Realms of Despair is a Multi Player Dungeon based on Medievil Times in which up to 750 players can play a
Dungeons and Dragons style gamein the same virtual world at the same time. It can be highly addictive
If you pay attention to the rules of etiquete involved in any social gathering you can make quite a few friends while your at it.
When you make your name I find it best to have 6 letters or more as your player stats will be based off of the name.
Pick something that you like the sound of and doesn't have too many vowels or consonants in a row,
if it sounds futuristic or has some descriptive in it your likely to get told to change it.

You start out in an area known as Pre Auth with Nothing and have to work your way through finding the basics you will need for survival in the game.
Be sure to Read everything the first time through and examine any objects to see if it might be something you want to pick up. (weapons etc)
If this is your fist character I would recommend picking the peacefull path and not deadly, The Deadly community on Realms is
fairly efficient at making life misserable for you if you don't know what your doing and the peacefull community is by the rules
not allowed to help you out much other than maybe with information.

There are extensive helpfiles available online that can be read, and even one big list of them that you can sort into smaller
groups by typing hlist (letters) eg. hlist a will give you all helpfiles starting with the letter a and not much else.

You can set what your character looks like to others with the description command. it will dump you into an old dos style editor.
You can insert a story or other information in your whois file with the bio command. (a history of your character or some ascii art etc.)

There are many helpful organizations in the game that you may join or get help from, the first you are likely to come across as a new player
is the Newbie Council, it is comprised of people that feel they can help new players with information on how to do things in the game or
with what is known as a CR (corpse retrieval). The next organizations you are likely to encounter are Guilds, Nations and Orders.

Guilds are an organized structured environment for exchange of information equipment and ideas on a single class, questing for a guild
depends on the guild's own rules for it each is an individualy run entity. Guilds can be found on the Darkhaven Map (help map in darkhaven)
Further info on guilds can be obtained by typing help guilds, guilds (class) or reading their Induction Boards usually located beside the entrance.

Nations are an organized group of individuals of a particular race in the game. I have not been involved in Nations and therefore
cant offer much info here, Help Nations will get you started on that path I believe.

Orders are usually tight knit bands of people with a similar interest of any class and each has it's own style and rules
Baali is based on a style of evil play
Maidenstone is Female Only
Rol Na Feinne is Role Playing
there are others.....

Much more detailed information on Guilds / Nations / Orders can be obtained from the various organizations own websites easily gotten to
from the realms.game.org site.

Councils other than the Newbie Council exist that help with amendments to rules, additions to the game and other administration of the game.
The Symposium is the Mortal Council that takes in ideas from the general population of the Mud and considers if the idea has merit for
inclusion, if it does they then take the steps necessary to clean it up and prepare as many details to pass along to the next level up.
Council of Elders