Overview Lost Souls, as typical for MUDs, is accessed through a
telnet client or specialized
MUD client. The interface is text-based, in what is often thought of as the
Zork style. The basic game structure follows common RPG conventions, with characters fighting, exploring, and questing to gain experience, gold and items.
Lost Souls's command structure and character model are unusually extensive for a game and are noted as presenting a considerable amount of information to be learned. This is a significant barrier to new players, though experienced players often see the learning curve as a rite of passage and appreciate the greater depth that the extensive system brings to their later gameplay.
Races Lost Souls has a broad variety of races, some deviating wildly from the human baseline. Thirty-two can be chosen from by a new player, ten more are unlocked by normal play, and another nineteen can be played under exotic circumstances. Among the more unusual races are the nyloc (magickally created shadow-beings), zuth (giant centaur-shaped reptiles), rachnei (anthropomorphic spiders), and phaethon (bronze-skinned elves with wings of fire).
Affiliations Lost Souls does not have the "
character class" mechanic common to fantasy role-playing games; its nearest equivalent is guilds and associations, which are organizations that a character joins after creation. Most often, affiliations can be left as well, allowing the character to explore new avenues of development. These organizations are numerous and often highly idiosyncratic, offering abilities and challenges specific to the individual group. Examples of affiliations range from the Aligned, a group of artists and poets attuned to cosmic order, to Ordo Zephyrius Mutatoris, magicians who control air and weather, to the Erisian Liberation Front,
Discordians described as "guerrilla theologians" who invoke an array of gods in the name of chaos.
Skills The
Lost Souls skill system is based on a value assigned to each of the character's attributes, such as strength, agility, and ego. The higher their attribute in a given area, more specialization points are available to allocate for a certain skill. For example, higher dexterity allows the user to allocate more specialty points to the use of swords. The more specialty points that are allocated for a certain skill, the faster the skill can be learned and improved. It also increases the maximum skill level the player can have for that particular skill. The intention of this is to allow for 'heroic' levels of capability to be achievable without the risk of a situation arising where everyone becomes equally, superhumanly capable at everything, since the system limits and promotes development of different skills at different times.
Psionic talents The psionic wild talent system is particularly distinctive. Psi talents develop after character creation, during the normal course of play, through a number of mind-altering events that can potentially awaken them. They are initially latent, and come to full expression through being triggered by related events; for instance, the talent of making oneself psychically invisible may make itself manifest while one is trying to run away and hide from an opponent. Psi talents vary greatly in their strength and utility, and can add considerable complexity to a character. ==Influences==