The Nethergate Screen

When you’ve started a new game or loaded an old saved game, you will see the Nethergate screen. This is where you will do most of your game playing. How thrilling!

The Nethergate Screen

The Nethergate screen is divided into seven areas.

The Name: Suppose your friends walk up behind you and ask, “Hey! What game are you playing?” Just point at this and tell them to go away. You’re busy.

The Terrain Area: You’ll probably spend most of your time looking here. You can see your adventurers. Handsome little people, aren’t they? To move them around, click on the terrain area in the direction you want them to move. You can also use the keypad or arrow keys to move (this is usually a much easier way to move around than using the mouse). In the terrain area, north is to the upper right, and east is to the lower right.

If you press the arrow buttons in the corners of the terrain area, the view will shift. You can use these buttons to look at or target things just out of sight.

When you’re looking, targeting a spell or missile, or doing something else which requires selecting a target, letters will appear on the creatures/items/whatever you can choose. To select something to look at/talk to/disintegrate, type the letter on it or click on it.

The Character Area: Displays the portraits of the members of your group. You can also rearrange them and look at their statistics.

The Character Area

You can click on this area to do a variety of useful things.

The portrait: When you click on a character’s portrait, that character becomes active (you can also do this by typing ‘1’-’6’). When you try to cast a spell or get items, the active character will be the first person who tries. Also, when you’re casting a spell on one of your characters, click on the portrait to pick the target.
Switch places: To have two characters switch places, select the Switch Places icon for one of them and then the other. Note that the fifth and sixth characters have to stay in the same place in the party order (these spots are for special characters who join your group later).
Character info: Select the question mark to bring up the Character Info screen. This screen is very important. This is where you see your character’s statistics, do training, and see all the spells, recipes, and special items your party has. The Character Info screen is described in more detail later on.
Health and spell point bar: The two numbers below your character’s portrait are his/her current health and number of spell points. The longer the bar to the left of the number is, the more of your points remain.
Gold and food: At the bottom of this area, the number of coins and units of food you currently own are conveniently displayed.
Help icon: The little metallic button with the question mark always brings up a help window.

When a character is affected by some sort of special effect (such as poison or disease), an icon will appear by that character’s portrait. To see all of the possible conditions and what icons represent them, click on the Help icon.

The Inventory Area: In this area, decorated by the drawing of a bold, burly Roman or Celt, you will see all of the items you have equipped (i.e. are wearing or are ready to use). 

The Inventory Area

To remove an item, click on it. Move the cursor over an item to see a description.

The Item List Area: All of the items you don’t currently have equipped are listed here. Use the scroll bar to move up and down the list.

The Item List Area

When you click on an item, you will attempt to use it. If it is an item that can be equipped, it will appear in the Inventory Area (possibly trading places with an item of the same type you already have equipped). If it is an item you use (like a potion or scroll), you will use it.

To give an item to someone else, select the Give icon and then the portrait of the character to give it to. To drop an item, select the Drop icon. You may be asked to select the location to place the item. Finally, for a detailed description of the item, select the Item Info icon.

The Game Buttons: There will be up to nine buttons in this area, each of them enabling you to do something very important. Move the cursor over a button to see what it does. Each button has a keyboard shortcut. The buttons will change from time to time, depending on which mode the game is in (outdoor, town, or combat). The different buttons (plus the modes you can use them in and what they do) are:

Look/Search/Use (any mode): When you press this button, letters will appear on anything interesting on the terrain view (monsters, chests, items, etc.). Click on (or type) the letter and a description of what you see will appear in the text area.

If you are standing next to a container when you look at it (such as a barrel, crate, box, desk, etc.), you will search it. Sometimes you will find items or special things inside.

If you are standing next to a door when you look at it, you will close the door. If you’re next to a sign, you will read it.
Cast Spell (any mode): The active character will try to cast a spell. Learn more about this in the Casting Spells chapter.
Make Potion (town mode): The active character will try to make a potion. Learn more about this in the Things To Do In Town chapter.
Rest (town or outdoor mode): You will stop for a while and rest. If no hostile monsters are in sight, time will pass, and you will recover some health and spell points.

Warning - if you do this too often in a hostile area, the monsters will often take advantage of the delay to gather and ambush you when you emerge. 
See AutoMap (town or outdoor mode): You will constantly take note of your surroundings and memorize them. When you press this button, a map of the nearby terrain will appear. On the map, north is up. In the terrain area, north is to the upper right.
Wait (any mode): In combat, this character will wait until the end of the round, after all enemies have taken their moves, to act. Any other time, this action simply causes a little time to pass.

Sometimes, your characters will get webs on them, hampering their actions. When you wait, some of the webs will be cleaned off.
Talk (town mode): You will attempt to talk with someone nearby. Learn more about this in the Things To Do In Town chapter.
Get (town or combat mode): You will attempt to pick up some nearby items. If hostile monsters are nearby, you will only be able to pick up items within reach. If no nasties are in sight, you can pick up any item within four spaces.

To pick up an item, click on it in the Getting screen. To have a different character pick up items, select that character’s portrait in the PC screen (or type ‘1’-’6’).

Some items will be marked with an NY (for Not Yours). This is an item which doesn’t belong to you and which its owner wants to keep. If you pick up an item which isn’t yours when someone can see you, the town will turn hostile.
Start Combat (town mode): Draw your weapons and attack! You will now be in combat mode. Learn more about this in the chapter on Beating People Up.
Parry (combat mode): This ends the current character’s turn, and he or she will get a defensive bonus when monsters attack later in the round. The more action points you have left, the higher the bonus.
One/All Active (combat mode): When you press this button, the currently active character will become the only character who does anything. All other characters will automatically skip their turns until you press this button again.
Fire Missile (combat mode): If you have a missile weapon (such as a sling or javelin) equipped, when you press this button you will be asked to select a target to shoot or fling it at.
AutoCombat (combat mode): This is a handy time-saving feature. If you find yourself in a combat you are easily powerful enough to win, press this button and your party will immediately set about devastating your foes with no need for commands from you.

Your party will end autocombat when one of your characters gets very wounded, there are no more foes in sight, or you click anywhere in the game screen. When your characters are in autocombat, they will usually only use melee attacks (not spells or missiles).
End Combat (combat mode): In town, you will attempt to reform your party and put your weapons away. You can only leave combat in town when all of your characters are within 5 spaces of your lead character and you have space to form in a line.

Outdoors, you will attempt to depart whatever battlefield you’ve found yourself in. You can only do this when all of your foes are dead.

The Text Area: A running transcript of whatever happens to you will appear in the text area at the lower right corner of the screen.

The Nethergate Menus

In addition to the panoply of buttons, switches, and toggles on the Nethergate window, there is a menu bar at the top of the screen with all sorts of other options.

The File Menu

Open - Open a previously saved game. You will be instantly transported to wherever you were in the game when you last saved.
Save - This will save your current status and position in the game to your hard drive. This command automatically writes your progress over the last save file you opened.
Save As - This will save your current status and position in the game to your hard drive, creating a new file. You will be asked for the name of the new save file. We strongly recommend keeping several saved games around, each at a different point in your progress. Then, if you get stuck, you can always go back to an earlier point later.
New Game - Returns you to the starting screen, where you can create a new group or use the character editor.
Preferences - Lets you change a variety of settings which determine how the game runs. These are the options in the preferences window:

Difficulty - Goes from easy to very hard. Determines how powerful the monsters are and how easy it is for you to hit in combat. If you find yourself getting killed a lot, don’t be afraid to switch to Easy.
Game Speed - Setting this to faster speeds makes certain time-consuming special effects go away and changes the length of the pauses in the game.
Play Special Effects - If Nethergate is very slow on your machine, turn special effects off to make things snappier. Note that, on older machines, Nethergate may always be a bit slow no matter what.
Play Sounds - Turns sound effects on and off.
Put Game Area in Center - Normally, the game area of Nethergate is in the middle of your monitor. On large monitors, you might want to turn this option off. Then the Nethergate game area will move to the upper left corner of the screen.
Give Tip Of Day - Turns the Tip of Day window that appears at the beginning of the game on and off.
Show Instant Help - Turns the Instant Help windows that appear occasionally on and off.
Reset Instant Help - Press this to make all Instant Help windows reappear, just in case you need a refresher on how to do things.

The Options Menu

Pick New Character Graphic - Select a new character icon and portrait.
Pick New Character Name - Select a new name for your character.
Create New Character - If you have an empty space in the first four character slots, you can fill it with a new character. To do this, select this option while you’re in the town you started in (Shadow Valley Fort or Nethergate). You will be given a chance to customize the new character’s skills. When you’ve finished this, use the Pick New Character Graphic and Pick New Character Name options to set the character’s name and appearance.
Delete a Character - Gives you a chance to delete the currently active character. How sad.
See Adventure Notes - When you press the Record button on a special encounter window or while talking, you will take a note of what you were just told. You can go through these notes in this window. You can only have so many things in memory, so press the Delete key to forget anything you don’t need to know anymore.
See Overall Party Stats - Brings up a tally of how many things you’ve killed, how many experience points you’ve earned, and so on in the Text Area.

The Help Menu
This menu brings up several screens, each containing bits of useful information. A useful tutorial for people who don’t have this instruction book.

The Actions Menu

Use First Aid - Has the character with the highest first aid skill attempt to heal the current active character (select an active character by clicking on his or her portrait or by typing ‘1’-’6’).
Wait/Long Wait - This works like the Rest button (see The Game Buttons in the chapter on Game Interface).
Call a Beast - The active character will attempt to summon a wild beast to aid you (only works if this character has the Beastmaster advantage).
Call Faery Familiar - The active character will attempt to summon a sprite to aid you (only works if this character has the Faerie Familiar advantage). 
Start AutoCombat - This works like the AutoCombat button (see The Game Buttons in the chapter on Game Interface).
Print Party Location - Prints the coordinates of your characters in the text area. These will be in the form of an X-Y coordinate. X is west-east, Y is north-south, and the northwest corner of the current area is X = 0, Y = 0.