Abilities

Commmon

Archery

Draconan:
Only way I know to raise this is to grab a bow and a pile of arrows and 
shoot things.  The level of thing you shoot does not seem to drastically 
effect your advancement so easiest to just shoot small things.  This ability 
raises very fast but I would recommend getting some marksmanship skill first, 
your archery will not raise very fast if you can't hit anything.  You can 
shoot things for a while before they attack and may even be able to kill them 
before they do.  This seems to be time from your first hit so keep shooting 
as fast as you can.

First Aid

The latest medicinals, 'healing medicinals' from Iceforge, will let you bind 'carefully' while drunk if your first aid ability is high enough.

Rhynst:
First aid is raised from using bandages from Drakhyra. Unfortunately,
these bandages are inferior to normal medicinals as they fall off the
second the bandaged person enters combat.

Tinuviel's comments:
Now available in Iceforge: healing medicinals which raise first aid
ability and act more like Fredd's medicinals!  Some say they heal
better as well, but that may depend on ability.

Draconan:
This does not increase amount of healing or duration of skillful binds but 
how drunk you can be and skillfully bind, and only effect Uena's medicinals.
Some things to note are that once you get 90 you can carefully bind at very 
drunk which actually is a skillful binding.  in order to get any further 
advancement you need either 130 or 140 first aid to be able to bind skillfully 
at ex drunk (a whole lot of trait points better spent on drunkard to not be in 
ex drunk for long).   To raise this skill the fasted and cheapest way is 
bandages from Drak hospital.  Be injured (can always stick your hand in a fire) 
and 'dotimes <number of bandages you have>,bandage wounds of <your name>, remove 
bandages, <any old filler command I use abilities>'. this will raise it a LOT 
faster than Uena medicinals.  Since this only benefits drunk players if you don't 
use booze to heal then Fredd's medicinals are much cheaper and guaranteed to be 
available.

Fishing

Rhynst:
Fishing is one we’ve probably all run into. Buy a net or fishing rod from
Salty John, find a nice stretch of water and fish away. The fish range
from little carps to sharks to giant squids (which are worth 9000 or
more experience). You’ll have to beat the fish to death, then you can
treat it like ranger meat – can be salted, cooked or eaten raw. The
squids don’t turn into Calamari rings. Fishing nets seem to pull up
smaller fish than poles, but you can get more than one at a time, and
also various random items, like puzzles, trash, and potions. It’s
something interesting to do while waiting for the Atlantis or Lizette, or
while just chatting

Tinuviel's comments:
Giant squids can stack quite a bit and are very popular kills, so if you're
not able to kill it yourself, shout out and let the higher levels know where
it is.  It seems that some areas are easier to fish in than others for those
with low ability, so keep poking around to find new spots as your ability
goes up. There are many different kinds of fish, and some sharks as well,
which can do a fair amount of damage to a newbie, so be careful.  You
can stockpile fish for ranger wolves or sell it to Dermott in Tantallon or at
any shop that buys meat.  Rangers can make their own fishing poles with
sinew and a beam.As your ability goes up, you generally catch things a
lot faster.  At 100, I usually get a tug very soon after casting my line or
tossing my net.

Draconan:
Handy ability for free food.  'do cast net,pull net' will net you lots of 
fish quickly.  A neat trick if you are just raising the ability and have 
found a good spot is to not kill the fish, they will go back in the water 
and the spot will not run out of fish.

Folding

Tinuviel's comments:
This is basically origami which you can do with parchment from Redcliff
(on Infidian).  There is an NPC there which gives lessons that gives you
some initial ability, and then gives you paper to practice with.  You can
go back for further lessons.  You can 'smooth' or 'unfold' the parchment
to fold it again, though after a few uses it becomes so creased all you
can do is ball it up and throw it at someone.

Draconan:
Very fast ability to raise.  I recommend saving your practice parchment 
until you are already high skill otherwise you will just waste it.

Languages

From Rhynst's Newbie Guide:
The Languages don’t have much practical use, but certain areas and
quests and items require proficiency in various languages to understand.
If you need a boost in a certain language, ask a helpful mage to cast
magic mouth or comprehend languages on you, or get the ring of tongues
from the Academy. Humans generally end up with 100 or almost 100 in all
languages, Orcs are bad with Elvish, and vice versa, and so on. Your
languages go up with intelligence and wisdom, and funnily enough, deaths.
Therefore, an elf who dies a lot can even have 100 Orcish.

Tinuviel's comments:
The reason languages go up with deaths is because your stats drop a point
with death, but your language abilities don't.  Therefore you can continue
boosting your language abilities further by dying and readvancing your
intelligence and wisdom.  If you really want a character with maximum
languages through this method, start with a level 1, advance wis and int to
2, die, advance wis and int to 2, die, rinse, repeat until max.  This is a
good time to find interesting ways to die, like jumping into mine shafts and
out of trees.

Mining

The combined knowledge of Snowfolk guild members, founders of the Northern Miners' Association of Anguish

Intro

Mining is a great source of gems, minerals, and metals, which artificers can use just like the components they collect across the countryside. It also is a surprisingly good source of experience for a non-combat ability, up to 30k an hour, if not more. All it requires is a pick, sp, and patience.

As there are two related and neighboring areas referred to as Iceforge but some important distinctions between them, in this guide I refer to the older section (which goes through the mountain) as Iceforge tunnels, and the newer area (which includes the Bawdy Miner and the smith) as the Iceforge expansion.

Equipment

Picks can be found in a few different areas, some without any killing required, and often can be found at Elmor's as well.

You can buy picks in the Iceforge expansion. The mithril pick gives +10 to mining, but requires a higher strength to wield than most other picks (12).

Some popular free picks are:
Ivory pick (from Cave Orc area west of Snowfolk guild)
A mining pick (Iceforge expansion)
Shiny mining pick [+15 to mining] (Iceforge tunnels)

You can kill various dwarves to get picks as well, including in the old dwarven mines, which ironically do not support this type of mining. If you have a weapon called a pick or mining pick, and it doesn't seem to work, odds are you're just in an area that can't be mined.

Bonuses can also be had from the helmet and boots from Iceforge tunnels.

Happily, you can now purchase the helmet in the Iceforge expansion, so the +10 is available even to those who can't figure out the miniquest. You may also find a helmet in the expansion's mines sometimes.

A light source is strongly recommended, though it is possible to mine in the dark. Note that the steel mining helmet, in addition to giving a +10 bonus to mining, has a bit of fire gem in it so provides light as well.

Where to mine

Once you're all equipped, you need to find an area which has mining enabled. Note that of the many underground, cave, and tunnel areas, only a few are minable at time of this writing:

Iceforge (the older tunnels and the newer expansion)
Yeti Caves
Shadow Elf Caves
Storm Dragon
Anakim
Eagle Clan (one room I've found so far, might be more?)
Drow caverns
Riognach tunnels (underground forest)

Players are hopeful that more cave/tunnel areas will continue to have mining enabled!

Areas to monitor in the future:

Manspider caves
Orc caves (way up north)
Magic cave (by Quildar's)
Orc king's mountain palace
Troll's den
Dwarven Mines
Star caverns
Mithril mountain (zombie miners)
Alton's caverns
Rodentid area
Blor's hideout
Ravel tunnels
Mt. Kresh

(two older areas have been retro-fitted for mining, so there is hope for others!)

HOW-TO TIPS

When you are first getting started at mining, try different rooms until you find a vein. Finding veins will be your main source of scoring ability points, since you're too unskilled to successfully mine specific veins. Once you have a few ability points, or if you are using something that gives a bonus to ability, mine "easy" veins until they're gone. Easy veins tend to be those that aren't real valuable: coal, lead, tin, iron, limestone, etc.

You'll notice as you get better that you're able to mine the much more appealing veins such as platinum, mithril, sapphire, opal, etc. The ability increases very rapidly at first, slows down when you're in the 60's, and then really starts to crawl in the 80's. There is a level cap of 5/level, so if you haven't advanced inmining for a long time, that might be the problem. For low level characters, it is extremely difficult to get any ability points at all. If you are able to dual wield shiny picks and wear a helmet, you will have a +40 bonus, which seems to help.

A notable exception is the dwarf, who has a natural mining ability which makes it much easier to start mining, and less tiresome (costs less sp).

Mining costs sp and gives experience. Most people lie down, smoke, and drink while mining to try to keep sp up. I think this really adds to the flavor, especially if you start making up goofy mining songs like Snowfolk do :)

While lying down, be cautious. Wandering cave-rats in Iceforge are aggressive.

As you succeed in getting bits out of the wall, you build up piles in your inventory which can be separated and combined. The more difficult veins (rarer materials) give more experience than easy ones. It is possible to get 30k exp (if not more) in one hour just by mining. Veins, once fully mined, take some time to reset. In general it seems that if platinum was found in a room during a particular reboot, it will likely be found there again after resetting. You can sell piles to the smith in Iceforge expansion or to the artificer shop. I recommend the latter because the materials are then available for your fellow players to purchase and use.

CAVE-INS

Cave-ins are a serious thing because they cause damage to anyone in the room (around 70 hp) and can cause players to be trapped in rooms on the other side of the cave-in. You can most definitely die from a cave-in. They also block the room for a while, thus cutting off access to desirable veins, as most of the unstable rooms are the ones with difficult veins of rare materials. You can dig the rubble to help clear the cave-in, which seems to take some combination of digging and waiting. As noted in 'help mine' causing a cave-in deliberately to trap, hurt, or kill another player could constitute player attacking.

LOTS of warning is given before a cave-in occurs. It begins with messages about the walls being unstable. At this point, you can 'reinforce walls' with wooden beams (cut by a ranger) and a hammer. How successful you are at reinforcing the walls depends on how high your mining ability is. Keep reinforcing until you can't, sometimes it takes more than just once. When mining, you can 'stop' at any time, and it is wise to do this when given ANY messages about the instability of the room. The Iceforge tunnels have no unstable rooms, so it is recommended for those new to mining. Don't get this confused with the Iceforge expansion, which has many rooms which will cave in when mined by the unskilled.

Pottery

Rhynst:
Pottery is gained from moulding things from clay. The clay can be
obtained from Hopkins’ area. You can mould all sorts of things,
‘crush’ it, and start again. Every bit of clay can be used several
times before it dries up and becomes useless.

Tinuviel's comments:
Clay can now also be purchased in Gemynd, making it really easy
to raise this mostly-useless ability.  It would be really nice for this
to have a use someday, maybe by making jars / bottles or something
which hold larger doses of medicine than empty beer bottles?

Draconan:
A mostly useless skill, easily raised using clay from the hobby shop in 
Gemynd.  With high skill you can make some items that can be installed 
into player houses on the pottery wheel in Shieldhand.  It is expensive 
and near impossible to not screw up some aspect of it.

Shieldhand Pottery

Examples

This is a perfectly-shaped urn made of clay. It is large, of relatively middling height for its size, and possesses a cylindrical shape. Having a look at its base, you see that it was created by Kivrin. You see a couple of curls of excess clay on it. On its surface, there is an image of an adventurous elephant. It adds some aesthetic value to the urn. A layer of salmon pink underglaze is smudged over the image, obscuring it. The urn reflects light in all directions brilliantly, but sporadic royal blue glazing over it makes it look amateurish.

This is a perfectly-shaped vase made of clay. It is medium-sized, of relatively middling height for its size, and possesses a double-curved shape. Having a look at its base, you see that it was created by Kivrin. You see a couple of curls of excess clay on it. On its surface, there is an image of a wolf. It adds some aesthetic value to the vase. The vase looks a little dull, but a nice velvet purple glazing covers it to give a pretty finish.

This is a grotesquely ugly urn made of clay. It is enormous, of relatively tall height for its size, and possesses a double-curved shape. Having a look at its base, you see that it was created by Aule. Excess lumps of clay somewhat mar its appearance. The urn looks a little dull, and sporadic forest green glazing over it makes it look amateurish.

This is a grotesquely ugly vase made of clay. It is small, of relatively stout height for its size, and possesses a curved shape. Having a look at its base, you see that it was created by Kivrin. You notice some excess bumps of clay on it. The vase looks a little dull, and sporadic velvet purple glazing over it makes it look amateurish.

This is a perfectly-shaped vase made of clay. It is large, of relatively stout height for its size, and possesses a double-curved shape. Having a look at its base, you see that it was created by Poldara. You see a couple of curls of excess clay on it. On its surface, there is a regular pattern of geometric shapes. It was not a great effort by the artist. The vase reflects light with a lovely hue, but sporadic velvet purple glazing over it makes it look amateurish.

Prospecting

Rhynst:
Prospecting goes up incredibly slowly and is incredibly brain numbingly
boring. You raise it by finding Dubo near the ranger camp, getting a
prospecting pan and spending hours sitting around waiting for gold –
rather like a real prospector, I’d imagine.

Tinuviel's comments:
I enjoy raising mostly-useless abilities, but this one is truly the most
painful.  It's best done when you need to sit around healing hp/sp
(perhaps before you go back to mining) and best done while you do
something in another window or read a book, typing 'prospect' every
couple of minutes.  Definitely do not expect to get rich doing this.  I'm at
34 for this ability after spending hours at it.  I haven't had much luck with
the rivers in Dubo's area, but rather in the northern rivers closer to
Snowfolk guild.  You can prospect on Infidian, too :)

Draconan:
This ability is best raised when no one else is.  Search the rivers north of 
ranger camp until you have searched them all or have found either the mother 
lode or rooms that yield grains of gold.  The mother lode gives 3 points for 
finding it, and after 70ish prospecting the reasonable method for raising 
prospecting (also means you get either 3 or 0 gain per boot).  at low skill 
dotimes 100 prospect in the rooms that give grains or where the mother lode 
was, the more gold you find the more gain you get towards raising the ability.
There also seems to be a very diminishing return for rooms, once you are over 
40ish you will find that you get 1 point for initially finding rooms that yield 
grains but may get nothing more from the room even if you prospect it until it 
is down to tiny amounts or no gold left.  The gold seems to have a splatter 
effect in that there is a spot where the majority of gold is then as you get 
away from that spot you get less and less until you get nothing.

Seduction

Rhynst:
Seduction is raised when being…affectionate to various orcs in
Drakhyra. There’s no real use for it, but while your tank’s busy buying
lambs at the tavern, you might as well have some fun with the dancing
girl, eh? It goes up pretty quickly.

Tinuviel's comments:
This one seems a lot more useful for female characters, as apparently
Drakhiya orcs are strictly heterosexual, and all the guards are male.  
If you get friendly enough with them, you can sneak into some places.
Just like real life, this works better if you start slow before working up to
the heavy petting ;)

Draconan:
Useless for males, a novelty for females.  males can raise it safely by 
caressing pretty much any female orc in Drak, usually dotimes 100 caress 
dancer is easiest (can also follow back to her house and manually fondle her 
mother at the same time to speed it up a bit).  Females can flirt with guards 
but it is not so safe, you need to start small and work your way up, you get 
too heavy too fast and they will attack you  (risk and reward I guess)

An Introduction to Seduction

Seduction is an easily obtained, trainable ability that only works in the desert orc city of Drakhiya. It is not of any grand utility, but it does have some useful effects, can be raised quickly, and is a fun diversion from the usual business of running around and killing things.

It has to be said that seduction is significantly more useful for female characters than male ones, given that Drakhiya is a city dominated by male orcs and serpentari who are all resoundingly heterosexual. As a male character, the best you’re going to get out of the whole business is full clothes-ripping seduction of the desert orc nurse, who will thereafter bind your wounds for you if you go into the hospital while injured. Female characters can seduce the doctor for the same effect and can also seduce any and all of the guards into allowing them into whatever they’re guarding, which essentially grants the seductress the run of the city. Since much of Drakhiya contains some decent loot for low-level characters and the effect of the seduction lasts for as long as those specific guards remain alive, this can be a fairly lucrative sideline. And who doesn’t want to be happily greeted as they walk the streets?

Seduction is performed by simply doing “affection” emotes at the target of your romantic aspirations. Such commands as kiss, fondle, grope and lick all work, as do (for those who aren’t interested in the whole sticky business and just want to cuddle) hug, caress, and love. Additionally, bathing with someone and soaping them also counts as a seduction attempt. There is no perceptible difference in the effects of emotes (any one will do - Drakhiyans respond exactly the same to groping as caressing and don’t value variety).NPCs will respond depending on your seduction ability and a heavy dose of randomness, and will either show disinterest or will start emoting affectionately back. Be warned – continuing your advances in the face of clear and repeated disinterest can cause the situation to become quite intense. If things start to turn sour then, as with many such things, it’s best to back off, have a smoke, and try your luck elsewhere. If things go well, then you’ll get to the stage of your clothes being torn off, a clear sign that you have successfully seduced your target and presumably get up to the sort of things that simply can’t be rendered in ASCII on a family MUD. Typically, 30-50 successful emotes lead to overall success (‘help dotimes’).

The run-of-the-mill population of Drakhiya is easier to seduce than the professionals (or, more to the point, seductibility appears to be based on level), so it’s best to start with the various wandering serpentari and desert orcs before moving on to guards and medical staff. Getting your first few points can be quite challenging, and you may end up dishearteningly being cursed roundly wherever you go, but after a little bit of practice you should be able to seduce the hoi polloi with little more than tying up your shoelaces and can move on to the more difficult targets.

There are a couple of items that can help with your seduction efforts – the gauzy veil and the harem pants both provide a bonus to the ability. However, both of these items are held by NPCs. Since killing NPCs in Drakhiya makes you a criminal and limits the advantages of seduction (the guards will attack the sexiest of criminals), they’re best obtained from a shop or through the aid of a friend with a more hard-edged approach to Tantallon-Drakhiya relations.

Thrown weapon

Tinuviel's comments:
This is an actual useful combat-related ability which you can also advance
by playing darts at Ranor's Pride (Infidian, just south of Gemynd).  It caps
per reset, so you'll have to keep going back.

Draconan:
Can be raised by throwing thrown weapons at your opponents or by using the 
dart board at Ranor's Pride on Infidian.  Use 'dotimes 25 pluck darts,throw 
dart at dartboard,throw dart at dartboard,throw dart at dartboard' if you are 
lazy or you can make a pluck darts alias and throw dart at dartboard alias if 
you are impatient.  Caps at 4 per reset (going from 0 to 1 does not count) so 
will take 25 trips or less if you throw boomers and other things in between.

Tossing

Rhynst:
Tossing is from the fun dwarf/chicken/cow etc tossing game down
in Scythe camp. It’d appear strength and dexterity and timing govern
how well you toss the critters. Try it out, it’s a bid of sadistic fun.

Tinuviel's comments:
You can now also get a long-tailed toy to toss around.  It can be
found in a farm on Gemynd and sometimes Plekt the packrat has
one in his stash.  It is still much faster to raise at Scythe camp,
though.

Draconan:
Another skill with no practical use.  Long tailed toy is good at low 
skill but at higher skill Scythe games is faster (and more interesting)

Weaving

Rhynst:
Weaving actually can be raised in three ways. First, find Fae in
Arcadia, who will teach you the basics of weaving – up to 29 skill.
Then, the slow way to raise weaving further is by mending fishing
nets with fids. Otherwise, get spider silk from the freaky spider area
and weave rings out of it. There’s a possibility that weaving ability
actually makes some Drowgar spells better – those that involve
weaving, like spider armour and spider pack. When you have ample
silk, this skill goes up quickly – the problem is getting hands on the
silk in the first place – the area producing it has a maximum level
requirement.

Tinuviel's comments:
There are a couple new ways to raise this now.  You can weave the
grass from Gwot's place on Infidian into bracelets and mats and other
things.  You can also pick flowers in Gemynd to weave into circlets,
bracelets, and cloaks.

Draconan:
Can be used to make fishing mats, is needed to mend fishing nets and 
is rumoured to help with mages repair bola spell (though no solid evidence 
on that yet, also no harm in raising just in case).  You can raise by 
repairing nets up to 7 fairly easy, never seen mending nets raise it past 7 
though.  spider silk is good if you are level 7 or lower or know a level 7 
or lower.  Other means would be grass from Gwot's area Flowers from Gemynd 
and shearing sheep in Ray's area up north.