Do player characters always start at 16 winters old?

[Sacr4mentum]

Do player characters always start at 16 winters old? I'm wondering if I can start with an older character for roleplay, but this is not a big deal. Still, is there a way to change the starting age?

On a side note, I love this game so far (6 hours in). I live in a hot, tropical country and for the longest time I yearn to feel the cold northern wind and get lost in foggy woods, to just leave civilization and sit by a warm fire enjoying the roasted fish I just caught. This is the only game that I've found that can fulfil that fantasy. Thank you devs for the wonderful experience so far.

[Plotinus]

Yes, the character is always 16 at the start, but I'm interested in the idea of an older character. Maybe you could work out some voluntary challenges that an older player might deal with -- maybe rerolling until certain stats are below a certain level, maybe being more sensitive to temperatures and stopping to make a fire whenever you're chilly and taking off extra clothes whenever you're feeling hot (in game, sweating a lot currently has no effect and you won't get frostbite until you're cold, but an older person might have an old injury that bothers them in the cold or might feel unwell in the heat). Maybe the character is retired from fighting and gets food from trapping and farming.

[Sacr4mentum]

Yes exactly surviving the winter as an old, lone hermit would be an interesting challenge. Maybe an old man who's done everything and wants to spend the rest of his life at peace surrounded by nature. A bit too ambitious for me to play (considering my lack of skills in the game) but something I'd like to see in the future.

[Plotinus]

I have a vegetarian character who is several years old at this point. It's really hard to get started because if you start in summer there's no food yet and if you start in autumn you don't have enough time to gather food to last all winter but he managed to survive by starving for a while and then buying ember-roasted turnips from a village as soon as they became available and then doing lots of harvesting of lake reeds as soon as they became available. He is willing to trade for furs, but doesn't skin animals himself, even if they die of natural causes, and he doesn't fish. If he gets some meat as part of a quest reward, for example the wounded adventure quest, he gives the meat away for free to the villagers. At this point, he has a giant field and more grain than he'll ever need.

I play trappers a lot because I prefer to have my food come to me and none of my characters do much fighting.

On these forums, there's a few challenges that players have made over the years, for example starting hurt, helpless, and afraid in winter and never zooming out -- except when you find a mountain -- until you find a village. I've played that one a bunch of times and it's pretty fun.


What do your characters usually die of? Do you want advice or do you want to figure things out on your own?

[Sacr4mentum]

Ah, that sounds like a cool challenge. Maybe when I get more used to the game I'll try something new. My first ever character (an Islander) is still going good despite nearly died of thirst at one point. I started in the summer near the isles but did not know that you can actually drink the seawater in this game. I looked it up and apparently the salinity in the Baltic sea is low enough to drink! So I spent a couple in-game days without water and too scared to wander off into the woods. But I managed to fish and made a simple shelter. Tracking is another story, though. Took me over a couple of real time hours to find a track, but even then there's no animal in sight. Luckily the fishes should keep me fed for a while. I'm barely halfway through the tutorial course right now so nothing too complicated just yet. But a few tips would be greatly appreciated!

[Plotinus]

The water in mires is also safe to drink, and in the latest version there are now springs, too, which are also safe.

It's good that you looked up the salinity in the Baltic sea. In general, "would this work in real life" is a good guideline for if something will work in the game. You can die of thirst in a few days but it does take some weeks to starve to death. Definitely finish the tutorial course, it'll give you a good intro to stuff you'll need to know. Try all the things you can think of to try and get a feel for which things you find the most fun. Hopefully you'll enjoy at least one way of feeding yourself.


Before hunting, drop most of your stuff at your campsite -- or even just on the wilderness map, and use F6 to make a marker of where that is. You'll get less fatigued running if you're not carrying too much.

If you have a house, you can smoke meat in summer. If you don't have a house, you can borrow the fireplace of a village. You can also use salt to preserve a lot of meat but that is more expensive. In winter, you can hang meat to dry next to a shelter.

Big game don't spawn on very small islands, but you may get some in winter if the ice forms a bridge to a larger island.

Many plants don't provide enough nutrition to keep you from starving, but some of them are better when cooked. Uncooked, only cloudberries and lake reeds are worth it. Ember-roasted turnips are also better than nothing. Barley and rye are very nutritious once cooked into bread or porridge. Other plants may have medicinal properties or they may be useful as baits for fishing. You always want to use a bait while fishing with a rod, even if it's just some leaves. With the leaves, you will be able to catch some small fish, and the small fish can be used as baits for catching big fish.


It is very cold in winter, and you can die of hypothermia very quickly if you fall into water or if you are away from a fire for too long without adequate clothing. If you fall through the ice, wield a sharp weapon in each hand, it'll make it easier to climb back onto the ice, and then stay on your belly and crawl off the ice. The ice can support you better while lying down.