Petropia¶

Civilization

The crystal homeworld of Diamondhead's people, growing back after Vilgax shattered it, under two suns.

At a glance
Kind of world	Civilization
Serum in the arrival Box	2 ampoules
Native Serum stand-in	Seedlight Dust
Quests	Yes: see your Traveler's Guide

Screenshot comingpetropia-arrival

The Shatter Plains under two suns, broken crystal glittering, and far to the south Prismhold's seven floating islands round the glowing Seed

What happens when you arrive¶

The Box opens on the Shatter Plains, a field of broken crystal that crunches like frost under your boots. Two suns hang in the sky, so every shard throws two shadows. Two hundred blocks to the south, Prismhold floats over a ring of canyons called the Rim: seven islands of green crystal round one great glowing spire, the Seed. Before you have taken many steps, a girl made of crystal comes down out of the sky on a board of light. That is Facet, and talking to her starts the story.

This is the homeworld of the Petrosapiens, Diamondhead's people. Vilgax shattered it once, and they are growing it back. But something is drinking the Seed's light from the bottom of a grey crater in the east.

The rule: a world that heals¶

Petropia has no hostile weather and no strange physics. What makes it different is that the world itself is part of the story:

Nothing spawns naturally. Every creature is placed by the world: Shard Mites in the Rim and out on the plains at night, drones at the wreck, and the sick and the dangerous in the Dull Reach.
The puzzle pieces and lifts can't be broken. The Seed, the prisms and lamps of the beam puzzle, and the bottoms of the city's light lifts are protected, so you can't get stuck.
Nobody gets hurt during a cutscene. You are safe while one plays, and you can skip it with the key it shows.
Once the Seed is saved, the land recovers for good. The Seed's dim crystal lights up block by block, Sugilite's roots harden into living crystal, and the grey Dull Reach turns green again, wherever anyone is around to see it. This happens for everyone on the server, not just the player who saved it.

Getting around: light lifts and rim vents¶

Column	What it does
Light Lift	Carries anyone standing in the open shaft above it straight up, all the way to the top of a tower or the Spire. You can't take fall damage while one holds you.
Rim Vent	A smaller updraft in the canyons. It lifts anyone over it and recharges a board flying through it.

Both need an open shaft: anything solid placed above them breaks the column.

Your quest: Shards of Petropia¶

The quest tracker shows each step with a compass pointer. The story runs in eight chapters.

Chapter	Step	What to do	Who
Landfall	1	Talk to Facet beside the Box. She offers to fly you up to Prismhold (a cutscene), or you can walk.	Facet
	2	If you walk: ride the light lift up the Gate Tower and cross the long bridge to Prismhold. Then talk to Elder Lumina.	Elder Lumina
Light Work	3	Talk to Beryl Vane.	Beryl
	4	Turn the three prisms in the Refraction Works until the beam goes through all of them into the dark lamp.
	5	Return to Beryl. Your reward is the Sunfocus Lens.	Beryl
The Hunter	6	Ride the light lift to the top of the Spire and find Tetrax Shard. He gives you the Facet Shield.	Tetrax
	7	Bring down 3 Vilgax drones nesting in the wreck west of the Box.
Rim Trials	8	Talk to Facet. She gives you Facet's Training Sled.	Facet
	9	Fly the sled through Facet's 8 rings down the Rim's north-west canyon.
Dull Reach	10	Talk to Elder Lumina.	Elder Lumina
	11	Hold the Sunfocus Lens on 3 Dullbound in the Dull Reach, past the eastern Rim, until their light returns.
	12	Go down to the bottom of the Dull Reach and find what is drinking the Seed's light.
Seed Siege	13	Talk to Elder Lumina. The Seed cracks (a cutscene).	Elder Lumina
	14	Bring down 6 of Vilgax's drones before they reach the Seed.
Seed Chamber	15	Drop down the light shaft behind Diamondhead's plinth into the Seed Chamber.
	16	Break Sugilite.
The Board	17	Ride the light lift to the top of the Spire at sunset. Tetrax gives you the Sky Shard Board (a cutscene).	Tetrax
	18	Fly your new board through the 12 rings round Prismhold. Your reward: 4 Starlight Cells and 2 Petropian Seedlings.

Fly the Rim Trials early

Facet offers to lend you her training sled as soon as she has brought you in. Take it, and you can fly the eight rings any time during the early steps. Finish all eight and the sled is yours to keep.

If someone else already saved the Seed

You still meet everyone and do the early work. When you reach the Dull Reach step, Lumina tells you it is over and sends you straight to Tetrax for your board.

The Refraction Works puzzle¶

Screenshot comingpetropia-prisms

The Refraction Works: a beam of light from the Sun Lens bending through three prisms toward the dark Beam Lamp

A Sun Lens throws a beam across the Works. Right-click each Prism to turn it. The beam has to pass through all three prisms before it reaches the Beam Lamp. If it reaches the lamp the short way, the game tells you so and it doesn't count. When it's right, the lamp blazes up and the Works lights street by street.

Tool	How to use it
Sunfocus Lens	Hold use to focus a narrow beam, up to 24 blocks. It is at full strength under open sky by day (underground, stand in a shaft of sun); anywhere else it works at about a third of its power, and says so. The beam cures Dullbound, burns away Sugilite's armor and slowly brings dull crystal back to life.
Facet Shield	Blocks like any shield. Raise it just as a drone's bolt arrives (within less than half a second) and the bolt flies back where it came from, harder.

Both are mended with a Petropian Shard.

Creatures¶

Creature	Where	What to know
Shard Mite	The Rim's cracks; the plains at night.	A cat-sized knot of crystal legs. Quick and jumpy but weak alone. Drops a Petropian Shard.
Vilgax Drone	The wreck west of the Box; the siege over the Rim.	A hovering pod with one red eye. Circles above head height and fires a bolt after a whining charge. Drops 1 or 2 Vilgax Scrap.
Dullbound	The Dull Reach (until the Seed is saved).	A Petrosapien whose light was drunk. A sword only breaks it; hold the lens on it and it wakes up as a Petrosapien again.
Glassmaw	The Dull Reach (until the Seed is saved).	Lies buried with only its spines showing, then bursts up and bites. Slow, tough and hits very hard. Drops 2 to 4 Petropian Shards.
Sugilite	The Seed Chamber.	The boss. See below.

Screenshot comingpetropia-dull-reach

The grey Dull Reach crater with a Glassmaw's spines poking out of the soil and a shambling Dullbound

Sugilite, the boss (spoilers)

Sugilite is a Petrosapien grown wrong, violet and jagged, who has been drinking the Seed's light for a hundred years. He fights with a ground-slam (10 damage within 5 blocks, with a wind-up you can see), lines of 14 crystal spikes driven up through the floor, and volleys of shards.

He wears four plates of crystal armor that shrug off nearly every blow (you deal only a sliver of damage). Stand in one of the shafts of sun in the chamber and hold the Sunfocus Lens on him at full strength to burn a plate away. With all four gone he is bare for about 11 seconds: hit him as hard as you can before the armor grows back. Broken, he gives the Seed's light back for everyone, for good, and drops 4 to 6 Sugilite Shards.

The Sky Shard Board¶

Screenshot comingpetropia-board

Riding the Sky Shard Board low over the Rim's canyons, a ring of light ahead

The board is the world's reward, and you can take it home. Use it to deploy it and step on.

Control	Does
Forward	Fly.
Look	Steer.
Sprint	Boost.
Jump	Climb.
Sneak	Step off. High up, the board sinks first; double-tap sneak to bail.
Double-tap jump	A trick.
Sneak + use (on the item)	Switch between the Sky Shard Board and Tetrax's Hoverboard, the form Tetrax first built. Both fly the same.

Board	Cruise	Boost	Charge
Facet's Training Sled	14 blocks/s	20 blocks/s	40
Sky Shard Board	20 blocks/s (Elytra pace)	32 blocks/s	100

Crystal Charge is the board's fuel. Hovering sips it, speed and climbing cost more, and boosting costs a lot. Crashing costs 8. It refills in sunlight, flying over a rim vent, grinding close past living crystal, and landing tricks (+4 each). A Starlight Cell pours in 50 at once. When it runs dry, the board sinks.

The first time you ride a board it is also parked in your Garage on the Companion Wheel, so you can call it from there. It flies in most worlds, but not in the Corridor, not in worlds with heavier gravity than home, and not in worlds that forbid flight.

What to bring home¶

Find	Where	Why it's worth it
Petropian Shard	Mine Raw Petropian Crystal (2 to 4 each, Fortune helps), Crystal Sprouts, Shard Mites.	Building crystal and Silver Plating. Mends the lens and shield.
Seed Flake	Mine Seedlight Crystal (1 to 2 each, Fortune helps).	Seedlight Dust, Glowing Crystal and Starlight Cells.
Vilgax Scrap	Drones.	Blast it into an Iron Nugget.
Sugilite Shard	Sugilite.	Four make a Sugilite Crystal block.
Shard Sand	The plains.	Smelts into Crystal Glass.

The crystal chain: 4 shards make a Raw Petropian Crystal, and each step of 4 goes Raw, Cut, Polished, Bricks (4 of the last block each time; a stonecutter also works from Raw).

➜4

Petropian Silver Plating (Crafting Table)

➜

2

Starlight Cell (Crafting Table)

➜

2

Glowing Crystal (Shapeless: any arrangement)

➜

2

Crystal Lamp (Crafting Table)

Silver Plating goes in a stonecutter for Trim, Pillar and Grate (2). Six Crystal Glass make 16 panes.

Serum and getting home¶

The arrival Box's cache holds 2 Serum Ampoules.
Native stand-in: Seedlight Dust. It replaces Somnium Powder in the Synthesizer. One Seed Flake makes two.

➜

2

Seedlight Dust (Shapeless: any arrangement)

Tips¶

Take Facet's flight on arrival: it saves the long walk up the Gate Tower and across the bridge.
Fight drones with the shield up. A perfect block kills them with their own bolt.
Use the lens by day under open sky. At night or under cover it is only about a third as strong.
Look down in the Dull Reach. A line of spines in the grey soil is a Glassmaw waiting to bite.
Keep a stack of Starlight Cells for long board flights in other worlds, where there may be no sun or vents.

Birds¶

Birds you can photograph for your bird log here. Open one to turn it round, watch it move and hear its call.

Prism Finch: common
Lightdrinker Nightjar: rare, dangerous

The traveler's tape¶

Every arrival Box has a chest by its door holding a cassette: the last traveler reading their journal of this world aloud. This is what they say. It gives a lot away.

Read the journal (spoilers)

The Box opened on a plain of broken crystal that crunched like frost under my boots, and the light came from two suns at once, so every shard threw two shadows. Far to the south a city floated over a ring of canyons: seven islands of green crystal round one great glowing spire they call the Seed. A girl made of crystal came down out of the sky on a board of light and asked whether I was the thing that had fallen. The Petrosapiens are mending their world. Vilgax broke it once, and something is drinking the Seed's light from the bottom of a grey crater in the east. Their war hero, Diamondhead, stands in crystal at the Seed's foot, fifteen blocks tall, and they look up at him every time they pass. Tetrax Shard, who fought beside him, told me the air here holds anyone who has earned it. When you have seen enough, step back into the Box with the Serum still in you and shut the door.