This is a basic introduction to muds in general. If you're
familiar with other muds, this text likely won't tell you
anything new; but if this is your first mud, please take
the time to read this through completely.

So what's a mud? The name `mud' is an acronym for either
Multi-User Dungeon or Multi-User Dimension. A mud is in many
ways like an ordinary pen-and-paper roleplaying game - you,
as one of the players, create a `character'; an imaginary
alter ego living in a fantasy world, which you can then
explore, where you can team up with others, solve quests,
and, occasionally, fight for your life. Where normal
roleplaying games have a game master who acts as your
character's `interface' to the game world, in a mud this
part is taken by a computer. Thus, the computer will tell
you what your character sees and hears, what happens in the
game world around him, and what effect this has on him. You,
in turn, decide what your character will do in response, and
the computer will then describe the reaction that _this_ is
provoking.

What distinguishes a mud from other computer-driven
roleplaying games is the fact that it is played over the
internet. Most of the time, you won't be the only player;
you will often meet other characters led not by the
computer, but by other players from other sites. You can
talk to these players, exchange news, team up with them, or
just chat. In this, a mud can be a lot like a chat room, and
many people use it as such; but the main emphasis of Morisot
is on being an adventuring game, with a world to discover
and quests to undertake. The point in all this? Well,
basically, just to have fun; to socialize with others, to
enjoy a game of make-believe, and maybe to see a different
world through the eyes of a different person for a while.

Obviously, the computer running this game can't be as smart
and flexible as a human game master. You'll have to express
your character's actions in rather simple commands, and
sometimes what appears obvious to you won't be understood by
the game at all. [Yes, this can get a bit frustrating at
times, although we did try to make the world as flexible as
possible and to avoid one-way solutions. If you get
hopelessly stuck with something, feel free to ask more
experienced players for help, or contact one of the wizards
... that's us, the game designers. :-)]

Basically, all commands you can give to the computer follow
the same format, namely <command> [<direct object>]
[<indirect object>]. Depending on the command, either object
may [or must] be included or left out. For example, `look at
statue' will tell the computer that you want your character
to have a closer look at that statue you were told was
watching you ominously from one of the corners of the hall.
`climb rocks' can be used to annouce that your character
will attempt to climb over the debris left by a stonefall
that is blocking the road. Finally, `unlock door with key'
would be an example of a command with both a direct and an
indirect object. Don't bother to include articles,
punctuation marks, and the like; the computer wouldn't
understand them anyway. If there are several objects
available that fit your description, you can include
adjectives and/or numbers to specify exactly which of these
objects you mean. For example, if the computer tells you
that there's both an iron sword and a wooden sword lying on
the floor, both `get wooden sword' and `get 2. sword' will
tell the computer that you want to have the wooden thing
[for whatever reason]. If you just enter `get sword', the
computer will pick one for you... most probably the iron
one. Basically, that's how all commands work. It may not
sound very sophisticated, and it isn't, really; but it's
an easy system to get used to.


If you're still somewhat confused about how all of this
works or what any of this is about, here's a more extensive
example of how an exchange between you and the computer
could look like:

YOU: go east
COMPUTER: The narrow tunnel finally seems to come to an
end here, the ceiling lowering so much at this point that
you can barely stand upright any more. In what looks like
a natural bed of rock, you see a small pool of dark, still
water. You can't see any exit except for the way you came.
There is one obvious exit: west.
YOU: look at pool
COMPUTER: You go down on your knees -- which is a more
comfortable position anyway, what with the low ceiling --
to have a closer look at the pool. The water is dark and
still, and it is almost as if you could feel a coldness
rising from it. As you look for a while longer, small
pinpoints of light slowly seem to appear beneath the
surface, almost like stars.
YOU: look at light
COMPUTER: You don't see any light.
YOU: look at stars
COMPUTER: You don't see any stars.
YOU [annoyed]: Why not? You said they were there!
COMPUTER: What?
YOU [rolling your eyes and trying again]: look at lights
COMPUTER: Although the strange lights seem to be just
below the surface -- must be, actually, the pool isn't
that deep --, at the same time they appear to come from
some unimaginable depth. As you continue to watch, ever
more of the tiny stars appear in the darkness, but seeming
ever more remote as well, giving you the feeling that you
are looking into some kind of bottomless abyss, or maybe an
endlessly distant past.
YOU: touch surface
COMPUTER: Hesitantly, you move your hand closer to the
pool's still surface, the coldness ever more acute as your
fingers come nearer. When you finally touch the water,
without warning an intense feeling that is not pain but
something vaster races up your arm and through your entire
body, almost stopping your heart and drowning your thoughts
in star-filled darkness. When, after an endless moment, you
again remember how to breathe, you look down to find your
hands trembling, and your teeth chattering from the cold.
YOU [hesitating, but thinking `What the hell!']: drink water
COMPUTER: Drink from where?
YOU [grumbling]: drink water from pool
COMPUTER: Slowly, you lower your face to the black surface,
your skin turning into a cramped mask at the coldness
radiating from it. Still, you close your eyes and bend down
even further until your lips touch the water... You feel a
drop of the liquid on your tongue, and then your whole world
is ripped away from you in a silent explosion of streaking
darkness and flashing starlight. You can feel yourself
falling, tumbling, screaming soundlessly, without end... and
then nothing. When you wake again, after an indeterminable
time, everything about you is pitch black.
YOU: oops
COMPUTER: Oops, you seem to have made a mistake.

Yes, the computer will often act this dumb -- in this case,
for example, it has been programmed to give a description
of `lights' only, so it won't react to `look at light',
without the `s'. Likewise, `drink water' is not a command
the computer understands; it demands to know where you want
to drink from, even if there's only one possible source in
the room. This is not entirely nonsensical; you might have
a waterskin with you, for example, and the computer just
 wants to make sure what you mean. Even if you don't have
anything like that, however, the computer is not smart
enough to notice.

We're trying to avoid situations like these, of course, by
attempting to anticipate as many command variations as
possible, but we can only do so much; if something like
this happens -- and it will --, the only immediate solution
for you is to experiment.

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