Chapter 3: Main display and controls

When you begin a new game, a new interface will take over your screen. This interface serves many purposes: on the left side of the screen is a place for each of your characters and an overview of their most important game statistics. Beneath this is a display containing a new set of control buttons, as well as important party variables, like how much food and water you have. Most of the right side of the screen shows a map of the world where you will spend most of your time playing. Beneath the map is the familiar text scroll where messages you will want to read are displayed and recorded.

This chapter will give you an explanation of the game's main interface. The control buttons and the display are simple and straightforward to understand, and the brief descriptions here are meant to get you started playing. Later chapters will explain in greater detail world exploration, and the function of the control buttons.

Keyboard and mouse controls

This is the game's pointer cursor and functions just like the familiar arrow cursor.

These are the game's map movement cursors. To move your party around the map, you can use either the mouse or the numeric keypad.

These cursors are relevant only during combat. They allow you to click on the map frame to show a different area of the map.

These cursors appear when you move the mouse over the text scroll. If you hold the mouse button down, the text scroll will scroll up or down.

This cursor usually appears in conjunction with some important text on the text scroll. It indicates that you need to read the text and then click the mouse in order to continue.

Control buttons

When you are out in the world exploring and fighting monsters, you will need to camp from time to time to restore your characters to full health. To make camp, click and hold the camp button down. While you are holding the button down, time moves much more quickly and you can watch your characters heal. Beware though, you are more likely to be attacked by monsters while camping in unsafe areas (like caverns). The keyboard shortcut for this button is the letter "c".

When you are in towns, the tent picture on the camp button is replaced with a picture of a bed. This indicates that you may not just pitch your tent in the middle of town, but must go to an inn and pay for your lodgings.

This button will bring up the spellcasting form. If the selected character in the character display is a spellcaster, then his or her spells will appear in the spell list. See Chapter 6: Spells for an explanation of spellcasting. The keyboard shortcut for this button is the letter "s".

This button brings up the meditations form. Throughout the game, you will meet members of the Order of Zarathustra, usually in town temples, who can teach you meditations. Meditations are explained in Chapter 7: Meditations. The keyboard shortcut for this button is the letter "m".

While you are adventuring and exploring, you will meet people who you will want to talk to. When you see a person on the map (usually inside of buildings), get near to them and press the talk button. A talking form will appear over the map and you can then have a conversation with them. Talking is described in detail in Chapter 9: Getting the Whole Story, but it isn't very difficult to figure out. The keyboard shortcut for this button is the letter "t".

You will probably want to trade items amongst your characters from time to time. This button brings up the trade display. The trading interface is explained in detail in Chapter 8: Inventory Management, but trading is very intuitive. To move an item from one person's inventory to another, simply option-click and drag the item you wish to trade to the other side of the screen and then release the mouse button. There is no keyboard shortcut for trading.

Each of your characters is able to carry many useful items in their inventories. To view a character's items, select a character by clicking on her portrait button to make her the selected character. Now click on the items button to bring up her inventory. You can also click through all the characters' inventories, by clicking through their portrait buttons while the items display is up. Chapter 8: Inventory Management describes different kinds of items and what they do. The keyboard shortcut for this button is the letter "i".

While you are exploring the world, one of your dependable allies is carefully recording areas you visit in an atlas. When you click and hold this button, you will see a birds-eye view of your current location. The keyboard shortcut for this button is the letter "a".

Character display

All of the characters in your party are displayed on the left side of the screen, so you can quickly and easily monitor how they are doing. Only a subset of each character's statistics are shown, so if you want to see a character's complete character record, click on a character's portrait button to make her the selected character, and then click on her again to reveal her complete record. This record will appear over the shortened stats forms of all your characters. Once one character's record is displayed, you can click through all the character portraits to view their complete records too.

The character stats form shown here is for Sardar, a level 6 Dervish character with an armor class (AC) of 7.

A few things here require a bit of explanation: The letters "V", "S", "P", and "M" refer to Vitality, Stamina, Prana, and Mana. Notice that Sardar's vitality is at 39 out of a total possible value of 43. For this reason, the first number is highlighted in pink, to let you now that this could require your attention. The same is true for her stamina. Notice, though, that her prana is at 8 out of a total possible of 29. Since this value has fallen to a near critical low, the number is shown in red in order to get your attention. Sardar has not used any of her mana, and it is therefore shown in the usual blue color.

Once character statistics fall below their total value, they are displayed in pink, and once they are at half of their total value or less, they are displayed in red. Once a statistic turns red, it is probably time to do something to restore it.

There are two other instances when a statistic may change color. The first occurs when a character is poisoned. Poison reduces a character's vitality until it is purged from her blood stream or it wears off naturally. While a character is poisoned, her first vitality number is displayed in green to indicate this.

The second color change occurs when a character is injured. Injuries are suffered during combat and are the result of very serious critical wounds. When a character suffers an injury, her vitality AND total vitality (the second of the two numbers) are both affected. The second vitality number is shown in red to indicate that the character is injured and that this statistic needs to be restored as soon as possible.

Because the vitality statistic is so important, if a character's vitality falls below half of his or her total vitality, a "shroud of impending death" appears on top of this character's portrait. The shroud indicates that you should probably take immediate steps to save the life of this character.

Game display

The game display appears beneath the character portraits and stats forms. This display contains all of the buttons described above, but also important resource management and party variables. The following picture shows the game controls, so you can refer to it while reading the text that explains it.

Map location

The first line of text prints your current map location. This is a brief description to let you know at a glance where you are. In this example, you are in the Satyr Lands.

Moon phase and date

Just under the control buttons is a picture of the current phase of the moon, followed by the date. The moon phase bears watching, since the Djinn are most powerful during the full phase of the moon, and least powerful during a new moon. If your Djinn character casts a spell during a new moon, that spell is more likely to fail, or worse, critically fail.

The current date is shown using the Zarathustran solar calendar, which was in wide use in the Near East in ancient times. This highly accurate calendar was popularized by the Persians and the 12 month names are Persian. In this example it is the 29th of Farvardin, which corresponds to early April. The year is preceded by "Z" and should be read as: the year of Zarathustra-375. This corresponds to about the year 250 BC of the western Gregorian calendar.

Day versus night march control

The small sun icon to the right of the date is your day versus night march control. This is a toggle button and if you click on the sun, it turns into a moon to indicate that you are now on "night march orders". If you click the button again, the moon reverts back to a sun to indicate "day march orders".

A "day march" corresponds to the 12 daylight hours from 6 AM to 6 PM. The game assumes that you are spending the 12 nighttime hours building a fortified camp, sleeping, and breaking camp at daylight. For purposes of keeping the game fun and moving forward, these hours pass instantly. When this occurs, a short chime will sound, and a message will appear on the text scroll indicating that the night has passed. The date will also change.

Likewise, a "night march" corresponds to the 12 nighttime hours from 6 PM to 6 AM. There are several advantages to choosing a night march over a day march. Most importantly, your party will consume water at about half the rate during the night as during the day. This will become extremely important when you attempt to cross the Great Barren Desert. Your party will have to carry all the water they need to drink on their backs! Water is very heavy, and if you consume it at only half the rate, you will have to carry a lot less. But there are also disadvantages to a night march. Most noticeably, you will have to travel by torch or lamp light, which is tiresome. And, monsters too tend to prefer the nighttime to the daytime, since they don't like the heat. So, expect to be attacked more often when traveling at night.

Food and water rationing control

The two buttons following the sun/moon button are your food and water rationing buttons. These provide you with finer control over how much food your characters eat and how much water they drink.

Clicking once on the food button reduces your meal intake from 3 to 2 meals per day. Clicking on it again reduces your food intake to 1 meal per day. To restore food to full rations, click it twice again.

Water works the same way, and reduces your water intake by 1/3 each time. Depending upon the terrain type (described in the next chapter), this can be a very strategic way to save water and explore areas that would otherwise be inaccessible.

Beware though: When you ration food or water, the rate at which your party members heal is reduced by a corresponding amount. If you reduce food and water to 1/3 each, your party will no longer have enough food and water to allow them to heal at all!

Treasure, food, water, and movement variables

The bottom row of the game display shows party resource and movement variables.

The first icon is your treasure chest. Next to it is the amount of treasure you have to spend. Since total wealth can always be converted into an asset which is small, lightweight, and easy to transport, none of your characters has to bear the weight of your accumulated treasure.

The second icon is your food variable, and the number indicates how much total food all of your characters are carrying. Food is something that all of your characters will have to share in the burden of transporting. In a landscape like Arabia, which is largely inhospitable, traveling with a reasonable supply of food is very important, and is therefore emphasized in the game.

The third icon is your water manager icon. In addition to displaying how much total water all of your characters are carrying, it allows you to manage how much of all of your water-carrying vessels you wish to use. This is important because there are times you may not want to carry a full load of water, but want to hang on to all of your vessels for use at a later time. To reduce the amount of water you are carrying, slide the yellow slider bar down some. Later, to again carry your maximum water capacity, move the slider bar back to the top.

The fourth and final icon is your party movement icon. The percentage number next to the party icon indicates your current party movement rate. The further you get from 100%, the slower your party is traveling. Since your entire party can only travel as fast as the slowest member, you should monitor this variable carefully. This number always corresponds to the Movement statistic of your slowest moving character. If it falls below about 70%, check your character records and find out who the slow-poke is. Trade items away from that character in order to reduce his or her load and get the whole party moving faster. Slow-moving parties eat more food, drink more water, and encounter more monsters while covering the same distance as a speedier party!

The water, food, and party movement numbers also change color when they fall below certain thresholds. These color changes indicate that it is time to monitor these variables more carefully.