New Player's Guide to Chronicles of Krynn

Begin your adventure in the world of Dragonlance.

Welcome to Chronicles of Krynn, a roleplay-encouraged multiplayer text adventure set in the Dragonlance world of Ansalon. The game draws on the Pathfinder ruleset, giving you extensive freedom to develop your character through classes, skills, feats, spells, equipment, and quests.

Whether this is your first MUD or you're returning to text-based roleplaying, this guide introduces the systems you'll use most often. Commands appear in code formatting; enter them in your MUD client without the backticks. Replace placeholders such as <class name> with the appropriate name.

Getting started

After creating your character, take a moment to read the game's policies with policy. You can also type help <topic> whenever you need more information. The game offers an in-game tutorial for players who prefer to learn interactively.

Your initial equipment includes armor, a weapon, a backpack containing a torch, and a crafting kit. Before heading into danger, check your belongings and equip the items you intend to use.

The two available starting cities are Palanthas, associated with the Solamnic Knighthood and the Forces of Whitestone, and Sanction, associated with the Dragonarmies of Takhisis. When prompted to choose your starting city, enter palanthas or sanction.

Understanding your character

Your character has ability scores, skills, defenses, combat statistics, and other attributes that influence what they can accomplish. These commands provide a useful starting point:

Command	What it shows or does
score	Your character's general statistics
attacks	Offensive rolls and bonuses
defenses	Defensive rolls and bonuses
affects	Current spells, conditions, and other effects
revoke	Remove beneficial effects you no longer want
visible	Make yourself visible when a concealment effect is active

You don't need to memorize every statistic immediately. Use help to learn about unfamiliar terms as they become relevant.

Choosing and developing your class

Classes define many of your abilities and progression options. Some have prerequisites, and different classes offer different skills, feats, companions, and spellcasting systems.

Command	Purpose
class list	Browse available classes; an asterisk indicates prerequisites
class info <class name>	Read class details, including spellcasting instructions where applicable
class feats <class name>	View feats awarded by class level
class prereqs <class name>	Check entry requirements
class staff	Review classes, their skills, and their titles

Skills, ability scores, and feats

The study command opens your character-development menu. It highlights choices currently available to you, including:

• Skills: Spend training points on abilities such as Athletics or Spellcasting. Training points are influenced by class and Intelligence.
• Ability scores: Establish your starting attributes and improve them at eligible levels; the in-game tutorial identifies improvements every fourth level.
• Feats: Customize your character with proficiencies, combat options, spellcasting improvements, and other capabilities.
• Spells and powers: Certain spellcasting and psionic classes gain selections through the Study menu.
• Companions and class features: Depending on your class, you may be able to select a familiar, companion, language, or other class-specific feature.

Feats are especially important because they can change how your character fights or casts spells. Non-epic feat progression occurs every three levels: 3, 6, 9, 12, and so on.

Useful commands include:

study
feats available
feats known
feats all
feat info <feat name>
help feat-system
help boost

Add description to feat-list commands to see short explanations. You can also browse categories through help combat-feats, help metamagic-feats, help spellcasting-feats, and help general-feats.

Experience, leveling, and respeccing

As you complete adventures and earn experience, you can advance in an eligible class:

tnl
level
gain <class name>

tnl shows how much experience you need for your next level, while level displays level requirements and titles. When eligible, gain <class name> advances that class.

If you decide to rebuild your character, respec <class name> resets the specified class to level one without removing accumulated experience. The in-game tutorial notes that respeccing does not change your race or alignment. Review help respec before using it.

Combat basics

Combat uses six-second rounds and a Pathfinder-inspired action system. A typical round allows a standard action and a move action, or a full-round action, along with one swift action and one or more free actions. The system also recognizes immediate actions. A move action can be taken in place of a standard action.

Your class features and feats can affect which actions are available and how much time they require. If you have no normal action available, you may be unable to auto-attack during that round.

Command	Purpose
kill <enemy name>	Initiate an attack against a named enemy
hit	Attack the first mobile in the room
maneuver	Review available combat maneuvers
ability	Review available abilities
flee	Attempt to escape a dangerous encounter

Combat can also begin through hostile spells or special attacks such as backstab. Common maneuvers include trip, disarm, and grapple; some options are available to everyone, while others require feats. Positioning matters, and you may receive a flanking bonus when an opponent is focused on someone else.

Some spells and abilities last only a few rounds. Consider their duration before using them outside combat.

For further reading, use help actions, help combat maneuver, help normal-action, help move-action, and help swift-action.

Magic and spellcasting

Spells are organized into Circles of increasing power. The exact casting process depends on your class:

• Prepared casters generally memorize or prepare spells before using them.
• Spontaneous casters, such as sorcerers, use available spell slots without preparing each spell in advance.
• Wizards must first learn spells before preparing them; scrolls and paid learning services in major cities are among the sources identified by the game.

Spell slots limit how many spells can be prepared or cast at a given circle. Class levels and casting levels also affect spellcasting effectiveness.

spell
spell <class name>
spelllist <class name>
class info <class name>

Use spell to see spells available to your character, or specify a class when you have more than one casting class. spelllist <class name> shows the class's spell selection. For preparation and forgetting commands, consult class info <class name> rather than assuming every caster works the same way.

Equipment, identification, and supplies

Your equipment can make a significant difference to survivability. Check what you're wearing, wielding, or holding before your first adventure.

equipment
wear <item>
wield <item>
hold <item>
remove <item>
weaponlist
armorlist

You can investigate an unfamiliar item's properties with lore <item> if you have suitable ranks in Arcana, Religion, History, or Nature. Other identification options include the Identify spell and paid services in major cities.

Storing magical consumables

The Store System provides weight-free storage for potions, scrolls, wands, and staves. Enable the use stored consumables preference in prefedit before using this system.

store <item>
store all
store list potions
store list scrolls
store list wands
store list staves
unstore potion <spell name>

Stored items can be activated using commands such as quaff, recite, use, and invoke, depending on the item. Stored wands and staves retain their charges. Using a consumable requires a swift action. You can retrieve a stored item if you want to trade it to another player.

For full syntax, read help store or help consumables.

Quests and storylines

Quests offer a way to explore Ansalon, experience its stories, and earn rewards. Quest-giving NPCs are identified by a (!) marker before their room description.

quest list
questline list
questline show <id>
questline show <id> all

quest list shows quests offered by the relevant NPC. questline list displays the game's questlines, while questline show <id> provides information about your progress and the next quest in that storyline. Some quests require earlier quests to be completed; others may be repeated.

Questing is also an early source of quest points, which can be spent at the Bazaar and certain shops. Use help questline for more information.

Adventuring with friends

Grouping lets players coordinate encounters, communicate, and take on challenges together.

group new
group join <player>
group
gt <message>
group leave

Use group new to form a party, group join <player> to join another player's party, and group to check membership and status. gt sends a message to your group. Pets and charmed followers also follow group membership rules and may need to leave a previous group before joining a new one.

Buffs and beneficial effects

The buff system lets you maintain up to ten saved lists, each containing up to 40 spells or psionic powers. This is useful for preparing for combat or helping party members.

buff lists
buff add 1 mage armor
buff add 2 shield
buff list 1
buff perform 1 self
buff perform 2 companion
buff target self
buff cancel

You can add or remove spells from a numbered list, perform a list on yourself or a valid target, and cancel an active sequence. Targets must be visible and in the same room, and spells still obey their normal targeting restrictions. Lists save automatically, but target selections do not persist between logins. See help buffing for the full command set.

Exploring Ansalon

The world is large, but you don't have to memorize every route. The Landmarks and Walkto systems help you find destinations and travel automatically between them.

landmarks
landmarks <region name>
lm <region name>
walkto <room number>
walkto cancel

Start with landmarks to see available regions, then use landmarks <region name> to find a destination's room number. Enter walkto <room number> to travel there automatically, or walkto cancel to stop. lm is a shortcut for landmarks.

Some locations also offer sailing or carriage travel between established destinations. The Augery spell can reveal which objects load in your current room, helping with equipment searches.

For a richer display, explore prefedit and enable 256-color support if your client supports it.

Introduction to crafting

Crafting allows you to create and customize equipment using materials, magical motes, crafting skills, and appropriate workstations. Materials can come from harvesting, salvaging equipment, artisan-point purchases through supply orders, or trading. Motes are magical essences used to add bonuses and enhancements.

Crafting can produce weapons, armor, jewelry, instruments, and miscellaneous items. Different projects require different stations, such as a forge, tailoring table, leatherworking table, jeweler's bench, or workbench.

Basic crafting workflow

1. Use craft itemtype, craft specifictype, and craft variant to define the item you want to make.
2. Add the required resources with craft materials add <material>.
3. Optionally configure enhancements, bonuses, and motes.
4. Customize the item's keywords and descriptions.
5. Check your project's difficulty and readiness with craft score, craft show, and craft check.
6. Travel to the required crafting station and enter craft start.

Helpful commands:

craft tutorial
craft show
craft score
craft check
craft equipment
craft tools
craft reset

Important: Crafting can fail, and failed attempts may destroy materials. Use craft score to evaluate your chances before starting. craft reset returns assigned materials and motes before crafting begins. Critical successes may grant bonus properties. For advanced crafting details, read help crafting and craft tutorial.

Where should you begin?

Palanthas is a natural starting point for characters drawn to Solamnia, the Knights of Solamnia, and the Forces of Whitestone. Sanction provides an alternative starting point associated with the Dragonarmies and Takhisis. Both are supported starting cities in the game.

Before venturing far from your chosen city, consider this quick checklist:

• Read policy and learn how to use help.
• Equip your starting armor and weapon.
• Check score, attacks, and defenses.
• Open study and review available choices.
• Examine your class with class info <class name>.
• Look for NPCs marked (!) and investigate their quests.
• Try landmarks to learn about nearby destinations.
• Explore prefedit, including the color and stored-consumables settings.

Need assistance?

The in-game help command is your best reference for individual systems, and the chat channel is available for questions. Enter motd to find the community Discord link.

There is much more to discover across Ansalon, from character builds and quests to magical items, crafting, and group adventures. Choose your path, prepare your gear, and begin writing your own chapter in the Chronicles of Krynn.