Welcome
This is only a simple starting guide. More information about each of the topics can be found in the Valhalla Wiki.
After picking your name, skin and clothing colors, you will enter the Valhalla’s Great Hall, a small room where you will be greeted by a mysterious figure. Follow his directions and you will find yourself in the Hall of Heroes. Go into the golden gate where you will choose your class (bard/paladin/etc), race (dwarf/drow/etc) and, if applicable, shapechange form. Shapechange is dependent on race. Once you have your selection, make sure all is to your satisfaction and try out .shapechange. If you are not satisfied, go back into the golden gate and choose again.
Once you are happy with who you are, now is the time to exit the Hall of Heroes. Simply run north to the end and take the teleporter out.
Starting Gold
Once you have exited the Hall of Heroes, you will automatically receive your starting gold. All new accounts get starting gold to help them out. This is only a one-time thing for your first character.
First Player Powerup Book
In addition to the starting gold, you will also receive your special Powerup book. This book will raise your primary skills to 100, secondary skills to 80 and give you 20,000 exp to buy your first ability. You do not have to use this book if you prefer to earn your skills. Do not use this book later on though as it may reduce your skills back to 100. It will only work on the first player.
Specializations
Before you start your journey, you should set up your specializations by typing .spec and you will get your specs book. Although you can pick any specialization for your primary and secondary skills, Valhalla Lost uses a restriction system that only allows the full benefit of the skill when placed in the primary and secondary slots. There is a comprehensive guide in Character Creation. If you are still confused, you can page for help, use the Game Question help button where a player volunteer will try to answer your questions or try to ask one of the friendly citizens around Valhalla.
Asgard
Welcome to the city of the gods! This is the central city of Valhalla Lost where most people return and hang around. You will be dropped off near the Central Bank of Asgard on the main highway. To your south is Asgard docks and to your north is the city gates. You will likely be spending a lot of your time around here. So now that you’ve arrived here, what can you do?
Gaining Money and Training Skills
Valhalla Lost uses two methods of gaining skills. At lower levels, skills can be raised by using them. For example, if you try to pick some carrots for yourself, your lumberjacking skill will slowly raise. This is good for lower levels but can take longer as you progress into the higher levels. The second way is to pay an npc vendor to train you. Just drop any amount of gold on a vendor and they will tell you what they will train and how much skill gain you will get for that amount of gold. Once you have paid the vendor, all you need do is play the game, let time pass and your skills will continue to rise.
Now, what is a new player to do? There are a few things they can do while waiting to get strong enough to explore and hunt and craft. The first is finding a job. By asking <vendorname> job (where vendorname is the vendor’s name). they will give you a job to do. The job is done automatically as long as you are standing still. When you are finished, just drop the bag back on the same vendor and they will give you gold based on the quality of your work. At lower levels, this may only be a few gold. Vendors only have so many jobs so when they have no more work for you, you will have to find another one. You may only job up to 2,500 gold per 24 hours.
Another method of making money is package delivery. Find a vendor and ask <vendorname> quest (where vendorname is the vendor’s name). If they have a package to be delivered, they will ask if you will take it. For new players, it is advisable to stay within Asgard as some packages might be delivered to other towns.
When you are ready to do some fighting, guards also provide employment. Find a guard and ask <guardname> quest (where guardname is the name of the guard). The guard will tell you the name of a creature that has been bothering him and ask you to slay it. For new players, try to find quests that are near Asgard. Once you have slayed the creature, cut off its head (by using a dagger on the corpse – sometimes you will not get the head right away so try to aim for the corpse’s feet) and drop it on the guard for your reward.
New Player House
North of the Gates of Asgard is the new player house. Go out the Gates, passed the garden and it is the second house on the left. Here, you will find books on various subjects and tools to use. There is also a new player barrel outside the house. Take what you need but please do not take everything. These are donations given by players to help new players.
New Player Hunting Areas
If you haven’t already, you should put your gold into your bank (by saying bank to the banker) before you go hunting. You do not die right away in Valhalla, as explained in the Death System, but you can die after you get knocked-out so many times and it can be bothersome finding your stuff again. If you die and are under 10,000 experience points, you will resurrect immediately near the Gates of Asgard.
Near Asgard bank is the cathedral and graveyard where the dead will not stay dead. The graveyard itself is fairly easy but once you go into the crypts, it can get slightly harder. The further you venture in, the harder it becomes. If you want to slay the dead (especially for those who are necromancers to gain necromancer reagents), there is also another graveyard north of Asgard. Simply follow the trail north until you get to a fork in the road and go east.
The best place to start is the wildlife around Asgard Castle. The castle is located east from the Gates of Asgard. Go over the bridge and you will find many creatures in the forest. If you are new, try not to wander too far away to make sure you can get back again. As you travel further away from Asgard, the creatures you encounter will start getting harder. Always keep to the main paths so you can easily get back to the city again.
Another good area is East Asgard swamps. Asgard is broken into 3 districts: central Asgard where you first appeared, South Asgard Island which is a housing development and East Asgard Island which is also housing and a swamp. To get to either, go south to the docks and there are two teleports that will take you there. The swamps have many easy monsters to slay.
Finally
There are many friendly players around so if you need, don’t be shy. Page for a GM if you have questions and one will try to respond quickly if they are on.
And don’t forget to read the Valhalla Wiki!
Enjoy!