Mossworld is a world you can explore right in your browser. You type a command, press Enter, and read what comes back.

• Go to mossworld.ca.
• Create an account (or sign in). Your user name is your character name.
• You're dropped straight into the world.

You can also use telnet or a mud client like TinTin++:

• not secure: telnet mossworld.ca 4000 (this is insecure because the password is sent in plain-text)
• secure TLS: openssl s_client -connect mossworld.ca:5443 -quiet
• Recommended: use a mud client like TinTin++ (command line unix) or zMUD (windows). They support TLS and have nice features.
• Mudlet, Mushclient and Blightmud are all good modern clients. I think Mudlet is cross-platform.

Anyways, when you get in to Mossworld, the bar (prompt) at the bottom is your command line. On the browser client it shows connected as yourname; click that to open a menu (Settings, Help, Log out). In the telnet/tls/mud client it shows a prompt like “> ”.

You can change your prompt; try typing “help prompt”. In general, you can type “help” for help on game commands.

The first time you enter, Mossworld walks you through making a character — one choice at a time. Just type the letter shown and press Enter:

• a profession — Adventurer, Fighter, Wizard, or Woodsman
• a race — Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, or Cat (each starts at a different age)
• your sex — male, female, other, or leave it blank for now
• an alignment — lawful, neutral, or chaotic
• your bonus stats — Adventurers spread three points where they like; Fighters, Wizards and Woodsmen get a boost to their key ability
• a parting gift — a camping knife, a torch, a magic key, twenty gold coins, a scroll of teleport, or nothing

Then you step into the world. You can review all of it any time with stat.

Rooms join up by the four compass directions:

• north, south, east, west — or just n, s, e, w

If there's no exit that way, the game says so. Some rooms are closed (under construction) and can't be entered yet — you'll be told when you bump into one.

• look (or l) — the current room: its name, description, exits, and what's here
• exits (or ex) — just the exits
• who — who is online right now
• zones — the world's areas

• get item (or take), drop item, inventory (or inv)
• examine item / look item — look closely at something
• wear / wield / offhand / hold / light / remove (or rem), and equipment (or eq) — gear you're using
• coins — get gold, take 3 gold, drop 5 silver (gold, silver and copper)
• donate item — give something to the donation room for others to claim

The full rundown is in All about Items.

• stat (or st) — your character sheet: level, abilities, gold, alignment, and more
• playtime — how long you've played

• sethome — make the current room your home (in the main cities, Mossworld and Mosgaard)
• home — recall to your home
• recall — teleport to the fountain

• say message — speak out loud to everyone in your room
• tell player message — a private message to someone, anywhere in the world
• emote name — act something out: emote wave shows “yourname waves.” (short: me, em)
• channels — your chat channels; join name one, then talk on it with its number, e.g. 1 hello

Set with the set command:

• set verbose on / off — show or hide tutorial/assist hints (off by default)
• (To recolour the game's text, see Colors just below.)

Recolour the game's text with setcolor. Colors apply in the browser and over telnet, and are saved to your character.

A color can be a name (yellow, orchid, cyan — any CSS color name, plus tangoplum and medicalplum), a hex code (#ad7fa8), or three numbers r,g,b (173,127,168).

• setcolor category color — colour a category
• setcolor category off — back to its default
• setcolor — list every category and its current colour
• setcolor list — print your scheme as /setcolor lines to copy, paste, or share

For example: setcolor roomname yellow then setcolor roomdesc medicalplum.

• help — the basic command list
• help topics — extra help topics available to you
• quit (or q) — disconnect

Shaping new rooms and zones needs a builder role. See How to Build, All about Items, and All about Mobiles.