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WELCOME TO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF EAMON
(Original Apple manual by Donald Brown, ST version edited by
M.Detlefsen)
EAMON is a computerized version of what are called "Fantasy
Role-Playing Games." When you enter the universe of one of
these games, you are no longer John (or Jane) Smith,
mild-mannered computer hobbyist. Instead, you become a
character in a land of adventure, doing almost anything you
want to.
In the land of Eamon, you will be a member of the select
Free Adventurers Guild, which is made up of hardy individuals
like yourself who want to live by your wits, defeating
horrible monsters and finding glorious treasures. (For those
of you who want a more calm life, you will have to wait for
the game "ADVENTURERS IN THE LAND OF THE CERTIFIED PUBLIC
ACCOUNTANTS".)
Unlike most games, there is no single set goal for you to
achieve, no way to 'win' the game. Instead, in Eamon, you
have a lasting goal to both better yourself and also get
rich. If you set for yourself another goal (do good to all
princesses, kill all evil wizards, that sort of thing), you
may also work towards it in your quests.
To run the adventures of Eamon, you need an Atari ST, one
disk drive, and a color or monochrome monitor for 80 column
display (the text will NOT display properly on a
television!). You do not need this manual (although it does
help keep you informed, and informed adventurers survive
longer!). The one thing you must possess for Eamon is a
large dose of imagination.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The basic system of EAMON was created and
developed by Donald Brown on the Apple II. The individual
adventures were created by various people. Non-commercial
distribution is encouraged.
Far away, at the dead center of the Milky Way, is the planet
of Eamon. It doesn't orbit any suns--all of the suns orbit
it. The shifting pulls of all of these great bodies bring
strange forces to bear upon this planet; twisting light,
tides, even the laws of science itself! Strange things
happen there, and the citizens of Eamon must always be
adaptable, for things are rarely what they seem, and even
more rarely what they were yesterday!
You are a citizen of this weird world. You are a free man
(or woman) out to seek your fortune in this world of shifting
laws and time. You will usually find yourself fighting
terrible monsters such as Orcs, Trolls, and Dragons to get
their treasure. However, at times you may find yourself
fighting such varied opponents as Billy the Kid and Darth
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Vader! Anything can happen, anything at all.
EAMON is a fantasy role-playing game. This means that the
computer will generate a character for you and you will
pretend to be that person. You will command your character
into fierce battle, where hopefully he/she will emerge
victorious and wealthy.
Obviously, not all characters are equal in ability. Three
numbers (called attributes) describe various parts of your
physical condition. You also will have various abilities
with weapons, which will increase as you gain experience with
them, and learn how to better use them. Additionally, you
will be able to learn some powerful magic spells. (Of
course, you will have to be taught these spells, and the
teacher will charge you for the job!)
EAMON is usually non-sexist--there is full room for both
male and female adventurers. However, for simplicity's sake,
an adventurer will usually be referred to as 'he'--please
understand that it refers to 'she' adventurers also.!
CHARACTER ATTRIBUTES
As mentioned earlier, three numbers describe the basic
'working material' of your character. They are all gotten by
selecting three random numbers from one to eight and summing
them, thus the numbers can range from three to twenty- four,
with more numbers around twelve to fifteen. (By the way,
this is called 'three die eight' or written as '3D8'. This
terminology comes from older role playing games where you
roll strange dice, and means roll three eight-sided dice and
add). The three attributes are HARDINESS, AGILITY, and
CHARISMA. Their descriptions and effects are given below--
HARDINESS
Your character's hardiness has two major effects. The most
important is that your hardiness is the number of points of
damage that your body can withstand before you die. In other
words, assume Hedric the Horrible is fighting a Troll.
Hedric has an HD (hardiness) of 13. The Troll swings his
Battle axe (as described later in the COMBAT section of the
manual) and hits Hedric for 10 points of damage. This brings
Hedric down to three more points of damage before death--if
the Troll can hit Hedric again and do more than two points of
damage (before Hedric can go home and heal himself, or use
some magic to heal), Hedric will die!
The other effect of hardiness is the total weight that you
can carry. The standard measure of weight on Eamon is the
Grond, which can be split into ten Dos. You can carry up to
ten times your hardiness. Therefore, Hedric can carry up to
130 Gronds (or 1300 Dos). Note that weight-carrying ability
is based on the characters base hardiness, not the number of
hits he has left. In his unpleasant encounter with the
Troll, Hedric can still carry 130 Gronds, even though he only
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has three hits left before death.
As with all three basic attributes, a character's hardiness
is not normally changed. (Unusual magic items or spells
might change them). Thus, a player who starts life as a
90-pound weakling will remain one until he dies.
AGILITY
The second basic ability is the player's agility
(abbreviated 'AG'). Agility's major effect is in combat--a
player with high Agility is more likely to hit an opponent.
Agility may also be useful for avoiding special traps (like
falling down a mine shaft) or other special occurrences.
CHARISMA
The last basic attribute for the player is his charisma
(abbreviated 'CH'). Charisma is mostly a measure of physical
attractiveness, although it also includes such things as a
forceful manner, pleasant speaking voice, and anything else
that makes people look at you and say, "Gee, what a nice
guy!" (or girl). In some ways, charisma may be the most
important attribute, at least for the beginning character.
The first major effect of charisma is on the prices you'll
have to pay for goods and services (or the prices people will
pay you). Obviously, if somebody likes you, he will give you
a better price than if you disgust him.
The second effect of charisma is on how citizens of Eamon
(generically called monsters) will react to you. Not all
monsters are bad -- you can sometimes make friends with a few
of them, and their assistance may make the difference between
life and death! Your charisma will affect the likelihood of
their liking you -- subtract 10 from your charisma, multiply
the difference by 2, and the result adjusts the percentage
chance of a favorable reaction from the monster -- if there
was any chance at all! EXAMPLE: The Mad Hermit of the
Beginner's Cave has a 50% friendliness rating, which means
that Joe Normal with a charisma of 10 will get make friends
with the Hermit one-half of the time/ However, old Hedric the
Horrible with his charisma of 5 has only a 40% chance of
making friends (5-10=-5, -5*2 =-10). On the other hand,
Lovable Linda with her charisma of 24 has a 78% chance of
making friends. Unfortunately a rat with a friendliness
rating of 0 will never make friends, be it with Joe Normal,
Hedric, or Lovable Linda.
COMBAT
Being a rough and violent world, combat is the most
important aspect of Eamon. In most adventures, combat is
taken care of on a blow-by-blow method -- every player or
monster in turn uses his weapon(s) on one enemy, the effects
are calculated, and then applied.
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Every time that a player or monster attempts to strike
someone else, there is a percentage chance of success. The
computer will generate a number from 1 to 100, and if the
number is less than the chance to hit, the blow did strike.
Several factors determine just what that chance to hit is.
If a player has no armour on, there are three factors-- the
player's agility, his ability with that weapon, and the
quality of the weapon (also called the complexity).
Roughly speaking, all weapons in the world of Eamon can be
divided into five types-- axes, bows (this includes all
thrown weapons and guns), clubs (or any blunt weapons),
spears (or other pole weapons), and swords. Every player has
what is called 'weapon expertise' for each class. All
players start at the same levels: 5% for axes, -10% for
bows, 20% for clubs, 10% for spears and 0% for swords. (These
numbers are to reflect the fact that somebody who doesn't
know what he's doing is more likely to hit with a club than
with an arrow.) Your chance of hitting your target is equal
to twice your agility plus your ability for the weapon you
are using, plus the complexity of the weapon you are using.
For example, our old friend Hedric has an agility of 20 and
is using a fair quality sword (with a complexity of 0%).
Since he is a starting character, he has a sword ability of
0%. Thus his chance of hitting is 40+0+0 or 40%.
Weapon expertises can be increased through use in combat.
The scheme goes as follows: Assume Hedric is fighting his
troll and scores a successful hit. The question now is, did
Hedric learn anything about how to use his weapon better?
Well, it just so happens that his chance to learn is his
chance to have missed. Thus, 60% of the time Hedric will
learn from his blow. If he does, his sword expertise will go
up by 2%. Thus, next time his chance of hitting will be 42%.
(Notice that his chance of learning on the next successful
blow is only 58%.)
Well, Hedric somehow made it out alive from his Troll
battle, and has brought his sword expertise up to 12%. He
then wants to take his booty and new knowledge and get a
better weapon. If Hedric goes and buys a new sword-like
weapon, such as a rapier which has a weapon complexity of
15%, his chance of hitting with it will be 40+12+15 or 67%.
However, if he decides to switch weapons and get a Battle axe
with a complexity of 15%, his chance with that will be
40+5+15 or 60%--his experience with swords will not help him
with his axe.
If an attacker is wearing armour, his chance of hitting may
be reduced. After all, one just isn't as agile when one is
fighting from within a tin can! A player may carry a shield,
which will lower the chance to hit by 5%, and may also wear
either leather armour (lowers chance by 10%), chain mail
(20%), or plate armour (60%!). However, these numbers are
"worst cases". A player becomes used to the constricting
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effect of wearing armour, and builds an armour expertise
(called AE). It is built the same way that weapon expertise
is increased--every time a successful blow is landed and the
effect of armour is bigger than the player's AE, a check is
made on the chance to miss and that is the chance of the
armour expertise going up by 2%. Thus a successful blow may
increase the chance to hit by 4%. Armour expertise is carried
over from each type of armour. Thus if you've brought your
AE up to 10% while in leather armour and you go to chain,
your chance to hit will only drop by 10%, not 20%. However,
the effect of armour expertise can never increase the chance
to hit--if the AE is 32% and you go to leather armour, the
net effect will be 0, not adding 22%.
In addition to agility, weapon expertise, weapon complexity,
and armour, there may be magical or other extraordinary
forces at work that will affect the chance of hitting.
When a blow hits, a random amount of damage is done to the
target. This amount of damage is based on the weapon and
will be given in 'N D N' format. (Remember 3D8 for the three
basic attributes?) This base number of damage is usually
lowered by the armour worn by the defender-- leather armour
and shield each take one point of damage, chain takes 2, and
plate armour takes 5 points of damage away from that taken on
the body (all effects are cumulative and magical devices may
act as armour).
That, of course, is what usually happens. However, due to
flashes of good luck or clumsiness weird things can happen.
About 5% of the time an attacker will get what is called a
'critical hit'. That will get one of the following results
(each result is followed by the percentage chance of its
occurrence): Ignore armour (50%), three-halves normal damage
(35%), twice normal damage (10%), triple normal damage (4%),
or automatic kill (1%).
About 4% of the time the attacker will fumble with his
weapon. It will have one of the following effects: Recover
from fumble without any other effect (35%), Drop weapon (40%,
if the attacker is using built-in weapons such as claws, the
attacker simply recovers instead), Break weapon (20%, with a
10% chance of hitting oneself at the same time), Hit self
normally (4%), and Hit self with double damage, ignoring
armour (1%).
MAGIC
The strange shifting forces around Eamon sometimes give
results that can only be called 'Magical'. However, most of
these effects are extremely localized, and will not be
consistent from one adventure to the next. Most often these
strange things will be the special results by carrying
magical items, however, some citizens of Eamon who have lived
all of their lives in one location may have learned how to
control the forces around them.
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There are, however, four spells that work almost everywhere.
Anyone can be taught these spells without too much difficulty
(if you can find a wizard who will teach them to you!). When
you learn a spell, you will start with a random ability in it
from 25 to 75% (you will not know what your ability is). As
with combat experience, this can be increased every time you
successful cast the spell-- If a random percentage roll is
less than your chance to not have cast it, your ability will
go up by 2%. However, there is a catch in casting spells--
due to the tiring effects of sending all this power through
your body, every time that you attempt to cast a spell
REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT THE ATTEMPT WAS SUCCESSFUL your
chance for the rest of the adventure is halved. Thus, old
Hedric who knows a spell with a 200% ability will always cast
it the first time. His second try will also always work
(100% of the time). His third try will only work half (50%)
of the time. On the fourth try the chance is down to 25%,
fifth try 12%, and sixth only 6%. Fortunately for Hedric,
however, if you know a spell your chance of successfully
casting it can never be less than 5%, so Hedric can use his
spell for the rest of the adventure at the same odds.
The four basic spells are:
BLAST
This spell sends a magical burning arrow at your opponent.
Armour will absorb damage from it, but if the spell is
successfully cast it will always hit its target, regardless
of the range. However, the Blast spell only works on living
(or at least animate) objects and the targets must be seen by
the person casting it. The arrow will do 1 D 6 of damage (a
random number from one to six).
HEAL
The Heal spell removes hits from the body of the person
casting. It will cure 1 D 10 hits, but never past 0. (Hedric,
having taken five hits, casts a Heal spell on himself
successfully. He got a good casting this time-- would have
cured 8 hits normally, however it only cures five hits one
him, bringing Hedric back up to perfect condition).
SPEED
This powerful spell will double the caster's agility for
from 10 to 34 turns. You will know when you have cast the
spell successfully, however you will not be told when it
wears off. If you successfully cast a Speed spell while one
is already in effect on you, the new spell will reset the
time for you-- it will not have the effect of quadrupling
your agility. Obviously, when you cast the Speed spell your
chance of hitting goes up accordingly (Hedric had a 56%
chance of hitting with some weapon before casting the spell,
with 40% of that because of his 20 agility. When he casts
the Speed spell on himself, his chance will increase by 40%
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again, giving him a 96% chance of hitting).
POWER
The Power spell may well be the most powerful spell
available to you, and certainly the most uncertain. It has
no set effect, it's a call to the gods saying "Hey, do
something!". What they do will certainly differ from place
to place, and may even differ from one moment to the next! It
could kill all of your enemies, teleport you randomly
somewhere else in the place you are exploring, cause an
earthquake that buries you and your opponents alive, or
anything else you can and cannot think of.
For all of these spells, it should be pointed out that this
is the way they >> USUALLY << work out. In some obscure
sections of the world spells may not drop in ability every
time you use them, in other places spells may not work at
all!
RELATING WITH CITIZENS
There are two places you will be encountering other people
of Eamon, on your adventures and at the Main Hall of the
Guild of Free Adventurers.
At the Main Hall, you will be able to communicate with the
various people there and do business. However, they will not
do you any real favors (except possibly giving you good
prices on things if they like you), and you will not be
permitted to fight with anybody there. Essentially, they
will be businessmen and women, out to relieve you of some of
your gold while helping outfit you to go get more.
On the other hand, during your adventures outside of the
Main Hall, you will not be able to communicate with most of
the people you find. Additionally, they will usually be
rather simple-minded -- when meeting you they will decide if
they like you. If they do like you, they will follow you
around and fight on your side during any battles. If they
don't like you, they will try to kill you. These people are
rather set in their ways -- once they make up their mind
about you they will usually keep with their decisions, unless
you do something nasty such as attack a friend, or you do
something especially nice, such as healing an enemy.
However, just because they do or do not like you does not
mean that they will always fight to the bitter end. Some
people or things you encounter will be less courageous (or
smarter) than others and will run from what they view as a
losing battle -- both your enemies and your friends. When
someone retreats they usually kick up a cloud of dust so you
cannot see which way they ran, although they will always only
run out of exits that are really there, and you can usually
follow them.
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Once again, though, note that all of the statements above
were prefaced by the word 'usually'. In some parts of the
world you may be able to work quite well with others, give
orders, get ideas, even play games with them. As always, the
key word is flexibility.
HOW TO REALLY AND ACTUALLY PLAY EAMON
(Never thought we'd get here, did you?)
Running EAMON on the Atari ST:
Boot your system in the normal fashion. If you have a color
monitor, you must use medium resolution. Text will not be
formatted properly for television use. Run the program
GFABASRO.PRG by clicking on it. When presented with the file
selector box, choose EAMON.BAS and run it. You will then be
given a choice of actions to take.
After you are shown the initial menu page, you will be
almost ready to enter the Main Hall. Simply follow directions
(for the sake of your mothers, if nothing else!). If you are
new to Eamon (or your character was killed the last time he
went out), you will want to choose action "Create a New
Character) and you will be directed to the man in charge of
new adventurers. He will show you what the attributes of your
new character are, and let you read some instructions . If
you have read or printed out the manual "PLAYERS.DOC", you
don't need to read his instructions. Finally, you will be
sent to the Main Hall, where all old adventurers go
immediately from the Irishman.
You may also choose the second option, which will take you
to the Main Hall as the last character used. This will allow
you to purchase new weapons, armour, etc., before you journey
again.
Option 3 will take you directly to another adventure,
without going to the Main Hall. You will be prompted for
your character's name, and the character information will be
loaded from the disk file. You will then be prompted to
insert the adventure disk.
The Main Hall will serve as your headquarters. You can buy
spells there, as well as weaponry and armour, you can 'check
out' yourself and all your attributes and abilities. You can
also keep some money with the banker there. He gives no
interest, but money in the bank is safe if you're robbed on
an adventurer. (Of course, you can't use it to ransom
yourself out of a sticky situation, either!).
GOING ON AN ADVENTURE
Of course, the main purpose of the Main Hall is as a place
to leave from to go on adventures. Most of your exploits
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will be exploring caves and old ruins, doing similar things
as in the popular Adventure games. However, Eamon is wide
enough to also have you go to casinos and gamble your money
away, raise an army to fight invaders (both from other
countries and from space!), or do just about any other
activity you can think of.
Only one Eamon adventure will be stored on a diskette. To
go on an adventure, work from the Main Hall as directed,
inserting the diskette with the new adventure into the disk
drive at the proper time. From then on, you're on your own.
Notice: characters who do not return from adventures are
considered dead. Thus, turning off the computer in the midst
of an adventure or halting it by CONTROL-SHIFT-ALT merely
commits suicide, since EAMON deletes their character files
from the disk BEFORE going on the adventure. The wise
adventurer will consider this fact carefully before going
placing him/herself at risk.
To help your character get some gold to equip himself
properly and gather a little bit of experience, one adventure
is included on the diskette-- The Beginner's Cave. It's a
gentle little romp through a set of caves underground. I
strongly advise that you do send your new character through
this first. If he can't survive this, there's no point in
going out to the dangerous places. (For more information on
The Beginners Cave, see the end of this file).
BUYING WEAPONS AND ARMOUR
You will have 200 gold pieces when you start a character,
and hopefully more after your adventures. One of the most
important things for you to do with this gold is to buy
weapons and armour. Additionally, you may sometimes want to
sell a weapon, be it because you have no need of it or
because you have reached the legal limit on weapon ownership
of four.
Well, Marcos Cavelli owns a small weaponry store in the Main
Hall that will do this for you. Marcos carries five standard
weapons--an axe, which does 1D6 of damage and has a base
price of 25 gold pieces, a bow which does 1D6 and has a base
price of 40, a mace which does 1D4 and has a base price of
20, a spear which does 1D5 and has a base price of 25, and a
sword which does 1D8 and has a base price of 50. For each
weapon Marcos sells three grades of quality-- poor (with a
weapon complexity of -10%, but only half the base price),
medium (with a weapon complexity of 0, at normal price), and
good (with a weapon complexity of 10%, at double the base
price). Furthermore, the price you are given can vary from
one-third to three times the normal price, depending upon how
your charisma and how Marcos feels about you.
Marcos will also buy old weapons. If it's of a type that he
doesn't sell, Marcos will pay an average of 100 gold pieces
for a weapon. If it is a weapon from his stock, he will pay
Page 9
around 1/4 the normal price.
Marcos's base prices for armour are 50 gold pieces for a
shield, 100 for leather, 200 for chain mail, and 500 for
plate armour. He will also give you a trade-in of your old
armour at its old price, subject to adjustment for the way
he feels about you.
Marcos's credit terms, like all of the businesses in the
Hall, are very simple--none.
BUYING SPELLS
Hokas Tokas, the local wizard in the Main Hall, is willing
to teach anybody spells for a price. His base prices for
spells are: Power (100 gold pieces), Heal (1000 gold pieces),
Blast (3000 gold pieces), and Speed (5000 gold pieces). As
with Marcos, Hokas will adjust his prices for how much he
likes you, but he will never give credit. But, however he
may grumble, he is a nice fellow and will never do anything
to you if you try to buy a spell you can't afford, or try to
buy a spell twice.
THE BANKER
Shylock McFenney, the local banker, will open up an account
with anybody. He is absolutely trustworthy with the funds you
leave in his care, although he does not give interest, nor
does he make loans. (He makes enough money from adventurers
who deposit money with him and never come back.)
EXAMINING YOUR ABILITIES
Unlike most things at the Hall, it does not cost you
anything to examine your attributes. It is generally a good
idea to examine your attributes last thing before leaving to
go on an adventure, and write them down-- you cannot examine
them in the midst of an adventure!
LEAVING THE UNIVERSE
This is simply ending the game. However, your character is
stored on the diskette, so he or she can be called up again
the next time you play. You should only leave the system this
way-- otherwise some disk files may be destroyed, and your
character will be trapped forever in the horrible bit
bucket!
That's really about all there is to say about playing Eamon.
Of course, the best way to learn is by starting up a
character and running him through a few adventures. One
thing I would warn you about -- do not get too attached to
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any character. Unfortunately, while wealth and expertise
come rather quickly in this world, so does death.
I am very interested in any and all comments and suggestions
on Eamon. I am particularly interested in getting copies of
adventures that other people create for Eamon. If you want
to build your own adventures, all of the tools I used in
creating the Beginner's Cave are on the Dungeon Design
Diskette. Feel free to list and examine them to help build
your own. However, do not at all be constrained by them, the
theme of Eamon is do what you want to with it. Eamon hereby
officially belongs to the people who play games on computers,
all I ask is that you enjoy it.
For comments, questions, new adventures, or suggestions
please write to:
Michael Detlefsen
9401 Mountain Quail Road
Austin, TX 78758
Compuserve 70156,1636
Delphi MDETLEFSEN
Genie M.DETLEFSEN
THE BEGINNER'S CAVE
The Beginner's Cave has been set up by the Warlord as a
service to all Free Adventurers, giving them a chance to try
their skills in a not too dangerous setting. Let us all
toast the Warlord for restocking the cave daily!
Only beginners are permitted in the Cave. A beginner is
someone who has no armour expertise and who still has all of
the starting levels of weapon expertise. You are permitted
to carry in only one weapon and any armour you wish. You
will not need torches as there is sufficient light in all
parts of the Cave. A Knight Marshal (William Misslefire) is
on duty to be sure that you do not break the rules (and to
keep you from doing something really stupid, like entering
the cave without any weapon at all!).
Once you are in the Cave, you will give commands by entering
verbs and subjects, such as "get stone". If you use a verb
that the computer doesn't understand, all verbs will be
listed. You must be very exact and use the words that the
computer knows. For example, if you are carrying a DEAD
MONKEY and you say DROP MONKEY the computer will not
understand.(Sometimes the computer does recognize more than
one word for an object, though). If you want to repeat the
last command given, simply hit RETURN when asked for your
next command.
A few commands you should know about:
Page 11
N, S, E, W, U, D, NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST, UP, and DOWN all
will move you in the direction given, as will NE,NW,SE, and
SW in some games.
INVENTORY or "I" will list all of the items you are
currently carrying.
READY brings a weapon into 'ready' mode,meaning that it will
be the weapon used in an ATTACK command.
GET picks up an object (not a monster!) from the floor. GET
ALL gets all objects there. If you get a weapon and you have
no weapon ready, it will ready that weapon automatically.
Other commands are either self- explanatory or they are
designed to make you experiment.
Commands may be entered in either upper or lower case.
To return to the main hall, you must leave the cave (getting
to the Cave Entrance) and move North. Once you have done so,
Sam Slicker (the local dealer for treasures and booty) will
pay you what they are worth (with the price adjusted by your
Charisma). You will then be returned to the Main Hall.
Of course, that is only if you survive. If you died,
remember that it probably wasn't that great of a character
anyway!
Happy Adventuring!
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