Overview
Leaving Laslea Glen, swordplay and feeding are already familiar. What you likely have not learned: the purpose of the stone shrines, why skill points cannot purchase the perk you have your eye on, or why the towers bar you from climbing. All four questions are resolved within the first hour if you search in the right places.
A shrine does four separate jobs
Shrines double as a fast travel network, but only between shrines you have already discovered. They are also the sole location for learning perks, deliberately skipping time, and accessing your stored items.
That final function matters earlier than you might expect. Exceed your carry limit and the overencumbered state sets in, which prevents running and blocks fast travel. The remedies are selling, destroying or stashing — and stashing requires a shrine. Locating one early outweighs the value of whatever loot you are hauling.
Skill points are rarely the thing holding you back
Two separate keys unlock the perk list, with only one of those keys being a skill point. Before a Swordmastery or Witchcraft perk can be purchased, it must first be unlocked by studying the manual describing it — and manuals turn up scattered across the valley. Until one is read, no amount of points can buy that perk.
Vampirism works in reverse. It has no manual: vampiric perks unlock through drinking blood, and heavier drinking opens more of its branches. Avoiding feeding therefore seals off half of your own progression.
Learning an advanced perk spends time
Exploration is free with respect to the thirty-day limit. Learning is a different story. Advanced perks bear the hourglass icon, meaning that purchasing one advances the clock — and the time bar displays the segment count before you confirm.
The price is modest on each occasion and easy to overlook, since nothing else on that screen suggests it could affect the calendar. Account for it just as you would for a quest.
The eleven towers need the vrakhir form
Eleven scouting towers stand across the valley, each revealing nearby activities. None can be climbed in human form. Getting to the summit requires Shadowstep and Planeshift — both vrakhir powers — making towers a nighttime task.
Planeshift allows scaling a flat wall or traversing a ceiling, draining stamina as you move. Run dry up there and you plummet — or transition into a Clawride when a wall sits within reach.
Set both equipment presets before you need them
The inventory maintains separate presets for human and vrakhir forms, switching by itself as each day and each night begins. Quickslots belong to the preset — the detail most people forget.
During combat, only consumables already slotted can be used. Blood vials included. A nighttime loadout with no blood slotted is therefore a loadout that cannot restore your health, since drinking is the vrakhir's sole healing method. The single exception is Story difficulty, which permits drinking straight out of the inventory at any time.
Learn the three Focus Mode colours
Holding Focus divides the world by three colours: gold marks quest-related people and objects, red marks hostility, and white marks harvestable containers and plants. Nearly every point of interest begins with a Focus sweep, and several quests refuse to start until you perform one.