Every room is written by hand.
Age of Dragons is a MUD: you connect with a client, read where you are, and type what you do. Its builders have written the world room by room for nearly thirty years, from the vallenwoods of Solace to the streets of Sanction.
The Inn of the Last Home A large room with a plush carpet and people milling around in it stretches out to the north. This in the Inn of the Last Home. The Inn is a large building resting in a massive vallenwood tree. The beams above you appear sturdy and the floor is made of a very hard wood. [ Exits: n e s w ] <hp:20/20 mv:84/84 > north Among Some Tables This is the area of the Inn where people sit and enjoy their food and they eat, drink, and be merry. A few large tables are set up around the outskirts of the room, and more smaller ones fill in the center. Just to the north of this area if a large fireside that heats the inn on nights when it gets cold. [ Exits: n e s ] <hp:20/20 mv:83/84 >
Magic you memorize
Wizards and clerics study their spells and prepare them before an adventure, as in the books. There is no mana bar.
Names you learn
Strangers appear as a description until they introduce themselves. Who you know is part of who you are.
A world to explore
123 zones across Solamnia, Abanasinia and Taman Busuk, from training pits for new adventurers to the Onyx Obelisk.
- The Knights' Road is open. The East Gate of Solanthus, long shut, now opens onto a road north across the farmland and the Vingaard foothills to the Palanthas road below the High Clerist's Tower. Dragonarmy foragers, outriders and scouts work the road, a wyvern nests above it, and the knights keep a waystation halfway along. It suits levels 16 to 28.
- Making a character is much shorter. A new player chooses sex, race, alignment and profession, is given attributes that suit the profession and a plain description, and steps straight into the game. Type CUSTOM at the last step to set your own attributes and appearance, as before.
- A monster that bleeds to death after you wounded it now gives you the kill: experience, quest progress and loot, as long as you are still in the room.
- Combat tactics end when you leave the fighter's group, the group disbands or the fighter leaves the game.
- Cursed items can no longer be stolen.
- AFFSTATS lists what your worn equipment gives you: its stat bonuses and effects such as regeneration.
- The carriage stop by Sanction can be reached again: go south from the Edge of the Mountains.
- HELP INSPIRING PSALM matches the song's name, and its syntax is right: sing inspiring-psalm <victim>.
- Rooms meant to hold a pair now start with both. In Thorbardin, the Valley of the Thanes, the Deep Workings, the High Clerist's Tower and the Forest of Wayreth, pairs of knights, draconians, wolves and workers began as one, and the second turned up only after the area reset. Both are there from the start now, and both come back at every reset.
- HELP ZONE SANCTION now tells you about the city. It used to be empty.
- HELP SOLACE, HELP PALANTHAS and HELP SANCTION exist now, as the newbie help always said they did. Each lists the way from the middle of town to the inn, the bank, the shops, the guildmaster and the boards. HELP ZONE SANCTION SLUMS is written too.
- Hjor's Arena is open. A side pass runs north off the mountain road between Sanction and Khur to an arena raised in memory of Hjor, a minotaur hero. Its champion, a caged tiger and the slaves who train there wait for challengers. It suits levels 8 to 15.
- A corner of the bog in Marsh Temple I, southwest of the path into Marsh Temple II, can now be reached.
- AREAS gives levels for three areas that had none: the Village of Keiflore (8-15), Wenfyr Mansion (5-12) and the Wyverns / Sea Tavern (16-22).
- The website's map of Ansalon now shows Blode and Hjor's Arena.
- Playing in your browser (Play now on the website) shows more than the text: bars for your hit points, movement and experience, your opponent's health while you fight, the room and zone you are in, and the channels in a pane of their own.
- On a phone they sit above the text, with a Chat button for the channels.
- Blode, the land of the ogres, is open. Where the road from Shalost meets the road to Khur, a rutted track leaves the highway by a post hung with skulls and runs west into the hills. Ogre hunters, trolls and hill giants hold the Hills of Blode (levels 21 to 25), and the slaves' road ends at Ashtusk Hold, an ogre stronghold raised in the ruin of an older and fairer hall (levels 25 to 29). The clan serves the Dragonarmies: it attacks the good and the neutral on sight and lets the evil pass. There are captives to free, and something under the hall that the ogres fear. HELP ZONE BLODE tells you more.
- The website has pages about places now, starting with Solace and Crystalmir Lake. Each has a description, how to get there, a map and a few things worth knowing before you go, without giving away what is there to find. Follow the links on the website's World page.
- Palanthas and Sanction have pages on the website too, each with the city's whole map.
- The website has a map of Ansalon, at the top of its World page. It shows where every zone lies and the roads between them, each in the colour of the levels it suits. Set your level to light up the places for you, and point at or tap a place to see what it leads to.
- Mudlet can draw a map of the world as you walk. The game now speaks GMCP, which Mudlet and other current clients use for maps, gauges and chat windows. Install the mapper package from the Play page of the website and type LOOK. HELP GMCP tells you how.
- GROUP now describes each member in a sentence: how hurt and how tired they look, with hit points and movement in brackets, and the experience they need for the next level (xpn). For example: Alma is in excellent condition [120/120] and is brimming with vitality [80/80] and [19589 xpn]
- The High Clerist's Tower is open. On the road to Palanthas, where the Tower guards the pass, a gate road now climbs north to the fortress of the Knights of Solamnia. The Blue Dragonarmy has it under siege: help the knights hold the walls, raid the siege lines below them, or go down through the crypt into the vaults beneath the Tower, where what the Dragonarmy wants lies behind traps and a sealed door. The walls and the siege suit levels 13 to 20, and the vaults 16 to 22.
- Silvanesti, the elven nation, is open. Where the road from the Plains of Dust turns north in the dark forest, a trail marked with a carved leaf leads east to the Kirath, the elves' border rangers, who keep a camp at the forest's edge. Past them the forest dreams King Lorac's nightmare: the trees weep blood, the dead walk, and the empty city of Silvanost waits across the river beneath the Tower of the Stars. Levels 12 to 30.
- HELP ZONE SILVANESTI tells you more.
- The caves around the Rogue Encampment are open at last. In the mountains above the road from Sanction to Khur, trolls, a bugbear shrine and a kobold warren dug around a vein of gold have moved into tunnels the camp cut years ago and never used.
- They are for levels 13 to 20, and the camp cook sells roast goat.
- HELP ZONE ROGUE ENCAMPMENT tells you where to find them.
- The school's portal no longer leads to Thorbardin. Reach the dwarven kingdom on foot: south through the wicket door in Pax Tharkas' South Gate, or north to Southgate from the hills on the road to Tarsis. HELP ZONE THORBARDIN lists the ways in.
- GROUP now shows numbers: each member's hit points and movement as current/maximum, a bard's presence, and the experience a player needs for the next level. It used to describe health and tiredness in words.
- HISTORY TELL and HISTORY GROUP now show your recent tells and group talk. They were listed before but always came up empty.