Hey,

I haven't actually played yet, actually, I don't have much information besides a blurb on Top Mudsites because everything is down, but I wanted to ask a few questions.

How enforced is RP. I'm pretty into RP, and I'd hate to start a game where everyone goes OOC all the time.

What does restricted player killing mean? Do some people have a no pk flag, (annoying), or are there just rules, and how oppressive are the rules?

Any chance of getting details on the races/classes/cabals since I can't do any research on the site?

How involved are the politics?

Is this a pay for perks model? Do you have to pay to get all your skills trained, and if so, roughly how much?

So here's my take.

>Hey,
>
>I haven't actually played yet, actually, I don't have much
>information besides a blurb on Top Mudsites because everything
>is down, but I wanted to ask a few questions.
>
>How enforced is RP. I'm pretty into RP, and I'd hate to start
>a game where everyone goes OOC all the time.
>

In theory you have to remain in character all the time. In practice, people will sometimes go ooc. Why? Some examples:
- if they are trying to explain some syntax to a newbie who doesn't get their IC hints.
- if they just got pk'd and have lost their temper (this is more common)
- if they just suck at rp (this is pretty rare).

The most common offense is people with shallow roles, but they still stick to them. Also, be aware that a character's RP may not involve explaining themselves to other people. So often, you, as the guy they just pk'd, may not be able to tell much about their role, and they may seem like a random pk'er, but their allies might see quite a lot of the reasoning behind why they are acting like this towards you.

For example, I had a drow ap who had a thing about humans because the Matron Mother gave her a human name in order to torment her. So she pretty much wouldn't talk to humans, and would try to kill them on sight. But that wouldn't necessarily have been obvious to people for some time. In fact, I know it wasn't because people complained on a certain other forum that I'd chosen a crappy name because it suited a human more than a drow.

>What does restricted player killing mean? Do some people have
>a no pk flag, (annoying), or are there just rules, and how
>oppressive are the rules?
>

It means:
- someone has to be within 30% of your exp (and you within theirs, which isn't quite the same thing), I think. Note that different classes and races have different exp penalties. So a storm paladin will probably have a pk range with mostly people of higher level, whereas a human shapeshifter will have one with mostly people of lower level.
- they ALSO have to be within 9 levels of you (9 is within pk)
- if you die recently, you are taken out of pk for a bit (aroound 10 mins) so you can recover a little
- if you are level 10 or under, you not can pk or be pk'd, or loot other players' corpses
- if you kill lots of people without advancing in level, you will "distend" into a higher pk range, and have people more than 9 levels about you in your pk range.

>Any chance of getting details on the races/classes/cabals
>since I can't do any research on the site?
>

Google for carrion fields because there's another forum, and you can still see helpfiles on it (right hand bar). It's a relatively new feature, but still useful, I find.

>How involved are the politics?
>

Depends on the character, cabal, and your role. I have, for example, formed a company of bounty hunters and tried to monopolise the bounty trade by killing anyone who seemed to be hunting for bounties without joining. In cabals, you can make and break treaties (or rather, the leaders can), based on ic events. So, for example, if the law is obstructing you or always tagging along when your enemies raid you, you can raid them and take their item of power. They'll probably retaliate, even though your cabals may not normally be at war, but after a while, a treaty will typically be negotiated.

>Is this a pay for perks model? Do you have to pay to get all
>your skills trained, and if so, roughly how much?

The game is designed to be completely free. The ONLY thing that you can pay for has no impact on the game. And that is that after a character is deleted, you can pay about $5 if you want to see extra details about that character, like their pk record, and any immortal comments etc. But that has no impact on the game, since the character is already deleted. The game itself really is completely free. You can train your skills either through using practice sessions (of which you get a number when you gain a level, dependent on your wis), or by actually using the skills against mobs or other players.

1: RP is enforced. You are NEVER allowed to go OOC unless an Immortal adresses you oocly. (Or if you pray about some game mechanic or bug that you can handle over the forums.)

2: You can ALWAYS PK with ANYONE within 8 levels range (Or if +-30% of your total experience points gathered.) Unless you've been killed recently and are a ghost.
There are no players that are excempt from PKing.

3: There is a lot of information on the unofficial site (http://www.qhcf.net) BUT, the information is to be taken with a grain of salt as it isn't official and there is quite a bit of missinformation. (Though those things the imms has gone out openly with is mostly accurate, such as skills/spells etc.)

4: You don't need to get involved in the politics at all if you don't want to. However it is great fun! (At least I believe so, some doesn't.)

You will never get any benefits from paying anything. The only thing you can pay for is your PBF notice (Premium battlefield). And that only comes into affect once your char has died. Which basically means that you pay to get to have all the stats of char published after it's dead. (Stats like: PK-kills, PK-deaths, mob deaths, best gear... Here is a link to the PBFs published: http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=31 )

This game is totally free, and it's awesomely addictive. I joined 10 years ago, though had a six years long brake with studies building a family etc. Played for 4 years now and now I can finally call myself skilled. The learning curve is steep. (However I managed to hold my own after a few months or so as I had focused a lot of exploring and learning my way around. heh)

Welcome to CF, quite a shame that you came just as it's down. (Second down time over 1 hour that I've experienced for the past 4 years, the last one was when the hosting company's server hall cought fire or something.) So, don't expect any downtimes at all except for the regular reboots every 72 hours, which only lasts for 15 mins.)

Always shoot first and then call whatever you hit the target.

.... New players are always very welcome.

Always shoot first and then call whatever you hit the target.

>.... New players are always very welcome.

Okay!

The other website didn't really explain any of the races and classes to me, it just had some numbers on them. But it did give me another question.

Are there any restrictions on certain race/class combinations? Like if I wanted to play an elven necromancer would that be possible?

Are there organisations pitted against one another that war on a regular basis? What are they?

Does anyone use a system for combat, and are they widely available, if so?

>Are there any restrictions on certain race/class combinations?
>Like if I wanted to play an elven necromancer would that be
>possible?

Only certain race/class combinations are available at the time you roll your character. There's a very, very (very!) small chance that IMMs can change your race/class if you roleplay something extraodinary. But again, it is extremely rare, and not to be counted on.

>Are there organisations pitted against one another that war on
>a regular basis? What are they?

Absolutely. In general, each Cabal has at least one "enemy" cabal. A clear-cut example is Tribunal (the law-governing cabal) versus Outlander (the cabal who wants to bring down civilization).

Additionally, there are an endless number of roles you could come up with which would pit you against pretty much anything individually.

Okay, I am thinking Assassin or necromancer. I am leaning towards Assassin, but I am not sure if that is available to newbies or what path I would take to get it if not.

What races are possible with these two and any classes that may have to come first. (if thief is needed before assassin, that's cool. I love theft. I am actually curious if player theft is possible.)

>Okay, I am thinking Assassin or necromancer. I am leaning
>towards Assassin, but I am not sure if that is available to
>newbies or what path I would take to get it if not.

For a newer player I generally would recommend assassin over necromancer. Necromancer can be very good, but in a lot of ways it's kind of an "all offense, no defense" class, and while it potentially has a lot of deadliness in PK, my observation has been that newer players overwhelmingly end up on the "someone attacked me and I died almost instantly" side of playing a necromancer.

An assassin is a much more balanced and self-sufficient character overall; additionally, the ability to hide is a big boon in being able to pick and choose your fights. Only a very small subset of characters can detect hidden characters, and you'll always have a pretty good idea of which can and which cannot.

>What races are possible with these two and any classes that
>may have to come first. (if thief is needed before assassin,
>that's cool. I love theft. I am actually curious if player
>theft is possible.)

Thief and assassin are separate classes, and while they're the two classes that have hide* and can detect hidden, they play decently differently. That being said, you can steal from other players in your PK range.


*I'm intentionally ignoring orc berserkers for this comment because while they can hide, they play much less like a stealth class in many ways.

nt

Pros

-No paths, specializations, affinities, or other branching choices to make. Assassins are very straight forward.

-Faster levelling than any other race (which makes mob deaths while learning or exploring sting less)

-Ability to see almost anyone in a civilized area without using potions or other preps (in the wilderness you won't see rangers or outlanders though)

-Ability to hide and stay out of site when you chose also almost anywhere with only a small percentage of the population able to see you (great for when you want to stop and read a help file or something.)

-Very resepctable stats

-When you do get into pk you're much more likely to have a favorable range

-Rp'ing a human is usually pretty easy for most people

-No vulnerabilities

-The ability to be neutral or good which keeps half the mud from just randomly wanting to kill you usually. (As opposed to evil where almost all of the mud will want you dead.)

Arial would be a second choice because having permanent flight comes in handy in a lot of situations, but then you have to deal with the vulnerabilities (anyone with access to lightning or water is going to hurt you a lot) and you'll be slightly frailer and weaker.

I also can't stress enough playing a friendly role tends to make life easier for new people. Making friends gets you people who will often help you in lots of ways, ranking, rping, directions to shrines, pointing out good places to go, etc. You can play the sphere anger attempted bad ass as your first character if you like, but don't be surprised when no one wants to talk to you an you don't learn much about the game. You will learn many, many times more by making friends in game.

>I also can't stress enough playing a friendly role tends to
>make life easier for new people. Making friends gets you
>people who will often help you in lots of ways, ranking,
>rping, directions to shrines, pointing out good places to go,
>etc. You can play the sphere anger attempted bad ass as your
>first character if you like, but don't be surprised when no
>one wants to talk to you an you don't learn much about the
>game. You will learn many, many times more by making friends
>in game.

For this reason I think it's also good to try to be caballed with your first character, even though that might get you killed more often. It can give you access to people (especially if you're not gunning for an evil cabal) that are more likely to help you out and teach you things.

I think I am going to play a half drow assassin. I generally stick with the first character I make, so I want it to be the one I want to play even if it is a bit harder. Also, I want to be in with the "bad guys" as I play evil a lot better than good.

What cabals are evil, and how does one go about joining a cabal? What cabals are the most politics intensive (I like politics.)

Making a history is hard with no resources at the moment. It's a bit frustrating that the game has been down so long. My history will probably evolve after I have played long enough to know a bit of backstory.

How does one gain skills? Is it by level?

Oh, this game doesn't have perma-death does it? If so, under what conditions?

>I think I am going to play a half drow assassin. I generally
>stick with the first character I make, so I want it to be the
>one I want to play even if it is a bit harder. Also, I want to
>be in with the "bad guys" as I play evil a lot better than
>good.

Half-Drows make very decent assassins, stat-wise IMO. Great Dex. Mithril will hurt you a bit, though not as much as a full-blooded drow. I'm probably in the minority of folks here who would recommend playing an evil for your first character-- lots of conflict, and few restrictions can be fun to cut your teeth on. I don't think you get the full feel of CF's intense environment of "watch your back, anyone will kill you" unless you play an evil character .

>What cabals are evil, and how does one go about joining a
>cabal? What cabals are the most politics intensive (I like
>politics.)

Uhm.. Empire has probably the most intra-cabal politics. But it can be difficult-- though not impossible if you kiss the right arses . It is very very easy to join this cabal (I'll let you figure it out heh)-- as long as you are orderly/evil. My only advice would be to be sure to ask questions (in-character of course) if you are unsure of protocol. This can target you as a "newb", but there are absolutely a few key pieces of Imperial knowledge which are somewhat esoteric.

>How does one gain skills? Is it by level?

Yes, you gain skills upon certain levels, and improve them through training with your guildmaster (using skill points), and improve them further by using them.

>
>Oh, this game doesn't have perma-death does it? If so, under
>what conditions?

Yes, there are three ways to permanantly be dead: 1) Play your character for many hours, through old age (generally 500+ hours of playtime i.e. a LOT); 2) Die enough times. 3) type "delete;delete".

One and two rarely happen, and if you achieve either on your first character then you have really accomplished something and will have learned a lot!

Is it particularly bad to be targetted as a newbie? I think it will be pretty hard to disguise.

I think I have my boyfriend interested in trying to play, though he is not sure he can handle fast scrolling text that comes with combat.

The dying too many times leading to perma death concerns me. I am bound to die a lot early on, at the least, and I was pretty reckless in the last mud I played. I enjoyed fighting a lot more than running, regardless of the odds. How many times do you have to die before you die permanently?

It also sucks that 500 hours kills you permanently. That's a lot of time to put in to a character to lose them. I clocked way over that in my old mud, and I would have hated to start all over again.

How do you guys handle that, exactly?

Also, I really wish the game would come back up, I could spend all this time posting learning how to play hands on.

Yes, it has some intrigues and politics, but You will be incompetent (which is okay since you are a newbie) so in the Empire you will get kicked by your cabalmates as well.

Try Battle (hard to get in though since you have to kill some mages first), Nexus, Fortress. Fortress is the best imo. Newbie friendly goodie cabal.

>How many times do you have to die before you die permanently?
More than 50 times roughly

>It also sucks that 500 hours kills you permanently. That's a lot of >time to put in to a character to lose them. I clocked way over that in >my old mud, and I would have hated to start all over again.

>How do you guys handle that, exactly?
Well its not that bad imo. In most cases people get tired from their chars much earlier, about 150-350 hours and delete them. Half drows have decent lifespan, so you should be okay.

Eesh, 50 deaths isn't much. No room for errors, eh? Is teaming common? Are there staging grounds to practice fighting in?

Can half-drow join good organisations?

>Eesh, 50 deaths isn't much.

By the time you'd died 50 times, you'll probably be thinking that some other class would have been better (even it if wouldn't have). So you'll probably find that in practice you are quite ready to move on.

> No room for errors, eh?

Empire has a promotion and demotion system. If you make mistakes, you get demoted, or expelled. And once expelled the cabal is meant to prioritise hunting you. Plus some members of the cabal get extra nasty powers just to deal with expelled people.

Also, if you offend another imperial, they can petition for a "Blood reckoning" whereby the two of you will be allowed to kill each other, until one or other of you dies.

> Is
>teaming common?

If, by that, you mean is it common for people to walk around in a group... yes. Some people like to pk solo, but for ranking, and getting some of the nicer gear, and exploring certain places, a group is needed.

> Are there staging grounds to practice fighting
>in?
>

Sort of. There is the arena, where you can fight to the death without it actually being a death, so you don't lose con, and you don't lose gear.

However, it is only a 2 by 2 area, and a HUGELY important aspect of actual pk is making use of your surroundings, whether it be to tire out someone by making them chase you, or try to summon you, or slow down their movement so you can more easily get the first attack on them etc.

>Can half-drow join good organisations?

There is only one "good" organisation (in that only one restricts itself to admitting only good aligned characters), and that's fortress. Half drow can indeed be good aligned, so they can get in if they are good aligned.

You'll get more than 50 deaths.

You get 1 train every 5 levels. You can also trade 10 practices for a train. You can use these to increase your con when it decreases.

You'll have way over 100 deaths before you con die if you use your trains for con. I pulled some PBF (Premium battle field) data for all of the con-loss half drows and it's usually been between 60 and 80 deaths before con death.

It all depends on how many trains you want to spend for con/hp etc.

>Is it particularly bad to be targetted as a newbie? I think
>it will be pretty hard to disguise.

Dunno how many people actually target newbies. As an assassin, you can hide from like 90% of people. People who can see you are: Assassins and thieves at all time, duergars when you're in civilized terrain, Tribunals when they're on duty and rangers when you're in wilderness. In addition, the Imperial Shadow lord and the Emperor have a power with which they can see you (though in this case the shadow lord doesn't matter as he's an assassin or thief and would see you anyway).

>I think I have my boyfriend interested in trying to play,
>though he is not sure he can handle fast scrolling text that
>comes with combat.

He should try it then. It's a tough game and no-one expects newbies to shine. So, you're completely allowed to suck and no-one will diss you for that. If you shine, it's only positive. I wasn't sure about being able to handle the fast scrolling text and not getting lost in a text-based world and I've managed well enough.

>The dying too many times leading to perma death concerns me. I
>am bound to die a lot early on, at the least, and I was pretty
>reckless in the last mud I played. I enjoyed fighting a lot
>more than running, regardless of the odds. How many times do
>you have to die before you die permanently?

You lose one point of constitution for every third death. When your constitution is lowered to zero, your character will die permanently. This would mean 39 deaths for a 16 con character (elf or d-elf, they have the lowest constitution in the game) that doesn't practice constitution to compensate for the the ones lost in deaths. Generally, only people who con die are the ones who purposefully play recklessly or live a long life.

>It also sucks that 500 hours kills you permanently. That's a
>lot of time to put in to a character to lose them. I clocked
>way over that in my old mud, and I would have hated to start
>all over again.

Starting over isn't a huge deal in CF. The max level is capped to 51 and you can reach that in 30-100 hours if you powerrank. Also, game starts at level 1, not 51, and you should be able to have fun at any level range. Also, every class plays differently so the startover gives you a change to try something new.

>How do you guys handle that, exactly?

I'd like to point out that vast majority of characters die by deletion and not because the game forced them to die. People will simply reroll something else when they get bored of their previous character and want to try something new. 500 hours is plenty of time to get bored with your current character. Personally, I've age died one character (Fungor) and con-died two (Agantas, Endalion). Feel free to check their PBF's if you want to know how long they lasted. At that point, I was already ready to give up on those characters as their time had come. Of those characters, Agantas was my second character (first that PKed, as my first character Fungor was about survival), a crazy balls to the walls character that fought to the point where he took completely unnecessary deaths. You can also play for about half an hour or hour after your character has died, as a ghost, to properly say goodbye to people who knew you in the game. Also, there will be a death thread for your character in the Battlefield forum where you can say your goodbyes and comments about the character. Also, you can talk about that character more freely at that point, as it is not customary to talk about your active character in the forums.

>Also, I really wish the game would come back up, I could spend
>all this time posting learning how to play hands on.

Don't we all. This kind of longer downtime has happened only once as I recall it. At that time, there was a fireball in the host company's server room. This is not an issue like that, but they'll solve it eventually and it probably won't happen again and if it does, the Imms should be wiser at that time as they learn from this time's mistakes.

>>Is it particularly bad to be targetted as a newbie? I think
>>it will be pretty hard to disguise.
>

Yeah, but it is easier to disguide and avoid as an assassin!

>Dunno how many people actually target newbies. As an assassin,
>you can hide from like 90% of people. People who can see you
>are: Assassins and thieves at all time, duergars when you're
>in civilized terrain, Tribunals when they're on duty and
>rangers when you're in wilderness.

Woohoo! All in my newbie guide draft!

> In addition, the Imperial
>Shadow lord and the Emperor have a power with which they can
>see you (though in this case the shadow lord doesn't matter as
>he's an assassin or thief and would see you anyway).
>
>>I think I have my boyfriend interested in trying to play,
>>though he is not sure he can handle fast scrolling text that
>>comes with combat.
>

Increase the number of lines of text on the screen, and the scrolling speed will have to be slower. Also, as an assassin, you can better pick one v one fights, which are less spammy. Even I struggle to follow what's going on in large group v group fights (anything more than 3 a side), so I tend to fight a lot less effectively.

>He should try it then. It's a tough game and no-one expects
>newbies to shine. So, you're completely allowed to suck and
>no-one will diss you for that. If you shine, it's only
>positive. I wasn't sure about being able to handle the fast
>scrolling text and not getting lost in a text-based world and
>I've managed well enough.
>

To give this some context, when I left cf for about 5 years (and everything changed) and came back, neutral assassin enabled me to get a 50% pk ratio. As in, I killed as many as I died to.

>>The dying too many times leading to perma death concerns me.
>I
>>am bound to die a lot early on, at the least, and I was
>pretty
>>reckless in the last mud I played. I enjoyed fighting a lot
>>more than running, regardless of the odds. How many times do
>>you have to die before you die permanently?
>
>You lose one point of constitution for every third death. When
>your constitution is lowered to zero, your character will die
>permanently.

I believe that actually you permanently die before this. At 3 con, perhaps?

> This would mean 39 deaths for a 16 con character
> elf or d-elf, they have the lowest constitution in the game)
>that doesn't practice constitution to compensate for the the
>ones lost in deaths. Generally, only people who con die are
>the ones who purposefully play recklessly or live a long
>life.
>

Don't worry about con death. If you con die, roll another, and you'll be a lot better because of what the character that con died learnt. Also, con affects hp regen, so you might get fed up with low con before you actually con die (although you can get skills that help with this).

>>It also sucks that 500 hours kills you permanently. That's a
>>lot of time to put in to a character to lose them. I clocked
>>way over that in my old mud, and I would have hated to start
>>all over again.
>

That's a matter of opinion. Sometimes the only thing that stops a mud being stagnant is new characters being born and old ones dying. Also, it stops any powerhouse from dominating cf for forever (possible except the current lich, since he doesn't seem inclined to delete from boredom and doesn't die any more either).

>Starting over isn't a huge deal in CF. The max level is capped
>to 51 and you can reach that in 30-100 hours if you powerrank.
>Also, game starts at level 1, not 51, and you should be able
>to have fun at any level range. Also, every class plays
>differently so the startover gives you a change to try
>something new.
>
>>How do you guys handle that, exactly?
>
>I'd like to point out that vast majority of characters die by
>deletion and not because the game forced them to die. People
>will simply reroll something else when they get bored of their
>previous character and want to try something new. 500 hours is
>plenty of time to get bored with your current character.
>Personally, I've age died one character (Fungor) and con-died
>two (Agantas, Endalion). Feel free to check their PBF's if you
>want to know how long they lasted. At that point, I was
>already ready to give up on those characters as their time had
>come. Of those characters, Agantas was my second character
> first that PKed, as my first character Fungor was about
>survival), a crazy balls to the walls character that fought to
>the point where he took completely unnecessary deaths. You can
>also play for about half an hour or hour after your character
>has died, as a ghost, to properly say goodbye to people who
>knew you in the game. Also, there will be a death thread for
>your character in the Battlefield forum where you can say your
>goodbyes and comments about the character. Also, you can talk
>about that character more freely at that point, as it is not
>customary to talk about your active character in the forums.
>
>>Also, I really wish the game would come back up, I could
>spend
>>all this time posting learning how to play hands on.
>
>Don't we all. This kind of longer downtime has happened only
>once as I recall it. At that time, there was a fireball in the
>host company's server room. This is not an issue like that,
>but they'll solve it eventually and it probably won't happen
>again and if it does, the Imms should be wiser at that time as
>they learn from this time's mistakes.

Liches/Mummies can age-die as well now. Normal age for a lich was said to be somewhere around 1000 hours or so. Add leader age to that... + the chars that were affected by this as it went in got their aging reset or something like that. (can't be bothered to search up the post about it.) But I THINK that we'll see a certain lich age-die soon enough. Provided she begins to login a bit more frequent and for longer hours.

Always shoot first and then call whatever you hit the target.

... And I've played somewhere around 20 lvl 51 characters. Each one of them were great fun. Out of these 20, 0 died from age. One had 700+ hours played (Was leader of a cabal, you live a lot longer then.) 6 of them or so con-died. There rest were deleted for various reasons.

Two had 300+ hours. The rest below that. Some barely got 100 hours. There are a lot of things that can make you delete.

I think it is one the of the greatest aspects of CF, that you know for a fact that your character will not live forever.

The characters that have con-died has mostly died after about 200 hours of game-play. I tend to play characters with high con so say avg of 23 con = 60 deaths to die permantely. (Unless you use trainings to train con up again instead of using it for other things.)

What I'm trying to say is that 500 hours is often enough for most people to get bored with their character. I'll go out on a limb and guess that MOST HEROES delete/die after roughly 100-150 hours.

Always shoot first and then call whatever you hit the target.

As well as what stats, resistances and vulnerabilities they have.

http://www.qhcf.net/raceclass.php

Always shoot first and then call whatever you hit the target.

>Are there any restrictions on certain race/class combinations?
>Like if I wanted to play an elven necromancer would that be
>possible?

The race/class page in Dioxide's has race class combinations tabulated. If there's a number link, the combo exists. Blank boxes mean that that combo is not possible(i.e. no elf necromancers).

http://www.qhcf.net/raceclass.php

>Are there organisations pitted against one another that war on
>a regular basis? What are they?

Cabal vs Cabal wars

Tribunal and Outlander are always at war, with the destruction of the cities Tribunal has been hired to protect being in the agenda of Outlanders.

Outlander and Empire are always at war as Outlanders hate slavery and orderly civilization.

Empire and Scion are always at ar due to historical reasons: The Arcane sect betrayed the old Empire together with lich Valguanera, the founder of Scions, causing it's downfall.

Fortress is always at war with Empire and Scion, as the two cabals are evil.

Battle is always at war against Scion and Nexus, as the two cabals tamper with magic. Nexus actively wages this war only when magic is not too strong.

Battle is more often than not at war with Empire, though they do not need to do so. What fuels this war on Battle's part is the existence of black sect, consisting of anti-paladins and necromancers. The war can also start due to Empire's tendency to gather the items of other cabals, which practically is a declaration of war.

Empire occasionally wars any cabal they see fit, in addition to their normal enemy cabals, Fortress, Scion and Outlander.

Herald cabal does not have item and it's members do not participate in cabal wars. They do not have a cabal item and their headquarters, Inn of Eternal Star, is open for all visitors. There has been one exception, as Imperial High Priest Njaal started a war between Empire and Herald in order to subjugate Heralds under Imperial rule. Imperials were not allowed to enter the Inn during that war. This took place in year 2004.

Cabals vs individuals

-Anything of Evil alignment is an enemy of Fortress.
-Battle ragers generally attack all mages (transmuters, shapeshifters, necromancers, conjurers and anti-paladins) on sight as these are their main enemies.
-WANTED law breakers (see helpfile for laws) are enemies of Blood Tribunal until they are executed.
-Conjurers, Necromancers, Anti-paladins, Paladins, Orcs, Minotaurs, Dwarves and Duergars are enemies of Outlanders, often attacked on sight. This may vary based on individual outlanders, as freedom is important for them.
-Empire attacks whoever they see as an enemy.
-Nexus may attack the characters swaying the Balance. This means that they attack goods if good is in power and evils if evil is in power etc. However, they do not see these people as their permanent enemies, attacking may just be needed at that time to fix the balance.

>Does anyone use a system for combat, and are they widely
>available, if so?

People usually use aliases for longer commands. Personally, I use numpad to move around and put four attack initiation commands to keys 7,9,3 and 1, + and - being up and down and 5 being where. This should be easy to set without further instructions if you use MUSHclient. In addition, many people tend to highlight important echoes, using triggers to colour the trigger phrase echo.