A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ?

T

noun treasure. Almost all players call it T, you rarely see 'treasure' except in conversations involving complete novices or people pretending to be complete novices. The word is always capitalised except when used in actual commands. See easy T, hard T, big T, loose T, non-T T.

tag team

verb¹ The tactic of several players attacking a single persona (usually a highlife) repeatedly with throwaways, bringing on replacements instantly to replace those their victim kills. Their victim can't quit, because he or she can never kill everyone before replacements arrive, and is thus always in a fight. Second-guessing the names of incoming personae and disabling them before they arrive can work, but canny tag teamers use long, random letter sequences as names to make this a lot harder. Eventually, the highlife has either to flee or die. Tag team is generally preferred in the US: the UK also has swarm. See bundle.

take a fall

verb⁰ To die dead dead deliberately at the hands of another persona. There are two reasons why you might feel the urge to do this: to help a friend make wiz (in the hope of future reward - this is illegal); to give a non-understanding wiz the impression that you really do have the character (4) to make wiz yourself, so that maybe they won't give you so much hassle in future (but they always do). See also test.

task

noun One of the eight set exercises, seven of which a persona must perform in order to make wiz in MUD2. Tasks are a good way of ensuring that players have a broad knowledge of the game, and to wheedle out plodders, maniacal killers, and other people who would make unsuitable wizzes.

tax

See fee.

Tearoom

noun The 'Elizabethan Tearoom', a safe room where personae enter the game prior to stepping out into the maelstr”m that is sometimes The Land. The word is not always capitalised, but, unlike most room names, most often is. Many people find the Tearoom a good place to socialise, as every mortal passes through it so therefore buttonholing people is easy.

Tearoom lizard

noun Someone who hangs around in the Tearoom trying to be charming to personae of the opposite gender. A BL term deriving from 'lounge (room) lizard' - someone who plies lounge bars chatting up people for personal gain. Compare Tearoom sitter.

Tearoom potato

noun Someone who won't leave the Tearoom, usually because it's too dangerous but sometimes because they can't be bothered as there's no easy T left. A mainly BL term, deriving from 'couch potato' - someone who lies on the couch all day watching TV. Compare Tearoom sitter.

Tearoom sitter

noun Someone who stays a long time in the Tearoom, for whatever reason. In BL this is usually frowned upon, but in other incarnations of MUD it carries no stigma unless it becomes a habit (although highlife Tearoom sitters will always be made fun of, no matter how good their excuse). Tearoom lizards and Tearoom potatoes are sub-types of Tearoom sitters, but the more general term is by far the most common of the three these days.

Tearoom warlock

noun Below 'warlock' level, people can use the 'superquit' command to flee from a fight and quit in a single action. This makes actually killing someone beneath warlock quite hard. From warlock up, the command is unavailable, and therefore there's a chance of being re-attacked in between fleeing and quitting. players who survive by SQing until they reach warlock sometimes find that they can milk their status more by sitting around in the Tearoom than by going out and risking being noviced... Sometimes abbreviated to TRW. See SQ.

test

1. verb¹ When a player is on course for making wiz, existing wizzes often take it upon themselves to test the suitability of the player, to make sure that they will make a good wiz. This can take many forms, but it usually involves: a) minor hassles like rearranging the furniture or well-timed unsites, to rock the victim off auto-pilot and make them think; b) enforced quests to show they have a wide knowledge of the game; c) violent assault by suspiciously high-level personae they've never even seen before.

If a player with a mage has not lost a high-level persona at some previous stage, the wizzes will almost certainly wish to see that they can handle such a loss, and will therefore attempt to cause it (but if you're good enough, you can still survive - there's something wrong if you feel you need to take a fall). Most testing is genuinely to sound out how good a player is, and make life interesting. Some, however, is likely to be an excuse to cause a player pain and sorrow. testing by several wizzes in quick succession can seem a lot like hassle, but mortals shouldn't necessarily moan unless it happens all the time - it's probably just coincidence or as a result of their not playing frequently enough for the testing to be spread around. In a test, wizzes are looking for character (4), ability, resolve, but most importantly that spark. All mortals can expect at least one really over-the-top test where they are attacked unremittingly and for no good reason while being hassled unmercifully by wizzes; this is to show them how it feels, so they won't be so inclined to abuse their powers when they make wiz (except, of course, while themselves testing people...). Tests are not official, there are no passes/failures, and mortals may not even know they're being tested. Mild testing will begin at perhaps necro, with the heavy stuff reserved for 120K mages (which might be why so many of them seem to get stuck around that score for several weeks!). See tweak.

2. noun That which arises from testing. "Don't worry, it was just a test".

throne

noun In BL, many mortals have (independently or otherwise) come to believe that if you collect all the royal regalia (crown, sceptre, etc.) and sit on the throne, Strange Things will happen. People never seem to get all that's required, though - they always miss a gem or a ring or something... See legend (3).

throwaway

noun A persona which the owning player considers trivially dispensible, eg. a brand new novice (1).

T-hunter

noun Someone who spends all their time looking for and swamping T, to the exclusion of all else. This activity (which is not called 'T-hunting'!) is considered boring, and T-hunters are considered bores. Hence, the term is usually used pejoratively, eg. Q: "Why did Lucy swamp the foot?" A: "Oh ignore her, she's just a T-hunter". T-hunters are solely interested in the game, with players recognised only as tools to aid in the acquisition of points. They are also active, in that they want the game to do as they bid, rather than letting it get on with its own machinations. See T-hunting, T-seeker, explorer, killer, socialiser, HCDS.

T-hunting

present participle Said favourably of someone accumulating points for good purpose, eg. of a mage on a wiz run. "Sorry, I can't help, I'm T-hunting". The term is never used directly as a verb, 'to T-hunt'. Perversely, T-hunters don't practice T-hunting.

tidal

adjective A suggestion for an addition to The Land is tidal if it has such enormous implications that it would completely ruin any semblance of balance or coherence in what already exists. It comes from the common (at least once every 6 months) proposal that "We should have night and day! Then we can have tides! Then both islands at sea and the whole of the railway line can be flooded! And then <rant> <rant> <rant>". See dog suggestion, undersea city.

tidy up

1. verb¹ To collect together goodies that are lying around and put them all neatly together - usually somewhere completely inaccessible like the swamp. This activity (known as tidying up the reset) used to be a fairly popular way to ruin the game for everyone else, but since the introduction of genies it has become much less effective. The term possibly derives from a corruption of tie up, but it sounds less mean. "Oh, don't worry about me, I'm just tidying up the reset". See hog.

2. verb⁰ To scoop up any remaining loose T. Some people simply can't bear to think that the game might reset when there are still juicy treasures remaining unswamped...

3. verb¹ As (1), but instead of simply spoiling play for everyone (eg. because you feel sore after losing your mage), the object is to lure people to somewhere you can jump them. For example, if lots of goodies are left on the ship, and the boats are all dumped in the Mine, sooner or later a greedy necro is going to enter the Mine looking for transport, whereupon three invis sword-wielding maniacs leap from the shadows and have necro nuggets for lunch. Be careful out there!

tie up

verb¹ To make something pretty well unusable (except possibly for you) by controlling the preconditions on its use. For example, you might effectively tie up the Dwarf Realm by acquiring all the picks so that no-one else can easily get in it. You can even tie up a reset by having all the objects necessary to get the game's big T, with enough weapons and wafers so that no-one in their right mind will try to stop you. Sadly, the genies and the GFC have put paid to most ways of tying up things completely, but it's still possible to render whole areas totally inaccessible by obtaining appropriately crucial objects. See tidy up, hog.

timers

noun MUD2 on the VAX sometimes lost its external timing system, which meant nothing time-based advanced. Fights would pause, people would sleep indefinitely, and mobiles wouldn't move. This would lead to the cry, "the timers are stuck!". See hang, PC, demon.

tin

noun One of the non-puzzles in MUD is that somehow you can melt tin at the forge and make something. BL wizzes are happy to reinforce this view, and it has grown into a legend (3). Sometimes linked to the armour and B-29 legends.

T-less

adjective Having no treasure; can be said of anything, from a persona or mobile to an area or even the game. Sometimes unhyphenated, but the T will usually remain capitalised. "I can't offer you anything for the LS, I'm a bit T-less at the moment". "I wish the Monastery wasn't quite so T-less". See empty, played out.

toast

verb⁰ To be killed by the dragon's fiery breath. "I hear Fregie was toasted last night". Popular in BL; MUD2 players use either frazzle or fry.

tooled up

adjective To be kitted out in a manner conducive to fighting (usually other personae, but sometimes mobiles). It can be back-formed into a verb, to tool up. See bristling.

top heavy

adjective Having more highlife than lowlife. All MUAs rely on a steady stream of newbies to keep them going, in the same way that the housing market needs first-time buyers. If the supply dries up, the game becomes top heavy. This can lead to game management problems.

tour

1. noun A quick look around The Land, provided for a guest or newbie with the intent of hooking them on the game. Normally, tours are given by either a friendly wiz or automatically.

2. verb⁰¹ The 'tour' command which a guest can invoke to initiate a tour (1) of some area of The Land.

travel table

1. noun The table which defines directional links between rooms in MUD1.

2. noun The name for whatever data structure a MUA employs to define directional links between (normally) rooms.

tr

noun Abbreviation for 'trinket'. See trinket.

treasure

noun The class of objects which are worth points to you when dropped in the swamp. Some treasure may be valueless until something is done to it (eg. the groat), or may have some significant other purpose (see non-T T). Acquiring treasure and scoring for it is the main activity carried out by players, although some take it to extremes (see T-hunter). The term is almost always abbreviated to (capital letter) T.

trinket

1. noun A class of objects which are worthless to any but the lowest of lowlife. trinkets are scattered around in easy-to find places, particularly children's rooms in buildings. highlifes will not normally swamp trinkets because they lose points if they do so. There are generally plenty of trinkets lying around even quite late in a reset. See tr.

2. noun Any piece of treasure attractive only to lowlifes.

troll

noun A BL legend (3) concerns a troll which lives at the wabe. You can't get past unless you bring something for the pot of soup he carries. See stegosaurus.

<something> trouble

noun To be having <something> trouble means that <something> is temporarily delaying you. "I'll be with you soon, got a bit of z trouble". "Sorry for not replying, I had a spot of keyboard trouble." See lazybones, zombied.

true addict

noun The MUD equivalent of what mainstream computer people would call a "wizard", except that in MUD this term is already taken (and is gender-specific, to boot!). Many players claim to be - indeed actually are - addicts, but they don't have the kind of deep knowledge of the game that true addicts possess. Being a true addict is something you have to work at, although not all true addicts bother to make wiz since some consider that the life of pampered luxury which such individuals enjoy will prove corrupting in the long term. It is always understood, however, that a non-wiz true addict could make wiz at any time he or she desired. true addicts can quickly determine other true addicts from addicts, by means known only to them... true addicts are never ever plodders - the two terms are mutually exclusive. See real addict.

TRW

noun Abbreviation for Tearoom warlock.

TS

noun Abbreviation for the touchstone; it may be in either upper or lower case. To become a muser, a figher must touch the TS and survive; the higher their level, the better their chance that this will occur. At lower levels, they're more likely to be killed dead dead by it. Common wisdom determines that the best time to go for the TS is when you reach champ.

T-scaling

noun Virtually all treasure has a minimum value and a maximum value. The current value of such treasure is determined applying a multiplier which is based on the number of players (the more the better) and the amount of treasure already swamped (the more the better). This multiplier is applied to the minimum value to obtain the current value; it (the multiplier) is referred to as T-scaling. For example, lumps of bronze have a minimum value of 50 points, and with T-scaling at 110% would therefore be worth 55 points. Because of the way T-scaling used to be announced, it is normally expressed as a multiplier on minimum value rather than on maximum, although a maximum-oriented figure is also supplied by the 'value' command. It is almost always couched as a percentage. Q: "What was T-scaling when you did the icons?" A: "Around 150 I think".

T-seeker

noun Synonym of T-hunter.

T-seeking

present participle Synonym of T-hunting. T-seekers don't do t-seeking.

tweak

verb¹ A wiz term meaning to hassle a mortal. Mild tweaking is the most common, and involves leg- pulling scams and rumour-mongering. Heavy tweaking can mean very irritating hassles like teleporting the mortal to dangerous rooms or secretly removing key objects from where the mortal expects them to be (eg. in their bag!); this kind of tweaking is normally only done as part of an explicit test. BL wizzes use the term more often than wizzes in other incarnations of MUD.