Your first steps
in the realm.

Creating your character

Connect to connect.vikingmud.org on port 2001. You will be greeted by the Viking MUD banner and asked for a name.

Type any name you like. If the server responds with New player. the name is free — follow the prompts to set a password and you're in. If it asks for a password without showing "New player.", someone else owns that name; disconnect and try again with a different one. If the name is listed as unavailable, it was either retired for rule violations or is used by an in-game monster.

If you have problems creating a character, mail help@vikingmud.org.

Your very first command

Once you are in the world, type this before anything else:

Then head north to enter the Academy and start exploring. A few other commands to learn immediately:

• look — describe the current room
• who — list players currently online
• score (or sc) — show your stats and HP
• help <topic> — in-game help on any command
• apropos <keyword> — find commands by keyword
• quit — log out

Stats, XP and levels

You start as a level 1 mortal with four stats, each set to 1. Everything about your character — how hard you hit, how much damage you can take, how many spells you can cast — flows from these numbers.

Gaining experience

Experience (XP) comes from two sources: killing monsters and solving quests. Type score at any time to see your current XP total.

Spending experience — the Adventurers Guild

Raw XP does nothing until you spend it. Head to the Adventurers Guild in Larstown and type cost to see what you can afford. To raise a stat:

You cannot have a higher average stat than your current level. Once your stats are capped for your level, type advance leve to go up a level.

Reaching level 20 and beyond

At level 20 you choose: become a Wizard (and help build the world) or an Eternal (keep playing as a mortal without the level cap). You will need a certain number of quest points to reach level 20 if you want to become a wizard. If you just want to continue playing to level 29, and then gain epic levels - no quests are required.

Combat

To attack a monster you must be in the same room. Type kill <name> to begin a fight. Before charging in, examine your target:

exa shows what the monster carries. shape gives a sense of its relative toughness during combat. If it looks too dangerous, don't pick the fight.

Weapons and armour

Unarmed combat is possible but poor. Pick up weapons and wield them — a weapon in your pack does nothing. The same goes for armour: wear it or it won't protect you.

eq lists which body parts are protected and the condition of each piece of armour.

Hit points and healing

Your HP drops when you take damage. If it hits 0, you die. Set wimpy 20 to auto-flee below 20 % HP — useful until you know what you're doing (though fleeing reduces kill XP).

Healing options, cheapest to fastest:

1. Wait — slow, but free
2. Eat food and drink — the Newbieville Inn sells both
3. Use a spell. Some guilds have healing spells.

Looting and selling

Monsters drop corpses. Loot them with get all from corpse. Sell surplus gear at the shop in Larstown, and deposit coins at the bank there so you don't lose them if you die.

Quests

Quests are puzzles built into the world — they earn you XP and quest points, which you need to advance levels and eventually reach Eternal or Wizard status.

Finding quests

Go to the Adventurers Guild and type quests. Use quests unsolved to filter to what you haven't done yet, and quest # (replace # with the number) to get a hint. The lower the quest number, the easier it tends to be.

How to approach them

Examine everything. Listen to NPCs — they usually tell you exactly what they need. Think about what you would do if the situation were real. Common puzzle patterns:

If you solve a quest you will see a message like "You have solved the quest. You feel more experienced." Confirm with quests solved.

Scope

Some quests take five minutes; the largest take hours and may require other players. Don't attempt the high-numbered ones as a fresh character. There are also hidden quests not on the list — they have their own rewards.

Communication

Viking MUD is a social game. Communicating with other players costs no spell points. Here are the main channels:

In-room speech

Private messages

You don't need to be in the same room. Use re <message> to reply to the last person who told you something, and last to recall who that was.

World-wide shout

Chat channels

Channels reach specific groups. Type view channels to list them. The most used is Chat:

Feelings and emotes

Type feelings for a full list of pre-built expressions. You can direct them at players and modify them with abbreviated adverbs (type adverbs for the list):

Commands & tips

Aliases — shorthand for long commands

If you repeat the same command constantly, give it a short alias:

Custom prompt

Replace the default > with something that shows your current HP, SP and XP at a glance:

Type help prompt for the full list of tokens. You can also browse all in-game help topics right here — click the ? button in the bottom-right corner to open the help terminal.

Colour support

If your client supports ANSI colour, enable it and assign styles to message types so tells stand out from room descriptions:

Splitting loot

When partying, split gold equally among everyone present:

Reporting bugs and ideas

If you find a bug, typo, or have a suggestion, use the in-game commands from wherever you are. The creators read these:

Useful miscellany

• finger <name> — see info about another player
• plan — write a profile line others can read
• creator — find out who built the area you're in
• verbs — list every command available to you
• bn — open the board system (in-game forums)