The Astral is the reason Allods cannot be mistaken for any other MMO. It is not a backdrop, not a loading screen between zones and not “space” — it is a body of content in its own right, with its own rules, its own transport and its own economy.
What it actually is
By the official account of the Conclave of Great Mages, the Astral is a magical substance in which creation and destruction are the same act. Sarnaut came out of the Astral once and is slowly going back into it. The Great Cataclysm broke the planet into pieces — allods, hanging in the void — and every inhabited allod is held out of dissolution by a Great Mage. Lose the mage and you lose the ground under your feet.
What lies between the allods is the Astral. For a long time nobody crossed it, until the Gibberlings stumbled on a way. That was the start of the Era of Astral Travel, and with it came shipyards, fleets, and the war between the Empire and the League over routes and plunder. So the Astral is both the backbone of the world’s story and the place you will be flying to at max level.
Layers: the deeper, the dearer
The Astral is divided into layers, and the fourth and deepest of them is what Game of Gods opened. Getting into them is no longer a matter of unlocking: 3.0 dropped the quest requirement for flying to the second and third layers, and the fourth asks nothing extra of you either. What keeps you out is your ship and your crew, not a chain of tasks. Inside a layer, space is cut into sectors and a sector into regions; between regions a ship travels under its own power, but it only gets from one sector to the next through a teleport. Finding your way is the job of the astrolabe, the map of the Astral, which Game of Gods rebuilt from scratch.
Depth is a question of risk and of what is at stake. On the first layer you learn to fly and to keep the reactor from cutting out. The second and third are the working floor: that is where the gear you later upgrade comes from. The fourth is the deepest, and the demands on a crew there are set accordingly.
Game of Gods both opened the fourth layer and set the loot there on different rules from the start. Rewards are worked out per sector rather than island by island, which is how the earlier layers handle it. The mid-boss drops a single item, but every person in the group gets one — nothing to divide up, and it makes no difference which classes you brought along. The islands’ final bosses drop blue-quality items on top of that, again for everybody.
A ship of your own
An astral ship is a bigger milestone than any piece of gear. It starts with an introductory quest from the Guide in your capital, who sends you on to the shipmaster. After that comes a story chain across Coldberg, Avilon and the Dragon Ring, at the end of which you are holding three licences: one from the Free Traders, one from the Historians and one from the Demon Hunters. With those in hand and money in your pocket, you can lay down a hull at the shipyard.
The ship is built for a crew of up to six. League hulls are wooden and Imperial hulls are metal — in a fight there is little to choose between them, since astral charges chew through both equally well. The sails draw energy straight out of the Astral and the mana reactor turns it into power for every system on board. There are shields at the bow, the stern and both sides; armament runs to sixteen broadside cannons and two fixed guns in the bow. Inside there is a navigation room, a repair bay, a sick bay where anyone killed or knocked overboard comes back, and a treasury — the chests you take only open once you are back in port.
The reactor is a discipline of its own. There is as much energy in the Astral as you like, but the harder you pull on it the hotter the reactor runs, and an overheated reactor either shuts down or blows up along with the instruments and half the crew. You cannot hold every system at maximum at once, and that is the main tactical limit in astral combat.
Jobs on board
Shipboard jobs have nothing to do with your character class, and swapping them around mid-flight is normal practice.
- Helmsman. The wheel, the altitude lever, the throttle. Whether the enemy lands hits comes down to him: he pulls the ship off the line of fire and lines it up for his own cannoneers.
- Navigator. Works the scanner: finds the nearest teleport to the neighbouring sector, islands nearby, other people’s ships and stable regions with a port, and lays the route. He can also desynchronise the ship — until the first shot goes off, the monsters cannot see you. The scanner eats astral emanations, which are topped up by shooting down astral creatures.
- Visor. The ship’s eyes: lights up everything alive in the region, breaks an enemy vessel down device by device, patches whichever shield is worst off, cools the reactor, spins the ship around on the spot, jams an opponent with a sabotage shot and can jump straight to a chosen target.
- Cannoneers. Broadside cannons need leading the target; the bow artillery fires dead ahead and a long way. There are several kinds of charge: some strip shields, some tear hull, some knock out devices.
- Mender. Goblin mechanics live down in the hold. To fix a device you pick a goblin up and carry him to the damage; take a hit on the way and the goblin is gone, so off you go for another.
- Captain. Hands out the jobs, watches energy draw and reactor temperature, and decides where the ship is going in the first place.
How a run goes
The ship leaves the hangar and the navigator walks it from region to region. Astral monsters come at you along the way, and their hits cost the ship speed, so fighting them off is not optional. Find an island, pull up, land, clear it, come back with chests.
Meeting another crew works differently. First an artillery duel, both sides trying to knock the shields down and put devices out of action. Once the enemy’s defence has been ground through, the good part starts: boarding. The crew teleports across onto the enemy deck, and from there it is an ordinary ground fight in which everyone brawls regardless of shipboard duties. The target is the treasury — and whatever you take, you still have to carry it back to your own ship.
Astral allods
There are two kinds of island out there. The first is a proper astral Adventure with its own bosses and its own route through. The second is an astral reflection of a heroic Adventure you already know from levelling.
What people go there for is gear, relics and ship parts: cannons, shields, engines. Parts do not only drop from island bosses — they come off astral demons and get pulled out of the wrecks of other people’s ships. The haul goes back to the hangar, where the hangar engineer assembles a finished device out of it. In Game of Gods, ship equipment stopped demanding crafting components and large sums of money: now you simply knock it out of an astral boss or the islands’ final bosses.
Why the Astral holds people
Because it is not a one-off achievement. You want the ship kitted out better, which means parts, which means more runs. A deeper layer means a crew that has flown together and does not confuse the wheel with the altitude lever. Gear out of the Astral goes into upgrading, and upgrading in 3.0 comes down to the quality of the upgrader you feed it, so the farm does not end with your first blue. And there are always other people’s ships: the Astral is PvP as well, and the losing side walks away short of some very real items.
If you are flying for the first time, start on the first layer and sort out the jobs with your crew while you are still on the ground — the guides lay that out step by step. Installing the client and creating a character is covered under getting started.
Updated: 08/19/2026