Shivering Shore
The first proper area of the game. You will be transported to the beach of this area regardless of whether you defeated The Unspeakable Deep or die to that optional boss. Head right and speak to the first NPC you encounter. Answer "Yes" to his question, then answer "Yes" again. You will be given an item called Candelabra of the Three, which allows you to join a creed (or faction) called The Three. For now, do not fret whether you have joined the "right" creed because there is no "right" creed. In your subsequent playthroughs you might prefer a different creed. However, for your first playthrough The Three is as good as any other creed the NPC offers.
Exhaust the dialogue of the NPC and head right up a hill to defeat 2 enemies near a treasure chest. Open the chest and grab the Sanctuary Key. You need this key to open the door to the first sanctuary in the game. In this game, you rest at a sanctuary to restore your HP, Stamina, and the healing consumable(s) specific to your creed. While resting, use salt to level up and you would be given a number of Black Pearls to invest into various skills. You can also offer various stone statues at a sanctuary to spawn various NPCs that offer a diverse range of services. Each time you rest at a sanctuary or one of the shrines found scattered throughout the game, enemies would respawn, except bosses and some enemies. However, a shrine does not allow you to level up or invest Black Pearls in a skill.
Anyway, grab the Sanctuary Key and proceed right to find a door. Use the key to unlock the door and enter your first sanctuary. Place the Candelabra on the sanctuary altar. Assuming that you defeated The Unspeakable Deep, you should have enough salt to level up by 10 levels, giving you Black Pearl x 10 to invest in various skills. As this is a Strength walkthrough, your objective for now is to obtain the skill Class 2 Heavy Macefighter. Grab various skills on the path leading to the latter skill. Along the path, you should be able to invest in a Poultice Pouch to increase the number of times you can consume the HP healing item specific to your creed. Being a member of The Three, your healing item is called Red Flask, which replenishes every time you rest at a sanctuary or shrine. Each creed has a different name for its replenishable healing item. Furthermore, invest in the skill Class 2 Heavy Armor to allow you to equip better armour pieces than those you started with. We will work towards a specific set of armour pieces as the walkthrough progresses.
Exit the sanctuary and head right. Kill some enemies to gain salt and gold. You are automatically rewarded with salt for each enemy defeated, but the gold dropped by a defeated enemy must be collected. As you would expect, the more difficult the enemy the more salt and gold the enemy would drop. You might want to one-hand the Varangian Spatha, your starting weapon, for a faster attack animation than the two-handed attack animation. Gold is also dropped by breaking furniture and barrels found liberally littered in most areas.
Notable loots:
- Red Shard x 3. Within a treasure chest above the sanctuary. Unlike the Red Flask (or whatever replenishable healing item you have for the creed you are in), Red Shards are consumable healing items that do not replenish whenever you rest at a sanctuary or a shrine. Red Shards can be farmed from enemies and purchased from merchants. Use a Red Shard whenever you need to conserve your main healing item, i.e. the Red Flask.
- Pouch of Salt. Found within a treasure chest above the sanctuary. The chest also contains Red Shard x 3.