List of Terminology

This is a list of terminology that is used in Log Horizon and Elder Tale.

A

 * Adventurer
 * Players of the game Elder Tale are known as Adventurers. In game lore, Adventurers are beings called down to the world of Theldesia as the People of the Land were becoming overwhelmed by monsters.


 * Adventurer City
 * Each server has special locations that serve as Adventurer hubs. They often have Cathedrals, Guild Meeting Halls, Banks (inside the guild hall), and Inns. Most of these cities are protected from monsters and player killing, although there are known exceptions.


 * Ancients
 * A mysterious group of superpowered People of the Land who serve as the "heroes" of Elder Tale lore. In the game, they served either as guest party members or quest-givers. After the Catastrophe, all but two known survivors have disappeared.


 * Athirds Ocean
 * The Theldesian name for the Pacific Ocean.

C

 * Catastrophe
 * The Catastrophe, also known as the Apocalypse and the May Revolution, was an event that occurred on May 3, 2018, at the release of the Homesteading the Noosphere expansion pack in Japan. All players logged into the game at that moment, regardless of server, were suddenly transported into the game of Elder Tale -- or, at least, a world much like it.


 * Classes
 * Also known as occupations for People of the Land, classes are chosen by Adventurers when they begin playing the game. Upon selecting a class, it cannot be changed without creating a new character.


 * There are four groups of classes: Warrior, Weapon-based, Healer and Mage. These four types are similar to the Tank/Healer/Damage per second (DPS) roles commonly found in most MMORPGs. In Elder Tale, though, the DPS roles are split into two groups of base classes that differentiate between physical and magical damage. Each server also has its own unique classes that replace one of the normal ones; for example, the Samurai class is the Japanese server's reskin of the typical Pirate class.

D

 * Dungeon
 * A Dungeon (ダンジョン) is any type of adventuring location in all MMO games, which is designed like a labyrinth or maze-like structure that has numerous paths, monsters, and rooms (for closed dungeons).

E

 * Elder Tale
 * Elder Tale is a twenty-year-old MMORPG that began in 1998. Those that were playing the game during the Japanese launch of the Homesteading the Noosphere expansion pack found themselves trapped in a world that resembled the game's.


 * Elder Tale Cuisine


 * Elder Tale Nobility


 * Empathiom
 * Empathiom is a sort of energy source derived from memories that the Travelers are seeking for their creators. The world of Theldesia is ripe with it after the Catastrophe, an event that the Travelers detected and thus purposely involved themselves with in order to harvest it.


 * Expansion Packs
 * Like most MMORPGs, Elder Tale releases new expansion packs every couple of years. The latest one, Homesteading the Noosphere, resulted in the transportation of over 700,000 players into the world of the game.

F

 * Fairy Ring


 * Flavor Text
 * In the game, flavor text was used to give items some more backstory and interest beyond their stats bonuses. However, in the months following the Catastrophe, flavor text has started manifesting as real abilities, for better or worse.


 * Friend List
 * In Elder Tale, players who meet can add each other to their friend lists. Although you have to be face-to-face with the other person to add them to your friend list, you can add them without their permission. Once someone is on your friend list, you can initiate or receive a telepathy call with them, and track their location unless they are in a private zone, among other abilities.

G

 * Genius
 * Genius monsters are one half of the Traveler race, created to harvest Empathiom from the world of Theldesia. They are actually mental bodies, having no physical form of their own, and thus claimed the bodies of monsters found on Mare Tranquillitatis in order to descend onto Theldesia.


 * Gold
 * Gold is the currency of Theldesia, and can be used on any server.


 * Guild
 * Guilds are a formal group of players with an organized structure and a leader.

H

 * Hate
 * Hate is a term used in Elder Tale to refer to aggro. Those who attract the most Hate will be targeted by enemies. Hate can be created through skills (as with most Warrior classes), damage output (higher damage increases the amount of Hate you accumulate), and level (because of higher damage).


 * Tanks in a party often have skills that draw Hate away from their allies and onto themselves, protecting their back-row heavy-hitters that have weak defenses. Many non-tank classes have Hate-reducing skills so that they can avoid attracting attention after dealing a lot of damage.


 * Health Points
 * Health Points (HP), sometimes referred to as "Hit Points", are a standard in most games as a way of gauging how much damage a person can withstand. Once this parameter reaches zero, the character is either rendered incapacitated or dead, depending on the rules of the game. One's HP in Elder Tale are level-based and skill-based, and can healed either by another player or with a health potion. When an Adventurer levels up, his or her Health Points will increase.


 * The People of the Land also have Health Points, but theirs will/won't increase depending on what the system purposed them to do. Furthermore, a Lander's status screen will only display a rough percentage of their remaining HP, unlike an Adventurer's which will reveal the exact number.


 * Homesteading the Noosphere
 * The name of Elder Tale's twelfth expansion pack, and the one recently released when the Catastrophe occurred. It is named after an essay about hacker culture.

I

 * Intercity Transport Gate
 * Intercity Transport Gates were the main method of teleport between the major cities on a server. However, after the Catastrophe, the gates were no longer active, effectively cutting off each of the major cities from each other.

L

 * Levels
 * A unit of measurement used in MMOs to quantify a player character's progression through the game.


 * Libra Festival
 * An event that took place in Akiba on the September after the Catastrophe.

M

 * Magic
 * Y'all should know what this is.


 * Mana Points
 * Mana Points (MP) is a power level which a player uses to cast spells or activate combat skills and abilities in battle.


 * It can restored by potions when players use it up in combat. However, MP-recovery potions are known to be weak, causing spells or abilities that increase one's MP recovery rate to be very popular in parties.


 * Mobile Armor
 * Magical technology used by the Royal Guard to quickly navigate through the city and apprehend players who start fights within the city. This armor was developed by the Alvs and relies on the magic circle that lays underneath Adventurer Cities to move around; as a result, without that magic circle, it is useless.


 * Monsters

N

 * Norstrilia Project
 * The Norstrilia Project (called the "Northtrilia" Project in Yen On's translation) was an experiment conducted by the Humans, Dwarves, and Elves after the fall of the Alvs. It created the Fox Tail, Ritian, Werecat, and Wolf Fang races. The name of the project is drawn from the real-life novel of the same name, written by Paul Linebarger.

P

 * Party


 * People of the Land
 * Also known as "Landers," People of the Land were originally NPCs when Elder Tale was a game. After the Catastrophe, the number of Landers increased exponentially, and they gained sentience, personalities, and memories. Interestingly enough, People of the Land see the situation in the exact opposite way: to them, it is the Adventurers who have become more than automatons and more like themselves.

R

 * Races
 * Various races exist in the Theldesian world. Eight of them are available to players and are known as the Eight Good Races.


 * Re:Fraction
 * A new phenomenon that has occurred after the Catastrophe.


 * Return of the Goblin King
 * A yearly event on the Eastal side of Yamato that causes thousands of Goblins and other monsters to gather together.


 * Royal Guard


 * Ruquinjé
 * Six Alven princesses who took revenge for their race's destruction by causing the First World Fraction.

S

 * Servers
 * There are twelve playable servers in Elder Tale: North America, South and Central America (which curiously contains the southern half the U.S.), Western Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, Africa, Middle East, India, China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.


 * It is later discovered that there is a hidden test server, Mare Tranquillitatis, where Adventurers go to when they die; this server is located on the Moon.


 * Skills
 * Techniques that people can learn by gaining levels, completing certain quests, or through practice.


 * Snowfell
 * A winter festival that takes place in December, and correlates to Christmas (and other winter holidays) in the real world.


 * Solo Players
 * Solo Players (ソロプレイヤー, Soro Pureiyā?) are those who play alone and don't form any lasting Party with other players in Elder Tale. Benefits include higher experience and undivided loot, but drawbacks include more danger to the individual if attacked with ailments like paralysis or by overwhelming odds. Before the Catastrophe, most solo players set out as mercenaries for other Guilds, with Shiroe as a prime example. Since then, most players have prefer joining guilds than soloing due to the dangers of their new world.

T

 * Teacher System


 * Telepathic Communication
 * Telepathic Communication, shortened to Telepathy, is a sort of private-messaging capability after the Catastrophe. It creates a voice call to another player on the initiator's friend list.


 * Theldesia
 * The world that Elder Tale takes place in. It is actually an alternate Earth, three thousand years after an apocalyptic event started by a rogue AI named Shiva.


 * Thirteen Chivalric Orders
 * Groups of Ancients that reside in each (playable) server, that protect the land in case the Adventurers fail to do so.


 * Traveler
 * An artificial mental body race created to search out Empathiom and return it to their home world. It is split into two factions, the Genius and the Fools.

W

 * World Fraction
 * Global-level magic phenomenons that altered the world of Theldesia. According to Li Gan, it has happened three times in the history