Salem Darkness Guide

Salem Darkness Guide by ShadowAtlan

Hello there. I’m Samael in-game, Tael on the IRC, and I fancy myself a scientist of sorts in Salem, always testing and experimenting with what’s available to me to discover something new. For now, though I’ll be giving a breakdown on the Darkness that saps away a player’s humours. I’ve heard several odd explanations for it before or theories, and I’d just like to offer up what I’ve personally learned about it.

The Darkness

As new players, we fear the dark. The unknown troubles us. Anything might be out there… ironically it’s our fate to live in the dark. Head out from Boston in any direction you choose, and after an initial flash of green, you are surrounded by blackness, punctuated only here and there by faint, and distant camps. Even after we’re grown, the darkness retains its power to KO us, and so there are those who say we should not inquire too closely into who else might be living in that darkness.

If a player travels a certain distance from Boston in any direction, the world around them begins to dim. The screen becomes more and more murky until, at least as a new player, you’re greeted with the help message regarding uncivilized lands. Welcome to the Lumberwoods, it says. At low humors, one can barely step foot inside the uncivilized land without noticing their humors starting to drop, draining away at regular ticks. The further in you go, the more severe the drain. More powerful, well developed players are able to venture much further in without any troubles, but the reason why wasn’t always known. It seemed as though having higher humors would stop or prevent the drain, but that isn’t entirely true. In fact, from my research there is No way to prevent drain. Torches, light sources, they might help very slightly to slow its effects, but nothing can actually prevent it. Rather, the higher your humors are, the more quickly they regenerate. Someone with 40 black bile gains it back much faster than someone with 5, and it’s that regenerative factor that offsets the soft damage caused by the Dark.

To explain.

Your “current” value of a humour is what is usable to you. As long as this stays above 0, you won’t KO.
The “soft” value of a humor is where the humor will regenerate to, if nothing is draining it. The first drain experienced drains only your “soft” humours, but it is important to note that regardless of how much soft humour you have left, it will KO you if your current reaches 0, although for humours like phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile that only occurs in the darkness.

The “max” humour value is self explanatory. This value determines how fast that humour bar will regenerate, and how much of one humour you can have when completely full.

At the border of darkness, the drain is quite meager at 0.1 damage per tick, and this value steadily increases the further into it you travel. Eventually, too, the drain begins sapping away at your Max humours as well, which requires you to bring food along to eat, although the damage to max seems to only occur at the depths dark enough to affect 35-40 max humours.

Dangers of the Dark

With all the explanation out of the way, it’s time to discuss how this affects you as a player.
Obviously making a trek into the deep darkness is going to give you some trouble unless you’re well prepared, but because of how the system works there are a few things to consider.

Combat Initiating combat halts the natural regeneration of humours, so whenever you’re in battle you’ll feel the full brunt of the drain wherever you are. Protracted battles are not recommended and could wind up quite deadly.
Crime Crime, too, halts your regeneration for a very long time. At 40~ humours each, a single trespass means an almost guaranteed KO at even relatively low-draining areas, unless you can make it completely out of the drain. This is especially troublesome as with the crime debuff, you also cannot teleport.
Low Humours Just in case it wasn’t made clear, darkness drain affects All humours at once, so a single low-max humour will begin draining much sooner than higher ones. At 40 max in every humour but 5 in one, you’d still KO after barely entering the drain.
Dangerous Fauna At the present time, it is limited to Rabbits but J&L love to troll so more is definitely on the way. Be especially wary attacking rabbits in or near the dark, as the further into uncivilized land you travel, the higher chance that one will turn into a March Hare.