Homesteader

Appearance varies depending on player choice (Pictured: male variant)

## Biographical information

### Date of birth

c. 200 Y.F. (if Aunt Tilly's first journal from 207 Y.F. was close to her start date as Homesteader)

## Physical description

### Gender

Female (Default selection, appearance changeable on a slider)

## Appearances

### Debut

Homestead Arcana

The Homesteader is a generic title for the player's character's new assignment to the Homestead Arcana Program. Upon starting the game, the player can choose the look and name of their character. The ability to change Clothing and hair become available later on. The character has no lines and only reacts in vocalizations, but can occasionally be heard humming a tune while tending the Homestead garden or playing the Steel Guitar.

## Life

Little information is given about the player's life before joining the Homestead Arcana Program.

The character hails from the town of Little Rock, one of few remaining settlements not consumed by the Miasma. Their family, the Gardners, consists of parents Ma and Pops, younger brother Zeb, and a talking cat-like familiar named Huckleberry, who has been with the family for generations. The player also had a paternal aunt, Matilda Gardner, who is presumed dead at the start of the player's story.

### Personality

The character showed a proclivity to magic at a young age. The player's character is described as curious, inquisitive, adventurous, and prone to getting into trouble, much like their late aunt (*Letter from Marvin*).

Pops remarks that the child is "rarely satisfied with the answer given," and we see the character's resolve to clear the land of Miasma despite the parents' concerns for their child's safety, dangerous enemies and poisonous health-draining fog encountered in the Miasma, and even warnings and threats from the Hermit. The character is even willing to stray from the religious teachings of The Church of the Sun for the sake of satisfying the curiosity about mysterious cultist artifacts discovered in the wild that belonged to Miasma worshippers (*Mysteries of the Cult* side quest, followed by a formal reprimand in quest letter *Stop This Wickedness*).

Even at a young age, the player intuitively sensed the existence of the Miasma despite never having seen it firsthand, evidenced by a childhood drawing that Ma finds in a box:

> *"I had a giant head and Huckleberry had extra legs! Another was just... a purple cloud. You ever think kids can sometimes see things us adults can't?"* — Pops (*Letter From Home #3*)
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## Game Story

Abraham gives the player and Huckleberry a ride to the West Peak Homestead. Here, the player starts their new job as a Homesteader of growing and gathering resources to send back to your former home, Little Rock. After being issued a series of initiation rites (tutorial quests) by Huckleberry, things quickly go awry when he realizes the reward he’d planned for the player years prior is now in the Miasma.

From this point forward, the player's goal becomes two-pronged: Gather resources to send back to Little Rock and explore the Miasma in spare time.

The only way to progress the story and complete (main) story quests is to continue to explore and clear the Miasma. Although Homesteader duties are secondary in importance to the game plot (in fact, one could ignore all quests from Little Rock and its City Council without penalty), access to crafting stations, upgrades, and recipes sold by Abraham for use in routine Homesteader duties greatly improves the player's exploration and survival in the Miasma.

Progressing with story quests will introduce the Homesteader to various characters and unlock side quests from various citizens, including fellow Homesteaders Ruby Stormbluff and Emil Snowdrift, the Little Rock school principal and only teacher Miss June Clerk, a group known as Little Rock Anonymous, fellow Little Rock native Father Benjamin of the Church of the Sun, and even the player's parents.