Glossary

TL;DR: Short definitions of the words this wiki uses in a fixed sense: vnum, prototype, instance, pulse, tick, round, codesource, behavior, trigger, reset, remort, qp, mudtag, Flexer pad, buildplot and a few more. Where a word has a page of its own, the entry links to it. Use when: a page uses a term you do not know, or two people mean different things by "tick". Source of truth: dreamland_code/src/merc.h, dreamland_code/src/core/resets.h, dreamland_code/src/core/room.cpp, dreamland_code/src/dreamland.cpp, dreamland_code/src/l10n/flexer.cpp, dreamland_code/plug-ins/feniaroot/codesourcerepo.cpp, dreamland_code/etc/dreamland.xml.template Verified: 2026-11-02 against dreamland_code 88da8302, dreamland_world 43880467

World and data

area (also zone). One XML file with a vnum range and the rooms, mobs, objects, resets and helps inside it. Loaded once at boot. See Area-Format.

vnum. Virtual number. The id of a prototype inside its own type. Rooms, mobs and objects each have a separate vnum space, so room 3001 and mob 3001 are unrelated. Every area owns a vnum range. A negative vnum is never valid. Older builds crash on one, see Troubleshooting.

prototype (also index data, proto). The template of a mob, object or room, identified by its vnum. In C++ it is MOB_INDEX_DATA, OBJ_INDEX_DATA and RoomIndexData. In Fenia it is what .get_mob_index(vnum), .get_obj_index(vnum) and .get_room_index(vnum) return.

instance. A live copy created from a prototype: the particular goblin in a particular room, the particular sword on the floor. Instances can differ from their prototype. A trigger set on a prototype fires for every instance of it.

mob, mobile, NPC. A non-player character. PC is a player character.

reset. One line in a zone that says what to put back when the zone repopulates: load a mob, load an object, put an object into a container, give or equip an object, set a door state, randomize exits. The engine's command letters are in src/core/resets.h. Builders edit them with resets, see OLC-Resets.

saved mobile. A mob or object written to disk so that it survives a restart. Removing its reset does not remove the saved copy. See Mechanics-World.

hometown. The city a character belongs to. It sets the recall point and where the character reappears after death.

remort. Rebirth. A character of level 100 or more can start again with a new body, keeping the name, gender, password, settings, the bank balance and quest points, among other things. Remort counts feed many formulas. See the in-game help for remort.

qp. Quest points, the currency earned from the quest trader's tasks.

trust. The level the engine uses for permission checks. For a normal immortal it is the level. A character with the coder attribute has maximal trust. Levels 1 to 100 are mortals, 101 is hero, immortal levels run from 102 to 110 (MAX_LEVEL is 110).

Time

All values below come from etc/dreamland.xml.template and can be changed there.

pulse. The smallest step of game time. Four pulses per second (pulsePerSecond), so a pulse is 250 ms. Player input, output and the Fenia database sync run every pulse. A pulse that takes longer than 250 ms logs pulse overflow.

round (battle tick, violence tick). 12 pulses, 3 seconds. One exchange of blows, and the onFight trigger.

mobile round. 16 pulses, 4 seconds. Autonomous mob actions and the onSpec trigger.

tick. 240 pulses, about one minute. Weather, the calendar hour, hunger and thirst, affect durations and object timers. One tick is one game hour. The updates are spread over four pulses at the end of the minute.

Note: the scheduler also has an internal tick counter that advances every pulse. Boot code checks that counter to see whether the server is still starting. The word "tick" on its own in this wiki means the one-minute tick. See Engine-Time-and-Pulses.

Code

core. The src/ library. Changing a header in it means a full rebuild and a restart. See Engine-Architecture.

plugin. A shared library built from one directory under plug-ins/ and loaded at run time. plugin list shows the loaded ones, plugin reload <name> swaps one. See Local-Setup.

Fenia. The scripting language built into the server. It runs most of the game rules. See Fenia.

wrapper. The Fenia-side handle for a C++ entity (character, object, room, prototype). A script works with wrappers, not with the entities.

codesource. A named unit of Fenia code stored in the Fenia database. Names are paths such as spell/<name>/runVict. A codesource is created by posting code or by loading a file with cs load. See Fenia-Scripts.

trigger. A Fenia method with a fixed name that the engine calls on an event, for example onGreet. Methods starting with on run inside the command, methods starting with post run after it. See Fenia-Triggers.

behavior. A reusable bundle of triggers and properties with a name, created with bedit and attached to mobs, objects or rooms. See Fenia-Behaviors.

global quest (gquest). A timed event for the whole world, such as a bandit raid. Started automatically or by an immortal with gquest start. See Local-Testing.

buildplot. Two meanings. First, a separate copy of the game where builders work before their zones go to the main world. Second, the buildplot server option in etc/dreamland.xml, which the stock template enables. With the option on, mobs do not attack players, hunger and thirst are off, a few boot-time log lines are muted and Fenia API dumps are not written. See Local-Setup.

Text

mudtag. An inline code in game text that starts with {, for example a colour ({R), a reset ({x), a help link ({hh128text{x), a language gate or a gender gate. See Text-Markup.

Flexer pad. A Russian or Ukrainian word stored as a stem followed by six case endings separated by |: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional. The engine joins stem and ending to decline a name. Example, the adjective "red" in the six cases:

красн|ый|ого|ому|ый|ым|ом

English text never carries a pad. See L10n.

viewer language. The language a player picked with config lang. Output is rendered per viewer. Russian is the source language and the fallback. See L10n.

See also

• Wiki-Conventions
• Repositories
• Engine-Time-and-Pulses
• Fenia
• Text-Markup