.
Where to start reading
- The world of Aethel: the Veil, the Tear, the Blood Moon, the factions and the eclipse in the novel's title.
- The twelve regions: the road from Hearthvale to Concordia City, one region at a time, with the mood and landmarks of each.
- Characters: Lyra, Gideon and the people around them, kept light on spoilers.
- Dungeons and Veil Medals: how the medal chase works and what each medal lets you do.
- The novel: how Eclipse of the New Gods and the game feed each other, and how to read it.
Two versions in the works
Starborne is being built in two forms. The browser version is a large top-down adventure with the valley, its towns and its dungeons laid out as a world map. It is the one the region and dungeon chapters of this guide describe in their broad shape.
A 3D version is also in development. In it, Lyra is the only playable hero, and she fights with a sword, a shield and star-magic. That version changes almost daily, so this guide says nothing more about it than that, and will add detail only once it settles.
Tone
Starborne is dark fantasy with a warm centre. The light of a hearth against the cold of the Umbral is the picture to hold in your head. Daylight is quiet and watchful. Fights are meant to be rare and heavy by day, and frequent and frightening when the Blood Moon rises. The horror is the slow kind: doors standing open with the fires still burning inside, bowls counted out in rows on a table, a chalk mark on a stone, and no voices anywhere.
Questions
Can I play Starborne now?
Not as a finished game. It is in active development and is not yet playable from start to finish. When that changes, this page will become a how-to-play guide with controls and a first-hour walkthrough.
Will it be free?
Starborne is listed on this site as a free game. No platform list or release date has been announced, and this guide will not guess at one.
Is Gael a playable hero?
No. Starborne's heroine is Lyra. Gael is not a hero of this game.
Do I need to read the book first?
No. The game is built to stand on its own. The book goes deeper into the same events, and the first chapters are free to read. See The novel for how the two connect.
Will the names in this guide change?
Some may. Where the novel and the game disagree, the novel's version of the story is the one that holds, and this guide follows it.