Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, and right now it is free in the stronger sense: nothing on the site or in the game is for sale. No payment is accepted during the pre-alpha, and the in-game store hands every item over for nothing, once a day each. When purchases do open, they will buy speed and convenience — never power a free player cannot reach. See Economy & Pacing.

No. Tap Play offline and the full single-player game runs in your browser, saved on your device. Sign in only when you want to share a live realm with other lords.

Offline saves live in your browser's storage across two rotating slots. Clearing site data removes them, so if you care about a save, play the live realm (cloud-saved) or keep the same browser profile.

No, and it is checked automatically. What money is meant to buy is speed — clearing build timers — never a power ceiling; and in the pre-alpha it buys nothing at all, because no payment is taken. A dedicated free player who grinds a few hours a day reaches the same daily budget a top spender buys. The Fair Play Ledger audits this in the open, in-game.

Keep 45 is deliberately aspirational: about seven months free at roughly half an hour a day. That figure counts the keep and the nineteen supporting plots that gate it, because builds share one queue — measuring the keep's own chain alone describes a game nobody plays. The intended spend tiers cut the same road to about three months and about two; none of them is on sale yet. The early levels come fast, and none of it is a wall — Keep 18 lands in about ten hours.

Each season lasts seven real days, cycling summer → autumn → winter → spring, shared by everyone in the realm. Winter is harsh but favours defenders, and a rare Long Night falls every sixth winter. See Seasons & Weather.

The sky over your keep mirrors the real, current weather at the game's anchor town on Long Island, New York — reconciled with the season. It is pure atmosphere and falls back to the season's default sky if the weather service is unreachable.

No. New lords get a free protective shield, and if your walls break, a safety valve lets you relocate and shield rather than be farmed. A bad night is designed to read as a comeback, not a wipe.

Dragon eggs are found through play — events, exploration, and rewards — then hatched and grown in the Dragon Pit. Everyone can raise one; see Dragons.

You can play solo, but the deepest game — wars, forts, seats of power, and the Conquest Season — is alliance-based. Joining a friendly banner is the single biggest step up in fun and power.

Iron Realms runs in any modern browser on phone, tablet, or desktop — nothing to install. Mobile app builds are on the way.

Reload the page. A black sea almost always means a stale tab — an older build of the game left open while a newer one shipped — and since 1.1.191 the update toast says so when a newer build is waiting. If a reload does not fix it, say so on Discord lordking_uhtred with your device and browser; the map is measured on a phone on every release, but a defect nobody reports is a defect nobody can measure.

No. Iron Realms is an original fantasy strategy game, not affiliated with or endorsed by any other game or franchise; the game's own mechanics and lore are its own, and its art and audio are original or used under open licences. The site's fan wings are a separate thing — unofficial tributes that name other people's works and characters in order to talk about them, which is what nominative fair use allows. Each carries its own disclaimer naming the rights holders and denying any affiliation.