IV. CURIOUSITIES

1. Archipelago features, and some oddities explained
   
   
   • I hear you can pick up animals, and people?
     Yes, you must have both hands free, and the creature must be tame.
     
     
   • How do I ride a horse or another animal?
     You 'MOUNT' it. If the creature is not very receptive to that idea, you will need to tame it first. Once tamed and mounted, the animal will begin following you around. To stop an animal from following, you can 'TETHER' the animal in place. 'UNTETHER' the animal when you want it following you again.
     
     
   • What are carts and wagons?
     Carts are vehicles that can be 'HITCHED' and 'UNHITCHED' to creatures and people. They are ideal for use in hauling treasure, and the occasional corpse. The creature must be tame before you can hitch a cart to it. (See also container exits below).
     
     
   • Hmm,.. Why can't I hitch a cart to someone?
     It is not possible to ride a horse and to hitch a wagon to it at the same time. You can either 'HITCH' a wagon to an unridden horse, or 'MOUNT' a horse with no wagons attached. (See mounts and carts above).
     
     
   • What are container exits?
     Container exits add spice to the world of Archipelago. Some containers can be entered, via the 'ENTER' command, and exited via 'LEAVE'. To examine what you are entering, you can 'look in' the container. You can even put stuff into these types of containers, which will be sitting on the floor inside it.
     
     
   • Why can't I see the little bug crawling around in the room?
     Illumination in a room is variable. What can, or cannot be seen in a room depends on the time of day, the type of room, the size of the thing you are trying to look at, your perception stat, and whatever equipment you are carrying that might influence the light levels.
     
     
   • How does invisibility work?
     There are several spells of invisibility available, from a low level one that temporarily hides you until you move, to one that causes you to be invisible until the spell wears off -- you stay invisible even in combat. To be able to detect invisible people depends on how strong the invisibility spell is, and how well you can detect this invisibility through the "Discern Image of Truth and Falsehood" spell.
     
     
   • Scabbards, what are those?
     Scabbards are sheaths for weapons. They are useful in times when you don't want to be caught clutching a weapon in your hands. The 'DRAW' and 'SHEATHE' commands will draw and sheathe your weapon respectively.
     
     
   • What are all those hit and damage roll numbers?
     The number on the left of the slash represents your maximum combat rating in hitting, and damage. The number on the right hand of the slash represents your current rating. The right hand number depends directly on how hungry, thirsty, tired, and encumbered you are at that moment.
     
     
   • What is encumbrance?
     Encumbrance measures your current burden, e.g., are you carrying heavy loads of equipment, tired, hungry, in a weakened state? The more encumbered you are, the more movement points will be drained to do even the simpliest of tasks. Encumbrance will affect your hit and damage rolls.
     
     
   • How important is movement on Archipelago?
     Movement is very important. Movement is necessary to invoke spells, and to move around. If unencumbered, your movement costs are minimal to none.
     
     
   • There's too much combat scroll, how can I reduce it?
     To be shown only the hits and not the misses during combat, use the 'COMPACT' command.
     
     
   • Ack!, I need to flee, but I have so many commands stacked up!
     No problem. Use the 'ABORT' command to clear your input buffer.
     
     
   • Why can't I heal myself repeately?
     You can, with the "Bind Wounds" spell. A better, faster, and less repetitive method is to increase your healing/regeneration rate. This can be accomplished by using other healing spells, e.g., "Healing Touch of the Chirugeon" -- that can be cast only once every few ticks -- combined with a healthy dose of sleep. (A tick is the time it take for your character to regenerate, which is updated by your status bar).
     
     
   • What do I need to know about poison?
     Poison is variable in strength. There are mild items that can cause a loss of a few hitpoints per tick, to deadly items that can cause a loss of hundreds.
     
     
   • What is praying?
     Depending on your alignment, praying can be beneficial or harmful. For the angelic, prayer may cure a number of afflictions you may be affected with, e.g., blindness, poison, curses. If you are naughty, prayer will not be so nice an experience. Praying should be used as a last resort.
     
     
   • I can't wake up!
     You probably have negative movement, and have fallen into a deep sleep. Arousing from deep sleep is difficult at best, but it can be done. If attacked while in deep sleep, you may not immediately wake up.
     
     
   • Is there colour?
     There are four levels of configured colour available, ranging from none, sparse, normal, to complete. These four levels determine how much colour you want to receive. All global and local channels are colourized, as are room names, exits, titles, and prompts. You can add colour codes to your title, and to your prompt string (status bar). To toggle colour levels, use the 'COLOUR' command.
     
     
   • Are there aliases available?
     Yes. You can alias up to five commands. These aliases are useful for those who don't use, don't want to use, can't use, or don't have access to telnet clients such as tintin, zmud, or tinyfugue.
     
     
   • PKill!
     Player killing has not yet been implemented, as there are some unresolved issues we have yet to address including limits, penalties, justice, and vengeance options.