Discworld MUD
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Discworld MUD is a free Multi-User Dungeon set in the Discworld as depicted in the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett. It is based on the LPMud codebase.
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[edit] Overview
The MUD was founded in 1990 and opened to the public in 1992. The world has developed over time to the huge size it is today. It consists of several big cities (Ankh-Morpork, Bes Pelargic, Genua and Djelibeybi) on two continents, many smaller towns scattered around, and more than a million rooms which form the land between the cities and towns. Many of the Discworld characters wander around on the disc. At any time, there are usually between 100 and 200 players online. The MUD is based on a custom mudlib and uses its own LPMud driver.
Over 500 soul commands allow refined roleplaying, from crying to hopping around in circles. All is possible, but roleplaying is not compulsory and many players choose to play in a purely social role, performing valuable services, moderating legal disputes or writing plays, or the other extreme, "numberchasing" - advancing their own skills as quickly as possible. Combat and theft between players is only possible for those who opt for "player killer" status. All other players are protected from other players (but not from the NPCs that can cause enough trouble for the unwary).
An interesting feature of the MUD is that your prowess at various activities is based upon your skills' "bonuses", which are based upon your level in the skill and the various stats (such as strength, dexterity, and wisdom) that affect that skill, forming a weighted logarithmic relationship. Advancement is unlimited, but the higher your 'level' in a skill, the less effect gaining another level will have.
You can connect to the Discworld MUD by typing discworld.atuin.net (ports 23 or 4242) into a MUD client connection box. Alternatively, you can play through your browser with a Java client at their website.
[edit] Guilds
The majority of players join one of the six basic guilds - organisations that handle training and career advancement, and are usually the first port of call for social interaction. These six guilds are the guilds of assassins, priests, thieves, warriors, witches and wizards. They are loosely based on the Discworld novels, although there are differences - in the novels, for example, warriors, wizards and witches are not considered to be Guilds in Ankh-Morpork.
Someone who has not joined a guild is said to be an adventurer. Adventurers lack the cheap advancement and social structure provided by guilds, and so most players join a guild as quickly as possible. However, a few players choose to remain outside the guild structure and play as adventurers.
Many of the guilds have specialisations - further choices that need to be made concerning the player's role in the guild. Each guild has a refined set of special commands and abilities. Some guilds are "player-run" - that is, operated, within limits, by leaders who are elected from within the playerbase.
[edit] Assassins
The Guild of Assassins is generally considered the most "difficult" of guilds in the MUD, mostly because all graduates of the Guild become PK (player-killers) upon graduation. Assassins are generally specialised in the covert and fighting skill trees, and advance much like thieves. However, when they reach graduation age, Ankh-Morpork assassins must undergo the Run, a difficult and secretive test. The other assassin guild houses have less dangerous graduation ceremonies.
The signature ability of assassins is the inhume. Inhumation is the act of instantly killing a contracted target in a number of ways, including a musical instrument. Only Assassins may inhume targets (both player and NPC), but any playerkiller may take out a contract.
Four separate but similar assassin guilds exist, the most popular being the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Assassins. The others are the Hashishim, based in Djelibeybi; the Mano Rossa, based in Genua; and the Ninja, based in Bes Pelargic on the Counterweight Continent.
As detailed in the published Assassins' Guild Diary by Terry Pratchett himself, the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Assassins is split into six academic houses; Viper, Cobra, Scorpion, Tree Frog, Raven and Black Widow House. This is after the style of notable English public schools such as Eton College. Black Widow House is an entirely female house, and since its introduction in 2002, all new female assassins have automatically been assigned to it. Male assassins are randomly assigned to one of the other five houses, although these houses are not entirely male. The guild is led by a player guildmaster, elected from the body of the guild by its membership. Each House also has its own housemaster, who is elected in the same fashion and may have belonged to any House in the past. However, ultimate authority resides with the guildmaster.
[edit] Priests
The Priests' Guild is divided into 7 religions, each of which has its own High Priest and Ministers. The High Priest has the ability to marry players to each other, excommunicate worshippers which denies them access to the "Deity Points" pool, absolve heritics so they can once again use deity points and adjust the usage of the pool to make rituals harder or easier to perform.
The Priests' Guild has seven different player-worshippable gods at present. When they were created, each of the gods was given a quirky portfolio. These portfolios have expanded over time, as it can be quite difficult to provide special powers (known as rituals) to players for something as specific as "slight showers" or "fluff". Each God also favours a particular alignment in his/her priests. The following list starts with Pishe (who wants priests who are good) ranging down to Sek (who wants priests who are evil), with a shift between the two. Players who don't want to be full-time priests can be worshippers, who get access to a little divine power; usually, this is one useful ritual and one fun ritual, though opinions vary widely on this.
The seven gods are:
- Pishe - Goddess of Slight Showers, though this has also grown to encompass growth and regeneration. Pishe is also often regarded as a goddess for healers, as she grants her priests the "raise dead" and "resurrect" rituals. Pishe does not accept followers, only full-time priests.
- Gufnork - God of Fluff. His range of rituals has often granted his priests some of the most powerful defensive options available to priests, and it has sometimes been popular with numberchasers for that reason.
- Gapp - God of Fine Clothing, sometimes including style in general. One fun aspect of Gapp is that, in order to receive some bonuses, his priests must change their clothing regularly to match his arbitrary edicts. For example, "This week Gapp is favouring gold, spiked and cotton clothing." Gapp is often considered a generalist god, not excelling in one particular area but having reasonable abilities in several.
- Sandelfon - God of Corridors. This has expanded to include many things which go on in corridors, too, noting that politicians often follow him. Sandelfon is the only neutral god, which can make him popular with players who don't want to worry too much about their alignment. Staying "good" or "evil" can be more fiddly than staying near to "neutral".
- Fish - God of Sea Creatures, previously God of Fishermen. Fish has several unique rituals, relating to water and fish - for example, Fishite priests can often help players retrieve their belongings from a river using "breathe underwater" or make their opponents blow up like a puffer fish.
- Hat - God of Unexpected Guests. This has often taken the form of Hat's priests turning up unexpectedly, particularly when it comes to gatecrashing parties. Whilst not as directly offensive as Sek or, perhaps, Fish, Hat's rituals are well-suited to combat including the popular "fumble" ritual and the useful-but-dangerous "holy sacrifice" which can allow more use of rituals and other actions at the cost of their health.
- Sek - The Seven-Handed God. Unlike the other gods, Sek doesn't have a particularly well-defined portfolio. However, his priests are evil and have several combat-oriented abilities. Whilst these are not always effective, they can be fun and provide a different flavour.
Unlike most guilds in the game, the priests don't really have a precedent in the Discworld books - no real examples of priests being granted divine rituals for smiting the unholy are found. However, they provide a number of useful functions which fit well with their theme in the game.
The guild has very few ways of causing direct damage using its own skills. Many players spend a lot of time and effort advancing "fighting" skills (such as use of a weapon to attack or parry), using their faith skills and rituals to supplement their fighting. A number of rituals can be useful in combat. Rituals exist to prevent you taking damage (holy shields), to allow you to cure yourself and others, to summon allies you can control to fight alongside you and to enhance your abilities to some degree (for example, improved statistics or a holy weapon).
Deity Points
Deity points are stored in the high altar of the god and are recharged by priests praying. They are used in the creation and use of Faith Rods and to enable cheaper or easier rituals as determined by the High Priest through the use of the command Obsecrate.
High Priests have a special command called obsecrate. With this command they can ask the deity to alter various things about the way deity points are spent. You can get rough details on the current setup with the devout inquisition ritual. The things they can currently do are:
- Reduce ritual costs - up to 30% of ritual costs can be set to be shouldered by the deity point pool.
- Increase ritual costs by taking tithes - rituals can be made to cost 30% more than usual, with some of the surplus being put back in the deity point pool. This is a more efficient way of converting gp to dp than praying.
- Make rituals easier and better - self-explanatory really, this can chew up a large amount of dp.
Excommunicated priests and followers are not affected by Deity Points for better or worse.
Faith Rods
Faith Rods are weapons which can be used to store rituals. These rods allow followers and priests to gain access to rituals they would not normally be able to use. There are two stages in faith rods that use DP: 1. Bestow'ing: Bestowing a ritual onto a rod will cost DP. Hence it's possible that sometimes you will be unable to bestow. 2. Performing from a permanent rod: Perform a ritual from an impressed or imprinted rod will cost DP. So make sure you don't become to dependent on it! You might find yourself without rituals at awkward times!
Charging up the rod
When you bestow a ritual into a rod, it can only be used once- so if you perform the ritual, it will dissolve from the rod, leaving an empty slot. It can be made to be used multiple times by pouring guild point into the rod. You can do this by praying whilst holding the rod. If you're holding two rods, or a rod and beads, the gp invested will be split over the items. To be able to charge a rod, you will need to be a priest of the same deity as the rod to do this (The ritual "See Consecreation" can be used to check this). When you charge the rod, you will find that the ritual can be "imbued", "impressed" or "imprinted" into the rod.
This means:
- imbued: ritual can only be used once
- impressed: ritual can be uses multiple times, but the ritual will disappear when you consecrate the rod to another deity
- imprinted: ritual can be used multiple times and it will remain on the rod when reconsecrated
[edit] Thieves
The Thieves' guild of Ankh-Morpork has a political system in some ways similar to the assassins. The leader of the guild is known as the Guildmaster (or GM). GMs have disciplinary powers and write the guild charter, which lists rules that guildmembers should follow. A GM could, in theory, be elected, but traditionally the departing GM has appointed his or her own replacement. A GM also appoints a Deputy. The disciplinary powers of the Thieves' Guild GM ranges widely. The GM and his admin team can administer various coded punishments ranging from being banned from guild grounds, fencing stolen goods or advancing. The punishments then scale up to being "heavied" (a process where a NPC guild enforcer take you to a trip to the river Ankh after beating you to within an inch of your life) for money, money and items or even everything you have then locked in a cage as well. For the bans and the full heavying the GM can even set the time to be spent banned/imprisoned. However recent changes mean that the records for player's sanctions can be viewed within the guild.
The Thieves guild has been divided into five specialisations with similar, but distinct, sets of primary skills:
- Prowlers - Thieves based upon stealth, with no real combat abilities.
- Cutpurses - A blend of stealth, manipulation and combat.
- Muggers - The most combat orientated thieves, suited to violent (yet precise) outdoor theft.
- Safecrackers - Although dwindling at the moment, these are the best lock-pickers on the disc.
- Smugglers - Thieves who know the price of everything and how to shift it.
Members of each specialisation elect a Monitor to represent them. Each Monitor must be a member of the specialisation they represent and they are elected by their fellow thieves of the same specialisation.
The special commands thieves get are widely ranged. The most obvious advantage is that the covert.manipulation.stealing primary means the use of the commands snatch, steal and shoplift relatively easy. The Thieves' come to the fore front however with the use of the command "filch" which allows the thief to steal any item, even if it is worn, at any time, including in combat. This means the thief can not only filch your favourite diamond ring but if you wish to attack them they can steal the weapons right out of your hands. This does come at a price however since they lack a "defensive" primary, meaning that most players with offensive primaries will find it easy to hit you.
Other specialist commands allow thieves to judge how easy it is to steal from another person, judge the security on a shop and look inside other people's containers.
The Thieves' Guild is home to the Safecrackers, which used to be very rich due to the very lucrative business of cracking safes, however this was thought to be "overpowered" and has been removed for the time being until a solution presents itself.
The Thieves have always had a strained relation with the Assassins' Guild as both of them occupy large proportions of the Playerkiller population and share similar areas of the game, namely covert skills. Assassins tend to get annoyed at a thief's ability to take ones possessions, whereas Thieves tend to get annoyed at the Assassins taking away lives with a single command on the behalf of someone else. However despite the difficulties no real tension has sparked up recently, but the fierce competition is always there.
[edit] Warriors
The Warriors' Guild has no parallel in the books. Since the guild was split into ten smaller subguilds in 2004, there has also been no in-game institution known as the "Warriors' Guild", although the name persists at several levels of the game and is used as a catch-all term for the warrior groups.
The warriors' guild specialisations all share a number of common factors: they each have multiple weapon and defence skills, various combat improvement skills, and a few skills that are there for in-character reasons (Calligraphy for the samurai, musical skills for the Musketeers, etc). The current warrior specialisations are:
- Ankh-Morpork Palace Guard
- Weapon Masters' Court
- Djelian Guard
- Klatchian Foreign Legion
- Hublandish Barbarians
- Hunters
- Lancre Highland Regiment
- Imperial Guard
- Samurai
- Duchess Saturday's Musketeers
Warriors are considered an easy guild to play: their specialist commands are mainly more powerful combat moves, although they can also restrict entry/exit from rooms, enter a "berserk" state (with 1000 extra hit points and more attacks per round, but no combat defence or specials) and open combat with a warcry to slightly weaken the opponent. The latest warrior only command is Track, which allows you to track a player or named NPC.
The old institution was run by an elected guildmaster and assistant guildmaster. Three warriors were appointed to the rank of Squire to assist with the operation of the guild. However, since the guild was split there has been no player administration.
[edit] Witches
The witches are an all-female magical guild, centred around Granny Weatherwax in the village of Bad Ass (Although there is also a branch in Bes Pelargic, with its own teacher NPC's). They mainly specialise in trade- and service-related skills.
The most immediate thing one notices is of course the warts. As a Witch gains levels, they gain an amount of warts. The higher in power a witch, the more warts.
This is a distinct difference from the books, where warts were definitely not a requirement to be a Witch in the Discworld, and in fact in the books the only Witch to have warts was Nanny Ogg and some "evil" (gingerbread-cottage type) witches, such as Black Aliss.
Sample text from game: "You cannot help but notice that Lucy has 23 warts."
To many this is a barrier to playing a Witch character, as they may want to play a Witch without warts - Witches when they are younger can often look very beautiful and are no less likely to be so than anyone else, in the Discworld - for example, the case of Goodie Hamstring.
Their skills are generally more social than offensive: they have the ability to brew a number of special teas with various magical effects (such as healing, poison antidote, and cold cure), create magical crystals with even more special effects, enchant items and rename items. This last service of renaming items is known as "deluding", and it is a very popular request amongst other players. It allows them to customise their inventory to a higher degree, and requires higher-level skills on the part of the witch. Witches are able to get around the disc rapidly by flying using broomsticks, and also have a few combat spells. As a result of their generally high magic skills, they can also usually use scrolls prepared by wizards more effectively than other guilds.
Their signature ability is probably creating "Tricks". These are fake magic spells that attempt to fool viewers into thinking something has happened, but in reality are only good for special effects and the advancement of their magic skills. They are looked upon as something of an art form, and (roughly) yearly contests, known as the trials, are held to see who can create the second best trick - behind Granny Weatherwax, of course. These are organised by players; traditionally, whoever is first to say "When were the last trials? Must have been a while ago..." is given the honour of running them. They are one of the game's most popular social activities, with many witches engaging in the friendly competition and many members of other guilds turning up to spectate or judge.
The witches guild has no formal political structure: its members are both equals because there are no rank distinctions amongst witches and students of the various NPC witches around the disc. Different player-run clubs spring up for witches from time to time, some of which do well, whilst others dwindle and die. One of the more recent clubs is called "HAGS", which provides goods and services to other players. Players can make a request from a member, who passes it around to other online members via a club talker channel if they can't fulfill it. Many witches prefer to offer their services to friends and acquaintances, or not at all if they choose to pursue combat abilities or other skills, however, so there is no stigma attached to witches who choose not to join.
- Alongside Black Widow House (one of the Ankh-Morporkian) assassin houses) they are the only gender-restricted guild. Male characters are unable to join, alhough gender changing facilities are available in some areas.
- They are the only guild without specialisations; the Bes Pelargic guild is simply another way of joining, for people who don't speak the morporkian language, and witches may advance and train freely at both.
- They are also the only guild with only one title. Unlike other guilds, where characters get increasingly powerful-sounding names as they advance, witches always remain "the Witch".
These things are seen by some players as being un-witchlike, and heated discussion results whenever they are suggested.
[edit] Wizards
The Wizards' Guild is based on the Unseen University from the Discworld novels. The Institute of Illusory Learning is a secondary institution based in Djelibeybi, which has no parallel in the books. There are also hedge wizards, who are associated with neither institution. The IIL and the hedge wizards have no political structure.
The Wizards Guild is far from easy and great patience is required as it can take a long time to master the more powerful spells. Once you are established however, wizardry is the most versatile guild around, full of fireballs, illusions, wyre lights, lightning dragons and Food.
The UU and IIL have a level system where First Level is awarded when you chose to join an order which can be done at Guild Level 40, Second at 60, Third at 80 and Fourth at 100. After that there is competition amongst members of an Order for that Order's allocation of Fifth, Sixth and Seventh level wizards, with Rating (an assessment of your general rank based on quests completed, age and guild level) and time since last death being the factors considered.
Each order has eight Fifth Level Wizards, four Sixth Level Wizards, two Seventh Level Wizards and one Eighth Level or Senior Wizard. Before you join an order you can only advance to level 50 in the guild, upon graduation you will be able to advance your order primaries to 300.
Senior Wizard (sometimes unofficially known as Eighth Level) is an elected position in the UU Orders that brings with it access to the Senior's Bedroom, which contains a wardrobe that functions similarly to a vault and a bed. The position also enables the player holding it to use the "discipline" command which becomes more powerful the more often the player is disciplined. Just a warning at first it later passes through unconsciousness, broken legs and being nailed to a bridge pylon with your inventory gone. The punishment can only be triggered by walking into the Great Hall from outside.
The Orders
There are eight orders of wizardry at UU and three at IIL which all have their own primary focuses, however, any wizard can cast any spell which he choses to remember and has the skills for. The orders allow easier advancement within a specific field and give a sense of identity but they will not cut you off from other options.
The Unseen University orders are:
- The Ancient and Truly Original Sages of the Unbroken Circle - elemental magic (including some of the stronger offensive spells)
- The Ancient and Truly Original Brothers of the Silver Star - Magical Artifacts
- Mrs. Widgery's Lodgers - Magical Lore (aka. general magic)
- The Order of Midnight - Necromancy
- The Sages of the Unknown Shadow - Demonology
- The Venerable Council of Seers - Scrying
- The Hoodwinkers - Illusions
- The Last Order - The Playerkiller order.
The Institute of Illusory Learning orders are:
- The Ancient Order of Djinn Diviners
- The Ancient Order of the Dynastic Crescent
- The Ancient Order of the Scintillating Scarab
These three orders all have the same primaries which are focused on general magic. The IIL is currently not accepting new entrants due to extensive ongoing renovations.
Hedge Wizards mirror the UU orders but have no rank or title, merely a colour denoting their focus.
- Circle - White
- Star - Brown
- Lodgers - Red
- Midnight - Grey
- Shadow - Black
- Seers - Green
- Hoodwinkers - Blue
- Last - Octarine
There are several other Wizarding Institutions scattered around the Disc and while they do not have their own orders, they do have advancement facilities.
Skund Forest has a small house with an advancement room for Hedge Wizards and an apparatus for raising the dead.
Bes Pelargic has an extensive guild with a library containing spells, several magical billiards rooms, a magical duelling arena, clothiers and more.
The House of Magic in Creel Springs has a component shop and advancement area.
Generation Hex in Sto Lat has a library and an advancement area.
Spells
Wizard spells come from books and books are generally found in libraries. There are several dozen spells available. From Toy spells which have no practical use other than fun, to the more useful miscellaneous spells of enchanting and Portaling to the combat oriented offensive and defensive spells which range from weak to devastating in their effects. The student level spells are located in the Gymnasium at UU, IIL and the Bes Pelargic Guild, however for the more powerful spells you will have to either beg a scroll off another wizard or venture into the Library where getting lost is a par for the course. To an experienced wizard however, spell recovery is relatively simple.
Spells can be scribed onto pieces of paper which then become magical scrolls. These scrolls can be explosive if gathered together but are of great use for when you lack memory or want spare copies.
[edit] Player councils
The game world is divided and sub-divided into several political regions. The cities of Ankh-Morpork and Djelibeybi are run by councils of elected player magistrates. Despite an effort by the Djelibeybi council (usually referred to as the Klatch council, after the Discworld continent and coding area in which Djelibeybi is located) to seize control over those areas with no player council, it is generally held that there are no written player laws which apply to these areas, and that only the game's acceptable use policy, invariably referred to as "the rules", applies.
Ankh-Morpork has seven magistrates, while the Klatch council has five. Elections are held every six months. The council system is based on the game Nomic.
The Agatean Empire has a non-player council, with no elected magistrates.
