IoK Preface
[Written by Magnos, edited by Ryuji]

Island of Kesmai was the predecessor to Legends of Kesmai. It was a text based game (Legends is text based too, but has graphical enhancements. It uses the same code as IoK) that was played mostly through Compuserve in the 80's and early 90's until it was replaced with the Legends of Kesmai.

Although the two games are similar, Island of Kesmai keeps it's mystique from the "extras" it had implemented that were removed from LoK. The Basic Game had a few things that aren't present in todays Kesmai, things like the Javelin and Concussion balls. The game originally continued the land of Kesmai, which was just the surface and it's dungeons. But later, new lands were implemented.

When the AG (Advanced Game) was added to IoK, there were only 2 lands in the Basic Game, Axe Glacier and Kesmai. With the introduction of the 2 AG lands (Torii and Shukumei was added later), the size of the game was doubled! Something most Legends players would like to see happen <G>. There were only 2 portals to the Advanced Game, one in Axe Glacier (where the Underkingdom portal resides today) and one on -4 Kesmai which has now become a portal to Oakvael.

With the opening of the AG, many of the high level players flocked to the new lands in search of challenge and glory. So many of them left that it was hard to find anyone above level 15 left in the BG. Over time this changed however, and high level characters were present in both segments.

The rest of the game had gone through some changes, and looked a little different from what it does now.

Kesmai was always the very first land. At one point it had 7 dungeon levels, but they were taken out and new lands were added. Oakvael, which was the last BG land to be added, had it's portal just north east of the Sage's house in Kesmai town. Before Ironbar, and his Broadsword forging skills, Smokey the bear roamed the eastern-most surface wielding a very powerful shovel and before Ydnac, there was a drake.

Leng, the desert land, was much different from todays version. The rift that separates the portal and the town was not present and instead was a huge, and very dangerous valley. This made getting to Leng town very tough. Sometime during IoKs time, the Leng rift was formed and the ninja lair was introduced.

Axe Glacier has not changed much, if at all. Over the transformation from text to graphics, some things were fixed. Quicksilver was a character that was constantly in Axe. No it's not because he was a die-hard addict. He was a Kesmai created character that stayed in the land alway.. if no one was in Axe Glacier, the game would crash and so the legend of Quicksilver was born.

Oakvael was implemented much later to bring a mid-level player land, easier than Leng but tougher than Axe or Kesmai. Deep in the Undead level, there were no Lich Twins. Instead, there was one very mean lich that was very tough.

There was no Underkingdom. So where did the most skilled and advanced players go? Well later, Kesmai implemented a set of lands that were harder than anything that LoK has ever seen. The Advanced Game was born. It was comprised of 4 lands, separated from the BG by a one way portal located in Kesmai -4 and the upper region of Axe Glacier, where the Underkingdom Portal resides today. Taking this portal was not a decision to be made lightly. Once you crossed that dimension, you could not return, this was important since you could only have one character per account.

(Island of Kesmai was available on Compuserve, GEnie, National Videotex Network, and Delphi.)