Choose New campaign. Gathering Rain starts with an established holding and companions; The Exiles begins on the road, where you must travel and settle. The other scenarios are Verses of Defiance and The Broken Banner. Select the human players, their leaders and the difficulty, inspect the leader preview, then choose Begin. Zero humans lets the computer fellowships play.

The province ledger shows Gold, Food, Metal, Fur, Support, Land, Flood, Wealth, Arms, Skill and Castles. The political map shows the forty-nine provinces and their owners. Click a province to inspect it. Reading a roster or inspecting a destination does not spend an order.

Numbered command groups:

Choose a command, the actor, any target and quantity, then confirm the order. Portrait cards show the available people; destination selection opens a map. Escape cancels an unconfirmed order. Commands have Body and resource costs: inspect the preview before committing. Develop your land and support, supply your soldiers, recruit and reward companions, and build your fellowship's popularity toward the Royal Writ.

Confirm a town visit, then choose Marketplace, Downtown, Smithy or Shipyard. Prices, stocks and available facilities are displayed. Buy and sell through quantity confirmation; Downtown offers recruitment, divination and rumours. Confirmed purchases remain in your inventory if you cancel a later transaction. Return to Lair ends the visit and its campaign order.

Deploy the army, select a companion's unit and choose an action, then select its destination or target on the hex field. Gold markings show legal deployment or movement. Terrain, Body, food, soldiers and the commander matter. The bottom panel lists movement, melee, archery, charge and other actions; automatic resolution is also available.

N selects the next active companion who has not acted. R rests the selected unit. Arrows move the cursor; Space selects a unit at it, and Enter or E applies the chosen action. Selecting a unit or moving the cursor does not spend its action.

Mouse and numbered menus work throughout. Tab or Shift-Tab changes focus, Enter chooses, and Escape returns. On the roster, S cycles sorting, F changes the filter and a numbered card opens the character sheet. F5 quicksaves and F9 quickloads. In a browser, click the game first so those keys go to the game. Music and effects have separate volumes in Settings; browser audio starts on the first game click or keypress; the sound button mutes or enables it. Use the in-game help for further rules.