*=*=*=*=*=*=* -- *=*=*=*=*=*=* *Softdocs typed by* The Cracksmith of First Class Introduction: ------------ You've just entered another world. A world with fabulous riches, unbridled sorcery, and no end. Your adventureing paties may work together or break up and fight one another. Over 200 different monsters are waiting for a chance to kill your characters in dozens of exotic ways. Even if the monsters don't get you, the traps lurking around every corner certainly will. Ahem. You say your're a veteran of many types of role playing games? you've always emerged victorious? We shall see. Computers show no mercy. If you'r new to adventure games, you'll find that Bronze Dragon is an easy game to play, yet it creates an infinite variety of situations. Bronze Dragon is a fantasy role-playing game that can accomodate up to 5 players at once. There are many objectives in Bronze Dragon. In fact, there are no less than 12 castles and 1 full-blown module contained in the basic game. The ultimate goal is survival, and more importantly, enjoyment! The Disks: --------- Bronze Dragon consists of two disks that we provide and one that you must supply. Whenever you're promted to insert a new disk, do so and press return. If the program doesn't tell you to change disks, you don't need to. To abort a procedure at a disk promt, press the space bar. Disk one -> S1 : The Main Menu and Dragon Village Menu are on this disk side. You will always boot the Bronze Side to begin play. S2 : The disk side containts the monsters, the plots, and generates the castles. Disk two -> S1 : Up to 40 of your characters can be saved on this disk side. If characters aren't saved, they don't exist. S2 : Our first module, Seekers of the Storm, is contained in its magnificent entirely on this disk side. The monsters and the dstardly plot are already there, waiting for you. You must copy the module onto a blank and name it Castle Disk before you can explore in it. See "Copying Modules." Disk Three -> S1 : Use one of YOUR blank disks for this, name it Castle Disk. You'll copy the module and castles onto it. Instructions on how to copy castles and modules are under "Copy Modules" and "Constructing Castles." Write Protect all sides except the character disk and your castle disk!!!!!!! For Those With Two Disk Drives: Bronze Dragon can be configured for two disk drives quite easily. Instead of switching disks and pressing return when the program promts you, just put the required disk in drive two and enter "2". From then on, the program will know to access drive two for that disk. The character disk should be put in drive two when you're copying a modules or creating a castle. Beginning Play: -------------- Boot the Bronze side of disk one to start playing Bronze Dragon. The first screen you'll see after the Bronze Dragon logo clears is the Main Menu. The choices on that menu are summarized below, then explained in detail later. =*=*=*=*=*= #Main Menu# =*=*=*=*=*= 1> Create a Character: You can actually make a flesh and blood being! Well not really, but you can determine the name, race, class, and alignment for each character. 2> Enter Dragon Village: Dragon Village is a mystical town where almost anything can be bought or sold. 3> Copy a Module: Seekers of the Storm, out first module, must be copyied on a blank disk that you provice - you can't play on the origional. The disk you've copied in on will henceforth be called the "Castle Disk," so remember that when you're asjed to insert it. See "Copying Modules." 4> Construct a Castle: A "castle" is the setting for one of the 12 plots which the computer can generate itself. while not as complex as a module, they're fine adventures in their own right. The blank disk upon which the castle is constucted is called the "Castle Disk." See "Constructing a Castle." 5> Gather a Party: One to five character MUST be "gathered" before they can start and adventure. It's kind of like assigning a group of characters to a certain adventure temporarily. Be sure the characters have finished their businedd in Dragon Village before gathering them into a party. 6> Go On An Adventure: After you've equipped and gathered your party, it's time to go on an adventure 7> Go To The Crossroads: After the adventure is over, a group of characters must travel to the Kingdom of King Leopold or the Pit of Lord Usul to gain skill points and skill levels. How To Create A Character: ------------------------- Bronze Dragon begins when you start to create a party of characters. Every Bronze Dragon "persona" is unique and will help the party with indivitual powers. You create characters by choosing amoung the options in each category, such as name, race, etc. After everything is entered, the status of the character is shown, including ability scores and bronze peices. The meaning of the ability scores is given in the glossary under "ability scores." Each character starts with 75 bronze peices. Name: Any name up to 16 characters in length is acceptable. By entering "r", you can check the roster and delete characters if you want to... Race: You have 3 to choose from: humans, elves, and dwarves. Each is detailed below. Humans-> Humans are a very odd race, one that isn't very well liked by more advanced creatures. They are usually around six feet in hight and seem to regard this mutation as an advantage somehow. Special Commands: Humans can approximate the value of any object. Human ability scores: ------------- ------ Strength : 12 Agility : 10 Intelligence : 11 Constitution : 10 Endurance : 11 Elves-> Elves are the fairest of all races and never hesitate to point this fact out to others. Arrogance and Vanity are currently the two most popular elven children's names. Special Commands: Elves can detect evil in characters or monsters. Elven ability scores: ------------- ------ Strength : 09 Agility : 13 Intelligence : 13 Constitution : 07 endurance : 08 Dwarves-> Dwarves are generally a sullen and ill-tempered race. Many schollars attribute this to the fact that they're incredibly ugly. In fact, most females dwarves have beards, which is why so many dwarves go on adventures. Special Command: Dwarves are always aware of their relative position above or below ground. Dwarves ability scores: --------------- ------- Strength : 12 Agility : 08 Intelligence : 08 Constitution : 14 Endurance : 13 Class: You have 5 classes to choose from. The special commands are explained in their own section. Knights are fightin' strong, blood 'n guts, here's mud in yer eye type characters. they're blue collar adventureers; they can take dammage and dish it right back out. Knights can wear any type of armor and use any type of weapon. Their special commands include swordplay and rage. They have the most hit points and can carry up to 15 objects. Assassins are shifty, underhanded, and extremely dangerous. They're somewhat restricted in armor, but they can use almost as many weapons as a knight. Their special commands include assassination and sneaking. Assassins have average hit points and can carry up to 13 objects. Ninjas are mysterious masters of the orient fighting arts. They can only wear little more armor than wizards, but they have many weapons to choose from. Their special commands are martial arts, imitate dead, and leap. Ninjas have average hit points, and can cary up to 10 items. Elders are experts on living systems; their spells make them adept at both healing and killing. Elders are slightly more restricted in armor than assassins, and have very few weapons to choose from. Sorcery, destroy, and innate healing are their special commands. Elders have a few more hit points than wizards and can carry up to 8 objects. Wizards are powerful magic-users who can create massive amounts of damage with their powerful spells. They can own very little in the way of armor of weapons. Sorcery and cast energy are their special commands. Wizards have the fewest hit points and can carry up to 8 objects. Alignments: This is a character's basic nature, whether it's virtous, lawful, chaoric, or vile. Virtuous and lawful characters are "good," while chaotic and vile characters are "evil." During an adventure a character's alignment will change according to the player's actions. The most common method is by striking a monster or character. If you constantly attack good monsters, your characters will become vile if they didn't start out that way. If you adopt a "wait and see" attidued toward creatures you're not sure about (like lions), and only attack the evil creatures you're characters will become virtuous. It's much easier to become vile than virtuous. One or two swats on a unicorn will make anyone vile, but a vile character will have to killmany hobgoblins to become virtuous. I can't resist mentioning that character can change their alignments by attacking themselves! If a virtuous character attacks himself, he'll become evil. By the same token, a vile character will become a little less vile by attacking himself. Sure, it's a radical way of doing things, but Bronze Dragon inspires such lunacy.... Dragon Village: -------------- After you've created a party of characters, you'll need to supply them one by one with weapons and equipment in Dragon Village. The guard at the outer gates will ask for the name of one of your characters. If you can't remember it, just hit "R" and you'll get a complete roster of characters. If you just hit "return," you'll go back to the Main Menu. Dragon Village Menu: 1> Purchase Equipment: The provisioner brings out his stuff in three groups: weapons, armor, and muscellaneous equipment. Hittle the space bar will take you to the next group; the return key brings back the Dragon Village Menu. Characters who go adventuring without wearons or armor are known as "Bronze Dragon Chow." Consult appendices 3,4, & 6 for details on equipment. 2> Haggle with Merchants: Wanna sell something? Anything at all? Our three crooks -excuse us, merchants, will buy anything except cursed objects. They use haggling system, so wise folks don't take the first offer. Hit return if you wish to cut short a haggling session. Don't get cute by asking outrageous prices, because these guys are extremely touchy. See tips for advice on bargaining. 3> Learn Spells: Only Elders and Wizards can learn spells, which they buy with spell points instead of bronze peices. They receive two spell points for each skill level, bonus points are given for high intelligence. Even beginning character can acquire several spells. Spells cost their level number. in other words, a second level would cost 2 spell points. High level spells are only available to high level characters. Spell points are regained when a character uses a spell or forgets it. A maximum of 7 spells for Wizards and 6 for Elders can be learned at one time. See appendix 7 for details 7 for details. 4> Learn Martial Arts: Only Ninjas can learn martial arts, and even they have to have the money and skill levels to use 'em. As with spells, there are different levels of martial arts, only they're called disciplines to confuse you. Check appendix 5 and special commands for details. 5> Mingle in the Pub: You'll probably need help to solve the plots, and who better to ask than the drunkards of Dragon Village? After you tell then which plot you're working on, many of our blottoed barflies will spill their guts for free. Some pub people want money for their cooperation, and still others lie through their teeth. We never said an adventurer's life was easy! 6> Visit Healers: When your characters get bashed around a bit, the Healers will fix them up completely for a price. If you pay anything less than the asked-for fee, we'll make no garantees..... 7> Consult Wizard: The Tower Wizard loves to check out rare and wonderful goodies. If you bring him an object, he'll try to detect a magical aura about it. If the object is indeed magical, he'll try to guess its nature. The Wizard also uncurses items, but charges a fee for this service. 8> Resurrect a Character: Aw...Did one of yer characters fall down and snuff it?? You're in luck. In addition to his other abilities, the Tower Wizard brings the dead back to like. All you have to do is inform the Wizard of the dead character's name and he'll attempt to resurrect the character from a distance. He's not very good at it, however, and giving him the asked-for amount of bronze peices will only give you a 50-50 chance. If you offer more or less, you chances will adjust accordingly. The resurrected character will lose 3 points of constitution if the process is successful. 9> Look at Status: This will show everything about the character you currently have in Dragon Village. 10> Bring in Somebody Else: When your character is through messing around in Dragon Village, this commands will bring a new character. Make sure the "old" character has been saved (by pressing "S") before using this option. Hit "S" when you want to save your character. To go back to the Main Menu, just hit Retrn. Copying Modules: --------------- Warning: Copying a module destroys all data on the disk you provide, so we recommend using a blank disk. You can copy the module on the castle disk by pressing 3 on the Main Menu and following the prompts. The entire procedure should take less than 5 minutes. After you've copied the module, you can gather your party and fo on an adventure. Our first module, Seeksers of the Storm, is an extremely entertaining and complex adventure of tremendous scope. If you find it too difficult, you might try exploring a castle (suck as Dungeon of the Undead) to familiarize yourself with the world of Bronze Dragon.