Marchling Join the muster

A walking RPG for Android

Marchling

Every step you take, your hero marches.

Your phone already counts your steps. In Marchling they carry your hero across the Ashen Marches: roads held by bandits, woods where the wolves hunt in silence, and a burned keep where the Ashen Lord still waits. Fight for the road, find your loot, and heal while you sleep.

Join the muster Walk the Marches
  • Free to play
  • Nothing that gives power is sold
  • No calorie counting, ever
A knight swings his sword at Greymane, a great scarred wolf, and one of his pack, among the pines of the Whisperwood.
Whisperwood · Lair
Greymane Rare A gambleIt could go either way.
27Places to find
35Roads to walk
40Foes for the Bestiary
No capOn your levels
The daily march

Walk. Fight. Haul. Rest.

A day of Marchling, start to finish. You play it by living it: the phone in your pocket does the counting.

The knight runs along a field road with a grey war-dog at his side.I

Walk

Every step you take moves your hero down the road. A good road costs 750 steps a hex; forest, hills and marsh cost more. Steps walked while you rest are banked for the road ahead.

The knight and a militia archer face a deserter and two highwaymen in a field.II

Fight

Bands roam the roads by the clock and monsters hold every place. Your hero always stops before a fight and waits for you: fight, sneak past, back off or run.

A golden chest surrounded by loot. III

Haul

Each evening the Daily Haul opens: the distance you covered, the fights won and lost, the places you reached, and a chest you earned by walking.

Night in the woods: the knight and his dog by a small campfire under the stars.IV

Rest

Sleep is when your hero heals. Each morning a dawn card tells you where you woke and what the night brought. Rest never hurts you, not ever.

The first region

The Ashen Marches

Farmland, forest, fen and ash on a map of hexes. The south is for new heroes. Thornwick holds the middle. The north belongs to the dead.

The hex map of the Ashen Marches: the river Ash in the south, forests to the west, hills to the east, marsh and ruins in the north, ringed by mountains and sea.

Four districts, each with its own chat and its own news. Tap a place on the map.

TownWhere every hero starts

Millbrook

A mill town of crooked roofs and honest bread. The last place where the doors lock at night.

A town square: a tower, a chapel, houses and a barracks with golden roofs, the innkeeper holding a ham and the smith at the anvil.
Towns are safe groundA tavern where the rumours are always true, a store, a forge to mend your gear, a medic and the watch. Walking in secures your satchel.
Steel and nerve

Fights you choose, odds you can read

Battles play out on their own, in the spirit of Battle Brothers: hard, swingy, and mostly decided before the first blow, by your gear, your route and your nerve.

On a field road at dusk, the knight raises his shield beside a militia archer, facing a deserter in gold and two highwaymen.
Hob's Meadow · Skirmish
A deserter and two highwaymen Fair oddsYou should come through, but it will cost you.
FightSneak pastBack offRun

Your hero always stops before a fight and waits for you, whatever the hour.

The chronicle
  1. The deserter and two highwaymen come over the ditch.
  2. Old Tam puts a shaft into the deserter: 4.
  3. You strike the deserter: 13.
  4. The first highwayman goes for Hal: 6.
  5. You catch the deserter's blow on your shield and slam it back. The deserter reels, stunned!
  6. Wynn shoots wide of the second highwayman.
  7. The deserter is maimed: Broken Arm.
  8. The militia hold the field. +57 gold, 1 Bandit Insignia.
Good oddsThey are no match for you.
Fair oddsYou should come through, but it will cost you.
A gambleIt could go either way.
Grim oddsFew would walk away from this.
HopelessThis is how heroes die.

Sword

Balanced and accurate. Strikes back when a blow misses you. Struggles against heavy armour.

Axe

Chops through armour and cleaves into a second foe. Good against packs.

Spear

Strikes first and reaches the back row. Finds the gaps in armour.

Mace

Crushes armour and stuns. Breaks bones, even the dead ones.

Dagger

Quick, makes them bleed, slips between the plates.

Bow

Hits any row, archers and casters first.

Staff

Magic that strikes every foe at once. Armour is no defence.

Tome

Single-target magic that ignores armour.

Armour has weight

Plate shrugs off blades and fangs, but it slows you, and magic goes straight through. Mail turns blades and teeth; bolts and maces still find you.

Wounds outlast the fight

A bad blow leaves an injury that stays after the battle: a severed tendon, a punctured lung. Bandages, healers and surgeons put you right, for a price.

Know what you face

The Bestiary keeps every foe you've met, and their tricks stay hidden until you've seen them. Before a fight, a veteran tells you how your gear meets theirs.

"Crossbow bolts punch through mail."

In the ember-lit ruins of his keep, Lord Varrek, a huge knight in blackened plate, stands with two steel revenants against the hero.
The region's last boss

Lord Varrek, the Ashen LordLevel 18 · the Ruins of Varrek Keep

Plate black with fire and a sword as long as a man. He holds the Lord's Hall with two revenants, and most heroes who walk in don't walk out.

So walk first. Standing before any boss, you can begin a Trial: for the next three hours your real steps wear it down. Every 500 steps lands a blow, and a full Trial leaves the boss and its guard 40% weaker.

The Trial of Lord Varrek2h 10m left
1,500 of 3,000 steps3 of 6 blows landed
Loot worth the walk

Gear in five rarities

Fights, chests and dungeons pay in gear: five slots, stats that roll, and wear you mend for gold at the forge.

Rusty Knife

Common

Iron Sword

Uncommon

Frostbrand

Rare

Raven Longbow

Elite

Emberbrand

Legendary

The Widowmaker

Legendary gift · The Reaping

Every foe it fells heals you 15% of your health. Each Legendary breaks one rule of battle: Emberbrand sets foes burning, and the Bastion of Saint Odric stuns whoever strikes your shield.

Thunderhead Bastion of Saint Odric Crown of the Hollow Skyfall Soulreaver

Chests you earn

Wooden chest Iron chest Gold chest

The Daily Haul, the Bounty Chest for a day's notices, a Guild Chest when your guild's boss falls. Every one is earned on the road. None are ever sold.

Prepare for the road

Bandage Stew Silver oil Firebomb

Tavern meals and bandages, weapon oils for the beasts and the dead, and firebombs for when it all goes wrong.

From the field

Straight from the phone

Real screenshots from the Android build as it stands today.

The map tab: the hero at Greenhollow Fields, with Oakhurst, Ashford, the river Ash and bands of foes on the roads.
The mapBands roam the roads by the clock. Walk into them, wait them out, or hunt them.
Greenhollow Fields up close: spots joined by paths, a highwayman and two groups of boars.
A placeEvery place is a map you walk, spot by spot, with foes holding the way.
A fight at Hob's Meadow: the hero with a spear and a pet against three grey wolves, with the chronicle below.
The fightYour pet at your side, three wolves, and a chronicle of every blow.
Victory: the militia hold the field, with the spoils, 57 gold and a bandit insignia.
VictoryThe militia hold the field. Who dealt what, and the spoils.
The hero tab: Merek, level 7 Guardian, with the XP bar, gold, and links to deeds, the bestiary, friends, guild and leagues.
Your heroLevels from real walking, with no cap. Deeds, Bestiary, friends and guild.
Battle stats: power, HP, attack, defence, speed and more, and the five gear slots.
Battle statsPower from you and from your gear, and where it comes from.
The inventory: the gear doll with helmet, spear, armour and boots, and the list of items.
The PackFive slots, armour weight, and a trade-off in every piece.
The notice board: three daily quests with progress bars and the Bounty Chest.
The notice boardThree notices each dawn. Claim all three to open the Bounty Chest.
Story chapters: The Smuggler's Trail and The Old Alpha.
StoriesTold chapter by chapter, from a round at the mill to the Fall of Varrek.
Never alone on the road

Walk in company

One shared world: the bands, the camps and the war front are the same for everyone, and other heroes show on the roads near you.

Guilds

A banner and a weekly boss

Up to thirty heroes under one banner. Each week a named foe, the Great Boar of Hollin or the Mother of Wolves, is worn down by every step your guild takes. When it falls, everyone who reached their goal on three days takes a Guild Chest.

Leagues

Ranked on consistency, not raw steps

Weekly groups of about thirty walkers at your pace. Points come from reaching your own goal, whatever it is, and walking far past it earns nothing more. Rewards are pennants, never power.

CopperIronSteelSilverGoldCrown

Friends

Raise a cup

Add friends by code and follow their deeds: levels gained, rares slain, camps burned. Raise a cup to a friend once a day. No messages and no pressure, and never your steps, sleep or weight.

District chat

The town crier

Talk with the heroes of your district, never the whole world. The crier calls out the news: rares slain, camps burned, Legendaries found, heroes fallen. Filtered and moderated, for players 13 and up.

Brann slew Greymane, the Old Alpha, at Whisperwood.

Edda burned a bandit camp on the King's Way.

Rowan found Emberbrand, a Legendary, in the Barrow of the Forgotten King.

Osric fell at Blackfen Marsh. A cairn marks the spot.

A warband gathers in the Northern Waste. Gravenhold looks to its walls.

Maud slew Red Jory in the Bandit Hideout.

Ser Garrick has been seen on the roads.

What the crier calls. In the game, news is heard in the district where it happened.

Sealed

The Marchling Charter

Promises the game keeps, written into how it works.

  • Rest heals. It never hurts.Sleep restores your hero, and short sleep is never punished. Nothing that comes in the night can do you harm.
  • Defeat never takes your progress.Lose a fight and you may lose your purse or your satchel, never your levels, XP, deeds or the distance you've walked.
  • More is not better.Only 20,000 steps count in a day, and step XP tapers well before that. A missed day costs one step of your streak, never the whole of it.
  • Your body is your business.Weight tracking is optional and private. It never touches your power or XP, never appears on any board, and you can export or delete it whenever you like.
  • No calorie counting. Ever.No food logs, no deficits, no weight-loss deadlines. Marchling rewards walking, not going hungry.
  • Nothing that gives power is for sale.Chests are earned on the road and never sold. If the game ever sells anything, it will only change how you look.
The muster roll

Join the muster

Marchling is in development, Android first. A closed test on Google Play comes next, and iPhone follows from the same game.

  • Android first, iPhone later
  • Free to play, with nothing that gives power for sale
  • One letter when the test opens, nothing else

The Muster Roll

Put your name down for the closed test.

Your phone

The roll opens with the closed test. Until then, nothing you write here is sent or saved.

Not yet, traveller

The muster roll opens with the closed test. Nothing you wrote was sent or saved, so come back soon and put your name down then.