# Tarnished Crown: Ascent

> A standalone roguelike deckbuilder by Blackmead for 1 to 4 players. Choose from six heroes and build a run across four islands.

Ascent has its own public Windows preview. It is separate from Tarnished Crown: Faction Wars and does not require Faction Wars signup or an invitation.

Heroes are Vanguard, Berserker, Ranger, Pyromancer, Cleric and Druid. Each has three masteries. The journey crosses Crownfall, Graskarn, Thrymgard and Cindermaw.

Co-op uses a player-hosted connection. Friend-code connections depend on host networking and UPnP; LAN connections are also supported. Each player selects a distinct class. The host owns the run's save and shared route decisions. See the co-op guide for connection and rejoin details.

The download page provides current release metadata and the SHA-256 checksum. Builds are unsigned previews; a checksum identifies the file and is not publisher verification. Dated articles describe their recorded development state, not a promise that every later change is in the downloadable build.

## Game and guides

- [Ascent overview and demo](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/): Introduction and official gameplay video.
- [Heroes and masteries](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/heroes/): Six classes and their eighteen mastery paths.
- [Vanguard cards](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/heroes/vanguard/): Starting deck, mastery swaps, cards and upgrades.
- [Berserker cards](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/heroes/berserker/): Blood costs, mastery paths, cards and upgrades.
- [Ranger cards](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/heroes/ranger/): Cards, generated arrows, upgrades and mastery paths.
- [Pyromancer cards](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/heroes/pyromancer/): Burning, card upgrades, masteries and showcase video.
- [Cleric cards](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/heroes/cleric/): Holy Power costs, upgrades, masteries and showcase video.
- [Druid cards](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/heroes/druid/): Nature cards, upgrades, mastery paths and card-set unlocks.
- [The journey](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/journey/): Islands, sea crossings, encounters and route choices.
- [Combat](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/combat/): Cards, enemy tells and party tactics.
- [Progression](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/progression/): Unlocks, masteries, oaths and banners.
- [Co-op](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/coop/): Hosting, joining, party choices, saves and rejoining.
- [Windows downloads](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/downloads/): Current preview, installation, checksum, saves and manual updates.

## Articles

- [A New Way to Sail](https://tarnishedcrown.com/development/ascent-announcement/): Ascent announcement with the demo video.
- [A Thousand Runs Before Breakfast](https://tarnishedcrown.com/development/ascent-testing-agents/): Search and reinforcement-learning agents used to test runs, with the testing video. Reported bot results are not human win-rate forecasts.

## Optional

- [Ascent blog](https://tarnishedcrown.com/ascent/blog/): Player stories, co-op, deckbuilding and development.

- [Faction Wars](https://tarnishedcrown.com/factionwars/): The separate Unreal Engine game.
- [Blackmead](https://blackmead.com/): The studio behind Tarnished Crown.