The game ships no manual: this is its help menu (?), topics a–o, from data/story/help_*.txt and the key screen in fprl.pas. Topic p is a context-sensitive page built from your current character. © Mario Donick, GPL v2. The developer’s postal address is left out.
GOAL OF THE GAME In story mode, the first goal of the game is to find the Book of Stars and to give this book to Ahna, the abbess of the Temple of Enoa. A good starting point would be talking to the assistant of the Lonely Librarian, living in the Sewers of Enoa. However, finding the Book of Stars is only a first step in winning the game's main quest. Furthermore, there are lots of sidequests available, depending on your chosen profession and/or religion. In coffeebreak mode, the goal is different: The evil goddess Eris has ab- ducted most inhabitants of Herbstwelt. She sent you an invitation to visit her, and she promised to set the people free once you meet her. Eris let some traders live, to give you a chance to reach the place where she is waiting. Obiviously, Eris wants to play with you before killing you. To save the people, you have to follow her "invitation", go down the dungeons until you reach the Halls of Eris. There, you need to find and kill the evil goddess. In coffeebreak mode, no additional quests are available. Profession ranks are gained automatically every 4 character levels. Your adventure is restric- ted to the main dungeon. Finally, hospitals don't offer life insurances in this game mode. For the full LambdaRogue experience, play the game in story mode.
HOW TO CONTACT THE DEVELOPER If you have suggestions, wishes, or bug reports---please contact me: website: http://lambdarogue.net e-mail : mario.donick@live.de forums : http://groups.google.com/group/LambdaRogue [postcardware request with the developer’s postal address, left out here] Thanks!
CONCEPT, STORY, QUESTS, AND PROGRAMMING: Mario Donick TILESET, HUD, AND CHARACTER PORTRAITS: Cecilia Favo De Mel ARTWORK BASED ON STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY BY DeviantART-ists: Marcus Ranum, Tigg-Stock, Archetype-stock, Linz-Stock, Faestock, Dakann, Quazzz-stock, Wolfcat-Stock, RayvenStock, demoncherrystock, dewfooter MUSIC: Nagual Art, BLUnderwood, Alvaro M. Rocha SOUND EFFECTS: PacDV Free Sound Effects (http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/index.html) Partners in Rhyme (http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/soundfx/Disasters.shtml) Dubtrain Angband Sound Effects (CC licensed, http://www.dubtrain.com/angband) SPECIAL THANKS TO: Brian "getter77" Jeffears, Dave Moore, Mingos, Jose Almeida, Alex M., Paul "Krice" Pekkarinen, Grimwerk, Christian Schneider, Soraya -- and Wiebke.
KEYS USED TO PERFORM ACTIONS (default keys of this build) Default movement: arrow keys or NumPad (switch Numlock ON!) Movement keys (N,S,E,W,NE,NW,SE,SW): kjlhuynb [a] open chest (in front of a treasure chest) sacrifice money (in front of an altar) enter staircase (in front of a staircase) drink from well (in front of a well) examine crypt (in front of a crypt) [g] pick up item [i] show inventory [m] show songbook (spells) [c] chant last spell again [t] talk to NPC or trader [f] fire long-range weapon [d] dig / disarm trap [p] pray to your god [s] show status screen [L] show questlog [.] rest one turn [r] rest certain number of turns [I] identify tile [Q] show game menu; also: [ESC] [S] search/steal [C] show and reset quick keys [D] close door [M] show big minimap (SDL only) [T] throw an item [-] switch tactics [x] use talent [X] divine rage Added by the web port: [z] explore (any key stops) [<] [>] walk to known stairs, take them [ENTER] menu of all commands
CONFIGURING THE QUICKBAR Using the quick bar (or action bar), you can easily access chants (spells), potions and food by pressing one of the function keys, [F1] to [F12]. These keys are referred to as "quick keys". The bar is shown on the bottom of the screen; the exact position depends on selected resolution (800x600 or 1024x768). You can move the bar to any posi- tion by right-clicking on the desired position. To move it to the default po- sition, open the quick key list (press [C] by default), then press [r]. To bind potions or food to a quick key, open the inventory (by pressing [i] by default). Press the quick key you want to use. You are then asked to enter the number of the item. To bind chants to a quick key, open the songbook (press [m] by default). Then press the quick key you want to use. Finally, enter the number of the chant you want to bind to the key. To delete bindings, open the quick key list (press [C] by default). Press the quick key which should be resetted.
SOME NOTES ON BASIC STATUS VALUES (HP, PP, EXP, CLV) To represent the physical and psychic attributes of the character you're (role)playing, several numerical values are used. The most important value is HP (Health Points). It represents your basic physical constitution and is shown as, for example, 32/65, which means you currently have 32 out of a maximum of 65. HP decrease when you get hurt (e.g. enemy attacks, poison, lava...), and if your HP are below 1, you'll die. Use items or magic to heal yourself (e.g. Aspirin or Water). You may also go to hospital. If you want to use magic, you also have to watch your psychic power (PP). PP are used when chanting magical songs (i.e. doing magic). Every chant consumes a certain amount of PP---the exact value is shown in songbook. To regenerate PP, use Cola or Caffeine, or sit down a while. During the game, you collect experience (EXP), by killing monsters or by solving quests. When your EXP reach a certain value, you gain a level (CLV). Whenever you gain a level, you earn a skill point which you can distribute on one of your skills by going to the academy. You'll also notice that your maximum HP and PP get increased, and that you're fully healed. The status screen shows you how many EXP you need until you gain the next CLV.
SKILLS AND ABILITIES Besides basic status values, there are values which represent the education of your character. These values are called abilities and skills, and they're used to calculate how well you perform actions related to these values. In general, higher values are better, but you might also consider to specialize in only a few fields, matching your selected profession and religion. "Abilities" describe your basic abilities to perform actions, independently from items or tools. "Fight" describes your ability to perform combat. "Hit" determines if you hit or miss enemies when shooting, throwing, or performing long-range magic attacks. "Chant" represents how well you perfom magic. A high "Steal"-ability allows you to steal without alarming the guards and to evade traps. "Skills" describe your abilities to use weapons (Sword, Axe, Lance, Fire-arm) and tools (Spades, Pick-axes). There are also two more general skills: High "Humility" means lower cost and greater effect of divine rage. A high "Trade" skill gives you advantages in buying and selling items.
TALENTS, DIVINE RAGE, AND DISTRESS Each profession offers a "talent" as special action which consists of 4 or 5 powers. Powers are learned by gaining ranks within your character's profes- sion. A soldier, for example, can gain the ranks Centurio, Hastatus, Prin- ceps, Pilus, and finally Primus Pilus. Each rank of a profession's career has one associated power, either active or passive. The talent you can use is the cumulated effect of all active powers. Passive powers improve status values of your character. The 1st power of a talent is available for free right from the start. Press the talent key (default: [x]) to use the talent. Each religion has one associated "divine rage". Like the profession talent, this is a special action you can use when needed, but divine rage is not di- vided into powers. You can increase the effect and reduce the costs of di- vine rage by training your Humility skill. To invoke divine rage, press the divine rage key (default: [X]). Both powers and divine rage cost "distress" (DST). You gain distress by ta- king damage. When you use your talent or invoke divine rage, DST is reduced by the DST cost of the talent's powers or the divine rage.
ITEM VALUES (WP, GP, AP) AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON BATTLE Your success during battles is also influenced by several properties of the items you're using for fighting. Every item has the following values: - WP (Weapon Points): Efficiency of item as weapon in melee combat - GP (Gun Points): Efficiency of item as firearm in long-range combat - AP (Armour Points): Efficiency of item as armour The WP, GP and AP of all currently equipped items are added to your Fight- ability, resulting in the MLD-value. M is your current total efficiency in melee-combat (L in long-range-combat), while D is your current total armour protection (defense). EXAMPLE: Wielding a Gladius with 8 WP while having a Fight-ability of 6 and a Sword-skill of 7 creates a total M of 13 (6 Fight + 7 out of 8 WP). To make use of a weapon's full WP/GP, to inflict critical damage, and to use possible magical bonuses of weapons, the related skill has to be the same as or higher than the weapon's WP/GP (min. 8 in the example).
FIGHTING MONSTERS IN MELEE- AND LONG-RANGE BATTLE There are two possibilities to attack an enemy: Either attack it in melee combat, or keep distant and attack it with a long-range weapon, like bow or crossbow. To attack in melee, just walk into the direction of the enemy. If you're next to the enemy, you will attack it. Watch the status lines at the bottom of the screen to get information on your attacks, e.g. if you miss the enemy, or if you hit it very hard, or if you do no damage at all, or how many HP (health) the enemy has left. If the enemy's HP is 0, you have killed the enemy and won the battle. To attack from a greater distance, you need to equip a long-range weapon first. Then press the "fire"-key, [f] by default. Then press a direction key to shoot into the given direction. You need ammunition suited for your current weapon (if you have more than one suited ammo type in your inven- tory, the first one will be used; you should sort items accordingly). It depends highly on your View-skill how far you can shoot and how often your attack will miss. Train the skill well if you plan to use bows often!
THE BASICS OF USING MAGIC Magic is performed by chanting magical spells. These spells are also called "songs", and whenever you learn a new song, it is written down in your songbook which is shown by pressing the "songbook"-key, [m] by default. To learn or train a song, you must study crystals. Many crystals can be bought in libraries, some other crystals must be found or obtained other- wise. When you've studied a crystal, the associated song is accessable from your songbook. To chant a song (i.e. to cast a spell), you have to select it from your songbook. You will then try to chant the song. Your success depends on your current psychic power (PP) and on the skills "Chant" and, for attacking spells, "View". If your PP are below the mini- mum PP requirements of a certain spell, it won't be cast at all. If the spell is cast and your "Chant"-skill is low, it might fail often. In the case of failure, the consumed PP are wasted. For most songs, you have to be an Enchanter to use them. Only a few are open for other professions.
MAGIC IN COMBAT SITUATIONS If you perfom well in using magic, you can use it to your advantage in combat situations. You then not only have a weapon to fight and potions to heal yourself, you can also use attack spells to harm the enemy (in many cases greater than by using weapons) or chant songs to heal yourself. Most attack spells make use of water, ice, and fire, and all of them are available in a weak and a standard variant. "Wet", for example, is the weak water spell, "water" is the standard. The weaker variants consume less psychic power (PP), but also do less damage. In general, water spells are weaker than ice spells, and ice spells are weaker than fire spells, but if you use e.g. a water spell against an enemy immune against water, you won't harm it. The same goes for ice and fire. All water animals are immune against water, and every enemy who is able to cast water, ice or fire itself is immune against such attacks. Hint: To repeat a spell, you don't need to open the songbook every time. Just press the "chant"-key, [c] by default, to chant a spell again.
HOW QUESTS WORK AND HOW QUESTS ARE SOLVED You will soon notice some people (NPCs) in the game who offer you a reward if you help them with a certain task. One might, for example, ask you to hunt a certain amount of enemies or to find some special treasure. To get such a quest, you first have to talk to a NPC and see if he or she tells you about it. You may then decide to accept or to reject the quest. If you reject a quest, you can come back and accept it later. After you accepted a quest, you can review a short description of your task in your questlog (brought up from status screen or by pressing the "questlog"-key, [L] by default). There you'll also find all quests that have been accomplished sucessfully; these are marked with a :) smiley. To solve a quest, you have to perform the required task. If Ahna, for example, gives you the quest to find the item "Book of Stars", you have to search for that book. If you talk to Ahna again and have the required item in your inventory, she will take it and you will be rewarded. The scheme "Get Quest from client, solve it, then return to client" is valid for all kinds of quests and you should never forget the third step.
THE RESOURCE WORKSHOP AND ITS USES You will rather early see wooden barrels standing around in the dungeons. You can destroy these barrels, and often, they contain some item which you can pick up. But there's more: You can also pick up the wood that is left over from the destroyed barrel. Later, you will also find metal parts, that can be picked up, too. Wood and metal are examples for resources. Resources don't go into your inventory, but into a resource storage that can can hold wood, metal, stone, paper, and leather. You can access the resource storage from special traders, the resource workshops. There you can also dis- assemble items into their resources. For doing so, simply go to the trader, open your inventory, choose "drop" and select the item you want to disas- semble. The item gets destroyed and the resources are added to your resource storage. In a resource workshop, you can either sell resources, or you can use them to craft special items usually not available. These items use wood, metal, stone and leather. Sometimes also a certain item is required. Requirements are shown next to the items. The quality of crafted items depends on the dungeon level of the workshop; go deeper to find better crafting receipts.
SOME GENERAL HINTS To win the game, you have to fulfill the quests which the NPC Ahna offers you. First of all you should find the legendary Book of Stars and deliver it to Ahna. Here are some general hints which might be helpful for you: - This is not an action game. Take your time and think about your actions. - The Book of Stars isn't protected by a mighty enemy on the deepest level. - Read every in-game text at least one time. Read it carefully. - If enemy attacks feel too hard, get better armour. - If enemies are hard to kill, get a better or a better fitting weapon. - Try to offer certain items on altars or dip them into enchanted wells. - Use items & the dungeon structure to your advantage. Think tactically. - Running away or hiding from enemies can sometimes be a wise decision. - Digging through rock can reveal hidden items. Buy a spade and try. - If you believe you're trapped, try searching for hidden doors. - Caveworms are peaceful. If they stand in your way, just wait some turns. - Long-range weapons use the first valid ammu type available in inventory.