Every number on this site carries three things with it: where it came from, how many independent sources agree on it, and when it was last checked. This page explains the machinery behind that promise — the sourcing states, the conflict register, the question marks — so you can judge every entry yourself instead of trusting us.
01Where the data comes from
Nothing on this site comes from playing the game behind closed doors. Every record in the skills database is compiled from material any player can check: published guides, press coverage from launch-window reviews, developer interviews, and the game's own interface. When a skill page says an effect "pulls stranded spirits back into the world," that description was cross-checked against the people who documented it, then rewritten in this site's own words. Facts get cited; sentences stay original.
Each source is graded on a five-star scale that is printed next to every citation. Three stars means a single editorial source documented the value. Four stars means two independent outlets agree. Five stars is reserved for material straight from the developer or the game itself, such as the hourglass icon that shows a timed action before you commit to it. Two stars flags second-hand relayed information — it stays visible, but you can see it is weaker. The star rating is not decoration: it is the fastest way to see how solid a row is before you build your character around it.
02Two sourcing states, shown on every record
Every entry carries one of two badges. The first, "Reported," marks the main body of the database: values compiled from public guides and press write-ups, with the sources and their check date attached to the same row. The second, "Untested," marks values with no reliable public documentation at all — a dashed outline and a grey chip instead of a confident-looking figure.
A third state exists in the data model but does not appear anywhere yet: a first-party check mark, reserved for values this site confirms for itself after a future re-evaluation. That state is switched off at the data layer, not just the design layer — the validation pipeline refuses any record that claims it. If you never see that badge, that is the system working. The honest gap between "the community says" and "we confirmed" is the whole point of the labeling.
03Why empty cells stay empty
Most game wikis fill every cell, because an empty cell looks like a failure. This site takes the opposite position: a question mark is information. Where no reliable public source documents a value — the learning cost of a specific skill, for example, which no two guides agree on — the cell shows a dashed "?" chip instead of a borrowed number. The footnote on every table says it plainly: cells marked ? have no reliable public source yet; they stay empty rather than filled.
The rule that follows is simple: this site never adopts another site's number as its own. When a figure is worth showing at all, it appears with its author attached — "Game8 lists it this way," "allthings.how reports that" — so you can weigh the source yourself. A number without a home does not get printed.
04Conflicts are registered, not averaged
Public sources disagree with each other, especially in a game's first weeks. Launch-window guides split on basic questions: how the day-and-night calendar is divided, what the prologue's total budget is, which task ends it. Weaker sites quietly pick one answer and present it as fact. This site does the opposite — every disagreement is registered on the record itself, with each claim attributed to its source and marked as pending a proper check.
You can see this on the skill pages that carry a "conflicting" marker in the table, and in full on the affected detail pages, where the "sources disagree" notice lists each side word for word. Nothing is averaged, nothing is silently dropped, and this site never picks a winner between public sources. When the sources themselves settle a conflict, the register updates and the resolution changes. Until then, the disagreement stays visible — dated, so you can tell which claims predate the latest patch.
05Dates and build numbers everywhere
A guide without a date is a rumor with formatting. Every record carries its last-checked date, every guide page shows when it was last updated, and the catalog describes the game build the data reflects. The footer states the newest review date across the whole database. After a major patch, entries are re-checked against their sources and the dates move — so when a patch changes behavior and the sources have not caught up yet, the stale dates tell you which rows to read with extra doubt.
06How the database is organized
The skills database covers the game's three trees: Swordmastery, available any time of day; Witchcraft, sealed to daylight hours; and Vampirism, which works only at night. Every entry lists its tree, type, effect, rank requirements, unlock path, and day-night limits. Filters let you slice the table by tree, tier, or time of day, and the result counter always shows how the filtered set relates to the full list.
Tier ratings are deliberately restrained in launch season: nearly every record carries the "?" tier, because a ranking implies measurement, and measurement is exactly what the launch-window public record lacks. Where community consensus is strong enough to rank — two or more independent sources agreeing, with sources cited — a tier appears with its evidence attached. The rest stay marked, and the tier column sorts the marked rows to the end rather than pretending they are picks.
07What this site does not publish
Three things stay off the site by policy. First: story-critical content. Guides cover the prologue's opening hours and stop at documented, spoiler-free boundaries — no ending material, no late-story reveals. Second: invented precision. Any figure this site cannot trace to a source appears as a question mark, never as a rounded guess. Third: shortcuts that end careers — no cheats, no trainers, no save editors. The site exists to help players understand the game's systems, and a sourced database that respects those boundaries is the product.
08Corrections, and what happens next
Mistakes in a curated database are fixed in public. When a correction is confirmed against its source, the page is updated and the correction is credited on the page it fixes — send it to the contact address in the footer, with a link if you can. The roadmap from here is steady: the quest database and deeper time-system coverage land as public documentation matures, every batch of new pages is dated as it ships, and the whole register gets another pass after each major patch.
If that approach sounds right, start with the skills database, or read the time-system explainer — the clock is the game's harshest system, and it is where sourced data changes how you play the most.
Questions about the method belong on this page; questions about the game belong in the database. Both are updated in public, with dates.