EmpireMUD banner showing the ASCII map with the edge of a continent, a lake, a road, some crops, and a forest.

About EmpireMUD

EmpireMUD is a map-based multiplayer online text game derived from CircleMUD, a part of the DikuMUD family. EmpireMUD proudly supports both sighted and visually impaired players with two different map displays. The original EmpireMUD, called Age of Destiny, was developed from 2000-2003 by Paul Clarke. EmpireMUD 2.0 began in 2013 and receives regular updates from the original developer.

Playing EmpireMUD

EmpireMUD screenshot showing a player with a red banner standing by a forest and river. You can connect to our own copy of EmpireMUD using any Telnet program or MUD client, at the address empiremud.net 4000. Telnet games are text-based. You can interact with the world using commands like look, get, north, and help. Some good MUD clients include:

  • Mudlet: A full-featured client for multiple operating systems.
  • TinTin++: A good command-line MUD client with a lot of features.
  • BlowTorch: A mobile client for Android. Blowtorch will capture the / key at the start of lines, so type [ alias newbie /newbie $* ] when you log in to create a shortcut for the newbie channel.
  • VIP Mud: A client for visually impaired players.
  • Telnet: From the command line of your Linux computer, just type: telnet empiremud.net 4000

Starting Your First Character

When you first connect to an EmpireMUD, type the name you want to use. If the name is available, you'll be asked if it's correct. If that name is already in use, you will be prompted for a password instead — disconnect and then try again with a different name. Character creation is short, and will give you some starting skills and preferences. Here are some tips:

  • Don't worry too much about your starting archetype. It gives you some starter skills, but you can still learn any of the other skills later. If you want to start an empire, consider Noble Birth or Tribal Leader. Otherwise, pick the one that suits you most.
  • Use the promo code countdemonet to start the game with 100 coins. This also lets us know you found the game through our website.

Run Your Own EmpireMUD

The EmpireMUD source code is available on GitHub for people who want to run their own copy, or just want to see how it works under the hood. EmpireMUD is written in the C programming language. It needs about 500MB of RAM to run, or significantly less if you generate a smaller world. Our copy of EmpireMUD runs the beta-dev branch of the repository, which is roughly 2 years newer than the trunk and includes a LOT of updates. There is no schedule for a new full release in the trunk.