Overview
Larn is a roguelike ASCII-based RPG originally created by Noah Morgan for the UNIX operating system. During the course of its development it was ported to other systems including PC, Amiga and Atari ST.
Story
The protagonist's daughter is ill and the doctor says she has Dianthoritis. The only problem is that the potion required to heal her is located within a volcano filled with monsters.
Gameplay
Larn is a dungeon-crawling RPG involving procedurally generated dungeons, loot, and stats. As players progress down through the levels the monsters get harder and greater in number. Weapons, armours, spells all become more powerful as well.
The player character is an "@", the monsters are all characters such as "q" or "L", and items in the world are all letters or symbols, such as * for gold.
Throughout the game players will find lots of weapons, armor, rings, gold coins, gems, and spell books that can be used, sold or read. Spell books are of great interest as there are many spells that can help the player defeat the monsters.
Spells
There are many spells in LARN ranging from healing to invulnerability and walk through walls. All spells in the game of LARN are picked up or brought in spell books, once players read the book, the spell is learned and the book disappears. The usage of spells is limited and players can only cast spells that are known. The number of spells players can cast depends on how many books the player has read, what character level they are, and if the player has been granted any bonuses from water fountains. Some spells in the game:
- PLY - Polymorph
- FLO - Flood
- CLD - Cold
- CRE - Create monster
- SSP - Sonic spear
- PHA - Illusion
- ENL - Enlightenment
- LIT - Lightning bolt
- STP - Time stop
- CKL - Charm monster
- CHM - Charm monster
- CAN - Cancel monster special abilities
- PER - Makes a character spell permanent (awesome spell to get)
- SUM - Summon demon to help
- GLO - Invulnerability
- MFI - Magic fire surrounds character
- INV - Invisibility
- DRL - Drain life
- PRO - Protection field ( 2 to protection)
- STR - Strength ( 2 for limited period)
- DEX - Dexterity ( 2 for limited period)
- SLE - Send monster to sleep
- WEB - Entangle enemy
- MLE - Magic missile
- CBL - Cure Blindness
- BAL - Fireball
- SCA - Scare monster
- HLD - Hold monster
- FGR - Finger of God
- TEL - Teleport away
- WTW - Walk through walls
- ALT - Alters reality
- DRY - Dries up water in immediate vicinity
- SPH - Sphere of annihilation (another awesome spell)
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