The Lands of Aethar
The Lands of Aethar webpage: http://www.glowingfaceman.com/aethar/ (formerly http://www.aethar.com)
The Lands of Aethar Telnet Address: rayne.divineright.org Port: 6565
The Lands of Aethar Codebase: Custom SMAUG
The Lands of Aethar is one of the oldest SMAUG MUDs around, and was in continuous development from 1994 to 2009 with a brief development break afterward. It was actually launched before the official SMAUG codebase release, using a beta version of SMAUG. Aethar features a three kingdom system and a robust world full of cunning monsters(mobs). The MUD was mostly hack 'n' slash: if you were looking for a MUD where the organizations held multi-player runs on high-end mobs almost every day, you'd found the right MUD. Aethar went from retired to back online, and tunneling has been eliminated For the newbies, tunneling is a restriction on the amount of players allowed within the same room at a time i.e...when trying to face a mob. Even with tunneling eliminated Aethar is still a demanding force with is variety of aspects and versatility. The world can also be explored over HTML.
A Very Brief History of the Lands of Aethar[]
The Lands of Aethar MUD was launched by Gaidin(Stephen)/Felix/Naeblis(Tim)/Rory/Lucus/Joel in 1994. This group of young upstarts took the Mudding world by storm until they were divided and ultimately destroyed by petty grievances. There are those that suspect that the sheer handsomeness and swarthy charm of the one known as Naeblis drove a wedge in the group, however this cannot be verified.
Later, it was transfered to the ownership of Druiad. After that, it was transfered to the ownership of Validus, who owns it today. Around 2003, Validus retired from active administration, continuing as supreme owner but passing the reigns on to Fuegan. From there, they passed in time to Dominus and Chamdar, Geyron, and finally to Mental.
The Lands of Aethar was originally named "Clouds over Bedlam". It was then changed to just "Bedlam", and finally to "The Lands of Aethar". In 1999, we officially acknowledged our far departure from stock SMAUG and launched "Aethar II".
In 2009, the game was retired, and the world was converted into a frozen snapshot available over HTTP. Shortly after retirment Mental took the initiative to put Aethar II back online and it's running to this day.