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Summary: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions and general information about
        the Clan Lord online role-playing game.
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Clan Lord Fount of Abundant Questions

Version 3.0, modified 35 Summer 545 (29 March 2002)

v3.0: updated many sections; using v3.0 because v2.10 is ambiguous
v2.9.1: assorted updates
v2.9: added 1.3, 4.11; alphabetized glossary; many updates
v2.8: added 4.5; removed outdated 4.12 and 4.13; various updates
v2.7: added 1.2, 2.11
v2.6: added 4.4; removed outdated pushball section
v2.5: added 3.4
v2.4: created new section 3; added 3.4, 3.5, and 3.6
v2.3: added 3.9
v2.2: added 3.11, added to 2.1 and 2.3, tweaked others as usual
v2.1: added to 3.8; tweaked various other sections
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Compiled and edited by Pamela Greene <[email protected]>. Additions,
corrections, and suggestions for this file are welcomed!

I play Healery, Soulguider of the Fellowship of the Red Quill, on Clan Lord.
If you find the waters of this Fount refreshing, please feel free to find me
there and let me know. I'm also glad to help newcomers to the isles, and to
answer any questions that aren't addressed here.

Opinions expressed in this FAQ are my own or those of other contributors,
and do not represent official Delta Tao policy. No guarantees are made about
the accuracy of this information; use it at your own risk. Portions of this
FAQ were derived from the original Clan Lord FAQ from Delta Tao.

This document is copyright (c) 1999-2002 by Pamela L. Greene. It may be freely
distributed by electronic, paper, or other means, provided that it is
distributed in its entirety, including this notice, and that no fee is
charged apart from the actual costs of distribution. It may not be used or
included in any commercial or for-profit work without prior written
permission. Delta Tao Software, Inc. owns everything associated with the
Clan Lord universe, including the pictures, sounds, music, client,
characters, and world data.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONTENTS

 1. About Clan Lord
       o (1.1) What is Clan Lord? What do I need to play it?
       o (1.2) Can I play from behind a router or firewall?
       o (1.3) Can I play using a Mac emulator?
       o (1.4) Where can I download a demo version?
       o (1.5) Where can I get a copy of this FAQ?
       o (1.6) What Web sites should I look at?
       o (1.7) What other resources are there?
       o (1.8) What kinds of changes are planned for CL's future?
       o (1.9) What useful applications might I want to enhance Clan Lord?
 2. Game basics
       o (2.1) How do I create a character? What race should I be?
       o (2.2) What is role-playing? What's OOC? Where's the OOC area?
       o (2.3) What are the different ways I can communicate with people?
       o (2.4) Where can I go for help, within the game?
       o (2.5) What are karma, sharing, and balance?
       o (2.6) What happens when my character dies?
       o (2.7) Where can I disconnect safely?
       o (2.8) How do I gain experience? What level am I? How should I
         train?
       o (2.9) How do I earn money?
       o (2.10) How can I buy something from someone else?
       o (2.11) How can I get something written in my /info?
       o (2.12) What kinds of things are considered rude?
       o (2.13) Are there "evil" people in Clan Lord?
 3. Using the client application
       o (3.1) Why are some names on colored backgrounds, or in boldface?
       o (3.2) How do I use a command on a person?
       o (3.3) How can I select or ignore someone, or mark them as a
         friend?
       o (3.4) How can I keep track of my friends?
       o (3.5) How can I repeat something I typed before?
       o (3.6) How do I assign command keys to my inventory items?
       o (3.7) How do I make a macro? Any suggestions?
 4. Other frequently asked questions
       o (4.1) How do I get ___-colored clothing?
       o (4.2) Where are all the secret places?
       o (4.3) How do I become a mystic?
       o (4.4) Is training ever harmful?
       o (4.5) Do beasts in the circle tests vary?
       o (4.6) What is Puddleby time and how is it related to real time?
       o (4.7) Is the coliseum open?
       o (4.8) Who is Joe? Who are the Ancients? What is a GM?
       o (4.9) What is vanquishing? What is slaughtering?
       o (4.10) Why did I just gain experience? What are spirit pulses?
       o (4.11) Why do I "sense little mental connection" to someone?
       o (4.12) How can I become a Bard?
       o (4.13) What is Dun'ilsar?
 5. Glossary

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. *** About Clan Lord ***

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1.1) What is Clan Lord? What do I need to play it?

Clan Lord is a massively multi-player, high fantasy Internet role-playing
game for the Macintosh, from Delta Tao Software <http://www.deltatao.com/>.
More than just a hack-and-slash game, it emphasizes cooperation, community,
problem solving, exploration and contribution, in addition to the fun of
whacking at monsters, developing your character's abilities and personality
over time, and using various kinds of magic.

Clan Lord takes place in a town called Puddleby, in the Lok'Groton islands.
The game, and the world in which it takes place, are constantly changing and
growing (see 1.8).

Delta Tao's official Clan Lord website is at
<http://www.deltatao.com/clanlord/index.html>.

According to that site, the game requires "a 100 MHz or better PowerPC
Macintosh, 32 MB of memory, a 28.8 kbps Internet connection, and a sense of
adventure." It also takes about 45 MB of hard drive space.

Playing on a 68040 is a bit slow, but manageable. You can try playing on a
68030, but crowded areas will be very slow and some areas with lots of
graphics won't be playable. You can also play on a PC or Unix machine using
a Macintosh emulator (see 1.3).
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1.2) Can I play from behind a firewall?

You shouldn't need to do anything special to play from behind a regular,
nonblocking router such as IPNetRouter, SurfDoubler, or a hardware router.
If you have a LinkSys router and two or more people playing at the same time
seem to be sharing some of the information they should be receiving, making
one of them stop moving or see funny things onscreen, you may need to update
your router's firmware. Visit <http://www.linksys.com/download/>.

For a blocking firewall, it needs to allow bidirectional mapping of both TCP
and UDP packets to server.clanlord.com on port 5010. Once that's set up, go
to Setup Proxy... in the client preferences and enter the address of your
firewall.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1.3) Can I play using a Mac emulator?

Yes, some people play using Basilisk II, an open-source 68k Mac emulator,
available for Windows, AmigaOS, various flavors of Unix, and BeOS. Read more
and download Basilisk from <http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/B2Main.html>.
I'm told that the enclosed Ethernet driver works fine. You'll also have to
find Macintosh ROM files, which any search page should be able to help track
down.

Basilisk users report that a P3 500MHz is a little slow for Clan Lord, but a
P3 666 is good enough. Windows 2000 is better than 98. NT may cause
problems; that's not entirely clear. Running full-screen DirectX is better
than using the Windows GDI. The Linux version of Basilisk is said to be
noticeably slower than the Windows version, at least with an older copy of X
installed. There a version implementing JIT (just in time) that goes
noticeably faster and may be worth a try; check the Basislisk home page to
find it. JIT compiles the 68k code into i386 code as it executes it, much
like what the 68k emulator does in a Power Mac.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1.4) Where can I download a demo version?

You can play in Agratis, a small demo area of Clan Lord, by downloading the
latest client from <http://www.deltatao.com/clanlord/demo/index.html>. Pick
Character Manager... from the File menu and click on the Demo button. All
demo characters are healers: open the Inventory window, double-click on the
blue moonstone to equip it, and type "/use" to heal yourself or bump into
someone else to heal them. Equip the club and bump into monsters to hit
them.

The demo is pretty miserable, and doesn't represent the real game well. A
big part of the fun of the game is all the group interaction, role-playing,
and conversation, and the demo is nearly always empty. Definitely take the
tour to see what things are like in the busier places. You can use the same
game client to watch some movies people have recorded during more
interesting times. There are lots of archives of those, including the Red
Quill Film Vault and other player-maintained web sites (see 1.6).
Screenshots are available at just about every CL web site, too.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1.5) Where can I get a copy of this FAQ?

It's posted every other week to comp.sys.mac.games.adventure and available
as a web page at <http://faq.clanlord.net/> or
<http://www.macinsearch.com/users/clanlordfaq/>. Several CL sites (see 1.6)
will hopefully link to it as well.

It's posted to news.answers and comp.answers too, and available by FTP and
WWW from the various news.answers archives, including
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/faqs/games/roleplay/clanlord-faq
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/games/roleplay/clanlord-faq
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1.6) What Web sites should I look at?

Clan Lord information is scattered pretty widely, since so many people have
been playing it and adding their own contributions to the information
available. Here are some of the more central sites:

  * Delta Tao's Clan Lord site:
    <http://www.deltatao.com/clanlord/index.html>. Official information,
    ordering, registering characters.

  * Clan Lord Manual: <http://www.deltatao.com/clanlorddocs/cldocs.html>.
    The manual that comes with the CD. Installation information, theology
    and race descriptions, Darshak Theocracy history, world background,
    what to do, technical support information, etc.

  * Winds of Dawn New Exile Center:
    <http://www.windsofdawn.org/newexilehelp.html>. A small, carefully
    chosen list of news and links specifically for new players.

  * Clan Lord Newbie's Guide: <http://guide.clanlord.net/>. A brief guide
    to your first day in town.

  * Puddleopedia: <http://www.puddleopedia.org/>. An encyclopedia of
    everything Clan Lord: people, places, events, geography, and more.

  * Clanlords.com: <http://www.clanlords.com/>. A central site with news,
    chat, links, downloads, polls, and more.

  * Puddleby Library: <http://www.VagileMind.com/clanlord/index.html>.
    Extensive, sorted index of Clan Lord-related Web pages. Easy to search
    and to add links.

  * Red Quill Film Vault: <http://www.red-quill.org/vault/>. Archive of
    Clan Lord movies recording hunts, invasions, meetings, and other
    interesting events. Better than the demo for getting a feel for what
    it's like to play in the full world. Download the free game client from
    Delta Tao (see above) to view the movies.

  * Braveheart's Guide to Clan Lord:
    <http://www.sundragonclan.com/guide/index.html>. An introduction to the
    game and the world. Commands, trainers, monster lists.

  * History of Shan Deral: <http://www.clanlord.com/history/>. World maps,
    historical timeline, and articles on the history of the world we live
    in.

  * Better Living Through Fast Feet: <http://drennen.org/cl/>. Not a
    "central" site as such, but one of my favorites. How to survive your
    first weeks in Puddleby without falling every two minutes.

  * Other Pages: These pages aren't especially important for beginning
    players, but people keep asking for their URLs, so I'm including them
    here for reference.
       o Puddleby Court Archives: <http://court.kniho.net/>
       o Clan Lord Polling Archives: <http://www.clanlord.com/Elections/>
       o Clan Lord Suggestion Box:
         <http://www.vagilemind.com/clanlord/list>

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1.7) What other resources are there?

Clan Lord is discussed extensively in the comp.sys.mac.games.adventure
Usenet newsgroup. Please mark your articles with "CL:" or "Clan Lord:" to
help readers who either look for them specifically or filter them out.

Many Clan Lord-related mailing lists are hosted at Yahoo Groups. Search for
Clan Lord at <http://groups.yahoo.com/>. Lists include Clan_Lord,
ClanLordQuestTracker, Clan_Lord_Puddleby_Government, CLBard, clmonks, CLosX,
puddlebyharvest, clmonks, ghorakzo, PES_CL, and RQfriends, among others. For
general news from Delta Tao, there's deltataonews.

There is at least one Clan Lord Hotline server, whose address changes faster
than I can keep up with it. Ask someone in the game for the latest IP
number, or look for it on the Hotline tracker. Hotline is a combined chat,
news, and file server; to download a free client, go to
<http://www.hotlinesw.com/>.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1.8) What kinds of changes are planned for CL's future?

Nobody knows for sure, but new areas, specializations, items, quests,
trainers, and plots are all very likely. Delta Tao has plans for the world
to develop and remain interesting for years.

Delta Tao has written, "The world has a past, present, and future that we've
developed. Only the broadest of changes to the world will be felt by the
casual players, but for those that wish to get more involved they'll have
the opportunity to affect the story of the world as it unravels."

They've also written, "From time to time the world may change without
warning, potentially affecting everything from the very lay of the lands to
the pictures and statistics of individual characters." If something changes
in a way you don't like, try to give it a week or two before making up your
mind. Some things that are bad for individual characters turn out to be good
for the game overall, once people have gotten used to them. If you still
don't like something, send a constructive complaint to Joe (see 4.8). He
won't necessarily agree, but he's said that suggestions are always welcome.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1.8) What useful applications might I want to enhance Clan Lord?

These programs and others are available from the Dwarven Militia download
page <http://www.dwarvenmilitia.com/downloads.html>, as well as at the URLs
listed.

Puddlewatch: <http://www.dwarvenmilitia.com/archives/puddlewatch.sit.bin>.
Tells you the Clan Lord time (see 4.6), date, tide level, and moon phase.

Scribia: <http://sourceforge.net/projects/scribia/>. Open-source application
to track your character's ranks, etc.

Stylus: <http://www.dwarvenmilitia.com/archives/Stylus.sit.bin>. Icon
appearance simulator. Supports all the races and clothing options, skin
color, hair color, and most importantly, dyes and bleaches. (The bleach part
is reported to be incorrect, but dyes are right.)

Clan Lord Tune Helper: (see 4.12). Helps compose music in the ASCII text
format CL instruments use. You'll also need Apple's QuickTime Music
Instruments, available free from <http://www.apple.com/quicktime/>.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. *** Game basics ***

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.1) How do I create a character? What race should I be?

Buy the game. It comes with a serial number which you'll need to sign up at
Delta Tao's CL site (see 1.5). Be sure to follow the rules for passwords
given on that page. Then create a new character in the game's Character
Manager. Choose your character name carefully, because it's permanent. You
might want it to fit a background history you've created for your character,
or you might just want to pick something historical, mythological, or
completely made up. Don't pick anything obscene or offensive, don't use
sTrANge coMbinAtIOns of letter cases, don't include numbers, and don't give
yourself any titles such as Master, Mistress, Lord, Lady or Duke. Spaces,
hyphens (-), and apostrophes (') are all fine in character names.

When you first come into the game, you'll be presented with a sequence of
choices about your character, including sex, hair color, and skin tone. Two
things you don't have to choose right away are race and profession, both of
which are permanent once you've chosen. You might want to wander around a
little before selecting a race, to find out a bit more about them than the
NPCs in Town Hall can tell you. (You don't absolutely have to select a race
at all, but if you decide to remain "concealed" you should come up with a
good IC reason.) Here's a brief overview of the races' innate abilities,
though enough training can overcome any initial problems:

Race       Health   Balance  Defense   Attack    Damage  Spirit
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dwarf      good     average  good      good      good    terrible
Halfling   average  poor     excellent terrible  poor    excellent
Human      average  average  average   average   average average
Ghorak Zo  vy good  poor     poor      excellent good    poor
People     terrible good     average   terrible  good    average
Sylvan     poor     good     average   average   poor    average
Thoom      vy good  average  poor      average   poor    excellent
Concealed  average  average  average   average   average average

Spirit is important mainly to healers and mystics.
All races initially heal others equally fast, except Ghorak Zo who heal a
    fair bit slower.
All races initially recover health naturally at the same rate, except
    Thooms who are about three times as fast.

Some people have collected information about the different races on their
own web pages:

  * All races: http://www.clanlord.com/history/
  * Ghorak Zo: http://www.geocities.com/worgzo/
  * Thooms: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Highrise/2084/parafaq.html

You can currently choose one of three professions: fighter, healer, or
mystic. How you join a profession depends on what you want to be; ask people
nicely and someone will help you. (But see 4.3 about mystics.) You'll pick
up the rest of your skills and specializations as you go along.

One of the most important things you can do when you create a character in
the game is to think about who the character really is, in this fantasy
world. Most of the people in Puddleby were exiled there because of real or
imagined crimes against the mad Emperor Mobius, ruler of the Ascendancy back
on the Western Continent. Others arrived accidentally, were born there, or
might even have come voluntarily. Knowing a bit about how your character got
to Puddleby and what sort of person he or she is will help a lot in your
role-playing (see 2.2).
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.2) What is role-playing? What's OOC? Where's the OOC area?

At heart, role-playing is speaking and acting as if you truly were the
character you're playing in the game. Of course, the character doesn't think
it's a game -- to him or her, it's life. You may be familiar with
face-to-face role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, or online
role-playing games called MUDs or MUCKs.

To ease into role-playing, pick one or two simple traits and act them out.
Your character might be scrupulously honest, formal, shy, greedy, a
practical joker, a punster, a gourmet chef... He might be deathly afraid of
panthers, or feel a need to kill every rat he sees. Whatever personality you
want to play, try to "tell" the people around you about it by how you
behave, without having to say anything directly. Particularly good
role-playing is sometimes rewarded with a small amount of extra experience
(see 4.10).

"OOC" means "out of character". In the fantasy world, your character doesn't
know anything about computers, or telephones, or movies, or slow Internet
connections. Talking about things like that is OOC, and it may bother other
people around you who are trying to stay IC ("in character"). People have
come up with IC ways to refer to some OOC phenomena: lag becomes "fog" or
"bad weather," needing to go away from the keyboard for a minute becomes
"meditating," and so on.

Of course, you don't have to role-play all the time. You don't really have
to role-play at all, if you don't want to, though you'll miss out on some of
the fun. Either way, though, you should try to keep your OOC conversations
private so you don't spoil other people's role-playing. Use the /whisper
command to talk only to the people around you, or step aside to a less
crowded spot. There's also a special OOC area called the fairgrounds, a
little west of the center of town, where you can go for lengthy OOC
conversations.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.3) What are the different ways I can communicate with people?

  * Talk - Just type what you want to say and hit return. If you say too
    much for one talk bubble, the whole thing will still appear in the text
    log. The bubble will time out in a few seconds. You can't make it go
    away faster, except by replacing it with another one (a single period
    [.] is popular).
  * Action - \action <message> - Puts up a box with your name followed by
    what you typed. For instance, if Example Exile types "\action waves."
    it shows a little box that says "Example Exile waves." Actions that
    players type in are in red boxes. Actions that come from the game are
    in blue boxes.
  * Ponder - \ponder <message> - Just like talking, but your text appears
    in a "thought bubble". Good for making side comments. Some people play
    as though their characters can "read minds" and hear these, some don't.
  * Yell - \yell <message> - Yells can be heard by everyone in the same
    sn'ell (see the Glossary). Your name will automatically be put on the
    beginning of your yell if you're out of sight. Don't yell excessively.
    Yelling inside a building can sometimes be heard outside, but it may
    not sound like it's coming from the building, so be sure to describe
    which one you're in.
  * Whisper - \whisper <message> - Whispers can be heard by everyone within
    about an inch. You can't whisper directly to a single person.
  * Narrate - \narrate <message> - Puts up a green box with your message,
    no name. Narrations may not begin with the name of a character
    currently online, except your own. For instance, if you type "\narrate
    A leaf falls from the sky." it shows a little box saying, "A leaf falls
    from the sky." Your name does appear in the text log.
  * Pose - \pose <position> - Changes your icon to show you in a different
    pose. For the complete list of poses, see Delta Tao's pose page,
    <http://www.deltatao.com/clanlord/pose.html>. Some poses time out in a
    few seconds. Otherwise, moving returns you to the default (stand) pose.
  * Swear - \swear - Use this instead of using strong language. It puts up
    a random string like "*@#^%" in a talk bubble.
  * Thank - \thank <message> - A little bit of a cheat. Since you can add a
    reason to a \thank if you're close enough to the other person, you can
    use that as a way to send a brief completely private message if you
    don't have a sunstone.
  * Think - If you have a sunstone, you can \think a message to everyone
    who is using one, or you can use \thinkto to send a message directly to
    any single person. Your name will automatically be put on the beginning
    of your message.
  * Pray - \pray <message> - Sends a message to all online GMs (see 4.8).
    Don't abuse it. Don't use it because you've fallen, to ask for favors
    or help, to complain about something you think isn't fair, to get your
    money back because you lagged into a merchant, to report someone who's
    being mean, to complain that there aren't any monsters to fight, or
    anything like that. It won't work, and you won't win any friends. Some
    people feel that \pray should be an entirely IC tool, used to talk to
    IC deities (although they may not respond). In fact, GMs are admonished
    not to respond to \pray messages, ever. However, since for the moment
    there is no other way to communicate a serious problem, it's generally
    considered acceptable to use \pray for those. Joe (see 4.8) has
    written, "If you find yourself wandering through the grey area or
    trapped inside a rock, unable to even die and depart to return home,
    we'll generally try to help. (Keep in mind that even in these cases,
    odds are good that no GM is listening to prayers, so your best bet is
    emailing [email protected].)" Even if a GM is listening who is able and
    willing to deal with the issue, remember that it might take a while for
    a response.
  * Bug - \bug <message> - For reporting bugs. Again, don't abuse it.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.4) Where can I go for help, within the game?

The /help command will give information on the various commands. "/help
<command>" will give help for that command, and in many cases "/use ?" gets
help for an item you're holding in your right hand. There's also a tutorial
building in the OOC fairgrounds just west of the center of town, which gives
all kinds of basic information about commands, training, combat, karma, and
so on. It's a great first stop when you arrive in Puddleby.

There are almost always a bunch of people standing around the center of
town, too, and if you're hurt you can usually find a healer there. If you're
polite (see 2.12), chances are someone there will help answer your
questions. But remember, part of the fun of Clan Lord is figuring out things
for yourself. If someone gives you a hint instead of a straightforward
answer to an in-game question, they're not being rude, they're just trying
not to spoil things. Have patience and enjoy your own explorations, and
chances are you'll figure out whatever it is you wanted to know.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.5) What are karma, sharing, and balance?

All these are explained in the tutorial hut in the OOC fairgrounds, and in
more detail in Braveheart's Guide (see 1.5). Briefly, karma is a reflection
of what people think of each other; you can give good karma to someone who
helps you, or bad karma to someone who is rude or evil (see 2.12 and 2.13).
Sharing or spirit linking is a way for characters to cooperate and share
experience with others. Sharing with a healer makes it much easier and
faster for the healer to heal you, and sharing with a mystic is rumored to
have benefits for both of you. Balance is the middle bar on your screen, and
describes how easily beasts hit you and how often you can swing at them.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.6) What happens when my character dies?

You can't permanently "die," except by choosing to have your character
deleted from the database. When your health drops to zero, you "fall," and
you can't move, fight, or use items. You can still speak and yell. If a
healer comes along and heals you, nothing bad happens, except that you had
to spend some time waiting. If you fall somewhere alone, you can yell to
attract a passing healer's attention.

If nobody finds you soon, try "share toggling." Pick someone from the
Players list who might be willing to help you. The best choices are people
with blue stones next to their names (healers, because they can heal you) or
people with white or yellow stones next to their names (Journeymen or
Mystics, who can usually find you and direct a healer to you), but really
most people will help if they can. Then type "/share <person's name>", wait
a couple of seconds, "/unshare <person's name>", wait, and "/share <person's
name>" again. This will signal to them that you are in trouble. If they
aren't busy, this will usually get them looking for you right away.
Sometimes folks are busy, so you may have to toggle more than one person. Be
patient, and don't disconnect or go to sleep right away. It can take a
healer several minutes to find you, and another few minutes to take care of
any dangerous beasts or fetch more help if necessary.

If you give up on being rescued, maybe because you're off somewhere really
remote or dangerous, you can also /depart. Departing carries a small
experience penalty, so it takes a bit longer to reach your next training
improvement afterward, but that's all. It doesn't remove any training you
already have. When you /depart, your body is healed a little and you're sent
to Purgatory, a vast, featureless plane outside the normal realm of
existence. Start walking in any direction, and within a couple of minutes
you should pop back to the central temple, or whichever altar you last
touched.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.7) Where can I disconnect safely?

Enter the library, on the northeast side of town square, and type "/sleep".
You'll be disconnected immeduiately, and you'll stay safe and even earn a
little experience from studying there. Once you emerge, that experience will
be applied to your training slowly, giving you time to switch trainers if
you want. (See 2.8.)

There are library-like areas for each of the professions in the training
halls: a barracks for fighters, and so on. They work just like the regular
one, and can help role-playing. There are also advanced libraries where you
can pay a few coins a day and get additional experience, and a copper mine
where you can earn money but get less experience.

If you disconnect anywhere else, your body will stick around "asleep" for
about ten minutes before disappearing. If something attacks you in that
ten-minute period, you'll be injured or fallen when you reconnect. You
reconnect near where you disconnected, though sometimes you might be a short
distance away on the same screen.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.8) How do I gain experience? How should I train? What level am I?

First speak with Master Bodrus, Mentus, or Spirtus in the central temple, or
with one of the specialized trainers for your profession. Then go out and
gain experience, mainly by killing beasts or by receiving shared experience
from others. As you gain experience, you will improve at whatever the
trainer you talked to teaches. If you want to switch what you're training
in, go back to town and speak with another trainer. Ankrus in the main
temple, and his colleagues in other places, will remind you which trainer
you're working with and tell you how far along you are in reaching the next
training goal.

Which places are safe for you to hunt as a newcomer to town depends on your
race, but a safe place to start for any race is the "rat towers," towers
near the gates that are infested with rats and other small rodents. If you
can gather three or four new exiles, you can also head into the first
sections of the myrm hive. In general, anywhere outside the town and farms
is much more dangerous.

There are various opinions about exactly how it's best to train, but in
truth the answer depends a lot on your own personal playing style. Go out in
the world, adventure, take note of your limitations, and train to eliminate
them some. If you have questions about specific trainers, try asking an
experienced exile in your profession.

Clan Lord doesn't emphasize levels or titles, since your abilities depend
not only on how much experience you've earned, but also on how you trained
and on your own playing (fighting, healing, etc.) strategies.

There's no way to tell how much total experience you've gained, or exactly
how much you've trained with one of the trainers, except by keeping track
yourself. However, the trainers say different things to you depending on how
good you are at what they teach. The town employees will also start calling
you Master or Mistress when you're advanced enough, and then Lord or Lady.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.9) How do I earn money?

Many beasts carry a valuable fur, mandibles, or a bounty; killing them earns
you coins, if someone in your hunting party is skilled enough to recover the
fur or mandibles well. Earnings are shared randomly with everyone in the
party. Still, it's considered courteous for a fighter who can afford it to
donate a few coins now and again to a healer or other non-fighter who helps
him.

A bad way to get money is by begging. Someone who stands around town
pestering everyone for money will not be appreciated.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.10) How can I buy something from someone else?

The seller selects the item in his inventory by clicking on it once, then
offers it to you with the /sell command. You reply with the /buy command.
You can also auction something in the auction hall, or raffle it off in the
same building.

If someone can't /sell you something, you can't pick it up if they /drop it
either. Don't be fooled by someone trying to scam you.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.11) How can I get something written in my /info?

A tattoo shop in town provides this service. Your tattoo can have at most 59
characters.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.12) What kinds of things are considered rude?

There are different kinds of "rudeness," which have different results.

  * Things you do that will get Delta Tao mad at you

    If you, as a player or a character, do something that Delta Tao objects
    to, they can impose various sorts of punishments. These might include
    locking your character in jail for a day or two or banning your serial
    number from of the game completely, with no refund.

    Examples of such behavior: Harassment of other players. Explicit or
    predatory sexual behavior, or anything nonconsensual. Offensive
    activities or comments directed at the person playing the game. Yelling
    obscenities in town, especially obscene insults, or sunstoning them.
    Trying to break into or otherwise damage the game's server or data.

    Joe (see 4.8) has also said that "if a character gets an unfair
    advantage because of a bug, we will decrease their level to compensate
    for any exploitation of bugs. Of course, there will be rewards for
    those who help us track down bugs."

  * Things you do that will get other players mad at you

    Bad karma is an obvious consequence of upsetting other players. Since
    most things that bother players also bother their characters, other
    consequences might include people refusing to hunt with you or sell you
    things. For more serious charges, your character might be subject to
    other consequences imposed by the (character-run) court system.

    Examples of improper rudeness: Yelling the same thing over and over.
    Begging for coins or karma. Talking about OOC things around people who
    want to stay IC. Demanding that a healer heal you, or a fighter share
    with you, or a mystic... mystic you. :-) (Asking once nicely is fine,
    but being abrupt or insistent is rude.) Karma bombing. Hitting a beast
    that someone else is successfully fighting, without asking first.
    Hitting someone else's kudzu plants. Deliberately leading monsters into
    people or interfering with organized hunts (but see below).

  * Things your character does that will get other characters mad at you

    There's a fine distinction here. Sometimes your character does
    something that someone else's role-played character doesn't like, even
    though the person playing that character thinks it's just fine, even
    amusing. This kind of impolite behavior actually belongs in the game.
    Since it's more IC, its consequences are too. If you decide to
    role-play a jerk, you will get bad karma, since that's the IC way of
    telling someone he's being rude. Expect to get into IC arguments, and
    don't let them degenerate into OOC fights. And again, your character
    might be subject to other consequences determined by the court system.

    Refusing to answer a question, insulting someone's clothes, talking
    about how all the new exiles are a bunch of weaklings or how all the
    older exiles are a bunch of stuffed shirts -- those are all valid
    role-playing attitudes. Even leading monsters into people can be valid,
    for a character with an evil side (see 2.13). Just be careful to keep
    your own rude behavior IC. There's a big difference between saying that
    dwarves are stupid and should stay in their mines and saying that women
    are stupid and should stay away from computer games. If you're planning
    a "rude" IC scene, it may be a good idea to discuss it OOC with your
    intended victim before you get too far in, to make sure that you're not
    upsetting the player as well as the character.

Talk to the "Dealing with annoying people" NPC in the fairgrounds for advice
on what to do if someone is bothering you. For starters,
control-shift-clicking once on someone's icon will "ignore" them, so you
don't hear anything they say any more. Some additional information on DT's
policies and practices can be found in their Web pages, and in
<http://www.macinsearch.com/users/clanlordfaq/annoying.html>.

In general, people are pretty polite in Clan Lord. There's a lot of "Thank
you" and "You're welcome," because teamwork is so important. Before you
assume someone is being deliberately rude, give him the benefit of the
doubt. It's possible that he's curt because he's not a native English
speaker and doesn't know the language well enough to use the fancy, polite
words -- or he might be role-playing somebody who doesn't speak the common
tongue well. He might have run into your kudzu farm by accident, or
interrupted your hunt because he was lagging and had no control over his
actions. Try not to overreact to minor transgressions.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2.13) Are there "evil" people in Clan Lord?

A few, yes. It's hard to play an evil character, since you can't kill
another character without the player's permission and you can't steal things
directly, but with a little creativity it can be done. For instance, you
could play a healer who laughs about the foolish ways people die, or a
fighter who likes to interfere with organized hunts. Evil characters should
expect to get bad karma, the more the better.

Just remember that being creatively evil is not the same as being a pain in
the neck. Yelling something over and over in the middle of town might be
justified, if you can legitimately claim that your character has some
strange disease that makes him do that, but most of the time it's just
disruptive.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. *** Using the client application ***

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(3.1) Why are some names on colored backgrounds, or in boldface?

Make sure "Auto-Hide Names" is not checked in the Preferences, and then look
at a character's name.

  * White, green, yellow, or red background: healthy, wounded, seriously
    wounded, nearly fallen. Beasts use the same color code in their health
    tags.
  * Black background: fallen (see 2.6)
  * Brown background: asleep (an IC way of indicating that you're not
    paying attention to the game at the moment)
  * Light blue background: an NPC (non-player character)
  * Boldface text: sharing with you (see 2.5)
  * Underlined text: someone you're sharing with
  * Italic text: a member of your clan
  * Red text: has a lot of bad karma, and more bad karma than good (see
    2.5)

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(3.2) How do I use a command on a person?

Any command can be abbreviated by the shortest portion that makes it
unambiguous. You can use "/y" instead of "/yell", and "/whisper" can be
abbreviated as "/whi" (to distinguish it from "/who"). Either / or \ works.

Commands like "\share" and "\thank" take the name of the person you want to
use them on. Leave out any spaces and punctuation marks: to share with
Example d'Exile, type "\share exampledexile". You can also use just the
first few letters of the name, also without spaces or punctuation, as long
as it's enough to distinguish the person you mean from anybody else shown on
the player list. Or you can type the command portion, then option-click on
the person's icon to insert their name. Finally, you can command-click on
someone (or click on their name in your Players window) to select them, then
choose the command you want from the menu. Be careful to remember whom
you've selected, though, especially if you use the standard macros (see
3.7).
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(3.3) How can I select or ignore someone, or mark them as a friend?

Different kinds of clicks on people's icons, or on their names in the
Players window, do different things. There are also typed commands that
work.

  * Command-click (/select): selects the person (blue and yellow oval under
    his icon) for use in a command
  * Option-click: copies the name of the person, without punctuation or
    spaces, into the text entry area
  * Control-click (/befriend): marks the person as a friend (orange box
    around his name). In the Players window, the name shows up in a
    different color. (See 3.4.)
  * Control-shift-click (/ignore, /block, /forget): once, "ignores" the
    person (yellow box around his name), so you don't hear anything he
    says. Twice, "blocks" him, turning him into a black outline. Undo this
    by clicking on the person's name in your Players window.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(3.4) How can I keep track of my friends?

You can mark a friend by control-clicking on his picture or on his name in
your Players window, or by typing "/befriend <name>". That puts an orange
box around his name box on screen, and changes the color of his name in the
list. Friends' speech and messages look different from non-friends'; you can
adjust that with Text Colors... in the Options menu.

Each of your characters has a separate list of friends, stored in a text
file in the Friends folder. The file's name is the same as your character's
name in the Character Manager. You can also have a global list of friends,
used for all your characters; its filename is "*global*". In all these
files, friends are listed by name, one per line.

The friends lists are read in once, when you connect, and written out when
you disconnect. If you change someone's friend status while playing, it
won't be saved until you disconnect. Likewise, if you edit the text file by
hand while playing, those changes will be overwritten by the client when you
disconnect.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(3.5) How can I repeat something I typed before?

To repeat what you just did, simply hit return again. The last 15 things you
typed (commands or speech) are also remembered. You can cycle back through
them with command-uparrow and command-downarrow.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(3.6) How do I assign command keys to my inventory items?

Open your Inventory window and click once on the item you want to assign a
key to, then type the number of the command key you want. (Only cmd-0
through cmd-9 work, not letters.) That's it. To remove an assigned hotkey,
highlight the item and press the spacebar. Hotkey items are listed first in
your Inventory window, sorted by number, then other items sorted
alphabetically. The items you have equipped are underlined.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(3.7) How do I make a macro? Any suggestions?

A link to complete instructions for making macros, with several files of
examples, is in the "Macro Instructions" file in the Macros folder. Each of
your characters can have a separate macros file, stored in the Macros
folder. The filename is the same as the character's name. You can also have
a list of macros that all your characters share, stored in a file named
"Default".

In addition to the official macro instructions, also see Nohn's macro links
and the extensive, though unofficial, Clan Lord macro archive.

You can edit your macro files in any text editor. If the CL client
application is running, choose Reload Macros from the Options menu to apply
your changes.

Here are a few custom macros I've found handy:

f12     "/yell Help please!\r"

"thx"   "Thank you!\r"
"yw"    "You're welcome.\r"
"np"    "No problem.\r"
"rc"    "/action pauses to recover her spirit strength.\r"
":-)"   "/action smiles.\r"

Skirwan writes (and I agree):

    There's a major difference between macroing and scripting.
    Macroing is a Good Thing -- it saves typing, and lets people
    participate in the world at a more reasonable speed than if they
    had to type out "/action waves." every time.

    Scripting is a Bad Thing -- it separates the player from the
    character and the game, and almost invariably hurts the game
    environment in the process. People say again and again that social
    interaction is the heart and soul of CL's success -- and scripting
    totally disrupts this social interaction. I for one prefer real
    people to Turing tests. (Well, I guess it depends on the
    people...)

    Algernon is a cute idea. Insultus is a funny gag, at least for the
    first minute or so. But when every character in the game smiles
    when you /share, dances when you /thank, frowns when you /curse,
    etc, etc, etc, what's the point of playing a game with other
    humans? At that point the game isn't CL anymore, it's somewhere
    between Diablo without the items and a programming contest.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. *** Other frequently asked questions ***

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4.1) How do I get ___-colored clothing?

Plain tan shirts and pants/skirts are available in town for one coin each.
Look around and you should find them. Some other colors are sold in more
remote places, for more money. Custom colors can be made in the dye shop. If
you see someone wearing a color you like, you can try complimenting them on
it and asking politely how it can be found or made. Sometimes you'll get a
hint, and occasionally someone will be nice and offer more assistance.

Be aware, though, that some clothes are special. Light denim blue was given
to those who participated in the Ripture War that marked the end of the
testing period. White and turquoise shirts and pants, and the colors they
become when dyed, can only be worn by qualified healers, with a few rare
exceptions for items dyed before the current clothing system came around.
Yellow belts are only given to bards, and advanced fighters also have
special-colored belts. Other special accessories can't be bought anywhere,
but must be bestowed, perhaps as a reward for some service to the community
or upon the completion of a special quest.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4.2) Where are all the secret places?

Hopefully nobody will tell you. Much of the fun of the game is solving
puzzles and uncovering the secrets for yourself. There are places that some
secrets are revealed, and some exiles will give you hints if you ask the
right way, but mostly you should go out and explore and see what you can
find.

Anything that has to be discovered is in some sense a secret. Of course,
some things are harder to discover than others, and "more secret." Where to
buy tan clothing is a pretty easy secret, and a lot of people will gladly
take a new exile there. Grey clothing is a lot harder to find and harder to
reach, and a bigger secret. It would be poor form to ask someone to take you
there until you've been around a while.

If someone asks you about something secret, try to give a hint without
giving away too much. For instance, you might tell someone who wants to
become a healer that all the objects he needs can be found within the
Puddleby town walls. That reduces his search considerably, without telling
him any exact locations or spoiling the challenge for him.

Definitely don't broadcast any secret information to people who might not
want to hear it. Before you give away a secret, make sure the person you're
telling really wants to know it, and that nobody else will accidentally hear
you. Private rooms are good places to talk about secrets. Don't do it in
town square, over the sunstones, or on Hotline or Usenet.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4.3) How do I become a mystic?

Think carefully before you decide to be one. These aren't the flashy,
fireball-casting mages you may be familiar with from other fantasy games and
books. If you've never played Clan Lord before, we strongly recommend
against starting as a mystic. Instead, learn about the world as a healer or
fighter, then start a mystic character.

Being a mystic requires scholarship, self-control, dedication, and lots of
patience. Mystics are intended to be much less common than other
professions. The process of becoming one is not easy or straightforward, and
as a mystic you may feel underappreciated and have difficulty earning
experience. However, for those with the right personality for the job, it
can be very rewarding and can offer the chance to contribute significantly
to the community.

Mystics are required to be very secretive about their profession. Nobody
will tell you exactly how to become one -- or at least, they shouldn't. In
fact, some mystics consider discussing their profession at all cause for
giving bad karma (see 2.5). Wander, gain experience, learn the world, and
most likely you'll figure it out. Listening closely to the peasants in town
might be especially helpful.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4.4) Is training ever harmful?

Not usually. Some very advanced trainers might train one thing extra well at
the expense of something else, but they'll give a strong hint about what
they're going to do. None of the basic trainers do that, even if it looks
like they do. For instance, the better you are at attacking, the more
balance each swing takes, so as you train in attack, you'll get fewer swings
for the same amount of balance. Your balance didn't go down, it's just that
each swing is using up more of it. This is a simple example; some other
kinds of training interact in more subtle ways.

Similarly, the more spirit you have, the longer it will take to recover it
all. Training to improve your spirit strength doesn't make your spirit
recovery slower, on a points-per-second scale, but it does mean it'll take
longer for you to go from empty to full.

Clan Lord is always changing. Sometimes those changes affect what your
training does, usually when there was a bug the game designers had to fix.
If something seems too good to be true, don't get too attached to it.

An "untrainer" does exist, to let you convert trained experience back into
experience that you can reapply to whatever other skills you want. It takes
away from all your current skills equally. The conversion isn't perfect,
though: you don't get back all the experience you untrain. Most people think
the untrainer is a terrible deal, and would never use it.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4.5) Do beasts in the circle tests vary?

No, there is no variation in the beasts' combat stats from one test to the
next. Of course, the randomness inherent in combat is still there, so you
might get hit more or less often, harder or less hard, just by chance.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4.6) What is Puddleby time and how is it related to real time?

Time in Puddleby doesn't move at the same rate as time in the real world. It
goes a little more than four times as fast: one Puddleby hour takes just
under 15 minutes of real time. The graphics are darker during Puddleby
night, and the background sounds change in some places. (You can adjust what
level of "night" darkness you see in your Preferences.) Also, some events
happen at particular Puddleby times, and some areas might be more dangerous
at night.

The days of the week in the Clan Lord world are Soldi, Lundi, Gradi, Terrdi,
Merdi, Fordi, and Sombdi. The year begins on the 1st day of Winter and has
four seasons, each with 90 days.

You can estimate the time by looking at your shadow or using the /sky
command. Crius, the town crier, yells the time each hour in town center, and
an announcement is made to everyone in the lands at midnight, sunrise, and
sunset. A pair of NPCs in the fairgrounds help with conversions between real
time and Puddleby time, or you can run Puddlewatch (see 1.8).
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4.7) Is the coliseum open?

It's open on Sombdi nights from 7 pm to midnight, Puddleby time (see 4.6).
Fights continue into the wee hours of the morning, but you can't get in or
schedule a bout after midnight.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4.8) Who is Joe? Who are the Ancients? What is a GM?

Joe

Joe is Joe Williams, president of Delta Tao Software. His email address is
<[email protected]>. He has said that he's always glad to get ideas and
suggestions by email, but don't be surprised if you get no answer, or a very
short one -- probably just "Thanks!". He gets a lot of email, and doesn't
have time to reply to it all, even the ideas he really likes.

In the game, Joe's public character is a halfling healer with pink hair.
Visit him in jail; he gets lonely.

The Ancients

The Ancients are a completely IC concept, part of the history of the Clan
Lord world. For the best idea of what one is, read the theology of the world
in the CL manual (see 1.5). In brief, when the Sun, Moon, and Earth agreed
they needed to destroy their Second Children to make way for the Third
Children, the jealous Moon kept twelve of hers back. These twelve Ancients
had achieved power which rivaled that of their parents, and most had
jealousy to match that of the Moon. The Sun and Earth went on to create the
Third Children, including Humans, Thoom, the People, and the other races we
know, without the Moon. Whatever happened to the Ancients is still a
mystery. There are some hints that Gaia may be an Ancient, the only one seen
in our world, but even that is not absolutely certain.

Much of the confusion about what an Ancient is stems from the fact that
there was once a clan called "The Ancients" (note the upper-case "T").
Members of this clan weren't themselves Ancients, but rather sought to
regain the knowledge and power lost after their disappearance. Membership in
The Ancients was more or less limited to the characters of GMs.

GMs

GMs, or Game Masters, are players with special powers who help to develop
the world and who sometimes run characters who participate in role-playing
plots.

Note that although Ancient is an IC concept, GM isn't. Characters run by GMs
are not GMs, they're just Thooms or unicorns or glowing bits of ether or
whatever, and as a character in the game you should interact with them
accordingly. When GMs wish their characters to be recognized as somebody
special, they will often wear special-colored clothing (see 4.1). But even
then, the character isn't a GM, because IC there are no GMs!

The only GM-run characters who will handle OOC problems are explicitly OOC
and usually have "GM" in their names. Otherwise, when you're interacting
with a character you think is played by a GM, don't use that as an excuse to
go OOC. The whole point to the GM being there is to role-play and perhaps
advance a plot, and having people make OOC comments or ask for OOC favors
ruins that for everyone. Besides, it won't work.

Delta Tao has said several times that their goal is to make the game run
itself with as little GM intervention as possible. Nevertheless, rightly or
not (usually not), GMs are often the ones blamed when something weird
happens, or when twenty mean beasts suddenly appear and everyone dies.
Remember, though, that GM is not an IC idea. If you need to blame someone,
pick something IC: the gods, or Fate, or Emperor Mobius's evil Mystics, for
example.

Sometimes people try to impersonate GMs. If you're not sure about someone in
the game who's claiming to be a GM, ask them to prove it by sparkling or
becoming an NPC. It's harder to know for sure on a web bulletin board or
newsgroup, so be careful about believing what you read. No GM, or anyone at
Delta Tao, will ever ask you for your password.

The public GMs include
Ann GM
ClientGM
Helpful GM
Helpful Human
Jafo GM
Joe GM
KGM
Michel GM
Pengy
Vizia
Watson GM
ZoGM

Joe and the GMs also have other, anonymous characters in addition to their
public personae.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4.9) What is vanquishing? What is slaughtering?

If your message window says you "vanquished" a beast instead of killing it,
you got more experience than for most kills. If it says you "slaughtered"
the beast, it means you didn't gain any experience for the kill. That won't
happen until you're pretty advanced. The idea is to encourage veterans to
hunt the more difficult beasts and leave the rats for the newcomers.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4.10) Why did I just gain experience? What are spirit pulses?

If you see "Your bravery and compassion have been rewarded" or "You gain
experience" in your message window (maybe with an asterisk or a dot in
front), you've been rewarded with a little experience. Sometimes this is for
good role-playing, sometimes for a heroic rescue, sometimes for other
things. The reward can be delayed by quite a bit at times, and might also
come more than once. Remember that saying, "Hey! I just got experience!" is
OOC. Try something like, "Wow, I learned more than usual from that battle."

Spirit pulses also mean you have been rewarded with experience, usually for
good role-playing. Generally one person gets a spirit pulse from an
undisclosed source, and automatically sends it along to each person they're
sharing with.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4.11) Why do I "sense little mental connection" to someone?

If you /thinkto Example Exile while he's asleep (the usual way to say that
he's away from the keyboard), you'll see, "You concentrate on Example Exile
but sense little mental connection to him."
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4.12) How can I become a Bard?

Barding (this means composing and playing music, in CL) is a skill, not a
profession. It is open to members of any profession or none. For
information, talk to Pattysmae in the Bard's Guild field. More details and
the special CL music composition tool can be found at
<http://clanlordbard.org/>.
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(4.13) What is Dun'ilsar?

It's a High Sylvan term meaning "the mountain forest," and it describes a
series of competitions of various sorts among participating Clans. See E'las
Loth'mon Ferindril (ELF)'s Dun'ilsar page at
<http://ferindril.dhs.org/dunilsar/>.
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5. *** Glossary ***

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Below are some terms and abbreviations used commonly in Puddleby and in this
FAQ. For abbreviations common to Usenet in general, see
<http://dir.yahoo.com/Reference/Acronyms_and_Abbreviations/Computing/>.

afk - away from the keyboard. It's better to express this IC ("meditating,"
  for instance).
AM - Apprentice Mystic
bad weather - lag (slow or choppy network or server response)
backpack - to heal someone while they're actively fighting, or the healer
doing so
bb - bloodblade
bbl - be back later
BK - bad karma (see also GK)
brb - be right back
brick - to "hold" a beast that is unable to hit you, allowing others to kill
  it; or to trap a beast behind a fallen body
bro - "big red orga" (Orga Fury, Frenzy, Wrath, or Hatred)
BW - Black Widow
C&S - the glacier (formerly called "a cold and snowy place")
chaos storm - server update/reset, usually resulting in changes to the world
cya - see ya' (see you later)
DC - Dark Chamber, Deadly Crawler
DI - Devil's Island
DN - Dal'Noth
DP - Dread Passage
DS - Detached Spirit
DT - Dark Temple; in an OOC context, Delta Tao Software
DV - Death Vermine
fog - lag (slow or choppy network or server response)
FG - Frost Giant
FI - Fire Island, another name for Devil's Island
FMOCR - Full Moon Orga Camp Raid, a quest open every IC full moon
GCP - Giant Carnivorous Plankton
GD - Greater Death
GK - good karma (see also BK)
GM - Game Master (see 4.8), or the character Gold Moon
GMV - Greymyr Village
GS - great sword
GV - Giant Vermine
GW - Greater Wraith
HC - Hooded Corpse
HGM - Helpful GM
HH - Hatred('s) Hollow
HWC - he-who-clicks (refers to a character's player) (see also PWC, SWC)
IC - in-character (see also OOC)
IP - Island Panther
J'man, Jman - Journeyman Mystic
JM - Journeyman Mystic
KI - Kizmia's Island
LDV - Large Death Vermine
'lock - Orga Warlock (or Hemlock, or Dreadlock - eep!)
LSW - Large Sand Wurm
LV - Large Vermine
mp - my pleasure
NBC - New bear caves
'noid - Arachnoid
np - no problem
NPC - non-player character, like the "robots" who greet you when you first
 arrive. NPCs have light blue behind their names. Some people call GM-run
 characters NPCs too.
NWF - Northwest Forest
OC - Orga Camp
OE - Orga Eye
OG - Oak Giant
omw - on my way
OOB - Orga Outback
OOC - out-of-character (see also IC)
OV - Orga Village
pf - Pathfinder, pathfinding
PWC - person-who-clicks (refers to a character's player) (see also HWC, SWC)
QC - Queen's Chamber, in the myrm hive
QR - Queen Room (Queen's Chamber), in the myrm hive
rank - one unit of training
rc - recharge (when a healer or mystic pauses to recover spirit). Many
people use an \action instead, to make this seem more natural.
RC - Rocky Cavern
rod - to occupy a beast that can hit you by healing or being healed faster
 than it can do damage to you; or, a group of healers healing each other to
 accomplish that
RP - role-playing
SACWAG - "Start a company, write a game." This is Helpful GM's frequent
 response to suggestions he doesn't think fit well into Clan Lord, whether
 they're good by themselves or not. The rest of it goes, "If it's as good as
 Clan Lord, I'll buy a copy. Maybe two."
share toggle - to /share and /unshare with someone to send them an implicit
message (usually, "I've fallen, please try to find and rescue me")
sn'ell - a unit of distance corresponding to however far you can go without
having to cross a "screen" boundary, or a unit of area referring to one
screen. Not all sn'ells are the same size.
solo - to kill a beast by oneself and gain all the experience
"soon" - Helpful GM's way of saying that something's being worked on and
 will be done eventually. Probably.
ss - sunstone (a magical item that allows communication over long
 distances), or short sword
SWC - she-who-clicks (refers to a character's player) (see also HWC, PWC)
tag - to get a single, minor hit on a beast and thus gain some of the
 experience
TG - Tree Giant
TGBG - tree giant breeding grounds
thx - Thank you
TI - Tenebrion's Island
TK - Tenebrion's Keep
toggle - see "share toggle"
TW - tanglewood
tx - Thank you
UI - Umbrion's Island, another name for Kizmia's Island
wendy - Wendecka
WG - Willow Giant, Wisher's Gate
yw - You're welcome
'zerk - Orga Berserk
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--
- Pam, the person behind Healery of Puddleby
CL FAQ: http://faq.clanlord.net/
The Puddleby Tales: http://www.red-quill.org/healery/
This sentence would be seven words long if it were six words shorter.

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