9Dragons

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====== WELCOME TO NINE DRAGONS! ======
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**Nine Dragons** is a **Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG)** featuring supernaturally gifted kung fu masters waging war on behalf of their clans, in a land inspired by classic Chinese literature. 

Like most other MMORPG's, you'll travel across a vast land, populated with powerful creatures, and players like you. You'll gain power and learn new skills. You'll discover powerful artifacts and hoards of valuable treasure.

But as you might suspect, Nine Dragons isn't just another MMORPG. 

  * Settings, styles, and characters lifted straight from both **real-life history** and **authentic legends** of China's Ming Dynasty.

  * **Six clans** to join, each with their own unique kung fu techniques, base of operations, and unfolding storylines.

  * **Four roles** to assume within each clan, resulting in **twenty-four** distinct character classes.

  * An unprecedented **karma system** where your play style dictates your fate. Restrict yourself to honorable combat and walk the noble path, or forsake your reputation to win at all costs - until someone puts a bounty on your head!

  * The **discipleship system** to help inexperienced players make their way in the Land, and earning benefits for benevolent masters who devote time and attention to their pupils.

  * And much, much more!

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First launched in 2007, **Nine Dragons** has enjoyed enduring popularity among its player base, and continues to receive updates, enhancements, and new content.

Set during the **Ming Dynasty** period of China (also known simply as **the Land**), Nine Dragons draws deeply from the **wuxia** genre of fiction. Wuxia tales feature martial arts masters who utilize secret kung fu techniques with such skill that they can transcend the limits of mortality and physics. Heroes and villains of wuxia tales were known to make leaps of such height that they resembled soaring birds, shrug off even mortal wounds, disable or kill an opponent with a single touch, or even transcend the limits of life and death to become truly immortal.

"Wuxia" literally translates to "martial/armed hero," and the protagonists of wuxia tales were often heroic in every sense of the word. They fought for honor and duty, above personal gain. They earned respect through deeds, not birth or ill-gotten wealth. 

Wuxia heroes and villains attained mastery over their **chi** (or **qi**), their life energy, in order to cultivate it to incredible levels, and channel it into superhuman feats, or even as pure destructive force. The practice of growing and managing one's chi is known as **qigong**.

In 2021, **Papaya Play** obtained the publishing license for Nine Dragons for the global region, and the game can now be enjoyed on the Papaya Play online PC gaming platform.
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The **Nine Dragons Beginner’s Guide** is intended for players inexperienced with MMORPG’s, and goes through the game's basics, from creating an account and launching the game, to combat and questing. It’s intended to be linear, so it you find a term or reference that doesn’t make sense, make sure that you’ve read all the earlier sections in the guide.

The **Game Guide** follows the Beginner's Guide, and is for players who have some experience with MMORPG’s, or who’ve already gone through the Beginner’s Guide. Game Guide sections are not placed in any particular order.

The Beginner’s Guide and Game Guide are always works in progress, so if you can think of anything that should be included, or if you spot misleading, inaccurate, or out-of-date information, please let us know.
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Next: [[client|Obtaining the Nine Dragons client and creating an account.]]