Starting Out

Basics of Play

The game is an ongoing program that accepts commands that you type and gives you information or changes your character accordingly. Each description of where you are is described as a room. There are several things that can be located in a room: players, objects, and monsters (also called mobs). This is an overview of the general commands you need to know to interact with the things in a room.

This information can also be found while on the mud - simply type help, and you should be able to follow from there to get to the specific topic you need.

Look (L)

The most basic way for your character to get information about the world. Typing look or L by itself will let you see the room with objects, players, and monsters that are visible to your character. You can be specific in what you look at, such as typing look at child or l child to see the description of the child and what it is carrying. This works for objects and players as well. Make sure to use this on a sign if you see it described in the room. Most of the time it will contain information that will help you out.

Score (SC)

Your score lets you know how you are progressing in the game. Helpfiles in the game can give you a better idea about specific things you might not understand from your score.

Inventory (I)

Inventory lets you know what items your character is carrying. These things aren't being used at the moment. Typing things such as wear item or wield item will allow you to begin using those things.

Equipment (EQ)

This command will let you see the items currently being used by your character. You will want to replace the equipment you start with very soon, since it is not comparable to other weapons and armor found in the shops. You start with money that you can spend on equipment - try not to buy anything very expensive, as covering all of the places you can wear equipment should be top priority at first. Replacing your starting weapon with something found in a shop is also recommended.

Say

Type say and then the message you want your character to say to players that are in the room with you. Other ways of communicating are tell, shout, ask and whisper.
Tell is used for speaking to someone specific that you can see when you type who to display the players currently online. You can send someone a tell with tell player message. You can also use respond to reply to the last tell you were sent.
Shout is used for getting the attention of people in the area near your character. Like say, you need only type shout and then the desired text.
Ask and whisper are for speaking quietly to those nearby (in the same room). Nobody except the person you are asking a question or whispering to can tell what you are saying. They work in a similar manner to tells, where you must direct your message at a person using their name or one of their keywords.

Who

When you first enter the game, the only people your character will know are the immortals and the guides, shown with a {GUIDE} tag by their names. As you meet people, they may introduce themselves to you, and their names will be shown when you type who if they are online. You can only send tells to people who are on that list.

Intro

You may introduce yourself to other characters after your character has been approved so that they can see you online and send you tells. This is done by typing intro player.

Now that you have a basic idea of what to do in one room, you should explore the many rooms that are in the world. This is done simply by typing the direction you want your character to go, such as:
north
east
south
west
up
down
All of these directions can be shortened to the first letter of the direction. Besides the four cardinal directions, you may also have the option of moving northeast, southeast, northwest, or southwest, shortened with the combination of the two letters: ne, se, nw, and sw. The obvious exits are shown when you look, and using the scan command may show closed doors, which you must open. Sometimes they will be locked, and you will have to find a key or other way of getting through them. See help movement for hints on dealing with these sorts of things.

You should locate the different shops around town, to get ready to work towards your next level. When you are at the shops you can try equipment to see if you can use it. Typing list will let you see everything the shop-keeper has for sale.

The bank is where money can be stored - much safer than carrying it on your person. When working with money, the correct syntax is number denomination coins. In this way, you can deposit or withdraw multiple coin types at one time. An example of a deposit of money would be: deposit 3g 4s 102c coins.
That should put you on the right track.

Food and Drink

Your character can be physically affected by the world. If it is dark, you need a light to see. If you are hit with a weapon, you take damage, and can die from an excessive beating. Your character also gets hungry and thirsty. This will slow your recovery process greatly. To eat, type eat food such as eat bread. Carrying water containers such as the small jug is good for when you are thirsty. Simply type drink item such as drink jug. Different containers can hold different amounts of water. All can be refilled at a fountain by typing fill container fountain (or other water source such as a spring or pond). These items can be found at the provision shop when you start out. You can also get a torch or lantern at the provision shop to see when in a dark area. To light the torch or lantern, use the hold command the same way you would wear or wield equipment. Many lights will run out eventually, so having a couple with you to start out is a good idea.

The Inn

One of the most important buildings in the game is the Inn. The Inn is something like a save point for your character. When you are done playing, you must find an innkeeper and type rent to save your character until you are ready to play the next time. The other inn command is offer, to find out if you can afford to stay and for how long. Rent is based on the equipment you are carrying - each item costs a certain amount to rent. If you run out of money while in rent, the innkeeper will start selling your equipment to pay for the rent of the rest of it. It isn't very difficult to make money for rent, and rent serves to balance the game as far as equipment is concerned.

Equipment and Weapons

Using the commands that are listed above, you can see that you start out with money and a few pieces of armor. This equipment is very basic and about any armor found in the shops will be better than what you start out with. The first thing that is recommended for a new person to do is to go to the shops and buy cheap equipment to cover places that aren't protected. It may be wise to replace what you are currently wearing for things in the shop as well. Before investing in expensive equipment, it is wise to cover one's entire body with equipment, then upgrade from there. Once suited in armor, picking up a more formidable weapon may also help in the beginning days in the world of Imperium. The following commands will aid you in this process.

List

List will let you see what items a shop has for sale and the prices of those items.

Try (equipment)

You can try out equipment before you buy it to make sure that you can use it. This can be done by using the number the shop has the equipment listed as, or the name of the equipment.

You can buy:
[ 1] a small troll's tooth for 3 silver, and 75 copper coins.
[ 2] an elegant robe made of dark red and blue fabric for 1 gold, 8 silver, and 75 copper coins.
[ 3] a bright blue cape for 1 silver, and 25 copper coins.
[ 4] a red velvet dress with silver embroidery for 2 gold, and 5 silver coins.
[ 5] a pair of leather boots for 1 silver coins.
[ 6] a pair of soft leather leggings for 2 silver, and 66 copper coins.

To try out a bright blue cape, either the command try 3 or try cape would work. If there is more than one thing that has similar words in a list, you may need to be more specific. If wanting to try out the leather leggings, using the word leather might not work because there are other leather things in the shop. The mud allows you to be more specific when interacting with items, people, or monsters by putting a . between two words for what you are trying to interact with. To try the soft leather leggings, you could type try leather.leggings to make sure that you tried the armor you wanted to. This becomes more important when trying to buy an object.

Buy (equipment)

Buy is used like the try command, but it purchases the object from the shopkeeper and brings it to your inventory. If you use the numbers set aside for equipment when buying something, be aware that the numbers may change as things are purchased.

Wear, Hold, Wield, Drop, or Remove (equipment)

Once you have made several purchases, you will want to wear the equipment. If you purchased a leather hauberk for your body, for instance, you would wear hauberk to switch the hauberk with your starting tunic. Since the tunic can't be sold to the item shop owner, the only thing you can really do with it is drop tunic. Lights and shields are items you hold. Weapons are items that you wield. Other armor pieces are all things that you wear.

Combat

Combat is the primary way of advancing in the game. By killing a mob (npc or monster), your character gains experience. Finding out what you can kill is the first step. Use the command consider mob or con mob to compare yourself to the mob.

<hp:prime/++ mv:hyper> con cat
An alley cat stands ready for combat.
It appears you are equally skilled.

Skills and Spells

Skills and spells are things that your character will need in order to turn the tides of battle in his favor. To learn a skill, you have to locate a guildmaster and train. There are several guildmasters located around the city of Arandor, but any of them can train you - there's no need to find one of the proper class. Typing practice at a guildmaster will show what skills and spells are available to you, and how many practice sessions you have. To practice a skill, type practice skill, such as practice kick or practice magic-missile.

The magic on this MUD, unlike many other MUDs, works off memorized spells instead of mana. Once you have practiced a spell, it can be memorized by typing mem spell. Typing mem by itself will give you a list of spells in memory and those currently being memorized.
Once a spell is memorized, you use the command cast to cast the spell. Some spells can be cast simply by typing cast spell-name and others need a target. For example, cast magic-missile cat would target a cat with the magic-missile spell. While you are in combat, attack spells will automatically be sent at the mob you are fighting if you don't specify a target.

Death

When your character dies, he loses a chunk of experience and, usually, a fate. Equipment stays your character's corpse at the location of death, and he will enter the game at the last inn he rented in. Sometimes, you may need to get the assistance of other players online to recover your belongings. If the area isn't very dangerous, all you must do is find the corpse and type get all corpse.

Fates are a limit to the number of times that a character can die. Once fates are gone, the character has been lost forever. However, characters under level 5 do not lose a fate at death, and all characters have a chance of gaining another fate each time they level. Still, a death is nothing to scoff at, especially at higher levels.

Final Notes

A tip that will also help you on Imperium is to READ THE RULES EARLY ON. The rules are there to keep this an enjoyable place to play. Each one is there for a specific reason. One such rule that new players will enjoy taking note of is:

14. Having more than two characters online at once, including both linkdead characters and characters sitting at the game menu [is illegal].

This means that you can play with two characters at once here. Imperium is a very challenging MUD, and thus the areas are not designed to be faced by one character alone. Once you are familiar with the feel of the game, it is suggested that you play with two characters. Reading help tips will give some additional useful advice for succeeding in your travels in Imperium.

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