Rebuilt from Legend of the Green Dragon, 2002

How to Play

The day: The day turns every 12 hours, so twice a real day. Each turn gives you 20 forest turns and 3 street fights, refills your health, and brings the dead back. Next reset in 6h 40m.
The day's blessing: Every turn of the day rolls one blessing, and it is written on the forest and village screens. It can hand you two extra forest turns, a fifth more gold or experience, or half-price rooms — or nothing at all. It is why your turn count is not always the same number.
The calendar: On top of the blessing, the village has its own calendar, and the village screen names tomorrow's event. It does not repeat weekly.
Sleeping: Everything at the Inn ends your day. A room costs gold, heals you fully, and locks the door so nobody can rob you. Camping is free, heals half, and hands you 3 extra turns tomorrow, but anyone can find you in the open. If what you wanted was to keep playing, that is the Healer, not the Inn.
Dying: Death always costs the gold in your hands. It never costs your level, your experience or your gear. What else it costs depends on how far along you are — see the two entries below.
The Delve: After a win the forest offers to take you deeper. Going deeper costs a turn like exploring, but rolls no dice: it is always a monster from a deeper region, paying more and hitting harder, up to 6 levels down. Heading back to the edge mends your wounds in proportion to how deep you went. You need 3 wins at the edge first.
The Watch: One number a week for the whole village, fed by every monster anybody kills. It scales with how many people turn up. Kill 5 and you are in; everyone who is in gets the same soul favour when the number falls, however big their share.
The first death: The first time you die, somebody drags you out of the forest: you keep the rest of your day and wake up on 1 health. You still lose the gold you were carrying. It happens once per character.
Dying while you learn: Below level 5, dying after that costs you 5 forest turns and the gold in your hands, and you get straight back up. From level 5 it costs the rest of your day instead. Losing twelve hours to a mistake you made before you understood the rules teaches nobody anything.
The bank: Gold in the vault survives death and robbery. Gold in your hands does not. Bank before you go hunting.
Levels: Earn experience in the forest, on patrol, anywhere. The moment you have enough, you level up on your own, and a fifth of your health comes back with it.
The Streets: You can attack any player within 3 levels, and they can attack you. The winner takes the gold the loser was carrying.
Being attacked costs gold, not your day: If somebody beats you in the street you lose the gold in your hands and get up on 1 health. Your turns are yours: you chose to carry that gold instead of banking it, and that is the whole of it. Picking the fight is different — attack somebody and lose, and the rest of your day goes with it, because that part you chose.
Nobody kicks somebody already down: You cannot be attacked while you are at a quarter of your health or less, and neither can anyone else. Being beaten leaves you there, so it also buys you the time to reach a bed.
Health in the Streets: You fight whatever health the other person has left, not their full bar, and the list shows you that number before you pick.
Nobody loses a day they never started: You can only be attacked once you have opened the game since the day turned. Log in tomorrow and nobody can have taken the day from you while you were away. Ending your day camped still leaves you reachable until the day turns, because that part you chose.
Armour and weapons: Every hit in the game, forest and streets alike, is your attack times a random half-to-one-and-a-half, minus half the defender's defence. Attack is 2 plus twice your level plus your weapon; defence is 1 plus your level plus your armour. So each point of armour takes half a point off every blow that lands on you, and each point of weapon adds up to one and a half to yours.
The Dragon: At level 15 you can enter the cave. Win and you go back to level 1, but your gear, your relic and the bank come with you. The Dragon takes your level, your experience and the gold in your hands.
Walk in whole: The health you bring into the cave decides that fight more than any single piece of your gear. Nothing stops you entering hurt, and the game will let you — but at three quarters of your health the odds are already about a third of what they are full, and it falls away fast from there.
The Dragon grows with you: The Dragon measures itself against you: the better your gear, the bigger it is, so the fight stays around seven wins in ten however strong you get. It does get a little kinder with every dragon you have killed. Losing does not kill you: you crawl out on 1 health and keep your gold and your day.
What a dragon is worth: Every dragon gives you 5 more maximum health forever AND makes everything you learn afterwards 12% faster. Both stack, so each run is shorter than the one before: measured against the real formulas, a first run reaches level 15 in about 10.7 days and a tenth run does it in 4.7.
Fighting: "Fight to the end" settles the whole fight in one click. "Trade one blow" swaps a single round and hands you the choice again, which is the only way to see how it is going and run before it kills you. Running is free, and losing the fight is not.
The Road: You can send yourself on an errand that ends at a real clock time, from fifteen minutes to eight hours. It costs no turn, it runs while the tab is closed, and it pays when you next load a page. It pays 4 soul favour per real hour, whatever errand you pick, so six short trips earn what one long trip earns.
Soul favour: Earned on the Road and among the dead in the Grey Place. It never buys power: no gold, no experience, no levels, no gear. It only buys a name to wear after yours.
Shops: You can only buy something better than what you carry. What you carry is traded in for half its price.
The five slots: Weapon and ring add to your attack. Armour and boots add to your defense. An amulet adds to both, which is why it costs the most per point. Weapon and armour are the long ladders and the better deal; the other three are shorter and dearer, so buying one is a real choice against your next sword.
Healing: The Healer sells your health back, and charges for what is missing: coming in on 1 health costs more than coming in scratched. It costs no turn, and your day carries on. Below level 5, and only before your first Dragon, she patches you up for free once a day — not to full, just enough to get back out. The Inn is a different decision: everything there ends your day.
Hunting without you: You can send your character out on patrol for 30 minutes, 2 hours or 4 hours. It costs no forest turn and does not end your day — it costs the health they spend out there, and they turn back when they drop too low. Longer patrols fight fewer times per hour: convenience costs efficiency. Patrols pay in experience and in drops — every kill has the same chance at gear as the forest — and very little gold. You can let them stop at the healer while they are out; she takes her fee from what they find and never from your purse, so a patrol never costs you gold. Gold comes from the forest by hand. They stop when it is done and wait for you.
What falls: Monsters sometimes leave something behind. You turn it over to see it. If it beats what you carry you are already wearing it; if it does not, it is gold. There is no bag to manage — a piece is an upgrade or it is money. Most of what falls is common, and most of what falls is money.
The forge: Every shop has a smith at the top. Gold buys one more point on the piece you already wear, up to +10, and the price is a share of what that piece costs. The odds fall with every point already in it. Nothing breaks: up to +3 a bad strike only costs the gold, and past that it knocks the piece down one.
Relics: Killing the Dragon takes your level, your experience and the gold in your hands. Your gear and the bank come with you, and it leaves you a relic. Every Dragon leaves a stronger one than the last. A relic adds to your defense and always does more: a chance of critical hits that deal double damage, and extra gold from every fight.

Keyboard

On a full-size screen, one key takes you anywhere.

fThe Forest
rThe Road
tTraining Grounds
wYour Path
sThe Streets
dThe Dragon's Cave
uThe Grey Place
mThe Market
cThe Healer
iThe Inn
bThe Bank
aThe Assembly
vThe Watch
nDaily News
hHall of Fame
yYour Name
lLetters
pWhat Changed
?How to Play
kKeep the lights on
vThe Village

Legend of the Golden Dragon

A daily text adventure rebuilt from a 2002 game. Free, no ads, and nothing to buy.

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