How to talk
Press T to open the chat. Anything you type that is not a command is spoken aloud, and only people close enough hear it. These change how far your voice carries or mark it as something other than speech.
| (just type) | Normal speech, heard by anyone nearby. |
| /low | Quietly. A shorter reach than normal speech. |
| /whisper | Barely audible, for the person beside you. |
| /wide | Loudly, to a room rather than a conversation. |
| /shout | As far as your voice will carry. |
| /me <action> | An action, written as "Argosh draws his axe". /melow and /melong change the range. |
| /my <thing> | The same, but about something of yours: "Argosh's axe is notched". |
| /do <detail> | A detail of the scene with no name attached. |
| /looc <text> | Out of character, to people nearby. /ooc is the same. |
| /pm <player> <text> | A private message, wherever they are. Someone masked or in a beast form is found only by their #TAG. |
Voice chat is separate: hold V to speak and tap Left Alt to switch between Whisper (2 metres), Talk (12 metres) and Shout (60 metres). Each is at full volume out to 40% of its range (about 5 metres for Talk, 24 for Shout, and never less than a metre) and then fades with distance, and a whisper only reaches people in front of you. While someone is talking, their name turns green with a <)) mark. Push-to-talk can sit on a mouse button, set in the launcher's settings. Your microphone and speakers are in your journal (F3, Settings, Voice), where you can also turn one person's voice up to 400% or mute them, and everyone's up to 300%.
The keys that matter
Much of the game is reached with a key or by walking up to something, not by typing.
| U | The player panel: the commands you can use, by topic, with a line on what each does, and where to go for what you reach with a key or by walking up to it. Press U, or type / on its own in the chat. Its search finds a command by a word or two (party, bank, pigeon, bug), even one you reach by a key or a place. A command that needs more than a click asks for it on the panel: a choice of words, a box for a number or a message, or a list of the people you know to pick a name from. The panel shows the exact line it will send before you press Run. Its Help & trouble tab has Contact a GM and a button for each kind of ticket. With your hands bound, U opens at Help & trouble: choose /struggle. |
| F3 | Your journal, with all its tabs: your profile and status, your factions, your stats, skills and magic, your god, any curse you carry, and settings such as your keys and voice. The World tab shows who is about, who rules, what part of the world is open, the time, and the named beasts and wildlife abroad. The Nobility tab holds the roll of the holds' nobles. The Court tab, for those who serve a hold or are offered a post there, shows its court: the posts, the hold's tax and the weekly wage of each office. The Profile tab holds your race's power and a Help box: Call a GM, Report a problem, Unstuck and Open a ticket with staff. |
| K | Opens your journal at its Skills tab: the Wheel of Skills and your ranks. |
| X | On another player: introduce yourself, trade, inspect them or invite them to your party, with the choices grouped under Party, Faction, Law, Shadows, Your nature and Voice; Give a key offers them a house key from your key ring. On a house's door, it opens the house's menu, where you look after a house you own or rent, or open its property panel to buy or rent it. |
| H | Put on a borrowed mask, so others see a Masked Person instead of your name. Press it again to take the mask off and hand it back. |
| B | The emote wheel. Press B again to close it. |
| F7 | Where you stand, your ids and the effects on you. |
You can change these keys in your journal (F3, Settings), with any keyboard key but Escape, Backspace and Enter, or with the middle mouse button. The back and forward mouse buttons (Mouse 4 and Mouse 5) are bound in the launcher's settings. A new key works from the next time you start the game.
Letters by pigeon, goods by courier
Use a notice board to write a letter and send it by pigeon to anyone you have met, even if they are offline. It waits for them at the notice boards. A letter holds up to 240 characters and costs 5 to 50 gold depending on how far it flies, and you can send one every 35 minutes. A letter can carry gold too: the town it flies from takes a tenth of the gold as tax, which you pay on top, and the reader collects all the gold you sent at any notice board. Pigeons carry only gold: goods go by courier, another player you pay to carry them, from the coop's Couriers tab, where you can also take a courier's job yourself (see Couriers). Supply orders, where players ask for goods and the board holds the reward until they are brought, are on the coop's own tab. You can also send a letter with /ledger letter wherever a ledger lies: at a notice board, in your own home, or where a court or guild keeps one. The whole of it is in Pigeon Post and Notice Boards.
| /pigeonblock <name|#TAG> | Stop letters from someone reaching you, or let them through again. Ignore this sender, under a letter you read at the coop, does the same for whoever wrote it. |
| /sign <unsigned|a name|clear> | Choose how your next letter is signed: unsigned, or clear to sign it with your own name again. The Sign as buttons, where you write a letter at the coop, do the same. Signing another's name takes a Scholar of Adept or above, and below Master the reader may notice the hand does not match. |
| /courier | The courier parcels you carry: where each goes, its pay and the time it has left. The Couriers tab shows the same. |
| /courier deliver | At a drop point, hand in the parcels you carry for it. |
Your character
What you are, what you know, and how you are doing. Your race's power has no command: call on it once a day from the Racial Power box on the Profile tab of your journal (F3). What each people's power does is in the Racial Guide.
| /status | Your hunger, rest, Death's Chill and anything else weighing on your character, including when you have a level point to spend. The Status section of your journal's Profile tab (F3) shows the same. /hunger and /chill are folded into it, though each still answers on its own. |
| /level [health|magicka|stamina] [n] | Your character level and progress. With a stat, it spends your points on it, as the +1 buttons on the Profile tab of your journal (F3) do. |
| /appearance | Reopen the appearance editor for your own character: 500 gold, once a day, and nothing at all if you close it unchanged. Your race, sex and name stay as they are. Changes to the RaceMenu sliders made here are not yet saved reliably on an existing character; that fix comes with the next client. |
| /playtime | Your hours played, across all your characters. At 150 hours you earn an extra character slot, yours to keep. |
| /spells | Your spellbook: every spell you have studied, and the ones you have prepared. You change your prepared spells at a Scholars' Ledger or a magic college. |
| /teach | Teach a spell of Adept rank or above to a player within 5 metres who could learn it. It takes Arcane Arts or Priest at Master. Senior ranks of the Synod and the College of Whispers, and the Great Faiths' Priests and above, also teach their own members at their hall's Scholars' Ledger or Class Lectern (see Schools of Magic). |
| /rest | How long Well Rested and Well Fed have left. |
| /deity [name] | Open the deity menu. /deity <name> at that god's shrine turns to them by hand. |
| /pray | Pray anywhere to a faith that needs no shrine (the Hist, the Ancestors and the others). Beside the statue of Meridia near Namira's shrine, it counts as touching the statue. |
| /offer <gold> | An offering of 5 to 1,000 gold to your god, made at their shrine (anywhere, for a faith that needs none). Half keeps the town's temple, and for the next hour your god listens more closely. At the shrines of Molag Bal, Hircine, Arkay and Stendarr, that god's follower can also enter it in the shrine's panel. |
| /rite | At the shrine of Molag Bal (the Embrace), Hircine (the Great Hunt), or Arkay or Stendarr (the cure, with a filled black soul gem). Touching the shrine opens the same choice as a panel. |
| /name <name> | Name your character, if it came out of creation without one. |
| /whoami | Your name, tag and ids. |
Groups and getting about
Dungeons are claimed by a party, not by one person. The full story is in Dungeons and Expeditions.
| /party invite|accept|decline|leave|kick | Group up for dungeons: six to a party, and up to twelve in a raid, where skill gain is halved except inside a raid ruin. If the leader leaves, whoever has been in it longest takes over; a party down to one person breaks up. |
| /expedition leave | In an Ayleid ruin, go home to the hall you set out from. Expeditions set out from the expedition board in the Synod Conclave, the Fighters Guild or Frostcrag Spire. |
| /dungeon | Dungeon claims: what is taken, and what rests for you. |
| /players | Who is online. |
| /playtest | What part of the world is open. |
The world
Work, money and who rules where.
| /board | Open the notice board you are standing at. |
| /contract | Take hunting work, or post it as an official of the hold. You can hold up to three contracts at once, each with its own count, and the reward is paid from the hold's treasury. The Contracts tab of the expedition board shows the same work. |
| /commission post|take|done|refuse|cancel|abandon|rule | Work posted at a notice board, with the reward held by the board until it is done; the town's officials settle disputes. On its own it lists the board's commissions. |
| /bank | At a bank counter: your account, the same in every town. Deposit, withdraw, or pay into a treasury you answer for. |
| /business | Where you stand in a business: its ledger (the ledger book opens the same panel). |
| /property [mine|buy <price>|interest|accept|pay|leave] | At a house's door: its terms, buying it, asking to rent it, moving in, paying rent and leaving. /property buy <price> buys a house the hold has put up for sale, at the price you name, which must be its price. The property panel, opened from the door's menu (X), does the same, for renting as well as buying: see Buying a house. /property mine lists the houses you manage as an official. Officials also sell, list, offer, remind, give grace and evict. |
| /keys | Your key ring, as a menu: the house keys you hold, giving one to a player beside you, and every copy of your own locks, where you cut another or take one back. Keys are no longer items: see Keys. |
| /tax | The hold's one tax where you stand: its share of every rent and, each week, of every property's value. Its Jarl, Count or Steward sets it from 0 to 30%, with /tax <percent> or on the Court tab of their journal (F3). |
| /ledger [page|<name>|note|group|letter|forget] | Your ledger of everyone you have met, read at a notice board, in your home, or where a court or guild keeps one: notes, groups, letters by pigeon, and forgetting someone. |
| /time | The time, the date and the moons. |
| /wildlife | What roams the wilds. |
| /champions | Named beasts currently abroad. |
| /officials [zone] | Who rules where. |
| /faction [menu|list|accept|invite] | Your factions (F3 opens them in your journal). |
| /court [offers|accept|decline] | The posts a court has offered you, and accepting or declining one. An offer lapses after 24 hours. The Court tab of your journal (F3) shows them too. |
| /nobility | The roll of the holds' nobles: who holds which title. It opens the Nobility tab of your journal (F3), where a hold's ruler grants titles. See the nobility in the Holds & Factions Guide. |
| /charter found <name> | cult <name> | Draw up a charter for a new faction, or a cult, that you will lead. Two more players, each on their own account, confirm it as its Officer and Sergeant, and up to five can found it together. Submit it within 48 hours, and a GM decides whether to approve it. The factions of the lore cannot be founded this way. While charters are open, the Found a faction button on the Faction tab of your journal (F3) opens it in the player panel (U). |
| /appoint <player|#TAG> <zone> <rank> | Name someone to an office, online or offline, if your own office allows it. A ruler's appointment is an offer, which they accept on the Court tab of their journal or with /court accept. A Jarl or the Count of Bruma names up to 5 Stewards, 2 Court Mages, a Guard Captain and any number of Guards. A Chieftain names up to 5 Banes, a Shaman, a Wise-Woman, a Stronghold Guard Commander and any number of Stronghold Guards. A Guard Captain or Hold Commander names Guards, and a Stronghold Guard Commander names Stronghold Guards. By Skyrim's law only a Nord or an Imperial may sit as Jarl. Type /appoint on its own to list the zones. |
| /dismiss <player|#TAG> <zone> | Remove someone from an office you could appoint them to, online or offline. |
| /tomes | Spell tomes are now bought with the Buy spell tomes button on a Scholars' Ledger: in the Synod Conclave, in Frostcrag Spire for the College of Whispers, and in the Cathedral of St Martin for the Great Faiths. /tomes, said in one of these halls, still opens the shop for now. For members above the joining rank: one tome a week, or one in any 3 days for Senior ranks and above (see Schools of Magic). |
Beast forms
Only if you carry the gift or the curse.
| /beast [werewolf|vampirelord|revert] | Take or leave your beast form (or cast the power). |
| /forms | The abilities and keys of the beast form you are in. |
| /blood | For vampires: your rank among vampires, and whether the Blood Crown is held. |
| /hunt | For werewolves: your rank in the Great Hunt, and your pack. |
| /feed on|off | For vampires: whether pressing E on a fresh body feeds on it (on) or searches it (off). |
When things go badly
Down, gaoled, tied up, stuck, or something broken.
| /respawn | While down: stop waiting for help and wake at the temple. |
| /sentence | Time left on your sentence. |
| /struggle | Try to break free when your hands are bound. Pressing U while bound opens the player panel at Help & trouble, where the /struggle button does the same. |
| /unstuck | Takes you to the respawn point of the area you are in. You can use it once every 30 minutes, and not while you are down, bound or carried, in a jail or serving a sentence, or within a minute of any fight, creatures and NPCs included. The Unstuck button on the Profile tab of your journal (F3) does the same. |
| /gm <what you need> | Call a GM to you: staff in the game are told at once, with where you stand. /gm on its own shows your call, and /gm cancel withdraws it. Contact a GM in the player panel (U), or Call a GM on the Profile tab of your journal (F3), does the same. |
| /bug <what went wrong> | Report a bug. Where you are and what is around you are saved with it, so send it while the problem is in front of you. Report a problem on the Profile tab of your journal (F3) does the same. |
| /ticket <pk|mod|report> <what happened> | A private ticket with staff on Discord: pk to ask for a player kill, mod for moderation help, report to report a player. |
| /syncenchant | Rarely needed now: using an Arcane Enchanter sends the enchantments you have learned to your game by itself. If the list there still looks short, this sends them again. Step away from the enchanter and use it again to see them. |
Reference
| /help [topic|command] | Opens the player panel, as U does, and /help <topic> opens it at one topic. /help <command> explains one command in the chat. |
| /ping | A connection test. |
The systems behind them
Each of these has its own guide.
- Starting out — what the alpha is, installing the launcher, and your first steps.
- Skills — eighteen of them, one pool of 300 points. You can dabble in everything and master almost nothing.
- Levels — what raising a skill costs in hours of work, and what each rank opens.
- Crafting and trades — the forge, the loom, the alchemy lab and the other stations, and how a smith learns new work.
- Gathering and labour — mining, woodcutting, skinning and the other work of your hands.
- Magic — the schools of magic, the colleges, and how spells are learned.
- Dungeons and expeditions — claiming a dungeon with your party, its difficulties, and the expeditions to the Ayleid ruins.
- Race — what your blood gives you, at no cost to your skill points, and the power you call on once a day.
- Faith — one god at a time, prayed to at their shrine (or anywhere, for the older faiths) for a blessing.
- Factions and holds — who you swear to, who rules where, and the nobles of the holds.
- Law and the Concordat — crime and punishment in the holds, and the law of the Empire in Cyrodiil.
- Homes and property — renting or owning a home, and running a business.
- Pigeon post and notice boards — letters and gold by pigeon, couriers for goods, supply orders, commissions and hunting contracts.
- War and raids — how holds may change hands; built, but not open yet.
- Vampirism and lycanthropy — how you catch them, and what they cost.
- The rules — the rules of play and the standards every player agrees to.
Staff carry a further set of commands that are not listed here.