DodeDode

Arise, Manaborn!

Enter a land born of elemental mana and locked in endless conflict.
The Mana Wars - an uneasy equilibrium sustained by grand opposition between mythic Wardens.

Its prismatic creator dubbed it Dodecahedria,
but most simply name it Dode.


THE WORLD

Dode is a tactical-combat focused, massively multiplayer world - with a cozy side.
Featuring rich strategy, endless unique loot, and vast ability customization.
Explore, capture, train, battle, craft, farm, and build - as you quest to bring balance to the elemental forces, and stop the encroaching spread of the Void.
  

The universe consists of buildable, hexagonal voxel worlds.
Where a strategic game of territory control and resource management plays out across the galaxy.

In Dode you capture Daimon, train them up and battle with them in tactical tile-based overworld combat, as well as close-quarters turn-based combat. You also use your Daimon to harvest and craft, building up your homeworld base that belongs to you, as well as the wilds that everyone shares.

Everything in Dode, living and otherwise, is born of the Hexad.



The Hexad consists of three axes, each axis representing two opposing elemental forces.
Fire <> Water
Earth <> Air
Light <> Dark

From these six fundamental forces, placed in their Hexad arrangement, come the rest of the elements. Sixteen elements to fill each remaining direction on the Hexad.

These are the mixed elements, each a combination of two adjacent base elements.
Ice <> Metal
Astral <> Arbor
Vapor <> Crystal

Then the Trinity elements, each commands a Trine of elements.
Solar - Fire, Air, and Light
Lunar - Water, Earth, and Dark

And then the final two forces
Divine - All 6 base elements
Void - None

Characters are attuned to an element - they can hold mana and cast spells of that element.

Mana energy superimposes - it stacks up to either constructively or destructively interfere. Opposing spells hitting each other will cancel. Spells that hit entities of the opposing element deal double damage, while adjacent deal half, same-trine deal none, and same element heals.


THE WARRIORS

Daimon reside within Geomes, gem-homes mined from the world and carved to house them. A captured daimon can be summoned from its Geome out to fight. They can be controlled as a player character, and can cast to battle on the homeworld, as well as be brought into close-combat.

Runes are rare finds from loot and mining. A rune is a spell, cast on a tile or an entity.
Some runes are single-target, some are area-target, and some are more complex like the cellular-automaton based spells, which iterate for a number of generations from a starting pattern of tiles. The space of runes is rich, there are endless combinations to attain and explore.

Runes are permanently engraved on the Geomes that hold their Daimon, allowing them to be used in battle and providing stat modifiers. Every Daimon starts with a Heartrune, their starter spell.

Runes cost mana of the type that matches their elemental attunement. Absorbing a tile of your own element gives mana. You may also imbue tiles directly with mana, changing the tile’s type.

Characters level up and have six main stats on three opposing axes:
Strength <> Speed
Constitution <> Dexterity
Intellect <> Wisdom

Every character has a unique, procedurally generated skill tree on a hex grid (the SkillHex) each with standard stat increase hexes as well as special key ability-hexes. These make each character unique and represent another large space of exploration and customization.

Players can also level up a large list of secondary stats that relate to activities and professions, like Mining, Smithing, Climbing, Running, etc.
Most things you can do in the world will train up one or more basic skills or professions each time you perform the action, or when you spend some time and energy assigned to focused training at a skill gym station.

Each action taken in the game levels different kinds of secondary stats in different ways, and these lead to modifiers that increase your main stats. They are also used as skill-requirement gates for different professions and crafts.

Some stats can also be farmed even while offline. If you have the proper equipment crafted and placed at home, you may leave your Daimon there to train while you’re away. When you come back, you will see how their stats have evolved during training.

Level up their stats, and provide them with the right item, and you may witness your Daimon undergo metamorphosis, rapidly maturing into a new form.


THE WIGWAM

Players own a home with a bed; homes have interiors and basements.
The homes can be decorated with all manner of craftable decor items.
The homes have yards as well, which can also be expanded and decorated.

As players level up, they will progress their housing, unlocking new decor items and space to place them. Show off your house to others - or just keep to yourself, nice and cozy.

Dungeons run in shells below the surface, down to a boss and treasure.
Above the surface are floating sky islands that serve the same purpose - dungeon crawling.
Fly up or dig down to find greater challenges, difficulty and reward scaling up as you get further from the surface.

Crafting requires elemental tools, each with tiers to level through. A tool of the correct element and high enough tier is required for harvesting nodes and crafting items. For instance, a Water Shovel will dig up Water type tiles, a Fire pick will break lava rock, and so on.

Your yard starts out littered with resources, and will give you a start on crafting.
However, resources are scarce in Dode - they do not respawn automatically.
To renew the resources across Dode, they must be replanted by players.

Players trade through barter sessions.
The currency is called Gon.

Craft, trade, and battle to earn items that help you to progress and show off your creativity.


THE WAY

Time is a universal ticking turn of one second - these simultaneous turns are shared by every entity in every world. Each action lands precisely timed on the coming turns. Effects arriving on the same turn, at the same tile, are summed and resolved together.

Tiles are one-occupant only. Two characters moving into the same tile on the same turn, will enter into a turn-based battle. The winner of the battle is allowed to claim the tile. The loser is sent home.

Travel between worlds costs mana and other resources. You must craft a wayfinder, and find a portal to tune by it, then you may traverse.

Your quest is to travel across the galaxy, delivering mana to the Wardens, and carrying out their personal justice against each elemental counterpart. Before finally unlocking the gate to the higher guardians.


THE WARDENS

Mana Wardens protect key worlds. They guard the path forward to greater tests, until the final test against the Void is faced, and the ultimate fate of the galaxy is determined.

Together, the sixteen elemental Wardens drive this eternal battle, the Mana Wars, as they blindly vie for survival and power.

Each Warden must be provided a steady stream of mana from their alike constituents, players of the same elemental attunement. The Manaborn, aspects of the Wardens, hold this sacred charge. But they are also given another quest - to destroy.

The Wardens are generally concerned only with their own self-preservation. But their innate construction causes also a deep, unyielding resentment toward the opposing force and Warden. They cannot overcome this, and they quest endlessly for destruction of their counterpart.

While the Divine Warden keeps the equilibrium stable for now, this unending combat drives the world ever closer to the decay of the Void.