LORDS OF DOOM
Brought to you by Belgarath

The first owns the dark of the moors bleak and nightly, where an eerie wind 
moans at the desolate sight. 

The next owns the dark of the realm of Osiris, where waters of yonder restore 
Isis’ might. 

The third owns the dark of the stairways and alleys, reached only by flickering 
candlelight. 

The fourth owns the dark of the graves that are mould’ring, with fog that 
envelops the stone slabs at night. 

Different though they may be - they all love the dark that matches the night of 
their souls. And together they crave the crimson juice of life, that elixir granting 
them power. 

In old times they used to hunt by themselves. Later, however, their dark souls
conspired to form an unholy alliance. At that time, no-one any longer believed in 
their existence.

Yet they came... 

Something terrible is going on in little Vertic. Vertic, the hamlet on the edge of 
the desert, hardly known by anyone. Things happened on a dark night as the moon 
hid its pale countenance behind mighty clouds and the wind sighed in the trees.
Things so sinister, dangerous and dreadful that no human soul now dares to 
approach this cursed place.


It was a night of horror and violence for those who consciously witnessed it. Most 
people were surprised during sleep though, and their death was merciful, for it
came swiftly without anguish. Yet it was no death to give their souls peace. 
Whoever died became one of them, and that was worst of all...

They came with the irrepressible flood of their minions, with zombies, werewolves,
mummies and vampires. 

Now the town belongs to them. Silence rules over the streets and houses. The 
flowers in the gardens have withered. Whoever dares to enter the town will not see 
a soul nor hear a single child cry. Nobody will show themselves by the windows 
that stare at the streets like dead eyes. His footsteps will appear noisy and the 
surrounding silence like an ancient curse. And the shadow of the grave will fall 
upon him heavily...

The hamlet now belongs to them but they will not remain there. Before long, they 
will spread and sow the seeds of damnation in ever growing circles. Unless 
somebody recognizes the danger and begins to act, there will come countless nights
with a moon wrapped in clouds and a wind moaning its death chant! 

Few of those who experienced the horror have survived. Sharon McGillis and 
Charlie Jackson are two of them. They are the last human inhabitants of Vertic. 

So far, they have been able to hide from the hordes of monsters, but their situation 
is desperate. Without a vehicle, they are cut off from the outside world. How can 
they possibly call for help and put an end to this dreadful nightmare? 

Take over the two characters Sharon and Charlie in LORDS OF DOOM and lead 
them in their crucial fight against time and the Lords of Darkness. Try to keep
them alive, find the hideouts of the four unholy Lords and solve a plethora of 
puzzles. Call your friends Susan Leicester and fearless vampire killer Abraham Van 
Halen for help. Guide these people too, through the dead endless night of Vertic. 

The Screen 

The screen is divided into five different parts. The biggest and most striking is the 
picture. Here you can find the locations where you are at the moment. Further- 
more you can see the actions and objects. Underneath the picture there is a small 
line for the text. This line serves to issue texts. You can see a box which adapts 
automatically to the size of the text to be issued. In case the text should comprise
of more lines that can be shown at the same time, the program stops   for a short 
period to give you the opportunity to read it. You can end this pause at  any  time 
by pressing the mouse button or a key. Subsequently the following text is shown. 

Below you can find the status information of all four heroes. Underneath the 
corresponding picture there are three coloured beams. The green one indicates how 
satiated your character is. The yellow beam shows you whether the character is 
thirsty and the red one indicates the character’s health. In case this beam ever 
reaches zero, the character dies! Therefore pay attention to the fact that you give
your characters a bit of rest and feed them as well.

You will find your score on the upper right part of the screen. It will give you the 
amount of points you have already scored in this game. 

Below you can see four icons. Their meaning will be brought up later. They are 
needed for the interaction with the programme.

Beneath the icons you have got a detailed review of your presently active character.
The active hero is the one whose part you play at the moment. In order to change
the active character just go to one of the four small character pictures on the left 
bottom with the mouse control and press the mouse button. Now the chart of 
characters is being renewed and probably a new location is shown   - depending on 
where the corresponding character is at present. The characters can also be 
selected with the help of the keyboard. Just press the keys l-4 in order to activate 
the corresponding character. On the right hand side adjacent to the picture of the
character you can see six item slots. All items the figure is carrying are deposed in
these slots. From here all items are being used and examined. A bit further below 
you will once again see the three coloured status beams of the character, but this 
time a bit bigger.

Interaction with the program 

The major part of the actions in LORDS OF DOOM is being executed via the 
four icons on the upper right of the screen. Below, please find a description of all 
four icons and their meaning. Many actions though, (e.g. the fights and the 
investigation of rooms) will be executed directly on the screen.

The disk symbol is needed for the loading and saving of scores. When clicking it 
with the mouse, a menu appears which offers you the opportunity to load and save. 
As LORDS OF DOOM uses its own recording format in order to save the scores, 
you should first format a disk for the data. You therefore need an empty or  non- 
formatted  disk, as all data is being  formatted  from the disk! Then click the menu 
entry ‘Format data disk’ with the mouse. Various announcements and questions
you have to follow conscientiously appear. Furthermore you have got a LORDS 
OF DOOM data disk on which you can save up to eight scores. Naturally you can
leave the disk menu at any time with the help of the option ‘rupture’. 

Please click the menu on’ ‘saving score’ in order to save the game. After having 
inserted a data disk the present score is saved, so that you can continue at this
position at any time. 

In order to load a game saved beforehand, click the menu entry ‘load game’. The 
game is now being continued at the position saved earlier.

The menu entry ‘restart’ serves to start the game once again. Should you wish to 
start again at the  very  beginning during a game, just select this option. 

This icon serves to examine and inspect, as well as to read items. In order to 
examine an item more carefully, please select it first by directing the mouse to the 
appropriate item of your active character’s inventory and click the left mouse 
button. The cursor should now have the form of the item you clicked on and a blue 
frame should appear around the chosen item slot. You have now selected the item. 
Go to the ‘examining icon’ with the mouse and click the left mouse button once 
again. The program will tell you now what it knows about this item. 

The ‘OPENING ICON’ serves to open items. In case you want to know how many
shots a weapon has still got it is necessary to ‘open’ the weapon. Therefore select 
the item as described earlier and press the ‘opening icon’.

In order to take an item out of the container just select it and close the container 
by pressing the ‘opening icon’ once more. In order to put an item into the 
container, the item has to be inside a room. After opening the container just click 
the item in the room and it will be transfered straight into the container. Please 
take care though as weapons can only be loaded with ammunition, i.e. cartridges or
something similar, as well as bottles can only be filled with liquids. 

Pay attention though that this ‘opening icon’ should not be confounded with a 
function which could be used to open doors or even pick locks! 

The ‘USING ICON’. In order to use an item, you have to select it first as 
mentioned above and then click the ‘using icon’. The crosshair cursor with which 
you have to select the item you want to use appears. Here a little example which
makes the kind of action much clearer. Supposing you are in front of a locked 
door, but you have got the key fitting the lock of the door in your inventory then 
just select the key, activate afterwards the ‘using icon’ (a crosshair cursor will 
appear), and then click the door in approx. the height of the lock.

Perhaps that will seem a bit complicated now, but after several games you will get
used to the user guide of LORDS OF DOOM.


Special commands 

According to each computer, your LORDS OF DOOM contains special commands 
which are partly tailored to the particularities of the corresponding system. In this 
connection you have got a single-key command varying as mentioned before from
computer to computer. 

F9

With this function key you can suppress the playing of the digitized sound effects.
This function was especially installed for those of you who only possess a memory 
of 512  KByte  and do not have their own hard disk. As the loading of the sound 
effects is time consuming and often connected with a change of disks on the 
minimum configurations, you can suppress the loading and playing of these sounds.
This might be an advantage for the course of the game, but you should not forget 
though that leaving the sound effects out, a substantial part of the game’s 
atmosphere will be missing! Of course, these functions only work for those versions
which support digitized sound effects. 

F10 

On the Atari ST this function key will help you change between an alternating
picture frequency of 50 to 60 hertz. As not all current types of monitors, in 
particular television sets, can synchronize the higher frequency, this feature can be
toggled. The program runs with an alternating frequency of 50 hertz as a default.
In case you wish to have an improved quality of the picture in the shape of higher 
sharpness of the picture and less flickering, just press  F10.  Pressing the key, it 
switches between a frequency of 50 and 60 hertz, so that you can quickly test 
whether the monitor can synchronize the higher frequency. 

P

By pressing key P the game is paused. If you press the key once more the game is 
continued. While the program is in pause mode nothing will happen in the game. 
You need not be afraid, not even during a longer pause, that your characters could 
starve or die of thirst in the meantime. In order to preserve your monitor it goes 
black and one line of the text will draw your attention to the fact that the program 
is in a waiting position. 

The picture 

In order to examine any of the details in the stereoscopic picture shown, just click
on the mouse control direct in the picture on the item. In case you have clicked on
an item which you would like to take with you, this one will be transfered directly 
to your inventory where you can examine it more carefully with the help of the
‘EXAMINING ICON’. If all six item slots are already occupied, the item will be
shown on the bottom of the stereoscopic picture so that you will have less 
difficulties in finding it next time. In order to deposit an object from your inventory
into the room, it is sufficient to just activate the corresponding item slot, go to the 
picture gate with the mouse control and press the left mouse button. Please note
that the items can only be deposed on the floor. 

In case you are involved in a fight, which is much more devious in LORDS OF
DOOM than you would think, the fight takes place in the picture almost 
exclusively. Please select as soon as possible a weapon and choose the ‘using icon’. 
Now go to the picture gate, to the crosshair cursor, and click those parts of the
monsters you want to strike. Very often you need a certain amount until the 
monster is finally killed. Especially at the beginning of the game , until a more 
effective weapon is found.

Progression 

In order to go from one location to the other in LORDS OF DOOM, you click on 
arrows in the mask of the screen, all located around  the  picture. These directing 
arrows are either printed in yellow or white. The white arrows indicate that there
is an exit in this direction, therefore you can head that way. In case you click on
one of these white arrows, the presently active character starts moving and you will 
find yourself in the adjacent room. For all these movements you should always 
keep in mind that only the presently active character moves around. All other 
characters remain in their usual place. Therefore you have got the opportunity in 
LORDS OF DOOM to move around the four characters of the game completely 
independent from each other. The arrows can as well be activated through the four
cursor keys on your keyboard. 


Gamedesign
H.J. Brandle, Guy Henkel

Director
H. J. Brindle

Graphic Artists
Markus Henrich, Bernie Karwath
Guy Henkel

Atari ST Version
H.J. Brandle, Guy Henkel

Amiga Version
Guy Henkel

Commodore C64 Version
Sense of Wonder
Joey Karwath

IBM PC Version
H.J. Briindle, Guy Henkel

Illustrationen
Heinrich Stiller

Handbuch
Guy Henkel, Bernie Karwath

Handbuch (txt)
Belgarath
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Produziert von
attic Entertainment Software

Vettrieb
STARBYTE Software