The information below is a selection from the help files you will find on Lusty MUD as you play. This page is not intended to answer all of your questions, but as a starting point. If your question isn't asnwered here, try the complete help files within the MUD. You can view the entire list by typing from the MUD command prompt. If you still haven't found the answers you need ask another player or a wizard.

Starting Out

Welcome to LustyMud! We hope you find this game challenging and interesting. Players from around the globe congregate here to make friends, talk and play the game. This message ('help start') will give you the basic information you need to get involved, talk to other players and play with them. The object of the game is to accumulate "experience points" (XP) and "gold coins". You do this by solving puzzles, slaying monsters and taking whatever treasures they guard. As you accrue XP and gold, you can advance in levels.New players start at level 1 and you can advance as far as level 19. Type '?' to see your level along with how many XP and gold coins you currently have. Type 'help levels' to find out how many exp points you need to advance to the next level. When you are ready to advance in level, look around (or ask around!) to find the nearest "Adventurer's guild". To begin with, you might type 'l' (short for 'look') to see where you are. The description of your surroundings will include the possible directions you can go from there. You might be able to walk by typing a compass direction ('east' or 'e', 'north' or 'n', etc) or 'u' ('up') or 'd' ('down'). If you see an object listed at the bottom of a room description, try to 'take' it. If you find a weapon, like an axe, you can try to 'wield axe'. Items of apparel or armor can usually be worn - i.e. 'wear helmet' - if you happen to have one. How do you know if you have one? Type 'i' (short for inventory). Finally, many things you encounter have special commands of their own. If you see a button, try to 'press button'. When you are near a sloop (a small sailing vessel), see if you can 'board sloop'. You can usually guess at the commands you can use.

You'll note that the verb is always first in any command. All commands are case-sensitive. Most are lower-case only!

If you encounter monsters, you can try to 'kill' them (for example, if you see an orc, you can type 'kill orc' to start fighting it). Beware, however, that as a beginner, you are very weak and inexperienced! Look for the weaker monsters to get started. Each time you are hit, you lose some "hit points" (HP), which correlate roughly with your overall health. Type '?' to see how many HP you have currently. When your HP go below 0, you die. All is not lost; you lose one quarter of your XP and everything you were carrying, but you can go to the church (or figurehead if you're on Stormhaven) to pray. Type 'help wimpy' to get an idea of how to avoid death, and 'help dying' for details. Some of the most interesting things happen when you've made friends with other players in the game. Don't be afraid to ask them for advice or help. To find out who else is playing, type 'who'. To talk to a player named 'Jack', you might for example type 'tell jack hi, Jack'. Even easier, when you type 'l', you may see other players standing in the same room with you. You can talk out loud to them with the 'say' command, and anyone in the room will hear you speak. Try 'say Hi, there!'. Finally, you can 'shout' things, too, and everyone playing the game will hear you. Note however that 'shout' and 'tell' cost "spell points", and you only have a limited number of these. Use them sparingly (you regain them gradually over time). Where do you go from here? Try typing 'help newbie' to learn about areas specifically designed with newbies in mind.

IMPORTANT!!! New characters are not saved until they have at least one experience point. This means that until you have at least one experience point you will not have access to the mud mail and no one will be able to finger you. Click here for more information on experience.

Commands

**This is by no means a complete list of commands.

Continents

There are two 'continents' on LustyMud: Melchior and Stormhaven. When you are level 1, you have the option upon logging in, of going to either Melchior or Stormhaven. You lose this option as soon as you advance to level 2. When you quit your session, the mud will save which continent you were on, and restart you there the next time you log in. The diligent explorer will find that there are many ways to travel between continents. Click here to view maps of the main towns of each continent.

Fighting

Players and monsters have a fighting skill, which determines their proficiency in battle and affects how often they hit as well as the damage they do. Although you start off with a relatively low fighting skill, your skill level will slowly increase as you score hits with a weapon (or your bare hands). Armor has a deflection factor and a protection factor. Deflection determines how often you get hit, whereas protection decreases the damage done to you by a successful attack. Different sorts of armor are not weighted equally, with body armor and shields being the most important types.Weapons have a wieldiness factor and a damage factor. Wieldiness indicates how easy to use the weapon is; the greater the unwieldiness of a weapon, the harder it will be to hit and damage a foe using it. The best weapons are thus those that are easy to wield and also do a lot of damage. It is important to choose a weapon suited to your fighting skill; those on the low side should generally stay with easy-to-use weapons such as daggers and hand axes, while only those with great fighting skill should attempt to wield weapons that are difficult to master. Spell points are largely a measure of your energy level, and as such, if they are low, you will not fight as well with a weapon as you would if they were higher. So, if you want to do your best with a weapon, make certain that you have plenty of energy.

Experience

Experience is primarily awarded for harming and slaying monsters. For every hit point of damage you do to a monster, you'll receive one experience point. You will also receive experience for striking the death blow against a foe; indeed, most experience is gained this way. Solving certain puzzles and taking certain actions will also have an experience point reward. Usually you'll be told when you've received experience this way.

Spells

There are three standard combat spells: missile, shock and fireball. Each has a level threshold; if one's level is lower than the threshold, one cannot cast that spell.

When casting a spell, you may name the target of the spell as the command's sole argument (e.g. "missile troll"). If you don't specify a target, and you're already engaged in combat, the target will default to the foe you are striking with your weapon. If the target is not engaged in combat, he, she or it will start fighting you.

Dying

Death occurs when your hit points fall below zero. Upon dying, you leave your body and become a ghost. Since ghosts cannot do very much, you'll probably want to regenerate, typically by going to the church in Melchior or the figurehead in Stormhaven and praying. Although you will no longer be carrying your money or possessions, these may be recovered by returning to your corpse, which (if it hasn't been picked up by someone else) will be wherever you were when you met your fate. Although death is not a final ending, it is not without its penalties. You will have lost a quarter of your experience, and been set to the level commeasurate with your new experience point total. Upon regenerating, your current hit point and spell point totals will be roughly one tenth of their maximum, and thus you will be faced with a period of healing.

Newbie

Hi Newbie! Here are directions to some areas just for you.

These are areas set aside for newbies, but of course there are many other areas on the mud you can explore. A Newbie Guild has been erected just north of the starting point on each continent. You can pick up some more help for newbies there. Getting a newbie badge there is strongly encouraged. The badges will let you speak to mentors (high level players who have agreed to help people just getting started) at a reduced spell point cost. The badges will also help mentors find you if you become lost.

Alignment

Every living creature, including yourself, has an "alignment", a measure of how good or evil you are. The general alignment categories, in order of most good to most evil, are: white lord, paladin, crusader, good, honorable, neutral, malicious, evil, infamous, black knight, lord of evil. You start out as neutral. As you slay monsters, your alignment will change depending on which monsters you deal the killing blow to. If you concentrate on killing evil monsters, you'll shift towards the good end of the spectrum.Conversely, if you concentrate on killing good monsters, you'll find yourself moving towards evil. Slaying neutral monsters, or good and evil monsters indiscriminately, will tend to make you neutral. So too will killing nothing at all, for alignment fades towards neutral over time. Those who are good-aligned will receive greater experience for killing evil monsters, and vice versa. The more polarized your alignment and your foe's aligment are, the greater the experience reward.

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