YOUR COMPANION, FROM THE HOLD TO THE HORIZON

REFERENCE

Glossary

Draft — Draft: checked against the game source, not yet read through end to endAvailable from the start

Short definitions for the game's world, controls, online systems, events, currencies and progression terms used in the handbook, grouped A–Z.

A–C

Abyss Dungeon

The player-facing name for the shared, timed dungeon whose internal system name is Super Dungeon.

Abyss phase

One of the shared dungeon's states as it rises, is found, falls or disappears.

Account

The service identity that owns account-wide balances, event receipts and limits.

Arena

The online system for rated bouts, exhibitions and private sessions.

Arena rating

The numerical score the Arena updates from rated outcomes.

Arena season

An eight-week rating and reward period measured from a UTC epoch.

Arena week

A seven-day segment used by Arena-related event reward rules.

Attribute

One of a character's core numerical traits used by advancement and combat systems.

Bank of the Empire

The online service that exchanges Marks for gold.

Bounty

A hunt taken from a town's Bounty Board and held by a character for one game day.

Carried remains

Eligible bag or cart contents left behind by a player's Open Zone death.

Census

The account count used when the Abyss Dungeon director selects an eligible region.

Champion

A named enemy promotion with a visible champion trait.

Character level

The skill-driven character progression level, distinct from Renown.

Chat channel

A recipient group chosen from chat tabs or a channel command.

Clock hour

The fixed hour bucket, reset on the hour, used for the Renown hourly limit and the services' request limits.

Combat Marks

Marks earned from Dagon's Breach, town raids, the sea serpent, Redoubts and Starfall, under one shared account ceiling per UTC day.

Court writ

A profession delivery that grants Marks and profession progression under an account limit.

Craft

A profession track that can advance through crafting actions.

D–F

Daggerfall

The 1996 role-playing game The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, of which DFO Online is an independent reimplementation. DFO needs your own copy of Daggerfall's original game data (ARENA2) to run; see What DFO Online is.

Daggerfall Unity

The open-source Daggerfall reimplementation (MIT, by Interkarma and contributors) that DFO Online began as a port of. DFO keeps it as the reference for its data and logic, not a target to match, so offline Daggerfall Unity rules can differ from online play; see Which rules apply online.

Dagon's Breach

A scheduled gate event with account-scoped reward claims.

Deep Delver

A Mining specialisation: dungeon veins yield double, and every vein in the dungeon is marked on the compass.

Default binding

The key or button assigned to an action when no saved rebind overrides it.

DFO Online

The browser-played, online reimplementation of Daggerfall at daggerfalljs.dev, with shared-world systems and rules on top of the Daggerfall Unity-derived port. See What DFO Online is.

Dice roll

A chat command that rolls a parsed dice expression.

Elite

A promoted foe enabled for a character's own world after the elite gate is met.

Elite Breach

The shared Elite Gates event whose halls are called Redoubts.

Elite Dungeon

A dungeon instance with elite foes and its own respawn timing.

Elite foe

An enemy with the elite promotion and its associated enhanced stats or rewards.

Elite Gate

A gate in the Weir Road and Elite Breach progression.

Emote

A chat-triggered gesture such as waving or bowing.

Enhanced AI

The port's enemy-behaviour enhancement, forced on for everyone online. It supplies the telegraphed attacks that land when their wind-up completes; see Fighting.

Event receipt

An account-service record used to prevent duplicate claims for a reward event.

Fighters Guild

One of DFO's four NPC guilds, offering combat training and guild services at its halls; you apply there like any NPC guild. See The NPC guilds.

Firmament

The online star tree with two point pools: Stars from Renown, which buy any star, and Craft points from profession ranks, which buy life-ring stars only.

G–I

Game day

A day of the shared event clock, two real hours long, used by scheduled events such as Dagon's Breach and town raids. It is not the sky's day you see in the world.

Gold

The character's own carried and saved currency, separate from Marks. It has weight, is exposed to the death penalty, and the Bank of the Empire exchanges Marks for gold one way; see Money and markets.

Gothway Garden

The first town out of Privateer's Hold and the setting of the handbook's first-town pages; see Leaving the Hold.

Guild

A player organization with its own treasury and city-seat activity.

Guild channel

Chat addressed to members of the player's guild.

Guild Marks

Marks held in a player guild's shared treasury.

Heir

A later member of a Project Legacy family line who can receive bounded inheritance.

Heirloom

An eligible weapon or armour piece carried across Project Legacy generations.

Hour That Was Not

The questline, opening at character level 12, that introduces Abyss Dungeon content.

Iliac Bay

The region of Tamriel covered by Daggerfall's world map, and the name the handbook uses for DFO's shared game world. Its regions, settlements, wilderness and dungeons are the places you travel between; see Danger and regions.

J–L

Knightly order

A chivalric NPC organization (one of the realm's ten knightly orders). All orders share one membership slot and offer training and services; see The NPC guilds.

Language channel

An optional chat channel selected with the language command.

LFG channel

An opt-in channel for looking for a group.

Local chat

Nearby in-character speech between players in range.

M–O

Mages Guild

One of DFO's four NPC guilds, offering magic services, training and rank-gated teleport at its halls. See The NPC guilds and Mages Guild services.

Market listing

A timed item offer occupying one of an account's active listing slots.

Market order

A timed buy request occupying one of an account's active order slots.

Marks

The online currency used by account and guild services.

Mentor mode

The automatic scaling that plays a higher-level party member at about the party's level when the party is well below theirs.

Motherlode

A scheduled shared resource event with a limited number of world appearances.

NPC guild

A town-based organization — a Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, temple or knightly order — that you apply to at its hall for rank, training and services. It is not a player guild; see Guild and The NPC guilds.

Open Zone

The Wrothgarian Mountains region where PvP deaths can leave shared remains.

P–R

Pair limit

A counted-bout limit applied to a particular opponent pair rather than all of one player's matches.

Party

A player group with shared activity rules and leader travel tools.

Physical Combat and Armor Overhaul (PCAAO)

The balance mod that DFO forces on and locks at its shipped defaults online. Online hit chance, damage, armour, shield blocks and racial weapon bonuses come from it; see Which rules apply online.

Privateer's Hold

The starting dungeon where a new character begins. Online its public room can be entered once per character, and leaving it leads toward Gothway Garden; see Your first minutes.

Profession request window

The clock hour within which an account's requests to the profession service are counted.

Project Legacy

The player-owned mod that tracks family lines, heirs and heirlooms.

Redoubt

A named encounter inside the Elite Breach.

Redoubt receipt

An account record that marks a weekly reward claim for one Redoubt.

Region channel

Chat addressed to players in the current region.

Renown

Online progression earned from play and tracked separately from character level.

Renown track

One character's progress along the Renown ladder.

Roleplay & Realism

The balance mod that DFO forces on at its shipped defaults online. It supplies the online encumbrance rules (weight slows you past 75% of your limit), the loan limits and the repair rules; see Which rules apply online.

Royal Tourney

A duel ladder held through a proclaimed seat week in a crown city, with its own counted-bout limit.

S–U

Shared action key

A key assigned to more than one action, with behavior determined by the active context.

Soul Cake

A collectible found during the Witches' Festival under account limits.

Starfall

A Witches' Festival event in which fallen stars must be held against waves of foes; a star held pays Renown and Marks, under the combat Marks ceiling.

Super Dungeon

The internal code name for the player-facing Abyss Dungeon.

Temple

A religious NPC organization (one of the eight divines' temples). All temples share one membership slot and offer healing, training and penance services; see The NPC guilds.

Tide

A condition rolled each seat week for each kingdom, the Marches and the Free Lands; depending on the Tide it changes gathering or fishing yields, influence, festival costs, couriers or sea travel.

Trade channel

An opt-in chat channel for trade conversations.

Unleveled Loot

The balance mod that DFO forces on online; an item's material comes from luck, place and source rather than your character level. See Loot rarity.

Unstuck

A command flow that moves a stranded character to a permitted recovery point.

UTC day

The midnight-to-midnight UTC period used by many account daily limits.

V–Z

Weir Key

A stackable inventory item used by the Elite Gates progression.

The Weir Road

The questline that leads into Elite Gate progression.

Wild remains

The shared drop record left after a death in the Open Zone.

Witches' Festival

A seasonal event with Soul Cakes and Starfall activity.

World channel

Chat addressed across the online world.

Action names

These entries are input actions, not game systems. Keys and commands lists their default bindings and how to rebind them.

ActChoice

The action that chooses what Interact starts at a gathering spot, such as gathering herbs or foraging food at an herb patch.

BoatSailUp

The Come Sail Away action that sets more sail at a ship's helm.

FreeMouse

The action that releases or recaptures the pointer for interface use.

LegacyFamily

The Project Legacy action that opens the family view.

ModeWheel

The held action that opens the interaction-mode wheel: Steal, Grab, Info or Talk.

Quick Loot All

The action that takes the loot currently offered by a container or source.

Quick Loot Open

The action that opens the highlighted loot container.

QuickDial

The action that opens the four-way dial to your skills, items, map and magic.

SocialInteract

The action that opens the social menu on another player, or the friends and party panel when nobody is in reach.

WeaponTechnique

The dedicated input action for using a weapon's technique line.

Next

Sources & checked facts
  • README.md: DFO Online, its Daggerfall Unity origin (MIT, Interkarma and contributors), and the ARENA2 requirement

  • src/systems/inputActions.js: action names and default bindings

  • src/systems/guild/guildFactions.js: GUILD_FACTION_IDS (Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood), DIVINES (the eight temples), ORDERS (the ten knightly orders)

  • src/systems/guild/guildVariants.js: temple and knightly-order membership groups

  • src/net/chatCommands.js, src/net/chat.js, src/net/dice.js: channels, commands and dice input

  • src/net/marksLaw.js, src/net/renown.js, src/net/professionLaw.js, src/net/marketLaw.js: account currencies, progression and service limits

  • server-account/src/accounts.js: overRate (clock-hour windows)

  • src/ui/pixelDial.js: the QuickDial's dial

  • src/net/tideLaw.js: TIDES, TIDE_EFFECTS

  • src/systems/mentorMode.js: automatic mentoring and MENTOR_MIN_GAP

  • src/systems/bounty/bountyBoard.js: bounty postings and lifetime

  • src/net/gate/gateLaw.js, src/net/skyLaw.js: the event clock's game day and the sky clock

  • src/systems/questlines/qlLines.js: questline gates

  • server-account/src/stars.js, src/net/starfall/starfallLaw.js: Starfall claims and pay

  • src/net/arena/arenaLaw.js, src/net/townSeatLaw.js, src/net/superDungeon/sdLaw.js: events and shared clocks

  • src/net/wild/wildLaw.js, src/net/wild/wildDeath.js, src/systems/eliteFoes.js: Open Zone and elite rules

  • src/systems/legacy/legacyLaw.js, src/systems/legacy/heirloom.js, src/systems/online/onlineLane.js: Project Legacy scope

  • src/scenes/pixelBuild.js, src/systems/gothwayBoards.js: Gothway Garden as the first town out of Privateer's Hold

  • src/world/worldOfDaggerfall/wodPrivateersHold.js: the starting Hold

  • bible/03-World/Landforms.md: the Iliac Bay's terrain, a design record

  • Research note: handbook/research/X1.md

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