Software of the Month Club 1997 April

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DzikoSoft(TM) ╔════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ LORDS OF DOOM ║ ║ Part One: The Black God ║ ║ (C) 1995-1996 Bartek Dzik ║ ╚════════════════════════════════════╝ "Lords of Doom" is a SHAREWARE fantsy role playing game. This file contains information about playing the game, registering, troubleshooting, as well as description of fantasy world, where the action of "The Black God" takes place. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Chapter One : General Overview. Chapter Two : System requirements and technical notes. Chapter Three: How to register this game. Chapter Four : License Agreement, disclaimer. Chapter Five : SETUP utility and MUSIC settings. Chapter Six : HELP: how to play the game. Chapter Seven: Troubleshooting. Chapter Eight: RPG System and World from Lords of Doom. Chapter Nine : Spells description. -------- CHAPTER ONE: GENERAL OVERVIEW -------- This is the second release of Lords of Doom: The Black God. (ver. 1.42, September 1996) I live in Poland and I know that my English is not excellent. Sorry about any mistakes you will find in this text file or during gameplay. 1. What is shareware: Lords of Doom is a shareware game. Shareware programs follow the rule "try before you buy": shareware product may be used for a limited period of time without spending any money. If you do continue using it, or want to use some of its extended features, disabled in shareware version, then you pay for it. Shareware is a distribution method, not a type of software, it allows you to see whether the program is that, what your need, before you pay for it. All shareware software is copyrighted software, as well as any retail software. 2. Short Description of Lords of Doom: The Black God. The Black God is the first part of Lords of Doom fantasy role playing saga. The purpose of the game is to lead alone hero to defeat powerful evil demi-god awaked by the Great Comet. You will find the large playing area, lots of interactive dialogues with NPCs, magical book with over sixty pages of darkest knowledge, plenty of monsters, many items and powerful spells. Game features VGA high-resolution (640x480) graphics, intuitive contol interface (mouse or keyboard) and build in HELP. This game was designed to give the player maximum level of realism in typical situations: (for example when hero finds the locked door, he need not to seek a key, he may always try to pick the lock or break through the door - it will take some time, of course) etc. There are combat and healing spells available for the character, but there are aslo spells which allow to fly, resist fire, poison and enemy's blows, and even move through stone walls. 3. WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 1.42 Currently three verions of LOD may be available. -Ver 1.4: the earliest one, probably you don't find it anywhere now. -Ver 1.41: this verion was released just few days after ver 1.4, because earlier verion had bug with switches in Guardians' Temple, and ver. 1.41 has it fixed. -Ver 1.42: the latest one: many people, who have seen "The Black God" complained that game protection (disabled "load game") appeared too early, so I set it to further stage. Now you may load games also from City of Dacrell. The game now sets the keyboard speed to proper value, so it is not too fast on certain computers. IMPORTANT NOTE It is possible to find some elder version of Lords of Doom: The Black God (there might have been sent to some FTP-sites etc.). These versions (with the file LOD.EXE earlier than 10th April) have bugs, which may cause some troubles: it may be impossible to open the entrance to Labyrinth of Forgotten Souls in Guardians' Temple. If you find such versions (lod.exe file elder than 10th April, length of lod.exe 292988 bytes) on any FTP-site etc., please give me know about it, so I will be able to send current version there, or, if you can, replace the old version with this version. This verion and version 1.41 (with lod.exe from 12th April) are fixed and bug free. 4. Copyright information. Lords of Doom (TM): The Black God (TM) is copyrighted by Bartek Dzik 1995-1996. MIDI files with Lords of Doom soundtrack are copyrighted by Michal Dzik 1995-1996. 5. How to contact the author: FOR GAMES SOFTWARE PRODUCERS: I am interested in work or co-operation with software companies. If you want me to work for you as RPGs scenario editor or programmer, or if you have any other proposals please contact me at the following address: Bartek Dzik ul.Skrzetuskiego 4/61 20-628 Lublin POLAND I can be also reached in Internet at: dziko@zeus.kul.lublin.pl 6. One interesting story... When I made a scenario of Lords of Doom over a year ago I had no idea that so extreme coincidence may happen: All troubles in the world of "Lords of Doom: The Black God" are caused by the Great Comet. When the game was being released a big comet called HYAKUTAKE was passing through our solar system. Well, I was really surprised when I heard first time about this comet. But that is not enough: when the game was being released HYAKUTAKE was passing near the Earth and approaching the Sun: just like the Great Comet from Lords of Doom... Many other strange things happened during making this game, for example: the test version of the game had built in debugger which shows position on a map, and some other variables. When I tested the last level of Guardians' Temple, I stepped into pentagram and debugger showed the number... 666. Those who played LOD also told me about many strange things that happened to them. Well, it seems that some magic still remains in our world. ------- CHAPTER TWO: SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS AND TECHNICAL NOTES ------- 1. Confguration required to run the game: PC AT compatibile. DOS ver. 3.30 or later. VGA graphics card. 330 kilobytes of free base memory (580 for Gravis Ultrasound music). Hard disk with at least 2.2 MB of free space. Mouse. Recommended configuration: 386SX or faster CPU. DOS ver. 5.0 or later. Fast VGA (PCI or LOCAL-BUS) card. Running a disk caching utility (like smartdrv.exe etc.). 330 kilobytes of free base memory (580 for Gravis Ultrasound music). Hard disk with at least 2.2 MB of free space. Mouse. Note: The game files take about 2 MB of hard disk space, but game uses also 200 kilobytes of disk space for temporary files, so it can not be run from a CD-ROM drive. You must install the game on the hard disk to run it. Using the disk caching utility will make the game to run much faster. 2. Running the game under the MS Windows. Lords of Doom is a DOS game, but it may be run under MS Windows, as a DOS application. Running the game under Windows allows users of some sound cards to hear the music during gameplay, refer to Chapter Five for details. Note: If Gravis Ultrasound music is enabled you can not run the game under Windows, (bad things may happen - disable music in SETUP.EXE). 3. Game Files. The game consists of the following files: Executable files: LOD.EXE : main EXE file. SETUP.EXE : setup utility. Data files: FILENAME: LENGTH (in bytes): imgdat.ld1 284,796. imsmdat.ld1 21,168. texdat.ld1 234,640. tdirdat.ld1 77,166. mapdat.ld1 262,440. itedat.ld1 20,000. cmddat.ld1 19,683. specdat.ld1 21,877. mscdat.ld1 235,606. save_a.ld1 73,155. save_b.ld1 73,155. save_c.ld1 73,155. save_d.ld1 73,155. save_e.ld1 73,155. Text files: README.DOC : README file (you are reading it). ORDER.DOC : register form. Configuration file: cfgdat.ld1 (length 184 bytes). Note: If, for some reasons, configuration file cfgdat.ld1 is missing simply run setup.exe : configuration file will be automatically created. ------- CHAPTER THREE: HOW TO REGISTER THE GAME ------- Lords of Doom is a shareware game. You may play this game for some time, and if you want to finish "The Black God", you should register it. Shareware version of the game has one limitation: you may save your game in any stage of your quest, however saves from the futher stages of the game, (starting from Anvard Valley), may only be restored in the registered version of Lords of Doom. In shareware version, names of saves that cannot be restored are GRAY in the save game list, while other names of saves are RED. Registering the game allows you to load your save game files that were not availabe in the shareware vesion. To register the game you need the password, which unlocks the ability of your game to restore any saved game. To receive the password please send 15$ (fiveteen U.S. Dollars, or equivalent - see below) to the address: Bartek Dzik ul.Skrzetuskiego 4/61 20-628 Lublin POLAND This is Polish address, so do not forget to write it correctly. You may use ORDER.DOC file, or simply include your name and address on a separate piece of paper in the letter. FORM OF PAYMENT: Please send cheque, cash (if you send cash, I suggest sending it in registerd letter, for better protection) or international money order. If you send cheque please add 5$ for compensating bank charges etc. Make cheques and money orders payable to Bartek Dzik. I can accept currencies of the following countries: Cash or money order: Cheque: 1. U.S.A: 15.0[USD] 20.0[USD] 2. CANADA: 20.0[CAD] 26.0[CAD] 3. GREAT BRITAIN: 10.0[GBP] 13.0[GBP] 4. DEUTCHLAND: 22.0[DEM] 29.0[DEM] 5. FRANCE: 85.0[FRF] 115.0[FRF] 6. SWITZERLAND: 20.0[CHF] 26.0[CHF] 7. THE NETHERLANDS: 25.0[NLG] 34.0[NLG] 8. AUSTRIA: 150.0[ATS] 200.0[ATS] 9. SWEDEN: 100.0[SKR] 135.0[SKR] 10. AUSTRALIA: 20.0[AUD] 26.0[AUD] Users in other countries: send 15$ (20$ if cheque) or equivalent in any of currencies mentioned above. ! For users in POLAND: Oplata wynosi 20.0 PLN: prosze wysylac w liscie (najlepiej poleconym) lub przekazem pocztowym. When I receive your payment I will send you the PASSWORD in the letter. (If you live ouside Europe I will send it via air-mail, this should save some time). If you are an Internet user, and want to receive the password via e-mail (it will be faster), add your e-mail address, and choose this form of delivery in file ORDER.DOC. I will send you the MAIL message which contains the PASSWORD (even if you want to receive the PASSWORD via e-mail, write your address: if for some reasons, like hardware failure etc. I am not able to sent you an e-mail, I will send you the PASSWORD in the letter). WHEN YOU RECEIVE THE PASSWORD: 1. Run SETUP.EXE from your Lords of Doom directory. 2. Choose REGISTER THE GAME from the menu. 3. Enter your full name and press ENTER. 4. Enter the password and press ENTER. 5. You will see your name and password, choose ACCEPT to proceed, RETYPE if you want to write your name or password again, or press <ESC> to quit the registering process. If you enter the correct password the game will be registered to you, and you will be able to restore any of your save game files. Any new versions of "Lords of Doom: The Black God" will work with this password. ------- CHAPTER FOUR: ------- - INFORMATION FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO DISTRIBUTE THIS GAME - - LICENSE AGREEMENT - - DISCLAIMER - You can find the latest verion of LOD in Internet at: 1. ftp.cdrom.com pub/games/dos/rpg/lod1.zip 2. ftp.uwp.edu pub/msdos/games/rpg/lod.zip and mirrors of ftp.uwp.edu (mirrors.aol.com, ftp.sunet.se etc.) Shareware version of the game may be added to any BBS or FTP site without specific permission from the author. The only requirement is, that all game files listed in Chapter Two must be included with no modifications. Any shareware or game magazines may include shareware version of Lords of Doom on its cover disks or cover CDs without permission from the author. The requirement described above applies. If you add the game to your cover disks or CDs please inform me about it, so I will know where my game is distributed. All shareware vendors are granted a limited license to distribute this shareware game. Following requirements apply: 1. You may only distribute SHAREWARE UNREGISTERED VERSION of this software. If you are not sure if it is a shareware version, just run SETUP.EXE: if option REGISTER THE GAME is available in the menu, that means that it is a valid shareware version of Lords of Doom. 2. It must be clearly explained that this software is shareware. 3. No more than a modest distribution fee may be charged by the vendor. 4. No modification of game files is allowed. All files listed in Chapter Two of this README.DOC file must be included. You may add a *.bat file which installs the game etc. If you want you may distribute this game compressed. 5. You may include the shareware version of the game in any retail enviroment, such as CDs etc. without permission from the author, however I should be informed about it, so I will be able to send you the latest version of Lords of Doom. 6. Bartek Dzik should be mentioned, as an author of this game, in any catalogue description associated with distribution of this software. If you follow all requirements above, you may distribute Lords of Doom: The Black God. DISCLAIMER THE PROGRAM IS BROUGHT "AS IS", THERE IS NO WARRANTY. I AM NOT LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR INCIDENTIAL LOSS OR DAMAGE. I ALSO TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY LOSSES OF MONEY SEND IN LETTERS TO ME: IT IS FAULT OF THE POST, NOT ME. IF YOU SENT A REGISTERED LETTER YOU MAY DEMAND COMPENSATION FROM THE POST. AUTHOR OF THE GAME TAKES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR USING KNOWLEDGE GAINED IN THIS GAME, ESPECIALLY FROM HOSSAUR'S BOOK, IN OUR WORLD. ------- CHAPTER FIVE: SETUP UTILITY AND MUSIC SETTINGS ------- HOW TO USE THE SETUP: To configure the game you must run SETUP.EXE from the Lords of Doom directory. You can do following things in the setup: 1. Register your game (see Chapter Three for details). 2. Set system speed: set up game to work with appropriate speed on your system. 3. Set up music and extract MIDI files. Setting system speed: Speed of your VGA card is very important for the game, SETUP gives you possibility to set up game to work fine with your VGA card: for example, if you have very fast PCI SVGA card the game may run too fast without proper settings and so on. Here is a little example: the game will run much faster on a 486DX-33MHz with a typical LOCAL-BUS or PCI VGA card, then on 486DX4-100MHz with an old ISA-BASED VGA card. If you want to set up speed of the game, choose from the SETUP menu SET SYSTEM SPEED and then PROCEED. Testing speed of your VGA card may take up to 20 seconds, but it takes usually less then 10 seconds with modern, high-performace cards. You may interrupt this test by pressing any key. When the test is completed, the proper information will be automatically saved in configuration file. Here are results for some common video cards, all tests were performed on computers with 486DX4 100MHz or 486DX2 66MHz: speed of the processor do not seems to affect the testing time: Video Card: Time (in seconds: the lower, the better) 1. An old 256kb VGA adapter 18 s. 2. Trident TVGA 9000 512kb ISA 15 s. 3. VESA Local Bus Card (S3 chip) 9 s. 4. WD Paradise Bahama PCI (S3 Trio64) 7 s. 5. ATI Mach64 PCI (88800GX-D chip) 4 s. Well, the result for Mach64 is really impressive. If you find card, which is faster in this test please inform me about it via e-mail. I haven't seen any better results, but I didn't test for example Matrox MGA Card. Note: Controls Menu from the game allows you to customize speed of the character movement: see Chapter Seven for details. Setting up music. Currently in the first release of Lords of Doom only Gravis Ultrasound wavetable card is supported. Other sound cards, like Sound Blaster or Roland may be supported in the next releases of this game. FOR USERS OF ALL SOUND CARDS: Music from Lords of Doom is available in MIDI files. To get these files, from SETUP menu choose MUSIC SETTINGS and then EXTRACT MIDI FILES. The setup will extract 20 MIDI files, text file MUSIC.DOC and Lords of Doom icon: LOD.ICO. You may run the game under MS Windows and play the music in the background using Media Player: refer to file MUSIC.DOC for more details, chapter 3. FOR GRAVIS ULTRASOUND USERS: The game will play the music through your PLAYMIDI program: by calling it as a TSR program. To hear the music you must run SETUP utility: choose MUSIC SETTINGS then SET MUSIC TO Gravis Ultrasound, and then choose ACCEPT SETTINGS. Your GUS must be initialized, and ULTRASND, ULTRADIR, and path to your ULTRASOUND directory must be set. (Usually your Ultrasound Setup does automatically all these settings, so it should be no problem). The game requires 580 kilobytes of free base memory to be run with GUS music: if you have less free memory LOD.EXE will inform you about it when you try to run the game. If you have to get some more base memory, quit some resident utilities like Norton Commander etc. and try to run the game with configuration files CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT which do not call CD-ROM and similar drivers (which occupy a lot of memory), and use MEMMAKER (from DOS 6.0 or later) utility to optimize memory usage. NOTE: Running disk caching utility (like smartdrv.exe etc.) will considerably increase speed of loading music. ------- CHAPTER SIX: HOW TO PLAY THE GAME ------- 1. Getting started. You may skip screens in introduction by pressing any key, or skip the whole introduction by pressing <ESC>. Introduction will run at the start of the game, if only one save game slot is used. From the first menu you may choose NEW GAME, LOAD GAME or QUIT. When you choose the NEW GAME you will be able to see the introduction again, or CREATE HERO. If you want to create character choose CREATE HERO. Then use mouse or F1-F10 keys to pick up two attributes and two skills. Press TAB or click on an icon of pen to enter name of your hero (use BACKSPACE to delete characters when entering your name). Then use mouse or <R> and <L> keys to select character's handedness. To choose face of your character use mouse (click on the face you would like to choose) or use 1 - 7 keys. To accept the character press ENTER or click on the proper bar. To cancel character generation press ESC. Note: ACCEPT CHARACTER option will be disabled, unless you pick up two attributes and two skills (see above). Note: There should be one save game available called "Steppes of Naar" which allows you to quickly start the game without creating character. 2. How to play the game. a.) MOVEMENT You may move your hero using arrow keys or clicking on the map in the direction you wish to move (UP arrow key to move to the North etc.). If you want to jump (it may be useful in some situations) press PgUp and then select direction using mouse or arrow keys. Your character may move through the water with no trouble, if it is normal water of course (a small lake etc.); moving in the swamp water or in dirty water in the sewers may be dangerous to character health. A Fly spell (Energy Sphere, 3rd power level: see Chapter Nine), allows to move over some obstacles like trees etc. b.) ITEMS OPERATIONS To pick up an item you must step on it and then press SPACE or click on character face. To select an item from the inventory click on its icon or use 1 - 7 keys. If you want to select an item from the backpack using the keyboard, press 8 and then 1 - 0 key. When item is selected it is surrounded by the yellow frame (while all not-selected are surrounded by the white frames). When the item is selected you can DROP it: press SPACE or click anywhere on the map; or YOU CAN USE the item (drink wine, eat food, cast spells from the wand etc.) by clicking RIGHT mouse button, or pressing ENTER. You may move HIGHLIGHTED item to a new location: pressing 8 or clicking on any location in the backpack will move this item to the backpack. If backpack is full the item will be swapped with the last item in backpack (if it is possible). To move an item to location other than backpack, highlight the item and click on a new location or press 1 - 7 key. If there is another item on that location, the items will be swapped if it is possible. Remember: it is not "drag and drop": you must click on the item and then click on another location without keeping the mouse button pressed the whole time. c.) SPELLCASTING To cast the spell press ENTER or click on an icon with mystic eyes. The numbers to the left are you magic points ratings: current and maximum: for example it may look like: 5 of 15: you have 5 magic points now, and you may have maxium of 15 magic points (unless the Meditation is used, see below). You may not cast spells when you keep heavy items in both hands. At least one hand must be free, or keep only a small item: a dagger, a potion etc. Then use mouse or 1 - 5 keys to select magic sphere. After selecting the sphere use mouse or 1 - 5 keys to select the spell. At the start of the game you will have two spell from each sphere, there are five possible spells in each sphere: refer to Chapter Nine for details. You may cancel spellcasting in any moment by pressing ESC or rigth mouse button. d.) TALKING AND TRADE If you want to deal with someone, get closer to him (or her) and press space or click on the character face. You will see the menu: choose TALK, LEAVE or ATTACK. During talk use 1 - 5 keys or click on character questions. The game has an interactive dialogue system: some informations gained in one dialogue may be used in dialogues with other beings etc. Read all questions very carefully: collecting informations is a very important part of your game. People from the given area will react on your strange actions: if you kill someone in the village all other villagers may not want to talk to you at all, some of them may even attack you if you get close to them etc. When dealing with merchant use 1 - 4 keys or click on items in merchant's inventory to select the item to buy. Use PgUp or PgDn or click on arrow icon to scroll merchant's inventory. If you would like to sell something, press ENTER or click anywhere on your inventory to activate selling mode. During selling mode select items you would like to sell the same way as described above (point b.). To quit selling mode or to leave merchant's shop press <ESC> or right mouse button. e.) FIGHT You may perform following actions during cobat: -Use arrow keys or mouse to select an enemy you want to attack. -Use 1 - 5 keys or click on the proper icon to select one of five possible attack types: normal, cautious, minor critical, major critical and berserk. (Refer to Chapter Eigth if you want some more details). -Cast spell: the same way as decribed above (in point c.). Healing and energy spells may not be cast during combat. -Activate HELP screen: by pressing F1, see below. -Drop, use or move items from hands or belt: use 6 - 9 keys or mouse in similar manner as described in point b.), but you may not swap items during combat. -Speak The First Words of Banishment, press 0 key or click on the proper icon: During the game there is possibility to learn one magical incantation known as the Words of Banishment: a really powerful weapon against undead enemies (see Chapter Eight for more details). This option is only available when you know these words and fight with undead enemy. f.) HELP Pressing F1 will activate help screen, use PgUp, PgDn or click on arrows icon to change pages of the HELP. Press <ESC> or right mouse button to return to game. Help is availabe from the standard playing screen, and also during combat. g.) AREA MAP Pressing F2 or clicking on the map icon will show the Area Map. The area map is drawn during your movement: it shows only that part of the given location where you have been during your quest. Water on the map is represented by the blue color, doors, teleporters and other special things by red, dangerous terrain by magenta, and NPCs by yellow color. Illusionary walls look on the map just like real walls, unless you pass through them: then they will by represented on the map as the open area. To close the map and return to game press any key. h.) REST OPTIONS Pressing F3 or clicking on HEART icon will activate the Rest Menu. Numbers to the rigth from the heart icon are your health points: current and maximum: White color of the current health points score, means that you are quite healthy. Gray color means that you are moderately wounded, red color means that character is seriously wounded. When health points score reaches zero character is dead. Powerful spells may temporary raise the health points beyond its natural maximum level, for example character may have 33 of 25 health points. In such situation your current health points score will have the yellow color. You may quit from REST menu by pressing <ESC> or right mouse button. There are four possible options of REST, (choose them using mouse or with F1 - F4 keys): F1 - Quick Rest: Allows character to rest for a very short period of time: somethig about ten minutes. It is useful for example, if you just need to regain one magic point to cast a given spell etc. F2 - Rest: Allows to rest from 1 up to 6 hours. It is used to regain magic points and a little of hit points. Hero will regain 6 magic points per hour if he is not sleepy, or 3 if he is sleepy. He will not regain any magic points if he is very sleepy. Of course magic points are being regained also during normal play (when hero explores the area etc.) with the same speed as during rest (one magic points per ten minutes of ingame time, and so on). F3 - Meditation: it is the ability to raise character's magic points score beyond normal maximum. You must have your full magic points score reached, and you can not be sleepy to meditate. Meditation will give a four magic points per hour, up to 150 percent of maximum level: for example, you may have 30 of 20 magic points. When you have those additional magic points their current score will have yellow color. When you have this additional power it is more difficult to cast the spells. Additional magic points will disappear if you go to sleep. F4 - Sleep: Anyone must sometimes sleep. Sleep may take from 7 up to 12 hours: it depends on your heatlh condition and time which passed since the last sleep. Sleep will restore all your magic points, (but it may also dispel additional power gained by meditation) and restore some of your hit points. When you are sleepy it is more difficult to fight, cast spells and you regain magic points far slower. HEALTH ICONS: on the right from your health points score some icons may sometimes appear: icon of the food means that character is hungry, icon of the bottle means that character is thirsty. Icon of poisoned blood means that you are poisoned: two such icons mean that you are seriously poisoned. Icon of yellow hand (or two such icons) means that character is diseased (or seriously diseased). Fially icon of an eye (or tho such icons) means that character is sleepy (or very sleepy). THE QUESTION OF TIME: Character has nine days to complete his quest. It is really quite a lot of time, and you don't need to hurry up. There is a rectangle with the symbols of sun in the game, which shows ellapsed time. If ellapsed time "has" blue color, it means that everything is all rigth. Only if ellapsed time "becomes" red, that means that you must hurry up. i.) DISK OPTIONS By pressing F4 or clicking on the icon of disk you will activate the disk options menu. You may load the game, save your game or quit to DOS. In shareware version of this game not every saved game may be restored: see Chapter Three for more details. If you choose to load or save the game use mouse or 1 - 5 keys to select the slot to load or save your game. You may quit from this menu by pressing <ESC> or right mouse button. j.) CONTROLS By pressing F5 or clicking on the controls icon you will activate the Controls menu. You may select movement speed from this menu by clicking on proper bars or pressing 1 - 3 keys. If music was enabled in game configuration, you may use F1 and F2 keys or mouse to turn ingame music or fight music on / off. When you make you settings press ENTER to accept them, or ESCAPE to cancel. k.) SEARCHING Pressing PgDn or clicking on the icon of a chest allows you to search the ground. There are three possible reasons for searching the groud: - You stand in the water and you want to drink the water. - You want to get item from the chest. - You seek hidden item (there are some items that can only be found by searching the given area, however if character must get such an item he should approximately know the place where it is hidden: searching the big area takes a lot of time). l.) ATTRIBUTES AND SKILLS RATING Press <TAB> or click on the icon of blue sphere to see character current attributes and skills rating. Character gains experience through his long quest: it gives him additonal health and magic points and increases rating of his attributes and skills, (see Chapter Eight for Details). To return to game press any key. m.) SPECIAL OPTIONS: - F8 key will refresh the music (if it is enabled in configuration file). If you are using Gravis Ultrasound music you may turn the music off immediatelly by pressing both shifts. - F10 or shift+D will give you a real DOS shell. Well, it is the first game with DOS shell I have ever seen. You may use this DOS shell as a great BOSS-KEY or for other purposes. DOS shell from Lords of Doom should give about 280 - 300 kilobytes of free base memory. To return to game type EXIT <ENTER> from the DOS prompt. Warning: Do not try to run lod.exe when you are in Lords of Doom DOS shell, it may lead to current game data loss! QUESTION OF SAVE GAME FILES: The game gives you five slots to save your games. If you think that it is not enough you may back up save game files and use it whenever you wish. All data concernig the given save game is in one save game file (from the first slot - in file save_a.ld1, from the second slot - in save_b.ld1 and so on). Remember that all five save game files (from save_a.ld1 to save_e.ld1) must be in the Lords of Doom directory, otherwise you will receive an ERROR message when you run the game. ------- CHAPTER SEVEN: TROUBLESHOOTING ------- This chapter is divided into two main parts: technical problems and problems concerning the gameplay. 1. TECHNICAL PROBLEMS: Running the game with QEMM: There were some strange troubles with older version of Lords of Doom, running on computer with QEMM installed. Occasionally, after saving the game, no disk operations were possible (like loading, saving etc.) and the left half of the area map was entirely clear. However these problems were connected only with test-versions of the game, no such problems were noticed with this version of Lords of Doom. However if anyone encounters such troubles with this version of the game: just quit the game (don't worry your last save game operation was succesfull, even if strange things happened then), and restart the game: you should have no troubles. So if anyone finds any bugs in this version of Lords of Doom which causes troubles with QEMM please inform me: I will try to solve the problem. Running the game on the Novell 4.x network terminal: I encountered only one strange thing when I run the game on the Novell 4.x terminal: it is very small problem and is not dangerous at all: just when you give a new description to a save game and save your game, when you will try to load this game, you may see the old save descripion, however the game was saved properly. I don't know if it is the Novell Netware 4.x fault or the fault of the computers I worked on. Maybe the reason is the network HD access, but who may now it? The problem above appeared in the test versions of the game. I haven't tested current version of Lords of Doom on the network terminal, so I don't know if this problem may occur at all in this version of the game. If you encounter such strange things just give me know about them, I will see if I can help. If you encounter any other problems, just give me know about them. (You may find my e-mail address in the Chapter One, I use Internet only once or twice per week, so sometimes you will have to wait a few days for my answer etc.). Some technical informations (if you are interested in game engine): This game was written in 95% on the 386SX-33MHz machine, so it should work fine on old slower computers. The game occupies small amount of base memory (about 330K), but it uses temporary files to keep the game data: it is my first step to create virtual world system: some minor modifications will allow the game to work with size of the world limited only by the free space of hard disk, unlimited by the amount of free memory you have. Well, but it will probably concern my future products. HARDWARE QUESTIONS THAT MAY EMERGE DURING GAMEPLAY: Q: The game runs too fast on my computer (Pentium processor, fast PCI SVGA card, etc.), how to slow it down? A: Run SETUP.EXE and choose SET SYSTEM SPEED and then PROCEED. The setup will test the speed of your system. If you get a test time lower then 6 seconds, your system is really very fast. After this test, setup will automatically configure the game to work with the proper speed on your computer. If you still want the game to work slower, from the CONTROLS menu in the game (activated by F5 key) set MOVENENT SPEED to SLOW and accept settings by pressing <ENTER>. Q: The game often uses hard disk access, so it works quite slow in some moments, is the way to omit this problem? A: The game was designed to occupy small amount of memory, but it uses temporary files, and it may slow down the game on a computer with an old, slow hard disk drive. Any disk caching utility (like smartdrv.exe etc.) will make the game to run much faster. Q: I get an error message "ERROR: can't create TEMP file!" when I tried to run the game. A: The game needs about 200 kilobytes of free hard disk space to work properly, so you cannot run this game from the CD-ROM drive or completely full hard disk. If you have game installed on your hard disk, and you have the free disk space stated above, and this error still occurs, that means that game was probably incorrectly installed from the CD-ROM drive: try to delete file "tmpdat.ld1" and "lmusic.mid" from your Lords of Doom directory, it should solve the problem. Q: I find files tmpdat.ld1 and/or lmusic.mid in my Lords of Doom directory. There were no such files before. A: These are Lords of Doom temporary files, they are normally deleted when you quit the game, but if, for example, your computer was accidentally turned off during gameplay you may find these files in the game directory. You may delete these files, if you wish. They will be also deleted when you run the game. 2. PROBLEMS DURING GAMEPLAY: FOLLOWING QUESTION CONCERNING THE GAME MAY EMERGE: Q: What skills and attributes pick up to create the best character? A: I would pick up WILLPOWER and TOUGHNESS from the attributes, and FIGHTER SKILL and WIZARD SKILL from the skills, but it does not mean, that it will be the best selection for all situations, it's rather a question of individual preferences. Characters with picked up other attributes and skills may also be a very good character. Q: How can I use an item? A: Select the item from your inventory by clicking on it, or pressing 1 - 8 keys (refer to Chapter Six for details) and then press ENTER or RIGHT mouse button. Q: How can I learn the spell? A: You must use a magical crystal which holds the spell, for example: "crystal of Ice Strike", then use this crystal as you use any other item and you will learn the spell. To learn the spell from the given sphere you must know all the lesser spells from this sphere. Q: What are the effects of red, green, colorful and black potions? A: Red potion acts like Minor Healing spell: it heals some wounds, but only if you are not too seriously wounded. Green potion acts like Neutralize Poison spell: it removes or reduces poisons and diseases. Drinking colorful potion gives you the equivalent of two meals and one bottle of wine. Black potion partially dispels the need for sleep: after drinking the black potion, character will become sleepy about 8 hours later than without drinking it. Q: When I drink the wine I got an empty bottle, may I fill it in any way? A: Just step in the water and use the bottle. Q: How can I use a torch or candle? A: Just keep it in one of your hands, it is used automatically. Q: How will I get experience points? A: You are getting experience points for exploring the area, talking with NPCs and solving different problems. With your expirence your amount of magic points, health points and ratings of your attributes and skills will increase. The amount of magic points and WIZARD SKILL also depends on the number of spells the character knows. Q: Sometimes, when I cast a healing spell, character becomes hungry and/or thirsty. Is it an error in the game? A: No, it is not an error. Healing spells cannot create anything from nothing. They uses body resources to rebuilt character health, so casting such a spell will make character more hungry and thirsy. This is also the reason, why healing spells cannot be cast when character is hungry and thirsy. Q: How can I jump? A: Press PgUp and then select direction using mouse or arrow keys. Q: Is there a way to pass through water in the sewers or swamp without loosing the health points? A: Yes, use Water Breathing spell (from the Body Sphere). Q: What are the ratings (ACC:,DEF:,DMG:), under the icons of my weapon during combat? A: These are weapon bonuses: to accuracy, defence and damage. You may also find out the features of given weapon by "using it" as any other item (see Chapter Six for details). FOR THOSE WHO HAVE PROBLEMS WITH SOME PARTS OF THE GAME: Q: I'm in Dacrell: Where is hidden the key to the door in the sewers? Where can I find Master Heollar? A: The key is hidden just to the right from the door, you must use SEARCHING (click on icon of chest or press PgDn) to find it. You may find Master Heollar in the second part of the sewers, behind the great steel door, however he will appear to meet you only if you ask many people in Dacrell about him. Q: How can I find Hual-Yaag fruit in the Anvard Valley? A: You may ask wizard Rexigus: he will tell you where you can find the fruit. There is a swamp in south-easterly part of the valley, you must find the plant with partially yellow leaves: step on it, and choose SEARCHING (by pressing PgDn or clicking on the icon of chest), and you will find the fruit. Q: How can I learn the First Words of Banishment? A: You must read the Chapter Two of Hossaur's Book. Q: How can I defeat Shadow Warrior in the Forest of Ulm? A: You may slay him using magical weapon, however it may be difficult due to his very high fighting skill. There is a way to defeat him without the fight: you may know this way from Unicorn. Q: How to pass all these tricky levels of Guardians' Temple? A: You may find the way by reading the Chapter Three of Hossaur's Book. ----- CHAPTER EIGHT: RPG SYSTEM AND FANTASY WORLD FROM LORDS OF DOOM ----- Lords of Doom game is based on my own original RPG system (created for this game only). This system is different from the majority of other RPG fantasy systems. You cannot find here dwarfs, elves, or halflings, like in other fantasy RPGs. From the other side there are many "classic" features of fantasy world in my system: powerful magic, mystic creatures like dragons, undeads and demons and so on. If you are interested in features of Lords of Doom fantasy world this chapter should give you some informations: FANTASY WORLD: GEOGRAPHY: Your quest takes place on the planet similar to our Earth. There are two major continents there, known as Northern Continent and Southern Continent. Most of the empires are in the Southern Continent. Character mother land: United Kingdom of Gath-Vyr and Kooru is known as the most beautiful land of the Northern Continent. There are some other small countries in the Northern Continent, but they are rather not interesting. Empires from the southern continents are usually quite big, and they are ruled by the strong and despothic emperors. Volhorn Empire is said to be the most civilized empire in the world, it has very strong army and lots of big cities and fortresses. Arami Empire is ruled by the ancient dynasty of powerful emperors. It occupies a very large area of steppes, desert and territories near the ocean. Arami Empire is also known from many evil wizards and priests of the dark gods who live there with the permission of the emperors. Tepmir Kingdom is said to be the most peaceful place in the Southern Continent. It lies on the beautiful fields and valleys and is surrounded by the great mountains which give excellent protection against any enemies. There are a lot of places in Southern Continent very rarely visited by humans: for example mystic Forest of Ulm, or ancient Element Temples: Fire Temples in the volcanoes, flying Air Temples, Water Temples which lie under the surface of great lakes etc. HISTORY: The time in the world is divided in two eras. There was The Era of Night when gods had created human beings and then leaved the world. This Era ended 830 years ago. Currently there is The Era of Dawn: new empires grow in this era, and people become more and more civilized, strong and wise. Civilization of this world may be compared with Rome Civilization from the 1st or 2nd century B.C.. Magic allows people to make thing we may only dream of, but from the other side it may stop the progress of technical science: who need any machines if there is telekinesis, levitation, teleportation and so on. The history of the world is highly connected with the Great Comet: this Comet appeared two times, always causing catastrophes, wars, and many other dreadul things. You quest begins in the moment when Great Comet appears the third time: when the Comet passes near your planet, powerful evil demi-god is awaked. Xyrrugoth: immortal creature from the other plane of existance, who wanted to conquer this world over ten centuries ago. He was stopped by the gods and frozen under the Blue Mountains in the Northern Continent. Now Xyrrugoth, known as The Black God returns to turn your world into the land of death and pain. When Great Comet will be set in one line between your planet and Sun great magical power will allow Xyrrugoth to become the real god. You must stop him, otherwise the Era of Darkess will come to your world. MAGIC IN LORDS OF DOOM Magic in the World of "The Black God" is rare and mysterious art. Adepts must study magic for a long time to learn how to cast spells and perform mystic rituals. There are several Colleges of Magic which specialize in a different kind of mystic power. There are Elementalists, who used the power of Four Elements in their research. Alchemics are those Elementalists who specialize in creating the magical potions, drugs and wands. Very rare Illusionists use their power to create magical illusions which may deceive human mind. Necromancers are those dark wizards who use their power to summon and control undead beings. Almost any necromancer wants to live forever, but only the most skilled of them may finally transform into the powerful liche. Enchanters are those wizards, who use their skill to lock the magical energy in the items or even living beings, enchater may create, for example, magical weapon which may harm beings immune to normal physical attacks. Crystals, which are used to learn the more powerful spells, are also made by enchanters. Finally Conjurers are those wizards which use their magic to summon beings and mystic powers from the other planes of existance. Expirienced conjurers may even summom demons: powerful gods' servants. Conjurer's life is very difficult, because sometimes summoned power may run of control, and for example summoned greater demons often kill those who dare conjure them to this world. Specialization in one kind of magic, does not limit the use of other kinds of magic, for example: illusionist may cast spells from Elementalists' college. Specialization allows simply to use the given kind of magic with the lesser effort and greater effect: for example illusion created by the illusionist will last for a longer period of time and look more realistic then illusion created by the conjurer etc. Powerful wizards may reach the mastery in more then one college of magic: for example legendery conjurer Hossaur from the Tepmir Kingdom, who lived two centuries ago was not only powerful conjurer, but also the great necromancer. CREATURES: This world is inhabited by lots of strange monsters. Dragons are said to be the strongest and the most intelligent beast from this world. There are a few kinds of dragons: the most common, red and green dragons, live usually in the mountains and are famous for their fire breath which may turn a human being to dust. There are also black dragons who are said to be the servants of greater demons and dark gods' priests. Breath of black dragon is the cone of dark fire which not only kills but may also raise dead bodies into zombies. The most rare and the most powerful are ice dragons: they live in the highest mountains in their icy caves. Ice dragon's breath is the cone of freezing air which turns living beings into icy statuetes which may be easly crushed into pieces by one dragon's blow. Lots of undead beings, natural or summoned may be found in this world. Ghosts, spectres and certain shadows are simply lost souls who must stay for some reasons in our world. They are usually not aggresive and they can telepathically communicate with a human being. Haunts are the cursed souls who were magically forced to stay in our world and guard the given places. Skeletons are magically created (or summoned) creatures who serve the necromancers. There are a few kinds of skeletons: regular skeletons, skelton warriors and guards, skeleton champions and skeleton lords. Skeleton champions and lords have its own "mind" and they may perform tasks that require a bit of intelligence. Lots of other strange beings you may find in this world during your quest. Some of them were described in the Chapter One of Hossaur's Book. IF YOU WANT TO GET SOME MORE INTERESTING DETAILS JUST READ HOSSAUR'S BOOK. (Hossaur's book is a magical artifact which may be found during your quest). RPG SYSTEM TECHINCAL FEATURES: If you are a fan of real (not computer) RPG, you may be possibly interested in technical side of this game. Here are some informations which can give you an idea of this system: Your hero: since you lead only one hero to complete the quest from this game the character is not a one-class character. Character skills make him quite good fighter, wizard and also thief and ranger. Such universal abilities allow the character to face the powerful challenges he meet during his long and extremely dangerous quest. CHARACTERS' ATTRIBUTES: 1. Strength: It does not reqire a wide description: high strength will allow you to cause greater damage in combat. It is also useful when you attemp to break through the door etc. 2. Toughness: Toughness represents your resistance to physical damage, poisons and diseases. The higher toughness, the lesser damage you suffer from enemy's blow, and the higher chance to make a saving roll against poisons and diseases. 3. Dexterity: This attribute represents your general dexterity and agility, used when you attemp to escape or disarm a trap etc. 4. Willpower: It is a very important attribute. It represents strength of your mind: high willpower will make your spells to last for a longer time or cause greater damage, while enemy's spell will cause lesser damage to you etc. 5. Charisma: It is used in dealing with merchants. Your bad health conditon may reduce rating of this attribute in some situations. CHARACTERS' SKILLS: 1. FIGHTER SKILL: It represents your general combat abilities. High fighter skill will higher your chance to hit your enemies, and lower enemies' chance to hit you. 2. RANGER SKILL: It is your knowledge about various areas. High ranger skill will lower the chance of a random encounter, and make movement on dangerous terrain (like swamp etc.) much safer. 3. THIEF SKILL: It is very useful in such sitation like escape, disarming the trap, or attempts to pick the lock. 4. WIZARD SKILL: It represents your spellcasting ability. Your chance to cast a given spell and to resist the effects of your enemies' spell depends on your wizard skill. 5. MERCHANT SKILL: It makes your dealing with merchants much easier: high merchant skill allows you to buy things cheaper, and sell your goods at higher prices. CASTING THE SPELL: Spells are divided into power levels (see Chapter Nine for details). Spells from the 1st power level are the most simple to cast: no test is required to cast such a spell. Spells from the 2nd and higher power levels require a WIZARDS SKILL test. The higher power level of spell is, the more difficult is to cast it. The chance of casting the spell depends on the character WIZARD SKILL, it is reduced by the power level of spell to cast, bad condition (serious wounds, disease) will also reduce the chance of successful spellcasting. Casting the spell with additional magic points gained through meditation (see Chapter Six for details) also reduce the chance of casting the spell. This chance may vary from about 55% up to 99%. If test is not successful you will see the message "Casting failure!", character will lose the half of magic points (rounded down) normally needed to cast the spell. Casting a spell from the wand etc. does not require any test and it is automatically successful. HEALTH PROBLEMS: Hero may be healthy, moderately wounded, and seriously wounded. If he is healthy, or moderately wounded, no modifiers apply to any tests. If hero is moderately or seriously wounded he can not regain health points by the simple rest, he may only regain them sleeping. Extra Healing spell will not work if hero is moderately or seriously wounded. Serious wounds will lower character's strength in combat, and make spellcasting more difficult. Poison: if character is poisoned he will lose some amount of health points (from 1 to 4: it depends on poison strength) each certain period of time. This will last until poison will disappear naturally (after some time), character is dead, poison is neutralized by casting Neutralize Poison spell, or drinking the green potion. (If you are seriuosly poisoned you must cast the spell twice, or drink two potions to entirely neutralize the poison, but casting Poison Resistance spell will automatically remove any poison or disease regardless of its strength.). Disease: You may become diseased if you are wounded by the certain beings, drink dirty water etc. Disease will last until it is healed (by spell or potion, see above). Disease does not cause any health points losses, but it has a bad influence on your tests in magic and combat. Hunger and Thirst: If you do not eat/drink anything for a long period of time you will become hungry/thirsty. Any successful casting of healing spells uses your body resources, so you may not cast healing spells if you are hungry and thirsty. Each successful casting of healing spell will make you more hungry and thirsty. If you are hungry and/or thirsty you will regain less health points during your sleep. Sleep: Sleep is very important for the magic user. If you feel sleepy you will regain magic points two times slower then normally, and if you are very sleepy you will not regain magic points at all. Sleep will always restore your magic points to its natural maximum level (so it may reduce extra magic points gained by meditation), and will restore you some amount of your health points. FIGHT: Chance of hitting the enemy in combat is based on your FIGHTER SKILL, and modified by your weapon, type of attack you choose, your health condition, and enemy's skill, weapon and health condition. Base accuracy is called ACCURACY LEVEL: ACCURACY LEVEL = FIGHTER SKILL + WEAPON ACCURACY MODIFIER + + ATTACK MODOFIERS FOR SPECIAL SPELLS + + ATTACK TYPE MODIFIER - MODIFIER FOR WOUNDS, DISEASES ETC. Base defence is called DEFENCE LEVEL: DEFENCE LEVEL = FIGHTER SKILL + WEAPON DEFENCE MODIFIER + + DEFENCE MODOFIERS FOR SPECIAL SPELLS + + MODIFIERS FOR SHIELD - MODIFIER FOR WOUNDS, DISEASES ETC. Now we must find the HIT LEVEL: HIT LEVEL = ACCURACY LEVEL - ENEMY'S DEFENCE LEVEL When we know the HIT LEVEL we may see in special table the chance to hit in percent. For example HIT LEVEL = 3 will give a 9% chance to hit, while HIT LEVEL = 7 a 30% chance. If random percent roll is not higher then this percent chance, that means that your weapon strikes the opponent. A roll which is higher then this percent chance, but is not higher then a percent chance for (HIT LEVEL + 1) means that your weapon hardly hit the enemy: such attack causes usually only a small wound. The minimum chance to hit the enemy is 2% and maximum is 97%. Damage of the attack is counted this way: DAMAGE = ( YOUR STRENGHT [INCLUDING BOUNSES FROM SPELLS AND MODIFIERS FOR WOUNDS DISEASES ETC.] + WEAPON DAMAGE MODIFIER + RANDOM ROLL (D5) - ENEMY'S TOUGHNESS - ENEMY'S ARMOUR MODIFIER [WHICH IS DIFFERENT FOR DIFFERENT KINDS OF DAMAGE: IMPABLE, CUT etc.] ) * WEAPON SPECIAL DAMAGE MODIFIER * ENEMY'S SPECIAL RESISTANCE MODIFIER This last modifier is for example resistance to not magical weapon. Some beings like ghosts etc, are partially or totally invoulnerable to the attack of a not magical weapon. However you may still harm such a being even if you don't have a magical weapon: character bare hand attack is considered as magical attack, as well as bare hand strike of any creature with high magical abilities. Magical weapons in this game cause greater damage than the normal weapons, however enchantment do not give the weapon any additinal bonus to accuracy or defence. THERE ARE FIVE POSSIBLE TYPES OF ATTACK: 1. Standard attack - It features normal accuracy and middle damage level. Just the normal attack during fight. 2. Cautious attack - Choose this attack if you want to defend yourself rather than to hit the enemy. This attack will reduce your HIT LEVEL by 2 points and improves your DEFENCE LEVEL to all attacks in this turn by 1 point. 3. Minor Critical - This attack is an attempt to hit a voulnerable part of enemy's body. Minor critical will reduce your HIT LEVEL by 2 points, but improve the DAMAGE LEVEL by 50 percent. 4. Major Critical - This attack is an attempt to strike a very voulnerable part of enemy's body like head etc. Major Critial will reduce your HIT level by 4 points, however if you hit the enemy, the attack will cause double damage. 5. Berserk - This attack is not available when your are sleepy or feel bad because of disease. You cannot also perform berserk attack each turn: when you use it you must wait a few turns to regain the "mad" strenght. Berserk will improve your HIT LEVEL by 1 point, and give you a +2 bonus to your strength. However your DEFENCE LEVEL will be reduced by one point, (or two points, if your attack misses). Accuracy and damage of enemies' attacks are counted the same way as the character attacks. Enemies may attempt to strike a critical blow etc. Some enemies have special abilities: they can cast spells, their attacks may be poisonous or cause diseases. Typical armour may give no protection against attack of some beings (haunts etc.). Some very powerful attacks may stun character or enemy for one turn: stunned being may only defend itself with DEFENCE LEVEL reduced by 2 points. Some more powerful spells may weaken enemies: if being is weakened that means that it has ACCURACY LEVEL reduced by 1 point and lowered strenght. MAGICAL RESISTANCE: Some creatures may have special resitance to effect of any spell. What is very important: general resistance to magic is represented by the being's willpower, magical resistance is just an additional bonus. Magical resistance in this game works in a different way than in most of the other RPGs. In Lords of Doom this resistance is not a percent chance to negate the effect of a given spell (like for example in AD&D RPG); it is rather some kind of "armour": no magical resistance tests apply: the higher this resistance is, the lower damage any spell will cause to the being etc. Magical resistance is usually a feature of the ethereal undeads (ghosts, spectres) and beings from the other planes of existance. However people with very high willpower also have some magical resistance. ------- CHAPTER NINE: SPELLS DESCRIPTION ------- 1. SPHERES Spells in Lords of Doom are divided into spheres and power levels. Sphere contains the spells which have similar effects. For example all healing spells concern the problem of character health. Do not mistake Spheres for Colleges of Magic (described in Chapter Eight): there may be two spells from the different colleges in one sphere, for example: Fireball and Claws of Power are both combat sphere spells, but Fireball is a typical Elementalists' spell and Claws of Power is a powerful Conjurers' spell. There are five spheres available for the character: 1.) COMBAT SPELLS: This sphere contains spells which are used to harm the living beings. This spells may cause fire damage, freezing damage (from the extreme cold), and magical damage (from the mystic power). While fire or ice damage may be resisted by the abilities of some beings or protection from the given spells, magical damage may only be reduced by the high willpower and magical resistance. 2.) HEALING SPELLS: This sphere contains spells which heals the wounds, poisons and diseases. Powerful healing spell may even bring very seriously wounded character to full health. These spells uses body resources to rebuilt character health, so casting such a spell will make character more hungry and thirsy. Healing spells cannot be cast when character is hungry and thirsy. Casting the healing spell takes much more time than casting any other spells: so it is impossible to cast any healing spell during combat. 3.) PROTECTION SPELLS: This sphere contains the spells which give the character some kind of protection against various physical attacks. A protection spell may work as an armour, or reduce the damage caused by the fire attacks. The most powerful protection spells may make character almost invoulnerable to some kind of attacks. 4.) BODY SPELLS: This sphere contains the spells which are used to improve abilities of human body. Body spells may, for example, increase character strength or allow him to breath under water. Body spell may be very useful in exploring dangerous areas or during fight. 5.) ENERGY SPELLS: This sphere contains the spells which base on pure magical energy. Such spells may allow you for examle to fly, or dispel illusionary walls. Casting energy spell requires concentration and difficult gestures so it is impossible to cast such a spell during combat. 2. POWER LEVELS Power level is an equivalent for the circle in other RPGs. However there is one major difference between power level and the circle. To cast the spell from given power level you simply need to know this spell, you do not have to gain appriorate amount of experience points etc. However the more powerful spell, the more difficult to cast it: the higher power level, the lesser chance of casting the spell (if you are interested in details, refer to Chapter Eight). Character starts with the spells from the first and the second power level in each sphere. The most powerful spells have the fifth power level. To learn the spell from a higher power level, you must know all lesser spells from the given sphere. 3. MAGIC POINTS Casting given spell requires some amount of magic points. The more powerul spell, the more magic points character need to cast it. Magic points are being regained during normal play (when hero explores the area etc.) and during rest (refer to Chapter Six for details). Casting a spell from the wand does not uses any magic points. To activate magical orb that holds the spell you need one magic point. (Magical orbs are some strange crystal spheres that can hold a charge of the given spell, there are three kind of orbs: Cloud Orb which holds one charge of Fly spell, Blizzard Orb which holds one charge of Ice Strike spell, and Volcano Orb which holds three charges of Fireball spell, released at one time). 4. SPELLS LIST (number before the spell name is the spell power level) COMBAT SPELLS: HEALING SPELLS: PROTECTION SPELLS: 1. Fire Arrow 1. Minor Healing 1. Magic Dodge 2. Fireball 2. Neutralize Poison 2. Armour 3. Ice Strike 3. Major Healing 3. Fire Resistance 4. Claws of Power 4. Heal 4. Magic Barrier 5. Death Strike 5. Extra Healing 5. Invoulnerability BODY SPELLS: ENERGY SPELLS: 1. Strength 1. Magic Light 2. Water Breathing 2. Telekinesis 3. Night Vision 3. Fly 4. Poison Resistance 4. Dispel Illusions 5. Quickness 5. Ethereal Leap Spells descriptons: after the name of the spell, there is something like that [xx,D]: xx is a number of magic points you need to cast this spell, D is a symbol of spell duration, it may be one of four letters: I: Instant duration: spell has only single instant effect. S: Short duration: this spell last only a few turns in combat, so it has no effect outside combat. L: Long duration: this spell lasts for some time (it can be even a few hours). There are eight such spells: when given spell is active, its icon is shown to the right from the magic points score. SPELL: / SPELL ICON: Armour / Red glowing armour Fire Resistance / Fire and sparks Strenght / Strong arm Water Breathing / A blue fish Night Vision / Mystic eye Posion resistance / Poison and blood Magic Light / The symbol of sun Fly / Wings P: Permanent: effect of this spell is unlimited by time. SPELL DESCRIPTION: COMBAT SPELLS: 1. Fire Arrow [3,I] A magic missile that causes minor fire damage to a single target. Creatures with high magical abilities may easely dodge this missile. 2. Fireball [6,I] An area effect spell that causes fire damage to multiple enemies. Enemy's high magical abilities may reduce the effect of this spell. 3. Ice Strike [10,I] An area effect spell that causes freezing damage to multiple enemies. Enemy's high magical abilities may reduce the effect of this spell. Ice Strike may aslo stun some targets. 4. Claws of Power [12,I] Powerful spell that causes immense magical damage to a single target. If enemy survive this spell, he may be stunned and weakened. 5. Death Strike [15,I] An area effect spell that causes major magical damage to multiple enemies. Death Strike may also weaken some targets. HEALING SPELLS: 1. Minor Healing [4,P] This spell heals some wounds. It will not work when character is seriously wounded. 2. Neutralize Poison [6,P] The spell may cure poison and disease. If you are seriously poisoned or diseased the first casting of the spell will only reduce the strength of poison and/or disease. 3. Major Healing [8,P] This spell is similar to the Minor Healing spell, but Major Healing has usually greater effect and it will work even if character is seriously wounded. 4. Heal [16,P] If character is wounded this spell will resore his health points to the maximum natural level. The Heal spell will also cure minor diseases. 5. Extra Healing [16,P] Extra Healing allows character to magically raise his health points beyond maximum natural level. Character may have up to 150% of his maximum level health points (for example 45 of 30). This spell will only work if character is healthy (if he is neither seriously nor moderately wounded). The additional health points will last until character is wounded etc. PROTECTION SPELLS: 1. Magic Dodge [3,S] Character body becomes blinking: creatures with low resistance to magic may have lower chance to hit the character during combat. 2. Armour [7,L] While this spell is active, character is protected by the magical armour which reduces damage from enemies' blows. Armour spell gives protection almost as good as bronze armour, and what is more important, bonus from this spell is cumulative with bonus from normal armour which character wears. 3. Fire Resistance [9,L] The name of this spell is Fire Resistance but it protects against any form of termal attack: fire or freezing. This spell does not give the total invoulnerability to fire or cold but it greatly reduces damage form termal attacks (usually three or more times: it depends on the attack (normal or magical fire etc.)). 4. Magic Barrier [11,S] Character's body is surrounded by the magical barrier: it gives him a very tough magical armour (the higher character's willpower, the tougher armour), but it protects only against not magical attacks. 5. Invoulnerability [17,S] This powerful spells lasts only for a few combat turns, but it gives character total invoulnerability to any fire or cold (even magical) and any other not magical attacks. Ivoulnerability gives no protection against spells that cause magical damage (Claws of Power and Death Strike), and damage caused by magical weapons. BODY SPELLS: 1. Strength [3,L] The Strength spell will increase the character strength by two points. It is very useful in combat, allowing your blows to cause greater damage. 2. Water Breathing [6,L] This spell gives the ability to breath under water. It is very useful to have Water Breathing active when character explores swamp or sewers, this spell will protect against health points losses during movement through a swamp water etc. However Water Breathing does not protect against diseases caused by drinking dirty water. 3. Night Vision [7,L] This spells improves greatly character sight. Night Vision allows to see everything perfectly even in the total darkness. 4. Poison Resistance [12,L] When this spell is active character is totally protected against all poisons and diseases. Casting Poison Resistance automatically cures any poison and/or disease. 5. Quickness [20,S] This spell is said to be the rarest spell in the world. Power of Quickness makes character muscles to works much faster: it will improve his strength and combat abilities, especially it will make character extremely difficult to hit in melee combat. ENERGY SPELLS: 1. Magic Light [2,L] This spell creates a magical light which is similar to the light of the torch, but the spell lasts for a longer time than a typical light of the torch or candle. 2. Telekinesis [3,I] Telekinesis manipulation allows you to pick up an item from the distance. However the item must be at least partially seen to be able to catch (for examle you can catch item which lies behind the tree (you may still partially see it), but you cannot catch item which lies behind the stone wall etc.). 3. Fly [8,L] This spell allows you to fly over some obstacles, for exampe trees, It may be used to avoid a lot of problems in some strange areas. Fly spell lasts for a short time, and if you see the message "Fly spell is unstable..." it means that you have only a few "steps" in the air before the spell ends. 4. Dispel Illusions [12,I] Power of this spell allows character to dispel illusions and force fields around him. The area of dispelling effect is greater than visible part of the map. 5. Ethereal Leap [18,I] This powerful spell allows you to "jump" through any obstacle (for example stone wall or locked door). The obstacle must not be very thick, and there must be a free space behind this obstacle where character will appear. You may leap to illusionary walls etc, but you may not leap to some special magical areas (for example teleporters). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Windows and DOS are the registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. Gravis Ultrasound is a trademark of Advanced Gravis Computer Technology Ltd. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. --------------------------------------------------------------------------