Hearthport¶
| Level range | Hub (safe zone) |
| Lantern Rank | – |
| Dominant Aspect | – |
| Weather | Clear, Rain, Festival nights |
| Boss | – |
| Music theme | "Lanterns on the Water" |
Hearthport is a bustling harbor city built on stilts and stone terraces around a giant lighthouse called the Beacon, which houses the Lanternbearer Guild. Thousands of paper lanterns hang across its canals. It is the safe hub where players shop, craft, take quests and bind Echoes.
Sub-areas¶
- Beacon Plaza: Guild Hall, bounty board, Guild Quartermaster
- Forge Row: Mira's Forge, Charmwright's Table
- Harbor Market: ingredients, cosmetics, Chef Bao's Hearth Kitchen
- Shrine of Remembrance: bind Echo Seeds and view the Echo Codex
- Old Town Canals: Old Taku's Apothecary, side quests, hidden cats (collectible)
- Skyport Docks: Riftskiff dock (Act III), Nyx's Twilight Cart at dusk
- Player Lodging: a customizable room (cosmetic housing, stretch goal)
NPCs¶
Rennick Vale (Guildmaster), Mira Kanade (smith), Taku (apothecary), Juniper (Charmwright), Chef Bao, Nyx (wandering merchant), Archivist Sol (lore), Kiko (Rank examiner). See NPCs.
Enemies¶
None, except during Great Bloom events, when Hollows invade the harbor (an event defense mode).
Rifts¶
- Guild Training Rift: a tutorial and practice arena, plus a DPS dummy
- Trial Gate: entrance to Trial Rifts
Resources¶
Shop goods only.
Secrets¶
- 12 hidden cats (find all for the Cat Whisperer title)
- The Beacon rooftop: a climbing puzzle that rewards the Lighthouse Keeper's Lantern skin
Level design brief¶
Dense vertical city, about 400 × 400 m. Use World Partition with Level Instances per district. For NPC crowds, use Mass AI or simple spline walkers. Performance target: 60 fps on mid-range GPUs. Lots of emissive lanterns, so use baked or Lumen GI with light-function masks.