The Expeditions Update

⚔️ Expeditions Reforged: A New Era of Adventure

Gather your party. Brave the unknown. Forge your legend.

The skies of Aerborne are growing, and beyond the safety of your island, an entirely new world of adventure awaits.

Expeditions have been completely rebuilt from the ground up.

What began as a simple adventure system has evolved into a fully featured dungeon experience inspired by classic MMORPGs, complete with challenging encounters, environmental puzzles, powerful bosses, unique equipment, and meaningful progression.

Gather up to four friends, enter your own private dungeon instance, and work together to overcome whatever lies ahead.

But this update is about more than just dungeons.

We're introducing Mythic keystones, expedition equipment sets, our first eight-player raid, and a server-wide seasonal campaign that allows the entire community to shape Aerborne's future.

And there's one particularly important change:

The Nether and the End are now tied to expedition progression. Traditional portals are sealed. Access to these dimensions is earned through adventure rather than simply constructing a portal.

Here's everything you need to know.

☁️ Your First Adventure: First Flight

Every legend begins somewhere.

Never tried an expedition before? We've created the perfect introduction.

First Flight is a short, beginner-friendly adventure set among the floating sky islands at dusk.

Your journey begins at a quiet skybound pier, where Captain Wren welcomes you aboard and guides you through the fundamentals of expedition gameplay.

Along the way, you'll experience:

The Skyward Crossing: Learn to navigate a series of floating platforms and jumping challenges.
A Test of Wits: Discover how environmental puzzles work through a simple lever sequence.
A Moment's Rest: Learn how campfires provide healing and checkpoints.
The Training Yard: Face your first elite enemy and practice responding to enemy abilities.
The Old Sentinel: Put everything you've learned to the test against your first expedition boss.

First Flight is designed to introduce the mechanics without overwhelming new adventurers.

You'll find it marked Start Here on the expedition board until you've completed it.

🗺️ Five Expeditions. Five Unforgettable Adventures.

The first expedition campaign introduces five distinct dungeons, each with its own atmosphere, challenges, enemies, and rewards.

Progress through the campaign by completing expeditions to unlock the adventures that follow.

💀 The Hollow Barrow

Some things are better left buried.

Venture beneath the Overworld into an ancient crypt where forgotten royalty and restless dead still wander.

Survive a deadly rain of bones in the Ossuary, uncover the correct sequence of ancient candles, and descend into the King's Rest.

There, the Hollow Huntsman awaits those bold enough to disturb his kingdom.

🌿 Thornwood Canopy

The forest remembers every trespass.

High above the forest floor, ancient trees conceal a world of overgrown walkways, tangled webs, and forgotten magic.

Navigate the dangerous Bough Run, fight through web-choked hollows, and confront the Thornheart Shaman, whose command of the forest makes every step dangerous.

🌊 The Sunken Aqueduct

The water is rising. Time is running out.

Explore a sprawling network of flooded waterways and forgotten machinery.

Race against the clock to activate drainage valves, dodge powerful geysers, and uncover the secrets hidden beneath the water.

Your final challenge is the Tidewarden, guardian of the submerged depths.

⛏️ Gloomforge Mines

Deep beneath the stone, something is still working.

Descend into abandoned mines filled with unstable machinery, dangerous explosives, and collapsing tunnels.

Navigate alarm systems, use blasting charges, and survive falling pillars before confronting the Deep Foreman.

🏰 The Hall of the Three Wardens

Three guardians. Three trials. One final victory.

Suspended high among the clouds, an ancient citadel stands watch over the realm.

Unlike traditional expeditions, the Hall offers three separate wings that your party may complete in any order.

Each wing features its own puzzles and elemental guardian:

The Ember Warden. The Frost Warden. The Stone Warden.

Defeat all three to conquer the Hall and prove your party is ready for the challenges ahead.

Know Before You Go

Every expedition features a one-to-five-star difficulty rating and its own detailed adventure guide.

Guides include routes, objectives, enemy encounters, boss mechanics, possible drops, and rewards.

Access them from the website or use /expedition guide in-game.

⚔️ More Than Just Fighting

We wanted Expeditions to feel like real adventures, not simply corridors filled with enemies.

That means every run incorporates a combination of combat, exploration, teamwork, and environmental challenges.

Puzzles That Reward Teamwork

Expeditions introduce interactive mechanics such as timed target challenges, coordinated pressure plates, lever combinations, and memory sequences.

Some puzzles require multiple players to work together, while others challenge your timing or observation.

Platforming challenges add another layer of adventure, and missing a jump won't cost your party a life. You'll simply return to the beginning of that section.

Bosses With Real Mechanics

Enemies are no longer just bags of health waiting to be defeated.

Bosses, mini-bosses, and elite enemies now use specialized abilities, including devastating slams, sweeping attacks, charges, magical tethers, frost novas, summoned reinforcements, and falling meteors.

Dangerous attacks are telegraphed before they happen through visible circles, cones, lines, or targeted markers.

Watch the battlefield, recognize the warning, and move before it's too late.

Some bosses change tactics as their health drops. Others become increasingly dangerous if your party takes too long.

Rest, Recover, and Rally

You'll discover campfires between major encounters.

Activating a campfire restores health, replenishes hunger, extinguishes flames, and establishes a checkpoint for your party.

Expeditions also introduce shared party lives.

Dying won't scatter your equipment across the dungeon, but each death consumes one of your party's remaining lives. If everyone falls, the current room resets and your party returns to its most recent checkpoint.

A World That Reacts

Expect more than static rooms.

Characters speak, enemies react, short cinematic sequences establish the story, and environmental events unfold around you.

Bridges may crumble. Ancient machinery may awaken. Rocks may fall. Entire sections of an encounter can change as you progress.

Every expedition is designed to tell its own story through gameplay.

🛡️ Bring Your Friends — or Find New Ones

Adventures are better together.

Expeditions support parties of up to five players, with flexible enemy scaling to accommodate smaller groups.

Party leaders can launch an expedition directly with a ready check or use the new Expedition Finder to meet other adventurers.

Don't have a full party?

You can recruit hired allies to help fill missing roles:

Bulwark: A sturdy frontline defender.
Blade: A close-range damage specialist.
Hedge-witch: A supportive healer.
Archer: A ranged combat companion.

Hired allies allow smaller parties to experience expedition content without needing a full group of players.

You'll still earn equipment, materials, and Marks, although runs completed with hired allies won't qualify for competitive records or seasonal campaign progress.

💎 Adventure Has Its Rewards

Every expedition now features its own collection of obtainable equipment and crafting materials.

This includes a five-piece armor set, themed weapons, set bonuses, and rare signature items associated with its most dangerous bosses.

Collect materials from defeated enemies, elites, and mini-bosses, or discover hidden caches, crates, and treasure chests throughout the dungeon.

And there's no need to argue over who gets the best drop.

Every player receives their own loot rolls.

Earn Your Rank

At the end of each expedition, your party receives a performance grade ranging from D to S+.

Your grade is based on three factors:

Speed. Survival. Exploration.

A fast, clean run that uncovers hidden secrets will earn a better grade than one filled with mistakes and missed opportunities.

Higher grades improve the rewards in your free completion chest.

For those seeking additional treasure, Marks can also be spent to open a bonus reward chest.

The Expedition Forge

Materials gathered during your adventures can be taken to the Expedition Forge and exchanged for pieces of that expedition's equipment set.

This means every run contributes toward your next upgrade, even when the rare item you're hunting doesn't drop.

🔥 Choose Your Challenge: Normal, Heroic, and Mythic

Every campaign expedition now offers three difficulty levels.

Normal introduces the dungeon and its core mechanics.

Heroic increases the challenge for more experienced adventurers.

Mythic pushes your party further, with tougher enemies and improved opportunities to obtain valuable loot.

Progression is straightforward:

Complete Normal to unlock Heroic. Complete Heroic to unlock Mythic.

And for players who conquer Mythic, the adventure is only beginning.

💠 Mythic Keystones: Push Beyond Your Limits

How far can your party climb?

Completing a campaign expedition on Mythic awards a Mythic keystone, beginning at level +2 and assigned to a random expedition.

Keystones introduce an endlessly scaling challenge for experienced players seeking increasingly difficult content.

Enter the assigned dungeon, defeat its challenges, and finish before the timer expires.

Beat the timer: Your keystone increases by up to three levels and changes to a new expedition.

Miss the timer: You still earn your loot, but your keystone drops one level.

Unlike standard expeditions, keystone runs have no shared party lives. Instead, each death adds a ten-second penalty to your run time.

Higher keystones mean more dangerous enemies, increased Marks, and additional loot opportunities at levels +5 and +10.

Weekly Affixes

Keystone dungeons also feature rotating modifiers that change how encounters play.

Every Monday, the weekly affixes rotate:

Level +4: Fortified or Tyrannical.
Level +7: An additional modifier from Bolstering, Raging, Sanguine, or Volatile.
Level +10: Both Fortified and Tyrannical become active.

These modifiers force parties to adapt their strategies instead of relying on the same approach every week.

Your best timed keystone for each expedition is tracked on the expedition board and the Aerborne website.

🌋 Introducing Our First Raid: Cinder Keep

Beyond the Ember Gate, an ancient sovereign waits.

Deep within the Nether stands Cinder Keep, an immense volcanic fortress built around the Molten Heart.

Our first raid introduces a coordinated adventure for up to eight players, featuring nine caverns and five major boss encounters.

Your party must fight through the stronghold and overcome its guardians:

Gorrak the Kilnbreaker — A brutal opening encounter amid unstable volcanic machinery.

Skarn and Vesh — Two linked hounds whose fate is intertwined.

Vael the Slag Priest — A dangerous wielder of molten magic.

Steward Ashkar and his Guard — A coordinated battle demanding careful positioning and teamwork.

Pyrrhax, the Ashen Sovereign — The final ruler of the Molten Heart, capable of plunging beneath the magma and calling upon his Sons of Flame.

Expect erupting vents, falling slag, linked boss mechanics, and encounters that demand more coordination than any previous Aerborne challenge.

Raid Difficulties and Rewards

Cinder Keep offers three difficulties.

Normal is designed to be accessible to pickup groups, while Heroic and Mythic present progressively more demanding encounters for coordinated teams.

Each boss offers loot once per difficulty every week, with lockouts resetting on Mondays.

The raid also introduces its own collection of rare Mythic signature items.

Defeating Gorrak unlocks the Cinder Shelf, opening a route into the Nether.

The Keep Is Still Sealed

Cinder Keep will not be accessible immediately.

To unlock it, the server must first reach The Ember Gate milestone in the seasonal campaign.

Players must also have completed the Hall of the Three Wardens before entering.

Which brings us to one of the biggest additions in this update.

🌍 The Ember Accord: A World Built Together

One realm. One purpose. Countless adventurers.

The Ember Accord is Aerborne's new server-wide seasonal campaign.

Instead of progression being limited to individual players, the entire community contributes toward shared milestones that gradually unlock new opportunities across the world.

Nearly everything you do can contribute.

Mining and smelting valuable resources, gathering materials, hunting dangerous creatures, completing expeditions, and defeating bosses all help move the campaign forward.

As the community reaches milestones, new rewards become available, including temporary buffs, claimable items, Marks, and content unlocks.

The Ember Gate

One of the campaign's most important objectives is The Ember Gate.

Reaching this milestone unlocks Cinder Keep and brings the community one step closer to discovering what lies beyond Aerborne's familiar skies.

Every expedition completed, every resource gathered, and every enemy defeated contributes toward that shared goal.

You can follow the server's progress with /campaign, including upcoming milestones, your personal contribution, and the community's leading contributors.

The future of Aerborne is no longer shaped by individual adventures alone.

We're building it together.

✨ A Better Experience From Start to Finish

Alongside all the new content, we've redesigned how Expeditions present information.

Your sidebar now serves as a dedicated expedition panel, displaying current objectives, puzzle progress, remaining time, party lives, and party health.

Boss health bars only appear for the current boss or an active mini-boss, reducing unnecessary clutter.

Combined with improved checkpoints, clear combat warnings, and dedicated guides, the goal is to make each expedition easier to understand without sacrificing challenge.

🧭 Ready to Begin?

Your next adventure is only a command away.

Command	What it does
`/expedition`	Open the expedition board, choose an adventure, and select a difficulty
`/expedition guide`	View expedition routes, boss mechanics, enemies, and rewards
`/expedition key`	Check your Mythic keystone and current weekly affixes
`/campaign`	Track the Ember Accord and your contribution

If you're new, begin with First Flight and learn the ropes with Captain Wren.

If you're returning, gather your party and venture into the Hollow Barrow.

And if you're already dreaming of Mythic keystones and the fiery halls of Cinder Keep, start preparing. Your greatest challenges are still ahead.

The skies are calling.

Expeditions are no longer just places to visit. They're adventures to conquer, stories to experience, and challenges to overcome together.

Whether you're a lone adventurer finding your footing or a seasoned group chasing the hardest encounters, there's a place for you in the skies of Aerborne.

Gather your party. Claim your rewards. Write your legend.

We'll see you in the Barrow.

— The Aerborne Team