The two most important things to remember when e-mailing your Forgotten Realms turns are to send them to fr@reality.com and to include your authentication code.

What is an authentication code, why is it necessary, and, for that matter, where is the bloody thing? Well you may ask. An authentication code is a unique number associated with a specific game, realm, and turn number. It is used as a kind of electronic signature to verify that e-mail orders are coming from someone who actually has a copy of the turn in their possession. You will find you authentication code at the bottom of your turnsheet (the sheet you would send in if you were snail mailing your orders). It is an eleven digit number directly under the RSI address. You must type this number exactly right! If you make a typo on your authentication code, the program that processes the turns will not recognize it and will notify you that your code is missing. If you have time, you can, of course, resend your orders with the corrected authentication code.

Your orders are processed directly by the computer with no human intervention. The computer is not as smart as our inputters and won't be able to fix errors. You will get a computer generated message with a list of orders that were input for you and notes on any orders that had problems. Again, if you have time, you can resend your correct orders (with the authentication code). If you do have occasion to resend corrected orders, you must resend all of your orders, or the only orders that will be processed are the corrections.

The best way to type your orders for e-mailing is as follows:

• Start your message with your name, account number, game number, realm number, turn number, and authentication code.
• Type the word account right before your account number and the word authentication right before your authentication code. This is to help Hal, who isn't always the brightest computer in the world.
• Do not include order numbers in front of your orders.
• Do type - (a single dash) to indicate a standing order.
• Subject, Action, and Fields should be separated by single spaces (not tabs, not commas).
• Declare orders should be on a single line with quotation marks at the beginning and end of the message.
• The hex coordinates for Advance orders should be ##:## ##:## (separated by colons, not anything else).
• Be sure to type everything correctly, the computer cannot correct for typos!

The notes on orders with problems are somewhat cryptic, but here's a key to the code...

Subject and action refer to the subject and action spaces on your turnsheet. Target refers to one of the four fields.

If a subject or target is "not found", the input program couldn't find anything that matched what you typed.

If something is "invalid" or "missing", you've probably mistyped something. For instance, if you order U2345 ADVANCE 23:33 24:55 you will get a "target is invalid" because hexagons ids must be both odd or both even and the second hex has one of each. If you order C100 SUMMON A1 1500 you will get the "target is missing" because it should be AT1. If you orders C100 CONSTRIPT UT91, you will get the action is missing message because you mistyped conscript.

Too many targets is just that... Most often this will happen if you order C100 MUSTER UT99 UT98. You can only raise one unit or item per order, the others are just ignored.

If a subject or target is not loyal, that means they don't belong to you (and thus won't take orders from you...).

If a target is "not allowed", you're probably trying to raise the wrong type of unit at a community (an elven garrison at a human community, for instance).

Remember, these are only a few of the things that can show up as errors. If you simply double-check and proofread your orders before e-mailing them, you're much less likely to have any of these problems.

If you have any questions about e-mailing your orders (or anything else regarding our games), don't hesitate to contact us.