How to Play Midgaard

The Midgaard Players' Guide

Rooms

Rooms are the basic places inside Midgaard's imaginary game world. Whenever you move your character from one location to another, you've left one Room and entered a new one.

This'll be more understandable if you don't think of Rooms as the insides of houses, with four walls, a ceiling, etc. Instead think of them as any arbitrary space: outdoors, indoors, a city street, an empty field, the pantry inside a kitchen, a coal bin inside a castle. A Room is a physical location somewhere within three-dimensional space.

Rooms in Midgaard can have up to six Exits corresponding to the six possible directions of movement: Down, East, North, South, Up, and West. There's no guarantee that any or all of these Exits will exist; and if they do, there's no guarantee you'll be able to see them.

Rooms will typically have a more or less elaborated description, which will be shown to you automatically when you enter. In Midgaard, unlike TriadCity, the descriptions are static, and are the same for all players. You see what everyone sees.

You can also look in each of the six cardinal directions: there may be more information there about the Room, its contents, or the neighboring Rooms. Type 'look up', 'look east', etc.

Rooms may or may not contain any number of arbitrary Items. You may or may not be able to see these Items, depending on all sorts of things. The ones that are visible to you are listed when you enter the Room.

Rooms also may or may not contain any number of arbitrary Characters. You may or may not be able to see these Characters, too. The ones that are visible to you are also listed when you enter the Room.

Here's an extended example. We'll take the Room titled "The Temple of Midgaard", which is the Room you enter the very first time you visit Midgaard, and we'll show you much of what it usually contains.

When you enter, the description you see will usually look something like this:

The Temple of Midgaard

   You are in the southern end of the temple hall in the Temple of Midgaard. The temple has been constructed from giant marble blocks, eternal in appearance, and most of the walls are covered by ancient wall paintings picturing Gods, Giants and peasants.
   Large steps lead down through the grand temple gate, descending the huge mound upon which the temple is built and ends on the temple square below. To the west, you see the Reading Room. The donation room is in a small alcove to your east.

An automatic teller machine has been installed in the wall here.

[Exits: north east south west down]

Let's look in a couple of directions and get our bearings. Typing 'look north' causes this response:

At the northern end of the temple hall is a statue and a huge altar.

You see the Reading Room.

Let's check out that ATM:

To use, type 'BALANCE', 'WITHDRAW <amount>', or 'DEPOSIT <amount>'.
Please report any strange occurrences to the bank manager.

We hope this leaves you with some idea of the potential richness of Midgaard's imaginary spaces. If you were really exploring, you'd want to look in all six cardinal directions; look at the ATM; and perhaps interact with the characters that have probably been wandering in and out this whole time. Happy exploring!

Players' Guide TOC

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