Where to run to

Spawn & the first refuge

You wake near the edge of things, with nothing. There's a refuge within reach of spawn — a small, sealed pocket the rot hasn't found, meant to give you a first night that doesn't kill you. Find it before the dark does.

It won't carry you forever. Treat it as a starting breath, not a home.

Safehouses

Some places in the Hollow are anchored — the horrors simply can't follow you in. A properly held refuge is the difference between a hunt you survive and one you don't.

• Light it, seal it, hold it. A safehouse is only safe while it's lit and closed.
• Make more than one. A single refuge is a trap if the Man is between you and it. Build a network you can run to.

Waystones

The fastest way to put distance between you and something is to already have been somewhere else. Bind waystones as you explore and the Hollow shrinks — refuge, supplies, and people become a step away instead of a deadly walk through the dark.

The doors & Limbo

There are doors in the Hollow that don't lead where doors should. Step through the wrong one and you can end up in Limbo — the grey space between places, easy to enter and very easy to get stranded in.

• Know your way back before you go through. Limbo doesn't care that you're lost.
• If you're stuck, the way out is down and through — not panic. There's always a thread back to a bed you've claimed.

The place the map won't name

Past the last refuge, where the rot is thickest, the signal points somewhere it really shouldn't. That's the end of the road — the corrupted heart of the Hollow, and whatever the old world's missing guardian left room for.

You'll know it when the static stops being background and starts being a direction. Don't go alone, and don't go unprepared.