On the main screen there is an option that reads "[?] Help". You are probably going to be tempted to select "New Game". Select Help first. You will be presented with a menu of small guides. Read them. All of them. The information contained within is super important to understanding what the hell is going on in-game. The most important one is "Ten Things You Should Do When You Start To Play", the main points of which I will summarize here:

- If you are playing with a keyboard that does not have a numpad, press "Esc", then "k" to pull up the keymapping menu. "F2" will switch you to an alternate keyset. But seriously, play with a numpad. Get a USB one if you have to, they are cheap and so, so much better.
- Pressing "m" will bring up your the Manage Abilities menu. If you have any mutations, special powers, or other activatable abilities, you will be able to view them here. To bind an ability to a key, highlight said ability, press "Enter", and then press the key you wish to bind it to.
- There are several pages of various character information, that are bound to different keys. You only really need to memorize "i" for Inventory though, as pressing "7" or "9" on your numpad will cycle back and forth through the various character pages.
- Push "l" to look at things. This is super important. Look at everything. Don't recognize something? "L"ook at it. It can even tell you how much of a threat a given enemy poses to you. The "l" key is your friend.
- The spacebar is context sensitive, and is used for everything from opening doors, to talking, to picking up items.
- Pressing "Alt" puts an overlay on top of the map, highlighting stairs, enemies, friendly creatures, items, and chests. Usefull for finding things at a quick glance.
- "*" cycles through various sidebar options, and "/" removes it completely. The default sidebar is probably the best, however.
- "<" and ">" let you go up and down stairs repectively, as does "-" and "+" on the numpad. "`" lets you rest until you have fully healed. Best to do this somewhere safe, although you will stop resting if a hostile creature comes into view. Not listed in the guide but belongs here is that "5" on the number pad lets you wait one turn, which can be useful.
- Learn how weapons and armor work. Weapons have two values: Penetration, and Damage. Penetration is depicted as and arrow followed by a number, and damage is a heart followed by a dice value, such as 1d4 (a four sided dice roll) or 2d6 (2 rolls of a six sided die). Armor has an Armor Value and a Dodge Value. Armor reduces damage from getting hit, Dodge makes it harder for you to be hit. As with most games, the most important thing to know is that higher numbers are always better.
- Tam is the general merchant in Joppa, the starting town. He's going to be your buddy for most of the game, selling you waterskins, gear, food, and healing supplies. Find him, use him.

The other sections are also important to read, but that should be enough to get you started with.

Caves of Qud is an incredibly huge, open world. You can, from the start of the game, die on your way to any location in the game world. Because it is so big, I've read a number of complaints that it is very easy to get lost walking out of the starting village. Thankfully, the game actually has two separate map modes.

Most of the game takes place on the local map, in which you wander around a single area that contains buildings, items, and creatures. Moving over the edge of this map will take you to the next local map tile, allowing you to walk across the whole of Qud in the local view. You are not limited to this mode, however! Pressing "<" or "-" on the local map, while not standing on a staircase or in view of a hostile creature will send you to the overworld map, in which each local map represents a single map square, and you move an entire square at the press of a single key. Pressing ">" or "+" will bring to the local map for the square you are currently standing in.

Qud's UI does a good job of giving you a lot of information in a compact space, but it's not necessarily clear what a particular statistic means unless you go looking in the Help section of the game. (Which you should do, because it's going to do a better job of explaining this than me.)

Given that most players would probably rather play the game than read a lot of stuff about it, I'm going to summarize what each stat is telling you about your special snowflake of a mutant abomination. As always, bigger numbers are better.

- Strength helps you deal more damage with melee weapons, and make it more likely to penetrate the armor of tougher enemies. It also makes it harder creatures to move you from the space you are in and helps you carry more loot.
- Agility makes it easier to hit things with all weapons and makes you harder to hit.
- Toughness increases your HP, affects how fast it regenerates, and determines how well you resist poison and disease.
- Intelligence determines how many skill points you gain on level-ups and improves your chances of figuring out what an artifact actually is.
- Willpower improves the cool-down rate of mental powers, affects your HP regeneration, and helps you resist mental attacks.
- Ego makes your mental abilities more powerful, improves merchant disposition, and helps you DOMINATE LESSER MINDS.

In addition to your main stats, you also have some derived stats, that are determined by a combination of gear, primary statistics, skills, and mutations.

- Armor Value (AV) reduces the damage you take from physical attacks.
- Dodge Value (DV) is used to determine whether an attack actually hits you.
- Mental Armor (MA) is AV for your brain, and reduces the damage taken from mental attacks.
- Quickness (QN) is a measurement of how quickly you do things, like pick up items or use objects or attack, etc. Base speed is 100 time units, which is equivalent to one turn.
- Movement Speed (MS) is how quickly you walk or fly one space. Base is 100 time units, again, one turn.
- Temperature (T) is, surprise, how hot or cold you are. Being too cold makes you slower, while being too hot SETS YOU ON FIRE.

There are also four elemental resistances, getting your resistance to 100 in an element makes you immune to it. Cold and Heat are especially interesting for this, as full Cold resistance make it so your temperature cannot lower. Which can be inconvenient if you are not also Heat resistant. (I'M ON FIRE AND I WON'T GO OUT)

So what do you do first when you start an RPG? You find the guy in charge and ask for a job. You want that sweet, sweet Quest XP and Rewards right? In this case, our buddy is Village Elder Irudad. When asked if there is anything that needs doing, he will direct you to the Watervine Farmer, Mehmet. Now, assuming Warden Ualraig hasn't decided that Mehmet needs to die for some reason, he will ask you to go to Red Rock and murder a bunch of Watervine destroying spider-things.

This Is A Trap.

If you go straight to Red Rock from the starting town, thinking this is the general newbie quest to ease you into the game, you will die very, very quickly. Red Rock is capable of spawning things that will straight up murder even a character that has a few levels under his/her belt.

The real newbie quest is in the Southwestern corner of Joppa. Argyve is the local artifact tinker, and he has a number of quests for you. The first one is to bring him an artifact. Any artifact will do. If you are a True Kin, you most likely started with one that you aren't going to miss. If you don't have one, he will direct you to the Rust Wells. This is also a trap, but you don't necessarily need to go there to find artifacts. Our Friendly Dromad Merchant Tam probably has one you can buy, you just need the funds to buy one. But keep the Wells in mind for later exploration.

So, how do we get the funds to buy said artifact?

Murder. Lots and lots of murder. Pressing "<" will bring you to the overworld map. Move one space away from Joppa in any direction, then press ">" to enter the local map. Now wander the area killing everything you can find, looting equipment and chests. This serves two purposes:
- You get experience from the killing spree, making you tougher.
- You get to hoover up a pile of loot, that you can take back to Tam and trade for better equipment, water, consumables, trade goods that weigh less than water (IMPORTANT) and maybe that snazzy artifact we're shooting for.
Just don't forget to "l"ook at enemies before you wade in to combat. If the game tells you it's "Impossible" to defeat, this is not a challenge. Run.

After a few trips you should have completed at least a few of Argyve's quests, gained some levels, and put together enough equipment to where it should be safe to start exploring Red Rock.

But Rick, you say, my horribly mutated psychic fish-man won't survive long enough in the wild at level one to find enough loot to buy an artifact! How can I possibly complete any of these quests!?

Fret not. There is an easier way to find an artifact for Argyve, for those of loose morals and shady of character. Four of the houses in Joppa contain chests, and each chest contains random loot. Any one of these has pretty good chance to have some sort of artifact in it. Make sure you close the door behind you first ("space" next to the door, if you've forgotten), the villagers don't appreciate acts of theft.

One of the chests is in Tam's house, but apparently he's perfectly fine with you stealing his belongings. He's obviously worked with Player Characters before.

Don't try it with Argyve though. He really doesn't like it.