Dimraeth ally facilities are the service hubs each companion runs inside Earlwood Village, and upgrading them is the single fastest way to turn friendly NPCs into a full economic engine. Every facility — from Befr's traveling caravan to Tamsin's banner-loom — scales with the same underlying Friendship Tier system, so a single relationship grind powers your shop inventory, crafting options, and even your romance arcs at the same time. According to the Mudtek developer site, five core allies ship with Early Access, and each one controls a unique facility that branches into deeper perks the further you push the relationship. This guide maps every tier, every shop upgrade, and every romance milestone so you never waste a single gift on the wrong ally.
What Counts as an Ally Facility in Dimraeth
An ally facility is any service building — shop, crafting station, lounge, or quest hub — that is locked behind a companion's friendship tier. Unlike generic village structures (storage sheds, decoration plots, defenses), every facility has a named owner, a personal quest chain, and a tiered upgrade tree that visibly changes the interior layout as it levels up. The five Early Access facilities all live in Earlwood Village, and each one feeds into a different pillar of your mid-game power curve.
Earlwood Service Shops and Their Operators
| Facility | Owner | Race / Role | Core Service | Earliest Unlock |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caravan Market | Befr | Human traveling merchant | Buy/sell rotating stock | Story Chapter 1 |
| Forge Hall | Manga | Minotaur blacksmith | Weapon crafting & repairs | Befr Trust 1 |
| Guild Hall Desk | Eldorian | Wood-Elf adventurer | Quest board & lore | Story Chapter 1 |
| Banner Loom | Tamsin | Human enchanter | Banner crafting & buffs | Befr Trust 1 |
| Glade Retreat | Myrll | Forest exile (deer/fox hybrid) | Rest bonus & alchemy | Story Chapter 2 |
Befr and Eldorian are the only two allies you can interact with on day one — the rest unlock through Befr's introductory personal quest, which makes her the de facto gateway for the entire ally facility progression tree.
Why Facility Tiers Matter More Than Raw Level
A common rookie mistake is grinding the level cap (25 at Early Access launch, per the Dimraeth Steam page) and expecting vendor inventory to grow on its own. It won't. Vendor stock, crafting recipes, and rest bonuses are all hard-gated to Friendship Tier, which advances only through gifts, personal quests, and dialogue choices. This is why pairing the facility grind with the Dimraeth beginner guide pacing pays off: every chapter naturally surfaces a gift opportunity and a personal-quest trigger, so you never have to detour into a backtracking loop.
The Friendship Tier System Explained
The Friendship Tier system is the shared progression backbone underneath every Dimraeth ally facility. All five companions track relationship points on the same 0–10 scale, and every facility upgrade you see — a new shelf behind Befr's counter, a second anvil at Manga's forge, a private room in Tamsin's loft — fires at a fixed tier threshold.
Tier Thresholds and What They Unlock
| Tier | Name | Trust Points Needed | Facility Effect | Romance Flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Stranger | 0 | Default interior, basic stock | None |
| 1 | Acquaintance | 250 | Service unlocked | None |
| 2 | Companion | 750 | Inventory expansion (+6 slots) | First flirty line |
| 3 | Confidant | 1,500 | Tier-2 craft recipes | Side-quest arc starts |
| 4 | Ally | 3,000 | Personal quest line | Optional: commit route |
| 5 | Devoted | 5,000 | Facility expansion (new room) | Romance-locked dialogue |
| 6–10 | Bonded (6=Sworn, 7=Kindred, 8=Champion, 9=Soulbound, 10=Eternal) | 7,500 / 10,500 / 14,000 / 18,000 / 22,500 | Master services, cosmetics, romance resolution | Romance resolves at 6 if committed |
Every tier also bumps the Shop Refresh Quality by one notch, which controls the chance of rare-stock rolls. Community data from the Mudtek Discord suggests a +2% per tier improvement on rare drops, but the exact number is still being tuned in Early Access patches.
How Trust Points Are Earned
There are exactly three confirmed Trust sources, and stacking all three is the only realistic way to hit Tier 6 before the level cap blocks you. According to community testing, a typical run from Tier 0 to Tier 6 takes roughly 8–10 hours of focused play per ally if you combine all three sources from Chapter 1 onward.
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Gifts — Each companion has a three-tag preference system (e.g. Manga likes weapons, ores, and trophies; Tamsin likes cloth, ink, and magical reagents). A perfect-tag gift yields 100 Trust, a two-tag match yields 60, a one-tag match yields 30, and a generic gift yields 10.
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Personal Quests — Every ally has a four-stage quest chain (Introduction → Crisis → Revelation → Resolution), and each completed stage awards 400 Trust plus a one-time facility upgrade key.
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Dialogue Choices — Specific conversation branches award 50–150 Trust. Picking the "right" answer is intuitive, but a few flags only trigger if you visited a side zone in the previous chapter.
The Shop Upgrade Path for Every Ally
Once you understand the Trust curve, the ally shop upgrade tree becomes a checklist rather than a mystery. Each facility has a four-stage interior expansion, and you can preview every upgrade from the owner's dialogue wheel before committing the Trust.
Per-Facility Upgrade Stages
| Facility | Tier 2 Unlock | Tier 4 Unlock | Tier 5 Unlock | Tier 6 Unlock |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caravan Market (Befr) | +6 general goods slots | Rare import shelf (epic trinkets) | Back-room vault (legendary stock, weekly refresh) | Caravan travel discount 25% |
| Forge Hall (Manga) | Second anvil, +3 craft slots | Elemental forge recipes | Minotaur great-weapon line | Repair cost reduced 50% |
| Guild Hall Desk (Eldorian) | +3 daily quest slots | Lore archive room | Hidden bounty board | Free fast-travel to all discovered zones |
| Banner Loom (Tamsin) | +4 banner recipes | Elemental infusion station | Personal banner cosmetic line | Banner duration +50% |
| Glade Retreat (Myrll) | Alchemy station | Rest bonus tier 2 | Garden plot for reagent farming | Permanent passive regen aura |
The Tier 6 unlocks are the ones that actually break the late-game economy. Befr's back-room vault, for example, is the only place to buy legendary crafting materials outside of lucky world drops, and Eldorian's hidden bounty board at Tier 6 routinely offers 1,000+ gold quests that are tuned for solo players.
Gift Tag Cheat Sheet
| Ally | Favorite Tags | Neutral Tags | Avoid (no bonus) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Befr | Trade goods, Maps, Curios | Food, Cloth | Weapons, Ores |
| Manga | Weapons, Ores, Trophies | Trade goods, Trophies | Cloth, Ink |
| Eldorian | Books, Maps, Curios | Food, Reagents | Weapons, Cloth |
| Tamsin | Cloth, Ink, Reagents | Maps, Curios | Ores, Trophies |
| Myrll | Food, Reagents, Curios | Cloth, Maps | Weapons, Ores |
Stashing two of each ally's favorite tags in a personal storage chest from Chapter 1 — a tip that pairs well with the Dimraeth furniture guide approach to early base layout — saves a huge amount of backtracking once the facility tree opens up.
Romance Options and How to Lock Them In
The Dimraeth romance options sit on top of the Friendship Tier curve rather than running on a separate meter. Every companion has exactly one committed romance path, and you can only lock it in between Tier 4 and Tier 6 by accepting a specific dialogue flag called the Heart Prompt. Missing that flag pushes the relationship into a deep platonic bond instead, which still grants the Tier 6 facility perk but locks out the romance resolution scene.
How to Lock a Romance Route
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Reach Tier 4 on your chosen companion before the end of Act 2. The official Dimraeth website confirms the level cap raises with each new act, so the Tier 4 window lines up neatly with the cap-25 phase of Early Access.
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Trigger the Heart Prompt by selecting the soft-confession dialogue option during the companion's Revelation-stage personal quest. This is the line that says "There's something I haven't told you about why I came to Earlwood."
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Accept the Heart Prompt in the same dialogue tree. The companion will respond with a unique portrait expression, and the romance flag is now committed in your save file.
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Reach Tier 6 by the end of Act 3 to trigger the romance resolution scene. If you hit Tier 6 without accepting the Heart Prompt, the flag auto-resolves to platonic and is permanent for that playthrough.
Romance vs. Platonic Outcomes
| Outcome | Facility Perk | Cosmetic Reward | Scene |
|---|---|---|---|
| Committed Romance (Tier 6) | Full Tier 6 unlock | Companion-specific keepsake + private quarters | Romance resolution cutscene |
| Deep Platonic (Tier 6, no Heart Prompt) | Full Tier 6 unlock | Companion-specific keepsake | Friendship resolution scene |
| Confidant (Tier 3) | Standard service | None | Standard thank-you |
| Confidant who never triggered Romance quest | Standard service | None | None |
Community testing on the Early Access beta branch reports that romance scenes average 4–6 minutes of voiced dialogue, while platonic resolutions cap at 90 seconds. The romance route is purely cosmetic in terms of mechanical power, but it does gate the Companion-Specific Keepsake, which is a one-of-a-kind charm that grants a small passive (e.g. Befr's charm adds 3% sell price to all caravan trades).
Building an Efficient Ally Progression Route
Because the Trust curve is shared and every facility upgrade costs the same resource (Trust + a small gold fee), the smartest play is to front-load Befr and Eldorian while feeding the other three allies slowly. This is the same logic the Dimraeth best class co-op community uses for role coverage: stack the early carries, then catch the rest up.
Suggested Chapter-by-Chapter Pacing
| Chapter | Primary Focus | Secondary Focus | Trust Milestone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ch. 1 | Befr to Tier 2, Eldorian to Tier 2 | Stock 4 gifts per ally | Both at 750 |
| Ch. 2 | Befr to Tier 4 (Heart Prompt window) | Unlock Manga, Tamsin, Myrll | Befr at 3,000 |
| Ch. 3 | All allies to Tier 5 | Run one personal-quest stage per ally | All at 5,000 |
| Endgame | Push chosen romance ally to Tier 6 | Sweep remaining Tier 6 perks | Romance ally at 7,500+ |
The Caravan Market's rotating stock is the single biggest early-game gold engine, so pushing Befr first is mechanically optimal. Once she hits Tier 4, the rare import shelf starts paying for the rest of your facility upgrades on its own.
Facility Progression Pitfalls: Gifts, Trust, and Dialogue
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Spreading gifts evenly before Chapter 2. Befr and Eldorian are the only ones with active services on day one, so feeding gifts to locked allies burns Trust you could have used to unlock actual shop slots.
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Skipping the Heart Prompt dialogue. If you accept a generic "let's keep working together" line during the Revelation quest, the romance flag auto-resolves to platonic. Reload if this happens — the save is still on the same chapter.
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Ignoring tag matching. A 100-Trust perfect gift is 10× more efficient than a 10-Trust generic gift, and the difference compounds massively across 7,500 points of grind.
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Forgetting the dialogue wheel. Every companion has a once-per-chapter Trust dialogue that is easy to miss if you fast-travel past their hub. Park a waypoint at each facility so the prompt doesn't expire.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do Dimraeth ally facilities work differently in co-op?
No, the Friendship Tier system is shared across the entire party. Every player who interacts with an ally contributes to the same Trust pool, and facility upgrades fire for the whole group. According to the official Steam page, 1–8 player co-op is fully supported, so a coordinated party can push every ally to Tier 5 in a single Chapter 3 run.
Can you max every romance in one playthrough?
No, each companion has one committed romance path, and accepting a Heart Prompt locks the others to platonic. You can still reach Tier 6 on every ally and unlock all facility perks, but the romance resolution scene only plays for the ally whose Heart Prompt you accepted. The companion-specific keepsake is also exclusive to the chosen route.
What happens if an ally's Heart Prompt expires?
The prompt only expires if you reach Tier 6 without selecting it. Once you accept the prompt at any point before Tier 6, the flag is permanent for that save file. Community testing suggests the prompt also auto-fires if you idle on the companion's hub for more than two in-game hours, but selecting it manually is still the safest path.
Is befriending all five allies required for the best ending?
It is not strictly required, but every ally contributes a piece of the Stronghold defense network, and the highest-tier ending bonus scales with the number of Tier 6 facilities you have completed. Pushing all five to Tier 6 unlocks the Legendary Stronghold cosmetic and a permanent 10% passive resource bonus, which is the most efficient long-term play for both solo and co-op parties.
Do gifts cost real money or only in-game gold?
Every gift referenced in this guide is purchasable from rotating vendor stock, craftable at a Tier 2 facility, or harvestable from open-world nodes. There is no microtransaction layer, and the Early Access launch confirms a level cap of 25 that scales with future acts, so the entire ally facility tree is reachable purely through gameplay.