Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol is a computer role-playing game released in 1995 for Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

. It was game designer David Allen

David Allen (game designer)

David Allen is a Video Game Designer and Entrepreneur who is most recently known as the creator of Alganon a fantasy based MMORPG developed by Quest Online, a company he co-founded in 2006.- Game Designer, Developer and Entrepreneur :...

's first release. Mordor inspired a sequel, Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan

Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan

Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan is a medieval fantasy role-playing video game released in 1999 for the personal computer , developed by Artifact Entertainment and published by IPC Software...

, released in 2000.

Despite its name, the game is not set in the "Mordor

Mordor

In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, Mordor or Morhdorh was the dwelling place of Sauron, in the southeast of northwestern Middle-earth to the East of Anduin, the great river. Orodruin, a volcano in Mordor, was the destination of the Fellowship of the Ring in the quest to...

" realm of Middle-earth

Middle-earth

Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....

 created by J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...

. The game has an original backstory, largely confined to its documentation.

Gameplay

The game consists of a 15-level dungeon containing hundreds of different monster types and items. Much like other role-playing games, players must develop their characters by fighting these monsters and gaining new equipment, gradually getting powerful enough to survive lower levels. Characters can play as several races like Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, and Giant while advancing in each of several guilds, including Warrior, Sorcerer, Healer, Thief, Seeker, Mage, Wizard and Paladin.

On the lowest level of the dungeon resides the "Prince of Devils". Defeating this monster can be considered "winning the game", although the game does not end and continues to be playable (and challenging) long after. The game also offers replay value through new character/guild combinations and community-devised challenges and competitions.

Origins

Allen designed Mordor after a late-1970s multi-user dungeon

MUD

A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...

 game named Avatar

Avatar (computer game)

Avatar is an early graphics-based multi-user highly interactive role-playing computer game, created on the University of Illinois' Control Data Corporation PLATO system in the late 1970s. It has graphics for navigating through a dungeon, and chat style text for player status and communication with...

, which ran on the PLATO system developed by the University of Illinois. Unlike Avatar, Mordor offers single-user play only, although players can run several characters in the dungeon concurrently, and control up to four characters simultaneously in a single party.

External links

• Decklin's Domain - the Official home of Mordor: Depths of Dejenol.
• Braindead's Mordor Site - Mordor fan page and home of the remake Mordor XP: The Demise of Dejenol.