textfiles/apple/DOCUMENTATION/bronze.dragon.3

Solving Plots: 
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Read this carefully, for enjoying Bronze Dragon to its fullest depends
on your understanding of how to solve its many puzzles, which are called
plots. The module, Seekers of the Storm, has an extremely intricate plot
that may take months to solve. 

A plot consists mainly of a legend concerning an object or series of
objects that you must recover. For a complete listing of these, check
appendix 1.  IMPORTANT: The King abd Overlord often want objects other
than tge final object, so bring back as many goodies as you can. In
plots where you need tge final object to start another adventure,
they'll let you keep the final object. 

The four steps to solving a plot and gaining skill levels are listed
below. 

1> Study the Ledgends: Dont't start on an adventure without any
information!  After you've picked your adventure, mingle in the pub. The
people there will give you all sorts of information, although some of it
might be false. Write down anything that seems important because it
probably is. Later, when you're starting to explore the castle or
module, a story about it will be shown that could prove helpful. 

2> Finding the Peices: In most plots, you must recover some minor object
before you can get the "final" object, which is the one either Leopold
or Usul will reward you for. How do you know when an object is needed to
solve the plot and not just ordinary rubbish? The Wizard in Dragon
Village may be able to help.  Look for objects that the pub people or
ledgends mention, also look for objects that are extremely unusual or
inaccessible. If something is inaccessible, find out why and think about
what you might need to get the object. 

3> Using the Objects: This is the act of putting the puzzle together.
The two commands which are most ofter used for this are "use in room"
and "use on your possessions." EXAMPLE: You find a glowing iron crown in
a room, and you want to take it, but it's too hot to touch. Suddenly,
you remember that bucket of ice water you passed over 12 rooms ago! If
you get the ice water and use it (in room), it'll free the iron crown. 

Sometimes you might have to fit two plot objects together to form a new
object.  EXAMPLE: You want to take a dancing sword, but it's flying
about the room just out of reach. You have two wands, a red and a blue
one, but neither seems to stop the sword. By using (on possessions) the
blue wand on the red wand, you form a bronze wand. When you use the
bronze wand "in room," it stops the sword from spinning. 

4> Taking it Back: When you've recovered the "final" objectm it's time
to go back to the King or Overlord for your reward. Either of them will
greatly reward you if you give them the final object, unless the final
object is used for some furture plot. In this case, they will take
something else that you've picked up during the adventure and
(hopefully) saved. EXAMPLE: The talisman in plot 3 must be kept in order
to solve plot 4. 


Saving a game: 
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Since it takes hours to complete an adventure, you probably wish to save
the game in progress several times. All you have to do is press CTRL-Q
during the first character's turn. If you wish to continue play at that
point, answer "Y" to the prompt. Answering "N" will take you back to
Dragon Village, but not your characters. 

To restart the game later, boot the Bronze Side abd hit number 6 on the
Main Menu, "Go On An Adventure." You'll be back at the point you left
off. 

You can also save the game by having your party return to Dragon
Village. If you do this, however, you must gather the party again before
you go back to the adventure. 



The Crossroads: 
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After you've finished an adventure, your characters should go to The
Crossroads (Option 7 on the Main Menu). From therem good characters go
to King Leopold and evil characters go to Lord Usul to gain skill points
and skill levels.  Afterwards, you can sell any trinkats the rulers
don't want to the merchants.  The personalities (and quirks) of the two
rulers are explained below. 

1> King Leopold: King Leopold is a benevolent ruler, a champion of truth
and justice everywhere. He is an extremely pleasant man to deal with,
althrough the some can't be said for his wife, Queen Putrid. He'll look
over your possessions in hopes of finding valuable objects, which he'll
want to have for himself. He desires the final object most of all,
naturally. In return, Leopold will grant each character in the party
skill points and (if anyone has enough skill points) skill levels. If
he's in a good mood, the good King may even grant some extra ability
points to favored characters. Incidentally, Leopold also heals
characters who give objects to him. 

2> Lord Usul: Lord Usul is the evil counterpart of King Leopold. To say
he's unpleasant is an incredible understatement - I hyst hope he doesn't
see me writing about him like this/ If you bring anything to Lord Usul
that interests him, say goodbye to it! He'll probably give you skill
points and skill levels, but he's been known to take them away if he's
in a real foul mood. The same goes for servants' (that's you) ability
scores, they go up and down according to Usul's whim. Lord Usul does NOT
heal characters, although he's been known to do the opposite.
Unsucbstantiated rumors have it that Lord Usul becomes very friendly to
high level servants, giving them many extra ability points. 

After you've increased your characters' might and prestige, it's time to
go back to Dragon Village. If you've picked up anything you wish to
sell, start haggling with the merchants. What next? The Provisioner's?
The Healers? How about learning more spells from the wizard? Then you'll
be ready for another adventure and..... 



Glossary: 
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Ability scores: Ability scores are numbers which represent how strong,
smart, agile, and hardy an individual character is. The "average" score
is 10, anything above or below 10 may increase or decrease a character's
power. Each character has five ability scores, the values of which are
determined by race. 
     
     1) Strength: Strength is the might and power a character possesses
     and affects the amount of weight that can be carried. High strength
     can add bonus in accuracy and the ammount of dammage inflicted when
     fighting. 
     
     2) Agility: Agility measures how quick and nimble characters are.
     Special traits such as leap and sneak are affected by agility; high
     agility can give "to hit" bonuses in fight. 
     
     3) Intelligence: Secret doors and traps are easily detected if a
     character is intelligent. High intelligence can also give spell
     casters extra spell points. 
     
     4) Constitution: This is how spirited and hardy a character is
     during rough situations. Constitution is closely related to
     endurance, but the two shouldn't be confused. Constitution is
     permanent score which determines how much is regained when a
     character rests. 
     
     5> Endurance: Endurance, the measure of fatigue, is the only
     ability score that flucuates. Activities such as fighting and spell
     casting causes endurance to go down. If it reaches zero, you'd
     better rest or you'll lose hit points. 

Armor: Equipment which affects armor rand is called armor. If you
possess armor, you're automatically wearing it. There are two obstacles
that could prevent a character from wearing a certain piece of armor: 
     
     1) The character's class is incompatible or
     
     2) The character is already wearing that "type" of armor.  EXAMPLE:
     A wizard tries to pick up some chain mail. EXAMPLE 2: A character
     tries to take elven boots when she already has high boots. See
     appendix 3. 

Armor Rank: Armor rank, or AR, is a measure of how vulnerable a
character is to physical attack. Low numbers are better than high ones
in this case. A character with no armor has the armor rank of 10, which
means an unlucky dart-throwing blind man could hit him from 500 beters! 

Beserk: A character in this state is slightly insane, but in a
bloodthirsty kind of way. Berserk characters often behave normally one
moment, and then try to hack their friends to pieces in the next moment.
Luckily, it's a temporary condition. 

Beter: A unit of measurement. It's the length between the tip of King
Leopold's nose and his outstretched hand. Really. 

Bilo: The weight of one bronze piece. See weight. 

Bronze Piece: Otherwise known as BP's or bronpies, bronze pieces are the
basic unit of money in Bronze Dragon

Castle: "Castle" is a generic term for a place where you adventure.
Monsters, treasures, and all sorts of strange and wonderful objects are
found in castles. 

Characters: A character is a persona that you, the player, assume. Up to
5 characters can go on an adventure at once. 

Charges: The amount of uses a spell or magic item has is referred to as
charges.  Each time a spell or magic item is used, one more charge will
be spent until none are left and the magic is gone. 

Class: This is the profession of a character. There are 5 classes:
Knight, Assassin, Ninja, and Wizard. Each class has at least two
specaial commands unique unto that class. 

Cursed Onjects: Cursed onjects are onjects you can't "get rid of." They
usually perform poorly. EXAMPLE: A cursed weapon might be a broad sword
that has a -5 penalty "to hit." The only way to get rid of a cursed item
is by consulting the Wizard in Dragon Village or casting a remove curse
spell. Cursed stuff doesn't reveal its true nature until it is put in
hand. Of course by then, it's tooooo late! 

Damage: Anytime hit points are taken from a character or monster, damage
has ocurred. Objects such as lanterns and dishes can be "damaged" when
they're used as weapons. Characters can actually destroy onjects by
using them this way in a fight. 

Difficulty: How tough a castle is survival-wise is difficulty. This is
probably the most important part of designing a castle. 

Double Damage: If the number you get on the rolling randomizer is twice
as much as the number you need to hit, you'll do twice as much damage. 

Eating: Ya gotta eat to live! Eating is done by putting food in hand,
then hitting <use> and <use on creature>. Then it's simply a matter of
picking who you wish to feed (it could be yerself). Going without food
for a long period of time leads to unconciousness. 

Food: Eating good food will keep you from starving, but beware of the
stuff you pick up off castle floors, because it may be poisonous. If you
go withough food for 200 turns, you'll drop unconscious. 

Healing: Raising hit points now or hit points max is healing. 

Hit Points: This is a measure of how much "life" a character has. When a
character is damaged, hit points are lost. When all hit points are lost,
the character dies. 

Hit Points Max: His points max is the highest number of hit points a
character can have. This maximum number is lowered when an elder uses
innate healing. 

Hit Points Now: Hit points now is a character's current number of hit
points. 

Level: The term level, not to be confused with skill level, means the
floor or story of a castle. Negative levels are below ground level. 

Light: The contents of a room can only be seen if there is a good source
of light. Incidentally, monster tend to fight better in dark rooms. 

Magic Items: Magical onjects often have special powers. Consulting the
Wizard in Dragon Village about such items might reveal a clue to their
use. 

Maze: An area where characters become confused about directions. Going
left might make them go north, etc. 

Menu Window: The four-line information bot at the top of the screen
during actual play is called the menu window. 

Module: The most complex and interesting adventures are called modules,
although the castles your apple creates are pretty good too.. 

Monster Levels: There are 10 different levels of monsters, level 1
contains the weakest and level 10 the hardest.