The following overview of MUDding and Adventures Unlimited (AU) is designed to help the novice player feel comfortable and familiar with the game. The basic principles of MUDding are discussed, as well as some specific commands. If you are new to MUDs, we highly recommend you take a few minutes to read through this guide. It will save you a lot of confusion and time when you first start playing, enhancing your overall gaming experience.

A MUD (multi-user dungeon) is a highly interactive online game with a community of players and characters. Excluding a few high-end MUDs, MUDs do NOT have 3D graphics or audio effects beyond the occasional beep. What MUDs do provide is a complex world full of characters with many options for how you can develop your own character, both in terms of strength and in terms of your social environment.

The basis of the MUD world is a network of linked rooms through which players can explore. Each of these rooms has a description, describing the surroundings in the area. While playing in the MUD world, you will often have to feed and rest. Communication with other player characters is accomplished through says (a say is when your character speaks to another person who is in the same room) and emotes (an emote shows the actions or feelings of your character). When you come across some of the non-player characters (monsters called mobiles or abbreviated "mobs"), you may have to get into fights where you risk your life. Clothing, weapons, a light for dark nights, and containers to hold your items are all part of the game. MUDs are often realistic in how the characters must behave to survive and are usually complex. This guide should help you to figure out the basics so you can enjoy finding out the more unique and fascinating parts of AU.

Adventures Unlimited has a medieval fantasy theme. Pixies, elves, giants, trolls, and humans are just some of the races that coexist. The world has many different places with a vast range of experiences available. You will come across everything from beautiful waterfalls to dangerous war rooms, from gamblings halls to temples of the gods. Beyond the main city, where all races are present, you will also find roads and rivers connecting to cities of humans, titans, drow, and the other races. To play AU, you will need telnet software and a live connection to the Internet. Chances are you already have telnet on your computer. To connect through telnet, hit the "Connect to AU" on the left hand menu on the main web page. You can also use a MUD client to access AU. A MUD client is a program designed for games like MUDs. Some clients can be obtained for free, others cost a small amount. The following are links to the sites of a variety of clients. We strongly advocate paying for your client if it is one that requires payment.

CMUD	Mudlet	MUSHclient	Portal
TinTin++	TinyFugue	Wintin.Net	zMUD

AU is run by the implementor, Markov, who does the coding for the MUD. He is aided by a staff of Immortals who work on areas, aid the player characters, and in general run the MUD. Immortals are Avatars of gods the characters worship. The Immortals are usually available for questions and help, as are the other players. AU is fortunate to have a very friendly, generous group of players who are more than willing to spend some time making sure new players get acquainted with the MUD and can find their way around.

Although not the first thing you will encounter when you log onto AU, help files may be the most important tools available to you. Once you start character creation, you have access to the help files of AU. To use a help file, type 'HELP <keyword>'. Races, spells, the rules, temple information, class information, and much more are included in the help files.

When you log onto AU, the first thing you'll be asked to do is give a name. As AU has a medieval theme, names are requested to maintain that atmosphere on the MUD. Please do not use a name that is based on a modern word or modern name. Also, names that are combinations of words used in modern language are not appropriate. Instead of character names like Darksword or Slasher, try finding unique sounds to create your name, such as Trendarn or Yleria.

Next you'll be asked to give a password. Make sure it's something you will remember. Also, it is very important that you do not share your password with anyone.

A list of races will be displayed from which you can choose a starting race. The possible classes of each race are in the chart. When you chose a race, you'll have an opportunity to read the help file for the race and decide if you wish to keep that race. Next, your class (similar to a modern day profession) will be chosen. We highly recommend you read the files on this website about race and class, as they will give you an idea of which combinations you will find the most entertaining to play. Good race/class combinations that are easy to learn and play are warrior giants, mage pixies, and thief halflings or elves. Once you get a feel for the MUD, you can always either recreate your character by deleting and starting over, or create a new character with the class/race combination that most interests you. Races and classes on AU are well balanced, so you're unlikely to end up with a weak character due to race or class. However, some are easier to play than others.

You will also be asked to choose the sex of your character and the alignment. Alignment determines if you start out as evil, good, or neutral. Many things are linked to alignment. Fighting is impacted by alignment. Paladins and Antipaladins are the only classes restricted to one alignment and you will be adversely impacted if your alignment changes.

After you choose your character's sex, you will be asked if you wish to customize your appearance. If you do, you will need to choose eye, hair and skin color, as well as your character's build, height and weight. If you choose not to customize it yourself, the MUD will decide these for you.

You will be asked if you wish to customize your character's skills. If you are new to MUDding, customization may not be the best route to take. You will have an opportunity to gain the skills available in customization later in the game if you so desire. See the help file "gain" to learn more about gaining skills after character creation.

Once your character has been created, you will start the game. The room you start in is the hallway to an area where you can get equipment, train, practice, and gain experience. Each of these things will be discussed in the following sections. In the first few rooms, type "look sign" to learn about the activities you can do while on the MUD and while in each room. The newbie center you have entered will guide you through the basics of MUDding and help you with equipment, weapons, and gaining experience.

You can move in 6 directions simply by typing the name or first letter of the direction: North, South, East, West, up, or down. Sometimes doors will be shut and you'll have to 'OPEN <direction name>'. Other times the door is locked, in this case, you'll need the appropriate key in your inventory, then type 'UNLOCK <direction name>'. If you cannot find the key, or are running low on time, you can use 'SMASH <direction name>'. To see what is in surrounding rooms before moving, you can type 'SCAN' and you will look around. If you wish to enter air or water rooms, you must first be flying. For races other than pixies, you'll need a spell, potion, wand, or scroll to aid you. To return to Homanu, the healer's room, type 'RECALL'. From recall, to return to the newbie center, look at the sign for directions by typing 'LOOK sign'.

A key component to a MUD like AU is leveling. When you created your character, your total experience required to gain a level was set. Type 'WORTH' to see how much you need to gain your next level. There are 100 levels on AU, and with each level you gain, you will become a stronger character. To gain experience, you must kill without being killed. In the newbie center, you will find mobs that are of the appropriate strength for you to begin to gain experience and become familiar with the practices of fighting.

Before actually heading out to fight, you should take a moment to train your character and have him or her practice their skills. To see what skills you have, type 'SKILLS'. To see all the skills you will gain as you level, type 'SKILLS all'. For spells you can do the same thing, typing 'SPELLS' and 'SPELLS all'. To practice your skills at the newbie training center, type 'PRACTICE' to see what skills you have available. Then type 'PRACTICE <skill name>'. The higher your intelligence, the more you will learn at each practice session. The higher your wisdom, the more practice sessions you will have each time you gain a level. Unused sessions are saved until you do use them. To train, type 'TRAIN' and see the list of things you can train. It takes one training session to boost your statistics one point. Wisdom and Constitution are generally considered the best choices to train at first.

At the bottom of the screen, you'll be able to see your three primary indications of health:

HIT POINTS: How much damage you can sustain in battle.
MANA POINTS: How much magic you can cast: defensive and offensive spells. To see what spells are on you, type 'AFFECT'.
MOVE POINTS: How far you can walk.

Your health will improve each tick of the game (a tick is approximately 45 seconds). How quickly you heal will be affected by a myriad of factors: how hungry or thirsty your character is; what the healing rate of the room you are in is; and whether you are resting, sleeping, or standing.

To find out your attributes, type 'SCORE'. A nice and easy to read score card will appear. When you first begin, this will show your name, title, class, race, hit points (hp), mana (mp), movement (mv), armor class, how much money you have on your person and in the bank, quest information, how much you are carrying, and how much it weighs, just to name a few things. If you type 'SHOW', score will also show you the spells cast on your character and how long they will last. You have five different statistics you can view as well:

STRENGTH: Increases how hard you can hit and how much you can carry.
INTELLIGENCE: Determines how much mana you gain per level and how many practices it takes to learn a skill.
WISDOM: Determines how much mana you gain per level and how many practices you gain per level.
DEXTERITY: Impacts your ability to hit, dodge and flee in battle.
CONSTITUTION: Determines how much you gain in HIT POINTS per level and the rate at which you grow tired.

These five statistics are what you can train up with the trains you start with and gain at each level.

Just like in real life, you'll need clothing to wear. Unlike real life, your clothing on a MUD can make you stronger, smarter, more dexterous, better able to cast magic, and more. Different equipment comes with different bonuses. The first equipment you can find will be from Jarrel, when you give him your token. After that, equipment can be gathered by taking everything from the corpses (syntax: 'GET ALL CORPSE'). Much of the time, 'AUTOLOOT' and 'AUTOSAC' will take care of these functions for you. To see what equipment you're wearing, type 'EQ' and to see if you have equipment in all 20 of the slots you can wear equipment, type 'EQ all'. To see what equipment or other items you're carrying, type 'INVENTORY'.

Type 'EQUIPMENT' or 'EQ' to see your current equipment. Right now, as a new player, you have just a vest, a shield, and a weapon. As you go through Mud School you will acquire a complete set of equipment.

To pick up items on the ground as you see them, type 'GET <item>'.
To wear a piece of armor, type 'WEAR <item>'.
To hold a light source, type 'HOLD <item>'.
To wield a weapon, type 'WIELD <weapon>'.
To wear, hold, and wield everything you have, type 'WEAR ALL'.
To stop using a piece of equipment, type 'REMOVE <item>'.
Finally, to see the items in your inventory, type 'INVENTORY'.

After you kill a monster or mobile you can get all of the equipment from their corpse with the command 'GET ALL CORPSE' then use the command 'WEAR ALL' to wear your newly gained equipment. When you are done looting a corpse, sacrifice it to your god 'SACRIFICE CORPSE'. Your god will reward you for this sacrifice.

Each city contains stores where you can buy everything from food, to equipment, to pets. To see what a store sells, type 'LIST'. To buy an item, type 'BUY <item name>' and to sell something you have for a small sum of gold type 'SELL <item name>'. To find out how much you'll get when you sell an item, type 'VALUE <item name>'. The amount you receive will depend on your alignment vs. the shopkeeper's alignment. You can find things to sell by looking ('EXAMINE CORPSE') in the corpses of the mobs you kill and getting all that you find. Different types of objects must be sold in different types of stores. When multiple items of the same name are listed, type 'buy n.item', where n is the position of the item in a list of that name. So if there are two swords, 'buy 2.sword' will buy the second. If you want to buy multiples of an item, use an * ('buy 5*pie' will buy 5 pies). These can be combined into 'buy 2*2.shield', as long as the * is first.

When you have accumulated a sum of gold and wish to save it for a later time, you can visit one of the banks to 'DEPOSIT <gold amount>' or trade your silver for gold, 'GIVE <silver amount> silver <banker's name>'. The Naerlan bank is three south, five west, two north, two east, and one south of Homanu (the recall room).

You will see two types of characters on AU. The first are the other characters being played by people like you. When you type 'WHO' you will see all the characters currently online. The second type of character is a "non-player character" or NPC. This is a computer run "mobile" who can serve a number of purposes. The mob, Jarrel, to your immediate north when you start the game, gives you equipment. At your recall room, Homanu heals you and gives you spells of protection. Other mobs, like the goblins in the newbie center, are used for killing and gaining experience. As you gain levels, you'll discover more uses for mobs and more reasons to be selective about which mobs you kill.

When you are preparing to kill a NPC, there are a few things you can do. First, if the mob does not attack you when you enter the room, you can 'CONSIDER <mob name>' to see if it is a mob you might be able to kill. If you decide you have a chance at killing the mob, you can use a number of different commands to start battle. You could simply 'KILL <mob name>' or you could use a skill or spell followed by the mob name. There are a few commands to keep in mind when fighting.

KILL: To start a fight.
FLEE: If your health gets to low, it might be wise to type flee and attempt to leave the battle. You will not always succeed with this command.
CONSIDER: To help you decide which mobs you can fight and beat.
WIMPY: To assist you in getting out of a fight before you die, you can set your "wimpy". This tells the computer to have your character try to flee when the chosen number of hp have been reached. Type 'WIMPY <number>' to set the hp number. 'WIMPY' with no argument sets your wimpy value to 20% of your maximum hit points.
ASSIST: If you are fighting with a group of player run characters, you can assist them in fighting. You can either type 'KILL' and join the fight after it has started, or type 'AUTOASSIST' to join all fighting immediately.
CAST: Spells are an important part of fighting and are accessed using 'CAST <spell name>' (in quotes if it is more than one word)".

You will gain experience for each kill, and once you gain enough experience, you will receive the message that your character has reached level 2. At this point, your character will automatically save. If you quit before you reach level 2, your character will not save and you will have to recreate to join the game again.

Just as in real life, your character will need to eat and drink to stay healthy. Food can come from many sources. Fountains contain drink, and sometimes food. Stores have food and drink. Some classes have spells to create both water and a range of different foods. You will see a message telling you when you're hungry and when you're thirsty. Until you reach level 6 and can no longer enter the newbie training grounds, you can get both food and drink from the fountain of milk in the same room as the mob named Jarrel at the entrance to the training grounds. At Adventures Unlimited, your character will not die from hunger, it will only make healing slower.

Sleeping and resting, like in real life, are absolute necessities. Once you have reached level 10, you will start to get tired if you stay awake too long. You will tire most quickly when you are standing (the position you must be in to walk around, to fight, and to cast spells). You can rest when you're talking to other players, which will tire you out less than standing. Sleeping is still necessary. When you are ready to wake from sleeping or stand from resting, you can simply type "stand" and you will be ready to go.

Days will pass on the MUD, though MUD days go by quickly. Some buildings are dark all the time, others in the light all the time. You need to have a light of some sort, such as a torch or lantern, to make your way safely through the world.

Another similarity to real life is the necessity to greet someone before they will see your name. Before you know the names of other players, they must introduce themselves to them, as you must do to them. The syntax for this is 'GREET <player>'. Greeting players will allow you to recognize them by name instead of just by their race and sex. In order to see players' names on some channels and in rooms, they must greet you. Greeting them is not enough. That would only enable them to see your name. The way you appear to other characters may be changed using the 'RTITLE' command (discussed in the roleplay section).

Each race has their own language and there is a common language to help you get by. When you enter the realm, you speak your native tongue. To speak in the common tongue, type 'SPEAK COMMON'. To learn more about language and how to gain them, practice them, and understand them, type 'HELP LANGUAGE' when you enter Adventures Unlimited.

As you find mobs to kill and gain experience, you will find there is more than one place and more than one way to hunt. The newbie guide that all players start with will give information on how to get to a wide variety of low-level areas. The best time to explore is when you are under level 10, as when you are killed, you will come back to life with all of your equipment and armor. After level 10, you'll have to go and get your stuff from your corpse.

You can hunt alone, or you can hunt in groups. If you wish a pet to aid your hunting, you can buy them at the pet store in the main city and in most other cities. Type 'LIST' at the pet store to see the level of pets available. You can also hunt with other players. To group with players so that all get experience from the hunting you must be within 15 levels of one another. Type 'FOLLOW <character name>' to follow someone. Once someone is following you, type 'GROUP <character name>' to put them in your group. You can see all the members of your group with the command 'GROUP' and you can talk to your group with the "gtell" channel.

Adventures Unlimited is a roleplay encouraged (not required) MUD. However, if you are interested in roleplay, there are a number of commands to facilitate it. Rtitle allows you to modify your race title so that when people see you in a room or on some channels, you are more than "A pixie." Type 'RTITLE <descriptive word>' to change your rtitle. Example: if one typed "rtitle silly", he or she would be seen as "A silly pixie." Once you have greeted someone, they will only see your name, not your rtitle.

Character descriptions are another roleplay device. You can add simple descriptions using 'DESCRIPTION' for the first line and 'DESCRIPTION +' for each line after that. 'HELP DESCRIPTION' goes into greater detail on how to use the description commands. You can also use 'DESCRIPTION WRITE' to enter an editor that will let you format your description. Type '.h' once you are in the editor to see the various commands you can use.

Socials, emotes, and smotes are all useful in roleplay. Type 'SOCIAL' for a list of socials. Try out any socials that seem interesting. Most socials can be used with no target, example 'PEER' would look like this to others: "Cylad peers around himself intently." If you type 'PEER <character name>' you would peer at another character. Many socials also allow you to have yourself as the target. Socials can be used on two channels, the music channel and the grats channel. To use a social on channels, type 'MUSIC . <social>'.

Smotes are similar to emotes, but your name is not inserted at the beginning of the text string. Rather, you must put it in the text yourself. An example would be "smote Crying softly, Cylad ignores everyone." Everyone in the room would see the text string without the smote before it. Smotes cannot be used on channels.

The list you see when you type 'WHO' contains all the characters currently on AU. When a character has greeted you, their title will appear beside their name instead of only their race title (rtitle).

The who list also lets you know what race and gender each character is. Players with PK between their race and name are in the player killing system.

AU has OOC channels and IC channels. An OOC (Out of Character) channel is for discussing levels, questions about how to play the game, and in general anything that interests the players of AU. The IC (In Character) channels are for discussing things a character might know about. Characters know their age, their class, and anything regarding their role-play and actions in the world of Tharel. They know each other by name or by rtitle. The following is a list of the channels available on AU.

The syntax for all channels is the same: '<channel name> <text message>', however on some channels (mostly the IC ones, though some OOC ones too) you can use socials and emotes, but not on others. To use a social on a channel, type '<channel name> . <social name>' and to emote on a channel type '<channel name> !<text message>'.

NEWBIE: This is the first channel you'll have access to. It is OOC and can be heard by all players.
SAY: This is an IC, in the room only channel. Rather than use socials or emotes on it, you can use the socials directly in the room and emote by typing emote and the text message.
OSAY: This is an in the room, OOC channel.
WHISPER: You can whisper directly to another player permitting they are in the room. Whispering is an IC action and can only be heard by the person you are whispering to. Other players can see you whisper, but will not see what you've said.
GTELL: This can be used when you are grouped with other players. It is generally an OOC channel.

The remaining channels you can use once you reach level 3:

TELL: This sends a message to the player you target, it is an OOC channel. Syntax is "tell (player name) (text message)".
IC: This is the global in character channel. It's used for in character remarks only. You can use emotes on it, but not socials.
OOC: This is the global out of character channel. Used for anything OOC about life.
QUESTION/ANSWER: These are helpful for questions about finding areas, how to level, and all sorts of things. Generally an OOC channel.
GRATS: This channel is OOC, you can use socials and emotes, and it is used to congratulate people for such things as gaining entitlements.
MUSIC: This is an OOC channel for players to offer up the lyrics of a song that has caught their interest.
WAR: If you choose to become a PK character, this channel can be used for hostilities between yourself and other pk characters. An IC channel.
CLAN: If you choose to become a PK character and you are accepted into a clan, this is a channel useful for talking only with your clan members.

Report: when you type 'REPORT', you will tell everyone in the room, including yourself, your hp, mana, and movement points. This is useful for people who are helping you out or grouping with you. Reporting is a purely optional thing to do. Do not feel like you need to report if people ask you to.

Worth and Account: 'WORTH' will tell you both your total gold and silver carried on you and your experience points. 'ACCOUNT' tells you how much gold you are carrying and how much gold you have in the bank.

Alias: Many commands are things you will use over and over again in the course of your time at AU. Alias permits you to create a few commands to replace things you use often. As a mage, you might want to alias "cast 'magic missile'" to "mm". The syntax is 'ALIAS <new command text> <command you wish to replace>'. You can remove aliases by typing 'UNALIAS <alias name>'.

TNL: This is often used by players in OOC conversations. It refers to the experience necessary to gain your next level: till next level.
QP: This refers to your quest points. Again used in OOC conversations.
DP: Devotion points, which you can see by typing "temple".
AFK: Away from the computer, used when people will not be playing for a few minutes.
BRB: Be right back, similar to AFK.
EXP: Experience (used when referring to TNL).

PK on AU is limited and requires roleplay justification. In plain words, it means the following things:

You will remain out of the player-killing element of the game unless you choose to join. You can only join playing killing when you are levels 15 to level 25. Once you have joined, there is no way to leave the PK system short of deleting and remaking your character from scratch.

To join PK, you first need to submit a set of motivations by note to the Immortal staff. This will be a list of things that would motivate your character to attack or kill someone else. Once these have been approved, you can join PK by typing 'PKJOIN' twice.

Once PK joined, you can be attacked by any player up to 10 levels higher than you. However, because of the roleplay justification requirement, PK rarely happens randomly. When a character attacks another character, the aggressor in the fight has one hour to write a note on board 5 to the Immortals, giving a justification for the attack. More about PK justification is contained in the help files. It is a very good idea to read all of the PK help files before joining, as PK is not for everyone.

If you are temple joined, keep in mind your god's rules on PK. Furthermore, temple joined players have the possibility of joining their temple's clan if there is already one in place, or of creating a clan.

Once you have created a character on AU, you can look at the following help files for more information on player killing and clans: PKTRIAL, PKJOIN, PK_ADVICE, MOTIVATIONS, CLAN_HALL, CLAN_NEW, LEADER, DAYS_OF_REDEMPTION.

For a list of clans, type 'CLANLIST'.
For a list of members within a clan, type 'CLANLIST <clan name>'.

Type 'WIZLIST' to see a list of the staff of AU. To see a list of gods, type 'HELP TEMPLELIST'. This will not only show you who the gods are, but also their alignments. Each god has a help file explaining their alignment and background. These can be accessed by typing 'HELP <god's name>'. All of the gods have temples, located in or near Naerlan.

You have the choice to have your character follow any god you wish or no god at all. If you wish to join a god's temple, there are both benefits and challenges to consider. Temples include healers and increased rate healing rooms, but if you die or are excommunicated, you will have to pay a price.

To convert to a temple, find the mob near the entrance to the temple and type 'CONVERT'.

Type 'HELP TEMPLE' to learn about all the other aspects to the temple system on AU. All new players start off with Fjiorim as their default god. This condition does not hinder or help characters in any way with the exception of questing. If you are a follower of Fjiorim, your god alignment is neutral and you must maintain a neutral alignment to receive full quest point rewards.

Our automapper is one of our most popular features. Not only is it useful, but it aids in giving a sense of the size and complexity of your environment. The automapper, seen in the upper left hand corner of each room you enter, tells you a little bit about your surroundings. It is a 5x5 grid of your surrounding area.You will learn how many players and mobs are in each room immediately around you. You can see what type of terrain you are walking across. You can see where exits are and which roads continue a ways and which do not.

'AUTOMAP' to toggle automap on and off.
'AUTOTERRAIN' to toggle PC/MOB numbers in automap display.
'HELP AUTOMAP' to see a list of map symbols and their meanings.

Certain characters in the game will allow you to go on quests to recover an item, kill a mobile, or both. To go on a quest you must be in the room with the correct questmaster. Questmasters recognize the alignment of the player's god and will assign quests appropriate to the player's god. They also recognize the level of the player. In the land of Tharel, there are questmasters for 3 divisions of level (5-35, 36-70 and 71-100) and for each god alignment (good, neutral and evil). Thus there are currently 9 different questmasters.

Type 'QUEST REQUEST' to receive a quest, 'QUEST INFO' to remind you of your quest while on it, 'QUEST GIVEUP' to tell the questmaster you do not intend to complete the quest, and 'QUEST COMPLETE' when you have returned to the quest master after finishing the quest. Do not give the item you were sent to retrieve to the questmaster. You must instead type 'QUEST COMPLETE' and the questmaster will take the item from you.

When you successfully complete a quest, you will receive quest points, gold and eve have the chance of receiving devotion points towards your temple rank or possibly practices. The quest points may be saved up and used to buy quest items from the questmaster. The items from the questmaster cannot be purchased anywhere else in the game and have unique and useful attributes. When at a questmaster, type 'QUEST LIST' to see the items.

Quest points can also be used to purchase ten practices. Many of the players on AU convert these practices to trains to either gain skills they do not have already or to train hit points. Take note that using this method will greatly enhance the strength of your character.

Like all other socials situations, there are some basic unwritten rules. These are not things you will get busted for doing, but following the guidelines below will make your experience more rewarding and aid you in finding others to interact with on AU. First and foremost is to treat all others with respect and consideration. One of AU's best features is not in the code or areas, it is the people who play the game. We have a wonderful group of players who are kind, helpful, and fun.

Using all capital letters is seen as screaming or yelling and can annoy many players. Try to reserve the use of all capitals for moments when you feel the need to emphasize something.

Objects that you find in the donation pits at the temples and at recall are provided to aid others. Auctioning or selling these items is considered exploiting the generosity and goodwill of others.

If you find something that might be a bug, immediately report it on the bug board, board 3. If it is a bug your character can benefit from and you do not report it, you are breaking the rules of the MUD. Make sure you report both the bug and the benefits you received from the bug.

Also, please keep in mind that you should treat the Immortal staff with respect at all times. The staff of AU donate their time to keep the MUD running. If they tell you to do or not do something, you should take their word as law and not argue the point with them.