The Wayfarers and their villages.

Where villages stand

Villages are only found on the home planet. Each one sits in a clearing of about 384 metres square, on dry, level ground of a kind people live on. Villages turn up in Sunmead, Pinecrest, Brightsand, Rustmesa, Emberwood, Hoarfrost, Mirefen, Verdance and Saltstrand. The land round a village is kept clear of trees, boulders and bushes, so you can see the roofs from a distance.

Every village has a name built from a list with a flavour of its biome. Pinecrest villages often sound high and cold, Brightsand villages sandy, Mirefen villages marshy. Walk to within about 36 metres of the plaza for the first time and the game tells you that you have found it; the village is then kept in your Codex.

What a village looks like

• The plaza: a paved square with a roofed well, a trader's stall under a cloth canopy, a campfire with benches and lamp posts at the corners.
• The houses: four to six houses in a ring, doors facing the plaza. Each has beds, a lamp and a crate. One of them is usually a smithy with a furnace and a forge bench.
• The fields: one or two fenced fields of crops, watered by a channel. The crops suit the biome: wheat, carrots and potatoes in most places, rice in the marsh, tomatoes and coffee in the jungle.
• The paths: gravel from each doorstep to the plaza.

Who lives there

Each bed has one resident. A village is led by its Elder, who keeps the fire and hands out the big jobs. There is a Trader at the stall, a Smith if the village has a smithy, a Farmer for each field, and Villagers for the rest. Every Wayfarer has a name and one of five manners: cheerful, shy, gruff, curious or wise. The manner shows in how they greet you and in what they say.

Villages grow as you help them. A cook and then an outfitter can move into new houses. See Cities and growth for how this works.

A Wayfarer's day

The villagers keep the hours of the day, so the place feels alive:

Time of day	What they do
Night, the last part of the evening to dawn	Asleep in bed, lying with their head to the wall and facing the door.
Dawn to midday	At work: farmers hoeing along the field edges, the trader at the stall, the smith at the forge, the elder by the fire, the others about the plaza.
Around midday	A meal on the plaza.
Afternoon to dusk	Back to work, and from late afternoon they gather round the plaza fire.

A village only comes to life when a player is within about 140 metres. Until then it waits quietly where the hour has left it. Walk up to a Wayfarer and they will often wave, once every ninety seconds or so for each player.

Talking to them

• Right click (or press E) on a Wayfarer to stop and talk. They turn to you, and a panel shows their name, trade and village, and a few things they know: the next village, a cache nobody has fetched, a tip on farming or taming.
• Asleep, they only say so. Walk away and the conversation ends.
• Traders will sell you things (see Trading and barter). Anyone who gives work will tell you about it (see Jobs and quests).

Friendship

Each Wayfarer keeps a friendship score with you alone. It rises when you give them a gift and when you do their favours. The labels, from lowest, are Stranger, Acquaintance (10), Friend (30), Close friend (60) and Best friend (100).

• Gifts: hold a plain piece or block in your hand, crouch, and right click. Gifts they like give more friendship than gifts they do not. Each Wayfarer takes up to three gifts a day from you. A plain right click with an item in hand only talks, so you will not give your stone away by accident.
• Favours: from Friend (25) they ask for one thing they need. Bring it and their friendship rises, and the village thinks better of you too.
• Companions: a Close friend whose favour is done may come along when you ask. You can have two companions at a time. They walk beside you, fight what you fight and can carry a small bag for you.

They ask for	Amount	Asked by
Grain	8	Farmer
Gold	2	Trader
Iron	4	Smith
Quartz	3	Elder
Apples	4	Villager
Raw meat	4	Cook
Leather	4	Outfitter

Tips

• Visit a village at midday to see most of its people about.
• Do not hurt or rob the Wayfarers. Their village remembers, and standing with it falls (see Reputation).
• Keep a few spare plain blocks in your hand for gifts, and crouch to give them.

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