LadyWYT

Judging by what we have already, I would say most of the horror element is going to be fairly subtle and in the background, aside from certain key scenarios. Temporal storms and the deep underground are two good examples of such scenarios, outside of the story locations themselves. That way players have plenty of time to unwind and enjoy the atmosphere, but still have the occasional reminder that not everything is sunshine and roses in the world.

I generally remove the withered vines. I don't know that it actually does anything, but I presume that by removing them, it frees up space for new vines to grow, and thus increases the chances of getting more pumpkins.

Under the first tab of options when creating a new world, you just need to adjust the Starting Climate to something either warmer or colder, depending on which you wish. Icy will net you the tundra proper, while Cool will give you a taiga instead--similar to temperate forest, but a little more difficult to survive in.
For the tropics, you'll want Hot, but for some seasonal variation without the snow you might opt for a Warm start instead.
Edit: also, welcome to the forums!

Your initial spawn in the world will always be at, or close to 0:0, regardless of starting climate. The Polar-Equator Distance in world settings is what affects how far away the arctic region is from the equator, and thus how quickly the climate zones transition from one to the other. The default value is 100k, meaning that if you start in the arctic you'll need to go about 100k blocks before you hit the equatorial zone.
You just need to head south for the climate to warm up. If you're having to travel further than you'd like to reach the warmer zones, you might consider starting in a warmer climate, or shortening the polar-equator distance when you create a new world.

Shields in Vintage Story are a bit more complicated than in the other block game. You have a passive block chance, which is a chance to block automatically as long as you have the shield equipped. The active block chance is much higher, of course, but requires you to both have the shield equipped and be actively blocking with it by holding the Shift key. I will also note that you need to be facing the general direction of the incoming hit in order to block it, regardless of active or passive blocking.
The better the shield, the higher the chance of a successful block are.

I can't think of anything that you need leather for in order to survive the winter. Larger bags will help you carry more stuff, of course, and better armor will help you fight off stronger enemies. But for just basic survival you don't absolutely need either. I'd say the most important winter supplies are warm fur clothes, plenty of food, and plenty of firewood or peat so you don't need to go gather it should you need to warm up.
For food preservation, I'd cook whatever ingredients are starting to turn stale, and seal the meals into crocks. You'll need fat to seal the crocks if you don't have access to beeswax, which you'll need to go hunting anyway to acquire fat and hides to turn into pelts for fur clothing. Any meat acquired along the way can simply be added to the winter stores.

You should be fine just toughing it out; carrying metal around won't increase your chances of being struck. To my knowledge, the lightning strikes happen randomly, and while it's possible you could get struck by lightning, the chance is very low.

Could just pass it off as those darn temporal storms or a translocator gone awry.
Depends...for the Archive, no that's not normal. As @Thorfinn already mentioned, the Resonance Archive tends to spawn somewhere between 4k and 6k blocks from the world spawn. As for other points of interest though...you might be traveling those kinds of distances in order to get to them.

Teleport yourself to Tobias's Cave via commands, then try the teleporter from his side. It was a little janky when I was messing around with it, but as I recall that got the teleporter link to function correctly.

Welcome to the forums! This ability is only available for a certain portion of chapter two of the main story--you'll know it when you're there, as it will come with a prompt in the chat and a clock icon will appear on your hotbar to indicate that the ability can be used.
Spoilers for the ability:
I will also note that it's easier to scroll over the icon on your hotbar and right-click to use it, instead of hitting the Y key, though you could also rebind it to something else. The other important thing to remember is that it does have a short cooldown on use, so you will need to time its use somewhat carefully.

The symbol has something to do with the "mode" that the rope is in. I forget what the modes are, but it seems the player is intended to be able to adjust the length of the rope when leading a creature, or something to that effect. I've not toyed with the rope very much, as the last time I tried had some...interesting...results when trying to retrieve my lost ram. The ropes definitely need a bit more work before they're fully functional, haha.

It's currently only available via the treasure hunter(after completing the Resonance Archives), or spawning one in via creative.

I've not tried to do it in the game, but I have poked around in the .json files for uh, reasons, shall we say. Most of what governs the villager behavior seems to be in those files. Likewise, I also went hunting for the tapestry data, and while some of it is in the .json files, the actual lore entries seem to be contained somewhere else in the game's code. So based on that, I assume that creating custom villagers and other lore content will require the creation of a mod, at least for now. Whether that changes in the future, and how it might change(if at all), I do not know.

To place items such as tools on the ground, you'll need to hit Ctrl+Shift+rightclick. For items like bowls, crocks, and cookpots, it's Shift+rightclick. For blocks, it's just rightclick. A bit convoluted, but I presume those controls are wired that way in order to help keep players from accidentally placing items that they mean to be using, onto the ground.

Hmmmm, if it's not a mod issue, then it's probably a bug with the story structure, unfortunately. Those are supposed to be iron bar gratings covering the openings, which are primarily cosmetic. You should hopefully still be able to enter the structure and complete the mission there.
Edit: In case you need a hint on how to get inside...
 

https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Cinematic_Camera
That link might help you figure out the camera controls, though the tool appears to be geared more towards recording videos instead of taking screenshots. For a screenshot, the easiest way to get one by yourself is to hit F5 a couple of times to get to the version of third-person view that does not lock the camera behind your character, adjust the angle however you wish, and hit F12 to take the screenshot after hiding the UI with F4.
An alternate method is if you have a friend that plays Vintage Story, allow your friend to join your world and have them play cameraman.

Sulfur and obsidian technically count, as you can find bits on the surface and proper ore down under those bits. You can also find silver bits on the surface, as well as gold, though I've only ever found silver.

/worldconfig temporalRifts on
That should enable the rift mechanic in your world. Also, welcome to the forums!

Ah, that would be why it's not on the wiki: there's no location like that in the vanilla game. Are you playing with mods? As I recall, I think there was a quest like that added by the Better Ruins mod, though I never completed it. I think the trader in question was a luxuries merchant as well, though I'm not entirely sure. In any case, if you've got the map, you can probably just head to the location and see what's there.
Unfortunately I can't offer further information than that regarding the location. 😕 But I do recall Better Ruins being a high quality mod. So if you enjoy exploring, you shouldn't be disappointed.
Nah, if it's your world, you get to decide what rules you play by. 😁 I've used creative a few times in my own worlds to test things, as well as fix mistakes. As for the vanilla story, I think it is technically possible to do the chapters out of order, but it's highly unlikely to happen due to how the script is designed and locations are placed.

/gm 3 will place you into spectator mode. That will allow you to just fly through the blocks to an open space.
/gm 1 will place you back into survival mode. 😁
I'd also go report this over on the bug tracker: https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues
I've been suspicious that there's been a bug allowing enemies to knock players through walls, and this seems to confirm that suspicion.

Given the label I'd say it's one of the components of dungeon/ruin generation that bugged out.

Sounds like a glitch to me.
But now I know what happens if you try to go an alternate route! 🤣

It's just firewood with a different appearance. Burns the same as regular firewood. Not especially useful, unless you just really need firewood right at that moment for some odd reason, or want it for decoration.

Welcome to the forums! Unfortunately I don't think there's currently a way to quickly mass-produce calcined flint. However, one piece of calcined flint equals eight pieces of fire clay, so you don't need a ton of it until you start thinking about steel or mass production of pottery.
What I usually do is pre-heat the firepit with peat or firewood, and then throw a bunch of coal/charcoal on there to cook the flint while I do other things around my base. By the time I'm done tinkering, the flint is ready to be ground up and turned into fire clay.
An alternate method of getting fire clay, I believe, is to look under black coal/anthracite deposits--it spawns naturally there. I believe you can also buy it from some of the traders, though that does require rusty gears that you may want to save for other things.

Not really...it's mostly just a lot of traveling until you find white rocks. You do need to look in biomes that have sedimentary rock though, not igneous. If the rock type is granite, andesite, or some other kind of hard rock you'll need to keep moving, as limestone won't spawn here.
One thing I have noticed though is that limestone likes to spawn with bauxite, and both like to spawn with slate on occasion. So if you see rock layers that are orange, chocolate, and white, there's your limestone.
It's probably just bad luck; Vintage Story be like that sometimes. I'm assuming that you're after limestone for leatherworking? If that's the case you don't actually need limestone itself, although it is nice to have. Borax is more efficient at tanning, and also needed later on for blacksmithing work. Chalk and marble can both be ground into lime as well, I believe, although marble is quite rare so you'll probably want to save that for building. Seashells can also be ground into lime(two per shell); despite this being a tedious method, it's still useful if you're not having luck finding a source of lime otherwise.
Last but not least, if you have some spare rusty gears, you can visit a survival goods trader and potentially purchase lime, provided there is some for sale. I think commodities traders might sell it too, but I'm not 100% sure. Sometimes you can also find limestone rocks in ruins loot, but the chances of that are very slim, so you're better off with either haggling with traders or searching for one of the other options above.
Also welcome to the forums! 😁