Welcome to Lord of Chains! This guide covers all the game mechanics and features. Click on any section to expand it.
Lord of Chains runs in 4-month rounds. At the end of every round, the realm is wiped clean: player accounts are reset back to square one, the leaderboards are archived, and everyone starts fresh for the next season of conquest. Your login, friends list, and account history carry over, only your in-game progress resets.
The round dates for the current season have not been set yet. Watch the News feed and the Discord server for announcements.
Because the best part of this game is the climb. A hard reset every four months means every round is a real competition instead of a race between whoever started first and everyone else. New players are never permanently behind, veterans get to try new strategies from scratch, and the top of the leaderboard is always up for grabs.
Every player begins the round at Level 1 with the following resources:
Starting values are kept current by the admin team and may change between rounds as the game is balanced. These numbers reflect the current configuration.
The player who finishes the round at Overall Rank #1 earns the
ultimate bragging right in the game: their name is immortalized on a custom
champion banner displayed on the landing page (the page every visitor sees when
they arrive at lordofchains.com) for the entirety of the next round!
Four full months of recognition for every player and new visitor to see.
That's not all. The reigning champion also has the fourth Gold Key Fragment chest named in their honor for the entirety of the next round. Every player who cracks open one of these legendary chests sees the champion's username stamped right on the lid, a permanent reminder of who ruled the realm last season. Forge your legend, and your name becomes part of the game itself.
On top of the champion banner, every player who finishes the round in the Overall Rank Top 10 is awarded a stash of Coins, credited directly to their account on top of whatever they already have saved up. Coins and active boosts carry over between rounds, so these rewards are a head start on the next round's climb:
| Rank | Coins Awarded |
|---|---|
| 🏆 Overall Rank 1 | 10,000 |
| 🥈 Overall Rank 2 | 7,500 |
| 🥉 Overall Rank 3 | 5,000 |
| Overall Rank 4 | 1,500 |
| Overall Rank 5 | 1,500 |
| Overall Rank 6 | 1,500 |
| Overall Rank 7 | 1,500 |
| Overall Rank 8 | 1,500 |
| Overall Rank 9 | 1,500 |
| Overall Rank 10 | 1,500 |
Rewards are credited automatically when the round ends. Your existing coin balance and any active boosts roll over through the reset: coin rewards and the round-start coin grant stack on top of what you already have. Only in-game progress (level, souls, units, upgrades, stats) is wiped when a new round begins.
Overall Rank is a composite of your performance across combat, espionage, economy, and progression. It's the closest thing the game has to a single "who's the best" number. Create an account and head to the Rankings page in-game for the full breakdown.
Lord of Chains is a text-based MMORPG where you build an army, attack other players, run espionage missions against enemies, and compete for dominance on the leaderboards. The game runs in real-time with ticks every 15 minutes.
Souls are the primary currency. You earn them passively each tick from income, and through attacking, espionage, missions, and more. Souls are used to train units, buy equipment, and purchase upgrades.
Mana is your action currency: you spend it to launch attacks and espionage operations. It regenerates automatically every tick.
Mana is your action currency. Every attack and espionage operation costs mana. Without mana, you can't take offensive actions against other players.
You gain 6 mana per tick (every 15 minutes) by default.
Your alignment is your faction, chosen during character creation. There are two alignments, each with its own unique set of classes:
Each class provides percentage bonuses to specific stat types. Your class choice shapes your playstyle and strengths.
You can change your class (and alignment) in Settings at any time before reaching Level 5, with a 24-hour cooldown between changes. After Level 5, your choice is permanent.
Go to the Attack page, find a target on the battlelist, and choose either a Physical Attack or a Magical Attack. Each attack costs 20 mana.
Combat is deterministic: if your offense exceeds the defender's defense, you win. The greater your advantage, the more casualties you'll inflict.
Both sides can lose units in battle, even the winner. Higher-tier units die first. A portion of casualties are sent to the Graveyard where they can be resurrected.
Attacker casualties: 100% of your losses come from the offensive unit type you used to attack. If you run out of that unit type, the remainder spills over to random other units.
Defender casualties: 80% of losses hit the matching defensive unit type (physical-defense for physical attacks, magical-defense for magical). The remaining 20% are spread across 1–3 randomly chosen other unit types. If the defender runs out of the matching defense units, the overflow joins the random spread.
You can attack the same player up to 5 times per day (physical + magical combined). You can only attack players within your level range (±10 levels by default).
There are 4 distinct espionage missions:
Gather intelligence on a target. The more your spy offense exceeds their spy defense, the more stats and unit info you uncover.
Convert enemy units into your own travelers.
Permanently destroy a target's units.
Steal souls from the target's on-hand supply (10-30%) and bank (5-20%), scaling with dominance. Capped at 20% of the target's total wealth per attempt. Half of stolen souls go directly into your bank.
Raid bosses are server-wide cooperative events. A powerful boss spawns roughly once a week and the entire community works together to bring it down within a 72-hour time limit.
Every player can attack the boss daily using their combat stats (Physical, Magical) and espionage stats (Elimination, Conversion, Soul Theft). Each attack deals damage directly to the boss's HP based on your offense power.
If the boss is defeated, every player who dealt damage receives base rewards (souls, mana, key fragments, travelers) plus bonus rewards split proportionally by damage contribution. If the boss escapes before being killed, no rewards are given.
That's up to 11 attacks per day. Each costs mana, just like regular combat.
Go to the Train page, select a unit type, enter the quantity, and click Train. Training costs souls and consumes travelers (1 traveler per unit).
There are unit types for every stat in the game: Physical Offense, Physical Defense, Magical Offense, Magical Defense, Spy Offense, Spy Defense, Conversion, Elimination, Soul Steal, and Soul Generation (income).
Banked souls are much safer than on-hand souls. Regular attacks cannot steal banked souls. However, the Soul Theft espionage mission can steal a percentage (5-20%) from your bank based on dominance.
Yes, you start with 3 deposits per day at up to 50% of your on-hand souls each. Both limits can be significantly increased through Bank Upgrades as you progress.
Clans are player-created groups. Join forces with other players for bonuses, coordination, and social gameplay.
Every 15 minutes (at :00, :15, :30, :45) the game processes a "tick" that:
You can only attack players within ±10 levels of you. This prevents high-level players from targeting beginners.
Earn XP from winning attacks, spy operations, and defending successfully. All XP earned scales with your level.