Welcome to Retromud! Congratulations on choosing Biomancer
as your primary guild!

 In choosing Biomancer, you picked a guild that
couldn't swing a sword if it's life depended on it. We are
healers, not fighters. Your job as a Biomancer in a party
is to heal the up-front fighters from the middle row. Rest
assured, this is NOT boring. A Biomancer can make or break
a party, depending on her skill.

 Your new life begins in the Biomancer Guild, in the
town of Gyndia, on the planet Welstar. Remember that. You'll
be coming back often to train.

 Here you are, a fresh, new Biomancer, raring to go
help someone. Hold that thought. As boring as it seems, you
need to explore the world. Exploring nets you a small bit of
experience for each new room explored, so be thorough. The
recommended amount of exploration is 40% of the world. Bare
Minimum? Explore every city on every planet, and learn how
to go from planet to planet without using the teleporters
in the adventurer's guilds.

 An important landmark to remember is the north gate
of Keystone City on Welstar. The north gate, or 'Ngate', is
the most common meeting point in the game, so if someone
asks to meet at ngate, they want to meet at the north gate
of Keystone. If they want to meet at any other city gate,
they'll probably tell you the name of the city.

 Explore, explore, explore. You're no good to anyone
if you can't find your way around.

 Next, you should find a master. It's not essential,
but it's a VERY good idea. Your master is another Biomancer
with more experience than you (Level 20). Your master can
give you bonuses to 3 skills of his choosing, as well as
teach you, to cut training costs. On top of this, she can
give you a title of her choice. A good master is a serious
help. Get one.

 Now with that out of the way, on to the good stuff,
Skills and Spells. All skills and spells from level 1-9 can
be trained up to 70% for no gold. From level 10-14, you can
train to 60%. From level 15-20, 50%. Get every single spell
to these minimums.

There are 3 kinds of healing spell:

Direct healing is the most powerful, affecting one target in
the same room. These are your bread and butter, and should
be brought to their maximums:

Cure Light Wounds (Level 1)
Cure Minor Wounds (Level 4)
Cure Serious Wounds (Level 7)
Cure Major Wounds (Level 12)
Heal (Level 16)
Greater Heal (Level 20)

Party Healing heals all members of your party in the same
room. It's good for when an enemy mage nails the party with
an area spell. A tad expensive, but a big time saver.

Lesser Party Heal (Level 12)
Healing Circle (Level 16)
Greater Party Heal (Level 19)

Distant healing is used on members of your party that you
cannot target directly, because they are in another room.
They can also be used while you are blind! Related to the
Distant Healing spells are Distant Transfer spells. They
heal more, but you are hurt badly in return. Don't worry,
Transfer spells cannot kill you.

 Aside from healing, Biomancers have several other
useful spells that make them a welcome addition to any party.

Remove Scar (Level 11): Does just what it says, it removes
scars. Scars are bad. Keep this one well trained, and remove
scars whenever you see them on yourself, or anyone else.
People usually like it when you remove scars without being
asked to.

Minor Choler* (Level 14): Putting this spell on a target
boosts it's spell regeneration by an amount depending on
your wisdom and training in it. Max this one out!

Minor Phlegm* (level 15): If someone asks you for 'unpain',
this is what they want. It increases the target's maximum
hp for a time, dependant on your wisdom and training. Max
this one out!

Destroy Spiritus* (Level 16): The Biomancer's only direct
damage spell. Up to 700 points of disintegration damage,
but only to humanoid targets. Useful for killing small foes
that get in your way. Keep it on hand, because you never
know...

Iron Will (Level 17): Anyone going into battle with you
will ask for this. Iron Will makes it's target much harder
to stun a real life saver. Keep this one fully trained.

Remove Exhaustion (Level 18): Also called 'remex' for
short, this spell restores lost endurance points. It gives
back ep at a rate of 2sp per 1ep healed. Every time you use
it, it tries to bring it's recipient back to full ep, so it
can be very draining. Interesting note: failing this spell
costs only 1sp, so you really don't need to have this at
it's absolute maximum.

Cure Disease (Level 18): Removes a PHYSICAL disease from
it's recipient. Be sure to diagnose your patient first,
though!

Major Sanguine* (Level 20): This spell bestows 12% physical
damage reduction and 13% poison damage reduction on it's
target. It doesn't last long, but it stacks with other
protection spells, and is handy to know.

*: These spells only work on certain races, be careful.

Many other spells exist that you can train, but these are
the really important ones.

 Some races are healed less by your magic than others.
if you are ever curious about how effective a healing spell
is, check the spell's help file. The numbers displayed are
specific to YOU, at that moment, in that location, so a level
5 biomancer on Crypt would get different numbers than a level
20 biomancer on Welstar. Check your numbers every few levels.

Skills! Abilities requiring no magic power at all. Here are
the most important ones.

First Aid (Level 2): One of the first things you learn, but
don't forget it! This revives an unconscious player from the
brink of death.

Mana Save (Level 6): Every time you fail a spell, this skill
comes into use. If Mana Save succeeds, the loss of sp is cut
in half! Mana save is an arcane skill, which means tha you
can train it up to your hermetic skill max, rather than your
normal skill max. Max this out as soon as possible, and ask
your master for a bonus in it.

Diagnose (Level 9): Gives someone 'An embarassing medical
examination' and finds out if they are diseased in any way.
Do this before trying to cure a disease, as your chances of
success are raised.

Assist (Level 13): Lets you physically DRAG an unconscious
player into another room, safely out of battle. Just be sure
you have the muscle to drag him, though.

Quick Chant (Level 15): This skill can cut your casting time
by up to half. Train this arcane skill as high as possible,
to take full advantage of it.

Surgery (Level 17): Cut open a sleeping player and fix her
internal injuries. Failing this skill is harmless, but a
fumble is something to be wary of.
Treats CHA,PER,STR,AGI,DEX, and CON loss.

Examine (Level 18): Lets you check a player for any internal
injuries that may cause stat loss. Do this every time before
surgery.

Brain Surgery (Level 19): Just like surgery, but for the
brain. Treats stat loss that normal surgery cannot handle.
Once again, fumbling this skill is not a good thing.
Treats INT and WIS.

 This is just a sample of the biomancer's abilities!
When you hit level 14, you can (But shouldn't yet) take a
secondary class, which grants even more abilities!

Telemancer: Mage with the power to teleport. The stat bonuses
are awful, but the skill are AMAZINGLY useful through all 14
levels of it.

Lifemaster: Sort of the opposite of Telemancer, because most
of Lifemaster's skills are worthless, except for a small
handful, but the stat bonuses each level are ex
cellent, and
it gives access to special healing tertiary guilds. This is
usually the next step for a biomancer.

Toximancer: Mage specializing in poison damage. Sick of
doing nothing but healing? Go for this.

Shaman: Spiritual magic user with some strange, but useful
abilities.
Cleric: Gives out some special spiritual healing spells,
such as lesser miracle, but that's about it.

Just because you have 14 in a Secondary doesn't mean you
can't go back and take 9 levels in any of these, so keep
an open mind.

Once again, welcome to Retromud! If you have questions,
don't hesitate to ask!