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Rise of Nations/Nations/Aztecs

Aztecs-The Power of Sacrifice
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Aztecs; a short history:
Aztec culture is generally grouped with the cultural complex known as the nahuas, because of the common language they shared. According to legend, the various groups who were to become the Aztecs arrived from the north into the Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco. The location of this valley and lake of destination is clear – it is the heart of modern Mexico City – but little can be known with certainty about the origin of the Aztec.

In the legend, the ancestors of the Aztec came from a place in the north called Aztlán, the last of seven nahuatlacas (Nahuatl-speaking tribes, from tlaca=man) to make the journey southward. The Aztec were said to be guided by their god Huitzilopochtli, meaning "Left-handed Hummingbird". When they arrived at an island in the lake, they saw an eagle eating a snake while perched on a nopal cactus, a vision that fulfilled a prophecy telling them that they should found their new home on that spot. The Aztec built their city of Tenochtitlan on that site, building a great artificial island, which today is in the center of Mexico City. This legendary vision is pictured on the Mexican flag.

According to legend, when the Aztec arrived in the Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco, they were considered by the other groups as the least civilized of all, but the Aztec decided to learn, and they took all they could from other peoples, especially from the ancient Toltec (whom they seem to have partially confused with the more ancient civilization of Teotihuacan). To the Aztec, the Toltecs were the originators of all culture; "Toltecayotl" was a synonym for culture. Aztec legends identify the Toltecs and the cult of Quetzalcoatl with the mythical city of Tollan, which they also seem to have identified with the more ancient Teotihuacan.

Because the Aztec adopted and combined several traditions with their own earlier traditions, they had several creation myths; one of these describes four great ages preceding the present world, each of which ended in a catastrophe. Our age – Nahui-Ollin, the fifth age, or fifth creation – escaped destruction due to the sacrifice of a god (Nanahuatl, "full of sores", the smallest and humblest of the gods) who was transformed into the Sun. This myth is associated with the ancient city of Teotihuacan, which was already abandoned and destroyed when the Aztec arrived. Another myth describes the earth as a creation of the twin gods Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl. Tezcatlipoca lost his foot in the process of creating the world and all representations of these gods show him without a foot and with a bone exposed. Quetzalcoatl is also called "White Tezcatlipoca".

Rise of the Aztecs
Aztec calendar stone There were twelve rulers or tlatoani of Tenochtitlan:

Legendary Founder: Tenoch 1375: Acamapichtli 1395: Huitzilihuitl 1417: Chimalpopoca 1427: Itzcoatl 1440: Moctezuma I (or Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina) 1469: Axayacatl 1481: Tizoc 1486: Auitzotl 1502: Moctezuma II (or Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, the famous "Montezuma", a.k.a. Motecuhzoma II) 1520: Cuitlahuac 1521: Cuauhtemoc After the fall of Tula, in the 12th century, in the valley of Mexico and surroundings, there were several city states of Nahua-speaking people: Cholula, Huexotzingo, Tlaxcala, Atzcapotzalco, Chalco, Culhuacan, Xochimilco, Tlacopan, etc. No single one of them was powerful enough to dominate other cities, and they were somewhat united by a common Toltec background. Aztec chronicles describe this time as a golden age, when music was established, people learned arts and crafts from surviving Toltecs, and rulers held poetry contests in place of wars.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, around the Lake Texcoco in the Anahuac Valley, the most powerful of these city states were Culhuacan to the south, and Azcapotzalco to the west. Between them, they controlled the whole Lake Texcoco area.

As a result, when the Mexica arrived to the Anahuac valley as a semi-nomadic tribe, they had nowhere to go. They settled temporarily in Chapultepec, but this was under the rule of Azcapotzalco, the city of the "Tepaneca", and they were soon expelled. They then went to the area dominated by Culhuacan and, in 1299, the ruler Cocoxtli gave them permission to settle in the empty barrens of Tizapan. They assimilated to Culhuacan culture: they took and married Culhuacan women, so that those women could teach their children. In 1323, they asked the new ruler of Culhuacan, Achicometl, for his daughter, in order to make her the goddess Yaocihuatl. The Mexica sacrificed her. The people of Culhuacan were horrified and expelled the Mexica. Forced to flee, in 1325 they went to a small islet in the center of the lake where they began to build their city "Mexico - Tenochtitlan", eventually creating a large artificial island. After a time, they elected their first tlatoani, Acamapichtli, following customs learned from the Culhuacan. Another Mexica group settled on the north shore: this would become the city of Tlatelolco. Originally, this was an independent Mexica kingdom, but eventually it merged with the islet.

During this period, the islet was under the jurisdiction of Azcapotzalco, and the Mexica had to pay heavy tributes to stay there.

Initially, the Mexica hired themselves out as mercenaries in wars between Nahuas, breaking the balance of power between city states. Eventually they gained enough glory to receive royal marriages. Mexica rulers Acamapichtli, Huitzilihuitl and Chimalpopoca were, in 1372–1427, vassals of Tezozomoc, a lord of the Tepanec nahua.

When Tezozomoc died, his son Maxtla assassinated Chimalpopoca, whose uncle Itzcoatl allied with the ex-ruler of Texcoco, Nezahualcoyotl, and besieged Maxtla's capital Azcapotzalco. Maxtla surrendered after 100 days and went into exile. Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan formed a "Triple Alliance" that came to dominate the Valley of Mexico, and then extended its power beyond. Tenochtitlan gradually became the dominant power in the alliance.

Itzcoatl's nephew Motecuhzoma I inherited the throne in 1449 and expanded the realm. His son Axayacatl (1469) surrounding kingdom of Tlatelolco. His sister was married to the tlatoani of Tlatelolco, but, as a pretext for war, he declared that she was mistreated. He went on to conquer Matlazinca and the cities of Tollocan, Ocuillan, and Mallinalco. He was defeated by the Tarascans in Tzintzuntzan (the first great defeat the Aztecs had ever suffered), but recovered and took control of the Huasteca region, conquering the Mixtecs and Zapotecs.

In 1481 Axayacatl's son Tizoc ruled briefly, but he was considered weak, so he was replaced (possibly through assassination by poisoning) by his younger brother Ahuitzol who had reorganized the army. The empire was at its largest during his reign. His successor was Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin (better known as Moctezuma II), who was tlatoani when the Spaniards arrived in 1519.

The Empire
The Aztec Empire is not completely analogous to the empires of European history. Like most European empires, it was ethnically very diverse, but unlike most European empires, it was more a system of tribute than a single system of government. Arnold Toynbee in War and Civilization analogizes it to the Assyrian Empire in this respect.

Although cities under Aztec rule seem to have paid heavy tributes, excavations in the Aztec-ruled provinces show a steady increase in the welfare of common people after they were conquered. This probably was due to an increase of trade, thanks to better roads and communications, and the tributes were extracted from a broad base. Only the upper classes seem to have suffered economically, and only at first. There appears to have been trade even in things that could be produced locally: love of novelty may have been a factor. There was even trade with cities considered enemies. The Purepechas, the only people who defeated the Aztecs, were the main source of copper axes. The main contribution of the Aztec rule was a system of communications between the conquered cities. In Mesoamerica, they had no animals for transport, nor wheeled vehicles, so the roads were designed for travel on foot. Usually these roads were part of the tributes, and travelers had places to rest, eat, and even latrines at regular intervals, every 10 or 15 km. They were constantly watched, so even women could travel alone. Also, couriers (Paynani) were constantly traveling along those ways, keeping the Aztecs informed of events.

The Aztec empire produced the biggest demographic explosion in Mesoamerica: the population grew from an estimated 10 million to 15 million.

The most important official of Tenochtitlan government was often called The Aztec Emperor. The Nahuatl title, Huey Tlatoani (plural huey tlatoque), translates roughly as "Great Speaker"; the tlatoque ("speakers") were an upper class. This office gradually took on more power with the rise of Tenochtitlan. By the time of Auitzotl "Emperor" is an appropriate analogy, although as in the Holy Roman Empire, the title was not hereditary.

Most of the Aztec empire was forged by one man, Tlacaelel (Nahuatl for "manly heart"), who lived from 1397 to 1487. Although he was offered the opportunity to be tlatoani, he preferred to stay behind the throne. Nephew of Tlatoani Itzcoatl, and brother of Chimalpopoca and Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina, his title was "Cihuacoatl" (in honor of the goddess, roughly equivalent to "counselor"), but as reported in the Ramírez Codex, "what Tlacaellel ordered, was as soon done". He gave the Aztec government a new structure, he ordered the burning of most Aztec books (his explanation being that they were full of lies) and he rewrote their history. In addition, Tlacaelel reformed Aztec religion, by putting the tribal god Huitzilopochtli at the same level as the old Nahua gods Tlaloc, Tezcatlipoca, and Quetzalcoatl. Tlacaelel thus created a common awareness of history for the Aztecs. He also created the institution of ritual war (the flowery wars) as a way to have trained warriors, and created the necessity of constant sacrifices to keep the Sun moving. Some writers believe upper classes were aware of this forgery, which would explain the later actions of Moctezuma when he met Hernán Cortés (a.k.a. Cortez). But eventually this institution helped to cause the fall of the Aztec empire. The people of Tlaxcala were spared conquest, at the price of participating in the flower wars. When Cortés came to know this, he approached them and they became his allies. The Tlaxcaltecas provided thousands of men to support the few hundred Spaniards. The Aztec strategy of war was based on the capture of prisoners by individual warriors, not on working as a group to kill the enemy in battle. By the time the Aztecs came to recognize what warfare meant in European terms, it was too late.

The Aztecs were conquered by Spain in 1521, when after long battle and a long siege where much of the population died from hunger and smallpox, Cuauhtémoc surrendered to Hernán Cortés (a.k.a. "Cortez"). Cortés, with his up to 500 Spaniards, did not fight alone but with as many as 150,000 or 200,000 allies from Tlaxcala, and eventually from Texcoco, who were resisting Aztec rule. He defeated Tenochtitlan's forces on August 13, 1521.

Aztec society
Class structure The society traditionally was divided into two social classes; the macehualli (people) or peasantry and the pilli or nobility. Nobility was not originally hereditary, although the sons of pillis had access to better resources and education, so it was easier for them to become pillis. Eventually, this class system took on the aspects of a hereditary system. The Aztec military had an equivalent to military service with a core of professional warriors. An Aztec became a pilli through his abilities in war. Only those that had taken prisoners could become full-time warriors, and eventually the honors and spoils of war would make them pillis. Once an Aztec warrior had captured 4 or 5 captives, he would be called tequiua and could attain a rank of Eagle or Jaguar knight, sometimes translated as "captain", eventually he could reach the rank of tlacateccatl or tlachochcalli. To be elected as tlatoani, one was required to have taken about 17 captives in war. When Aztec boys attained adult age, they stopped cutting their hair until they took their first captive; sometimes two or three youths united to get their first captive; then they would be called iyac. If after certain time, usually three combats, they could not gain a captive, they became macehualli; it was shameful to be a warrior with long hair, indicating lack of captives; one would prefer to be a macehualli.

The abundance of tributes led to the emergence and rise of a third class that was not part of the traditional Aztec society: pochtecas or traders. Their activities were not only commercial: they also were an effective intelligence gathering force. They were scorned by the warriors, who nonetheless sent to them their spoils of war in exchange for blankets, feathers, slaves, and other presents.

In the later days of the empire, the concept of macehualli also had changed. Eduardo Noguera (Annals of Anthropology, UNAM, Vol. xi, 1974, p. 56) estimates only 20% of the population was dedicated to agriculture and food production. The chinampa system of food production was very efficient; it could provide food for about 190,000 people. Also, a significant amount of food was obtained by trade and tribute. The Aztec were not only conquering warriors, but also skilled artisans and aggresive traders. Eventually, most of the macehuallis were dedicated to arts and crafts and their works were an important source of income for the city (Sanders, William T., Settlement Patterns in Central Mexico. Handbook of Middle American Indians, 1971, vol. 3, p. 3-44).

Excavations of some cities under Aztec rule show that a sizeable number of luxury items were produced in Tenochtitlan. More excavations are needed to show if this was true in other Aztec provinces, but if trade was as important as it seems, this could explain the rise of the Pochteca as a powerful class.

Slavery
Slaves or tlacotin (distinct from war captives) also constituted an important class. This slavery was very different from what Europeans of the same period were to establish in their colonies, although it had much in common with the slaves of classical antiquity. (Sahagún doubts the appropriateness even of the term "slavery" for this Aztec institution.) First, slavery was personal, not hereditary: a slave's children were free. A slave could have possessions and even own other slaves. Slaves could buy their liberty, and slaves could be set free if they were able to show they had been mistreated or if they had children with or were married to their masters.

Typically, upon the death of the master, slaves who had performed outstanding services were freed. The rest of the slaves were passed on as part of an inheritance.

Another rather remarkable method for a slave to recover liberty was described by Manuel Orozco y Berra in La civilización azteca (1860): if, at the tianquiztli (marketplace; the word has survived into modern-day Spanish as "tianguis"), a slave could escape the vigilance of his or her master, run outside the walls of the market and step on a piece of human excrement, he could then present his case to the judges, who would free him. He or she would then be washed, provided with new clothes (so that he or she would not be wearing clothes belonging to the master), and declared free. Because, in stark contrast to the European colonies, a person could be declared a slave if he or she attempted to prevent the escape of a slave (unless that person were a relative of the master), others would not typically help the master in preventing the slave's escape.

Wooden collar.Orozco y Berra also reports that a master could not sell a slave without the slave's consent, unless the slave had been classified as incorrigible by an authority. (Incorrigibility could be determined on the basis of repeated laziness, attempts to run away, or general bad conduct.) Incorrigible slaves were made to wear a wooden collar, affixed by rings at the back. The collar was not merely a symbol of bad conduct: it was designed to make it harder to run away through a crowd or through narrow spaces.

When buying a collared slave, one was informed of how many times that slave had been sold. A slave who was sold four times as incorrigible could be sold to be sacrificed; those slaves commanded a premium in price.

However, if a collared slave managed to present him- or herself in the royal palace or in a temple, he or she would regain liberty.

An Aztec could become a slave as a punishment. A murderer sentenced to death could instead, upon the request of the wife of his victim, be given to her as a slave. A father could sell his son into slavery if the son was declared incorrigible by an authority. Those who did not pay their debts could also be sold as slaves.

People could sell themselves as slaves. They could stay free long enough to enjoy the price of their liberty, about twenty blankets, usually enough for a year; after that time they went to their new master. Usually this was the destiny of gamblers and of old ahuini (courtesans or prostitutes).

Motolinía reports that some captives, future victims of sacrifice, were treated as slaves with all the rights of an Aztec slave until the time of their sacrifice, but it is not clear how they were kept from running away.

Recreation
Although one could drink pulque, a fermented beverage with an alcoholic content equivalent to beer, getting drunk before the age of 60 was forbidden under penalty of death.

Like in modern Mexico, the Aztecs had strong passions over a ball game, but this in their case it was tlachtli, the Aztec variant of the ulama game, the ancient ball game of Mesoamerica. The game was played with a ball of solid rubber, about the size of a human head. The ball was called "olli", whence derives the Spanish word for rubber, "hule". The city had two special buildings for the ball games. The players hit the ball with their hips. They had to pass the ball through a stone ring. The fortunate player that could do this had the right to take the blankets of the public, so his victory was followed by general running of the public, with screams and laughter. People used to bet on the results of the game. Poor people could bet their food, pillis could bet their fortunes, tecutlis (lords) could bet their concubines or even their cities, and those who had nothing could bet their freedom and risk becoming slaves.

Tenochtitlan
Tenochtitlan covered an area of 8 square kilometers. There is no agreement on the estimated population of the city. Most authorities prefer a conservative 60,000 to 130,000 inhabitants, still bigger than most European cities of the time, surpassed only by Constantinople with about 200,000 inhabitants, Paris with about 285,000, and Venice with about 130,000. [1]. Eduardo Noguera estimated 50,000 houses and 300,000 inhabitants. Soustelle gives an estimate of 700,000 people, if the populations of Tlatelolco and the small satellite cities and islets around Tenochtitlan are included. Tlatelolco was originally an independent city, but it became a suburb of Tenochtitlan.

The city was divided into four zones or campan, each campan was divided on 20 districts (calpullis), and each calpulli was crossed by streets or tlaxilcalli. There were three main streets that crossed the city and extended to firm land; Bernal Díaz del Castillo reported it was wide enough for ten horses. The calpullis were divided by channels used for transportation, with wood bridges that were removed at night. It was in trying to cross these channels that the Spaniards lost most of the gold they had acquired from Moctezuma.

Each calpulli had some specialty in arts and craft. When each calpulli offered some celebration, they tried to outdo the other calpullis. Even today, in the south part of Mexico City, the community organizations in charge of church festivities are called "calpullis".

Each calpulli had its own tianquiztli (marketplace), but there was also a main marketplace in Tlatelolco. Cortés estimated it was twice the size of the city of Seville with about 60,000 people, trading daily, Sahagún give us a more conservative 20,000 daily and 40,000 on feast days. Aztecs had no coins, so most trade was made in goods, but cacao was so appreciated, it was used as an equivalent of coins. Gold had no intrinsic value: it was considered as a raw material for crafts. Gold jewelry had value, but raw gold had little. For the Aztecs, the destruction of objects to get a few pieces of gold was incomprehensible.

There were also specialized tianquiztli in the small towns around Tenochtitlan. In Chollolan, there were jewels, fine stones, and feathers, in Texcoco there were clothes, in Aculma was the dog market. The Aztecs had three special breeds of dogs with no hair, of which only one survives. They were the tepezcuintli, the itzcuitepotzontli and the xoloizcuintli. These hairless dogs were mainly for eating and also were offerings for sacrifice. The Aztecs also had normal dogs for company.

In the center of the city were the public buildings, temples and schools. Inside a walled square, 300 meters to a side, was the ceremonial center, there were about 45 public buildings, the main temple, the temple of Quetzalcoatl, the ball game, the tzompantli or rack of skulls, the temple of the sun, the platforms for the gladiatorial sacrifice, and some minor temples. Outside was the palace of Moctezuma, with 100 rooms, each one with its own bath, for the lords and ambassadors of allies and conquered people. Near, also was the cuicalli or house of the songs, and the calmecac. The city had a great symmetry. All constructions had to be approved by the calmimilocatl, a functionary in charge of the city planning. No one could invade the streets and channels.

The palace of Moctezuma also had two houses or zoos, one for birds of prey and other for other birds, reptiles and mammals. About three hundred people were dedicated to the care of the animals. There was also a botanical garden and an aquarium. The aquarium had ten ponds of salt water and ten ponds of clear water, containing fishes and aquatic birds. Places like this also existed in Texcoco, Chapultepec, Huastepec (now called Oaxtepec) and Tezcutzingo.

Bernal was amazed to find latrines in private houses and a public latrine in the tianquiztli and main streets. Small boats went through the city collecting garbage, and excrement was collected to be sold as fertilizer. About 1,000 men were dedicated to cleaning the city's streets.

For public purposes, and to be able to set the pace of official business, trumpets were sounded from the tops of the temples six times a day: at sunrise, later on in the morning, at midday, again in the mid-afternoon, after sunset, and at midnight.

Although the lake was salty, dams built by the Aztecs kept the city surrounded by clear water from the rivers that fed the lake. Two double aqueducts provided the city with fresh water; this was intended mainly for cleaning and washing. For drinking, water from mountain springs was preferred. Most of the population liked to bathe twice a day; Moctezuma was reported to take four baths a day. As soap they used the root of a plant called copalxocotl (saponaria americana); to clean their clothes they used the root of metl. Also, the upper classes and pregnant women enjoyed the temazcalli, which was similar to a sauna bath and is still used in the south of Mexico; this was also popular in other Mesoamerican cultures.

Sahagún reports that the city also had beggars (only crippled people were allowed to beg), thieves and prostitutes. At night, in the dark alleys one could find scantily clad ladies with heavy makeup (they also painted their teeth), chewing tzicli (chicle, the original chewing gum) noisily to attract clients. There seem to have been another kind of women, ahuianis, who had sexual relations with warriors. The Spaniards were surprised because they did not charge for their work, so perhaps they had other means of support.

Education
Representation of Aztec education.Until the age of fourteen, the education of children was in the hands of their parents. There was a collection of sayings, called huehuetlatolli ("The sayings of the old"), that represented the Aztecs' ideals. It included speeches and sayings for every occasion, the words to salute the birth of children, and to say farewell at death. Fathers admonished their daughters to be very clean, but not to use makeup, because they would look like ahuianis. Mothers admonished their daughters to support their husbands, even if they turn out to be humble peasants. Boys were admonished to be humble, obedient and hard workers.

Male children went to school at age 15. There were two types of educational institutions. The telpochcalli taught history, religion, military fighting arts, and a trade or craft (such as agriculture or handicrafts). The calmecac, attended mostly by the sons of pillis, was focused on turning out leaders (tlatoques), priests, scholars/teachers (tlatimini), and codex painters (tlacuilos). They studied rituals, literacy, calendrics, songs (poetry), and, as at the telpochcalli, military fighting arts.

Aztec teachers propounded a spartan regime of education – cold baths in the morning, hard work, physical punishment, bleeding with maguey thorns and endurance tests – with the purpose of forming a stoical people.

There is contradictory information about whether calmecac was reserved for the sons and daughters of the pillis; some accounts said they could choose where to study. It is possible that the common people preferred the tepochcalli, because a warrior could advance more readily by his military abilities; becoming a priest or a tlacuilo was not a way to rise rapidly from a low station.

Girls were educated in the crafts of home and child raising. They were not taught to read or write.

There were also two other opportunities for those few who had talent. Some were chosen for the house of song and dance, and others were chosen for the ball game. Both occupations had high status.

Diet
The Aztec created artificial islands or chinampas on Lake Texcoco, on which they cultivated crops. The Aztec staple foods included maize, beans and squash. Chinampas were a very efficient system and could provide up to seven crops a year, on the basis of current chinampa yields, it has been estimated that 1 hectare of chinampa would feed 20 individuals, with about 9,000 hectares of chinampa, there was food for 180,000 peoples.

Much has been said about a lack of proteins in the Aztec diet, to support the arguments on the existence of cannibalism (M. Harner, Am. Ethnol. 4, 117 (1977)), but there is little evidence to support it: a combination of maize and beans provides the full quota of essential amino acids, so there is no need for animal proteins. The Aztecs had a great diversity of maize strains, with a wide range of amino acid content; also, they cultivated amaranth for its seeds, which have a high protein content. More important is that they had a wider variety of foods. They harvested accoils, a small and abundant shrimp of Lake Texcoco, also spirulina algae, which was made into a sort of cake that was rich in flavonoids, and they ate insects, such as crickets (chapulines), maguey worms, ants, larvae, etc. Insects have a higher protein content than meat, and even now they are considered a delicacy in some parts of Mexico. Aztec also have domestic animals, like turkey and some breed of dogs, that provide meat, although usually this was reserved for special occasions. Hunting was also another source of meat - deer, wild hogs, ducks etc.

A study by Montellano (Medicina, nutrición y salud aztecas, 1997) shows a mean life of 37 (+/- 3) years for the population of Mesoamerica.

Aztec also used maguey extensively; from it they obtained food, sugar (aguamiel), drink (pulque), and fibers for ropes and clothing. Use of cotton and jewelry was restricted to the elite. Cocoa grains were used as money. Subjugated cities paid annual tribute in form of luxury goods like feathers and adorned suits.

After the Spanish conquest some foods were outlawed, like amaranth, and there was less diversity of food. This led to a chronic malnutrition in the general population.

Sacrifices
Aztec sacrifice.For the Europeans, human sacrifice was the most striking feature of Aztec civilization. The necesity of sacrifice was widespread at this time in Mesoamerica and South America (during the Inca Empire), but the Aztecs practiced it on a particularly large scale, sacrificing human victims on each of their 18 festivities.

But not all sacrifices involved human sacrifice. Most cultures of Mesoamerica gave some kind of offerings to the gods and the sacrifice of animals was common, a practice which the Aztecs bred special dogs for. Objects also were sacrified, they were broken and offered to their gods. The cult of Quetzalcoatl required the sacrifice of butterflies and hummingbirds. Self sacrifice was also quite common; people would offer maguey thorns, tainted with their own blood. Blood held a central place in Mesoamerican cultures; in one of the creation myths, Quetzalcoatl would offer blood extracted from a wound in his own penis to give life to humanity and there are further several myths, where Nahua gods offer their blood to help humanity. In the myth of the fith sun, all the gods sacrifice themselves so humanity could live.

All this prepared people to the supreme sacrifice: Human sacrifice. In the usual procedure of sacrifice, the victim would be painted with blue chalk (the color of sacrifice) and taken to the top of the great pyramid. Then the victim would be laid on a stone slab, his abdomen ripped open with a ceremonial knife (an obsidian knife could hardly cut through a ribcage) and his heart taken out and raised to the sun. The heart would be put in a bowl held by a statue, and the body thrown on the stairs, where it would be dragged away. The sacrifice was supposed to be voluntary, but if faith was not enough, drugs could be used. Afterwards, the body parts would be disposed of various ways: the viscera were used to feed the animals in the zoo, the head was cleaned and placed on display in the tzompantli, and the rest of the body was either cremated or cut into very small pieces and offered as a gift to important people. Recent evidence also points to removal of muscles and skinning (José Luis Salinas Uribe, INAH, 2005) Other kinds of human sacrifice existed, some of them involving torture. In these, the victim could be shot with arrows, burned or drowned. For the construction of the main temple, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 84,400 prisoners in four days. How a city of 120,000 people could take, accommodate and dispose of that many prisoners is not clear, especially since they reported that Ahuitzotl sacrificed them personally. This translates into about 17 sacrifices per minute over the course of four days. Some scholars believe that it is more probable that only 3,000 sacrifices took place and the death toll was drastically inflated by war propaganda.

Another figure used is from Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the Spanish soldier who wrote his account of the conquest 50 years after the fact. In the description of the tzompantli, a rack of skulls of the victims in the main temple, he reports to have counted about 100,000 skulls. However, to accommodate that many skulls, the Tzompantli would have had a length of several kilometers, instead of the 30 meters reported. Modern reconstructions account for about 600 to 1,200 skulls. Similarly, Díaz claimed there were 60,000 skulls in the tzompantli of Tlatelolco, which was as important as that of Tenochtitlan. According to William Arens in The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy (1979, ISBN 0195027930), excavations by archeologists found 300 skulls.

Bernardino de Sahagún, Juan Bautista de Pomar and Motolinía report that the Aztecs had 18 festivities each year. Motolinía and Pomar clearly state that only in those festivities sacrifices were made. Each god required a different kind of victim, young women were drowned for Xilonen, sick male children were sacrificed to Tlaloc (Juan Carlos Román: 2004 Museo del templo mayor), Nahuatl speaking prisoners to Huitzilopochtli, and an Aztec (or simply nahua, acording to some accounts) volunteer for Tezcatlipoca.

Not all these sacrifices were made at the main temple, a few were made at "Cerro del Peñón", an islet of the Texcoco lake. According to an aztec source, in the month of Tlacaxipehualiztli, 34 captives were sacrifice in the gladiatorial sacrifice, to Xipe Totec. A bigger figure would be dedicated to Huitzilopochtli in the month of Panquetzaliztli. This could put a figure as low as 300 to 600 victims a year, but Marvin Harris multiplies it by 20, assuming that the same sacrifices were made in every one of the sections or calpullis of the city. There is little agreement on the actual figure.

Aztecs waged "flower wars" to capture prisoners for sacrifices they called nextlaualli, "debt payment to the gods" so that the sun could survive each cycle of 52 years.

It is not known if the Aztecs engaged in human sacrifice before they reached the Anahuac valley and acquired and absorbed other cultures. The first human sacrifice reported by them was dedicated to Xipe Totec a deity from the north of Mesoamerica. Aztec chronicles reported human sacrifice began as an institution in the year "five knives" or 1484 under Tizoc. Under Tlacaelel's guidance, human sacrifice became important part of the Aztec culture, not only because of religious reasons, but also for political reasons.

As Laurette Séjourné comments, the human sacrifice would also put a strain in the Aztec culture. They admired the Toltec culture, and claimed to be followers of Quetzalcoatl, but the cult of Quetzalcoatl forbids human sacrifice, and as Sejourne points, there were harsh penalties for those who dare to scream or faint during a human sacrifice.

When Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan, he forbade human sacrifice, so the Spaniards did not witness human sacrifice in the city.

It is interesting to note that there are no pre-Cortesian representations of human sacrifice, of Aztec origin – all known were depicted several years after the conquest, although the destruction of Aztec codices could explain that. Also, of the two possible witnesses who wrote on human sacrifice, Cortés and Bernal, Cortés wrote on the subject: "it could be that I am mistaken on this relation, since a lot of this had not been seen, except by information of the natives" (Letter to Charles V, 10 July 1519).

There is a great gap between what has been written on this subject, and what is really known.

Cannibalism
While there is universal agreement that the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice, there is a lack of scholarly consensus as to whether they also practiced cannibalism and, if so, to what extent. At one extreme, Materialist anthropologist Marvin Harris, who wrote about cannibalism in Our Kind and Cannibals and Kings has suggested that the flesh of the victims was a part of an aristocratic diet as a reward, since the Aztec diet was lacking in proteins. According to him, the Aztec economy would have been unable to support feeding them as slaves, so the columns of prisoners were "marching meat". At the other extreme, William Arens doubts whether there was ever any systematic cannibalism.

While most historians of Mesoamerica believe that there was ritual cannibalism related to human sacrifices, they do not support Harris's thesis that human flesh was ever a significant portion of the Aztec diet.

There is little documentation of Aztec cannibalism. There are only five accounts of cannibalism from the date of the conquest, none of them particularly suggestive of widespread ritual cannibalism, and only one – the Ramírez codex – (equivocally) tying cannibalism to ritual sacrifice. The four specific accounts of cannibalism are:

Cortés wrote in one of his letters that his soldiers had captured an Aztec who had a roasted baby ready for breakfast. Gomarra, reported that during the siege of Tenochtitlan, the Spaniards had asked the Aztecs to surrender since they had no food. The Aztecs answered, asking the Spaniards to try to attack, so they could be taken as prisoners, and then served with "molli" sauce. In the books of Bernardino de Sahagún, there is an illustration of an Aztec being cooked by an unknown tribe. This was reported as one of the dangers that Aztec traders faced. The Ramírez codex, written by an Aztec after the conquest using the Latin alphabet, reports that after the sacrifices the flesh from the hands of the victim were given as gift to the warrior who made the capture. According to the codex, this was supposedly eaten, but was in fact discarded and replaced with turkey. In his book "Relación de Juan Bautista Pomar", Juan Bautista de Pomar states that after the sacrifice, the body of the victim was given to the warrior resposible of the capture, he would boil the body to be able to cut small pieces of meat, to be offered as gifts to important people in exchange for presents and slaves, but it was rarely eaten, since they considered it had no value; instead it was replaced by turkey, or just thrown away. It is at least interesting that the one account by an Aztec and the account by a "meztizo" of supposed cannibalism following ritual sacrifice claims that the apparent cannibalism was a sham. This is congruent with the Laurette Séjourné and Miguel León-Portilla's theory that the upper classes were aware that the religion created by Tlacaelel was something of a forgery.

Recent archeological evidence (INAH 2005) in some of the bodies found under the "Catedral Metropolitana", from the basement of aztec temples, show some cuttings indicating the remotion of muscular masses. Not all the bodies show this treatment.

Despite this paucity of contemporary sources, accounts of the Aztec Empire as a "Cannibal Kingdom" (Marvin Harris's expression) have been commonplace, from Bernal Díaz to Marvin Harris, William H. Prescott, and Michael Harner. Harner has accused his colleagues – especially those in Mexico – of diminishing or hiding evidence of Aztec cannibalism. The question, of course, is whether such evidence exists to be hidden. Even Díaz (who participated as a soldier in the conquest of Mexico) does not claim to have been an eyewitness to cannibalism. It is possible that Aztec cannibalism was simply a blood libel by the victorious Spanish.

Dominican priest Diego Durán's Historia de las Indias de Nueva España y islas de tierra firme, while clearly a useful source of information (he had access to the survivors of Tenochtitlan), must be doubted on the subject of human sacrifice. Apparently combining a blood libel against the Aztecs with that against the Jews, he argued that the Aztecs were one of the lost tribes of Israel, and adduced human sacrifice and cannibalism as part of his evidence.

Poetry
Poetry was the only occupation worthy of an Aztec warrior in times of peace. A remarkable amount of this poetry survives, having been collected during the era of the conquest. In some cases, we know names of individual authors, such as Netzahualcoyotl, Tolatonai of Texcoco, and Cuacuatzin, Lord of Tepechpan. Miguel León-Portilla, the most renowned translator of Nahuatl, comments that it is in this poetry where we can find the real thought of the Aztecs, independent of "official" Aztec ideology.

In the basement of the Great Temple there was the "house of the eagles", where in peacetime Aztec captains could drink a foaming chocolate, smoke good cigars, and have poetry contests. The poetry was accompanied by percussion instruments (teponaztli). Recurring themes in this poetry are whether life is real or a dream, whether there is an afterlife, and whether we can approach the giver of life.

Zan te te yenelli aca zan tlahuaco in ipal nemoani In cuix nelli ciox amo nelli? Quen in conitohua in ma oc on nentlamati in toyollo.... zan no monenequi in ipal nemoani Ma oc on nentlamati in toyollo Is it you?, are you real? Some had talked nonsense oh, you, by whom everything lives, Is it real?, Is it not real? This is how they say it Do not have anguish in our hearths! I will make disdainful oh, you, by whom everything lives, Do not have anguish in our hearths!

– Netzahualcoyotl, lord of Texcoco

The most important collection of these poems is Romances de los señores de la Nueva España, collected (Tezcoco 1582), probably by Juan Bautista de Pomar. This volume was later translated into Spanish by Ángel María Garibay K., teacher of León-Portilla. Bautista de Pomar was the great grandson of Netzahualcoyotl. He spoke Nahuatl, but was raised as Christian and wrote in Latin characters.

The Aztec people also enjoyed a type of dramatic presentation, although it could not be called theatre. Some were comical with music and acrobats, others were staged dramas of their gods. After the conquest, the first Christian churches had open chapels reserved for these kinds of representations. Plays in Nahuatl, written by converted Indians, were an important instrument for the conversion to Christianity, and are still found today in the form of traditional pastorelas, which are played during Christmas to show the Adoration of Baby Jesus, and other Biblical passages.

title: Rise of Nations/Nations/Aztecs


text: Category:Book:Castle of the Winds

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Category:Book:Castle of the Winds


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Castle of the Winds/Introduction

Castle of the Winds (CotW) is a Roguelike computer role-playing game (CRPG) designed to run under Windows 3.x. It will also run on Linux using the WINE Windows emulator 1.

History
CoTW was written in 1989 by SaadaSoft (a one-man, one-product company run by Rick Saada) and published by Epic MegaGames. It was one of Epic’s first two games for Windows (previous games had run on DOS), the other being a point-and-click adventure called Dare to Dream. The game was released in two parts: A Question of Vengeance, released as shareware; and Lifthransir's Bane, sold commercially. A license to continue using A Question of Vengeance and a copy of Lifthransir's Bane were sold together.

In 1998, Saada released the distributed files into the public domain. However, he has not released the source code, and has expressed no intent to do so 2.

Among Roguelikes, the game is notable for several innovations. Its interface is heavily mouse-based. Many commands are awkward to enter with the keyboard (requiring the use of the Alt key on the menu bar). Traditional Roguelikes (such as NetHack) were controlled completely by keyboard, sometimes with optional mouse input.

Castle of the Winds also allows the player to save the game at any point, and to restore saved games after dying — features never seen in a traditional Roguelike game (where “death is final,” although this could be circumvented with backups). Since graphics, mouse input, and resurrection from saved games would be features developed in later CRPGs, CoTW can be seen as the transitional step between old and new.

Still, due to its age, the game has few players today. It has only four known fan sites.

Space
CoTW is a (square) tile-based game, meaning that movements may only occur in increments of one tile. Diagonal and orthogonal adjacency are treated the same way in terms of distance. To pick up an object, the player must be directly on top of it.

There is no way the player can walk through the rock walls of the dungeons, despite that some monsters can. Tiles (in diagonal corridors, etc.) that contain half a wall are treated as walls.

Time
CoTW is turn-based. Players and monsters cannot attack each other at the same time. However, their speeds can vary, which means the monster may be able to make several steps or strike at the player several times before the player can respond, or vice-versa.

Monster speed depends on the specific monster, and can also be affected by Slow Monster and Haste Monster spells. See ../Character Attributes/ for details on player speed.

Winning players are ranked in Valhalla’s Champions (the high score list) in order of shortest to longest time to complete the game.

title: Castle of the Winds/Introduction


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Castle of the Winds/Obtaining the Game

Since CoTW is now public domain, it is now available free on several fan sites. However, creator Rick Saada also makes it available on his own Website.

title: Castle of the Winds/Obtaining the Game


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Castle of the Winds/System Requirements

Castle of the Winds requires a computer running at least Windows 3.x. Other than that, the requirements are almost a non-issue today (except for users of Macintosh and other non-Windows platforms) because of the great advances in computer technology since CoTW’s publication date of 1989, combined with Epic's policy of supporting older systems.

The requirements are a 640x480 monitor (which can be monochrome), and Windows 3.x or higher. The game has been tested on Linux with WINE, but caused reliability issues for some WINE users. The game manual also specifies a 286 or faster CPU, and 2 megabytes of RAM. It is possible (though awkward) to play the game entirely from the keyboard.

title: Castle of the Winds/System Requirements


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Castle of the Winds/Interface & Controls

Inventory!
The Inventory! command brings up the inventory screen, which also appears whenever the player is in a shop.

Stores
Stores are described in more detail in Castle of the Winds/Items and the Inventory System.


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Castle of the Winds/Battle Mechanics

No aspects of CoTW’s behaviour change during battle. Battle occurs wherever and whenever a monster or boss attacks the player or vice-versa.

Monsters may be attacked in two ways: physically (by walking into them), or with a spell. Attack spells can be cast by hand, or from the correct scroll, potion, staff or wand.

Monsters can attack the player in a number of ways. Most fight hand-to-hand, in the same way that the player does. Some can throw or shoot projectiles. The Wizard and Necromancer can cast spells similar to those of the player. Others have elemental attacks such as dragon breath. Finally, some have attacks that drain the player, making him or her a temporarily more vulnerable opponent.

Hit Points
Hit points (HP) are a measure of the player’s health; he or she loses HP when hit by a monster, his or her own spell, or a trap. Certain spells will replenish HP to varying extents, but he or she always recovers full health on levelling up. The player dies when his or her HP reach zero. The player normally recovers one hit point per minute while moving and two while resting. When resting, the player cannot continue moving until he or she sees a monster, or is fully healed. When poisoned, the player loses HP every minute until the poison wears off; it is possible to die of poisoning while resting.

Maximum HP depend on the player’s Constitution and level. A Vampire bite (see Monsters) may temporarily drain the maximum HP, but the potential HP are still present (though invisible). They can sometimes be recovered while sleeping, but will always be recovered with the Restore Drained Hit Points spell sold at the Temple of Odin.

Armour Value
Armour Value is a measure of the difficulty in hitting a character. Most wearable objects increase Armour Value, as do Enchanted items of Protection and (temporarily) the Shield spell.

Chance to Hit and Damage
With a hand-to-hand weapon, the player may either hit or miss on each strike; hits do varying amounts of damage. Chance to hit depends on Dexterity and the specific monster, and is frequently increased by enchanted weapons or Enchanted Gauntlets of Slaying. Damage depends on Strength and the weapon used. A monster’s chance to hit a player depends on his or her Armour Value, and damage depends on the monster.

Attack spells use a different mechanic.

Elemental and draining attacks on both the player and monsters may be subject to resistances and vulnerabilities. “Resistant” means taking half the usual damage, “strongly resistant” one quarter, “very strongly resistant” one eighth or less, and “vulnerable” double.

“Injuredness”
Right clicking a monster will give a rough idea of his or her health. From most to least healthy, the condition may be described as one of:

 * Uninjured
 * Barely scratched
 * Slightly injured
 * Injured
 * Heavily injured
 * Critically injured

title: Castle of the Winds/Battle Mechanics


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Castle of the Winds/Monsters

Castle of the Winds includes 90 types of monsters, plus several bosses.

Animals
Animals range from the merely annoying Giant Rat and Giant Bat to the ferocious Cave Bear and White Wolf.

Dragons
Dragons are of six different ages, with increasing strengths. From youngest to oldest, they are: Young, Young Adult, Adult, Old, Very Old, Ancient. (Dragons do not actually age in-game, because according to legend this takes hundreds of years.) Dragons are of four different colours, each with its own elemental attack:
 * Red (breathe fire)
 * Blue (breathe lightning)
 * White (breathe cold)
 * Green (breathe poison gas; least deadly if Neutralize Poison spell is known)

Devils
Devils can open gates to summon their allies.

Elementals
Seven types of Elementals exist: Air, Water, Fire, Earth, Dust, Ice and Magma.

Humans and Humanoids
Human and humanoid monsters include:
 * The Evil Warrior and Berserker (fight hand-to-hand)
 * The Bandit (fires arrows)
 * The Wizard and Necromancer, who can cast: Slow, Summon Monster (both)/Summon Undead (Necromancer), Phase Door, Teleport, the three bolts, and Heal Medium Wounds, as described in Castle of the Winds/Magic.
 * The Smirking Sneak Thief (who can steal items and then teleport away)
 * The Kobold (a tiny, weak humanoid)
 * The Huge Ogre
 * The Gruesome Troll
 * Goblins (including the weak basic Goblin, the Goblin Fighter and the Hobgoblin).
 * Giants of five types (Hill, Stone, Frost, Fire, Two-Headed)

Undead
Many undead creatures have attribute-draining attacks, some temporary, some permanent.
 * Skeletons and Walking Corpses, which do not have special powers.
 * Shadows, Shades, and Spectres, which can walk through walls but do not have draining attacks.
 * The Eerie Ghost, which drains Strength and Dexterity temporarily.
 * Vampires, which drains maximum HP. This damage can be healed by visiting a Temple of Odin.
 * The Dark Wraith, Pale Wraith and Abyss Wraith, which drain intelligence and mana irreversibly.
 * The Tunnel Wight, Barrow Wight and Castle Wight, which drain strength, dexterity and constitution irreversibly.

Other Creatures
In addition to the monsters listed above, the following are found in CoTW:
 * The Rat-Man, Wolf-Man, Bear-Man and Bull-Man
 * Animated Statues in wood, bronze, iron and marble.
 * The Slime (immobile, immune to physical but not magical attacks)
 * The Carrion Creeper and Manticore, both fantasy beasts
 * The Gelatinous Glob (approximately the same monster known in Dungeons & Dragons as the Gelatinous cube)

Bosses
In addition to the regular monsters, several bosses exist.

title: Castle of the Winds/Monsters


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Castle of the Winds/Items and the Inventory System

Castle has a very sophisticated inventory system, limiting a player's load based on weight (measured in grams) and bulk (measured in cubic centimetres) rather than number of items, and allowing the character to use different types of containers as packs.

Containers

 * Packs and Bags (small, medium and large), each having a weight and bulk of their own plus that of their contents, and a maximum weight and bulk, but no maximum number of items.
 * Chests (small, medium and large), which occupy their maximum bulk regardless of how full they are, but otherwise resemble Packs.
 * Belts, which have a fixed number of slots in addition to the maximum weight and bulk. The Utility Belt and Wand Quiver Belt have specialty slots that can hold only specific types of items. Potions, Scrolls, Books and Wands can only be activated when on the belt, worn in place of a belt, or carried in the Free Hand.
 * Purses, which work the same way as packs, with high capacity, but can only carry money.
 * Enchanted Packs of Holding (small, medium and large), the only magical containers, which (unless nearly empty) weigh less and take up less space than their contents. Enchanted Packs repel each other magnetically, so unlike all other containers, they will not nest.

Wearable/wieldable items
CoTW has many slots for wearable items. In addition to one for each type of item listed below, there are slots for Purse, Pack, Belt and Free Hand (the latter three unrestricted as to type of object held).
 * Suits of Armour of many types, such as Leather Armour, Studded Leather, Chain Mail, Splint Mail, Plate Mail, Plate Armour, Elven Chain Mail and Meteoric Steel Plate Armour.
 * Shields made of several materials (Wooden, Iron, Steel, Meteoric Steel), each of which can be small, medium or large.
 * Helmets in Leather, Iron, Steel and Meteoric Steel. A Helmet of Detect Monsters also exists.
 * Bracers and Gauntlets. Enchanted bracers will always increase armour class, enchanted gauntlets will increase strength, dexterity, armour class or both chance to hit and damage.
 * Boots, which add a small amount of Armour Value, and if enchanted, can also increase the player's speed or cause him to levitate. Cursed boots will slow the player down. All boots are made of leather, unlike some other RPGs which include chain boots, etc.
 * Cloaks (worn in the Overgarments slot), which are worn under armour and provide a small amount of Armour Value. Enchanted Capes of Protection are cloaks with an even higher Armour Value boost.
 * Rings and Amulets. Enchanted rings will raise one attribute or armour class, enchanted amulets will increase the resistance to an element or undead stat draining. Cursed amulets will limit your carrying capacity ("Cursed amulet of burden") or will reduce your resistance to an element.
 * Many types of weapons, with a wide variety of possible enchantments and curses, but all reaching only into adjacent squares (no bows etc.) The strongest weapons are two-handed swords, which can not be wielded while you hold a shield. The second strongest are bastard swords.
 * Staffs, which can function both as wands and as weapons. The spells staffs can cast are different from, and generally stronger than, those a wand can cast.

Items to be Activated
Before these items can be Activated, they must be placed on the belt, or directly on a body slot (usually Free Hand).
 * Potions and Scrolls, with a wide variety of magical effects. Healing spells, Detect Objects, Detect Monsters and Detect Traps can be performed by both potions and scrolls; Levitation is performed only by a potion; and other spells in the game only by scrolls. In addition, Scrolls of Map Quadrant and Map Level exist, and some special potions restore Mana or allow the character to gain experience or permanently increase attributes.
 * Books, each containing a spell that the player can learn. Learning the spell is permanent, but consumes the book. A player will instantly recognize a book for a spell he already knows, and so will always learn something new from an unidentified spellbook, while you should make a bundle selling known spellbooks.
 * Wands, which cast a spell and have a certain number of charges.
 * Scraps of parchment, at three key points in the story, each displaying a message when Activated (read), after which they disappear (crumble or burst into flames).

Money
The basic and smallest unit of currency in CoTW is the copper piece (CP). Larger units include the silver piece (1 SP = 10 CP), gold piece (1 GP = 100 CP) and platinum piece (1 PP = 1,000 CP). Each of these coins weighs 1 gram and takes up 1 cubic centimetre.

In the second and third towns, a bank exists that will allow the player to deposit his or her money. This money remains spendable, but takes up no space in inventory and cannot be stolen.

Stores
Each town has several stores, each of which will buy and sell only items of certain types. All stores will pay the same price for any item, regardless of the character’s attributes or point in the story, and will buy items of any quality (except cursed or worthless items). However, they vary in the quality of items they will stock.

All stores will pay more for an identified item that is found to be normal than for one that is unidentified (see below for exceptions) but will not treat it as a worthless item. If too many unidentified items sold to one store turn out to be cursed or worthless, the store will refuse to buy any more.

When they buy an item, they will identify it and put it up for sale; if it is a wand or staff, they will recharge it by two charges, unless it shatters while being recharged (random chance).

Each town also includes two special stores:
 * Olaf's Junk Store, which sells nothing but will buy anything, including the "worthless" items that other merchants reject, for which it pays 25 copper pieces (CP). However, it will not pay more than 25 CP for an item, even when other merchants will. In some cases, such as boots and cloaks, the broken version of an item is worth more than the normal, unbroken version (i.e. 25 CP versus even less).
 * The house of a sage, who will identify any unknown item for a fee.

Normal, cursed, enchanted or worthless?
Almost every item in the game can be normal, cursed or enchanted, with curses and enchantments working the same way as in Nethack. Although items do not break in use, many can be broken or rusted out, and thus useless, when the player finds them. Since rings, amulets, potions, scrolls, wands and staffs are valued only for their magical effects, the non-magical Ring of Adornment, Necklace of Adornment, Distillation of Water, Blank Scroll, Dead Staff and Dead Wand are also worthless, and are the only ‘normal’ items whose value decreases when they are identified. Many items in the game can be named, so you can call your sword "Excalibur" if you wish.


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Castle of the Winds/Magic

CoTW tends to favour the use of magic in combat, as spells are the only weapons that work from a distance (there are no bows). The player character automatically gains a spell with each level-up, and can permanently gain another using the corresponding book (found or purchased), until he learns all the 30 spells that he can learn. (The maximum level is also 30.) There are two opposing pairs of elements: cold vs. fire, and lightning vs. acid/poison. (The player has no acid/poison attacks, but some monsters do.) The spells are divided into seven categories.

The Mana concept
Mana is the player's reserve of magical energy. It is replenished over time, and when a player levels up or drinks specific potions, and is spent whenever he or she casts a spell. The player can cast spells that run Mana into the negative, risking a temporary but potentially fatal drop in Constitution.

A player gains one Mana point on the hour while awake, and two while sleeping. When sleeping, he will not wake until he or she is attacked, or full Mana is restored.

Unlike Dungeons & Dragons, where wizards must prepare specific spells, and can cast a limited number per day, CoTW allows any spell to be cast at any time. This typically means that attack spells are cast much more often.

The Mana cost of a spell depends not only on the spell itself but also on the caster’s level. All spells always cost at least one Mana point; there are no free spells or fractional points.

Attack Spells

 * Magic Arrow: The basic magical attack, weak and non-elemental, affecting one target monster.
 * Cold Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Fire Bolt: More powerful, elemental attacks, also affecting one target monster. Against an elementally neutral monster, fire is stronger than lightning, which is stronger then cold.
 * Cold Ball, Ball Lightning, Fireball: Affect a 3x3 area. Do damage equivalent to the corresponding bolt in the center square, and half as much damage in the eight adjacent squares. As with the bolts, fire is stronger then lightning which is stronger then cold. May hurt the player, but nevertheless be worthwhile.
 * Sleep Monster: Puts one target monster to sleep. Some monsters and all bosses are immune and all will wake in about ten minutes or when attacked.
 * Slow Monster: Slows the target monster's movement and attacks to half. Bosses are immune. A second cast reduces the speed to 1/3, a third to 1/4, etc. Some monsters, like devils, will never move at less than half the player’s speed.
 * Transmogrify Monster: The monster targeted will change into any creature, selected at random. Bosses cannot be transmogrified, and monsters will not become bosses. Percentage health is preserved.

How bolts and balls work
Bolts (Magic Arrow, Cold Bolt, Firebolt and Lightning Bolt) may be fired in any direction, at a target tile any distance away. Bolts will fly past traps, open doors, landmarks, furniture and even town buildings. If the target tile is empty, the bolt will explode in midair. If a wall or closed door is in the way, the bolt will hit it; walls will be unharmed, but doors will break. If the bolt hits a monster, either at the target tile or in the way, there is a random chance (depending on distance) that it will miss and do nothing. If it hits, it will damage the monster.

Balls (Cold Ball, Fireball and Ball Lighting) are so large that they always hit. Like bolts, they may hit something and explode before reaching their targets, but this applies only to the center tile of the ball. The damage done by a ball is equivalent to the corresponding bolt in the center, and half as strong in the eight surrounding tiles. There is no ball spell corresponding to Magic Arrow.

Defense Spells

 * Shield: Temporarily increases the player's armour value by 5. Casting the spell multiple times will cause the bonus to stack additively, but it will reach a limit.
 * Resist Cold, Resist Fire, Resist Lightning: Temporarily decreases by half the damage the player sustains from these elemental attacks. The damage is further halved with each additional cast.

Healing Spells

 * Heal Minor Wounds, Heal Medium Wounds, Heal Major Wounds: Respectively heal 20%, 40% and 60% of the user's max health or 8/16/24 hp, whichever is higher.
 * Healing: Restores the player to full hit points.
 * Neutralize Poison: Stops poisoning. Although the spell has the same mana cost as Heal Medium Wounds, it is effective against any strength of poisoning, even that inflicted by Green Dragons. It will not heal any damage inflicted by the poison prior to the spell's use.

Movement Spells

 * Phase Door, Teleport: Both move the player to random locations on the same floor, but Teleport is longer-range.
 * Levitation: Makes the player impervious to non-magical traps. That is, everything except glyphs of warding and teleporter traps.
 * Rune of Return: Carries the player from the dungeon to town, or from town to the deepest visited level of the dungeon. After casting this spell, the user will need to wait a while before being teleported.

Divination Spells

 * Clairvoyance: Fills in the player's map of a 10x10 area anywhere on the floor, including any traps and secret doors.
 * Detect Objects: Reveals all movable items on the floor, except those carried by monsters.
 * Detect Traps: Reveals all traps within 10 tiles, and has a decreasing chance to reveal more distant traps.
 * Detect Monsters: Reveals all monsters on the floor for 30 minutes. (A map can only be displayed for the current floor.) Carries from floor to floor should the user move vertically.
 * Identify: Reveals enchantments/curses or lack thereof on an object, and reveals the number of charges of a wand or staff. Identifying an unknown object increases its resale value, unless it turns out to be cursed or worthless. (A merchant will refuse to buy unidentified objects if too many have been junk.)

Miscellaneous Spells

 * Remove Curse: Makes a cursed object "uncursed," meaning that the player can take it off. Normally, cursed items cannot be removed once put on. Its negative effects are not removed, and it is still worthless.
 * Light: Reveals a room, or a 3x3 area of corridor, including any monsters or objects that may be within it. (Rooms and corridors are distinguished not by structure, but by different types of floors with different colours and descriptions.)

Non-Character Spells
Non-Character Spells are those that cannot be learned by the player. They can only be cast by items such as scrolls and wands.
 * Create Traps: Fills the floor squares adjacent to the player (up to eight) with traps. If the player then casts Detect Traps and Levitation, he can usually disarm the traps with minimal danger, and gain experience for disarming them. Cast only by cursed items.
 * Clone Monster: Creates a healthy duplicate of the monster; effective even on bosses. Some players use it to gain more experience and treasure against monsters which usually carry a high experience value and a lot of treasure. Cast only by cursed items.
 * Teleport Away: Similar to Teleport, but affects a target monster rather than the player.
 * Haste Monster: Reverse of Slow Monster. Cast only by cursed items.
 * Summon Monster, Summon Undead (not listed in the Spell Directory): Create a random monster in the space next to the caster. Cast only by cursed items.

title: Castle of the Winds/Magic


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Castle of the Winds/Character Attributes

The player's four attributes are represented not by numbers, but by a bar graph, with blue and green bar representing the value before and after any item enchantments, curses or drains. The attributes are:
 * Strength — determines how much damage is done in hand-to-hand combat, and the Maximum Weight the player can carry. (The Maximum Bulk is fixed at 1,000,000 cm³ and, in practice, is not a limiting factor.)
 * Dexterity — determines how likely a player is to hit and to block a hit in hand-to-hand combat, and gives the player a chance to avoid damage when he sets off a trap. Also affects Armor Value.
 * Intelligence — determines the player's maximum Mana.
 * Constitution — determines the player's maximum Hit Points. If a player's Constitution falls too far below its base level, his or her maximum Hit Points will reach zero and he or she will die.

The other standard characteristics include:
 * Special attributes (resistances/vulnerabilities to Cold, Fire, Lightning and Drain Life, vulnerability to Acid, and Levitating).
 * Hit points and Armour Value, as described in Battle Mechanics.
 * Mana, as described in Magic.
 * Weight and Bulk: The player's body weight and bulk are not counted here, only the items he is wearing or carrying.
 * Copper: The sum of all money, not just copper, carried in the purse and on deposit at the bank.
 * Gender: A purely aesthetic choice that determines the default icon.
 * Custom Icon: Another aesthetic choice that, when used, makes Gender irrelevant.

Experience and levels
HP and mana increase on level-up, but the four base attributes do not. The experience required to level up is as follows:
 * Every player starts Part I at Level 1, with 0 experience.
 * 20 experience points are needed to reach Level 2.
 * For n > 2, the experience requirement for Level n are those for Level n – 1 plus 20 points at Easy difficulty, 40 at Intermediate, 60 at Difficult, and 80 at Experts Only.
 * The maximum level, 30, requires 10,695,475,180 xp at Easy, 16,106,127,320 at Intermediate, 21,558,722,500 at Difficult and 27,011,317,680 at Experts Only.
 * Experience rewards for killing monsters range from 1 xp for a Giant Rat or Goblin to 344 xp for Surtur. (Reaching Level 30 by repeatedly killing Surtur would mean doing so 31,091,498, 46,820,138, 62,670,705 or 78,521,272 times, depending on the difficulty level.) Disarming a trap yields 1 to ? xp.


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Castle of the Winds/Story and Locations

Although it is secondary to the hack-and-slash gameplay, Castle has a plot loosely based on Norse mythology, told with setting changes, unique items and occasional blocks of text.

As the story progresses, the setting changes twice; there are thus three towns, each with its own dungeon nearby. The game has a total of 40 dungeon levels, some randomly generated, others pre-designed.

Backstory
As the story opens, the farm where the player lives has recently been burnt and his/her godparents murdered. Suspecting that the arsonists came from an abandoned mine nearby, he/she enters the mine to take revenge.

The Tiny Hamlet and the Abandoned Mine
The player begins in a tiny hamlet, near which he/she used to live. His/Her farm has been destroyed and his/her godparents killed. The first dungeon he/she will travel to at this time is an abandoned mine overrun with creatures and some weak undead monsters. It is four levels deep and features no boss battles or powerful items.

The buildings in the hamlet are as follows:
 * The Temple of Odin, which offers healing spells and restoration of drained attributes whether temporary or permanent as well as Remove Curse and Rune of Return, for a price.
 * Olaf's Junk Store, which sells nothing but will buy anything, including the "worthless" items that other merchants reject, for which it pays 25 copper pieces (CP). However, it will not pay more than 25 CP for an item, even when other merchants will. In some cases, such as boots and cloaks, the broken version of an item is worth more than the normal, unbroken version (i.e. 25 CP versus even less).
 * The house of a sage, who will identify any unknown item for a fee.
 * Two merchants, a blacksmith (buys and sells weapons and armour) and a general store (buys and sells scrolls, potions, spellbooks, cloaks, boots, containers).
 * Two farmhouses and a village well, which have no function and are purely decorative.

After clearing out the abandoned mine, the player finds the first scrap of parchment, and returns to the hamlet to find it pillaged. He/She then travels to Bjarnhaven.

Bjarnhaven
The buildings in Bjarnhaven are:
 * The Temple of Odin, Olaf's Junk Store, and a sage, which work the same way as in the hamlet.
 * A branch office of the First Bank of Crossroads, where the player can deposit money. He/She will then not have to carry the money or risk having it stolen by a Smirking Sneak Thief, but it will still be available to spend in the four shops.
 * Four merchants.
 * A number of homes and a small fountain, all decorative.

The fortress near Bjarnhaven is 11 levels deep and is held by Hrungnir, the Hill Giant Lord (the only boss in the fortress). Hrungnir carries the Enchanted Amulet of Kings, which grants a resistance to Drain Life (attribute- and experience-draining attacks). When he/she activates the amulet, Part I ends, and the game can be imported or started over in Part II. In general, the player will be more experienced if he/she carries over a winning character, rather than creating a new one.

Town in Part II
The castle near this town is ruined. Only the dungeon and parts of the ground floor remain; the dungeon is 25 levels deep and has been converted by the monsters living in it: the crypt has been desecrated, a Necromancer has set up his home (with a bed and desk), and special rooms for elementals installed. The minor bosses are a Wolf-Man and a Bear-Man; at deeper levels, the player fights the four giant kings, followed by the Demon Lord Surtur. The buildings in the town are:
 * A central keep, where the Jarl will not admit the player at first, but will provide advice and two enchanted items after specific bosses are killed.
 * The Temple of Odin, Olaf's Junk Store, a sage and the First Bank of Crossroads.
 * Ten merchants.
 * A number of apartment buildings, mansions and a very large fountain.

title: Castle of the Winds/Story and Locations


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Castle of the Winds/Strategy

Attributes
Attributes anywhere near average make no difference until very high levels. An advised strategy is to maximize two and balance the other two. Strength and Dexterity are considered better value, because of their multiple effects. For more about attributes, see Castle of the Winds/Character Attributes.

Useful spells
For more about all of these spells, see Castle of the Winds/Magic.

Early

 * As the player is initially very weak in hand-to-hand combat, the first spell learned should be Magic Arrow.
 * If Heal Minor Wounds is not the second spell, the player is very likely to die in the mine before running out of mana.
 * Detect Objects: ensures that no treasure-laden secret areas have been missed.
 * Phase Door: delays hand-to-hand combat, but leaves the monster within spell range. Often better than the unpredictable Teleport.

Later

 * Detect Monsters: Allows a player to prepare for what is ahead, and often attack from a greater distance.
 * Detect Traps: Greatly reduces the danger of stumbling into a trap, and provides an opportunity to disarm some one-time traps.
 * Healing: Important to be able to heal quickly and completely. Other spells may be counterproductive during battle because they give monsters time to attack.
 * Clairvoyance: Reveals secret areas that might otherwise go unnoticed. Also guaranteed to find traps.
 * Cold Bolt, Firebolt, Lightning Bolt: Magic Arrow quickly becomes inadequate.
 * Cold Ball, Fireball, Ball Lightning: Efficient crowd control.
 * Neutralize Poison: Once Green Dragons appear, this spell nearly eliminates their threat, and the mana cost becomes very reasonable.
 * Identify: Only way to discover a cursed item without wearing it or paying the sage.
 * Rune of Return: Saves time at later levels, when frequent trips to town may be necessary. Can sometimes be used to escape a battle.
 * Slow Monster: Delays hand-to-hand combat.
 * Transmogrify Monster: Avoids attribute-draining undead monsters.
 * Teleport: Useful for escaping fast monsters in nearly-clear levels.

Less useful spells
For more about all of these spells, see Castle of the Winds/Magic.

Early

 * The value of Shield is subject to disagreement.
 * Light is seen as nearly useless, given that Clairvoyance is available later.

Later

 * Heal Medium Wounds, Heal Major Wounds: may be obsoleted by the next stronger spell by the time they are needed.
 * Remove Curse: Can be rendered unnecessary by Identify and saves.
 * Levitation: Boots of Levitation and Detect Traps make this of little importance.
 * Sleep Monster: Escapes are usually possible with other spells, such as Slow Monster and Teleport.
 * Resist Cold, Resist Fire, Resist Lightning: Only decrease damage by half, so generally only worthwhile against Surtur.

Growing a character
Money should be kept on hand to purchase spellbooks and Draughts of Gain Level. (More about these may be learned in Castle of the Winds/Items and the Inventory System.) Each new level requires more than twice as much experience as the previous (see Castle of the Winds/Character Attributes), so levels become very sparse beyond about 12. Using these items is the only way to learn all 30 spells in a reasonable amount of time. Attribute-increasing potions should also be purchased at every opportunity, as they are the only way to permanently gain an attribute. Note that they may push an attribute to 100 and make enchanted items redundant.

Items casting Clone Monster should be used up on bosses, if the player is sufficiently over-leveled to handle the clones. This multiplies their tremendous value in experience and loot (although it does not clone unique items), and ball spells provide an economy of scale in killing them.

title: Castle of the Winds/Strategy


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Castle of the Winds/Cheats and Exploits

While fairly strong, and without the system of cheat codes deliberately added to today’s games, CoTW has glitches that can be exploited.

 * Get a store to drop its contents: Go into a store and cast Phase Door or Teleport. Exit the screen. The pile of items will be sitting in a normally inaccessable spot for picking items up but there are two ways to get it. Go back to the store's screen, cast Summon Monster or Undead from a cursed wand or staff, exit the screen, go into the inventory screen and pick it all up. Alternately, keep using Phase Door or Teleport until you land on the space with the items and go into the inventory screen. (Trying to use the Get command to pick the items up will cause a crash.) If, in the inventory screen you cast Phase Door or Teleport, you can still access the floor of the space you were once in. This will be fixed once you leave the inventory screen.

 * Regenerate a floor: Using the parenthesis keys — ) to go down and ( to go up — instead of the usual angle bracket keys or menu command will cause the game to regenerate the destination floor, including bosses that have already been killed.

 * Two exploits that use negative-number overflows:
 * Extreme mana glitch: Get down to -2 mana then step onto a glyph of warding that causes you to lose mana. Your mana will be either very, very high or very, very low.
 * Maximize Constitution: When starting a new game, choose Magic Arrow as your starting skill and start casting it. Eventually, it will ask you if you are sure you want to cast it because your mana will be very low. Continue casting until you are around -16 or so mana, and your max health will jump quite high. Make sure if you to this to put your starting stats into something besides Constitution so as they are not wasted.

title: Castle of the Winds/Cheats and Exploits


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Castle of the Winds/Technical Notes

Graphics
All terrain tiles, some landscape features, all monsters and objects, and some spell/effect graphics take the form of Windows icons. A tile is thus the size of an icon, 32 pixels square. This means that they can be applied to shortcuts, if desired, with no extraction process. Since they are public domain, they can also be used for other software.

Multi-tile graphics, such as ball spells and town buildings, are bitmaps included in the executable file.

No graphics use colours other than the Windows standard 16-colour palette (plus transparent). They exist in monochrome versions as well, suggesting that the game will run even if Windows’ video mode is set to monochrome.

The map view is identical to the playing-field view, except for being scaled to fit on one screen. (This actually increases the size of some levels on 1280x1024 screens.) A simplified map view is available to improve performance on even slower computers.

title: Castle of the Winds/Technical Notes


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Castle of the Winds/References and External Links

Other wikis

 * Castle of the Winds article on Wikipedia

Rick Saada’s Website

 * Website for Rick Saada, creator of the game

Fan sites

 * Unofficial Castle of the Winds Homepage
 * The Temple of Odin, another CoTW site with downloads of the game available
 * Castle of the Winds, a third website.

Fan sites

 * RPGClassics.com Castle of the Winds Shrine. Some tables on this page contain inaccurate names, and others are incomplete.

FAQs and walkthroughs

 * GameFAQs.com FAQs and walkthroughs for the game, in plain text format (not illustrated)


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Dark and Light/Kingdoms

There are 12 Kingdoms in Ganareth. You can find a maps of where they are in relation to each other in the Global Maps page.

Starter Kingdoms
There are 2 starting kingdoms. They are controlled entirely by either dark or light, and can not be gained by conquest by the opposing faction.

Open Kingdoms
There will be 10 open kingdoms where Player-versus-Player combat will be allowed. However, only one is currently open during the Settlers of Ganareth period.

KINGDOM ??????????????
This is the only open area in Settlers Of Ganareth. When complete, this region will be under the control of Hydra.

title: Dark and Light/Kingdoms


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Dark and Light/Maps

Global Maps
A map provided by Calcineur, showing the various kingdoms, named after the gods. This map is based on guesses from Calcineur. It may or may not be correct.

Calcineur said this: "I assure you, this map is only 70%-80% correct, because at this moment we (the community) don't have enough information about kingdoms locations and kingdoms borders."

Kingdom Maps
Maps for particular Kingdoms will be listed here.

Regional Maps
Maps for particular Regions will be listed here.

Malin-aOmardil
This is the only open area in Settlers Of Ganareth. When complete, this region will be under the control of Hydra.

Mob Locations
Here's a map showing the starter location and surrounding MOBs: http://www.koolest.jp/blog/img/MobLoc.html

Here's another map showing the locations of level 1-4 MOBs: http://ianstormalliance.com/resolution/NewbieMap.jpg

Transportation
Mana Tower Teleports: http://www.mdn-clan.com/ganareth/mapa/mtts_2.jpg

Mana Tower zones: http://dndgamer.gbrain.co.uk/dnl_transport.php?trans=mana

Balloon Paths: http://dndgamer.gbrain.co.uk/dnl_transport.php?trans=balloon

Boat Rides: http://dndgamer.gbrain.co.uk/dnl_transport.php?trans=boat

title: Dark and Light/Maps


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Dark and Light/About

About Dark and Light
Dark and Light is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) that is currently in pre-release.

The developers have announced that the completed game will officially be available in April 2006.

Settlers of Ganareth
Launched on December 12th, 2005, Settlers of Ganareth (SOG) is the current pre-release incarnation of the Dark and Light MMORPG. It is currently at build version 0.88.92, and is constantly being updated with new patches. The SOG Live web page shows all of the latest information that has been officially released about the game.

What's the latest news on SOG?
From NPCube, December 23rd, 7:20 PM EST:

Fresh news, everyone:

Massive network attacks on SoG

''During the last few days, we faced violent network attacks on our servers, thus greatly decreasing the game stability. People with bad intentions found how to exploit some properties of the network protocol, and managed to shut the front servers down (the only cluster servers that are directly connected to the Internet) almost instantly when the cluster is restarted.''

These malevolent and pointless actions prevent all players from accessing the free service at their disposal.

''These attacks are being analyzed, and we are regularly testing and implementing a series of fixes. We are investigating everything from the network protocol to the game engine. Our goal is to offer you a stable cluster, allowing reasonable sessions of gameplay time. The DnL system teams, our developers and the Microforte team wish to solve this problem as soon as possible.''

''But these fixes require a major part of our team, and it is slowing down the game tuning process. In order to make these tests a priority, prevent more attacks, and to bring SoG back online as soon as possible, we have decided to shut the servers down until Thursday, December 29th.''

We apologise for this temporary shutdown, but this decision will help us to defend better against future hackers who prevent our members from enjoying SoG.

NPCube.

How do I join SOG?
For the moment, you have to ask someone who already has an account. 18,881 accounts were endowed to the community, 8,881 to those who pre-ordered before the release of SoG, and the remaining 10,000 to anyone quick enough to claim one in the 80 seconds they lasted. However, Alchemic Dream (AD) has confirmed that there will be more free spots and pre-orders opening in the future, although these preorders won't have the same benefits as the pioneers. They have hinted that the next wave of free keys will begin in January, but we'll have wait to see.

How do I download the SOG client?
The following web page lists all steps necessary to get the latest full version of SOG: http://www.darkandlight.net/article.php3?id_article=1436

What are the technical connection points?
The TCP/IP ports that the SOG server use are as follows:

Beta
AD has stated that right now, a closed beta is continuing in parallel with the current release of SOG. Members invited to the beta are still under a strict NDA, and cannot reveal any information about its content.

title: Dark and Light/About


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Dark and Light/Races

Races
Dark and Light has numerous races that you can select for your characters. Each one has certain benefits and limitations, and some races work better with certain classes, and vice versa.

Fairies
Fairies, tiny and always female, are magic creatures who live in communities and travel by flying. They have compelling seductive powers, making them loved by all.

Lutins
Ever since their origins, lutins have been the guardians of the plains, learning to dig fabulous underground galleries there. Their lilting tongue often makes people forget how wily they are; yet they are an engaging people for all that, with singing and storytelling talents appreciated by all.

Gnomes
Descended from water guardians, gnomes keep themselves to themselves and find it hard to get along with other races (except possibly the sprites, their distant cousins from the plains). Morals are rather flimsy among gnomes, earning them a reputation as scoundrels of the first order.

Dwarves
Dwarves have been guardians of the mountains since time immemorial, when their ancestors dug mines and developed the arts of the smithy. These days, they choose to live in communities, in which objects of immeasurable value are manufactured.

High Elves
These are the closest elves to the original elvish race. Throughout time, they have forged close ties with humans, who have become their privileged allies. They hate necromancy, opposing as it does their vision of the world. They are therefore fervent enemies of the Dark.

Dark Elves
Through their use of necromantic magic, shadow elves have rejected the ancient ideals of the elvish people. After being driven underground for long ages, they are now spread out over the lands, although they still live under cover. They owe their powerful magical abilities to their great intelligence. Over the ages, they have also developed extremely effective stealth techniques.

Wood Elves
These elves consider themselves the upholders of pure elvish tradition, shunning their high elf and shadow elf cousins. Like their ancestors, the guardians of the forest, they maintain close ties with nature. With their powerful magic and perfect understanding of all things natural, they are masters in the arts of tracking and hunting.

Half Elves
With their blend of human and elvish origins, half-elves are a harmonious people endowed with exceptional social skills. Half-elves do not favor any specific abode and can be found almost anywhere.

Humans
Humans started off as guardians and builders of the finest cities. Now you can find them in almost every corner of the Ganareth world, where of all the people, they are the most populous. From a blissful marriage of humans and elves, the half-elf race was born. A very different kind of union brought the half-trolls and half-orcs into being.

Braves
Brave are the children of humans and immortals (demigods). They feel they have been entrusted with a divine mission to fight evil, which in a brave’s eyes, is typified by the Dark. They have no preferred habitat and can be found in all the lands.

Half Orcs
Half-orcs are crosses between orcs and humans. They tend to live in groups, in hot and mostly deserted locations. Their attraction to the art of necromantic conjuring naturally leads them to the ranks of the Dark.

Half Trolls
Born from love affairs between humans and trolls, half-trolls are renowned for their outstanding strength and ability to shrug off illness, characteristics inherited from trollish forebears who were guardians of the marshes. These days, very few female half-trolls are born, and the remaining males are condemned to living their lives as nomads and bachelors.

title: Dark and Light/Races