Scribblings - Terris Trivia

It was after a name for my new tabletop roleplaying world (this is back in about 1989). My wife came to the rescue with "Terris," to mean "worlds" or "earth" (depending on how you looked at the word and its use). My wife failed Latin at school, but enjoyed learning it. Did I ever think anyone would get the interpretation of "Terris"? No. Am I happy that many have tried to work it out? Yes, (very).

For the interested out there, Terris is originally from my table top game world. Most of the names of the Guild leaders and quest people come from player characters who roamed around it each week. The pantheon of Deori, Vagma, Zir, Eridanian, and Ica are the original ones created back in 1981 for my brother's first campaign world. Devardec was the first proper city I designed after buying The Invincible State of the Overload and Thieves World boxed sets.

Zagrat is one of my few player characters that I used in other campaigns that I didn't Dungeon Master (which I do more than play). Zagrat was always going to be evil--indeed when Zagrat would cast "find familiar" and get a toad, he would promptly eat it to prove how hard he was. I had to have him in Terris in some form.

The Giant in Dirimloth is based on my second-ever adventure. My poor 3rd-level Cleric tried to 'turn' the Giant. Sadly, this was not an experience he was allowed to have since he was squashed into a pancake and eaten by the Bears.

My friend Bob still has no idea why John Quail, one of the hardest fighters ever to grace my tabletop campaign, is in charge of allowing Thieves into a guild.

Cassamire was my brothers paladin. Like all paladins in my world, he never made it past level 5.

About two days before Terris went live on the Internet, Naria was the name my wife came up with when I needed a Goddess of Healing.

Vasari is the name taken by Judith, who had the terrible job of spell-checking my scrawl. Apparently, Vasari was a 16th-century Italian who wrote books about art?

Fink came from Judge Dredd. I'm a big fan and have some pages of original artwork.

My brother's spell caster, Illuin, was the first player to get to level 10 (woo hoo) and was played as a nutty teacher-type. My brother retired him in 1986 after going to the Caverns of Tosojcanth.

Dirimloth and Nirimloth have always been the names for the forests. Murkwood was the idea behind the forests (that is, forests once nice but now getting nasty).

Dirimloth dungeon was the first dungeon written for Terris. It is still my fave and the one that captures the spirit of adventure the best.

The Orc King is a shameless take on Bolg the Goblin King (from the hobbit). Bellegost and Hellegost come from a player character called Orn, a Dwarf Lord who made it to the lofty level of 12 after just getting through Tomb of Horrors. Like all Dwarves, he wanted to own a mine--so when I gave him one, the player called it Hellegost. A few years later, I ran a little adventure all about Hellegost being overrun (which I altered and made into the creation story about Vagma around 1988). The party escaped the invasion and made a new mine with the nifty title Bellegost.

I have two periods of roleplaying. From 1978-1988, I was in my bash-and-slash period. I used prewritten stuff, plus 47 vorpal hat pins of Red Dragon slayings, etc. From 1988 till now, its been the second coming, with story and character development leading the way.

Most of the names and places come from the first period, but a few slipped in from the current period. Wulfgar (the weapon smith owner in Devardec) was and still is a fighter played by my dear friend Nick.

Of the old gods, some got replaced when we got real people to play them. Aeolla was the original name for the god of Magic. He became Eridanian (the name of an actual heavenly star above earth), and Ica (god of stone, nature and such like) became Alvogyl (which is the name of a nasty ear disease you can get).

The village names all come from adventures (or one nighters) that I ran in my bash period of playing. Hemphill had a hill where hemp grew, Tri-dale Ford was at a ford between three dales, Wintertown was in the northern snow lands, etc.

Around late 1988, I decided to collect it all together and put all my junk into one campaign world. That world became Norland (with Devardec as its capital). It's about this time I drew up the full creation story, which has changed little since then. That's when Nirimloth and Dirimloth were split apart, and also when Hellegost got a place in the Wyrmspine Mountains (nicked from just about every book I ever read).

I ran two long story adventures at that point--X, City of the White Wolf (it's called X for reasons I cannot really go into) and "The Shard." Both of these adventures saw me take a bunch of people around the campaign world and try out all the bits I had collected.

That's when the Kobolds got a real lair (All Hail the dungeon magazine that suggested the idea). It's when Woodtop got its Avatar (boy is there ever a story to be told there!) and the river system was born (all because one player wanted to mess about with a boat he found and repaired).

I then put my soul into writing for magazines and fanzines, even writing modules for the RPGA and the Gen Com meets. Sadly, I sort of fell out with all that after watching in horror as a hatchet job was done on my stuff by so-called editors who ruined my pride and joy.

The geography of the land was altered when I coded it into the world. You cant have all the good stuff in one part, so I moved it around. At the start, the idea was to put interesting thing in each corner (Dev, Tranos, Hellegost, Bellegost) and a big forest in the middle.

The road system came out of a need to allow people to get about quickly. It also allowed me to use my original ideas for the splitting of the forests. Tranos was the second campaign city I designed; I made it as a my version of Waterdeep--done with a UK slant (though the online version is ok, it's never captured my paper version, so perhaps one day I'll go back and edit it up some). :)

The quests came about because I really, really like quests. Doug was going to have 10 hard coded into the engine (after all, when we started coding the game, 10 quests was way better than any other mud out there). Instead I drew up 50, and Doug decided to allow me to code them separately.

We decided early on not to have a swamp (Mud fans know what I mean). We also decided to have lots of stuff to kill (no more playing for 5 hours just killing rats!) and we made the insane (or so we were told at the time) move to have no PvP.

Once I got into coding I just started drawing in all the things I had used in my paper game. The Dragon's Head came from a game I played in (I don't play in many as I usually DM) where we adventured for an age just to meet the Head, and all got utterly cooked.

The Banderlang was the result of Bob's Goblin drinking five (count 'em) five potions and rolling far too many dangerous results on the potion table, mixed with a ring of wishes and a wand of wonder (no wonder he's a magic-resistant little bat creature!).

The herb names come from another friend of mine's names for his gnomes! He had a whole little tribe. I still chuckle inside when someone eats Femfendar :) I see her little legs sticking out of people's mouths and imagine the player doing his best "female-gnome-being-eaten" sounds.

Arcana came from my love of Ultima 4. I always wanted to have sulphur mixing in a game :)

The spell names are a mixture of madness (what was I on when I named Bloodshrine?) and simplicity (ZAP!).

The skills got names that were a lot better than the original ones (Doug's a coder not a namer) though I will admit I lost it when I got to the Scroll-Use Skill (so desperate was I to rename EVERY skill that madness took over).

The original world was coded on my 386 (a DX didn't exist back in the Stone Age, mate) and ran via this device called a "boca board." Don't ask!

History of the actual game and its life cycle this time then :)

Why did we write it....

Easy. I love Muds. I thought all the games I played in were not what I wanted, so I decided to write my own. This is something LOTS of people try. Doug was the same. He had the basics of an engine; I had a fire within me.

How did we write it....

Well, as Doug and I live about 3,000 miles apart, we had to send all our stuff via email. We even met via email and had been writing Terris for about 14 months before we ever actually met in RL ;)

It was all on my little desktop and I was utterly possessed. I coded till I had no more fingers (they grew back).

How did we get players at the start....

Like most people who try their hand at their own Mud, I called my friends. This is not the way to go long term, but it will allow you to know if you're on the right track.

How could you first connect to it....

Via direct dial modem to my front room :) We could have 3 people on line at once--two via phone lines and me on the main machine.

It almost never happened....

If the local Council (like the American telephone companies) had allowed me to plum in 16 telephone lines to my house (they refused) then we would have never gone to the net.

Where did we start on the net....

On a small system called "Dragon" in London, where we stole all the players of the other Muds (cackle). They appeared to like the fact that we were a new game and we liked to update stuff :)

Biggest moment....

We have had a few. Getting second in the category Best Adventure Game from the year 1997 from the Brit press. Hitting 20 people on line for the first time in August 1996 ("My god! It's incredible!'). Getting my first email from a player saying, "I like your game." Going to Meets and finding the players to be utterly normal.

Who did what....

Doug and I designed the engine, Doug coded the engine, I designed and coded the game world.

Over time others have chipped in. Kyria has the next biggest stake in game creation, about 10%, but most of it is my own hand :)

Wayne did the artwork. My brother did the maps that sit next to my desk (I map in my head mostly, but I always forget to write it down).

Vasari (Judith) tries to correct the spelling (sadly I suffer from mild dyslexia, not the best thing to have when you write Muds). :)