Getting-started

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Starting the game

The first time you enter the game, you will be in the upper room of the Double Dragon Inn in the city of Vaerlon, in the nation of Valkor. The first thing you would want to to is probably to type i (short for inventory) to see what equipment your background has given you to start with. Using the wear and wield commands, you can equip the armour and your choice of weapons. Remember, you can get help about the usage of any command just by typing help <command>, eg. help wear.

Important!

The upper room of the Double Dragon Inn is a common sleeping hall. It is one of the few places in the game where you can safely leave the game and get your experience and equipment saved. When you're done playing for a day, just return to the upper room of Double Dragon and enter leave game to save your character and all his possessions.

Statistics

Most players are interested in the statistics and experience of their character. You can see this information by using the score, exp, and hp commands. It's a good idea to tune some settings before you start playing for real. To do this, read help settings to get more detailed information. You don't have to do this right away if you want to look around Icesus at first.

Colours

Before exploring, you might want to have things likes exits, monsters, and other players show up in different colours. If you have an ANSI compatible MUD client, do colour on.

Guilds

Before you start adventuring, you should join a guild. You can find a couple of guild headguarters in the city of Vaerlon. If you're still in the Double Dragon inn, it's a good idea to exit it by going down, east, and finally south. Type map to see a larger portion of the city surrounding you. The map will tell you about special locations in the city.

A good starting point for exploring the city is the Central Square. It lies to south-east from the Double Dragon Inn. There you will find Ereldon, an old elven sage who can help you and give advice about many things. It's possible to converse with him using the ask command. For example, try asking help: ask ereldon about help, or about guilds: ask ereldon about guilds.

You can also ask other players for help, as described in help newbie. When you've found a suitable guild, you can join it by giving the join command in the guild room.

Vision

Depending on the time of the day and the race you are, you might find that it is too dark or too light for you to see. You have a torch as a part of your starting kit; light torch if it's too dark for you. If it's too light, you are a member of a race with poor light-vision. Then you have a "nether torch" instead of a usual torch; this makes it darker instead of lighter, and helps you see.

Experience

Once you've gotten to the hang of playing your character, it's time to start improving him. You can train skills or study spells depending on you choice of guild. Training is accuired by spending a bit of your experience and money with your guild tutor. At start you have some money and a bit of experience to start with. The exact amount depends on your backgroud.

To see in which skills and spells your character is proficient with, type skills and spells, respectively. Besides the normal skills you might have, skills -bg and spells -bg reveal bonuses arising from your background.

At this point it's good to take a break and read help guilds and help experience.

Advancement Points

Advancement points are used to improve your statistics. You can gain and spend them in the Adventurers' Guild. It can be found in the city of Vaerlon. Use the map command to find it; it lies not far east from the Central Square.

In the guild you can advance a statistic with the advance command. Before you do that, it's a good idea to look at the plague in the guild, and decide upon a statistic you want to improve. For details, read help points.

Training

It is a good idea to train or study as much as possible right at the beginning. The better your skills or spells are, the better is your chance of survival.

You can try to ask your fellow players for their advice on what to study or train. Again, channels are best for this, especially your guild-channel. Each guild has its own channel to which only the member of that guild can listen to.

On With the Game

When you are done shaping your character, you can go explore the city, if you haven't done so already. You can get experience by exploring new areas. When you enter a special room for the first time, you're revarded experience. There are several such rooms in the city, so looking around does pay off. Be warned though! Many beginning adventurers have made the mistake of thinking killing innocent citizens would be an easy way to gain experience. However, the guards in Vaerlon are not gentle with troublemakers. If you want to kill something, find an area suitable for you. Some areas suitable for beginning players are revealed by reading help newbie areas.

The city explored, a true adventuring life awaits you. It's time to move on to adventuring big time, and learn about living in Icesus. You should read help living. More is explained there.