Glossary

Glossary of game related terms.

See also: Common Derethian Abbreviations for a list of shortened words used mainly in chat and also Common misspellings.

A

 * Alchemy
 * A skill that enables your character to combine components for use in magical spells.


 * Admin
 * A game administrator who can intervene in in-game problems. Admin characters have a plus (+) sign in front of their names. See also Envoy.


 * Advocate
 * A player volunteer who used to answer questions and give minor assistance in the game. Advocates would wield glowing shields to distinguish themselves from ordinary players. The Advocates and Sentinels program was disbanded in 2001.


 * Aetheria
 * Equippable magical sigils that increase personal power and "surge" randomly - an effect that dramatically improves the wielder or penalizes the opponent for a short period of time.


 * Allegiances
 * The main social system in AC. Similiar to that of a feudal society, character's swear allegiance to other character of equal or greater level, promising their Loyalty (a skill which affects XP Passup) in return for equipment and guidance.


 * Alternative Character (Alt)
 * An Alternative Character, or alt, is any character created by a player that is not considered their main character. Alts sub-types include Mules and Crafters.


 * Appraise Skills
 * Retired skills that included Appraise Armor, Appraise Item, Appraise Magic Item, and Appraise Weapon and enabled your character to find out detailed information about them. These skills were replaced with the Tinkering skills.


 * Arcane Lore
 * A skill that enables your character to learn new magic spells from scrolls or through experimentation.


 * Asheron
 * A powerful magician of the Empyrean race who created the portals now found on Dereth.


 * Assessment Skills
 * Assess Creature and Assess Person enable your character to find out detailed information about creatures and people.


 * Attributes
 * Your character’s basic characteristics, such as Strength, Endurance, and Coordination. Beginning attribute levels determine beginning skill levels.


 * Augmentations
 * Unique abilities that can be augmented on to your character. This includes augmentations acquired through the use of Augmentation Gems and Luminance Auras.


 * Augmentation Gems
 * Special gems that use large amounts of experience points to give your character unique abilities.

B

 * Buff
 * Casting spells on yourself, equipment, or another player to increase stats or abilities.


 * Buff Bot
 * Buff Bots are automated player characters run by Decal scripting programs that allow them to buff players at that player's command. Buff bots are usually found in Towns.


 * Burden
 * The load your character is carrying. A character has a limit to the amount he or she can comfortably carry. When that burden is exceeded, the character is encumbered.

C

 * Camping
 * Waiting for treasure or creatures to re-spawn.


 * Cantrip
 * Cantrips are magical effects that increase the abilities of a player and their equipment and stack with regular buffs.


 * Character Level
 * Level of experience gained by a character. Each level requires a character to gain a predetermined number of experience points in order to achieve it.


 * Character Profession
 * The main types of player character that exist such as mage, archer and melee. Players can choose to use the premade profession templates at Character Creation or create a custom template and pick their own attributes and skills.


 * Code of Conduct
 * Rules that every player must follow. Violation of the Code of Conduct can result in suspension or termination from Asheron’s Call. Unattended Combat Macros (see below) are a violation of the Code of Conduct.


 * Combat Macro
 * Combat Macros are automated player characters run by Decal scripting programs that allow to engage in combat. Because of their ability to gain experience without a live player controlling them, combat macros are a controversial topic.


 * Chat Pose (Chat Emote)
 * An action you can make your character perform onscreen by typing a command in the Chat box.


 * Click
 * A unit of measurement for distance. 55.0N to 56.0N is one click.


 * Colosseum
 * A unique dungeon designed for Fellowships that contains creature spawning arenas of increasing difficulty.


 * Contract
 * Written parchments that when used provide useful information for quests including your progress and timers.

D

 * Debuff
 * Debuffs are magical effects that decrease the abilities of a creature or player and their equipment. The opposite effect is known as a Buff.


 * Decal
 * A third party application that provides an environment within the game to use Plugins.


 * Dereth
 * The island on which players now find themselves, having answered the call of Asheron.


 * Direlands
 * Dangerous territories to the west of Osteth.

E

 * Empyrean
 * A vanished race of magical beings who once occupied Dereth.


 * Envoy
 * Turbine employees, also known as Admins, that enforce the Code of Conduct and help with serious issues that prevent a player from playing the game such as being stuck in a location. Envoys have a plus (+) sign in front of their names.


 * Experience Chain
 * Experience Chains, or XP Chains for short, was a method used by members of an Allegiance to gain XP Passup far faster than originally intended.


 * Experience Points
 * Points your character earns by defeating Creatures, completing Quests and as XP Passup from loyal vassals. These points can be used to improve attributes and skills and purchase special abilities using Augmentation Gems. Each character level also has a fixed experience point cost.

F

 * Facility Hub
 * A dungeon that links many low level quests, points of interest, and dungeons together to aid players new to the game. NPCs, known as Wardens, can also be found in the hub and provide an experience bonus on completion of each of their quests.


 * Fellowships
 * Temporary groups that can be formed quickly by recruiting or "fellowing" up to 8 (9 total) other players. Once part of a fellowship, members can share xp, luminance and loot as well as gain access to fellowship chat, status for player vitals and other interface features.


 * Fletching
 * A skill that enables your character to make arrows.

L

 * Landblock
 * The blocks of land that the game world is comprised of. Dereth is divided into a grid of 65,536 landblocks comprising a grid 256 blocks wide by 256 blocks high (values 0 to 255). Dungeons are also made up of these landblocks.


 * Lifestone
 * A large blue crystal found at outposts, near towns, and sometimes in the wilderness. When you double-click a Lifestone, your character will be resurrected there after death.


 * Luminance Points
 * Points your character can earn in addition to Experience Points once you have completed a difficult Quest. Unlike standard XP, which is also used to raise your stats, Luminance is primarily used to earn Augmentations known as Luminance Auras as well as fashion useful items.

M

 * Mana
 * The energy that powers magic spells.


 * Mana Conversion
 * A skill than enables your character to use spells related to converting Health and Stamina to Mana.


 * Marketplace
 * Location where players can go to trade their items with each other and set up their Trade Bots in the vendor stalls.


 * Melee Defense
 * A skill that enables your character to evade opponents’ melee attacks.


 * Missile Defense
 * A skill that enables your character to evade opponents’ missile attacks.


 * Mule
 * Mule can be a noun, a character who's express purpose is to hold items not being used by other characters, or as a verb, which means to transfer an item to storage.

N

 * Nerf
 * Weakening of an item, spell or skill during an update to help balance the game.


 * Non Player Character (NPC)
 * Characters that are controlled by the game and that do not represent players.


 * Non Player Killer (NPK)
 * Player characters who do not have the ability to harm or kill other player characters.

O

 * Osteth
 * The eastern land mass of Dereth.

P

 * Pack Doll
 * A miniature doll modeled after an NPC or Creature and is usually animated in some way. Pack dolls can be used as house decorations and are collected by many players.


 * Player Killer (PK)
 * Player characters who have the ability to harm or kill other player characters.


 * Player versus Monster (PvM)
 * Also known as Player versus Environment or PVE, PvM refers to gameplay where players kill computer controlled creatures in contrast to Player versus Player (PvP) where players instead kill each other.


 * Player versus Player (PvP)
 * PvP is the term is used to refer to gameplay where players kill each other. In AC, PvP is achieved by becoming a Player Killer, Player Killer Lite or choosing to play on the PvP world Darktide.


 * Plugins
 * Plugins are software components that add extra features to the game to enhance gameplay. This includes such features as task macros, inventory and pack management, creature and item identification and more. Plugins require Decal to run within the game.


 * Portal
 * A swirling energy vortex that magically transports characters from one place to another.


 * Portal Bot
 * Portal Bots are automated player characters run by Decal scripting programs that allow them to summon portals on command. The differences between a portal bot and a buff bot are 1) portal bots do not buff players, and 2) portal bot programs take advantage of multiple characters on the same account, allowing for much more than the two portal ties a buff bot can provide.


 * Portal Storm
 * A disturbance of portal magic caused by too many people in the same area. In a portal storm, some people will be teleported to random locations outside the area.


 * Powerlevel
 * Getting your character to the highest level possible in the shortest amount of time.


 * Pre-patch (PP)
 * A pre-patch item is an earlier version of an item that has at some point received an update. See also the term Retired.


 * Pyreal
 * The basic unit of currency in Dereth.

Q

 * Quest Journal
 * An in-game tool used to make notes and keep track of quest timers.


 * Quest Timer
 * The timer that controls how often a player character can repeat a certain quest.

R

 * Rares
 * Special items that have a very small chance of being dropped by Creatures of level 100+ (or greater level than the player who killed it).


 * Retired
 * Things that no longer exist or are actively available (retired items can still be acquired through trade) in the game. Many retired items are left behind when the item receives a newer version in an update. These items are also known as pre-patch items. Some retired items are highly valued by players. See also Unique.

S

 * Salvage
 * Material collected from unwanted items using the Salvaging skill that can then be used to enhance the attributes of other items in various useful ways. Salvage materials are used by the Tinkering skills.


 * Sentinel
 * Low-level volunteer game administrators (see Admin) that used to help enforce the Code of Conduct in game. Sentinels had "+Sentinel" in front of their names. The Sentinels program was disbanded in 2001 along with Advocates and now Turbine employees known as Envoys perform a similiar function.


 * Skills
 * Your character’s ability to perform certain actions successfully, such as running, jumping, and wielding weapons.


 * Skill Credits
 * Credits earned by going up in character level that can be used to raise unusable or untrained to trained, and from trained to specialized.


 * Spellcraft
 * The "skill" of the item at casting its spells. It casts the spells as if it had a magic skill equivalent to its spellcraft.

T

 * Town Crier
 * An NPC found in major towns that will give you the latest news and events in Dereth. Town Criers will also give you additional information in exchange for pyreals.


 * Town Network
 * The Town Network is a place which connects many of the towns of Dereth via portals. The Town Network also contains a number of bars with Barkeepers who sell -- in addition to food and drink -- Rumors and Contracts that help adventurers locate Quests and track their progress.


 * Trade Bot
 * Trade bots are automated player characters run by Decal scripting programs that allow them to sell their wares to other players via the Secure Trade panel. Trade Bots are most commonly found in the Marketplace. On Darktide, where tradebots would be killed if they operated in the marketplace, they instead operate safely from behind their housing barrier.


 * Trophies
 * Items sometimes found on the corpses of defeated opponents, which can be given to Collectors and Crafters or Quest NPCs for rewards such as money, items and experience.

U

 * Unique Item
 * Items that were limited in number and available only for a very brief period of time - usually as part of a Live Event. These items tend to range from 1-3 per server and are extremely valuable to players. See also Retired.

V

 * Vitae
 * Your character’s life energies. When your character dies, there is a Vitae penalty that temporarily reduces his or her skills and secondary attributes.


 * Void Magic