Skezla's Tome of Knowledge

This is a collection of general helpful information on a wide variety of topics.

Who is this for?

This guide goes over a variety of important information regarding a plethora of mechanics in It Lurks Below. While I do not go into exhaustive detail, the information in this guide is meant to serve as foundational knowledge to the new player who has little experience with the game.

If you are having trouble starting out, please see my tutorial survival guide.

If you are interested in the Survival Skill Tree and its various skills, my survival skill guide.

This guide was last updated on 3/2/2023, game version 1.01.69

Character Races, Classes and Multiclassing

There are two races and eight classes in It Lurks Below.

Ogre characters jump higher and have faster melee attack speed, and slower wand shot speed, and lower benefit from Vigor. Ogres also get 2 more points of Armor per point in Dexterity. Humans have bonus magic find, normal attack speed, and get an extra point of all resist per point of Vigor.

I won't be detailing all of the classes in this guide, but I will note a few things.

Character Classes in It Lurks Below are a bit more fluid than they might appear. When you choose a class, it locks you into a few things - your class passive, the ancient items you acquire while leveling, the weapons you can use, and the weapons that drop in the game.

With that said, when you unlock an ancient item on a character, it becomes available on all characters by use of the Shared Stash tabs, located in the The Bank. There is a tab for each class where you can pick up infinite fresh copies of any unlocked class ancient! However, you will still need to level up the ancient with gold if you acquire it this way.

Alternatively, you can use one of the keys given at level 50, 60, etc to unlock an ancient class item on your character, which allows it to be placed in the stash directly.

Effectively, multiclassing is built into the game and you need only unlock the skills on their original class to benefit from this. There are some impressively powerful (and downright broken) combinations to find!

Stat Points

Every character gains one stat point to place in the stat of their choosing when leveling up. You may choose Vitality, Attack Power, Vigor, or Dexterity / Intelligence (class dependent). A lot of new players get hung up on this, but it is important not to stress it.

You need all of these stats for various reasons, and as the game progresses you will find/craft/grow gear and crystals which will provide the bulk of your stat points anyway. If you're putting stat points into one attribute, it just means you'll need to find the rest on gear.

When in doubt, Vigor is always a good choice. (Undead Heart users excepted)

Resistances

Resistances in It Lurks Below are a bit different than what you are perhaps accustomed to. Instead of lowering the amount of damage you take from enemies, resistances instead represent your character's ability to resist status effects like freezing and burning.

The resistance rating required to be immune to any given status effect is ( 2 * mLVL ), where mLVL is the monster's level.

The maximum possible resistances needed for any character is 470, which is required for immunity against level 110 monsters in Unholy difficulty. This is due to the -250 Resistance penalty in Unholy. Going over this specific number is never needed.

It should go without saying, but staying capped here is ideal. It's also quite easy. Vigor gives all resist rating for each point spent. Humans get 3 while Ogres get 2 - so an easy way to stay immune (or close to it, for Ogres) is to simply place each stat point in Vigor when you level up. You'll still need a bit of extra resists in higher difficulties due to the resistance penalties, but crafted armor and weapon runewords take care of the bulk of that.

Weapons

Weapons in It Lurks Below are class specific. Whatever class you choose determines what weapon types will drop in the world, and what class-specific weapon runeword Gurk will sell you. A Paladin will never see a Wand drop, and a Necromancer will never find a Two-Handed Mace.

Weapons, with exception to those made in the tutorial, cannot be crafted. You can modify weapons you find with runeword recipes, but you cannot craft them in the same manner that you craft armor.

Sockets never appear on weapons naturally, and you must use a runeword recipe purchased from Bubba in the Deluxe Barn to add one. The shape of the added socket is random, and cannot be changed or removed.

All weapons come with a damage type- Fire, Magic, Cold, Lightning, or Poison.Wands may also come with the Rainbow damage type, which cycles through every element as you attack.

There are no 'unique' quality weapons - the highest possible quality that can drop is Exceptional. You can of course use a runeword recipe on it, however. There are some really fantastic class specific runewords that change the graphic of your weapon as well, and they tend to be incredibly powerful. Gurk will sell it to you for quartz in the Badlands.

Any stats you have on a weapon are only in effect while holding the weapon - having it selected on your hotbar. For this reason, I highly recommend that you focus on trying to find a weapon that naturally possesses only offensive affixes. That vitality roll will do you little good when you swap to your pickaxe.

Armor is Essential

The exact armor formula is unknown, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. But we do know a few very important things -

Armor damage reduction works for all non-status effect damage.
Armor gives a scaling flat damage reduction rather than % damage reduction.
Armor has diminishing returns. This diminishing return is increased significantly in Unholy Difficulty.

With this in mind, it is important to upgrade your armor at every available opportunity. Diminishing returns do exist, but you are unlikely to encounter this in a meaningful way until you reach Unholy Difficulty and have hundreds of thousands of armor. With high enough armor, you can completely eliminate all damage taken from many enemies, even in Inferno Difficulty.

Magical Armor Crafting

Armor Crafting is one of the first things you do in the game, but the bulk of its importance and mechanics are hidden behind higher difficulty materials.

Throughout the game and across all difficulties, you will find ore as you delve below. These ores are specific to the layers in which you find them, and their locations (at least, in a layer by layer sense) are not randomized. Iron will always be in the dirt layer, copper in the mud layer, etc.

However, in higher difficulties these ores are replaced with ore of a higher grade. Instead of copper ore, the mud layer in Inferno contains Ash and Aqua ore, for example.

Every tier of ore material has its own 'quality cap'. In Normal, all armors except Adamantine are simply Non-Magical. From Adamantine and onward, armors are at least of common (green) magical quality and roll with all resist. As you progress through higher difficulties and craft higher tiers of armor, you can eventually craft up to Exceptional quality armor, which always has 2 Sockets, 3 random affixes, and all resists.

Armor Penetration

Armor Penetration exists because monsters have armor, just like our characters. It is largely useful only for low-damage but high attack rate builds that utilize needle type weapons and for ranged characters who use multishot, scattershot, or spray wands. When using those wands, the damage listed on your character sheet is divided by the number of projectiles fired per shot, which means that each individual projectile does only a portion of listed damage.

However, since armor has diminishing returns, and thus is more effective per point at lower amounts- armor penetration is best when used at 100%. The difference between having 75% and 100% armor penetration is many times larger than 0 and 50%, for example. So if you're using it, go all in.

Armor Penetration past 100% has no additional benefit.

Growing Food

Every crop in the game, if grown outside of a greenhouse, must be grown during its appropriate season(s). Seasons last 15 days, and any crops still planted during a change of season will 'pop' out and leave their seeds on the ground if the coming season is one they cannot grow in.

When it comes to growing crops, the most important thing to understand is that you need break down your harvested crops into enough seeds to replant - only then can you make food with the leftovers. Otherwise, you risk running out of seeds and lacking any means to regrow them without finding more.

There are three ways to grow crops - in the designated plots built with blueprints, in the greenhouse, and in plots created with the hoe tool. The greenhouse and hoe tool both require investment into specific Survival talents and materials from Portal rooms and Nightmare difficulty, respectively.

There is no limit to the number of plots you can create with the hoe tool.
Greenhouse allows planting crops out of season - including winter.

Seeds can be found in seed bags, drops from chests, bosses in Normal mode, and occasionally purchased from Divo the General Merchant.

Block Inventory and Building

Blocks are stored in their own separate inventory when picked up, where each block that exists within the game has its own storage slot with a stack limit of 10,000. In the normal inventory, blocks have a stack limit of 500.

Crafting with a block does not require any interaction with this inventory, as crafting uses all items in your bank and both inventories automatically. If you wish to build with a block, you must first grab some from your block inventory and put it on your hotbar.

The world of It Lurks Below is comprised of three layers on the Z-axis. The one you walk on, the one directly behind it (background), and the one behind that (far background). If you wish to mine or place blocks in the background layers, you must hold shift or ctrl while using your pick or holding a block.

Hunger and Digestion

I'll try to break this down simply.

Your survival rank determines the rank of the ingredients you plant/gather. The rank of those ingredients determine the rank of the food you make with your recipes. The higher the rank, the better it feeds you. So a rank 15 Blueberry Pie might feed you for 54, while a rank 80 Blueberry Pie may feed you for 315.

When you start out, your hunger (yellow orb) will require only a bit of feed to stay full. As you level, the amount required will increase - as such, you should strive to eat your lowest rank food first, and stockpile only recently made food right before Winter season.

If you neglect to include Stamina and Digestion rating on your gear, you will find yourself heading back to sleep in your bed or eating mountains of food far more frequently. You should try to include one roll of each on at least one piece of gear- it will improve your quality of life drastically.

Sleep

Sleeping is required (eventually) to recover your stamina. You can sleep anywhere, at any time - but the health and stamina regeneration will be much slower than if you rest in a proper bed.

Coffee can be used to recover stamina as well, but you are limited to a maximum of five coffees before you must sleep. Each time you consume a coffee, you will receive a debuff with a stack count that increases for each one consumed. To rid yourself of this debuff, you must sleep - as you rest, the stacks will gradually lower.

Stamina rating will lower the rate at which you lose stamina, and thus require you to sleep and/or drink coffee less often.

While you sleep, time moves at an increased, rapid pace. You can think of this as a bit of a fast forward. Notably, the buff timers will also decrease at an increased rate. For example, if you have six minutes left of Blessing and then sleep for one real-time minute, your Blessing will have decreased to perhaps two minutes remaining.

Item Identification

Many items will drop unidentified. To identify them, you will need a Scroll of Identification. In addition to dropping from enemies, you receive the recipe for Scrolls of Identification once you break down your first Crystal into Crystal Shards. This will allow you to create scrolls for the cost of one Parchment and five Crystal Shards - you'll likely make these sparingly at first, but very quickly you'll likely be keeping a stack of them around at all times.

Alternatively, you may find the Tome of Identification, which is an infinite use item that functions the same way as a scroll - albeit, with a cooldown of a 3 seconds.

Magic Find

Magic Find Rating is an important stat that all characters should aim to have. It is a rating, not a direct percentage, so for example having 1800% Magic Find Rating may only give about 185% effective increase. As with all stats that are based on a rating system, there are severe diminishing returns.

However, it is important to note that Magic Find is not just for when you're killing monsters- in fact Magic Find also affects the chance of higher quality when you craft armors, enchantment books, and plant crystals. So always wear as much as you possibly can while crafting armor or enchantment tomes, and planting crystals. It is good policy to have a set of gear specifically for this purpose.

Item Rarity

All items have what is called a quality - this indicates its potential number of magical affixes and its general rarity.

• Non-Magical - White
  
• Common - Green
  
• Uncommon - Blue
  
• Rare - Purple
  
• Exceptional - Orange
  
• Unique - Tarnished Gold
  
• Set - Yellow
  
• Runeword - Tarnished Gold

More info on each rarity:

• Common Items have a single prefix.
  
• Uncommon items have one prefix and one suffix.
  
• Rare items have between 3 and 4 affixes total, with no fixed number of prefixes or suffixes.
  
• Exceptional items guarantee 4 random affixes and one 'Exceptional' affix that is only found on Exceptional items. These stand out and are usually a temporary buff on hit/attack/etc.
  
• Unique Items have no random affixes (**see note below) but some do roll their bonuses within a random range.
  
• Runewords likewise have set affixes, but roll within a range when created.
  
• Set items are almost all runewords, except for the Marshall's set, which is a Unique set with fixed bonuses.

In Unholy Difficulty exclusively, Unique Items have the possibility of also rolling a random quality - ie, you can find uncommon, rare, or even exceptional uniques. These items are the most powerful in the game, as they possess all of the stats of the regular unique item as well as randomly generated affixes - and if exceptional, two sockets.

Because some bonuses only exist as prefixes or suffixes, there are some affixes that simply cannot exist on Common (green) items. Finally, on Rare and Exceptional items, it is entirely possible to roll the same exact affix multiple times. We call these "double", "triple", and "quad" rolls. As you can imagine, such items are rare and potentially incredibly powerful.

Axe and Pickaxe Effectiveness

How fast you mine a block or chop a tree is determined by how much damage you do per swing. The early Pickaxe upgrades are simply straight damage increases on the base item. Technically, the very first Pickaxe can mine every minable block in the game except corrupted dirt. The later pickaxes do come with some perks like auto-pickup and 3x3 digging, and the Divine Pickaxe is required to mine corrupted dirt.

So if you're frustrated with a slow mining speed, pick up some +min/max damage for a quick and easy way to speed through digging and chop trees with one blow!

Enchanting

Eventually you will come across veins of gems, not unlike ore veins. These are materials that are specific to each difficulty. Emerald, Sapphire, Amethyst, and Carnelian are each tied to the four main difficulty levels of Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno.

These gems are used, along with parchment, crystal shards, and honey, to create enchantment books. You can use up to four enchantment books on any armor or weapon. Each tier of enchantment book may be used on an item that falls within its specific level range. An apprentice enchantment book, for example, can only be used on items with a level of 1 to 35. This is to ensure that you cannot simply farm materials in Normal mode to enchant your level 100 gear.

Enchantments cannot be overwritten or removed.

All ranks of the enchantment book are capable of rolling the exact same selection of enchantments. The rank(apprentice/master/etc) only determines what ilvl the tome can enchant.

When you craft an enchantment book, it rolls a random quality and a random affix, just as any other item in the game. So wear your Magic Find and pray for good enchants!

The recipes for the Bookshelf, Enchantment tomes, etc are acquired automatically when you pick up your first emerald. The next tier of books unlocks when you pick up the next tier of gems.

There is a bug where sometimes you do not acquire the recipe on pickup. If this happens, drop the gems from your inventory (none in stash either), and then pick them up. This should resolve the issue.

Crystals and Sockets

Crystals are what you insert into sockets on armor and weapons. Not to be confused with gems, which are a material used in crafting enchantment tomes. They can be swapped in and out of sockets at any time.

Crystals come in a variety of shapes, each fitting a corresponding slot shape. Each time you move up a tier in armor material, the slot will change. The slot shapes loop back around after Normal mode, going back again to bar shaped in Nightmare and progressing again until you reach the final Octagon shape in Inferno difficulty again.

Each shape is tied to a specific level range- so you will not find a level 92 bar crystal dropping from enemies or chests. This level range is usually the same as the enemies found around the intended armor material. So, if you're in Hell Mode and in Ash armor, the enemies in the layers where you find that material will likely drop the correct diamond shaped crystals.

Alternatively, you can grow specific shapes instead. The only way to obtain a non-Octagon ilvl 100 crystal is to grow it yourself. You should only have to do this if the socket on your weapon is not Octagon, as weapons are the only items with randomly shaped sockets.

In short, you'll need new crystals each time you make a new armor set during progression.

Crystals can be thought of as simply another gear slot, for all intents and purposes. They can roll everything that a weapon or armor craft can, and can be of any quality. The primary way to acquire these is through killing enemies, but you can also grow them if you wish by putting a point the appropriate survival skill.

Non-Class Ancient Items

Ancient Items are essentially the skills of It Lurks Below. Outside of those provided to each class, you may also find some while delving below. They can drop from any enemy, boss, or chest in the game (with a few obvious exceptions, like rune chests and gravestones).

Unlike class ancient items, the level of non-class ancient items is determined solely by how many copies you possess. All classless ancients can stack up to 10, at which point they reach their maximum strength. They are also not character bound.

Some classless ancient items only drop in higher difficulties.

Vendors

Vendors, NPCs, Townsfolk, etc. Whatever your choice name for them, they sell you stuff and live in buildings you build. They also disappear (With exception to Pheonix) during invasions.

• Each vendor specializes in a selection of goods, and I won't go over all of them here but I will note a few important ones.
  
  
• Bubba will only appear in the Barn once you purchase the Deluxe Barn Upgrade from Divo, the General Merchant.
  
  
• The recipes for all base vendor buildings will be received as you progress through the main questline and kill bosses.
  
  
• NPCs cannot die or be attacked in any way.
  
  
• All Vendors restock their merchandise at midnight. This also refreshes and randomizes the selection of many merchants, including the various runeword and cosmetic merchants. So check them each day for any specific recipe you're searching for.
  
  
• Divo, the General Merchant, occasionally sells random seeds for just a few gold. She also sells everything you can find in the dirt layer (dirt, cobblestone, iron) because the dirt layer never regenerates so these are technically limited resources.
  
  
• Some NPCs only exist during Holiday Events. Luckily, Holiday Events tend to be quite prolonged and enduring in ILB.

Invasions and Corruption

Invasions are a recurring, inevitable part of the It Lurks Below experience. After killing Commander Vile, you will eventually be invaded by a small horde of monsters. The type of monsters vary depending on your level, but they are always led by a commander and all of them spawn at your character's current level. These enemies spawn on or above the corrupted dirt where you first fought Commander Vile in the tutorial.

• 
  
• The corruption only spreads while an invasion is active.
  
• You cannot stop invasions from occurring by any means whatsoever.
  
• They occur at random intervals. Sometimes it'll be weeks, sometimes only a couple of days.
  
• Townsfolk disappear until the invaders are killed.
  
• The invaders will wander the surface (or below, if they fall in a hole) until killed.
  
• The number of invaders left alive is always listed below your character's info on the UI
  
• The invasion is always announced with giant red text over your screen.
  
• You can always see every individual invasion monster on your map, indicated by a red circle.

The corruption itself cannot be trimmed without using a Divine Pickaxe, which requires materials found in Nightmare Difficulty. Digging up all of the corruption will only cause a new patch to spawn during the next invasion.

You CAN prevent the growth and spread of corruption by digging out all three layers of blocks around the corruption on all sides, and filling in the main layer and first background with Fire Arcane Stone - the orange glowing blocks that surround the lore notes underground. You do not need to put blocks above the corruption, only in a U-pattern around it. If you need more, use a world book to respawn the map.

Dungeon Rooms and Boss Dungeons

Dungeon Rooms are what we call the large rectangular underground rooms that are notably composed of a different material than the rest of the layer. These rooms are full of monsters, and sometimes chests, crystal nodes, or rune stones. They are notably closed off, with no entrance or exit unless you (or a monster) make one.

These rooms little the underground at every layer, but Dungeon Rooms specifically are typically isolated. Sometimes their edges touch or they are close to each other, but this is simply random generation.

If you kill all of the Monsters that were inside of the room (including any that escape the room), a bonus chest will spawn somewhere inside (you will see a notification) as a reward for your thoroughness.

Boss Dungeons are essentially a chain of Dungeon Rooms that exist at the bottom of every layer of It Lurks Below. If you see an even chain of Dungeon Rooms that are all connected, this is a Boss Dungeon. The difference here is simply that the rooms are connected with doors and one of the rooms contains a boss door that leads to the layer boss.

In Pocket Dimensions, you must first kill enough enemies to unlock the Boss Door. In regular World Book maps, Boss Doors are always unlocked.

Treasure Hoards

Treasure Hoards are part of the layer generation, and they are distinct pockets of clay that stick out from the rest of the layer. They are always composed of clay blocks and full of monsters, but the contents of the horde is random. These hordes may contain any of the following, but each horde specializes in one particular thing - so if you see a dozen chests sitting on oddly colored clay out in the underground, that's a treasure horde.

• Treasure Chests (including Special Golden Chests)
  
• Rune Chests (distinctly smaller and striped)
  
• Rune Stones (Tombstones)
  
• Crystal Nodes (Green, Blue, and Purple)
  
• Meat and Seed Bags (Sometimes just one or the other)
  
• Gold Piles

[/list]

It is rarely a bad idea to stop and collect the treasures in these areas. Runes can be combined to create higher ones, Crystals can be broken down into shards, Chests can drop almost anything, and food supplies are always nice.

Buffs

Buffs can be acquired in a number of ways. Shrines, ancient items, exceptional and unique gear, rings, scrolls, and some food recipes.

In the case of Shrine buffs, scrolls, and food recipes, these buffs can be stacked infinitely. If you use a Scroll of Blessing and receive a 10 minute buff, using another will add another 10 minutes rather than simply resetting the timer.

Exceptional buffs, which typically involve being damaged, hitting enemies, killing enemies, etc. cannot be stacked. Having two of the same exceptional affix on any combination of gear will not result in any benefit.

There are survival talents that increase the amount of time that scroll buffs last, and a ring that extends the duration of shrine buffs. Wearing two of the shrine ring will not result in additional benefit. You do not need to keep the ring equipped, however; you only need to wear it when activating the shrine to benefit from its increased duration.

Currencies

There are a variety of currencies in the game, each with their own uses and methods of aquisition.

Gold is found plentifully from killing monsters, opening chests, and looting piles of gold in treasure hoards. It is mostly used to expand the bank and level up class ancients. Expect to spend many tens of millions in total to have a complete set of 12 bank tabs and fully upgraded class ancients.

Compost is created by using the composter to (you guessed it!) compost crop materials. You can also acquire it through drops if you possess the ♥♥♥♥ Kicker unique boots or use a Scroll of Ogre Luck. Those drops are affected by Gold Find. Compost is used for some farming recipes and blueprints as well as purchasing Runeword recipes from Bubba in the Deluxe Barn.

Crystal Shards are acquired by breaking down crystals, in the same way you would break down crops to acquire seeds. Crystal Shards are incredibly important for crafting Enchantment Tomes, Runes, and Magical Crops like crystal bulbs and ore bulbs. This is a truly precious resource and you should NEVER sell crystals or pass up the opportunity to break down ones you find.

Quartz are acquired by mining quartz nodes in the Badlands. This is the only way to acquire quartz. While the nodes appear in a variety of colors, the colors simply indicate how much each node is individually worth- they are otherwise all the same currency. This one can be a hassle to farm, but large sums are required to purchase the advanced Rneword set recipes from Gurk in the Badlands. Expect to need ~90k for a full set.

Pumpkins/Snowflakes - Holiday Exclusive currencies that drop from monsters - mostly champion packs and bosses. Used to purchase holiday event exclusive items such as cosmetics, pets, pocket dimensions, etc. Affected by Gold Find.

Runes!

Runes can be acquired from Gravestones, Rune Chests, and any other source of normal loot in the game - such as any other chest and any boss or enemy. Of the thirteen runes that exist, eleven of them may drop from any source on any difficulty, while the other two drop from specific enemies. The Gamma rune drops from Astaroth, and the Winter rune drops from the Holiday Spirit during the Winter event.

Astaroth has the highest chance of dropping higher quality runes, with the chance increasing for each of the Hearts of Darkness left alive before killing it.

Runes can also be combined to create the next-highest rune, so you need not worry about missing out due to bad luck. Just keep looting and you'll eventually end up with all you need!

Runes are used to craft runewords and rings. For runewords, the recipe will be consumed upon crafting the runeword at the altar, along with the runes. For rings, the recipe is learned by finding the consumable recipe as a drop, and after using it you can then make the ring through your crafting menu.

Runewords!

Runewords are items that have been crafted by combining an item with a runeword recipe and it's requisite runes. The item (which can be of any quality up to and including Exceptional and Unique) retains all of its previous attributes and gains new ones based on the runeword recipe used.

All set items in the game (except Grand Marshall's) are created with runeword recipes. These recipes can be acquired by purchasing them from specific vendors. The Deluxe Barn Upgrade gives access to Bubba, who sells various set and weapon runeword recipes for compost. The more advanced (and more expensive) runeword recipes come from Gurk in the Badlands. Gurk requires quartz, which can only be found by mining it up in the badlands.

There are various other runeword recipes to be found in the game, but they are linked to holiday events and/or Unholy Difficulty.

Regardless of what runeword you make, you must first locate a Portal room before you can craft it. You'll need to find the altar in the very back of the Portal room, and place the requisite items there.

You cannot reroll, undo, or craft over a runeworded item.
The sole exception is adding a socket to a weapon via the recipe from Bubba.


If you need help finding a portal, read below!

Winter, Greenhouse, Sand, Portals, OH MY!

You need food to survive. Every plant has specific seasons it grows in. No edible plants grow during winter. What do you do about that?

You can stockpile food during autumn, rely on mushrooms and/or meats, or you can build yourself a greenhouse. I'll walk you through it. You'll need luck on your side, though! And you'll need to unlock the recipe in your survival tree before you can build it, so keep that in mind.

You need to find sand. Normal sand. This only exists in Portal rooms.
Portal rooms are found via locating a portal somewhere below.
Portals can spawn at any layer below the dirt layer, and never in the Badlands.
There is a 50% chance that Normal difficulty maps spawn with 1 portal.
The only way to know if yours has one is to explore the entire map or use a Scroll of Portal Location.
If you use a scroll and it says a portal was located, open your map and scroll down until you find it.
If it says no portal was found, you'll need to purchase a world book from the Wizard and try again.
Once you do find one, simply go in, kill things, and mine the sand. It's there, I promise! Look hard.

And... that's that! You can grow anything you'd like in the greenhouse, regardless of the season.

All Difficulties past Normal will always have at least one portal on the map.

Reset the World!

Once you defeat your first non-tutorial boss, you'll acquire the blueprint for the Wizard of Space and Time. The wizard sells a variety of important and noteworthy things, but World Books are the focus here.

World Books determine the difficulty of the world you are playing in. It is essentially how you choose your game's difficulty as well as how you reset the map to farm enemies. Higher tier books unlock as you level up.

When you use a World Book, everything below the dirt layer is erased and respawned. This includes Bosses. Likewise, your recall point is reset if it was below ground and the Badlands resets as well. This is an important aspect of the game, and you will need to make use of this mechanic if you ever hope to progress past Normal Difficulty.

In Nightmare Difficulty and higher, monster populations are randomized and all monsters come with at least one affix- two for champions.

Pocket Dimensions

Pocket Dimensions function in a similar manner to World Books, with some key differences.

Pocket Dimensions use a randomized set of blocks and enemies, and are only one layer deep. The typical format of the layer is the same as any other, but the enemies scale to your level. Champion Packs are far more common than in the main game, and the boss at the end of the layer is selected randomly. To unlock the boss door and complete the Pocket Dimension, you will need to build up MPK, or Monster Kill Points. Normal enemies are worth 1 point each, while Champion monsters are worth more.

Importantly, you cannot choose the difficulty of a Pocket Dimension. At certain thresholds based on your level, using a Pocket Dimension will set you into higher and higher difficulties. A level 35 character using one would create a Nightmare Difficulty Pocket Dimension, for example. The difficulty caps at Inferno for all non-holiday Pocket Dimensions.

These Pocket Dimensions are lucrative, but they are entirely optional and contain (with exception to holiday event dimensions) no special loot. Simply more density, variety, and convenient farming.

Cosmetics

There are a variety of cosmetic items in the game - helmets, costumes, hats, and pets galore! Some can be purchased any time from normal game vendors, others require access to holiday event vendors and special currency, and the rarest of them are rare world drops.

The cool part is, there is a section in your Shared Bank specifically for cosmetics. Once you find a copy on any character, infinite copies can be had by any character in the future simply by pulling it out of the special tab in the Shared Bank - just like class ancient items!

Enjoy.

Mythical Key of Unbinding

Beginning at level 50, and every 10 levels thereafter until reaching the level 100 cap, you will be gifted a Mythical Key of Unbinding. This key will allow you to remove the Character Bound restriction on any class ancient items your character possesses, as well as any of the unique tools of infinity found in the game.

The tools of infinity include the Tome of Identification, The Glowing Orb, The Great Leveler, The Platform of Infinity, and The Neverending Potion of Life. Each of these are (surprise!) unique, infinite use tools.

Re-Spec

You can purchase the Document of Do-Over from the Wizard to refund all spent stat-points. This will also reset any class ancients on your character or in your personal stash to level 1 - so think wisely before using one. If you have unlocked your class ancients, placing them in the Shared vault will prevent them from being reset.

The Document of Do-Over does NOT allow you to redistribute your Survival Skill points. Those choices remain permanent.

Difficulties

A variety of things are not found within the game's Normal Difficulty. As with most aRPGs, you will need to progress through higher difficulties to unlock better gear, better challenges, and interesting mechanics.


Currently, Unholy is tied to event boss pocket dimensions. There is no Unholy World Book.

• Difficulties are Normal, Nightmare, Hell, Inferno, and Unholy.
  
  
• Resistances are lowered by 0, 50, 100, 150, and 250 respectively.
  
  
• Advanced armor crafting, with the ability to roll up to Exceptional quality crafted armor (all resist, 3 random affixes, two sockets)
  
  
• Some ancient items only drop in Nightmare difficulty and higher.
  
  
• Almost all affixes scale with item level, including most of those on unique items.
  
  
• Crystal Runeword recipes cannot be acquired outside of Unholy Difficulty.
  
  
• Many important and powerful tools cannot be crafted without materials from higher difficulties.
  
  
• Bosses gain additional abilities
  
  
• Monsters become randomized in all areas in Nightmare+ with random affixes for normal monsters and an additional for champion packs.
  
  
• The best items in the game, Exceptional Uniques, only drop in the highest (Unholy) difficulty.
  These items possess all the random qualities of a crafted armor on top of the unique item bonus.

One-Shot Mechanics

You are fighting eldritch, demonic beings in this game. A few select bosses, and the Badlands minibosses, possess an attack that kills you instantly if you don't get out of the way.

The attack looks like an eyeball (or a series of yellow ones, in the case of the minibosses) that begins as a tiny orb and expands until reaching a large size - at which point, it will explode. It will usually appear exactly where your character is, so it is hard to miss.

If you are inside of its radius when it explodes, or even one pixel of your hitbox is touching the edge, you will die. These attacks do millions of damage that ignores all armor and damage reduction.

The good news is that these attacks are generally easy to avoid and they are highly telegraphed since they take time to expand and are obvious to see.

These attacks are known as the Eyes of Annihilation.

Manipulate your Environment

There are a variety of very helpful ways you may manipulate your surroundings to your advantage. Building barriers with blocks, placing platforms in boss rooms, digging out an escape tunnel preemptively in case a fight goes poorly, digging trenches to trap oncoming monsters, or even arenas to use when holding back invasions - all of these are important tools for survival. It's easy to get lost in the loot and mayhem, but it is important to remember that with few exceptions you have the ability to create advantages for yourself in every fight.

Some of my favorite things include clearing a complete area below Flames/Poisons of Astaroth so that I have an escape when they use their Eyes of Annihilation. Another is isolating individual members of boss packs as they pace around, so that I can fight them individually. Use your imagination. If you die, reflect and understand that there is nearly always something you could have done to prevent it.

Pause!

When you pause the game (ESC key, default) it brings up the typical menu of options, exit, etc. Normal game stuff. However, it has a number of other less-than-obvious uses.

You can hover your cursor over a monster and you can read its attributes safely while paused. This is especially helpful in higher difficulty modes (Nightmare+) where monsters and their abilities are randomized - as well as champion packs at any point. Being able to pause the game and safely determine whether that pack of Shotgun Skeletons is Extra Fast with Extra Damage or just Poison Immune with Builder.... that's invaluable, and will absolutely save your life.

Pausing can also give you the opportunity to save yourself in dangerous moments. If overwhelmed and near death, pause! You can then inspect the monsters around you as stated above, and ready yourself to press your potion and/or recall keys. You can also look at your surroundings for an escape from the mob. The important thing is giving yourself a moment to think and reflect on your predicament.

Pause.

Closing Thoughts

It Lurks Below is a fantastic aRPG with a lot of depth; but it doesn't truly start to shine until the later difficulties. I encourage everyone who is interested in this game and enjoys traditional aRPGs to engage with the game past Normal difficulty, as Normal difficulty does not represent the bulk of what It Lurks Below has to offer.

Good luck, and happy lurking!

A big thanks to many of the continued community members in the It Lurks Below official Discord, as the information in this guide is a collection of knowledge gained not only by myself, but the experiences and work of the community. If you ever have questions that aren't answered in these guides, I encourage you to follow the Discord link found in the Community section of ILB's main menu. Someone is always down to answer questions!

[Schrödinger's psycho]