Getting Started
Three short pages take you from a downloaded archive to a character standing in Wehnimer’s Landing.
What this section does for you
You have the game and you probably have Lich. What you don’t have yet is this client on your machine, pointed at your character. That’s the whole job of this section, and it’s three steps:
- Installation — get the right archive for your platform (or the Android APK), extract it, and know where the binary should live. Building from source is here too, if you’d rather.
- The Launcher — the double-click path. Save a connection per character, keep the password in your OS credential store, and start a session with one click. Launch several to play several characters at once.
- First Launch — the command-line path, choosing a frontend, and a tour of what’s on screen once you’re connected.
Read them in order the first time. After that, the Launcher page is the only one you’ll come back to.
Before you start
- A way into the game. Either Lich running as a detachable client, or your play.net account details for a direct connection. VellumFE does both; you don’t have to pick now.
- For the terminal frontend, a terminal with 256-color or true-color support. Windows Terminal, iTerm2, Kitty, Alacritty and modern GNOME Terminal all qualify.
- For the desktop GUI, nothing extra — it’s a native window.
- For Android, version 8.0 or newer. On Android 8 and 9, update Chrome first: it provides the app’s rendering engine there.
Get connected
If you’d rather not read three pages first, this is the short version.
- Extract the download and double-click
vellum-fe. With no arguments it opens the graphical launcher. - Click ➕ New connection, pick Lich or Direct, and fill in the connection details for your character.
- Click Save, then Launch.
Connections run the Desktop GUI by default; switch Frontend under Advanced to get a terminal session instead.
→ Expected result: a VellumFE window opens, connects, and your room description appears in the main text window.
Once you’re in
Two commands are worth knowing on day one:
.helplists every dot-command, grouped by what it does..settingsopens the settings editor. In the Desktop GUI you can also use the Settings button in the top toolbar, which stays open while you change things.
⚠️
.quitdisconnects but leaves the window open — run it again to exit..exitcloses VellumFE outright. Turn off Keep Open On Quit in Settings ▸ UI if you’d rather.quitclose immediately.
⚠️
Ctrl+Cmeans different things in different frontends. In the terminal it copies your selected text. In the Desktop GUI it quits. To leave a terminal session, use.quitor.exit.
Then what
- How-To Guides — the fastest route to a screen you like: build a hunting layout, make your health bar flash when low, set up highlights and sounds.
- Frontends — what each of the five can do.
- Command Reference — the full dot-command list.
See also
- Introduction — what VellumFE is and where its config lives
- The Launcher — saved connections and keyring passwords in detail
- First Launch — every command-line flag, explained