All is as Shen willed it, so long ago. The Elder Gods have danced through the World, and made it as it should be though their struggles and squabbles shaped it in unexpected ways. The New Gods, from mighty Tyrion to terrible Sav'vannis and her consort The Harbinger to the humble Alaryyn, have taken up the duties of their forebears in managing the Three Houses of the High Heavens, holding court in the Astral Dominion of the Constellations. And yet, they look upon the world and are troubled.

There are rumors among mortals of a Great Game, a wager between the Houses of Heaven to turn each Age to the ways of good, evil or neutral gods. There are murmurs that Champions are chosen like chess pieces, and used to thwart or exalt each Age. Some mortals believe the Heavens are at war; that the gods do battle in their wild and distant places, not touching the World directly anymore. There are many who believe that as it is above, it must be below, and armies of Paladins and Templars sweep across the lands like floods, raising and crushing those kingdoms not protected as Eternal Cities.

The people of the Night Below, the Underdark, are returning to political life in the World, and some among them are named Champions. The Autumnborn, sons and daughters of Elf and Man, seek to make their own nation and find the peace denied them by their kin. The Necromancer Cults exalt Sav'vannis and The Harbinger, but unwittingly or maliciously mock their dark sacraments, and bring the fell attentions of the Lovers in Death upon their ill-fated lands. The Dwarves are rocked by political upheaval as the Mountain King lies dying, and the Proving seeks a Hill King. The Five Tribes hold court in their ancient city once more, at once attempting to preserve their ancient ways and stem the losses of their once mighty empires.

Humans multiply and conquer and barter and coexist, disturbing things that should have been left sleeping, angering beings that have not been roused to war since the ancient days of the Bloody Tide and the Dark Wedding. The Goblinkin struggle to find a place for themselves; their culture, their past and the truth of their origins lost somewhere in the Night Below, held in the greedy clutches of the Dark Dwarves and Drow. The Wyldkin are forced, more and more, to interact with other mortals, and like the Goblinkin, may lose everything in the exchange.

Into this Age of Chaos, awake. Take up arms, and decide the future.

For more information, please visit our website (which has been recently moved and is currently being rebuilt) at:

http://blackhandgaming.net/realms/index.html

The technical stuff:

We are currently working with 10 classes and have 3 more in the process of being worked into the game and a few more in development for later on down the line. Our spell casting system includes cast, pray, chant and sing depending on what class you are. There are currently 21 races, with more under development or consideration way down the line. We have stock and custom areas, and are looking for builders who are interested in helping to add to our modest list of a little over 100 playable areas.

There are currently only 2 people working on this MUD, which is why it has taken us 8 years to get as far as we have. The code base is custom, we use the Vile code base from The Mage's Lair, which is based off ROM 2.4, and is currently being updated/upgraded. We are also looking for beta testers to help us with mapping the changes to the stock directions and testing the classes and races that we have heavily modified.

*Please note: Though we use The Mage's Lair codebase and currently have a lot of their areas (thanks to Winston!), we are not a re-creation of, or a re-opening of The Mage's Lair. We are Shattered Realms, with our own world and concept, much different than TML. There will be only 1 school instead of 1 for each alignment, and at the end of the school you get to choose which hometown you start in. At the moment, there are 3 hometowns, and we are working on more. The original TML is alignment based areas. Though we will keep most of the areas, our world will be built around the races rather than alignments.

** Our MUD has been modified from the original width of 75 characters wide to 120. If your MUD program (such as MUSHClient) limits but allows you to modify the width of your screen, please make sure you change it to no less than 130.

Shattered Realms uses the VILE Codebase. The Vile Intent Codebase(VILE) is © 1997-2002 by Chris Litchfield and Mark Archambault. VILE is based on ROM 2.4 beta, © 1993 - 1996 Russ Taylor. ROM is based on Merc 2.1, Merc Diku Mud improvments are © 1992, 1993 by Michael Chastain, Michael Quan, and Mitchell Tse. Merc is based on the Original Diku Mud, © 1990, 1991 by Sebastian Hammer, Michael Seifert, Hans Henrik Strfeldt, Tom Madsen, and Katja Nyboe.