DARK
PAWNS

A Multi-User DungeonEST. 1994

Roll the names

Credits

No persistent world is made by one person. Dark Pawns carries the work of its founders, implementors, builders, engine authors, and the players who kept returning.

01

Dark Pawns staff

Names and roles below are drawn from the preserved project history and original wizard list.

Serapis (Derek Karnes)
Founder and original implementor
Tracer (C. Jackson)
Co-founder and early developer
Orodreth (S. Thompson)
Coder and later co-implementor
Frontline (R.E. Paret)
Coder, co-implementor, historian, and website author
Arak (B. Parker)
Coder
Oddity (A. McConnell)
Head builder
Nimos
Builder
Aralius (R. Martin)
Builder
Doragar
Builder and coder

02

Preserved wizard list

A snapshot from Frontline’s original Dark Pawns website, not an all-time roster.

“Wizards are a secret lot, and very powerful. They are not to be trifled with.”

  • Orodreth
  • Frontline
  • Doragar

03

The engine lineage

Dark Pawns descends from software shared freely by generations of MUD developers.

DikuMUDCircleMUDDark Pawns

CircleMUD was created by Jeremy Elson and is derived from DikuMUD Gamma 0.0 by Katja Nyboe, Tom Madsen, Hans Henrik Stærfeldt, Michael Seifert, and Sebastian Hammer.

04

The restoration

The current Go port and website are maintained as an open-source project.

Zach Greene (zax0rz)
Project lead, Go restoration, and modern website
Contributors
Everyone whose code, testing, research, and corrections appear in the repository history

View the complete contributor history on GitHub

05

And the players.

The clans, arguments, late-night sessions, forum posts, bug reports, maps, rumors, and friendships were part of the game too. The surviving record is incomplete, but it is being gathered in the Archive.