MorgenGrauen

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MorgenGrauen (MG) is a German text-based online role-playing game (MUD) that started in 1992 and opened to players in 1993. It’s one of the most popular German-speaking MUDs, with about 100 players online on average and sometimes up to 220. The name means “Dawn” or “morning-gray,” and the game is set in a medieval fantasy world.

Players can choose from races like human, elf, dwarf, hobbit, goblin, dark elf, and feline. Instead of traditional classes, MG uses ten guilds, including Fighter, Magician, Cleric, as well as quirky options like Karate, Chaos, and Beer Shaker.

New users can log in as a guest, but guests often can’t solve quests or fight effectively.

In May 1996, MorgenGrauen introduced a distinctive level system: fighting experience is only a small part of a character’s total level. Level points come from quests, exploring, defeating strong monsters the first time, guild skills, and magic potions. Every 100 level points grant one new level, with a maximum around 160. For example, a high-level character might have about 5% of points from fighting, 5% from potions, 5% from guild skills, 30% from quests, 20% from first-kill points, and 35% from exploration. To keep locations secret, the points needed for the next level are shown only as an approximate value.

There are 80 magic potions that permanently raise stats (intelligence, stamina, strength, dexterity). Their locations vary, but players can get hints from the oracle.

Death is not very punishing: you lose a temporary stat penalty and some fighting experience, but not core skills or overall level points. You can restore health and magic mainly by drinking and eating at inns. Player killing is not allowed. Players can team up to fight powerful monsters, using coordinated starts, a team channel, and shared first-kill rewards.

MorgenGrauen offers a text-only mode for blind players, and supports scripts to aid travel and combat, though scripts can’t solve quests or fully automate exploration.

The game was founded by students at the University of Münster and was hosted on a university server before moving to a Berlin server. It is now hosted by NetCologne in Cologne. The MorgenGrauen Mudlib is publicly available. MG runs as an LPMud on the LDMud driver, using the MorgenGrauen Mudlib.