D

Daemon, n.
Program dedicated to performing a particular service orfunction .

Damroll, n.
(DIKU) Statistic that reflects how good a character isat inflicting damage in combat.
See: hitroll .

Dark, n.
Lacking description besides that the light level is low.
See: light , blind .

Data, n.
Information for a computer program to process .

Database, n.
Also DB.
Body of information.
(1) All of the information used to create or represent the objects presently in the active game universe .
(2) All files containing the working data needed to construct agame's areas , objects and PCs .
See: mudlib , playerfile .

D&D, n. [Comp. of Dungeons and Dragons.]
Also AD&D.
Dungeons and Dragons ®. A fantasy role-playinggame developed in the late 1970's with muchcommercial success. Many combat MUDS(esp. DIKU) are at least loosely derivative ofportions of the D&D ® system.

Death, n.
Temporary suspensionof normal play for a particular character .Not as certain as taxes in the world of MUDs.Typically penalties are associated with dying.Penalties like EXP deductions, loss of equipment , etc.
See: deletion , ghost , kill , suicide .

Decompress, v.
To enlarge something. Typically the same computer program that was used to compress a file of data isused to reverse the process 2 and recreate the originalfile.

Defrob, v., n.
(1) Wizard made common player; as penalty (involuntary), or fortheir recreation (voluntary). Wizard status is re-acquired after apenalty period is served or when the player meets the conditions ofrecreational advancement (available to any PC ).
(2) Demotion to lower wizard level by the administrator .
See: frob , frog .

Deletion, n.
Permanent destruction of an object such as a player'scharacter .

Deny, v.
To ban a character from the MUD. The "denied" characteris kicked off and unable to reconnect until an immortal has "undenied" them.

Dev/null, n.
From Unix. Nowhere. Example: "send your complaint to /dev/null" reallymeans "I don't care about your complaint."

DB, n. [Comp. of Database.]
See: database .

Description, n.
Information that defines an object's appearance from theperspective of a viewer. The viewer is typically a character .
See: long , short .

Development Site, n.
Host where a MUD is being worked on prior to goingpublic .

DEX, n. [comp. of dexterity]
See: dexterity .

Dexterity, n.
Measure of a character's agility.
See: statistics .

Dice, n.
Random selector. Often numbers displayed in the form n,n2 refer to"dice" -- the random selection of a value in the range of n..n2.
See: die , roll , XdY .

Die, n.
(1) Same as dice .
(2) Same as death .

Diety, n.
Same as god .

Diku, n.
Also DikuMUD.
Combat oriented MUD developed in 1990 at theDepartment of Computer Science at the Universityof Copenhagen (Diku).Authors:Sebastian Hammer,Tom Madsen,Katja Nyboe,Michael Seifert,Hans Henrik Staerfeldt. Diku has spawned manychildren or related games.

Dino, n.
(1) Anyone who is seen as a founder of a MUD concept or builder ofserver and who has been involved with MUDs for longer thantwo years.
(2) Anyone who has been involved with MUDs for longer than two years.Note: It is generally not considered proper to refer to one's self asa dino and some may not consider length of time involved with MUDsimportant to the definition.

Disconnect, v.
To severe a connection to the MUD.A command on many MUDs that allows immortals to disconnect a player while leaving their character linkdead .
See: freeze .

Do, v. Command allows you to give multiple commands on the same line.Each command set is seperated by a comma (,). Example:"do get sword,wield sword,kill balrog".

Donation, n.
From making sacrifical offerings to gods.
(1) System in which the donate command exists.Typically, donate will remove a specified item from acharacter and place that item in a fixed room where others may acquire it.
(2) Destination room of a donate command ."Let's go to donation and see if there's anythingwe can use."
(3) Monetary gift made to a game owner, often in return for special privledges. This is against the license agreement ofmost freely codebases .

Door, n.
Potential exit between rooms . Doors may be:open; You can pass through to another room,closed; You cannot pass through.locked; You must unlock the door to use it.
See: close , lock , open , unlock .

Domain, n.
Large area operated or maintained by a wizard . Most oftenhas a set theme.

Driver, n.
Game server.
(1) A game server that derives most if not all of theuniverse rules from a DB .
(2) Loose name for server.
See: server .

Drop, v.
(1) command to take items from one's inventory andplace them into the room .
See: get .
(2) To say you are targeting a specificcharacter for killing.Most often used on pure pk MUDs. Example:Maetar says, "Dropping Korpora."

Dual-Class, n.
System in which a character may hold up totwo classes at the same time.Typically one class is active (or effectual)while another is on hold.
See: class , multi-class .

Dynamic Text, n.
(EM 1993) Descriptions that modifythemselves based on external factors. For example, a roomdescription that changes from "There are piles of snowbelow the windows" to "Puddles of water shimmer beneath thewindows" depending on the weather. Only applies to textgenerated as a result of instructions embedded in dataspecific to a particular room and not gang orwholesale application of footers or "tags" tootherwisestatic descriptions.

Encyclopædia of MUDs, © 1993-2000 by Henry McDaniel III. Licensed to Blane Bramble, Virtua-Web Limited.