Jobs and quests.

Who gives work

Only the elder and the villagers give jobs. Traders are busy trading. Each giver has one job on offer each day. The job depends on the village, the giver, the day and how well you stand with the village, so everyone standing the same way is offered the same job until someone takes it.

Talk to the giver to hear the pitch. It says what the job asks and what it pays. Right click again to take it. You can carry up to three jobs at once.

The five kinds

Kind	What you do	Typical reward
Fetch	Bring the giver a set amount of goods the village is short of. Mostly from what the village is keen on. Handed over in person.	Goods worth about 1.6 times what you bring, plus 8 marks' worth.
Build	Put up lamps, fence pieces, crates, a campfire or a workbench within 40 metres of the plaza.	Three to five lamps, twelve to twenty fence pieces, two or three crates, one campfire or one workbench.
Discover	Reach a ruin, a black monolith, an abandoned camp or a lost supply cache 90 to 650 metres away, or carry greetings to another village.	A small reward, more for a far place.
Hunt	Drive off a named beast that troubles the village. Its den lies 70 to 150 metres out.	A large reward, paid when the beast dies.
Escort	See a traveller safely to the next village along, 120 to 650 metres away.	A large reward, more for a longer way.

Fetch

Fetch jobs ask for a set number of goods. You may hand over blocks and pieces in any mix, counted by units. Talk to the giver again and choose "hand them over" to finish it. The reward is paid on the spot.

Build

A build job counts each piece you place within 40 metres of the plaza, as you place it. Each spot counts only once. The job is done when you have placed the number asked for.

Hunt

• The beast's kind depends on the land: a bear in pine, ember and frost woods, a lion on sand and in the badlands, and a Gloamstalker elsewhere.
• The beast comes out when you come within about 90 metres of its den. It is bigger, tougher and bites harder than its kind.
• It goes back to its den if you wander far off, and comes back whole when you return.
• It drops three times the usual loot, and the job pays when it is killed.

Escort

The traveller walks two steps behind you. It hurries when you pull ahead, and it is put back at your side at once if you leave it far behind. Hostile creatures near it may attack it, so keep it alive. If it dies the job fails and your standing with the village drops by 3. Once it arrives within 22 metres of the plaza, it stays in that village.

Discover

Reach the place named in the job and come close enough to count as having found it. A job to deliver greetings to another village is finished when you reach that village's plaza.

Rewards

Every job pays in goods and in standing. Goods are one or two things worth about the job's value: gems, ingots, bronze, iron or steel tools, glowcap spores, dishes, ember glands, and for friends tungsten or an abyssal pearl. Standing rises by 5 for a fetch or a discovery, 6 for a build and 10 for a hunt or an escort. A job done now and then also brings a treasure map from the village.

Your standing	What is offered	Pay
Below -5	Nothing: the village will not give you work	none
Stranger	Fetch, build and discovery jobs	small
Welcome (5 and up)	Hunts added	more
Friend (25 and up)	Escorts and rarer rewards	more again

Pay also rises with standing: each job pays about 1 plus your standing divided by 150. Trusted (50) adds a fifth more, and Honoured (75) adds half again.

Growing villages

Every job adds growth points to its village: 1 for a fetch or discovery, 2 for a build, hunt or escort. The village also gains half a point each day since you first came to it. At 4 points it builds a house for a new resident, a cook, and at 10 points an outfitter. Its people put the house up block by block, but only while someone is near to watch.

Phone calls

A village whose people think well of you (standing 4 and up) may ring you while you are on a world with air, every six to twelve minutes. The phone rings for about 25 seconds. Answer it to hear the job, and take it or turn it down. A job taken by phone counts as if you had taken it in the plaza, but a traveller still has to be handed over in person.

Giving up

You may give up a job from the Jobs tab of the inventory (J). Nothing is lost by it, but the offer is gone for the day.

Tips

• Check the village's keen goods before a fetch. They pay the most.
• Fight a hunt with a companion or in daylight, and stay near the den.
• Keep the traveller close on an escort, and go round hostile creatures.

See Reputation for what standing unlocks, and Cities and growth for what the growing villages become.

← Back to the wiki · Last updated 25 October 2026. Mantlenaut is in alpha, so things change.