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Equipment and loot in Lark

Gear in Lark is a ladder you climb one metal at a time, from a Bronze dagger you can hold at level 1 to Wyrmsteel that asks for 60. Around that ladder sits everything the ladder can't do: weapons that leech life or set foes alight, rolled drops with names like "Blazing Solarite Maul of Leeching", and one-off trophies that only fall in a specific cave. Here's the whole system, with the real numbers.

Six metals, six gates — and a hand-made seventh tier

Every metal makes the same set of things: four one-handed weapons (dagger, scimitar, sword, mace), five two-handers (greatsword, greataxe, maul, halberd, spear), four armour pieces (full helm, platebody, platelegs, shield), and — from Iron up — a pickaxe and an axe. They're generated from one table, so a single power multiplier per metal drives the whole ladder. A Bronze scimitar gives +5 Attack and +5 Strength; the same shape in Solarite gives +25 and +25. A Bronze platebody is +6 Defence, a Solarite platebody +30.

The gates are what you actually plan around. Bronze needs nothing at all. Iron asks for level 5, Steel 10, Amethine 20, Verdite 30 and Solarite 40. Tier 6 is hand-authored rather than generated, so its gates vary: Magmite armour and the Wyrmsteel dagger and scimitar want 60, the Wyrmsteel Halberd and Void Cleaver 65, and every Magmite weapon 70. Melee weapons read your Attack level — bows read Ranged and staves read Magic, more on that below — and anything worn reads your Defence. Halberds and spears cost five levels more than their metal's base, because they strike from two tiles away: a Solarite halberd wants Attack 45, not 40.

You can carry gear you can't use — the check happens when you equip, not when you loot. Try to wield something over your head and the game tells you plainly: "You need Attack level 60 to wield Wyrmsteel scimitar." Tier 6 splits in two: Magmite is smithed at the very top of the skill, while Wyrmsteel is never smithed at all — it drops, or comes off the shelf and the reward table at the very end of the main story.

Ten slots, and the one that matters most

You have ten equipment slots: weapon, helm, body, legs, shield, ammo, gloves, boots, cape and amulet. Metal covers helm, body, legs and shield; the rest — gloves, boots, capes, amulets — is almost entirely found or crafted rather than smithed. Solarite gauntlets and Solarite boots (Defence 40) come off the rare drop tables, the Fire cape (Defence 60) off the frontier's, and gem amulets come from Crafting: a Sapphire amulet at Defence 20 up to a Starstone amulet at 55.

The body piece alone decides which side of the combat triangle you defend on. Metal plate makes you a warrior (strong against ranged, soft against magic), leather and studded make you a ranger, robes make you a mage. Every other slot is neutral — so a mage in a wizard robe can still wear Solarite boots and a metal helm without breaking anything. There's more on how that resolves in the combat guide.

One hand, or two

A two-handed weapon locks out the shield slot outright — equip one and the game sets your shield down, and it needs a free pack slot to do it. In exchange you get the bigger numbers: the balance target written into the weapon table is roughly 20–30% more single-target damage than the same metal's scimitar-and-shield. There's also a training difference. With a one-hander, most of your combat XP goes to Attack; with a two-hander, most of it goes to Strength.

The types aren't stat clones. Each carries a small signature that grows with the metal:

• Dagger — fastest in the game at a 1.4s swing, with an innate critical-hit bonus (about +5.5% at Solarite, on top of the 10% base).
• Scimitar — 1.7s, balanced, and deliberately gimmick-free. It's the reliable one.
• Sword — slower at 1.9s, hits harder, and splashes part of each blow onto adjacent enemies.
• Mace — 1.8s, trades a little accuracy for damage and ignores a slice of the target's armour (25% at Solarite). The only armour-shredder that keeps your shield.
• Greatsword and halberd — the cleaving two-handers, 22–25% splash at Solarite; the halberd reaches two tiles.
• Greataxe — the slowest swing on the metal ladder at 2.4s, and the biggest crit bonus.
• Maul — the heaviest Strength number on the generated ladder at +80, ignoring 30% of the target's Defence at Solarite.
• Spear — the accurate poke, striking from two tiles with the highest Attack bonus of the two-handed set.

Bows train Ranged, staves train Magic

Bows and staves don't read Attack at all — a bow gates on your Ranged level and a staff on Magic. Every wood fletches two bows, and they play differently. Shortbows fire fast (1.6s) but only four tiles, so you end up in the enemy's face. Longbows are slower (1.85s), reach seven tiles, and carry +4 Ranged strength — you snipe from beyond what most things can answer. Shortbows gate at Ranged 1, 20, 35, 50, 70 and 80 for plain, oak, willow, maple, yew and spirit; the plain longbow needs Ranged 10, and every other longbow sits five levels above its shortbow — 25, 40, 55, 75 and 85.

Every shot spends a piece of equipped ammo, so the ammo slot is not optional. Plain arrows are the baseline; darts add +2 Ranged strength, amethyst-tipped broad arrows +4 (Fletching 52), and smithed siege shot +7.

Staves work the other way round: the staff supplies accuracy while the spell you autocast from the Spellbook sets the damage. The Apprentice staff (+8 magic) needs nothing, the Mystic staff (+16) needs Magic 40, the Arcane staff (+28) Magic 70, and the Aether staff (+34, and noticeably faster) Magic 85. Robes give Defence but no magic bonus, and they gate on the Magic level needed to buy them — wizard robes at 20, mystic at 40, arcane at 60 — because a mage trains Magic, not Defence. One consequence: magic can never land a critical hit, since a spell's maximum is fixed.

Uniques change what you do, not just your numbers

A unique carries one or two signature effects on top of its stats, and those effects are the point. The vocabulary is deliberately small so you can read a drop at a glance:

• Lifesteal — heals you for a share of damage dealt. The Sewer-King's Signet gives 7%, the Amulet of Blood 10%.
• Execute — extra damage against a wounded target. Frostfang Blade hits ×1.45 below 25% HP.
• Cleave — splashes a percentage of the blow onto nearby foes. The Molten Greataxe splashes 35%.
• Burn — leaves a damage-over-time in the wound. Cinderbrand, pulled from a lava tube, burns for 4 a tick.
• Thorns — reflects damage back at whoever hit you. Hydra Scale Body reflects 22%; Khaef's Seal 15%.
• Plus armour-ignoring blows, bonus crit, flat damage reduction, prayer-saving blocks, mid-fight health regeneration, and bonus damage against a creature kind (the Circlet of the Tomb hits undead 40% harder).

There's a whole quiet family of skilling uniques too, which raise your effective level rather than your damage: the Prospector helm (+4 Mining), Angler's boots (+4 Fishing), Woodsman's gloves (+4 Woodcutting), Oracle's Beads (+3 Prayer), the Witchwood Charm (+3 effective Herbalism). See the skills guide for what those actually buy you.

A handful of legendaries go further and replace your special attack outright — the Wyrmsteel scimitar's Sever, Frostfang Blade's Winterbite, Void Cleaver's Riftsweep.

Rolled loot and the rarity ladder

When a monster drops gear, half the time it's an armour piece and half the time it's a rolled weapon — an ordinary base from the nine melee types across six metals, which may come out of the ground with affixes attached. The chance of an affixed roll starts around 28% at bronze-tier drops and climbs three points per gear tier, so the frontier throws far more interesting weapons than the heartland does.

The naming grammar tells you the roll. One affix reads "Bronze Sword of Fire"; two adds an adjective in front — "Blazing Solarite Maul of Leeching". Uncommon and rare rolls carry one affix, epic and legendary carry two, and every rank also adds a small flat bump to the weapon's Attack and Strength (about 4% per rank). The nine affixes are Fire (burn), Leeching (lifesteal), Cleaving, Sundering (armour-ignoring), Precision (crit), Execution, Vigor (regeneration), Thorns and Warding; all scale with rarity, and Fire, Cleaving and Sundering also read the weapon's metal.

The roller deliberately avoids handing a weapon an affix it already has innately, so a cleaving sword won't waste its roll on "of Cleaving" — you get a second, different trick instead. Bows and staves aren't rollable yet; the system currently covers melee only.

Where good gear actually comes from

Four routes, and they genuinely differ in what they can produce.

• Smith it yourself. The full chain for Solarite: mine Solarite ore at Mining 55, smelt it with 4 coal at Smithing 70, then hammer a scimitar at Smithing 73 (2 bars) or a platebody at 78 (5 bars). Magmite is the endgame — Mining 85 for the ore, Smithing 85 to smelt, then a full helm at 88, platelegs at 92 and a platebody at 95. The Magmite scimitar and mace need Smithing 90 and Cinderwidow Yara's forge lesson from "Heart of the Mountain" in Ashreach.
• Kill things. Ordinary drops scale with the monster's danger tier and how far from Goldhaven it died — but generated gear stops at Solarite. Tier 6 never rolls; it only ever comes from authored tables. The frontier rare table can hand over a Fire cape or a Magmite scimitar, the Ash dragon drops the Wyrmsteel scimitar and dagger, and the named fights guard the rest: Gortak the Warlord drops his cleaver, and each world boss guards its own signature trophy — the Molten Greataxe from the Magma Colossus, Frostfang Blade and Wyrmsteel Halberd from the Ancient Ice Wyrm, Hydra Scale Body from the Plague Hydra, Scarab Aegis from The Scarab God, Tide Trident from the Tidal Leviathan, Jade Idol from The Jade Wrath, and Void Cleaver from The Void Titan. The bestiary has the fights themselves.
• Clear a cave or a landmark dungeon. Every cave archetype pays out its own signature trophy rather than a shared pool — Gnasher's Fang from a grotto, Brigand's Hook from a bandit hideout, Coralbite Kris from a drowned cove, Warden's Maul from a stronghold, Watcher's Lens from a ruined tower. Landmark dungeons guarantee a capstone on the first clear: Pharaoh's Khopesh, Forgeheart Plate, Aurora Mantle, the Eye of the Void. Second "echo" sites of the same archetype drop lesser charms of their own, so the trip isn't wasted.
• Dig up caskets and finish quests. Treasure Trails hold gear you can't get anywhere else — the Prospector helm, Explorer's cape, Gilded helm, Wayfarer amulet, and two pets. Quest rewards are tuned so you can wear them the moment you finish: the Tempered blade from "Forged in Steel", Coralind's Song from "The Wreck of the Solace" in Tidehaven, Khaef's Seal from "The Sleepless Tomb", and the Ember Crown itself from the finale. The quest guide lists the chain.

Shops are the fifth route and the deliberately expensive one. The general store carries a bronze kit and a couple of iron upgrades; the armoury rack opens as you train — an Amethine scimitar for 220 gold at Attack 20, up to a Solarite platebody for 5,200 at Defence 40. Every rung is priced far above what it resells for, so buying is always the convenience option, never the efficient one. The Wyrmsteel scimitar sits at 8,000 gold and only appears on the shelf once you've finished "The Ember Crown".

Cosmetics are cosmetic, and that's not marketing

The wardrobe has four channels — a title above your nameplate, a cape colour, a head piece, and a ground aura — and every unlockable entry is earned by playing (the seven base cape colours are simply always there). "the Veteran" arrives at total level 300, the Golden Laurel for any skill hitting 99, a Mastery cape for each of the 17 skills at 99, the Trail Halo for owning every trail-exclusive treasure, Royal Gold for completing every quest, the Ember Ring for felling the Warlord, "Master of Embermere" at total level 1400.

None of it touches your stats. Cosmetics live in their own save fields and never appear in an equipment bonus — the separation is structural, not a promise. There is no cash shop: the reserved supporter entries are inert and grant nothing, and the only cosmetics with a price tag cost Hunt Marks, which you earn hunting (the Cull title for 45, the Huntmaster's Hood for 60). Lark is free, and power is never for sale — more on the why in about Lark.

Common questions

Read next

• Getting startedYour first hour: waking in the cottage, the controls, and what to do first.
• SkillsAll 17 skills, what each is for, and how to train it to 99.
• CombatHow a fight resolves, the triangle, prayers, food and dying.
• QuestsHow questing works, Quest Points, and the main story spine.
• BestiaryEvery creature by danger tier, what it drops, and what to fight next.
• The worldEmbermere end to end: biomes, towns, caves and the frontier.