Maps, Scenes and Links

A world is a set of maps. Each map is a picture that heroes walk across. Dotted over the picture are links: towns, caves, doors to other maps, anywhere something happens. A link can open a scene, and a scene is where the script runs: the townsfolk talk, the shop opens, the fight starts.

The maps table

One row of +MAPS per map. The first four columns are required.

Column	Meaning
number	0 to 999. Map 0 is where every hero begins.
picture	The picture file in `maps/`. JPEG is the usual choice; the game shrinks a very large picture before drawing it and keeps the shrunken copy on disk.
root name	Names the map's companion files: `maps/<root>.ter` (terrain), `.obl` (links) and `.mon` (monster placement), plus the music section and the fall-back tune `midi/<root>.mid`.
display name	What players see in the title bar and the Book of Gaiea.
flags	A number, usually in hex: 4 marks the map dangerous (player killing allowed), 8 marks it safe. A server's rules can override this.
theme	The sound theme that plays while walking the map (0 for none).

Keep the root name unique. Maps that share a picture, a root or a display name are reported in the load log.

Links

Links are placed with the Link Editor, which writes the map's .obl file. Each link has a name, a type, the scene it opens, the monster group that roams around it, a sound theme, and the weather and screen effect a scene there starts with. The script can read the nearest link's number and style through cookies, and a scene header that leaves its background, weather or effect blank inherits them from the link it was entered from.

Fights that start out on the map draw from the nearest link's group, so a town with no group of its own is as dangerous as the wilderness beside it. Give every settled place a group of its own, even a tame one.

Terrain

The +TERRAINS table names up to ten kinds of ground, each with the damage taken while standing on it and, optionally, a token a hero needs before stepping on it at all. The Terrain Palette paints the .ter file; /terrain shows the painted layer over the map.

Where heroes start

A new hero appears at link 0 of map 0 unless the class's START_LOCATION row in the levels table says otherwise. Scene 0 is the Well itself: the place a soul arrives, chooses a class and incarnates, and the place it returns to when it dies. Every world needs a scene 0.

The +STORY section is shown to a soul as a scroll before it enters, and +CREDITS names the people who made the world. Both are plain text, one line per line.

Tokens

A token is a yes-or-no flag a hero either holds or does not, numbered 0 to 4095. The script grants them, takes them and tests them, and that is how a world remembers what a hero has done. Declare them in +TOKENS (number, description) or with a TOKEN line inside the script, and number them in story order so your script stays readable. Telling a Story shows the usual pattern.