Important terms
===============

Entity          Everything in the Olympian world has a unique code.
Unit            Nobles, items, locations, and skills all are
                referenced with an "entity number".  The code is
                shown in brackets after the name.  Some examples:

                    a player:       Rich Skrenta [501]
                    a character:    Osswid the Destroyer [5499]
                    a skill:        Shipcraft [120]
                    a place:        City of the Lost [gx14]
                    an item:        Gold [1]
                    an item:        Scroll [yq12]

Noble           Used interchangeably.  These are the individuals
Character       under the control of players.  All player orders
                are given to characters.

                Players start with one character.  Others may be
                hired or persuaded to join the player's faction.

                Characters may possess items, travel through
                locations, learn skills, engage in combat, cast
                magical spells, etc.

Faction         All of the units controlled by a player are called
                the player's faction.  A player starts with only
                one character, but the faction may grow to have
                many units.

Player          The player character, or PC, is the character the
character       player starts with.  The PC begins with a loyalty
		of oath-2.  The PC may later FORM other characters.
		Nothing is special about the PC other than being
		the player's first character; if the PC is killed,
		play continues with the player's other characters.

Item            Characters may hold items, such as gold, scrolls,
Possession      weapons, magic potions, jewels, lumber, rugs, etc.

Men             Characters may also have non-descript men in their
                employ.  These men are represented as possessions
                for simplicity.  They include peasants, workers,
                sailors, and different kinds of soldiers.

                These men may not learn skills, hold any items, or
                act independently from the noble they are with.

                For example, one might see:

                    Seen here:
                       Law Netexus [2020], with three peasants

                Law Netexus is a character; the three peasants are
                non-descript men accompanying him.

                Characters obtain peasants with the RECRUIT order.

Skills          Characters may learn skills, which are used to perform
                tasks.  For instance, Sailing [9502] must be known
                in order to sail a ship.

                Skills are grouped into the following categories:

                        Alchemy         Mining
                        Beastmastery    Persuasion
                        Combat          Shipcraft
                        Construction    Stealth
                        Forestry

                There are also six schools of magic.

                See the STUDY and RESEARCH commands for information
                about learning skills.

Noble Points    A player starts with twelve Noble Points (NP's).
                Each player gets an additional NP every eight turns
                (one each game year).  NP's are used to buy nobles
                with the FORM command.  They are also required to
                learn some advanced skills, and to swear characters
                to oath loyalty.

Stack           A group of characters joined such that they move
                and fight together.

Province        A location on the map.  Provinces may have sub-locations
                within them, such as cities, bogs, caves, etc.  Provinces
                are either forest, swamp, mountain, desert, plains, or
                ocean.

Month           Each turn is a game month, or 30 game days.

Safe Haven      New players start in a randomly selected Safe Haven city.
                Combat is not permitted in safe havens.  New players may
                acclimate themselves in safety before venturing out into
                the world.