Tera: la cité des crânes/Manual translation

Tera
Compatible for personal computer

(c) Loriciels, October 1986

First Age: "the City of Skulls"
(Tera the monster)

In a parallel world, lost into time and space, there are the planet Amarande and its neighbor Alfol. The evil actions of Arioch, allied with another unknown demon-prince, ruins Amarande and progressively brings it towards Chaos. How to restore harmony between the three worlds, Technology, Magic and Trascendance? Arioch attacked the crypt of the mythical City of Skulls, a place that is cursed and feared because of its unnamed guardians, but at the same time where the priceless treasures tickle the greed of any adventurer. It is necessary that a motivated party of adventurers reaches and explore the crypt, so that it will deliver its treasures and, above all, its secrets. More tasks, even more difficult, await them! In particular, a quest on Meduz, a bizarre parallel world inhabited by psychic crystals...

The program starts with an introduction that states the story and showing some "key topics". The included sequence of shooting game allows to train with space combat, useful for later chapters.

Once you know the introduction sequence, you can skip it whenever you restart the game by pressing any button a few moments after the title is displayed.

The first thing to do is to ask to the "Game Master" (the computer) to generate a scenario. The worlds, the characters and some key elements are different in every scenario.

How to install Tera

 * Strategywiki note: obsolete details were omitted from this section.

You can save the current game, identified by a three-letters code, and then play further. When you press Q and confirm the command "quit & save", you can keep playing. It is highly recommended to save often "just in case...", especially before the party enters an unknown place! You can have many different save states on the disk.

Creation of the main character
Ten characters controlled by the player can act together to progress towards a goal more or less accessible, depending on the chosen difficulty level.

The main character is created by the player, the other nine by the Game Master.

The computer generates the three main attributes. The points of each of them are split into two secondary attributes, according to the player's choice. You can then improve some attributes by distributing 6 extra points. You just have to press any of the nine letters:

If the final result is unsatisfactory, you have the option to restart the procedure of character creation.

Strength, necessary to effectively handle a sword or an axe, is obviously the main attribute of a warrior. Endurance is useful to absorb hits, vitality to recover after a bad hit. Charisma is essential in any negociation.

Dexterity is a measure of shooting skill and agility rules reflexes (it determines initiative in a bad encounter); these two attributes determine a character's skill to disarm a trapped lock.

Mind power is synonimous of psychic power and mind-reading. For example, if you want to know the attributes and skills of the companions of your character, you should create him/her with enough mind power, or wait until he/she earns it with experience.


 * Strategywiki note: see for some information about intelligence and luck.

Interacting with the "game master"
It is sufficient to type one letter, and the program proposes a command that starts by that letter. If the proposed action corresponds to the player's wish, it is sufficient to press Enter or O (Oui = Yes). Some commands, e.g. H (halte = pause) or N (negociate), have a sub-set of commands. In this case, the program goes back to the main command prompt if the second letter is not confirmed.

Examples: To get your bearings, you have to type H (halte = pause), then C (check the map). H followed by A (accelerate) Enter allows for faster movement, but it still keeps sound active. For many commands that are used very often (H halte/pause, C check map, N negociate, O open door, etc.), the program spares you to press Enter. In order to switch the sound on or off, you can press #.

The full list of commands and sub-commands can be displayed on screen by pressing + or ?.

As in any role-playing game, the result of any attempted action partially depends on randomness; in other words, success rate for an action is higher if the required attribute, if necessary added to a required skill, are at a higher level. Oftentimes, several attempts will be necessary to succeed.

Examples:
 * In order to shoot a crocodile not only you need a shooting weapon, but also a sufficient dexterity ( habileté); if the character has the shooting ( tir) skill, the hit rate will be even higher.
 * If an inscription states that a crystal helps to dispel spirits, and if a priest (who can practice exorcisms) owns a fire gem (the most powerful crystal), then he has the maximum probability to dispel a spirit on his first attempt.
 * In order to pilot a space ship, at least one party member should have that specific skill. The better the pilot, the higher the probability of avoiding the space pirates.

Movement
All movement is controlled by the number pad (it must absolutely be in NUMLOCK status).

In the dungeons, the field of view is what the party sees when they enter the room. Therefore, the view will be different if they enter the same room from a different door. If you press "up", you step forward. If you press "down", you go back to a previous room, but your view will be the opposite of the starting one. The sideways arrows move to the left or right, and at the same time they turn the party by 90 degrees in that direction.

Outside the dungeons, movement is N-S-E-W: north is the up arrow, etc. The field of view is independent from the direction of movement, except if you walk towards a mountain range, that will become visible in the background.

Party members
At the beginnign of the game, the character created by the player is alone and unarmed. He/she should look for a minimum of equipment and some help. It is not enough to meet people that are apparently friendly, you also have to sollicit them, or even persuade them to join using seduction or more mercantile arguments. Some people will remaint indifferent when you sollicit them, but then try at least to obtain some information.

Each one of the nine possible party mebers is very archetypal, that is each of them has a specific skill. As companions travel together, they influence each other and, with the help of experience, they learn new skills from more expert companions, or they improve their own. It is one of the original chracteristics of this game. You have interest in alternating regularly the members of your party, that is limited to four people.

The following are the main attributes and skills of the possible companions:

Bad encounters
Negociation is useless with some locals; you can only fight or flee. Conventional attacks (e.g. close combat, shoot, conjure a spell ) are more or less effective in most instances. On the other hand, on the deeper floors of the dungeons, hits and spells cannot even graze the monsters protected by very powerful wards. You should use more specific actions that are usually without any effect! Mind attacks and magic are tiring for those who use them; keep an eye on the remaining mind power (PM pouvoir mentale).

Space combat
With the numeric pad always on NUMLOCK, press one of the nine buttons corresponding to the portion of space where the enemy spacecraft comes from. If you miss, you can be sure that they will hit you.

Check-up the party
The principle followed in the layout of this software is to display only what the party sees (full screen perspective) for a deeper immersion in the environment. No text (except for the command prompt) is permanently displayed. Nevertheless, the player can dispaly at any moment the check-up of the party by pressing H (halte = pause) followed by I (introspection). The status of each character is given by his/her current and maximum life points (PV = points de vie), current and maximum mind power (PM) and one of the abbreviations OK, HS (hors service = knocked out) ou EM (empoisonné = poisoned). Usually, press any button to return to the main view; in some cases, you have to press specifically Esc.

Commands
(The list can be accessed in-game by pressing ? or +.)