Every entry below is a published build of the playable sketch, newest first. The sketch is a test bed for the design, not the finished game.

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Crown & QuillAn online role-playing game of the late Middle Ages, whose history is written by its players.

Crown & Quill is an online role-playing game for the browser, drawn in tiles from above in the old style, set in a fictional version of the British Isles at the end of the Middle Ages. Magic is real in plain cases: some can call down fire, others heal with a word. Yet the age of reason is stirring, and rival schools of knowledge fight over what is true.

A history made by players

Nothing in the world runs on a fixed timeline. Guilds rise, form alliances of their own making, go to war and fall, and the game writes it all down. An automatic chronicle records battles, kills and who held what and when. In the world, town criers carry the news and library volumes keep the full history; outside the world, the headlines can be read here.

War that needs everyone

Player against player fighting is a large part of the game, from about level 20. The picture we build towards is great wars between sides of about a hundred, fought by characters who must keep hunting while at war. Runes cost real mana and gold, area runes and walls are aimed by hand, and terrain matters: walls, doors, stairs, mountain passes and the bodies of knights. Any guild that wants to win needs all six vocations.

Learning

You meet thinkers on the roads, in libraries, courts and monasteries, modelled loosely on the scholars, magi and mystics of the age. You read books, answer their questions and argue with them in disputations. Learning gives real abilities: spells, titles, access and standing, and even your vocation is chosen by the teacher you learn from.

Many ways to play

• Protected areas where you can level safely, viable up to about level 40.
• Quests, discovery and Learning that pay experience without joining the race for power.
• Group hunts that pay far better than hunting alone, with a bonus for every different vocation in the party.
• Hot hunting grounds with the best rewards, where whoever dies drops the backpack.

It should be fun from the first hour, at low level, in fights and in lore. There is no separate starting island: new players start in one of six towns and share the world with everyone else.

Free with premium

The game is free to play, with a premium account that opens some regions (among them the Highlands and islands), some travel and the founding of guilds. Premium never locks core spells: killing a strong monster or escaping a player killer feels the same either way. Any in-game shop sells looks only.

Where things stand

The design is being settled in rounds of questions and answers, and a single-player sketch in the browser tries out each idea. A real server comes later, built for about a thousand players on one world, opened first to a closed circle by invitation and application. Play the sketch to see where it has got to.

This guide describes the current sketch. Keys and numbers may change before launch.

Walking

Talking and typing

The cursor always sits in the chat line: letters type, arrows walk, and Enter says the line. Esc closes a dialogue, clears a half-typed line or stops an attack.

People are spoken to with keywords. Say hi to greet the nearest person, then the words they mention (a name, a trade, a topic, job, blessing), answer yes or no when asked, and end with bye. Ship captains take hi, a port name and yes.

Fighting and hotkeys

• Click a creature on the map or in the battle list to attack it. Attacking does not stop you walking.
• The hotbar holds F1 to F12, plus a Shift row and a Ctrl row: 36 keys for spells, runes and fluids. Click a slot to use it.
• Runes are aimed where the mouse points, never by target lock. Healing runes are aimed at a character too, including yourself.
• From the backpack: right-click a rune to pick it up, left-click on the map to use it, right-click to cancel.
• Healing items, fluids and attack runes share one exhaust: each turn you heal or attack, not both.
• Spells are said as words, in English and Welsh with a little Greek. Teachers tell you the words.
• Shots and runes need a clear line of sight. Area runes hurt everyone in the area, friends included.

Parties

Members who deal at least 5% of a creature's health, or have healed a member in the last few seconds, share its experience. The bonus grows by 10% for each extra vocation in the party, up to 50% with all six. The lowest member must be within a level span of the highest. Shields over names show party members, gold for the leader.

Death and blessings

A death costs 5% of your total experience. You always wake in your temple; there is no revival. Three blessings each take 1% off the loss, so all three bring it down to 2%:

• The blessing of the body, from a Herbalist.
• The blessing of the soul, from the friar in a hub or a prior.
• The blessing of the road, from a pilgrim shrine: Canterbury, Walsingham, St Davids, Iona, Lindisfarne or Glastonbury.

Blessings are bought for gold (price to be decided) and last until your next death. In the hot hunting grounds a death also drops everything in your backpack, whoever killed you; worn gear stays. Blessings never protect the backpack.

Experience per level

Creatures give the same experience as their Tibia 7.4 counterparts; levels come faster because each level needs the 7.4 amount divided by a rate: about 10 at level 1, 6 near 40, 4 near 60, 3 near 90 and about 2 at the top. Test servers may multiply experience further.

1 to 100 101 to 200 200 to 1000

Skulls and locks

In a declared war between two guilds, kills between the sides bring no skulls.

There are six vocations, and every one is needed in a real war. You choose yours from level 10 by learning from a teacher, who sets you a test. The choice can never be changed. Until then you share the whole world with everyone else and level safely in the protected areas.

Where each vocation is taught

Skills and magic

• Skills rise by use: melee, knives, distance, shielding, throwing, and magic level. No training while away from the keyboard.
• Magic level rises by spending mana, faster for spells cast in battle at a real target.
• About ten spells per vocation and about fifteen runes at launch. Spells are never bought with gold: thinkers across the map teach them after a test, others hide in books and dungeons, and schools teach their own.
• Runes stay king: instant attack spells are weaker than runes. Runes are single use and stack.
• Every vocation has light, haste, a small self heal and a spell to locate a player.
• Elements: energy, fire, ice and poison, with the rare aether at the very top. Holy belongs to the Friars. There is no death element.

The Isles are a large map drawn on the shape of the British Isles, partly true to life and partly reshaped. It is large at launch and will grow. Travel is cheap and easy, which keeps places close. Floors run from towers and castles above ground to deep caves and crypts below.

Regions

The six start towns

Beyond the vocation, your start town gives you a local accent and dress: people greet you by your origin. You can move your home temple later, for free. London, the great capital, is not a start town; you reach it after the first hours.

Towns and hubs

Every main town has a temple (a protection zone where you wake after death), a depot, a bank, a market with local prices, a town crier and signs. Depots are kept per town, so moving goods matters; the bank is one account in every town. Each town is lawful or lawless by its lore.

Eight hubs carry the most trade: London, York, Bristol, Coventry, Norwich, Lincoln, Edinburgh and Dublin. Each has rows of shops (smith, apothecary, chandler, inn, fletcher, a friar who sells the blessing of the soul), a locker keeper and a banker, thinkers in the town houses. London, York, Bristol and Edinburgh also have sewers under the streets.

Islands and ferries

Free ferries run from the nearest shore to the islands, each with a pier, a ferryman and an anchor sign at both ends: Wight, Anglesey across the Menai Strait, Man, Arran, Bute, Mull with Iona, Islay with Jura, Skye, Lewis, Shetland, Scilly, Achill, Aran and Rathlin. The causeway to Lindisfarne is dry only at low tide, for a short while every few hours. Some isles are reached only by quest, and some are only rumoured.

Travel

• Ships sail between ports for a fare; the trip is instant and safe.
• Magic gates at stone circles and holy sites, open to all for a fee. Every stone circle links to Stonehenge, and Stonehenge links to all.
• Inns along the roads offer a safe room, rumours and the rare hired horse.
• Roads can be ambushed. Shallow water can be waded, slowly.

The creatures of the Isles come from the folklore of these lands. Each picture below is the creature as it is drawn in the sketch, enlarged. Here you find only its lore and where it lives; the rest is for players to find out.

The Isles are torn by the science wars: schools of knowledge race to discover secrets, guard their libraries and teach their own spells. Schools are run by the people of the world, not by players, and you may sit with several, though divided loyalty can get you into trouble. Librarians and spies notice what you read and whom you talk to.

Each school has seven ranks from Novice to Grand Master. You rise through school quests, Learning tests and deeds; gold does not buy rank. Rank gives access, trade, standing and a few school spells, never raw strength. There is one Grand Master per school on a world.

The three great schools

Lesser schools

Some schools are not on any list. They are found only by those who go looking.

Books

Library shelves hold real old texts, retold. Click a shelf to read; rare books are kept for those in the school's favour. Many books carry a test, and passing it raises your Learning. Players can also write books of their own and sell copies.

The shelves

These are the books on the shelves of the sketch, retold as the game retells them. Click a spine to open it. In the game, each book has a Learning test of one question: pass it and your Learning rises by one. The answers are not given here; read the book.

Teachers of the schools

Each school has a teacher somewhere in the Isles. Greet them with hi and ask about the words they name. Most set a test before they take you in.

Thinkers in the hubs

Other scholars, mystics and makers live in the town houses of the hubs. They teach no school, but they will talk about the words they name.

Test server No live world is open yet. The characters below live in the test sketch.

Test server Demo data from the test characters of the sketch, not a live world. Gamemasters are not ranked.

Every guild bears arms. Try a design in the heraldry builder.

How guilds work

• The game gives guilds little beyond the basics; players build the politics. Alliances are informal.
• The leader names the ranks and decides what each may do.
• No cap on size. Joining a guild at war, or leaving one, takes three days.
• Guild halls are rented for weekly gold, in towns or out in the countryside.
• Two guild leaders may declare war on each other. A declared war has a live score board, can carry a gold stake, and gets its own page in the chronicle.

The chronicle writes itself. Nobody edits it: the game records what players do.

• Wars: every battle, every kill, and who held which ground and when. A declared war gets its own page with its outcome; the winners gain a banner and a title.
• Discoveries: the first to find a great secret is named in the chronicle.
• Grand Masters: each school's Grand Master is entered by name.
• In the world: town criers call the news every hour and shout the great battles and bosses, and the full history fills volumes in the libraries.

Official war statistics are published here, so nobody needs to keep score by hand.

The surface of the Isles as it stands in the current sketch, drawn from the game's own map at one pixel for every two tiles. The world will change before launch, and the floors above and below ground are not shown.

+−All

Drag to move. Wheel, pinch or double-click to zoom.

Ferries

Free ferries run from the nearest shore to the islands. Look for the anchor signs and say hi to the ferryman.

The causeway to Lindisfarne is dry for one hour in every four of game time: from midnight, 4, 8, noon, 16 and 20 o'clock. Anyone still on it when the tide comes in is put ashore.

Every guild bears arms. They fly on the banners over its guild hall, sit on its members' shields, head the guild page here and stand beside its name in the chronicle. Knights made at court may bear arms of their own.

A previewGuild arms are registered on the website when accounts open; arms are unique, first come. Nothing is saved yet: try designs here and copy the code to keep one.

The rule of tincture

Heraldry has two metals, or (gold) and argent (silver, shown white), and five colours here: gules (red), azure (blue), vert (green), sable (black) and purpure (purple). Never put colour on colour or metal on metal: a red lion on blue cannot be read at a distance, a gold lion on blue can. A field divided between a metal and a colour may bear a charge of either.

Reading a blazon

Arms are described in words, called the blazon: first the field, then the charge and its tincture. Azure, a lion rampant or is a gold lion standing on its hind legs on a blue field. Per pale gules and argent splits the field down the middle, red on the left as you look at it. The shape of the shield is not part of the arms.

Learning is what your character knows. You gain it from the thinkers of the Isles, from books and from disputations, and it shows as a level on your character card. Hunting makes you strong; Learning opens what strength cannot.

What Learning opens

• School ranks. Each school has seven ranks from Novice to Grand Master, and Learning tests are one way up. Gold never buys rank.
• Spells. Thinkers across the map teach spells after a test. Spells are never sold for gold.
• Deeper dialogue. Thinkers say more to those who know more.
• Books. Some books cannot be read without enough Learning.
• The old words. Sealed gates in the mountain caves open only to those who have learned them.
• Titles and standing. Titles such as Magister or Doctor, seen by all, and better standing with the people of the world.

Your vocation comes through Learning too: from level 10 you choose it by the teacher you learn from, who sets you a test. Quests may draw on what you know, but Learning is its own road, into the deeper lore of the Isles.

How Learning is gained

Tests start easy and grow genuinely hard. They ask for understanding rather than memory, so a list of answers only helps so far, and the game teaches what it tests.

The old words

Some caves in the mountains end at sealed gates. Each gate has its own tongue, from the old speech of its region to the angelic letters of the Hermetic school, and it opens only to a character who has learned the right words.

The old words are learned from books and Learning tests, from the mountain folk (the coblynau, knockers and trows each teach a word), from thinkers after a disputation, and from fragments scattered in the caves that must be put together.

How to begin

1. Talk to a thinker. Walk up to one, say hi, and ask about the words they mention. The Library page lists the teachers of the schools and the thinkers in the hubs.
2. Read a library book. Click a shelf in a library to read. The book stalls of St Paul's in London and the college library at Oxford hold the first books.
3. Pass its test. Each book in the sketch has a test of one question. Answer it and your Learning rises by one. The answers are not given here: read the book.

The road to the first world, week by week. It is a plan, not a promise, and it is adjusted weekly. The launch in the week of 21 December is a real public launch of one world; the test world is wiped when it opens.

Adjusted weekly. Last adjusted 4 November 2026.

The game is designed in rounds of multiple-choice questions, each settling a few decisions, and every decision is tried in a playable sketch that runs in the browser. The sketch plays as one person, with test characters, an admin panel and gamemaster tools.

Play the sketchopens in a new tab

What to try

• Gwilym, a level 200 Archer, camps in Snowdonia among dragons, wyrmlings and the Hounds of Annwn.
• Rhiannon, a level 200 Alchemist, stands beside him with firestorms and walls.
• Wynn, a level 20 Reiver, starts in Hollowmere's temple.
• The teleport menu under the minimap reaches the start towns, the hubs, the schools and thinkers, the dungeons, the shrines and the ports.

All builds