Every portal opens differently. Some people arrive on Avalon's shores as killers. Some arrive as scholars. Some arrive as shields. And some arrive as mirrors — capable of reflecting an enemy's own power back at them before either of them fully understands what happened.
The four character classes in Avalon are not simply statistical categories. Each carries a fragment of the island's origin mythology — a piece of the four great houses that once ruled before the shattering. Choosing a class is not merely a mechanical decision. It determines which stories are available to you, which factions will trust you instinctively, and which Realm will feel most like home.
Here is what each class actually means.
⚔ Shadowblade
Role: High Damage · Stealth · Single-Target Assassin
Primary stat: Agility & Cunning
Starting Realm: Court of Shadows
The Shadowblade is descended from the old assassin houses that served Avalon's Court of Shadows before the shattering — retainers who learned that the most powerful act in any court is the act that no one witnesses. They were not warriors in the conventional sense. They were instruments of political precision.
In mechanical terms, Shadowblades deal the highest single-hit damage of any class and have access to stealth manoeuvres that let them skip the standard combat initiative order. Their critical strike multipliers are enormous. Their weakness is low defence and no group-targeting abilities — in a fight with multiple enemies, a Shadowblade needs to control the order of engagement perfectly or die fast.
The Shadowblade's story arc in Avalon is about the cost of loyalty to a patron who may not be what they seem. The Court of Shadows is built on beautiful surfaces concealing structural rot, and the Shadowblade's particular tragedy is that they are the best-equipped person on the island to see it and the last person willing to.
Best for: Players who enjoy high-skill-ceiling gameplay, prefer decisive single strikes over sustained combat, and want a story arc about complicity and the moment you choose to stop pretending.
✶ Arcanist
Role: Spellcaster · High AoE Damage · Debuffer
Primary stat: Intelligence & Focus
Starting Realm: Mystical Sanctum
The Arcanist draws from the Mystical Sanctum's tradition of scholarly magic — an approach to power that treats the world as a text to be read rather than a force to be overcome. Where a Shadowblade adapts to the fight, an Arcanist reframes it: change the conditions, and what looked like a battle becomes a problem already solved.
Arcanists have the most diverse ability pool of any class. They can deal area damage with elemental spells, apply status effects that accumulate across multiple turns, and eventually access the Codex abilities that alter the rules of an encounter entirely. They are fragile in direct combat and have the smallest HP pool in the game. But enemies who close to melee range with an Arcanist often discover they are standing in the wrong place, in the wrong conditions, facing the wrong version of the fight.
The Arcanist's story arc concerns the difference between knowledge and wisdom — what you do with what you know, and whether the Sanctum's library contains the things you actually need to understand or only the things that power wanted preserved.
Best for: Players who enjoy building complex ability combinations, prefer controlling the battlefield over brute force, and want a story arc about the politics of who gets to be considered an expert.
❖ Sentinel
Role: Tank · Party Support · Crowd Control
Primary stat: Endurance & Resolve
Starting Realm: Labyrinth of Minds
The Sentinel comes from the guardian tradition — those who understood that the most important thing in any conflict is not to win quickly but to make sure the wrong things are protected and the right things survive. In the Labyrinth of Minds, where psychological warfare is the primary combat mode, the Sentinel functions as the stable ground other characters anchor to.
Mechanically, Sentinels have the highest health pool and access to abilities that can redirect enemy attacks, reduce incoming damage for the whole party, and break enemy status effects on allies. They do the least raw damage of any class but they are virtually impossible to kill in a sustained fight and they make everyone around them better.
The Sentinel's story arc is about the difference between protecting and controlling. There is a version of protection that holds things safe and a version that keeps them small, and the Sentinel must eventually choose which one they have been practising.
Best for: Players who enjoy support roles, want to feel the security of being very difficult to kill, and want a story arc about care that may have been misdirected.
⟡ Veilweaver
Role: Hybrid · Illusion · Debuffer · Utility
Primary stat: Intuition & Resonance
Starting Realm: Forbidden Garden
The Veilweaver is the most unusual class and the most difficult to play. Where the other three classes have clear combat roles, the Veilweaver's primary power is ambiguity. They access abilities from all three other class trees but at reduced efficiency, and their unique mechanics revolve around making enemies and allies uncertain about what they are looking at.
A skilled Veilweaver does not win fights. They make fights happen differently. They can make enemies attack each other, convince an NPC that they are a different character entirely, and access dialogue options unavailable to any other class. In the Forbidden Garden, where desire and illusion are the dominant forces, the Veilweaver is the class the island was designed around.
Their story arc is the most complex and the most ambiguous — a meditation on identity, performance, and what you actually are when every surface is a reflection. It is also the arc with the highest number of possible endings.
Best for: Experienced players, those who want maximum narrative flexibility, and anyone who finds the clear roles of the other three classes slightly too legible.
Which Class Should You Choose?
The honest answer is: whichever one you can't stop thinking about after reading this. The game's systems are balanced enough that any class can complete any content — the difficulty varies by approach, not by feasibility.
If you are new to Avalon, Sentinel or Arcanist will give you the most predictable learning curve. If you want to feel powerful immediately, Shadowblade. If you want to see the parts of the island that most players miss, Veilweaver.
The full class guide, with ability trees and build recommendations for each Realm, is available at game/guide/classes/. The lore for each starting Realm is documented in the Game Wiki.
The portal is open. What are you, when you step through it?