The guide

Game Modes

Which modes are live, what they pay and the daily caps are set by Max. The mechanics are not.

Player versus player

Battle Royale
Open free-for-all, last player standing. You earn in-match XP (Attack +25, Kill +30, Parry/Rest +15) that raises a temporary in-match level for small mid-fight boosts. You can go AFK and the bot plays for you, badly.
1v1 Duel
Both players choose their action simultaneously each turn; the choices reveal together. Pure read-and-react.
Tag Duel / Team Duel
One fighter per team is active at a time. Switch swaps in a benched teammate, costs your turn, and the new fighter enters next round. Rotate fresh bodies in and heal on the bench.
Triad
Three teams of two in one arena until one team survives. All three act each round, so target choice decides it — focus the weakest team and let the other two wear each other down.
Free-For-All
Open multi-player lobby, no teams. A Mindbreak variant can trigger based on channel activity.
Tournament
Structured best-of-3 1v1. Before each round you pick a build worth exactly 20 points plus one permitted consumable — Ultra Health, Protective Shield, Mind Cleanser or Power. Change your build between rounds to counter what you just saw.
Bracket
Multi-round single-elimination, seeding the whole server into one event.

Player versus environment

Escort
A team of 4 protects an escort target through waves of about 5 enemies. If the target dies, the mission fails. Keep somebody watching its HP with Resurrection Potions.
Horde
A 3-player team survives waves of up to 8 enemies, with heal votes between waves. Rewards scale with the wave number. There is also a Horde Hub with NPC companions you can bring.
Mission
Up to ~20 players in teams fight through waves, with NPC allies, story events and human reinforcements that join mid-mission. Some allies have must-survive conditions.
Dungeon — Eternal Abyss
A deep 1–3 player roguelite. It has its own page.
Boss Raid
Bosses with custom stats, traits and mid-fight story events. Requires a Raid Entry Ticket. Some boss traits punish specific actions.
Survival
Solo last-stand with Classic and Qualifier variants. Escalating waves, HP carries over between them, and milestone rewards pay once.
Vanguard
A squad mode used for both PvP and PvE: pick a role and field an army built from templates. It is also the engine behind region liberation.
Faction Contracts
Missions issued by the 8 guilds. Completing one grants Oil, XP and reputation, and may cost you standing with a rival.

The world

Hunt
!hunt
Farm a region's enemies for Oil, XP and that region's signature material. 210 named enemies across ten regions, all scaling to your level.
Travel
!travel
Move between regions. Regions can be upgraded and may charge entry taxes.
Region Liberation
!liberate
A corrupted region loses its drops, its enemies get stronger and gain a Corrupted tag, and its upgrades freeze. Free it by winning a staged Vanguard PvE liberation.
Castle Siege
A large-scale castle defense across an 8-zone, 3-lane castle, with phases from announcement to result. Hold zones to keep enemies from the Throne Room. Objectives: Intercept, Supply, Rescue, Sabotage. Pays War Oil.
War
Multi-team warfare across 5 sectors — North, Center (the most contested), South, Vanguard and Rearguard. Winning a sector grants rewards and an edge in the next.
Territory
A persistent control layer. Clans and players hold territory for passive combat bonuses in the zones they hold.

Vanguard — the siege battle

Vanguard is the deepest team mode: a siege-style battle where two teams of 4–10 fight through phases to reach and kill the enemy Commander. It is the only mode where your position matters as much as your build — and it is the same engine that powers region liberation against NPC armies.

Teams are auto-balanced by total power, then each side assigns three roles. How many of each depends on team size:

Team sizeFrontRearCommander
4211
5311
6321
7421
8521
9621
10721

The three roles

RoleWhat they do
FrontThe line that fights first. Everyone not a Rear or Commander is Front.
Rear GuardHeld back until the front breaks. Enters with +15% STR and +10% CON — fresh reinforcements, not fodder.
CommanderOne per team, and the target. Protected until the very end, then enters with +50% HP, +25% STR, +20% CON if never touched. The team whose Commander dies loses.

The phase cycle

Each cycle runs the attack through the enemy formation in order:

PhaseThe fight
Phase 1Front line versus front line, everyone at once.
Phase 2The survivors push into the enemy Rear Guard, who are now buffed.
Phase 2BIf that push is repelled, Rear fights Rear directly.
Phase 3Whoever is left reaches the defending Commander.

If the Commander survives Phase 3, a new cycle begins: every player resets to full HP, but the Commander keeps its current HP — it is never healed back up. Chip it down across cycles and it stays down.

Two mechanics keep it from stalling. Wear: if a Commander takes zero damage in a cycle, it loses 10% of its max HP anyway — you cannot turtle forever. Sudden Death: if no Commander has fallen by the sixth cycle, both Commanders and their Rears fight directly to the death, no more cycles.

Commanding from the front

A Commander does not have to wait. They can Rush — enter the fight early — but a Mobilized Commander gets smaller bonuses (+40% HP, +15% STR, +10% CON) than one who stayed intact, and after rushing they must hold for 2 rounds before they can Withdraw. Once you commit the Commander, you commit.

Vanguard rewards reading the board, not just hitting hardest. Who you put Front decides who absorbs Phase 1; a strong Rear turns a lost front into a counter-punch; and a Commander pushed too early — or held too timidly into Sudden Death — loses games a better team should win.

Events and drops

Timed events drop rewards into a channel; you usually claim by clicking. Loot / Tag / Triad / Escort Drops are tied to specific modes, some with a Doppel twist. Blind Drop hides the reward. Traitor Drop adds a betrayal mechanic. Airdrops are promo-code drops with atomic first-come claims. The Roulette is a 2,000 OIL spin for withdrawable prizes, tokens and chaos gear.

The Marked Hunt

A random player gets marked and must face an NPC encounter. It triggers under conditions Max sets.

The Guardians Compendium. A Discord RPG built and run by Max. Every formula, item, region, quest and line of prose here was read out of the live bot. Reward amounts, drop rates, daily caps, prices and which panels are up are set by Max on the server the bot lives in.
Contact: questions, feedback, or proposals → contact@guardiansrpg.com.