DARK
PAWNS

A Multi-User DungeonEST. 1994

The Archive

These records were recovered from my old player page, the official Dark Pawns site, and public Usenet discussions from 1996 to 2002. Every one names where it came from and the copy used to recover it.

55
Records
37
Conversations
199
Posts
40
People

Start here

7 of 55

  1. An Exciting New Mud is Looking For Players

    The earliest recovered advertisement: Dark Pawns at knight.ufp.org in December 1996.

  2. [AD] [custom] Dark Pawns

    A seventeen-post advertisement thread becomes a public fight over DikuMUD credits and lineage.

  3. little known DP facts

    Orodreth, who holds player number two, explains where parts of the world came from.

  4. General Discussion, July 2004

    Every topic the board held in July 2004, with the reply count on each. Most of them are gone.

  5. ASCII Map of Kir Drax'in

    The starting city drawn in characters, the way you would have kept it beside the keyboard.

  6. To pk or not topk!?

    The player-killing argument, which is really an argument about what the game was for.

  7. Dark Pawns 3.0 goes to beta

    The 3.0 beta announcement, answering a year of speculation on the board above.

darkpawns.com

8 records

The official site, run by Frontline: the news page, the text map of Kir Drax'in, and the handbooks.

  1. Published by 2002ASCII Map of Kir Drax'inmap
  2. January to June 2002Frontline’s news posts, 2002page
  3. Background Storypage
  4. Class Listingpage
  5. Captured August 2004Dark Pawns FAQpage
  6. Featurespage
  7. Staff Liststaff
  8. October 2005Dark Pawns 3.0 goes to betapage

dp-players.com

29 records

The player page I ran in 2004, and the board attached to it.

  1. About the Player Pagepage
  2. April 2004News Archivepage
  3. March to May 2004Site Newspage
  4. Recorded through 2001; archived in 2004A Brief History of Dark Pawnshistory
  5. Collected before July 2004Player Quotesquotes
  6. July 23, 2004General Discussion, July 2004board index, 18 topics
  7. Articles Indexpage
  8. Published 2004Directionsguide
  9. Equipment Guideguide
  10. Game Logs Indexpage

The board

19 threads

Nineteen of the thirty-six threads the board was carrying survived. Oldest first.

  1. April 12-18, 2004those were the days...5 posts, 3 people
  2. April 19-22, 2004The BG5 posts, 4 people
  3. April 25-May 30, 2004little known DP facts16 posts, 9 people, partial
  4. April 26-29, 2004forum updates6 posts, 2 people
  5. April 28-May 6, 2004Object Descriptions Needed13 posts, 6 people
  6. April 30, 2004more forum updates3 posts, 2 people
  7. May 3-8, 2004advertising dark pawns14 posts, 8 people
  8. May 4-10, 2004Frontline and Paying for the Mud Humor(?)4 posts, 3 people
  9. May 5-9, 2004Ninjas5 posts, 4 people
  10. May 6-8, 2004Greatest players14 posts, 8 people, partial
  11. May 9-13, 2004more logs4 posts, 4 people
  12. May 21-24, 2004how old are your charcters?14 posts, 8 people
  13. May 22-23, 2004Fun with funeraries....4 posts, 4 people
  14. May 24-25, 2004To pk or not topk!?9 posts, 4 people
  15. May 30-31, 2004Infobar, ZMud, GMud and others...8 posts, 5 people
  16. June 16-29, 2004What the H-E-double hockey sticks?!?9 posts, 6 people
  17. July 1-17, 2004random observation15 posts, 10 people
  18. July 14-August 2, 2004QUEST! - The Battle of Lost Souls2 posts, 1 people
  19. July 14-18, 2004The Unforeseen Occultesque Following11 posts, 7 people

Usenet

18 records

Advertisements, move notices and public arguments recovered from rec.games.mud between 1996 and 2002. Crossposts are folded into one record and retained in its provenance.

  1. December 3-5, 1996An Exciting New Mud is Looking For PlayersUsenet thread, 2 posts
  2. December 23-25, 1996[Ad] Dark PawnsUsenet thread, 2 posts
  3. March 22, 1997Palio's MudlistUsenet thread, 1 post
  4. May 19, 1997[AD] Dark Pawns' Grand OpeningUsenet thread, 1 post
  5. June 8, 1997[AD] Dark PawnsUsenet thread, 1 post
  6. June 26, 1997ADVERTISEMENT: [circle] Dark PawnsUsenet thread, 1 post
  7. August 5, 1997[AD][Circle]Dark PawnsUsenet thread, 1 post
  8. October 1, 1997[AD] Dark PawnsUsenet thread, 1 post
  9. January 13, 1998ADVERTISEMENT: [circle] Dark Pawns MUDUsenet thread, 1 post
  10. March 22, 1998AD: [circle] Dark PawnsUsenet thread, 1 post
  11. September 13, 1998AD: [circle] Dark Pawns MUD - still aliveUsenet thread, 1 post
  12. November 18, 1998Who owns a character?Usenet thread, 1 post, partial
  13. December 31, 1998MOVING: [circle] Dark Pawns MUD - MovedUsenet thread, 1 post
  14. February 11-14, 1999[AD] [custom] Dark PawnsUsenet thread, 17 posts
  15. February 12-13, 1999Re: [AD] [custom] Dark PawnsUsenet thread, 3 posts
  16. May 3, 1999[AD] Dark PawnsUsenet thread, 1 post
  17. June 18, 2000DikuMUD Hall of ShameUsenet thread, 1 post, partial
  18. December 14, 2002AD: [circle] Dark PawnsUsenet thread, 1 post

What is missing

4 things

The recovery followed every link the surviving pages pointed at. These four are what it looked for and did not find.

The drawing of the city
darkpawns.com printed a picture of Kir Drax'in next to the text map. The text map is here. The picture was never captured.
Two guides
The index names them: Whistler's Determining Your Natural Abilities, November 2002, and my Definative Newbie Guide, March 2003. Neither was archived.
201 game logs
Players uploaded transcripts of hunts and duels across ten categories. The index survived with every count on it. None of the logs did.
Most of the board
The July 2004 index lists topics with no capture at any timestamp. Several long threads survive only as their last page.

If you kept backups from that era, they are the only remaining source for any of it. Get in touch.