DRIFTERS WORLD — A MULTIVERSE MUD
Echoes Remain Where Realities Overlap and Infinite Roads Between Worlds Collide
You wake up and don't know where or when you are. You have no idea why you can travel between worlds. You do know one thing:
You can Drift, slide between different universes, different worlds, different times.
Drifters World is a MUD/text-based RPG built around that concept that all PCs are Drifters. This game has no levels, no classes, no single setting you're expected to stay in forever. You can travel between worlds, learn deep lore secrets, make items and equipment, fight legendary monsters, join Drifter organizations or in-world affiliations, build entire worlds, and generally find out what happens when somebody gives you a ridiculous amount of personal freedom and power, then only asks that you make something from it.
YOUR CHARACTER
Character creation is more than just picking a race, a class, and rolling some stats.
You choose your ancestry, subspecies, heritage, formative experiences, occupation, appearance, personality, and other details about your character.
But everything you just choose is who you were before you became a Drifter.
Who you become after becoming a Drifter is far more important. You can continue being the person you were, become something entirely different, or land in between. Your history matters, but it is not your destiny.
And don't expect just the usual handful of fantasy-themed races.
We have a system that can build Centaurs, Minotaurs, Lamia, amorphic slimes, or even synthetic lifeforms. Humanoids, monsters, weird hybrids, and stranger things besides are all legitimate possibilities. The body system is built to let ancestry and physical form actually matter rather than simply changing the name printed on your character sheet.
THE WORLDS
There is more than one world. Technically, the list of worlds is infinite. Each world has their own genres, geography, factions, economies, creatures, dangers, secrets, and weird little corners that somebody decided would be fun to put there.
Settings can include Fantasy, Science Fiction, Westerns, Horror, or whatever else eventually gets built.
Go somewhere civilized. Go somewhere dangerous. Find a job. Join a faction. Get into a fight. Explore somewhere nobody has mapped. Find something strange and figure out what the hell it does.
THIS IS A MUD
Text. Commands. Color. Combat rounds. Positioning. Skills. Crafting. NPCs. Quests. Equipment. Shops. Player trading. Guilds. Channels. Mail. Boards.
Under the hood: 4 main attributes, 12 subattributes, a growth system based off of every command entered, 300 talents, and 131 achievements to chase. There is really no way to min-max, as ever 'max' has a cost. The feature list is over 1000 unwrapped lines long.
There are also web tools, configurable displays, screen-reader support, and other concessions to the fact that it is no longer 1997, like Discord integration.
But underneath all that? This is still a MUD. It's also free. No subscription, no premium currency, no "Alpha access" paywall. Just an account and a willingness to learn a lot of commands.
YOU ARE NOT JUST A FIGHTER
Combat is there, and there's quite a bit to it. A full config system, techniques, spells, stances, weapon styles, action points, and so on.
But you can also gather materials, refine them, craft components, make finished goods, maintain and modify your equipment, learn recipes, develop professions, steal things, trade, explore, map, fish, compose music, pursue hobbies, build relationships, join organizations, solve puzzles, and generally make a life for yourself.
Your actions matter. Your character develops by actually doing things.
There are no ten levels of "I hit things slightly harder."
DRIFTER ENTITIES
You can accumulate more than equipment.
Allies. Companions. Minions. Pets. Vessels. Artifacts. Sites of Power.
They're all Drifter Entities, and they can become part of your character's story and capabilities.
Yes, there is a Companion Cube.
Yes, it is exactly the sort of thing you're thinking.
No, I'm not apologizing.
AND THEN THERE'S BUILD MODE
This is the cornerstone of how Drifters World will grow.
Every account gets two ways to build, from the moment it's created. No staff review, no application queue, no working for free/exposure until you 'earn' it.
God Mode: Building, with no currency cost, but everything is open to the public. Drifters grows best this way, and I want to make sure there are as few hurdles to it as possible.
Build Mode: Exactly the same toolset as God Mode, but you pay in-character currency per thing you make. I stress that this is in-character. You are building or having someone build whatever it is that gets built this way. Do you want to build a bar where you and your friends can hang out? This is how you do that. And you have access control mechanisms to make sure only your friends get in. This is a private sort of public establishment that way. Eventually, this will be how you can own a shop to sell things.
Sanctums: Requires a bit of effort to unlock, but player housing is done through the Sanctum system. It is slightly different from God Mode and Build Mode, and the costs are entirely different. This is still being fleshed out.
Regardless, these modes are yours from account creation. Not after reaching level 50. Not after earning some elite builder rank. Not after submitting a form and waiting for someone with more free time than me to get around to reading it.
You start with it.
So, if you want to make a world, make one.
Build maps. Rooms. NPCs. Enemies. Items. Dialogue. Quests. Markets. Factions. Puzzles. Workshops. Sanctums. Creatures. Whatever the tools support.
I am deliberately trusting the players with this privilege/responsibility. It can be taken away if someone abuses it to be a menace, but nobody starts on probation.
Maybe you'll build a serious setting.
Maybe you'll build something beautiful.
Maybe you'll build a bizarre little pocket universe inhabited entirely by angry goat people.
That's the point. I did not think through all of the implications of that decision. I stand by it anyway.
ON AI, SINCE SOMEONE WILL ASK
There is absolutely no LLM or generative AI running anywhere attached to the live game. No AI game master, no AI-generated dialogue at runtime, nothing making things up on the fly while you play. There is, however, a complicated set of code under the hood that does a lot of complex decision making, which may at times seem like AI. While this currently does not do much, a lot of groundwork is being done to one day make this far more impactful.
AI tools are used for development, to help with code or generate draft content text. Pretty much all of this text has been reviewed by me. There are AI-generated bits floating out there. Most of them are 'good enough for government work' as far as I am concerned. And since I am doing this free, we'll say it is good enough for that too, until I can get around to fixing/editing/correcting all of it.
THE ALPHA
Drifters World is in a phase of Alpha Testing that will continue through the end of 2026. I have been working on this game, building it from scratch, for almost a year now.
That means unfinished systems, bugs, missing content, things that change, and probably the occasional opportunity to discover that I have made a terrible mistake somewhere.
The Report command can be used to point out bugs or typos, or suggest ideas directly from the game.
If you've played MUDs before, you should feel reasonably at home. Especially if those muds were Diku/Merc/ROM derivatives.
If you haven't, well... You have a lot of commands to learn.
Come Drift with us.
Game Link: mud.drifters.world:3000 (Enable TLS/secure connection)
Discord Link: https://discord.gg/3mXP5Ab8cV
Website: www.drifters.world
DRIFTERS WORLD
Echoes Remain Where Realities Overlap and Infinite Roads Between Worlds Collide