I've been playing Dark Lair for a while now, and thoroughly enjoy it. It is an RP mud set in White Wolf's original World of Darkness (current game year as of this writing is 1626).

Players can choose to become Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, or Ghouls (classed by a vampire player), and then choose an associated Clan, Tribe, or Tradition, respectively. Some are harder to play as, and require an interview with an immortal before classing to prove you know them well enough.

From there you can also start working on creating a background for your character, which can earn you an RP Flag and associated bonuses (like increased XP gain and a higher hit point max). This mud highly encourages roleplay and interaction with other players.

Unfortunately, this brings me to my one issue: There aren't enough players right now. A big appeal of the mud is the variety of characters possible, something that just isn't realized with the current pbase.

The immortals are helpful and constantly on the search for bugs to fix or questions to answer. There are a variety of systems that help to distinguish this mud from other WoD RP muds: an etching system to allow for cheap restringing of equipment, a building system where players can construct housing after gathering the proper materials, a teaching system where you can learn new disciplines/gifts from more experienced players, taking hard hits to raise your hit points instead of spending experience, exercising to increase your attributes, and much more.

I would highly recommend any players who enjoy roleplaying to give Dark Lair a try. Hope to see you there! - Noctis

Dark Lair is a quiet place these days. A lot of mean players have idled and simply disappeared. While this is bad, causing less people to be around, it is also good as it opens up new opportunity for new players! We are definitely seeking new players to come enjoy our roleplaying environment! Fresh blood is always savored.

There are four or five highly active players, and two active immortals, who are all willing to help players out at any time. There are several areas, and new ones are being worked on at a slow but steady pace to ensure they meet the complete In-Character requirements.

There are three main classes, but there are two subclasses as well. You can be a Vampire, a Garou, or a Mage, or you can even remain human with no class and roleplay out a villager if you wish. The subclasses are Ghoul(sub of vamp), and BSD(sub of Garou). Ghoul is one created by a vampire, and a Black Spiral Dancer is a Trained Garou. Ghouls are usually servants of the vamp, while BSD run amuck causing havoc and chaos all in the name of the wyrm. The BSD do not get along with regular Garou.

Each class has its own blend of special gifts/powers as well as it brings its own twist to gaining experience, combat, interaction, and overall interesting RP interactions.

Some other interesting things to note are the forge system(not a creation system, but an add-on to existing items), the BUILDing system which allows you to create houses, mines, dig ore/metal up in them, as well as form your own little hermitage somewhere privately.

Some basic commands for new players to get used to are, SCORE, LEVEL, INV, EQ, CHANNELS, CONFIG, UPKEEP, EXERCISE, SOUL, and POWERS.

Some help files that EVERYONE should read so you can begin to explore without needing someone to guide you through everything are,

Help NEWBIE, help RP, help CLASS, help WEREWOLF, help MAGE, help VAMPIRE, help CLAN, and help CHANNELS.

Hopefully this was helpful to you and you might come check us out. Feel free to ask questions and seek any of us out.

Vainne Agar-ah. The Mad Scientist.

Well, quite a long time ago now, I was flailing around mindlessly, mudding on a rather small mud with few players (and even fewer that liked my ambitions of world domination), when a friend of mine sent me a message.

He'd started out on new mud. At the time, it was called Vampires Lair- a World of Darkness based mud, with Vampires, Humans, and Werewolves as the main fears/characters.

My first memory of VL has to be standing inside Tiopon's room, the first time she classed me. Roleplay was encouraged (which was most definitely fine by me) and I quickly settled in, enjoying myself.

The second memory I have was of the old server crashes- An experience that at the time would have made me leave if the community wasn't so addictive. Since then, the mud has moved to a much better server, and I've gone from character to character- VL has grown too. Times changed, vampire clans faded and new ones grew- A map system appeared, advancements and constant changes (as the mud is pretty much constantly updated) enhanced the method of play.

Mages were added (but aren't open yet!)-adding a new twist to the gameplay, as Mages (testers) started to appear with strange and frightening abilities.

Eventually, things leading to more things,War seemed to break out among the immortals, and VL split. The majority of players followed Tiopon, and VL changed into DL- Dark Lair. Tiopon is still there- but few of the old immortals remain. They were replaced by new ones- People who'd been there long enough to have experience.

The players on DL are generally great people- There have been a few rather unsocial players to pop up every once in a while, but they've been driven off over time by the majority. People are friendly, mostly polite (though some of us take pride in being at least a little nasty- once you understand us you'll get along fine :p)

When Newbies appear, people usually race to tell them how to start out- and point them in the right direction. Tiopon seems to always beat me to it, but I have helped a few in my time.

The roleplay is brilliant. Even people with barely any experience in WoD can quickly adapt to the society, as most other players will fill you in as you play. When I began, I had little WoD knowledge- but now I find myself researching clan backgrounds before I create characters, whether they need an interview or background or not.

DL has a RP flag system, which you obtain by writing a background on your character. Having an RP flag give you certain bonuses, like the ability to learn more 'powers' (Disciplines or Gifts) and more exp from battles.

New characters also have 'Newbie' flags- the flag gives certain bonuses also- like rendering you immune to player attacks (PK has to be justified RPly, but you could always get one...), and giving you more exp. Having that is a great bonus for new characters, and means that they have a chance to get the experience they need to train their characters to the point where they're not dwarfed by every player in the mud.

Aaand thats it. I wrote this while my client was down. Otherwise I'd probably be playing DL right now.

Some muds are good, can hook you in place and keep you playing for a while. After four years always coming back, I can say that Dark Lair is certainly an experience you shouldn't pass up. I'd recommend it to anyone searching for an World Of Darkness experience.

Well, one night I got bored, decided to search for a mud to poke around in. I am mainly a SWR guy, but I like my godwars and Rot/Rom Pk muds also. So I opened up Zmud, searched through the lists, stumbled across the name of Dark Lair. I logged in, was immediately greeting by the Immortal Morgor over the OOC channel and then the classing system was quickly explained to me personally by Morgor. Go kill 5 mobs, save, and then proceed.

Well, I killed my 5 mobs and while fighting I'm being tended/healed by other players who came to greet me. So I finished up the last kill, saved, and then Morgor came down to me, wisked me up to a private room, and asked if I had played before. I explained I had limited experience but not much, so he offered to walk me through some guildlines to help me get a better feel of things.

He went over the combat system, he went over the code style, he went over the classes (both vampire and garou each) and then helped me pick out my class and the specifics that went along with it. Once I had an idea(and I was amazed that he genuinely helped, not pointed me to a specific thing to get rid of me) he classed me using their commands and asked if I had any questions and I did not at the time. So he placed me back at the Altar and I began to interact with the mud.

I have been playing daily since and I have to say that it is a very nice mud. The players are friendly(uptime is usually during the weekdays, I've seen around 10-18 at a time while I've seen 5-10 on the weekends). I met another older character of the same class, but different clan than myself. He actually took me aside and filled me in on a few more class-specific things, as well as offering advice and directions to places to train.

I have long since gained a bit of strength, and am now about a mid level character. That same older player has continued to help me train and get equipment, and answer my questions, along with all the other players even now.

Dark Lair is a very friendly, and interesting environment. I suggest all of you at least check it out.

Thanos