7    Welcome to the game of Larn.  At this moment, you face a great problem.
Your daughter has contracted a strange disease, and none of your home remedies
seem to have any effect.  You sense that she is in mortal danger, and you must
try to save her.  Time ago you heard of a land of great danger and opportunity.
Perhaps here is the solution you need.

    It has been said that there once was a great magician who called himself
Polinneaus.  Many years ago, after having many miraculous successes, Polinneaus
retired to the caverns of Larn, where he devoted most of his time to the
creation of magic.   Rumors have it that one day Polinneaus set out to dispel
an attacking army in a forest some distance to the north.  It is believed that
here he met his demise.

    The caverns of Larn, it is thought, must be magnificent in design,
and contain much magic and treasure.  One option you have is to undertake a
journey into these caverns.


    Good Luck!  You're going to need it!




                Help File for The Caverns of Larn, Prompt Mode

b  move southwest          B  run southwest            S  save the game
h  move left               H  run left                 .  stay here
j  move down               J  run down                 ^  identify a trap
k  move up                 K  run up                   T  take off armor
l  move right              L  run right
n  move southeast          N  run southeast
u  move northeast          U  run northeast
y  move northwest          Y  run northwest            ^L redraw the screen
c  cast a spell            Z  teleport yourself
d  drop an item            e  eat something
g  get present pack weight P  give tax status
i  inventory your pockets  I  list all items found     ?  this help screen
q  quaff a potion          Q  quit the game
r  read a scroll           v  print program version
w  weild a weapon          W  wear armor               ^L redraw the screen






                Help File for The Caverns of Larn, Command Mode

b  move southwest          B  run southwest            A  desecrate an altar
c  cast a spell            C  close a door             Z  teleport yourself
d  drop an item            D  drink at a fountain      <  go up stairs or
e  eat something           E  enter a store, dungeon      volcanic shaft
g  get present pack weight G  give the stairs a kick   >  go down stairs or
h  move left               H  run left                    volcanic shaft
i  inventory your pockets  I  list all items found     ?  this help screen
j  move down               J  run down                 ^  identify a trap
k  move up                 K  run up                   ,  pick up item
l  move right              L  run right                :  look at object
n  move southeast          N  run southeast
                           O  open a door or chest     .  stay here
p  pray at an altar        P  give tax status
q  quaff a potion          Q  quit the game
r  read a scroll           R  remove gems from throne
s  sit on a throne         S  save the game
t  tidy up at a fountain   T  take off armor
u  move northeast          U  run northeast
v  print program version
w  weild a weapon          W  wear armor
y  move northwest          Y  run northwest            ^L redraw the screen
                Special Notes

When dropping gold, if you type '*' as your amount, all your gold gets dropped.
In general, typing in '*' means all of what your interested in.  This is true
when visiting the bank, or when contributing at altars.

Larn needs the ANSI.SYS (or preferably, the NANSI.SYS) device driver installed
in your CONFIG.SYS file.  The supplied "termcap" file describes the escape
sequences to change video modes (see ch 13 of the DOS 2.0 manual).  See the
"TERMCAP" section in LARN.DOC for further details.

When in the store, trading post, school, or home, an m<escape> will get you out.

When casting a spell, if you need a list of spells you can cast, type 'D' as
the first letter of your spell.  The available list of spells will be shown,
after which you may enter the spell code.  This only works on the 1st letter
of the spell you are casting.

The Author of Larn is Noah Morgan (1982-3), Copying for Profit is Prohibited
Copyright 1986 by Noah Morgan, All Rights Reserved.



                        Larn Command Line Options

larn ++                 restore checkpointed game
larn -s                 list the scoreboard
larn -i                 list scores with inventories
larn -n                 suppress welcome message when beginning a game
larn -h                 print out all the command line options
larn -<number>          specify difficulty of the game (may be used with -n)
larn -o<optsfile>       specify the option file to be used
larn -c                 create new scoreboards -- prompts for a password
larn -l                 print out the larn log file 
larn -p                 play in prompt mode











            Background Information for Larn

    Welcome to the game of Larn.  At this moment, you face a great problem.
Your daughter has contracted a strange disease, and none of your home remedies
seem to have any effect.  You sense that she is in mortal danger, and you must
try to save her.  Time ago you heard of a land of great danger and opportunity.
Perhaps here is the solution you need.

    It has been said that there once was a great magician who called himself
Polinneaus.  Many years ago, after having many miraculous successes, Polinneaus
retired to the caverns of Larn, where he devoted most of his time to the
creation of magic.   Rumors have it that one day Polinneaus set out to dispel
an attacking army in a forest some distance to the north.  It is believed that
here he met his demise.

    The caverns of Larn, it is thought, must be magnificent in design,
and contain much magic and treasure.  One option you have is to undertake a
journey into these caverns.

    Good Luck!  You're going to need it!



            How to use the larn.opt option file

The file "larn.opt", if used, should be in a directory along your PATH.
A sequence of words terminated by whitespace is used to specify options.

    Word                     Meaning
    cursor:   lowscan highscan  change the shape of the cursor
    DECRainbow          tell LARN you have that computer
    enable-checkpointing    turn on periodic checkpointing
    graphics: wallc floorc  select graphics maze characters
    keypad          enable the numeric keypad for moving
    larndir:  directory     the directory to use for larn files
    monster:  "monst name"  choose a name for a monster
    name:     "your name"   choose your playing name
    no-beep         disable beeping of the terminal
    no-introduction     do not display intro message
    savefile: save-file-name    define what the savegame filename will be
    swapfile: swap-file-name    define the name of the swapfile

Your name and monster names must be enclosed in double quotation marks and may
be up to 34 characters long.  Longer names are truncated.  Anything enclosed in
quotation marks is considered one word, and must be separated from other words
by whitespace.
           Explanation of the Larn scoreboard facility

    Larn supports TWO scoreboards, one for winners, and one for deceased
characters.  Each player (by userid or playerid, see UIDSCORE in Makefile)
is allowed one slot on each scoreboard, if the score is in the top ten for
that scoreboard.  This design helps insure that frequent players of Larn
do not hog the scoreboard, and gives more players a chance for glory.  Level
of difficulty is also noted on the scoreboards, and this takes precedence
over score for determining what entry is on the scoreboard.  For example:
if "Yar, the Bug Slayer" has a score of 128003 on the scoreboard at diff 0,
then a game at diff 1 and a score of 4112 would replace the previous
entry on the scoreboard.  Note that when a player dies, the inventory is
stored in the scoreboard so that everyone can see what items the player had
at the time of death.




