Ranadinn guide

Ranadinn, its maps, artwork and text are © 1988 Jeff Mather. This is a fan guide: the maps and data here were extracted from the game's files and program with the help of Claude (Anthropic's AI), not typed up by hand.

Ranadinn (1988) is a shareware Ultima-style RPG by Jeff Mather. You are the Ranadinn, a mercenary fighter who can also cast spells from scrolls, hired by King Gregory of Argentan to stop the Dark Mage Mordanneus. The kingdom is four islands; the fourth has already fallen. Every map below was decoded straight from the game's data files, so nothing is missing — including the caves you would otherwise need torches to see.

Walkthrough & guide

Story · Getting started · Crown pieces · How the game works · Suggested route · Islands · Bestiary · Stats · Items · Scrolls · Shops · Area by area · Item locations · Signs · Rumours · Ending · How this was made

The story in short

You are the Ranadinn — a mercenary fighter raised by the wizard-cleric Osnenemus, able to cast both clerical and sorceral spells from scrolls. Hired by King Gregory of the island kingdom of Argentan, you must stop the Dark Mage: an old magician who found the disembodied, still-living hand of the ancient wizard Mordanneus and let it take him over. His hordes have conquered the southern seas and the fourth island of Argentan, where he is building a temple as his headquarters. The king's spies say his essence is bound into an onyx crown and sceptre.

What the game actually checks: the crown and sceptre are real. Fifteen fragments of the onyx crown lie scattered through the castles, towers and caves of all four islands, and the sceptre stands in the temple on island 4. Each must be destroyed with a Crumble scroll, in any order. When all sixteen are gone the game ends with the victory text. Killing the Dark Mage himself is optional (and nearly impossible).

Getting started

You begin on Island 1 at (28,42), just south of the gate of King Gregory's castle, The Inishtrahull. Level 3, 400 EXP, all six stats 13, 21 HP, 200 gold, 20 rations, 5 torches, no weapon, no armour.
If the screen is black, press C to cycle the colour set. ? shows the command list.
The game writes your position and every map change to disk each time you enter or leave an area. Play from a copy of the game folder and keep a spare copy — there is no other save system.
Shopping first: Renelence Bay at (17,38), a short walk west along the coast, sells swords, plate mail, food, clerical scrolls and — uniquely in the whole kingdom — torches. Malvern at (51,27) to the north-east sells weapons, armour, gems and sorceral scrolls.
Talk to people with Return while facing them. Merchants sell; everyone else tells you one of their town's seven rumours (listed below, no need to hunt for them).
Each island has one teleporter gate. Step on it and answer 1–4 to jump to that island. You arrive on the destination island's gate.

The onyx crown and sceptre

Stand next to a fragment, use a Crumble scroll and target it. The game beeps, the fragment vanishes and a hidden counter (it starts at 16 in PS.RAN) goes down. Three things to know:

Crumble needs Intelligence 18. You start at 13. Red wizard's stones give +1 each; there are seven, so you need five of them (fountains can also raise Intelligence — or lower it). Nothing else in the game raises a stat.
You need sixteen Crumble scrolls. Four are lying in the world; the rest must be bought from the sorceral scroll dealers listed under Shops. Buy them early.
When two remain, the Dark Mage razes the kingdom. The game prints "Please wait…" and rewrites the maps: all eight towns lose their buildings, furniture, shops and people (the townsfolk are replaced by creatures 11 and 16), and on the islands every town, village and castle turns to ruins. The castles' interiors, the towers and the caves — where the fragments are — are untouched. So before you destroy the fourteenth fragment, buy every scroll, torch and ration you will ever need, and sell your gems.

Fragment locations (click to open the map on the spot):

How the game works (from the code)

Fighting

Your attack: you hit when a d20 roll is at least 21 − level − weapon bonus, modified by the creature's defence value (see bestiary; the Dark Mage's −10 makes him very hard to hit). Damage is 1 to the weapon's maximum, plus Strength − 14 if your Strength is above 14.
Their attack: creatures roll against your armour value: plate mail 3, +1 mail 2, +2 mail 1, +3 mail 0, no armour 10; a large shield lowers it by 1/2/3 more, and Coordination above 14 lowers it further. Creature damage is 1 to their listed maximum.
Ranged: with a bow equipped, R then move the cursor onto the target. Four creatures attack at range (08, 12, 19 and 1B); everything else must reach you.
Experience: each kill gives the XP in the bestiary. A level is 200 EXP; you start at level 3. Higher level = better to-hit and more HP.

Hazards

Darkness: caves, dungeons and towers are unlit. You start with 5 torches; light one with I. Buy more from the torch dealer in Renelence Bay (the only one). Flame-light and Illuminance scrolls do the same job. With these maps you can walk dark corridors blind if you must.
Status effects, all from creature hits (see the bestiary's Special column): poison (creature 12, or a bad potion — 1 in 10) costs 1 HP every turn until Cancel Poison; disease (creatures 17 and 18, "the bite of a rat or bat") costs 1 Endurance on one turn in ten until Excise Disease; a curse (creature 16) makes every monster hit automatically and gives your attacks −20 until Detach Curse; creature 05 paralyses you for five turns per hit; creature 15 drains 200 EXP — a whole level — per hit.
Traps: tile 0x50 is trapped floor ("You have fallen into a pit trap") and 0x6C is a trapped chest, as opposed to a plain chest (0x5C); both are marked on the maps. Nullify Traps turns every trapped floor in view into plain floor and every trapped chest into a plain chest.
Teleport pads come in pairs inside castles and towers: step on one and you appear on the other. They are marked on the maps.
Fountains: drinking is a coin toss. Fresh water gives +1 to a random stat, +200 EXP or +10 HP; foul water takes the same away. Save-scum by copying the folder if you want the bonuses.
Food: rations tick down as you walk; buy them from any food dealer or cast Produce Food.
Secret doors are drawn with a subtly different brick pattern; the map viewer's walkable overlay paints them red. The top level of the tower on island 3 is a maze of 193 of them.
Doors and locked doors are the lattice tiles: 0x91 is a door you can walk through, 0x92 is locked (marked on the maps). A key opens one (14 lie around, see item locations); the Unlock scroll opens every locked door in view.
Secret doors also exist in caves: tile 0x93 looks like cave wall but can be walked through, just as 0x9A looks like brick. The walkable overlay shows both.

Suggested route

Creatures are referred to by their tile number; see the bestiary for their pictures and statistics.

Island 1 — equip and level. Renelence Bay for a sword, plate mail, torches and healing scrolls; Malvern for sorceral scrolls (Crumble is there when you can afford it). Then clear the island's caves, easiest first: cave 3 at (6,49) (33 × creature 10), cave 5 at (48,45) (45 × creature 09), cave 4 at (28,7) (creatures 05 and 0B), cave 1 at (15,55) (43 × creature 0B, and a red stone at (13,4)) and cave 2 at (12,12) (creature 07 in numbers, a few 14 and one 0E; a pink stone). The Inishtrahull has a throne room and the king upstairs but nothing you need. Aim for level 6–8 and +1 gear before leaving.
Island 2. Towns: Hereford (47,55) — four sorceral scroll dealers — Brecon (6,10) and Kilmarnock (35,36). The castle at (30,12) has six chests, a teleport-pad pair, thirteen secret doors and a crown fragment on its upper floor. The tower at (51,36) is three levels (creatures 12, 04, 08, 0C, 14 and 19) with chests, teleport pads, a fountain, a Crumble scroll, a red stone and a fragment. Six of the seven caves here hold a fragment; cave 7 at (26,8) has two red stones.
Island 3. Towns: Scunthorpe (23,16), Wrexham (9,51) and Falmouth (55,31). The tower at (48,13) is 32 × creature 19 on level 1, creatures 04 and 0E on level 2 and a 193-secret-door maze of creature 04 on level 3 with a fragment at the end. Four of creature 03 — the toughest thing outside island 4 — guard cave 18 at (42,31): two Crumble scrolls, a yellow stone and a fragment. Six more fragments are in the island's caves.
Island 4. Everything here is hostile. Cave 24 at (35,26) is a literal gold mine (54 piles of gold) — grab it. The castle at (34,49) has a fragment on its upper floor amid chests and fountains, the tower at (35,39) has one on its third level, and cave 25 at (49,45) has one under 69 × creature 11. Note the magic warp at (36,48), which drops you at (34,48).
The last two. Once fourteen fragments are gone the kingdom is razed, so make the temple sceptre and one fragment your final pair. Enter the temple at (58,49): creatures 05, 11, 15 and 16 in numbers, and the Dark Mage himself (20 hit dice, hits for up to 50, defence −10 — avoid it; Invisibility helps). The sceptre stands at (50,31). Crumble it and the last fragment, and the ending plays.

The islands at a glance

Bestiary

The game never names its monsters, so they are listed by tile number with their picture. The numbers are exact, read from the program: hit dice (HP = HD × d8), maximum damage per hit, defence (added to your to-hit roll — lower is harder), attack bonus, XP for a kill, any special ability, and everywhere each creature appears at the start of the game. The townsfolk's rumours mention kobolds, goblins, orcs, gnolls, hobgoblins, bugbears, ogres, ettins, minotaurs, spiders, bats, rats, wolves, serpents, troglodyte javelinmen, the undead and evil apprentice magi, but the program never ties those words to a picture.

Statistics — what each one does

All six start at 13. Only wizard's stones (+1 each, to 18) and fountains change them. Read from the program:

Stat	Effect
Strength	Every point above 14 adds +1 damage to each hit, sword or bow.
Intelligence	Gates sorceral scrolls: each needs 13–18 (Crumble needs 18). Nothing else.
Wisdom	Gates clerical scrolls: each needs 13–18 (Complete Heal and Wall of Blades need 18). Nothing else.
Endurance	Maximum HP is 7 × level, plus (Endurance − 14) × level if Endurance is above 14 — recomputed at each level-up. Disease slowly eats Endurance.
Coordination	Every point above 14 lowers the number monsters need to hit you by 1, and adds +1 damage with a bow.
Personality	Shop prices. Each point above 13 makes what you buy about 15% cheaper and what you sell about 15% dearer (selling starts at half the list price).

Level = 1 + EXP ÷ 200. Each level raises your to-hit roll by one and your maximum HP by 7 (more with high Endurance), and refills your HP.

Items

Weapons

Only swords and bows can be used. Magic bonuses add to your to-hit roll and are already counted in the damage below.

Armour and shields

Lower is better: the value is what a creature's attack roll is measured against.

Potions

Healing	Restores 1–13 HP · 400 gp
Extra Healing	Restores 1–32 HP · 800 gp
One potion in ten is poisoned instead ("This potion was POISONED!").

Wizard's stones

The mystical stones the rumours mention are real and worth hunting (and worth 5000 gp each if sold). Using one raises a statistic by one point (to a maximum of 18):

Stone	Effect
blue	+1 Strength
red	+1 Intelligence
pink	+1 Wisdom
green	+1 Endurance
yellow	+1 Coordination
white	+1 Personality
black	+200 EXP (one level)

Gems and jewelry

They are money — sell them to the gem and jewelry dealers for half the list price (more with high Personality). List prices: azurite 10, carnelian 50, coral 100, topaz 500, opal 1000, diamond 5000; silver 550, gold 700, platinum 1050, silver & gems 3500, gold & gems 5000, platinum & gems 7000.

Other

Torches	Light for dark areas. Sold only in Renelence Bay.
Rations	Food. Sold by food dealers in every town.
Keys	Open locked doors. 14 lie around the caves and towers.
Chests	Random treasure. Trapped chests (0x6C) and plain ones (0x5C) look alike apart from the lid.
Food	Rations lying on the floor (0x6F) add to your food.
Gold piles / coins	Walk over them to collect.

Scrolls

Scrolls are single-use. Clerical scrolls need the listed Wisdom, sorceral scrolls the listed Intelligence; otherwise "You do not have the wisdom/intelligence to cast this spell."

Shops

Every merchant in the kingdom, with what they stock. Food dealers everywhere sell rations; the shop signs in each town tell you which building is which.

Area by area

Exits, contents and the monster roster of every place, straight from the map data. Coordinates are (x,y) from the top-left; click any to open the map there.

Item locations

Everything lying on the ground at the start of a fresh game.

Signs

Rumours by town

Townsfolk each repeat one of seven lines. The blocks appear in the game text in town order; the greeting in each block names the town, which is how the towns on the maps got their names.

The ending

The game keeps a counter that starts at 16 and goes down by one for every fragment or sceptre you Crumble, in any order. When it reaches zero the game plays a fanfare, shows the epilogue page, then drops to DOS with its farewell. Captured from the real program by jumping a patched copy straight into the ending routine:

If you die instead, the game offers a "time reversal" that restores the areas and puts you back at the start.

How this was made

The maps come from A.RAN (60 areas of 60×60 tiles, one byte per tile, stored column-major), the artwork from P.RAN (155 sprites of 24×15 pixels in Turbo Pascal GetPic format), item names from S.RAN, dialogue and signs from T.RAN, and the starting position from PS.RAN. Area links, creature statistics, combat rules, shop stock and item effects were read out of a disassembly of RANADINN.COM. See tools/extract.py in the repository.

Legend

Every sprite in P.RAN, with the tile byte that draws it. Only tiles whose meaning the program establishes are named; the rest are decoration, marked walkable or not according to the game's movement table.