Esoteric Ebb Walkthrough & Beginner’s Guide: How the Dice Checks, Chimes & Spells Actually Work, a Spoiler-Light Map of the Four Days, the Sphinx’s Riddle Solved — and Who Blew Up the Tea Shop, Behind a Spoiler Wall

How this guide is built: Esoteric Ebb is a dialogue-driven CRPG with branching quests, dozens of skill checks per scene, and almost no single “correct” path. A click-by-click walkthrough would be both impossible and harmful here — it spoils the discovery the game is built on, and it would be wrong for most readers’ characters anyway, since two clerics resolve the same scene in completely different ways. So this is not a step list. It is a guide to the systems — the six attributes, the dice, the Chimes and the Questing Tree, spells, rest and Feats — that run underneath every conversation, plus a spoiler-light map of the four days, a clean walkthrough of the one puzzle everyone gets stuck on (the Sphinx’s riddle), and the full solution to the mystery behind a clearly marked spoiler wall. Everything here is written in our own words and cross-checked against the official Steam page (app 2057760), in-game screens, and several community guides. Where sources genuinely disagree, we say so rather than pretend there’s one tidy answer.

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What is Esoteric Ebb?#

Esoteric Ebb is a single-player, isometric, story-driven CRPG by Swedish developer Christoffer Bodegård, published by Raw Fury. It launched on 3 March 2026 for Windows on Steam (priced at $24.99, with a launch discount; there is no native Mac, Linux, or console version at the time of writing, though it runs on Steam Deck through Proton). A main run lasts roughly 25 hours, and a completionist run can stretch past 50. It is openly modelled on Disco Elysium — dialogue over combat, your own mind talking back at you — but it builds that on a recognisably tabletop D&D-style chassis: six attributes, a d20, difficulty classes, spell slots and cantrips, exhaustion, a proficiency bonus, and a hard level cap of 6.

You play The Cleric — an expert in “esoteric events” and a glorified government goon — investigating who blew up a tea shop in the district of Tolstad. The wrinkle is that you were killed in the blast and brought back, so you wake up in a crypt full of corpses with a case that is also, quietly, your own murder. Your companion through most of it is a fast-talking goblin sidekick, Snell. Around the investigation swirl elections, rival factions, a dragon, a drunk sphinx, an underground city, and several gods who are not as dead as the city believes.

The one expectation to drop on the way in: this is not a combat RPG. Fights are rare and you can talk, charm or sneak past most of them. What you actually do is talk — to people, to objects, and to the cluster of opinions inside your own head — and then roll dice on the outcome. Treat it as an interactive novel with character sheets, not a dungeon crawl.

The one mental shift to make before you start#

Players arriving from other RPGs trip on the same instinct: hunting for the optimal build and the right answer. There isn’t one, and chasing it is the surest way to a worse time. Three ideas will save you grief:

• It’s a “choose your own adventure with rolls,” not a tactics game. Combat, when it happens, resolves like a tense dialogue with dice attached. Your stats exist mostly to open and close conversational doors. Build for the kind of cleric you want to be, not for damage.
• Failure is content, not a dead end. A failed check usually branches the scene rather than blocking it — sometimes into something funnier or more revealing than success. The story keeps moving even when the dice don’t love you, so you rarely need to reload.
• You cannot see everything in one run, and that’s by design. The quests fork by build and by faction. Commit to a character, follow what they’d care about, and let the rest seed a second playthrough.

Character creation: the six attributes#

At the start you spend a 27-point buy across the six classic attributes, pick a few proficiencies (skills you’re especially good at, adding your proficiency bonus to those checks), and choose a Background Focus that nudges two stats (the screenshot’s Acolyte gives +2/+1). If that sounds intimidating, hit Pre-Built and take a ready-made archetype — the popular “Scholar Cleric” is a clean first run — or Randomize and roleplay whatever you get. Each attribute also carries a short Lore / Uses / Role card written from the Cleric’s own peculiar worldview, which is worth reading once for tone.

Attribute	What it does in conversation
Strength	Forcing, breaking, intimidating, hauling. Flips the right table to find a hidden corpse; pries open valves and caskets.
Dexterity	Climbing, sleight of hand, pickpocketing, dodging traps. Genuinely useful for theft — but notoriously the stat that fails climbing checks, so don’t over-rely on it.
Constitution	Toughness and nerve — staring something down, enduring pain, holding a line. Also your raw survivability.
Intelligence	Deduction, lore, reading hidden text. High INT triggers passive insights and lowers how many spells you must pre-prepare. The first-run favourite.
Wisdom	Perception, faith and instinct — the core cleric stat. Spots clues in debris, unlocks druidic and divine paths, and powers several spells.
Charisma	Persuasion, charm, deceit. Recruits companions, flips factions against each other, and talks monsters out of eating you.

You do not need a perfect spread. A few sane first builds: an Intelligence cleric (the easiest first run — passive checks quietly reveal logic flaws, hidden writing and environmental clues so you miss less); a Wisdom cleric (thematically central, strong on perception and the druid/divine quest lines); or a Charisma cleric (a social manipulator who steers every faction). The genuinely weak first-run dump stat is Dexterity — precision and climbing checks fail often, and you can usually route around them with a spell. As in Disco Elysium, a lopsided character is often more fun than a balanced one.

Chimes, the Questing Tree, and “Take Root”#

Three intertwined systems track the kind of cleric you’re turning into. They’re the heart of the roleplay, so it’s worth knowing how they fit:

• Chimes are the voices of your stats — the Disco Elysium-style inner commentary that pipes up in dialogue. Leaning into a temperament (Druid, Rogue, Cleric, and so on) racks up that Chime and colours how scenes read and which options appear.
• The Questing Tree is your map of the investigation: a radial web of quests, branching into minor and major branches, showing how threads connect. It’s also where the political axes live — Nationalist, Freestrider, Arcanist and Apolitical — which swing as you side with factions.
• Take Root is the moment a big decision crystallises into a permanent Feat (more on Feats below).

The single most useful faction tip: stay Apolitical as long as you comfortably can. Committing to Nationalists or Freestriders early slams doors on the other side; holding your alignment open keeps the most quests and dialogue available, and you can still pick a side when you actually understand the stakes. There’s no penalty for being a noncommittal civil servant for a few days.

How a check actually works#

Almost everything resolves through a check, so this is the system to internalise. The game rolls one twenty-sided die, adds your relevant attribute modifier (and proficiency, if you’re proficient), plus any situational bonuses, and compares the total to a hidden Difficulty Class (DC). Checks are labelled by band — roughly Effortless, Moderate, Challenging, Daunting — so you can read the risk before committing. A few things every cleric should know:

• Most failed checks can be retried. Story-gating checks usually let you come back after something changes — you level a stat, find a clue, equip the right item, or simply burn a retry token. Those tokens are the Shards of Jor (some guides call them Stones of Jor): spend one to re-roll a failed check. They’re common enough that hoarding them gives little benefit — use them on checks you actually care about.
• Buffs and penalties are large. Bless adds a +1d4 to a roll; being exhausted adds +6 to the DC, which can turn a sure thing into a coin-flip. Resting before an important check is often worth more than any stat point.
• Equip first, then talk. Items grant attribute bonuses, and some unlock dialogue only while worn. Before a tough check, open your inventory and dress for the stat you need — an ugly stat-stacked loadout is perfectly fine.
• High stats give you passive checks for free. A high Intelligence or Wisdom will silently surface observations, hidden text and shortcuts without a roll — which is the real argument for an INT/WIS first build: you simply see more.

Two practical rules round it out. Save before any consequential conversation — you can’t load mid-dialogue, but you can quit to the menu and reload from there. And don’t pre-spend points to force one door; attempt the check first, since you can usually come back.

Spells: cantrips and slots#

As a cleric you cast spells, and they map cleanly onto tabletop logic. Cantrips are free and reusable; levelled spells consume spell slots that only refill on a Long Rest. You generally prepare spells at a shrine before you can cast them, though a high Intelligence cuts down how much preparation you need to juggle. You will not, and should not, collect every spell — there’s no mechanical need for a complete set, so grab the ones your build and curiosity want. A handful are worth knowing about:

Spell	Why it matters
Cure Wounds	Your innate heal — you start with it. Your main answer to lost HP outside of rest.
Speak with Dead	The investigation’s keystone, earned via the Crypt Keeper quest. It lets you interrogate the tea-shop victim directly — the case pivots on it.
Druidcraft & Thaumaturgy	Two cantrips that, with a light source, solve the Sphinx’s riddle (see below). Druidcraft comes from the elf druid Nessa via a Wisdom check; Thaumaturgy from a Strength check at the crypt.
Comprehend Languages	Reads ancient tomes and inscriptions — which in turn unlock more spells (such as Mage Hand) and lore gates.
Detect Secrets	From a dwarf’s quest in the underground labyrinth. Reveals hidden doors — one of several ways into the deepest areas.

Rest, exhaustion, and staying alive#

Resting is a real resource, not a formality. A Short Rest can be taken in the field and clears one level of Exhaustion; a Long Rest needs a shrine (or your bed) and fully restores Hit Points and spell slots. Push on without resting and Exhaustion stacks — each level worsens your rolls (remember that +6-to-DC penalty above) and chips at your maximum HP, so a tired cleric spirals fast. A good habit borrowed from the community: don’t take on more than a couple of hard encounters between rests. Note also that staying up late to skip sleep carries its own penalties, so the “just one more quest at 2 a.m.” plan tends to backfire.

Feats: how big choices become permanent#

Completing a major quest or winning a long debate lets you Take Root — choosing a Feat, a permanent perk that reflects how you resolved it. By one community count there are around 52 Feats across 16 major quests, and some are powerful: the much-cited Voice of God, for instance, secretly rolls a second hidden d20 on every check, and matching results critically succeed. Two things to keep in mind:

• The choice is sticky. Once you pick a Feat to close out a debate, you can’t swap it without reloading an earlier save. If a quest offers a Feat menu you care about, save first and read all the options.
• Debates are also your best XP. Finishing these set-piece arguments grants chunky experience — and with a level cap of 6 and no guarantee you’ll even hit it, every debate matters more than random encounters do.

Combat, when it happens#

Combat is turn-based and dice-driven, but it’s the exception, not the spine of the game, and it usually rewards cleverness over brute force:

• You can talk your way out of a lot of it. Big “bosses” like Kraaid the sewer crocodile can be defused with a Charisma/Charm check instead of a brawl. When a fight starts, glance at your non-violent options first.
• Target weak points. Many enemies have an exploitable spot — a Roper’s eye, a frost troll’s knee — that the dialogue flags. Hitting the weakness is far more reliable than trading blows.
• Lead with reflexive spells. Spells you can cast on reflex (without a long prep) are gold in ambushes; keep one ready if you expect trouble.
• Rest before, not after. Going into a fight exhausted is how clerics die. See the rest section above.

Companions#

You can pick up several companions, each gated behind a check or a quest:

• Snell — the goblin you’ll meet early in Tolstad. Your default partner and comic foil for most of the game.
• Meek — a mimic recruited with a Charisma check. Joins as a familiar (and doubles as a cloak), which is as charming as it sounds.
• Ettir — an angelic figure unlocked through the Valkyrie quest, requiring a Strength check and some persistence in dialogue.

One quiet trap: a handful of deep conversations only trigger if you arrive without a companion — the Sphinx’s riddle is the famous example, where bringing Snell prevents the key dialogue. When a scene feels like it should go further and won’t, try dropping your party and returning solo.

Getting around Tolstad#

Tolstad is large, layered and deliberately disorienting, and the game gives you no traditional minimap. Two tools replace it, and getting comfortable with them early is the difference between exploring and wandering:

• Highlight everything. Hold TAB or the right mouse button (Left Trigger on a controller) to light up doors, exits, items and passages. If you’re on a gamepad and can’t find an interaction point, temporarily switching to mouse genuinely helps.
• The Journal is your map. It records discovered doors, exits and connections — the closest thing to a map you’ll get — while the Behold ability scans a scene for hidden shortcuts and landmarks.
• Fast travel comes late. A modest fast-travel network (between the Pillars) opens once you’ve explored enough and pass a high Intelligence check, so the early days are on foot. The upside: tough areas usually open a convenient shortcut back once you’ve pushed through them the first time.

The four days, spoiler-light#

The case runs across four in-game days. Here is the shape of it with no real spoilers — just enough to orient you:

Day	Roughly what it’s about (no spoilers)
Day 1	Wake in the crypt, prepare spells, and explore Tolstad — the Goblin Garden, the Temple of Urth, Waterlane. Meet the factions, start the tea-shop case, recruit Snell, and report to the magistrate Darrow.
Day 2	The tea-shop investigation deepens (and reveals a body). Lady Sageleaf shows her true form; faction tensions sharpen; and the Crypt Keeper quest earns you Speak with Dead, which changes everything.
Day 3	Interrogate the victim with Speak with Dead; descend into the City Below and the sewers; solve the Sphinx’s riddle; pick up more companions. Leads branch hard.
Day 4	The deep areas — the Roots, the Undercoast, the Old Prison. The conspiracy converges, the killer is named, and the case ends at a point of no return. (Details behind the spoiler wall.)

Your first hour, spoiler-light#

The opening can feel like a lot. A clean, low-spoiler way to begin:

1. Save the moment you gain control, and keep several rolling save slots — both as insurance against a one-shot choice and so you can revisit forks later.
2. Prepare your spells at the shrine. Cure Wounds plus one defensive option is a fine starting loadout; you’ll swap as you learn more.
3. Clear the crypt’s optional fight if you like — it’s easy experience — then head up and out into Tolstad.
4. Hold the highlight key constantly while you learn the streets, and open the Journal whenever you’re unsure where a door leads.
5. Talk to everyone and start every quest you trip over. The Questing Tree thrives on loose threads; you don’t have to finish them in order.
6. Stay Apolitical for now. Gather faction context before you commit to anyone.

The Sphinx’s riddle (the puzzle everyone searches)#

The drunk Sphinx in Tolstad poses the game’s most-searched puzzle, and its reward — the Deck of Many Things — is worth the trouble. There are two parts:

• The first riddle’s answer is “wine.” If your Intelligence is high enough, the game more or less hands you this one via a passive check.
• The second riddle is solved with cantrips, not words. Its text gestures at three forces — arcane, primal and divine — and you answer by casting a cantrip for each: a light/arcane cantrip, Druidcraft (primal), and Thaumaturgy (divine), then stepping into the void it opens, veering right when forced, and picking up the object on the ground.

An honest caveat, because the sources disagree. Guides differ on the exact arcane cantrip: the dedicated Steam riddle guide has you cast Dancing Light on the two braziers behind the Sphinx, while several day-by-day walkthroughs list Mage Hand as the third cantrip alongside Druidcraft and Thaumaturgy — and some players report only two cantrips (Dancing Light plus Druidcraft) are strictly required. If one combination doesn’t fire, you have all three cantrips prepared anyway, so try the others before assuming a bug. Two universal rules hold across every account: arrive in the morning, and go alone — bringing Snell suppresses the deep dialogue.

Then save before you draw. The Deck of Many Things deals random outcomes ranging from huge boons to a genuinely ruined run. Make a manual save the instant you have it, and again before every card you pull. This is the one place a careless click can wreck a playthrough.

Habits that make the whole game smoother#

• Talk to everyone, then circle back. New knowledge constantly reopens old dialogue, so revisiting people you’ve already met is one of the most productive things you can do.
• Consume, don’t hoard. You can’t sell items, so there’s little reason to save consumables — and Shards of Jor pile up faster than you’ll spend them. Use your resources on the checks that matter.
• Re-equip for the moment. Even a Bucket is +2 Strength. Keep your odd stat-stick items and swap before big checks.
• Don’t reload every failure. The game is frequently better when you fail. Let some rolls ride and see where the branch goes.
• When stuck, read the Journal and re-walk the map. The answer is almost always a person you haven’t pressed or a check you can now beat.
• Skim, don’t drown in, the lore. There’s a lot of optional world-building with little bearing on your quests; there’s no punishment for skipping the deep cuts on a first run.

The victim. The corpse you find behind the tea shop is an elf, and once you have Speak with Dead you learn her name: Pinja’Athena. She wasn’t a bystander — she was tied to the explosion and to the people who orchestrated it. Interrogating her ghost is the thread that unravels the rest.

Who killed you. Remember that the case is also your own murder: you died in the blast and were resurrected to investigate it. In the Old Prison on Day 4 you confront the assassin who physically did it — Freydis Darrow, daughter of the magistrate’s line you’ve been reporting to. She killed you on someone else’s orders. She was the hand, not the head.

The conspiracy. Two deeper figures sit above her. Deep in the pipes lives an old, half-forgotten god — Ever-Glad, “Him in the Pipes” — who designed the resurrection ritual at the centre of the plot and wanted you removed so you couldn’t interfere. And at the very top, at Jor’s Crossroad, you finally meet the mastermind: Lord Gorm, the missing paladin. Gorm engineered the explosion (importing necklaces of fireballs to do it), had you and the elf killed, and is collecting 27 Urthfolk souls to resurrect the dead god Jor. The plot braids together the magistrates and the Freestriders, elven spell-components, and a rigged election — the political factions you’ve been weighing all game turn out to be threads of the same scheme. The kindly cobbler Knut you meet near the end is the god Urth in disguise.

The ending. Jor’s Crossroad is the point of no return — summon your companions at the shrine before you cross. After the confrontation with Gorm and Urth, the game closes on the thing the whole district has been building toward: an election. You cast your vote at the ballot box, and the precise shape of the ending — which faction prevails, what becomes of the gods, and what your cleric stands for — is the sum of the choices and Feats you took root in along the way. As with its inspiration, there is no single “good ending” to chase, only the one your cleric earned.

Honest verdict#

Esoteric Ebb wears its Disco Elysium influence openly, but it isn’t a clone: it grafts that game’s talky, failure-friendly soul onto an honest tabletop skeleton, and the result is its own thing — lighter and funnier in places, more of a proper dungeon-and-faction adventure, but just as happy to let a bad roll spin out a better story. It is not for players who want combat, clear objectives or a power fantasy; the map-less sprawl and the wall of dialogue will frustrate them. But if you take it on its own terms — a strange, generous, hand-painted RPG you partly write — it’s one of the most distinctive games of its year, and a strong candidate for a second run with a completely different cleric.

The best advice is the same advice veterans give for its inspiration: don’t optimise, inhabit. Pick a cleric, stay curious, fail bravely, talk to everyone, rest before the hard checks, and let Tolstad get under your skin. The systems in this guide are just the floor.

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Facts cross-checked against the official Steam store page (app 2057760) and in-game screens. All screenshots are official Raw Fury / Christoffer Bodegård promotional images, reproduced here for commentary and identification. Where community guides disagreed (notably on the Sphinx’s cantrips), the disagreement is noted rather than resolved by guesswork. Written independently; not affiliated with or endorsed by Raw Fury or the developer.