We are looking for 2–3 builders to help us bring Tales of Zalanthas MUD to life.
Our current goal is to build out three to four major areas for the game’s upcoming open beta MVP. These areas will form the foundation of the early player experience: places to explore, survive, work, fight, scheme, trade, and tell stories in the harsh world of Zalanthas. They will include building:
- Luirs Outpost, the main center of civilization (to start) for Tales of Zalanthas MUD
- The Red Desert Surrounding the Outpost and Ruins that Inhabit It
- Cenyr, the home of Glass and those who esoterically craft it
- Newbie School – an organic little spot where new players can learn about the world, commands, and how to play Tales of Zalanthas MUD.
- NPCs to inhabit Zalanthas, and Items/Objects as well.
Our aim is to start small and detailed; we want the world to be dynamic and bite-size while still creating avenues for exploration and world expansion, organically, over time.
What Builders Will Do
Builders will create rooms, objects, NPCs, environmental details, area flavor, and playable spaces that feel true to Zalanthas: harsh, vivid, dangerous, sometimes strange, and alive. The work will include writing room descriptions, designing NPCs and their backgrounds, adding details and lore to those rooms/NPCs/objects, help flesh out settlements or wilderness areas, building resource sites, creating ruins, and assisting in writing documentation and histories. We will solicit feedback and welcome suggestions for new ideas, areas, objects, and NPCs.
We plan on working with Builders to create documentation and a public-facing wiki that details the building process and QC, so that we are both transparent and so that future Builders have access to easy to understand documentation to learn the ropes.
We are especially interested in people who understand the tone of the world: survival over comfort, scarcity over abundance, social tension over easy heroism, and mystery over secrecy.
Why not just import the old rooms from ArmageddonMUD?
While we are importing some rooms and editing, we also want to hand-craft the future world of Zalanthas. Much of what was extant and unchanging in ArmageddonMUD will be drastically different in Tales of Zalanthas MUD; other parts will be much the same (desert, mesas, etc) and we may draw from old writing and old room files for that. We also have all the room files for reference and the ability to 'call' it into existence in ToZ.
Builder Oversight and Workflow
Builders selected for this phase will work under the oversight of Eurynomos and Halaster, who will help coordinate assignments, review submitted work, provide feedback, and handle final quality control.
This phase will also help us test and refine the coded building systems themselves. Part of the goal is not only to build playable areas, but to learn what makes the building process easier, clearer, and more enjoyable for contributors.
We will be actively soliciting feedback from builders on how to streamline the process, reduce unnecessary red tape, improve documentation, and create better in-game tools and systems that make building feel productive, satisfying, and fun.
A Foundational Role for the First Phase: Building for MVP
This is not intended to be a conventional permanent staff position, and builders selected for this phase should not assume they are being appointed as full-time staff. However, the first builders brought onto the project will occupy a more foundational role than the project-based builder position we hope to establish later.
These builders will help us create some of the first major areas needed for the Tales of Zalanthas MVP and open beta. They may also contribute to builder documentation, workflows, quality-control standards, and the tools and practices that future builders will use. Their work will not only help bring the game world to life; it will help define how building is approached across the project.
Over time, we hope to make building more accessible through a permission-based setting attached to a player account. A player could enter a separate Builder Account environment, compartmentalized from the live game, and choose from available projects based on their interests, skills, and availability. At that stage, building may operate primarily as an as-needed, project-based role, with contributors signing up for specific assignments as work becomes available.
The builders selected now will help lay the groundwork for that future system. While the role remains focused and project-driven, these early contributors will have a substantial hand in preparing Tales of Zalanthas for its first playable release and shaping the foundation upon which later builders will work.
Who We’re Looking For
We are looking for people who:
- Have a strong passion for RP Required MUDs and want to help bring the world to life.
- A history playing RPI and RPE games; while new players and people new to Zalanthas will definitely be encouraged to build, that will be post MVP and when the game is in a soft launch.
- Enjoy writing evocative, laconic, useful descriptions that support play rather than overwhelm it. Please note we prohibit the use of LLMs and AI for creative writing and room/NPC/item descriptions.
- Can follow our building guidelines, style documents, and project objectives.
- Can work collaboratively and accept edits or revisions and fit in with our small, cohesive team.
- Understand that the MVP is about building a strong, playable foundation.
- Have an interest in harsh fantasy, desert survival, ruined civilizations, ruined city-states, tribes, outposts, trade roads, dangerous wilderness, and morally complicated and ambiguous societies.
- Can contribute 2-4 hours a week. We are much more interested in people who can casually commit than burn themselves out.
- Have good follow through and not bite off more than they can chew; accountable, able to start a project and finish it autonomously.
What This Phase Is About
This phase is about building the bones of the world. Luirs, the surrounding desert, ruins, and milieu that tells the story of Zalanthas.
We are not trying to do everything all at once. We are focusing on a limited number of important areas in and around Luirs Outpost that can support early gameplay and give testers enough room to explore the areas, systems, economy, wilderness, settlements, and social spaces. We want to intentionally keep the world small to start and build it out organically.
How to Apply
If you are interested, please send an email to mud@zalanthas.org, including the following:
- Who you are, and what (if any) connection you had to ArmageddonMUD as previous Staff or as a previous Player
- Your experience with ArmageddonMUD, RPI/RPE MUDs and MUSHs, roleplay games, writing, world building, or game building
- What kinds of areas you would feel best suited to writing about
- One short writing sample, preferably a room description, object description, or NPC description
- Any availability limits or expectations we should know about
We are aiming to select 2-3 people to start and may bring on more people as needed once projects are underway and more work becomes available. We will keep the call open until July 31st or until we find the right candidates.