Talking and Acting

Series: first-crossing · Part 5

The parser turns a command into a structured signal. Most common MUD forms work.

Speech

> say The light is wrong tonight.
> "The light is wrong tonight.
> whisper to Cael The north road is open.
> shout Boat below!
> murmur Not yet.

Speech is broadcast to other players in the room and offered to authored NPC topic and keyword responses. talk to Grak, ask Grak about the forge, greet Cael, and tell Maren about the storm target the NPC conversation layer.

Movement and objects

> north
> go cellar door
> take lantern
> drop rope
> give ale to Thom
> open chest
> read note

Directions may be abbreviated. Named exits must match the current room’s exit map.

Embodied action

> :waves from the doorway
> emote settles beside the fire
> bow to Maren
> sit by fire
> hide behind barrel

Many social verbs are parsed directly; a free-form : emote covers the rest. An active hidden state ends when you take a non-passive action.

If the grammar cannot resolve a command, the parser can call its budgeted LLM fallback when the session supplies a fallback ID. Otherwise it returns a fiction-wrapped refusal. /help <verb> shows syntax known by the current client.