⚔ ADVENTURE • STRATEGY • INTER-BBS ⚔
A BBS DOOR GAME BY ALLEN USSHER · EST. 1997 · v0.97b2
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── OPEN SOURCE · GPL 2002 ─┘
ABOUT THE GAME
Welcome to THE CLANS — a BBS door game by Allen Ussher, first released in 1997.
Open-sourced in 2002 and available on SourceForge. Now runs on Win32, macOS, Linux & BSD.
The Clans blends two classic BBS game styles into one:
⚔ ROLE-PLAYING — like LORD, build a party of characters with unique
races, professions, and attributes. Fight monsters. Cast spells.
Wander from village to village seeking glory.
🏰 STRATEGY — like Falcon's Eye, manage an empire. Build structures,
develop land, amass an army, and dominate the village rankings.
🌐 INTER-BBS PLAY — the game's defining feature. Each BBS is a "village"
in a league. Travel your clan to other boards overnight and compete
against players across the entire network.
BUILD YOUR CLAN
🧝
CHOOSE RACES
Each member of your clan belongs to a distinct race, granting unique stat bonuses and abilities. Mix and match for a balanced or specialized party.
Human
Elf
Dwarf
⚔️
PICK PROFESSIONS
Assign each character a profession that defines their role in combat and adventure. Warriors charge in, sorcerers cast spells, assassins strike from the shadows.
Warrior
Sorcerer
Assassin
🐉
FIGHT MONSTERS
Send your clan out to battle monsters in the wilderness around each village. Gain experience, level up your characters, and collect loot to fuel your empire.
XP Gain
Loot
Spells
🏗️
BUILD STRUCTURES
Manage your empire's economy by constructing buildings, developing land, and growing your army. Dominate the local village rankings while your clan adventures.
Barracks
Walls
Towers
🌐
TRAVEL VILLAGES
The inter-BBS league connects multiple boards into one world. Choose to travel overnight — your clan data is transferred to the next BBS so you can play there tomorrow.
Multi-BBS
League
Villages
👑
CLAIM THE THRONE
Each village has its own power struggles and a ruler position that changes hands constantly. Outperform rivals in both the RPG and strategy halves to seize control.
Rankings
PvP
Prestige
INTER-BBS VILLAGE LEAGUE
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ HOW THE INTER-BBS LEAGUE WORKS ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ ║
║ [ VILLAGE A ] <---- nightly data sync ----> [ VILLAGE B ] ║
║ Your BBS Remote BBS ║
║ ║
║ Each BBS in the league is a "Village" in a shared world. ║
║ Your clan competes locally for village ruler -- and can ║
║ choose to TRAVEL to another village overnight. User data ║
║ is sent during maintenance; log in to the new BBS next day. ║
║ ║
║ [!!] Each village has its own power struggles and ruler. ║
║ [!!] Traveling players bring fresh competition to each board. ║
║ ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
The inter-BBS feature was designed to drive new callers to your BBS -- players follow the game!
GAMEPLAY FEATURES
⚔ RPG COMBAT
Like Legend of the Red Dragon, the RPG side lets your party fight monsters, cast spells, and gain experience. Characters level up, learning new skills tied to their race and profession. Each fight is a tactical encounter with your hand-built party.
🏰 EMPIRE STRATEGY
Inspired by Falcon's Eye, manage your empire in parallel with your adventures. Build structures, develop land, raise armies, and compete for dominance in the village rankings. The strategy layer runs even while you're offline.
🌐 INTER-BBS TRAVEL
The Clans' signature feature. Each BBS is a village in a wider league. Choose to travel overnight — your clan data syncs to the destination BBS during maintenance so you can log in the next day and compete in an entirely new village.
🧝 CHARACTER CREATION
Build a full party of clan members, each with their own race, profession, and attributes. The combination of races and classes creates enormous variety in party composition and playstyle, giving each run a distinct character.
🗺 VILLAGE POLITICS
Every BBS hosts its own village with local power struggles. The ruler position changes hands constantly as clans compete on both the RPG and strategy fronts. Traveling players inject fresh competition from other boards into the mix.
💾 OPEN SOURCE
Originally written in Turbo C++ and released in 1997, The Clans went freeware in 1998 and was open-sourced under the GPL in 2002. It has since been ported to gcc and MSVC and runs on Win32, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD. Available on SourceForge.
DOCUMENTATION
Everything a player needs to know: creating a clan, combat, magic, the market, empires, village politics, inter-BBS travel, and more. Nineteen chapters covering all aspects of gameplay.
Installation, configuration, daily maintenance, and InterBBS league setup. Everything a sysop needs to run The Clans on their BBS, including troubleshooting and packet handling.
Create quests, NPCs, monsters, items, and spells using the PAK development tools. Includes event scripting reference, field guides, and an AI quest generator.
Source code reference for C developers: build instructions, module map, data architecture, serialization system, inter-BBS protocol, and known issues.
⚔ GET THE CLANS ⚔
FREE · OPEN SOURCE · GPL LICENSED
v0.97b2
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Download (Windows): Clans-win64-amd64-0_97b1.zip
Download (macOS): Clans-darwin-arm64-0_97b1.zip
Source Code: Clans-0_97b1-src.tgz
Hosted at: sourceforge.net/projects/theclans
Download (macOS): Clans-darwin-arm64-0_97b1.zip
Source Code: Clans-0_97b1-src.tgz
Hosted at: sourceforge.net/projects/theclans
CREATED BY ALLEN USSHER · FIRST RELEASED 1997 · OPEN-SOURCED 2002
▶ SOURCEFORGE PAGE