Getting Started

When you complete character creation, you will find yourself in the adventurer's guild. The Center of Town (COT) is north, east (or n, e) from there. COT is the 4-way intersection on the map of Darkwind, and all the directions in this guide start from there. See DarkWind City Services for a practical city checklist. See Account And Session for tutorial commands, saving, quitting, passwords, reboots, and registered character switching.

To begin adventuring you will need equipment. Erga's Newbie Shop (4 west, 1 south) will give you free equipment. At level 2 you will have access to the donation room (5n,e). Here you can get equipment donated by higher level players. Please return it when you are done with it so that the next Newbie will have access to it. Remember to wear and wield all. You can do this with one command by typing equip. See Basic Commands and Equipment for more.

Now that you have equipment you will want to gain experience and gold so that you can gain levels. The Adventurers' Guild (w,s) will give you an idea of how much gold and experience is required for your next level. Keep in mind that levels are only the ability to further increase your stats. So in most cases it is generally best to spend experience on stats until you get the message that says you must increase your level before gaining more stats (See help stats). Some players skip stats to reach the next level faster. That raises the level number without giving the same practical power as trained stats.

When you kill something you will want to get the gold and the loot from the corpse. You can get all from corpse. Or you can burn the corpse with a corpse burner and get all. You can sell the loot in the shop (5w,2s,w). When you leave the game, many carried, worn, and wielded items save with your character. Some items never save, including donated gear, broken gear, food, drinks, uniques, items inside containers, and items directly restricted by the game. Guild and shop storage rooms are temporary and do not survive reboots. Put extra coins in the bank (5w,3s,e) for safe keeping and a better restart after death. See Economy for banks, corpse ash, markets, auctions, pubs, and inns.

Death Happens

It is part of the game. Luckily it isn't permanent. If you die, go to the church (5w,n) and pray. When you die you will lose one from each stat, all of the experience you have on hand and one level. Note that this penalty does not exist if you are level 5 or lower. Until then, praying at the church will restore all of your stats and your level. Some guilds have the ability to raise people from the dead. This saves them some of the stat loss, but not the level or the experience on hand. You can get someone to avenge your death. This is a way to get some experience back (help deathavengement). Don't do this if you are level 5 or below, because Dierdre works every time.

See Death And Recovery for death, ghosts, prayer, and avengement.

Next Steps

  • Account And Session for tutorial, save, quit, uptime, password, and switching characters
  • Communication for channels, tells, mail, and language
  • Combat for fighting, healing, wimpy, and newbie combat commands
  • Travel for ferries, recall, ships, domains, and hazards
  • Parties for grouping with other players
  • Quests for structured objectives and rewards
  • Rules before using client triggers, PK, or multichars