In Dungeon Master, a great wizard named the Grey Lord was searching for the Power Gem, a magical artifact that thawed the ice of creation and freed the races. He finds it, but makes a mistake when trying to obtain it with his Firestaff. As a result he was split into 2 pieces, 2 separate beings: Lord Order and Lord Chaos. The evil and insane Chaos sought to destroy the world. The Grey Lord's apprentice, Theron (the player), went into Mount Anaias to stop him. Theron had also been affected by the mistake, and no longer had a physical body. To stop Chaos, he had to use champions saved from imprisonment in mirrors. The champions went through the dungeon, obtained the Firestaff and joined it with the Power Gem. The resulting Staff had the power to put Chaos and Order back together. This was done by surrounding Chaos with Fluxcages and then Fusing him. Balance was thus restored to the world.
In Chaos Strikes Back, we learn the Chaos foresaw his defeat and put a plan into effect to return. He did this through the use of powerfully magical Corbum Ore mined from a Ful Ya Pit. He had gathered a separate army of demons and monsters in a secret dungeon to aid him. Yet his plans were again foiled, as the champions defeated him once again by destroying the 4 pieces of Ore before he was fully separated again.
This new quest takes place about 1000 years after the time of CSB. See the intro animation for the basic storyline. Be aware that the default included dungeon is very difficult! If you are new to DM, you may wish to try an easier dungeon first.
The mouse is used for all other activities.
You can access your heroes' inventories using the mouse by clicking their portraits. On the inventory screen, in addition to items you can see current food/water levels along with health, stamina, and mana. Other statistics can be seen by clicking on the eye icon. If you have an item in your hand (the "player" hand), you can hold down the button over the eye icon to examine it. If it is edible or drinkable, you can click on the mouth icon with it in hand to consume it. In the upper right of the screen, the disk icon will pop up a dialog with game properties and options to save, load, start over, or quit the game. The zzz icon will cause the party to rest. A map icon will appear here if you have enabled the automap (off by default). Close the inventory view by either clicking the currently selected heroe's portrait again, or right click the mouse, or click on the X icon.
On the main dungeon view, you see a 3D first-person perspective of the current area, along with any items or monsters visible. You can click on items when beside them to pick them up. You can then put them in one of your hero's pack, hands, or even throw them by clicking in the air with them in hand. Switches are used by clicking on them when directly in front of them. Some switches (like keyholes) require the proper item be in the player hand. Movement is grid-based, with turns always 90 degrees. You can use the keys or the arrow icons in the lower right.
The party formation control in the upper right. You can use this to arrange your heroes in the party. This affects who can be reached by attacks, and which side of the squares spells and projectiles will fly down.
The current leader has his/her name shown in yellow. You can change the leader by clicking a different heroe's name above the portrait. It is the leader who will drink from fountains when clicked on, and who will throw items from the player hand. As a convenient shortcut, right-clicking the mouse anywhere in the dungeon view will switch to your current leader's inventory.
The spell panel is located below the formation control. It includes tabs at the top for each champion. The currently selected champion has his/her/its name displayed in the tab. Below the tabs are buttons with runes. These runes are composed in different combinations to form spells. Each rune has its own unique name. The first rune in a spell is for power, and ranges from LO (lowest) to MON (highest). Higher power spells cost more mana and are more difficult (require higher skill level) to cast. Not all combinations of runes make a spell. A starting spell list is given below that includes some of the spells in the game.
The weapon panel is below the spell panel. It shows the weapon hand of each champion. For the currently selected champion, the available functions of the item in hand are displayed (or the functions of the empty hand, if no item). Only weapons have functions, any other type of item will disable the controls for the champion. Functions are used by clicking them with the mouse. Most attack functions require that a monster be directly in front of the party. Some functions may have magical or other effects.
The weapon panel is also used to access and use champion special abilities. Simply right-click the panel to show available abilities for the selected champion. If there are too many, scrolling arrows will appear to cycle through the list. To use, simply click on the desired ability. Right click on the panel to return to weapons.
See these (slightly modified) instructions for the original Dungeon Master for more information.
It would be nice if people send me (or make publicly available online) any dungeons, items, monsters, or graphics they create for it. That way, I can have more fun with the game myself! I hope you enjoy it.
Alan Berfield
alandale@hotmail.com
September 22, 2005