The Elder Wulf Chronicles

The Elder Wulf Chronicles:
Shadow History of the Way of the Wulf

In the beginning; when AOL did not exist, when the Internet belonged to the Pentagon and the scientists, when the first personal computer with MS-DOS was made to challenge Apple, the leader of this fledgling industry, and when 300 baud was the standard, the first online multiplayer game became available to the public.
That game, on CompuServe Information Services, was called DecWars. It was a fast-action team game of capturing planets and destroying the opposing team’s planets and ships. And it was all text because that was all there was back in that distant past. In this game of DecWars permanent teams were formed and one team rose above the others. That team, named after their leader, Beowulf, was called Wulf.

Sometime prior to my arrival in early 1983 a new and improved game based on DecWars was introduced. It was called MegaWars and team rivalries and challenges flourished.
There where three dominant teams in those days, Wulf, TK’s (True Klingons), and Dog Team. There were many wars fought back and forth between these and others, but the dominance of one team is attested to by the name of the virtual trophy which, like the Stanley Cup, would be passed on to the reigning team. That trophy was called the Wulfshead Trophy.
When I arrived the members of Wulf whose names I can remember (it’s been 15 years) were SirGab (also called Lobo) who was the Captain, Smoker, Widowmaker (also called D!), and Neutron. Since 5 players played at a time on each team I am obviously forgetting some names.

In 1983 Wulf decided to expand by forming a Wulf A team and a Wulf B team with the B team being a training team for Wulf A. I was made captain of Wulf B and the others I remember were Pax, Kya, Fafhrd and Khayyam. Khayyam went on to fame in MegaWars III and infamy in Island of Kesmai as a LK’er (lawful-killer) named Orc. During this time I was also invited to join Wulf A and fought in at least one war with the A team.
Then next year or so is unknown to me because back then my wife, seeing monthly CompuServe bills of over $1,000 a month presented me with an ultimatum. “It’s me or that modem!” she said. Since I couldn’t possibly pay these bills without her paycheck I had no choice but to comply.
When next I returned, perhaps a year or so later, team play had declined and only an occasional Wulf, TK, or Dog Team member could be seen. A further decline occurred when CompuServe decided to put a surcharge on the game and player boycott ensued.

Within a few months a new, but slower, version of MegaWars came online without the surcharge, but the game just never seemed to catch on again as it once had.
There was also a MegaWars II, but it never caught on and I never played it. MegaWars III came along and is, I believe, still a popular game today. It is the game upon which Kesmai’s Stellar Emperor is based. However, Wulf never became an active team in MWIII though Fafhrd, Khayyam, and I played on other teams. Khayyam lead a winning team and became Emperor of the Galaxy and I played on one and became a senator or whatever they call the members of the winning team.
Wulf re-emerged as a team, now called a Guild, when Island of Kesmai premiered on CompuServe in 1985. Wulf was the third guild ever formed in Kesmai and the only one still in existence. At one time, it functioned as an ad-hoc police force, hunting down LK-ers, and as a rescue team to reclaim lost deathpiles in the most dangerous areas.
Wulf members I remember from these early days on the Island (the Island of Kesmai with its four dungeon levels was all there was then) were Smoker, SirGab, Kya, Pax, Widowmaker, and Fafhrd.

For the next few years I would play for a few months, run out of money ($12.50/hour for 1200 baud) and quit for months. I ran a knight named Voltan.wulf, an MA named Tokai.wulf, a thief named Dark.wulf, a wizard named Ice.wulf, and a thaumaturge named Palur.wulf. At one time my thaum was number two on the overall scoreboard behind only the great Morpheus who went on to become a Kesmai game designer. I don’t have many personal “Firsts” but I have one “Last”. I was the last player to solo the dragon (there was only one then, you now call her Daisy) before the Xerox bug made drake potions and large Hit Points available to many.

Over the next few years (as new lands were discovered and Kesmai gained, and then lost, 3 new levels to its dungeon) many wonderful people joined Wulf and I do them a disservice by not remembering each and every name. But Lone.wulf, Hudakai.wulf, and Lightning.wulf stand out in my mind and, most of all, a lady named Lynn D’Leslie, the great mapper who went on to become closer to the heart of Kesmai than any before or since. From this point on others will know more of the history than I. Wulf would fade and re-emerge over the years, but it never disappeared.
I have now (1998) returned to Kesmai, now in its new, glorious and inexpensive reincarnation, but I did not need to join Wulf. I have been Wulf for 15 years and I’ll be one until the day I die.
Hail Wulf!

There traditions among modern warriors for the last man still standing to open a special bottle put aside long ago to drink a toast to fallen comrades. Then, if anyone will listen, the old-timer tells tales of long forgotten battles and friends who now live only in his memory.
As best I can determine, there are only five active players who walked the Island of Kesmai in its first year of 1985-1986, four of whom are members of the Wulf team. I have also learned that the files now in the Multiplayer Games forum library will not be transferred to the Gamestorm forum on CompuServe nor, I would assume, to any other repository. Because of this I’ve decided to pass on to the current and future players of Legends of Kesmai some of what I can remember of those early days. I am not a great storyteller, so I won’t try to put this in the form of a tale, but merely the ramblings of this fading warrior.

The current game of Legends of Kesmai is a direct descendant of the game Islands of Kesmai which, I believe, began in late 1985. I did not arrive on the Island until mid-1986. By that time, the fiercest creature in the game, the dragon that lived in the depths of the dungeon under Kesmai, had been killed and soloed. I know that the first kill of the dragon (also called the wyrm) was February of 1986 and that two of greatest in the game, Warrior and Prophet were in that party. I have a vague memory that Warrior was also the first, later that year, to solo the beast, but I’m not sure of that. Modern players should realize that the creature you call Daisy today looks like that dragon of old and resides in the same lair, but is but a shadow of the beast that once lived there. Then consider that these players were doing battle with her while wearing plate armor and carrying perhaps 65-90 hit points.

When I entered the game for the first time in mid-1986 the Island of Kesmai was the only land there was. There was no Axe, Leng, or Oakvael. The drake had not yet been born and the 4 levels of the Kesmai dungeon were all there was. I wandered around town for a while, found the entrance to the dungeon and went down to check it out. I managed to kill an orc or two and found some nice chain armor and a sword. Donning these treasures, I went back to town to sell the other trinkets I’d picked up. As I walked around and listened to other players talk, I learned how to look at them. I was amazed to see that those who spoke with the most authority were clad in bear fur and carried shovels! With visions of grave robbers in my head I clung tightly to my shiny new sword and thanked my lucky stars that I didn’t have to try to survive with only a shovel as a weapon.
Fortunately, before I could hurt myself too badly, some old friends found me. Having been a member of Wulf team in the game Megawars, I came off the dock already a member of the third guild formed on the Island. I believe the first guild was NAG and the second TAG, but I may have those reversed. At any rate, these legends of Megawars and Kesmai; Smoker, Lobo, Pax, D.wulf, and Kya took me under their wing and explained the strange world I’d entered.

They told me that the fur they were wearing was the fur of a bear they called Smokey. If one started a fire in the forest east of town this bear would arrive and began to chastise you for starting fires. He would then begin to beat on you with his shovel. If you survived and overcame him, his fur gave protection against fire and his shovel was a +4 weapon of striking which also seemed to stun opponents more often than any other.

Of course I was much too inexperienced then to be taken on such a hunt, but the first goal I remember having in the game was to wear that fur and carry that shovel!

I remember constantly rolling new characters in those days. This is because there were some very basic differences between that game and today’s game. Consider these:

• The interlace was pure text. You had your terminal program emulate a cursor control terminal like a VT-52 so it didn’t have to redraw the screen each time you moved, but all you saw were the ASCII symbols like [ ] to represent a wall.
• There was no skill system. All your abilities depended on your experience level.
• If you died, you lost 25% of your experience.
• There was no ancestoring
• If eaten by the dragon, your character ceased to exist. There was no underworld.
• There were no drake potions. Hit points lost to death were lost forever.
• You were paying $6.95-$12.95/hour in 1986 dollars for the privilege of enduring this.

Today’s amulets and rings of fire protection and power robes did not exist, so without Smokey fur, my first wizard killed himself with fire at least twice in his first week. Also a wizard, of course, could not wear metal armor while using magic and only a very few players had the precious dragon scales. Thus a wizard would have to:
- remove plate
- chant
- cast
- wear plate

Needless to say, I also died often, while looking like an idiot standing there holding my armor in my hand. Finally though, I was of some service to Smokey hunters. I would remove my plate and have a balm in my free hand. I’d cast a fireball in the woods and quickly don my plate and take another balm out of my sack. While Smokey beat on me and I drank balms without pause, my companions hacked at that giant bear. After a number of such occasions I was rewarded with the fur and, later, with the shovel. I had achieved my first dream.

The next goal, of course, was to work my way deeper and deeper into the dungeon. It took months, but finally I was hunting with the big guys on the dreaded Level 4! By this time, of course, I’d learned of the next two items I coveted. The really big players not only wore the skin of the horrible dragon, but they carried an amazing weapon to augment their trusty shovel. This was a mighty hammer which, when thrown, not only did great damage to the foe, but miraculously returned to your hand each time! Unfortunately, the altar on which this incredible weapon was found was in the same lair as the dragon.
There was no getting around it. If I wanted to have that weapon or wear the dragon scales that protected better than plate and did not prevent casting, I’d have to start joining the dragon hunts.

I remember a party, usually informal, would begin to gather and the word would spread. “A dragon hunt is forming!” There was no worry about whether or not the dragon was “in” since it was killed so seldom. All of us had Smoky fur to protect us from the wyrm’s fiery breath and most of us wielded shovels as our weapon. However, since the beast often flew around the lair attacking anyone unlucky enough to have been knocked from the group, our same-hex weapon was often idle. Generally, by this time, there would be one or two in the group who had already been rewarded on such a hunt with the might hammer, then called Thor or Mjolnar after the hammer of Norse legend, and could contain to hit her when she moved.
One player, often the strongest of the group and wearing dragon scales, would be the bait. He would go in a few hexes ahead of the group with a balm in each hand. One of the early superstitions was that the beast would be incensed to see him wearing a relative and would concentrate on him more for that reason. The rest of the group would then inch ahead, careful to all move one hex per round and to wait for all to catch up before moving again. It is almost impossible today for me to recall the terror and trembling that slow trip across the dragon’s moat inspired. The battle with the beast raged as wild and as deadly as with the greatest of today’s beasts with players knocked to the ground and into the water and often with one or more sent to oblivion by being eaten by the dragon. When the beast was finally dead one of the party would pick up the corpse and take it to the tailor, it having been decided ahead of time who would receive the reward of the scales. Those surviving, if strong enough, would then move to either one of the western corners of the lair and, slipping through a break in the rocks, enter the moat to the sub chamber where the mighty Mjolnar might be found. The current chamber was not there then, it was a moat with a platform about 4x4 hexes to the west of it. On one of these hexes was an altar and on that altar was the blue-glowing hammer. I’m trying to recall what inhabited this platform, I remember there were many, many creatures there and death and stun filled the air. The moat was also filled with Piranha who nibbled at you constantly and might well finish you off if you were wounded badly.
Again, many died here. The only good thing about this place was that you would not be eaten and, if you died in the moat, would not be stripped. I still remember the first Mjolnar I ever held in my hand. I picked it up and was killed by lightning the next round. A Guild-mate, Pax.wulf, had hit me by mistake. He did, though, give me the weapon afterward. By the way, there were no character-tied weapons then.

The first dragon solo I ever witnessed occurred when a dozen or so of us began inching forward across the moat and this insane character came running in, jumped in the moat and began swimming toward the beast. We shouted at this fool that the dragon was in and he should try to join us on this hex before it was too late, but he ignored us. The wyrm, of course, pounced on him and we could hardly watch in fear of the coming carnage. Somehow though the battle went on and on. We’d “Look at” this fellow and he’d be near death one time, but then healed the next and the dragon’s health kept going down until finally the message that the dragon was slain! We were in awe of this mad adventurer whose name was death itself. We had met the mighty Morpheus!

My own fortunes in the game went up and down, but generally upward and I enjoyed playing with some of the greatest names in the game. I hunted with Morpheus, Shai.halud, and Prophet and my fellow Wulves until the spring of 1987. By July of 1987 my fortunes in the game had risen as my fortunes outside of the game diminished. I had the 9th and 21st highest characters overall and 8 of the top 50 characters were members of the Wulf Guild. I am also uploading a copy of a July 1987 scoreboard in another file. But, outside the game, I suffered the fate of so many of warriors of the early days of Kesmai, the dreaded credit-card melt down.

Thus ended the first chapter of my, thus far, 12 year long odyssey in the lands of Kesmai. In the summer of 1987, after I’d left the game, Kesmai had a “live” conference of players which I did not attend. Afterwards I received a call from Lynn De’Leslie whose name you must recognize if you ever played IOK. Lynn contributed more to the knowledge of the game and the compilation of that knowledge than any player before or since. I was amazed when Lynn informed me that I had been chosen as one of the first 10 inductee’s to the Island’s Hall of Fame. I’m almost embarrassed to see my name up there with Prophet, Warrior, Morpheus, Shai.halud and the others. If I had any particular skill it was at making the right friends, being in the right guild, and helping others whenever I could. Be that as it may, I’m glad I was still here to pass along some of this history to today’s warriors.

I kept my two highest characters, Voltan.wulf and Palur.wulf alive enough to avoid being erased by Winter.night and in my next spurt of playing before the next Visa meltdown managed to get Palur.wulf to #2 on the scoreboard behind Morpheus. Once again, I owed most of that to my fellow wulves who helped me all along the way. It was during this time that the Drake was discovered in its first home at the far eastern end of Kesmai island. The discovery that its potion would raise hps and restore con caused in instant bidding war with one that I know of going for 250k. Not long after this a bug was discovered whereby a character put a pile of items at their feet and continuously put one in their sack and took one out of their sack while a thief tried to steal from them. What would happen, though not every time, was that the thief got the bottle, but the original did not disappear. Thus the name given to this phenomenon, “The Xerox Bug”. Before long Xerox parties were going on all over the island and the once precious fluid was being used as balm by those in the know. Hit points climbed and climbed until Morpheus had over 700 and Shai.halud had over 400. There were quite a few of us with over 200. Remember, until this, a big knight might have 110 hps. The unfortunate consequence of this was that there was suddenly no challenge left for many players. The race to get to the dragon to solo her got so intense that I’d set my alarm, on a work day, for 3 a.m. and get up just to try to get her alone. Then back to bed after the fight.

One step Kesmai took to deal with this problem was to put a cap on hit points. It came at a time that left Morpheus with his 700+, Shai with his 400+, and many of us with 200+. Shai became so angry over this cap that turned himself evil, killed the drake and then raised her in Kesmai town. Back then one could raise the critters; the reason he turned himself evil was because raised critters took on the alignment of the character who raised them. The carnage was not a pretty sight.

Later efforts to challenge the now supercharged characters led to levels 5-7 of the Kesmai dungeon being created (they’re gone now) and then to the creation of the Advanced Game. Over the years much has changed. Morpheus became a Kesmai game designer and then went on to other pursuits. The long time players disappeared one by one until I believe I am the last man standing.
Well, it’s time for my nap before taking my blue-glowing walker and tottering down into the dungeon once more. It sure is a lot prettier place these days. I hope I didn’t put any of the young folks to sleep with my reminiscences.
Voltan.wulf January 1998

Body of the Wulf
Interim Years: Ah, Death…How I Do Embrace Thee!
By Lightning.wulf

My earliest memories of Kesmai began when I saw an ad in the winter of 1986 in Personal Computing magazine for a new game offered on CompuServe. I read a column, written by Michael Dvorak in Byte magazine, soon after that clinched it for me. I had to kill that dragon!
My first character, rolled in April 1986, was a martial artist named Clubfoot. He was ne'er-do-well and an early victim of an LK-er. Standing in the jewelry shop awaiting my turn at the counter after my first real haul out of the dungeon, my screen flashed the message that would later become an arcane fascination for me:
You Have Died!
You Are Now a Ghost!
As the scoundrel who killed me searched my corpse and "tsked" at the sorry bag of loot he got for his trouble, the paltry amount of experience he gained from my death (back then, lawful killers (as P-K'ers were known) took 25% of the experience of the player they killed), he informed me my best option was to reroll my character since I had so little invested.
Then…from door came the cry: "What do you think you're doing?" To my great pleasure, my killer was killed, summarily stripped and his corpse dumped in a trashcan. Dumping something into a trashcan back then, even a corpse of a player, meant it was gone forever. My champion was a player named Ellegon.wulf, who later, in conference, agreed with my late killer, that it was time to reroll my character. Back in town, he tossed me some gold and the first glower and shield ring I had ever laid eyes on and was gone.

The next character I rolled was a thaumaturge from Mu named Al.buraq. Arabic for "divine lightning," Al.buraq was rolling along rather well until one day on -3, a zoo of salamanders, orcs and hobgoblins besieged him. Inevitable death ensued…my ghost arose and watched as another player named Hudakai swept in the room and dispatched all the critters. In the process, he picked up my corpse, my assorted trinkets and took me to the priest for resurrection. We spent the next few months inseparable partners, a Michigan ag journalist and an Oklahoma body shop owner, slaying critters, killing Smokey together, getting our shovels (the baddest staff weapon in the game) and Smokey the Bearear fur vests (protection from that nasty dragon and sally fire). We also periodically endured the onerous +wife stun ("+" was the ASCII symbol Kesmai used on our displays to denote evil alignment) long-term gaming generally accrued (IOK rates eventually "fell" to $6/hr. at 300 baud).
There was a several month period in which Hudakai, who was a fanatical player, experienced a several-month-long Visa meltdown. During this time, while he paid down his balance he was forced to log on only once a month to keep his accounts active. I was left to my own devices. I fell into the company of a wizard whose trademark was the broom he used to clean up the dragon lair each time she was killed in his presence. He would later climb to greatness as the #1 ranked all-time wizard in the game by thousands of experience points, Vow…, and his partner in crime, a stout-hearted housewife from Toledo, Ohio, who ran the game's greatest thaumaturge, known as Lispa and later, Lyssa. They took me in, sent me maps of the dungeon and generally honed my warrior skills. It was during this time, I ran into Ellegon again and another of his cohort, Ace.wulf, also known as Bishop.wulf. They later told me they liked the person who heedlessly waded into fire, gore and zoos to stand or die. Before long, they, too, were heard to frequently inquire, "Who has Dave's corpse?"
IOK held a live convention in Columbus, Ohio. Here I met other wulves in person, the great Shai.hulud, Morpheus, Lispa, Vow… (who would one day sprout the great thief, Jelerak), the ghods (game designers John Kelton and I don't remember the other guy). It was there that I was recruited for the team. Morpheus impressed all of us with his latest acquisition, a super fast, 1200-baud modem. Ellegon was a longhaired, bearded British computer programmer/game designer who lived in New Jersey and Ace was a fresh-faced college student from Boston. We all met, partied, played and planned.
Soon after the Live Con, some of my newfound friends found me in conference and whispered to me, "Come with us." I entered the game and we quickly and quietly stole over, deep into the woods on the east side of the island. There, all my new teammates were standing around intently doing something…. Lispa handed me a drake potion. "Don't drink it, Dave. Just put it in your sack," she said. Immediately, Jelerak entered my hex, and began rummaging in my sack. The display showed he had a drake potion in his hand. Oh, great, I thought, I get to be Vow's steal dummy. But then Lispa, said to me, "Look in your sack, Dave." There in my sack lay an unstolen drake potion…yet Vow held a drake potion in his hand! Team lore has it the bug was discovered by D!.wulf and Kya.wulf.
We spent the next three nights using the steal-bug (later known as the Xerox bug) to make super characters. I was allowed to tell Hudakai about the bug, since he was being considered for team membership. Between the two of us, we stole and drank and stored enough dp to make super characters. Our thaumaturges each held from 220-230 hit points, while each of us was only a level 10 or 12 character. Once hps increases hit the 220 mark, increases per potion slowed to about 2 hit points per potion, which caused most players to bank large quantities against their deaths rather than to expend them in creating mega-characters.
Our strengthened characters allowed us to become the team we wanted to be. We quickly expunged IOK's LK-ers. Able to wander the dungeons with impunity, we amassed large stores of youth and drake potions and became profligate magic users, now that aging and death were no longer a concern.
Prior to the advent of mega-characters, magic was used sparingly, since magic use aged characters at a much higher rate than they aged normally. Thus spells, such as raisedead, were rarely used because the cost in lost youth was so high. Nevertheless, aging was part of the game. The older one got, a concurrent loss of strength and dexterity ensued. Since skill level was not invented yet, as characters aged, they would begin fumbling weapons they previously wielded with ease. Once a character reached old age, we would begin to experience difficulty with moving around and faced the dreaded heart attack, which would strike our characters and cause them to die permanently. The only way to turn back the hands of time was to quaff a youth potion. To do this, one had to kill the dreaded dragon, which, if it ate you, also caused your character to die permanently.
Soon, however, word of the steal bug spread throughout the game and other super characters grew and multiplied. The ghods, in their wisdom, responded to super characters by bumping up the prowess and hit points of the monsters we faced. They also introduced the Advanced Game. The ultimate challenge was a castle that stood upon a clifftop in the land of Torii. Huge rats, ghosts, formidable MA npcs ranged this castle. Hudakai.wulf again experienced a +wife stun after a meltdown and I took to hunting with Lispa and a gonzo New Yorker who ran an MA named Fizzbum. The three of us would sweep back and forth through Torii and its towers, amassing $1.5M gold each night, split three ways, as well as the attendant experience. The action was so fierce, there was no time for magic except for the occasional heal spell. It was hand-to-hand fighting only, Thor's hammer in one hand, balm in the other.
The members of the Wulf team began to experience more frequent meltdowns at this point and began drifting away, until only Hudakai.wulf and I remained. I continued to hunt with Lispa and Fizz and Hudakai until I had my own Visa meltdown and subsequently and a message flashed across my eyes:
"You Have Died!"
"Your Corpse Has Been Eaten By Your +Wife!"
My characters in this age were a huge Muian thaumaturge named Timber.wulf, a big Illyrian knight named Lightning.wulf, and while I still played, my sole claim to fame, the #1 ranked thief in the game, a Mu-ian named Arctic.wulf. After I joined the Wulf team, I kept Al.buraq around as a banker.
In Life and in Death…Once a Wulf, Always a Wulf!
Lightning.wulf January 1998

The IOK Wulf pack was born sometime in late 1985. I’m not sure of the exact date, because I wasn’t there….yet. I do know that the founders, or most of them, brought the team over to the Island of Kesmai, from MegaWars.
So I guess it’s safe to say the Wulf Guild came to be on CompuServe Information Services. Hudakai.wulf was born much later in the same year…seems like late October. I had stumbled upon Island of Kesmai, and immediately was addicted to the game. Even though, back then, it consisted of a purely ASCII game environment. There, he met and grew to like another player who seemed not much more experienced than I. This character’s handle was Al. buraq. Weird guy up in Lansing, Mich., named Dave Weinstock. He introduced to me the art of dying….on a regular basis. By that I mean…Al.buraq died on a regular basis. I seemed to be able, most of the time, to help him retrieve his goodies. Anyway, he met this group of guys, that called themselves the Wulf team. After a few weeks…they decided to make Dave a Wulf…and after that, they got me into the guild. We built up our chars…and learned how to have multiple accounts since each account could only have one char. After about a year or so…Hudakai had grown to level 17 with well over 200 hps. Not bad for a thaum! ? Fanewgi was a level 16 wizzy.
It was about this time that Kesami brought in the Advanced Games. (AG as it was later known.) I had moved most of my guys over in the AG…and time was rapid flying by. It seems I was playing on the average, about 5 hours a day. I believe the rate back then was $6.00 / hr. Well, to shorten the story, my Visa eventually melted down, the spouse was very angry with me about the card balances…and Kesmai was very quick to hit the DEL key on suspended accounts. Yes…all the big bad Wulfies disappeared. Cut down in their prime.

I had been asked prior to that to be the leader of the pack, since the elder had left the game for much the same reason. I guess it stuck, because when we started reviving the pack, Dave said, "Hey…you are IT!” …and this brings us up to about oh…September I guess. I had found “Legends of Kesmai” on one of the wares groups, downloaded it thinking “kuel! I can play this offline now!” WRONG! Well I found it on Earthkink.com … started playing and sent email to Dave. I believe I called him voice, to get him to join up and play. He and I started looking for some of the ‘old guys’, but to no avail.
Then Dave said, “Oh great leader of the Wulf guild, we need to grow. We need more members."

So here we are, growing … slowly, … but growing. We are not feeling the pains of growing, only the joys of new friendships and partners…
Hudakai.wulf < Now Also Known as....Mahakai on the Bristlebane server >
Legends of Kesmai, First Alpha
January 1998