Getting started
Keys and menus
The realm is built so that you rarely need a command. Here is where to find everything.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| F2 | Your own menu: here and now, the people around you, your horses, houses, crafts, work & skills, faction, letters, the Chronicle (the realm's history and news, with a count of unread entries), your character - and Furnish / Decorations (Furnish here, when you stand in your home: see Furniture and decorations). The staff also find their tools here. |
| F3 | Switch between the view from behind your character (third person) and your own eyes. It works while riding, fighting and aiming too. |
| F5 | Three steps: the first press puts the chat away; the second hides everything for a clean picture or a recording - the chat, the windows, the party frames, the clock, the signs, the marks on your compass and every name over a head; the third brings it all back. Dying or switching character brings it back too. |
| F6 | The emotes: play the lute or the flute, dance, bow, kneel, bless, cross yourself, raise your tankard, laugh, applaud, threaten... You can also type /e name. The Standing still group holds its pose until you move: fold your arms, lean on a wall or a rail, lean back, wait, look weary or watchful - a key pressed ends the pose. Every other looping whole-body pose (the barkeep, sitting on the ground, praying, sleeping...) is held the same way until you move or press a key. Free look in a pose (at the top of the emote menu, off until you turn it on): while you hold a looping pose, the mouse turns the view around you instead of your character; a step, a walk key or the cursor gives the view back. Folded arms are held too, and the flute, the hunting horn and the letter emotes now show the item in hand. The star beside a gesture puts it on your own wheel on G (click it, or press F on the line). |
| E | On someone else's dog that blocks the way: Shoo it away - it yelps and bolts a few metres off (once every ten seconds a dog; its master is told). On your own dog, its menu. |
| F4 | Your dog's menu, if you have one (the dog perk from the KCD Points store): call it, tell it to stay, heel or roam, or send it home. Its Appearance (F4, or F2 > My belongings > Dog) shows your dog at your side with its name and a gallery of coats with their pictures, grouped by body - backyard dogs, alaunts, war dogs and the one-of-a-kind - and the ten breeds as one-click choices. Your first look is free; after that a new look is a dog Appearance token or 30 KCD Points, and a new name is always free. |
| , | The live map, on the key next to the game's map key (";" on a French keyboard). It shows the realm as the website's live map does - the towns and who holds them, the lordships, the places, the brigands - plus your own position. No other player is shown. Right-click the land to set a marker there, shown on your compass; click the marker, or Remove the marker, to take it off. |
| F8 | The help: the guides, and every command you can use, by category, with a search (also /helpmenu). Your settings - keys, chat, what your screen shows, voice and your language - are on the action wheel. Settings > Keys draws a keyboard with your actions on their keys, coloured by kind: drag an action onto another key (it swaps with the one already there), or click it and then click or press a key; right-click a key to clear it. Tabs hold the keys used only at certain moments (the emote wheel's next page, butchering a beast). The game's own keys cannot be taken. Nothing is kept until you press Apply; Discard and Reset to defaults sit beside it. |
| B | Your pack: your items with their icons and weight. Drag them to sort them, equip or take off what you wear, and destroy what you no longer need: right-click an item for Destroy one or Destroy the stack (the sack's goods too), then click again to be sure. A worn piece, a quest item, a trade's tool, a master's piece or a paper is never destroyed this way. When a town's commission wants an item you carry, its right-click menu also offers Towns that want this: it opens the commissions on that piece (which towns, how many, the pay, the distance), ready to take the order and show the way. Next to an open chest, drag items between the two. Hover any item - here, at a chest, a bank, a stall or a bench - for its card: its condition, its armour or weapon figures, what a food feeds and what a potion does; a woman's garment says Women only, as the game puts it on no player. A potion that heals or gives an effect offers Drink it in its menu. The card shows no price: the game's own prices mean nothing in this realm's trade. Ctrl+click a piece - in your pack, at a workbench, an auction house or a shop's counter - to see it on you: a copy of your character, seen by you alone ("[YOU ONLY] FITTING ROOM" over it), stands at your front right wearing what you wear, with that piece in its place. Ctrl+click more pieces to dress it further. It goes on Esc, after a minute without a new click, when you walk 15 m away, or when it is struck. Nothing is given or taken. |
| E (the use key) | Talk to a townsperson with a sign over their head: their menu opens (the moneylender, the stable master, the town clerk, a stallholder...). Merchants open their trade screen. On another player, it offers what fits - Untie, Search, Bind, Tend wounds, or Actions for their full menu; to the watch where its law runs, Watch, which opens the detain window. On a door it offers Knock; on a seat, a bed or a chest you placed, Sit down, Sleep or Open the storeroom. |
| Enter | Open the chat to type a line, an emote or a command. Enter again sends it; Esc closes the chat. |
| V | Push-to-talk voice. |
| Left Ctrl | Your voice level: a whisper, your normal voice, a shout. On horseback the key is also the reins', so you can pick it in F2 > My character (How loud you speak) or in Settings > Voice too. |
| Caps Lock | The names you know always show over heads, the name alone. Hold Caps Lock to see the numbers after the names and strangers too, as Unknown and their number (a quick tap shows them for 5 seconds). To change this: Settings (on the action wheel, or /settings) > Chat & names > Names over heads: Known names, No names (none until you press Caps Lock) or All names. See Names you learn. |
| Tab | The players' list, showing the names you know - Unknown Character for everyone else. No faction is shown but your own; the Title column shows a supporter's title (purple for an Early Founder, gold for an Early Supporter). |
| G | Hold for the emote wheel: wave, bow, cheer, clap, dance, come - or your own favourite gestures once you have starred some (see below). |
| T | Point (on the Adventure server): hold T for 3 seconds and a ring shows on the ground where you look, with its distance; let go to mark the spot for 5 seconds for your party and the players within 5 m of you. |
| Z | Hold for the action wheel (W on an AZERTY keyboard; you can change the key in the settings, on the wheel): your pack, your menu, the emotes, your horses, the people next to you (nearest first), what can be done here (such as Furnish here, at home) and your settings. You also switch between your saved outfits A, B and C there. |
| W S / Enter / Backspace | Inside a menu: move, select (Space works too) and go back a level. Esc - or the key that opened the menu - closes it. An entry that needs a value opens a line under the menu: type it, Enter sends, Esc cancels. |
Your own emote wheel (G)
Put up to eight favourite gestures on the wheel you hold G for: star them in the emote menu (F6, or F2 > Emotes - a click on the star, or F on the line), in Settings > Emote wheel (on the action wheel, or /settings) where you can also reorder them, or with /emotefav name. They go clockwise from the top, in your order; /emotefav alone opens your wheel, /emotefav clear empties it. Your favourites belong to the character, so each of your characters keeps its own. With none, G shows the usual wheel. The mouse reaches every place on your wheel; the number keys reach the first six.
Signs in the world
Every important place has a keeper with a floating sign: their title in gold, and what you can do there. Walk around a town and you will find the bank, the stables, the market, the tavern and the rest. When a job or a menu shows you the way somewhere, a sign with the distance appears over the place, visible from anywhere.
Your screen
/togglehud (or F2 > your character > On your screen) hides or shows each of these separately: the party frames, the date and time, the help line, the floating signs over places, and the chat. Your choice is saved with your character. Beside it, Clear your map marks takes every mark you carry off your compass and your world at once (the next mark shows as usual).
The date and time at the top right is the realm's; the small clock under it is the server's real time - Moscow time (MSK) on the Russian server, Central European time (CET) on the others. Give that time in a report or a ticket: the staff's logs use it too. /date tells both.