Beginner's Guide

Learn how to play

Important menu: The Atlas helps to not get lost, Online Players helps with finding other players at your level. Hall of Fame lists the standings of the top players on Stendhal. Last but not least the Travel Log lists your open quests,finished quests and jobs other npcs are doing for you.

How to control your character and other commands are explained in the Stendhal Manual. There is a list of frequently asked questions, too.

Starting off

You will enter in Semos Guard House, so

Speak to Hayunn Naratha in the room where you start
Say hi to get his attention then answer his questions (usually yes or no answers)
More useful information is given in the purple tutorial boxes, read them carefully.

General Tips

In general you should remember the following things:

Say hi to characters with blue names. Keep the conversation going with yes and blue-marked words. Sometimes yes or no is the only usable answer. Further interesting topics to talk about are usually help, job, offer and quest.
Read all texts carefully (because they might not be repeated)
Carmen can heal you for free
Eat cheese, meat or other food to regain your health.
Target creatures that are about half your level
Prefer fast weapons (small rate value)

Initial strategy

Get some money:

Kill rats to get money (Hint: click to attack, click from the corpse window that opens to take coins).
buy a sheep (-30 money) and walk your sheep near red berries (takes 5-10 min). Sell fat sheep (+150 money for weight 100 sheep) to Sato.

Get some XP:

Do the quests in Semos City by talking to NPCs.
Do the monster quest for Mayor Sakhs in the townhall of Semos City, it is repeatable once a day. Ask Starkad (south of Semos) about how to find creatures.

Get some basic equipment:

Look in the charity chest south of the Inn in Semos City for free armor.
Buy dagger (25 money) from Xin Blanca (Semos tavern).
Get studded shield from Hayunn Naratha by returning to him a third time after you talked to Monogenes.

Interesting areas

The chicken meat of the pigeons near Jenny's windmill is very delicious. ( Atlas)
At level 4 the wolfs north of Semos City ( Atlas) are a good source for food.
Collect food and fight around Semos ( Atlas)
At about level 8 try bears east of Semos, but be careful in this area. ( Atlas)
At about level 10 try Gnome Village in the north west of Semos ( Atlas) or visit the kobolds north of Semos in the Semos Mines ( Atlas)
Ask NPCs (blue names) for quest or task.

More Tips

Being poisoned swaps left/right and up/down cursor keys.
Bring a friend to go deeper in the Semos Dungeons.
Areas where you are protected from being attacked by other players are marked green on minimap.
Keep an eye on the number of white skulls below the minimap.

Things to avoid:

Be careful in Semos Dungeons because it gets quite dangerous.
Don't buy armor (in tavern back room) before trying the free places: charity chest (in Semos City), talking and doing tasks/quests (legs, shield for free), getting it from corpses in Semos Dungeons.
Don't waste money in the "wishing well" lottery (until you become rich). Dice gambling is more rewarding at low levels - check the list of prizes on the walls by the gambling table in Semos Tavern.
Don't attack players with white names - that disqualifies you from free healing (for a while)
Don't go too far from Semos. Other players and stronger creatures can kill you.

Later game strategies

Always carry:

potions (buy from Carmen (if you are rich) or Dr. Feelgood (Ados zoo) at better prices)
a home scroll (buy them from Haizen's hut north-east of Ados rock) to get you out of emergencies
antidotes (kill deer to get these) if you often get poisoned

Hunt creatures with useful items:

kill orc chief, gnomes, and others that drop potions or minor potions.
Get ham from "big" animals like lion, bear, boar.
Two-legged monsters give armor/weapons. Try attacking a gnome (farm areas).

Make money:

Ham can be traded for items with older players, or used to make food (Semos bakery)
Buy old scythe (blacksmith), then explore farm (east/right-wards) to get lots of food that you can sell
Sell armor in tavern, Gnome Village, etc. Check the NPC List for some details.

Get XP:

Visit Ados City in the east to do more quests

Get attack XP and defence XP:

You should get hits for increasing both your attack and defence levels. In order to increase your attack level, you should get hits and do damage to creatures or players, simultaneously.

Tips:

Having a good shield is most important, then a good armor, then cloak. The def is weighted to favour in this order.