Starmourn is a free science fiction MUD
The Starmourn sector is a post-Earth space adventure where alien races unit against the ever-present Ishvana threat. Explore a fully original universe and forge your legacy. The stars await you, spacer.
Wetwiring cures you, so you can think about the fight
Starmourn needs no curatives or potions. A network of microscopic machinery runs through your body and cures almost all of your afflictions on a cycle, without you typing anything. Most afflictions here are short-term inconveniences, designed so they won't completely lock you down.
Damage lands on five internal systems, and every mend you perform builds resistance in that system, so mending it again soon heals less. Let your internal system take enough damage and it takes on sepsis, which feeds damage into your muscular and sensory systems for as long as you leave it unchecked.
Five internal systems
Mend → resistance → diminishing returns
Diagram of the documented mechanic. Sepsis is the internal system's feedback affliction. Mend resistance, and the balance every mend costs, are why spamming a mend is the wrong instinct.
LOOK Directory list of 3,1 ICE/ @antivirus @honeypot Routes/ north west [106/140 s] INFECT ANTIVIRUS UseSync(3.00) Infect.Result("antivirus", 11) [99/140 *] OpsLoss(3,@antivirus) [96/140 s] OVERWRITE ANTIVIRUS Load("Overwrite self-replicating_antivirus", 300) [92/140 *] OpsLoss(4,@antivirus) Overwrite.Result("antivirus", 24) antivirus.Delete() PasswordUpdate("D") -> Display($pass) -> DE*****
Hacking is a game inside the game, and every class can play it
Find a terminal, leave your physical body behind, and enter the grid as a virus. The map is generated fresh each time and unfolds one circuit at a time as you move, so nobody has memorised the route ahead of you.
Antivirus, firewalls, scanners, honeypots and glitches can all turn up. Scanners call in reinforcements unless you jam them first, and glitches sometimes roll back the clock and resurrect what you just killed. There is no wetwiring in the grid and no curatives: your OPs are all you have, and your body stays in the room, open to attack, while you work.
Since Crew Hacking arrived in May 2026, a crew can breach one grid together.
HACK CREW OPEN <terminal>
Your cargo can be somebody else’s payday
Hull classes run from interceptors to battleships, with freighters and superhaulers as the industrial ships. You outfit the ship yourself: weapons, components, room layout, the interior your crew stands in.
Production starts with raw materials that players extract from asteroids, gas clouds and planetary wilderness. Cargo can only travel by starship, so moving it carries a risk, and that risk is mostly player pirates: an encouraged role here, with its own rankings.
Fleet Mining shipped in May 2026: an unarmed mothership with ore crushers or gas compressors, fed by smaller harvester ships.
Five classes with completely different skills
Each class runs on its own resource and its own idea of a good fight. Fourteen playable races sit on top of that, from amphibious Amaians to the winged, leonine W’hoorn.
Still shipping
Starmourn launched in December 2018 and has been in Legacy Mode since July 2023, which means it is fully volunteer-run. Features keep landing anyway.
Following the success of our December inter-game IRE event, we are so excited to announce our next event installment which will run through September! Celebrate good times here in Starmourn as you collaborate with players from across the Iron Realms to open the Carnival and experience all it has to offer.
Elan is on FIRE and has knocked out another massively requested feature: Crew Hacking. For all hackable terminals, a crew of hackers can now jack into one shared grid and breach it together. Assemble your crew and dive into the grid today! Crew Hacking Command Syntax: How it works: One more change, for now. Hacking…
Everyone, please gather for a round of applause for Elan, our amazing coder!! He has just introduced a system that solves a request players have been making almost since launch: “Let us mine space rock together!” Fleet Mining officially introduces a multi-ship cooperative mining activity to Starmourn. When piloting an unarmed “mothership” equipped with ore-crusher…
Open call for Storyteller applications! The Storyteller role for Starmourn has grown a lot and now offers much more flexibility for the creative-minded spacers who choose to rise to the occasion. We are looking for folks who would like to peak behind the curtain and run events, create areas, puppet NPCs and the like. I…