First of all, if you are wondering how to translate the game, here's how :

Since the official english translation is supposed to come out in a few months, for now I suggest you use our discord Scroll of Taiwu's community translation mod. Please follow the instructions below to install :

(First note : you need to download a file for this, so I suggest you head over to our Discord Community for that, and have a look at the "#en-mod-sharing" forum channel (you will also see it in the discord welcome panel). It is very easy to install, there is an all-in package made by LiWei in that channel with both the translation mod and an autotranslator (which we use for now to cover what is not finished translating yet )

https://discord.gg/mVbC8S7BrS

(Thank you Kabum for the link)


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Below this, in the rest of the guide, you'll find a few gameplay basics and answers to frequently asked questions (as collected on our discord server)

Scroll of Taiwu is a chinese wuxia (martial arts story with low fantasy elements) rpg and sandbox/base-building game.
It's main characteristics are as following :
- Complex and deep mechanics allowing for a lot of character progress and endless customisation
- Large world with many NPCs, each having many relationships and pursuing actions between themselves, a very "living world" where a lot of things happen even without player input/presence.
- The Taiwu Heir system : when your character dies, you pass on all your skills and knowledge to your next "heir" (anyone from your party, your choice. Or someone random if party is empty and you chose the "random heir" option at the start of the game).
- Base and family building. Growing a bigger and bigger family over several generations to make the strongest possible heirs, and also growing your town.
- Interesting and very dynamic combat system (with pause option to make tactical choices)
- Invasion mechanics : every few years, a dangerous demon enemy will attack you, so don't grow lazy and get stronger !

First of all, this guide is going to assume you have installed the translation as instructed into section 0) If you haven't, go do so now or suffer endless confusion about everything.
Once it's done, many things in the base UI should be very clear, such as stats and their descriptions.


- Ranks : Taiwu ranks most things (enemies, skills, items, social status) in 9 ranks, from tier 9 to tier 1, with their relevant color code : grey, white, green, blue, cyan, purple, yellow, orange, red.

- External and Internal : External damage is orange, Internal damage is purple. Stance is the energy bar used to cast external skills, inhale is the energy bar used to cast internal skills (these two are the two circles around your character in combat). Ext and Int "Recovery" is how fast your recover from external and internal wounds (see below). Internal Ratio is a conversion meter for skills, allowing you to configure a larger part of your skills and weapons between int/ext.

- Temporary and permanent wounds : In combat, one can get wounded by temporary wounds with a severity of 1 to 3 stars, or permanently wounded (wound does not recover). Permanent wounds have a higher chance of leaving "real permanent wounds" after combat, which can be found in the "Body" interface in the upper right corner of main UI screen (next to Stats).

- Accuracies and Defenses : Those are also called 'Hit and Resolve' in game. There are 3+1 accuracies and 3+1 defenses in Taiwu. The 3 first are used for most skills and are Might, Finesse and Swiftness. Those are countered respectively by Diversion, Parade and Evasion. Lastly, sound attacks use Breath and Focus (therefore bypassing some amount of game mechanics). In combat, when your character hits, it recieves a random amount added to the accuracy of the weapon style (see below) and checks vs relevant defense. The higher the accuracy is above defense, the more the damage, so it's not only a matter of hitting, increasing accuracy/defenses means increasing damage done / reducing damae taken.

- Weapon styles : Each weapon has 6 weapon styles and alternates clockwise between all of them when fighting. if a hit lands, one "style" is added to the character's style bar (above skills). Attack skills cost not only the relevant energy (stance or inhale), but also consume the required styles (higher attack skills consume more styles).

- Weapon speed : Each weapon has 1 to 3 little orange swords in its stats. This is weapon attack speed, as your character generates those little swords over time in battle (speed generation = character attack speed). The amount of swords shown on weapon is the amount consumed per attack, so 1 sword = fast / 2 swords = medium / 3 swords = slow.

- Weapon and skill range : Each weapon has a fighting range. Running out of the enemy's weapon range is a viable strategy to avoid hits at the last second. Skills have a range relative to the weapon, expressed in "-x +x". For instance, a skill "-0.5 +1.5" used with a 3.0 - 5.0 knife would have a final range of 2.5 - 6.5. This means it is much harder to run out of a skill's range at the last second, unless one has really great movement.

- Healing : Healing is done in combat or out of combat, and has a casting time in combat. Same for Poison Curing. The amount healed and the amount of heals depend on your medecine skill (or toxicology for poison cures). Allies can heal you in combat as well. Out of combat, in the lower left of the map UI (next to character portrait), there is a link to a healing interface for player or any NPC in party to heal anyone. Lastly, one can find doctors in towns to ask for healing/detoxing, or ask some sects whom are qualified in healing or detoxing.

- Party play : There exist both a "Team" and a "Companion" system. Team is the large term for everyone in your party (whom can all heal each other out of combat). Companions are up to 3 people whom follow you in battle and can perform several actions to help you or even replace you for a time fighting. These are the only ones who can heal/detox you in combat.

- Dantian, elements and Inner Arts : Your starting element will always match your birthmonth (see below for birthmonth elements). If you want to earn more points to put into your offensive (red), movement (green), defense (yellow) or nadis (purple) forces, you will need to "cultivate" inner arts. You get a t9 one for the start, and cultivation will be more efficient the stronger the inner art.

- Cultivation and Realm progress : Cultivation is done passively, it is the second down left icon on the main UI. The Inner art chosen will shift the character's elemental balance towards it, and the cultivation points will add to your inner cultivation, which can be spent and moved around freely in the "Loadout > Dantian" menu among the 4 Forces (Break, Quick, Defense, Nadis). Total cultivation is limited by "Pure Essence" level, which functions as "Realm level" in other wuxia/xianxia fiction. This increases when swordtomb bosses are fought / killed, representing world and character progress.

- Acquiring new skill books : The main way to learn new skills is to get them from sects. Once you go to a sect, you'll need to get enough "support" from various sect members, only then will they teach you skills (t9 skills require 10% support, t8 20% supp, t7 30%, etc...). Once skills are acquired and support is gained, sect members can also trade their skillbooks with you for prestige, which allows for skill customisation (red and blue modifiers). Lastly, you can find skill books on enemies everywhere in the world.

- Reading, practicing, breaking trough skills : Acquiring skills is complex. Once a book is in inventory, a skill can be practiced (Martial Arts menu > Practice). A skill practiced above 50% can be equipped in the current Loadout (Dantian menu > Loadout). But to make a skill really powerful, one should both fully read and fully practice a skill, and finally "Breaktrough". Martial arts skill books have two distinction : each chapter is either complete or incomplete, meaning fast or slow/hard to read; and also either orthodox (blue effects) or heretodox (red effects). Once breaking trough, selecting more blue / red effects will give the skill it's special orthodox OR heterodox effects.
Technical skill books only have 5 chapters and each is complete/incomplete; and have no ortho/heterodox effects.

Q. 1 : Where or how to HEAL a wounded character
A. 1 : See section II) Gameplay Basics "Healing"

Q. 2 : Where can I BUY or SELL gear?
A. 2 : Find t5 (Cyan-coloured) NPC in and around towns. Small villages don't always have them, big towns will have many, and the small town next to Taiwu Village should always have a couple. Lastly, some towns (and yours at some point) can have shops inside.

Q. 3 : Where can I REPAIR gear ?
A. 3 : Same as above, find NPCs (t3 green coloured) in and around towns, or repair yourself using a portable crafting station and the relevant skill (woodwork + woodcarving box for a wooden weapon, for instance).

Q. 4 : How to use SKILLS in battle ?
A. 4 : Be in range and click the button. If the button is greyed out, it means you are lacking either the required energy (stance/inhale) or the required weapon styles to cast the skill, or both. For more info on those terms, see section II) Gameplay Basics

Q. 5 : How to make a family and have kids ?
A. 5 : Have a partner and stay on the same plot for many turns (end of month will show a "making love" event, and in my experience it takes many tries before pregnancy (be careful if you're female, a pregnant character gets a debuff to everything in battle)

Q. 6 : Why does increasing Quick or Nadis (2nd and 4th forces) do nothing but give small poison resistance?
A. 6 : It only gives benefits every 5 levels, but they are quite good.

Q. 7 : I've looked around the Taiwu Village but can't find where the sects are, help ! ?
A. 7 : They aren't on that map. There is a world map (small icon right corner above map), and you need to "unlock" a waystations to progress from one map to another. Travelling to a city or a sect can take many of those unlockings in a row. Each unlocking costs more prestige then the previous, and the actual travelling takes money and time.

Q. 8 : How does one JOIN a sect ?
A. 8 : You can't, as you are the faction leader of your own faction (Heir to the Taiwu Clan), but you can learn from all sects in the world provided you satisfy their requirements (reputation-wise and for Xuan Nyu, being female or for Shaolin, being male)

Q. 9 : How to CRAFT items ?
A. 9 : Items can be crafted in the relevant crafting building. This either needs to be built in Taiwu Village... or you can visit any town/sect which has the relevant building and craft there.

Q. 10 :
A. 10 :

Q. 11 :
A.11 :

Thanks to the game dev for delivering after the long wait !
Thanks to our friendly translation community for the hard work :)
Come say hello on discord, we don't bite, I promise.