The Medieval League of Mystic Arena: Player Guide Vers. 3.5
============================================================
Welcome to the Medieval League (ML), a version of mystic arena based in
the medieval ages. This guide will give you some pointers and tips on how
to create a Gladiator for this league and how to roleplay him or her.
This guide is constructed and maintained with the help of the Mystic Arena
Documents and files. The original texts can be found at the website:
Http://www.lemuria.org.
This guide is merely a skeleton of the Medieval League. Visit the Medieval League
homepage for more information such as current gladiators and special events. For those
of you familiar with the Mystic Arena engine this guide will not simply restate everything
that you already know over again. For those of you new to Mystic Arena the original guides
can also be found at the Medieval League website and are suggested reading:
http://www.geocities.com/rebecca_ml/
1] Background Information:
During the past five years a bloodly war has engulfed the lands. The Orcish empire and
it's troll brothers have declared war on the Human King and his Elven supporters. With the
crushing defeat of the Orcish hordes by the Imperial Army the Orc Emperor Grim Ba’taal had
no choice but to issue peace. Peace is finally here.. or is it?
The Mystic Valley
====================
Many stories are told about the Mystic Valley. It is north to the Lost City,
with Thunder Mountain to the left and the Woods of Secret to the right.
As almost the whole area around the lost city, this valley is mostly
uncharted. There are rumors that the most wonderous creatures of all live
there, like fae, unicorns and so on, but proof for that has not been found
yet. Maybe you have the courage and skill to find out how much truth
lies in those rumors?
The Plains of the Damned
===========================
The Plains of the Damned are located south to the Lost City (Note that when
talking about the Lost City, people don't only refer to the city itself, but
to it's nearer surroundings). It is a dark, spooky place. It's very hot
there over the day and icy cold at night. Almost no vegetation, the only
things that live there are orcs, trolls and dark creatures you won't
want to know. The southern border of the Lost City is heavily guarded
due to orc-brigand attacks. Be carefull should you ever venture this unholy
place.
Thunder Mountain
===================
Thunder Mountain is to the north-west of the Lost City. It is called
Thunder Mountain because of the tale that great Giants live there and
forge weapons of great power. Everytime they hit the anvil with their
hammer, there is a sound of thunder and lightning sparks. It is hard
to get up there but maybe someday somebody will dare to take on this
challenge.
The Woods of Secret
======================
A Legend says that wonderous elf-kin live in the Woods of Secret.
Alas, no one has ever traveled far enough to find out. A little ways into
the Woods of Secret is a temple devoted to the light Gods of the realm and
the regilious citizens of the Lost City are said to visit every sunday. Just
beyond that is the cottage of goblin brothers Gore and Bore, our commentators.
2] Creating a Gladiator:
You have 55 points to distribute on your character. There are many different
ways to spend your points and there can be great variety in characters.
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* Weaponskill - How well you can fight, actually. Important one. *
***************************************************************************
Weaponskill (WS) is not measured in points. There are 5 categories: Fumble,
Weak, Medium, Good and Brilliant. Every time you dodge or strike, the
program calculates (through percentages) which category your action falls
in. By spending two points for one shift when creating your Gladiator, you
can slide the borders between the categories to the right. For example, if
your WS-spread looks like this:
F W M G B
10% 35% 35% 15% 5%
Then you can spend two points when creating your Gladiator to move 5% from
W(eak) to M(edium) and it would look like this:
F W M G B
10% 30% 40% 15% 5%
5%-->
You can't put 5% from W into B though. Only one category to the right.
It IS possible to do this, but it would cost you three shifts (from W-M, M-
G and G-B). You can buy these shifts for two points per shift during
Character Creation or spend two increases (which are gained by experience)
to shift it later in the game. Please note that there will always be a 5%
chance in any of the categories. This means that once you've brought a
category down to 5% (by the use of the aforementioned shifts) you can't use
shifts anymore to bring it down to 0%. It simply isn't possible.
To buy shifts, both when creating your Gladiator and later in the game,
please mention to the Commissioner which of the four different shifts you
want:
Reduce Risk : shifts 5% from Fumble to Weak
Get Steady : shifts 5% from Weak to Medium
New Moves : shifts 5% from Medium to Good
Fancy Tricks: shifts 5% from Good to Brilliant
Your starting WS skill looks like this:
F W M G B
15% 40% 30% 10% 5%
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* Endurance - How tough you are. *
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***************************************************************************
* Strength - How strong you are. Stronger Gladiators inflict more damage *
* and some weapons require a certain Strength. *
***************************************************************************
***************************************************************************
* Tactics - Agility, tactical fighting, dodging etc. Does NOT help you to *
* hit your enemy, but may help to avoid getting hit yourself. *
* Also very important for team-fights, especially tag-team. *
***************************************************************************
These all cost one point per point, i.e. Endurance 12 would cost you 12
points. Consider a 10 to be average, but most Gladiators should of course
be above average. All can run from 1 to 20
***************************************************************************
* Willpower - How fast you give up *
***************************************************************************
Willpower costs no points, just choose a value. It can range from 1 to 25,
but remember that high values may cause your Gladiator to take risks too
high for him, while low values may cause him to give up too early. On the
other hand, with a high value he may win a fight in spite of heavy wounds,
or with a low value he may be smart enough to surrender early in a match
that might have turned into a slaughter otherwise. Choose with respect to
the "style" you want your Gladiator to be.
***************************************************************************
* Wounds - How much real, bleeding wounds you can handle *
***************************************************************************
Wounds is a little more complicated. You have 15 Wounds automatically. You
can increase that with points. The first additional wound costs 1 point,
the second two MORE, then three more and so on. Therefore, a total of 18
Wounds will cost you 1+2+3 = 6 points. Maximum is 20 Wounds which would
costs some 1+2+3+4+5 = 15 points.
***************************************************************************
* Fatigue - How much pain, blows and exertion you can handle *
***************************************************************************
Fatigue slightly depends on your Endurance. You will have a Fatigue of 25
plus half your Endurance (rounded up), plus two per point spent. Therefore,
if you have 10 Endurance and spend 4 points on Fatigue, you will have a
total of 25 + 10/2 + 4*2 = 25+5+8 = 38 Fatigue.
This is a real important one kiddies. Spend no points on this and you'll
be getting mostly K.O.-results for your Gladiator, no matter how big and
bad his other scores are. Don't neglect this one!
**************************************************************************
* Gold - Needed to buy equipment *
**************************************************************************
Finally gold. You start with 250 gold on hand. Each point spent on gold
during character creation earns you an additional 50 gold. With this gold,
you should buy a Weapon and an Armour (see webpage for prices). There is no
limit to the amount of gold you may start off with but remember that spending
points on gold will possibly leave you weak in other areas.
Besides these attributes, there are some other things you need to think
about. Like wrestlers in the WWF, Gladiators should have special moves.
Think Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter and you get the idea. You should
think of an Offensive Special Move and a Defensive Special Move that suits
your character. I recommend not putting 'the' before your special moves,
because of the way the program mentions them in the fights.
Otherwise, you'll get things like:
'This is what you've been waiting for! Spectre King executes his Death's Embrace
and causes seven wounds to Balgoran Caldinari.'
It just doesn't look right.
Furthermore, you should think of the way your character fights, his style.
There are three styles, Defensive (+1 parry, -1 attack), Normal (no
adjustments) and Aggressive (+1 attack, -1 parry). You should choose one of
these and include them in your stats.
And last but definitely not least, you should create a good background for
your character, preferably with some leads for other players to sink their
roleplaying hooks into.
If all is well, you should now have a fully completed Gladiator. You can
send the stats to the Commissioner and he will enter you in the league (or
put you on the waitinglist).
3] Roleplaying your Gladiator:
This may seem hard. What the hell should you do? Just what the title to
this chapter says: roleplay. There are no rules as to what you roleplay
about, but bear in mind that what you perceive as an innocent joke, may be
offensive to someone else. Please take care to keep this a friendly game.
Also, never confuse a player's character with the player himself. That
Gladiator that's been pissing you off with his roleplays recently, may very
well be a great guy (or gal of course). Roleplays are for the sole purpose
of creating atmosphere. In fact, I recommend that the majority of your
roleplays have to do with atmosphere and not just challenges. Not because
fighting is so unhealthy for you, but because the whole game depends on
atmosphere. Please try to remember that. You should roleplay (even if only
a little bit) at least once a week, but preferably more.
There are some limits to roleplays. One is that you cannot abuse other
Gladiators in your roleplays. You cannot make them do things they most
likely would not, like stand around while you attack their friends or being
shoved into the nearest wall without resistance. Anything that involves
other Gladiators to this degree is not a roleplay, but an illegal attack
and subject to the Commissioner's review (more on illegal attacks later).
In the Medieval League, roleplays can be set anywhere, though most will
use the Lost City as a setting. The Lost City is just the place where the
impossible is quite possible. The Lost City is the captial of the new world
where discoveries are just around the corner. People of all ages, races, and
professions can flock to new possibilies. Places to note in the Lost City are:
The Arena
=========
The fighting arena itself is only a little ways away from town center. It is housed
by a large circular stone stadium with leveled seating. The stadium's wall is to keep
non-paying watchers out of view and the seats are to keep paying watchers in view of the action.
The fighters themselves fight in something that is commonly referred to as the "sand pit".
The sand pit is litterally what it means. The Gladiators enter from their respective corner
gates and fight on a small layer of sand or gravel. After the Gladiators enter the gates
are locked shut and don't open until the match is won or someone is killed.
Occasionally when a very favoured gladiator is killed a fan, or a friend, might leap into the
pit for vengence. Of course the arena guards are paying attention and will quickly intercept...
sometimes.
The Blue Dragon Tavern
======================
The "Blue Dragon" is a run down tavern on the outskirts on the city. It is run by a mean
dwarf who won't take any trouble but will often look the other way for a few pieces of gold.
The tavern is a nice place for those dark characters who don't appeal well to the law and a
perfect place to hatch an evil scheme.
The White Shield Inn
====================
When a gladiator first joins the commissioner will reserve a room for him. This room acts as
the gladiator's home until the he gains enough gold to move out and purchase his own lot to live.
The "White Shield" is a five star inn complete with a messaging service that allows you to send
a telegram to anyone you want free of charge. The building itself is four floors with a lobby
joined together by a large swirling staircase. The four floors represent each faction. This was
found to be more apporitate then having Villans and Heros living next to each other.
4] Challenges:
You can challenge anyone. When you issue a challenge, you have to make clear two things:
1) WHO you want to challenge
"open" challenges to anyone or several people are okay, but will not
be included in the official schedule until someone accepted it.
2) HOW you want to fight him
I.e. what TYPE of fight (Normal, FirstBlood, Blood, NoSurrender,
Timed).
You are responsible for making sure that you don't fight too often. Once a
challenge is accepted you can NOT withdraw it! To make the Commissioner's
life easier, write an Out Of Character (OOC) note on the end of your
challenge-roleplay if you want to make sure he recognizes it for what it
is. If for instance you were playing and you wanted to make sure the Commissioner
included the challenge in the list, you could add the following lines to your mail:
[OOC: Challenge to Balgoran Caldinari, Blood fight]
This way, the Commissioner knows exactly what your mail is about.
If the other person wants to accept, he or she should write a roleplay
detailing the acceptance of the challenge. Again, you should add an OOC-comment on the end,
indicating that you are accepting a challenge, for instance:
[OOC: I accept Spectre King's challenge to a Blood fight]
You should be as specific as possible, since Gladiators may have several
challenges against you, all with different fight-types.
If you challenge someone to a Blood Fight or a NoSurrender and he or she
doesn't agree, the fight will be a normal fight, but you WILL fight if
accepted. This does not go for FirstBlood fights or brawl fights (no weapons,
no armour. This is a common type of special rule newer players use to fight
more experienced gladiators).
5] Private messages:
There are those times when you just don't want everyone to hear what you have
to say to your buddy. If this is true, you can always send a private message. Just write
"Private Message - ......" where "......" is the addressee.
You can also put:
From: Gnash Hipbreaker
To: Spectre King
to make it even clearer. Of course you can always try to mail the person
directly, but we prefer you use private messages, as it keeps everything
under the control of the commissioner.
6] Factions:
Now, to enhance competition, not to say enmity, amongst the Gladiators, there is not only a
Fan-Factor, but also a number of different factions that you can belong to. New players can
choose their faction but of course the other members of the faction don't have to agree with
his choice.
The Heroes
=========
The Good Guys. They'll try to help out the city by donating gold to the homeless and by
fighting evil. Generally nice guys that believe in a good cause. However a hero can also be
a fanatic priest that has sold his soul to the war against evil or a freedom fighter dedicated
to stopping evil at whatever the cost may be.
The Villians
============
The opposite. The Villians cheat, use drugs, laugh when the opponent gets hurt and generally
have a lot of fun, though not all may show it. They're the "Bully" type and are bad, but within
limits.
The Loners
==========
These are the guys who either don't care for good or bad or who stay out of that war consciously.
It may be that they're motivated by money or fame or just don't want to have anything to do with
that whole business. Loners tend to be untrusting of others and only stick to their own side.
The Chaotic
===========
Pacts with the Devil, bodies tattooed with evil symbols, not accepting an enemies surrender
and other things are the mark of an Chaotic Fighter. A Chaotic character can be an insane
homicidal manaic that simply kills outside of the arena because his pet rabbit tells him to.
However a Choatic character can also be an unpredictable warlord that will use whatever he can
to his advantage. Whatever the case may be they usually spend half their time out of the arena
because of penalties. In short: The extremist fanatics of evil.
Those who belong to the Chaotic should be played accordingly. Members of the Chaotic are usually
inhuman monsters who kill on a whim and dine of the livers of innocents every night. If you want
to belong to the Chaotic, but don't roleplay it right, the Commissioner will change your faction
to The Villains. It is possible to switch factions, but doing so will reduce your Fan-Factor,
so you should not do it very often.
7] Experience:
Each fight will earn you XPs or eXperience Points. How much you get depends
on whether you won and lost and if your enemy was more or less experienced
than you and by what degree.
Once you have collected a certain amount of experience (every few fights,
at least in the beginning) something along the lines off:
'That's not just a number, that's a skill increase!'
will show up underneath the XP reward for a fight. This means that you
risen a level and get two benefits:
- A Weapon Skill Shift (WS-shift)
- A point to increase an attribute that you'd like to increase in.
You can read about spending WS-shifts during the start of this guide, but Increases are
somewhat more complicated. You may add 1 to Endurance, Strength, Tactics or
buy an extra WS-shift for every 2 point you spend. You can choose to add a
point to one of these attributes, not all of them, although you can add 1
point to Endurance at lvl2, 1 point to Strength at lvl 4 etc. These
attributes may not exceed 20. You may also opt to add 1 to Fatigue for every
increase you spend. Fatigue can never exceed 60 points.
You can also increase your Wounds. As long as you have less than 20 Wounds,
increasing it costs 2 increases as most other attributes. After that, the
prize is 3 Increases. That means, if you have 19 Wounds, you have to collect
2 Increases to raise it to 20. You have to collect 3 more to bring it to 21.
Wounds can rise up to 25.
The last thing you can do with your points is earn money. One increase
grants you 50 Gold.
This means you could do the following with your increases and WS-shifts
(please note that everyone begins at level 0):
Level 1: save the increase, spend the WS-shift (see chapter 2)
Level 2: spend the 2 increases on Endurance, spend the WS-shift
Level 3: spend the increase on Fatigue, spend the WS-shift
Level 4: save the increase, spend the WS-shift
Level 5: spend the 2 increases on an extra WS-shift, spend the WS-shift
It does not make sense to save up your WS-shifts, although if you were lvl10
and had never spent a WS-shift, spending all of them at once upon attaining
level 11 would scare the living crap out of any fighter you fought next.
That would be a pretty weird strategy though.
Willpower may be changed freely by one point up or down when you reach the
next level. Your GM may also give you an option to change your Willpower at
another time, like after some really devastating fight. Willpower is always
free, it's just that you shouldn't be allowed to change it too much too
often.
8] Character Status:
Of course, once your character is created, you need to know how he or she
is doing once in a while. You can then ask the Commissioner to send you a
status. You will find all attributes with their current value, your current
Wounds and Fatigue, your Fan-Factor and the spread of percentages over the
WS-categories.
9] Broken weapons and armor:
In fights, things can sometimes get rough. This means that there is a chance
that your precious battle axe is smashed by a clumsy (or very lucky)
opponent or that one hard blow rips your leather vest to shreds. When this
happens there is no need to panic, although it does mean you should start
praying for a quick K.O. on your part. After the match the armory will
present you with a brand new weapon or armor free of charge. Just roleplay
something about your Gladiator receiving the weapon or the armor.
Please note that if you have bought a back-up dagger, you will use this for
the rest of the fight. If you don't have a backup-dagger, pray you have
knuckles of steel, cause you'll be fighting barehanded.
10] Fighting and mailing days:
Mailing days for roleplays and fights will be run during the week with weekends off. Random
Events will be run every friday. Fights and challenges will follow the following form:
--
Today's Fights
==============
Gnash Hipbreaker vs. Prudh the Barbarian
Tomorrow's Fights
=================
Spectre King Vs. Balgoran Caldinari (Blood)
Unscheduled Fights
==================
Ringstone Vs. Gnash Hipbreaker
Ringstone Vs. Mugoth the Gaul
Unaccepted Challenges
=====================
Spectre King Vs. Balgoran Caldinari (NoSurrender)
Zoari Greysteil Vs. Ringstone
--
11] Gold:
Ah yes the best part. As a gladiator you are entitled to your share of the profit made.
Winning a battle will earn you 15 Gold for a win and an extra 20 gold for a kill (a real kill
and not just negative wounds). Losing a match however will send you home with a measly 10 gold
for your suffering.
Tournament winners recieve 25 gold for their hardship and the runner up (if still alive) recieves
15 gold.
12] Multiple Characters:
Are not allowed. Period. If you are caught using multiple characters you risk losing all of
them and facing exile from the Lost City. IP scans, traces, and server checks will be used
if a player is suspected of having two or more characters in the Medieval League. You have
been warned.
13] Misc:
Loans:
======
Loans are available in $50 and $100 funds from the Alchemist. The interest rate is almost
double that of the original loan so be sure to use it in only dire need. The Alchemist
is a rather shady elf known to have connections with local Chaotic groups and he won't
be very happy if you miss a payment. So don't take out a loan and expect to make it back on
winnings alone because if you don't win and don't pay him back then don't expect to be fighting
at all anytime soon.
Game Mechanics:
===============
Those of you familiar with running leagues will find the following helpful for maintaining
your character while those of you unfamiliar with the following terms will understand the game
better and are as follows,
EquipLost
=========
Is set to NO.
Destroyed weapons, armours and shields will be replaced after each fight.
DeathThresh
===========
Is set to 4.
A value that tells how big the chasm between 0 Wounds and Death is. It is the number of negative
Wounds that first aid can still save you with. So if DT is set to 4, a Gladiator with -4 Wounds
is saved by the first aid team, while a Gladiator with -5 Wounds is dead.
Keep mind that you can still die even if you don't pass the DeathThresh mark. If your character
recieves what GMs call a "Fumble-Critical" then he dies automatically. So if the fight says
something like "Blah blah is confused to see the bottom half of his body meters away!" or "With
a fatal blow Blah Blah has sliced off Blah Burp's head off!"
So, obviously.. if you get one of those criticals you are toast.
Deadly
======
Is set to SOME.
This customizes the dangers of your league. Differently from the DeathThresh value, this affects
every hit. Think of it as the amount of sharpness the weapons have. The default uses blunt
weapons, still sharp enough to draw blood, but not quite ready for war. Even NoSurrender fights
will most of the times end with a KnockOut instead of serious injuries. The second value, SOME,
makes penetration of armour more likely and wounds more severe. The third value, VERY, uses
real weapons and every fight is a life-or-death matter.
EquipQuality
============
Is set to MEDIUM.
May be set to LOW, MEDIUM or HIGH, default is MEDIUM. Affects the quality of Weapons and Armour,
i.e. how easy they break.
Of course all of these settings are negotiable and a few will probably change during the League's
run. DeathThresh will most likely be changed to 3 (a Gladiator with -4 wounds is dead) once the
league has a maxium of characters.