The MUD just crashed!
Hurry, you need to reconnect!
Come on young elf! This is your opportunity to get a piece or two of badly needed equipment!
Run run run!
Forget Kobold Village. There probably isn’t anything there you need.
You must run to the Faerie Forest with all haste!
That was the rhythm of life on MUDs in general and TorilMUD in particular.
Most of the NPCs in the game load up with equipment only after a crash or a reboot. Once slain and looted their most valuable reason for existence, contributing to your wardrobe, is gone. You can get experience from them sure, but you can do that when the MUD has been up for some horribly long time. The entire economy of the game rested on a level of instability that would allow a crash at least once or twice a day.
That was the pattern into which I was indoctrinated all back when I rolled up my half-elf ranger in Leuthilspar more than 20 years ago now. You had to get out of the inn and to the right mob as fast as possible, and the Faerie Forest had the most opportunities.
First you had to get to the dark path that lead to the zone, which meant searching for the hidden entrance.
< > A Large Clearing in the Forest Room size: Large (L:40 ft W:40 ft H:25 ft)
Exits: -W< > You don’t find anything.
< > You find a secret exit south!
And then there were the wood rats.
< > A Dark, Hidden Path Room size: Mid-sized (L:75 ft W:5 ft H:500 ft)
Exits: -N -EA scruffy wood rat is here slinking around in the gloom.
A scruffy wood rat is here slinking around in the gloom.
A scruffy wood rat is here slinking around in the gloom.
You had to get past the wood rats. The tunnel rooms were flagged as narrow, so players could only go through one abreast and you couldn’t just spam past any mob as you would bump into them. If you were quick and lucky, you could lay day (recline) and pass under the wood rats. That was how you had to get past other players or reorder groups in rooms so flagged. It does make you wonder how big those wood rats were, given that a full grown male half elf with a sword and motley collection of armor could pass beneath them.
And if you were not lucky, well, you had to take the time to kill the wood rats. They were not tough. I think they were level 1 creatures. But you had to stop and take a few swings to slay them. On the bright side, the next young elf trying to make it to the treasures of the Faerie Forest would be stuck behind you. You couldn’t pass somebody, even when reclined, if they were in combat. So you would be killing wood rats while they were bumping into you.
Eventually though you would win you way through and into the Faerie Forest. Having spent time lost there, I made a map and soon knew my way around to all of the key locations.
The Faerie Forest
What you needed dictated where you would head first. Very early during my career, which came just after a pwipe, having a light source was of vital importance. If you did not have one, you might want to go find the Silver Fox.
The Silver Fox’s tail, which you could loot from its corpse, was flagged as being lit, so you just had to have it in your inventory and any room you entered would also be lit.
A silver fox is here hunting in the forest, looking for a meal for her young.
Your blood freezes as you hear the rattling death cry of a silver fox.
You get a silver fox tail from corpse of a silver fox.
a silver fox tail (illuminating)
This was a huge advantage over torches, which had to be held in one hand (so you couldn’t then have a shield, a second weapon, or a two handed weapon) and which would burn out quite quickly. (Unlike those who started in Waterdeep, elves didn’t get magical torches that never burned out.) I suppose this was a missed opportunity for role play, having to fumble with torches. But since every priest class got the spell Continual Light at some point, torches were never going to be in great demand in any case.
CONTINUAL LIGHT
Spell
Area of effect: <object> | Room
Aggressive: No
Cumulative: No
Duration: Permanent unless dispelled
Class/Circle: Cleric/Druid/Shaman 6th, Paladin 8th
Type of spell: Enchantment“Continual light” allows the spellcaster to enchant an item by giving it a light flag, making it a permanent light source. Not specifying an object causes the whole room to be permanently lit by a magical light. It is one way for spellcasters to create light in the darkness if they have no other lamps, etc. This spell can be countered (in rooms) with a “darkness” spell.
See also: DARKNESS
Once Continual Light became common, people stopped running to find the Silver Fox. But for a short time it was a key item. You could sell it to somebody who was desperate and who couldn’t get to the Silver Fox or the fire at the tinker camp that, when search, would yield another illuminating item.
a glowing stick of faerie wood (illuminating)
There actually used to be two sticks of faerie wood, one in each of the fires. The second one, which was an orange ANSI color if I recall right, had stats, so if you held it you got some benefit along with light. It was something like a few hit points, but it was better than nothing, especially if you didn’t have something to hold in your off hand anyway.
Meanwhile, while you were down by the Silver Fox, the next big thing was the scrawny goblin who held the bag of snatching along with a few other goodies.
You get a bag of snatching from corpse of a scrawny goblin.
The bag was useful because… well… it was a bag. And it was bigger than the bag you were handed as part of your new player kit. And it was also displayed in a cool, dark ANSI color which I cannot quiet replicate here. It was cool enough that even after we all had bags and had hit level 20 and moved out into the world, we could still sell the bag to people in Waterdeep simply because it looked cool. In the end, I think it was heavy and only as good as a backpack you could buy from a vendor in town, but style sells.
The goblin was also the gate keeper to the room with the pile of trash. Searching through it would yield a series of dubious treasures.
You find an ancient stone tablet!
You find a bit of string!
You find a wand of thunderous rage!
You find a moldy loaf of bread!
You find a steel shortsword!
You find a very dead rat!
You find a bronze dirk!
You search exhaustively and conclude there is nothing to be found!
Each had its use, if you include “able to be sold to a vendor” as a use. The wand of thunderous rage was a particular heartbreak. I knew people who held on to several of them until they hit a difficult battle, only to find that they didn’t actually do anything. Wands were always strange birds in TorilMUD, though there was a wand of magic missile that was amusing to use from time to time.
But they key item in the Faerie Forest was Bandor’s Flagon.
a huge, drinking flagon
This flask looks like it could hold more liquid than possible. It must be that Tinker magic; making the most of space not even existing.
When you look inside, you see: It’s more than half full of a golden liquid.
When eventually everything else in the zone became just so much vendor trash, Bandor’s Flagon remained something you could sell in Waterdeep. It was, for a long time, the largest drink container in the game. And even when it was eclipsed, the flagons that replaced it were not so easy to obtain and did look quite so cool. You just had to remember to pour out the alcohol in the flagon, lest you get drunk on Bandor’s brew.
And while there was certainly more to find in the Faerie Forest, from Habetrot’s stonewood cudgel to Vokko’s iron armor, the race to get those was never quite as intense as it was for Bandor’s Flagon. It remained the one easy to get item that actually held value in the game.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 