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Ancient Ruins are hand-crafted dungeon points of interest in Windrose, scattered across the procedurally generated archipelago. They contain puzzle locks, enemy guardians, environmental hazards, and Artifact Chests with rare loot. Critically, Ancient Ruins are the only source of Healing Herbs in the game, making them essential to visit for any player who plans to craft Healing Potions or Great Healing Potions.

What's Inside

Each Ancient Ruin is multi-room, with a roughly 15 to 30 minute clear time depending on difficulty and exploration. Common contents include:

Locations and Distribution

Ancient Ruins appear in every launch biome, with difficulty scaled to the biome's gear tier:

Map Indicator

Each Ancient Ruin appears on the player's map as a question mark until discovered, then resolves to its full icon. Hovering the icon shows the remaining unlooted chest count. Once all chests at a ruin are looted, the icon dims to indicate the ruin is exhausted of loot (although enemies still spawn). This makes it easy to tell which ruins still have Healing Herbs to gather.

Recommended Approach

1. Approach with full food buffs (one Strength or Agility +20 buff plus a stamina buff)

2. Bring at least 5 Bandages and 2 Healing Potions for sustained combat

3. Equip a torch or Lantern; ruins are dark and contain dark corridors

4. Bring a Stone Pickaxe or Stone Axe for clearing rubble and breaking obstacles

5. Drop a Fast Travel Bell at the entrance so you can warp home with full inventories

6. Loot all chests (including Artifact Chests) before leaving; ruins do not respawn

Puzzle Mechanics

Common puzzle types found in Ancient Ruins:

• Hidden buttons: Buttons concealed under stairs, behind statues, or inside small alcoves; pressing them opens chests or doors

• Weight plates: Floor plates that require an object placed on them to trigger; sometimes weighted with combat loot

• Platforming: Some chests are placed on elevated positions requiring jumping or climbing

• Lever sequences: Multiple levers must be pulled in correct order; lore notes nearby hint at the sequence

• Dig sites: Some Ancient Ruins contain Shovel-required dig sites with buried treasure

Lore Significance

Ancient Ruins predate Caribbean colonial settlement in Windrose's alternate history. The presence of Healing Herbs (a medicinal plant unknown to current Caribbean populations) and Silver/Gold caches suggests the ruins' original occupants had advanced medical and metallurgical knowledge. Lore notes scattered throughout the ruins hint at connections to Columbus's Book of Prophecies and to the supernatural corruption now spreading through the world.

Whether the ruins were built by an indigenous Caribbean civilization, by an earlier European expedition, or by something else entirely is part of the unfolding mystery. Some lore fragments use unfamiliar symbols and words that the player's characters cannot translate at launch.

See Also

• Healing Herbs - the resource only found here

• Dungeons - all dungeon types in the launch build

• Buried Treasure - dig sites that may appear in some Ancient Ruins

• Procedural Biomes - biome-tier scaling for ruin difficulty

• Columbus's Book of Prophecies - lore connection