CLEAVEWORK
— The Borrowing —
A controller-first classic-style MMORPG for Steam Deck and PC.
Steam Deck
Linux
PC
Controller-First
— The Borrowing —
A controller-first classic-style MMORPG for Steam Deck and PC.
Cleavework is an indie MMORPG being built by HecatoNet, a one developer studio. Set in the world of Vreth, the game features slow, methodical combat where every decision matters. Built with Godot Engine 4.7 and powered by SpacetimeDB 2.1.0 for real-time multiplayer, Cleavework is designed controller-first for Steam Deck, Linux, and PC.
There are no player levels. Progression is technique-based — earn experience to unlock individual skills across 35 professions with a 250 Skill Point cap, inspired by the golden age of sandbox MMORPGs. Your identity is defined by the professions you choose, not a number next to your name.
Long global cooldowns, meaningful choices, and punishing mistakes. Every action carries weight.
250 SP across combat, crafting, gathering, social, and commerce professions. You are what you train.
Controller-first from day one. Menus, targeting, and combat designed for gamepad — plays natively on Steam Deck, Linux, and PC.
Challenging overworld encounters, dungeons, and party bosses form the core — with PvP for those who seek it.
Early production — Slagback Basin, one of the first regions
What makes Cleavework tick
Classic melee damage pipeline with skill-based accuracy, weapon delay, parrying, and hand-to-hand. Mob TP moves, mob magic, and counter attacks.
Magic is the metabolic waste of a dying organism. 8 Silt Aspects — Scald, Seize, Arc, Rend, Deluge, Shear, Pallor, and the forbidden Murk — each one an act of consumption. Full buff/debuff system and Silt Fatigue, bringing both caster and world closer to an end nobody knows how to prevent.
6-player parties with shared XP, party-wide mob claims, a treasure pool with lot and pass, and easy party member targeting with controller.
8 regions and 4 nations, day/night cycle, the Vreth calendar, and zone-specific music.
Load MIDI files and perform on virtual instruments, audible to nearby players via 3D spatial audio. Dance, oration, and band play in taverns. Performers heal fatigue — creating a symbiotic link between combat and social play.
Rent Galerunner mounts from Stable-Hand NPCs across the world for faster traversal speed. Timed rentals with dynamic pricing based on demand.
A full social profession system. MIDI music performance, dance routines, oration speeches, and band play. Taverns grant fatigue-healing buffs, making performers essential to the world's rhythm.
Airship routes between major cities, Mage Teleport for instant travel, Galerunner mount rentals, and ferry crossings. A unified transport network connecting 64 zones across 4 nations.
Silt Fatigue from casting magic and Body Fatigue from sustained combat, each with severity tiers. Rest at taverns or seek performers to recover. Creates a natural interdependence between combat and social play.
35 professions. 250 Skill Points. No levels. You are what you train.
Melee DPS — Sword & Axe
The foundation of armed combat. Bladehand training opens the path to Ironwright, Edgewright, and other elite weapon specialists.
Hand-to-Hand DPS
Fists and fury. Brawlers trade reach for speed, with double hits and unarmed techniques leading to Ashwalker and Marrowknight.
Ranged DPS
Precision at distance. Marksman training covers ranged weapons and leads to Farsight and Lanceborne elite paths.
Magic DPS & Support
The gateway to Silt magic. Channelers learn basic spellcraft before specializing into Siltcaster, Suturer, Timehand, or other caster elites.
Crafter — Gear & Components
Build, repair, and experiment. Tinkers form the backbone of the player economy, leading to Forgecaller, Threadwright, and Gearwright.
Gatherer — Resources & Materials
Find what the world leaves behind. Scavengers supply crafters and lead to Prospector, Harvester, and Angler specializations.
Entertainer — Music, Dance & Healing
Heal fatigue, fill taverns, and hold the social fabric together. Leads to Resonant, Cadence, and Lorewarden.
Trader — Markets & Negotiation
Master the flow of goods and coin. Brokers control trade routes and evolve into Appraiser, Ledgerman, and Tallyman.
Specializations unlocked by mastering starter professions
Five playable races. Each one is paying a price for existing.
When they sleep, their minds brush the dying consciousness beneath the ground. Some dreams leave marks.
The only race that dreams — and dreams are contact with the Maw. The last deep dreamer woke up speaking fluent Suurat.
Balanced — no modifiers
They turn to stone at the end of their lives. They remain conscious inside. The eyes are last to go.
The mines run through strata containing Fossilized Thurgen. The Cartels know. The Thurgen suspect. The Echoers who heard the screaming were silenced.
+2 STR, +2 VIT, +10 HP
Male only
They see past, present, and near-future layered on top of each other. Their brilliance is a coping mechanism for a perceptual disorder.
Their scholarly culture isn't an aesthetic — it's a medical necessity. Written records don't shift. Predictable architecture doesn't generate contradictory temporal impressions.
+2 INT, +2 MND, +15 MP
Neurologically bonded to a jungle mycelium network. Every one who leaves home is operating at reduced capacity, and they know it.
Half of a symbiotic organism. Their males voluntarily root into the mycelium, becoming sessile signal amplifiers who can never leave. Both halves regard the other's role with profound respect.
+2 DEX, +2 AGI
Female only
Luminous and beautiful in youth. Their Silt-saturated blood is calcifying them from birth. Their cathedrals are grief architecture.
The oldest are interred in cathedral crypts while still conscious. Their obsession with honor and legacy exists because every Orevhen knows they will lose themselves.
+1 STR, +1 MND, +2 CHR
There is no creation myth for Vreth. No divine hand shaped it. The world exists because something beneath it has been dying for longer than anyone can measure, and the act of dying produced geography.
The Maw is an organism — not a god, not a demon, but a pre-conscious biological entity of such staggering scale that continents formed in the hollows of its anatomy and oceans pooled in the basins between its calcified growths. It is not dead. It has been dying for as long as mortal history can reckon. The process is slow enough that forests grow on its surface and cities rise and fall — but fast enough that the signs are visible to anyone who looks.
Magic — Silt — is the Maw's metabolic waste. Every spell cast is an act of consumption. The deepest mines don't pass through stone. They pass through tissue. The walls are warm. In the places where the ancient Suurat cut deepest, the excavation walls pulse.
There is a heartbeat.
Industrial mining state. Leaders drawn by lottery; real power held by the Forge Cartels. They mine the Maw's body for resources and suppress what they find in the deep shafts.
Chivalric kingdom of the Orevhen. The monarch rules until calcification silences them — their Last Edict is their final act of speech before the jaw seals shut.
Scholarly island-nation governed by the Dregspeakers — twelve Kethryn who enter shared Silt hallucinations and emerge with policy visions. To outsiders, this is terrifying. To them, it is rational.
Not a nation. A contractual framework — a vertical bridge-city ruled by whoever holds the most binding commercial agreements. It produces nothing, profits from everything, and cannot be cut out.
Scheduled flights between major cities across all four nations.
Instant travel for those with the skill and the Silt to spend.
Rentable mounts from stable-hands for 3× overland speed.
Coastal and river routes connecting remote settlements.
Twenty-two years ago, something emerged from the Deep Rind — a surviving Suurat, awake after millennia of stasis. The mortal races named it the Cleavewarden, for the ancient surgical apparatus found in its stronghold. It did not come to conquer.
It came to finish the Cleavework — the surgery the Suurat had begun on the Maw ages ago, which it believed would save the world. To do this, it needed armies. So it borrowed them — uniting three enemy factions by offering each the one thing they wanted most.
The war lasted three years. Every nation committed atrocities to survive it. Threnn fed an entire generation of Thurgen into suicide charges. Essevra executed prisoners on the orders of a calcifying monarch. Siltmere injected conscripted Sahwen with concentrated Silt to create disposable battle-mages. The Grith sold supplies to all sides and profited from every death.
The allied forces drove the Cleavewarden back to the Quietlands and stormed its fortress. It was defeated. Its body was never recovered.
Development updates, deep lore drops, profession previews, and behind-the-scenes discussion — it all happens on Discord first.
Join the Discord →