Star Forest

Star Forest

A free online fantasy RPG for Windows. Sail for the capital, choose the Light or the Dark, and learn your trades in a world you share. The other travellers on the road are real people.

Download 3.2.0Forums

Version 2.5.6 · free for Mac and Windows · in pre‑alpha

In the game

This is Star Forest, as it plays.

Recorded in the game as it plays: the capital and its keep, the square after dark, the pond in the wood, and a castle going up through your own eyes.

Starhollow · the keep
A traveller by the fountain in Starhollow's square
The fountain
The square after dark
Two players talking by the fountain
“Well met, traveller!”
The pond in the wood
Build it yourself

The chronicle

The brightest star fell first.

Before the world there was the First Light, and the stars of the forest were lit from it. The brightest of them knelt first and envied most, and in the end he raised his hand against the Light itself. They cast him out beyond the heavens, and his name went with him.

The forest's stars have been going out ever since, one by one. Now its people are choosing sides.

The Light

Starhollow

Hold the capital. Keep its lamps lit, and the last stars with them.

The Dark

Ashenhold

Kneel to the one they cast out, and help him finish what he started.

You choose when you make your traveller. The other side is played by real people.

The craft

Every blade in Starhollow was somebody's work.

Nothing in the shops was conjured. Somebody felled the oak, dug the ore, worked the forge and planted the field, and every one of those trades is yours to learn.

  • WoodcuttingSwing until the oak comes down. Every plank in the capital began here.
  • MiningCopper, iron and coal, out of the cavern and the frozen north.
  • SmithingSmelt the ore, then beat the bars into blades, helms and plate.
  • FishingCast into the pond and the cold lakes, and hope for the golden one.
  • CookingFrom trout on the range to a feast that puts strength in your arm.
  • CraftingTan the hides, stitch the packs, and set rubies in silver.
  • ConstructionPlanks, nails and stone, raised into a house of your own.
  • FarmingWheat, carrots and herbs that keep growing while you're away.
  • AttackStrike surer and harder with every fight you walk away from.
  • DefenceTake the blow and stay standing.
  • AgilityRun further before your legs give out.

The dark places

The dead keep the barrow, and they keep it well.

Under a stone cairn the Sunken Barrow goes down ten floors, and each stair stays shut until the floor you're on has gone quiet. At the bottom the Barrow Wight sits among the dead it has raised. Wound it, and it raises more.

North through the Snowball Hills, past the frost wolves, Hrimgar the Frost Troll keeps a ring of standing stones. When the ice under your feet is marked, move.

Barrow Signet
Wight Shroud
Barrow Blade
Two travellers by the fountain in Starhollow's square, one saying "Well met, traveller!" over their head
Starhollow · the square

The company you keep

Nobody stays a stranger in the square.

The travellers crossing Starhollow's square are players like you, back from the barrow or on their way north. Say something and it hangs over your head for all of them to read. Wave across the fountain. Cheer, dance, salute, or flex, if you've earned it.

Look over a stranger's armour and ask where they found it. Settle an argument with a duel by the fountain. At the Exchange you name your own price and wait to see if the town agrees.

The music

Follow the fiddle into the glade.

Star Forest has a score of its own, and every place keeps its own tunes: marches for the capital by day, something gentler once the lamps are lit, and something darker in the south.

In a small amphitheatre in the glade, the Wild Oats play live on lute, fiddle, drum and recorder, the first young band of the age. Stay for a song. You'll carry it into your next fight.

Wild Oats
The Wild Oats, as they play it in the glade
0:002:03

From the score

  • Hail the King
  • Shields of the Capital
  • The Capital's Eternal Light
  • The Princess Sleeps
  • Light of the Forest
  • Charting the Unknown
  • Shadows of the Ruins
  • The Black Mass
  • Brothers in Arms
  • Wild Oats
A timber house with a tiled roof on its own plot under the city wall, a tilled yard beside it
A plot under the city wall

A place of your own

Buy the land. Raise the walls. Mind the building code.

Take a plot in Hazelnut Row and build on it piece by piece: the foundation, the walls, a door and its windows, the stairs, and a roof against the rain, up to three storeys high. Then roll out the rugs.

Plant the yard before you head out. The crops keep growing while you're away.

Free on Windows.

Nothing in the game is for sale.

The download is closed while the next build is prepared. Join the Discord or the forums to hear the moment it opens.

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