The Aethra Chronicles - Volume One - Celystras Bane

The Aethra Chronicles - Volume One: Celystra's Bane or The Aethra Chronicles (also known as Aethra for short) is a classic 1994 MS-DOS shareware computer role playing game. The game was based on the Rolemaster game system, a Pencil & Paper role playing game. It was developed mostly as a one-man project by Michael Lawrence with some help from others for the graphics and sound/music.

The game is mostly played through a bird's eye view perspective where the camera is either showing the country scape, a town or a dungeon. Each version 'zooms in' closer to the ground and the resulting view shows more detail. For combat, the game uses a side view, that is dynamically constructed from the location the player's party was just before combat commenced.

The player is in control of the protagonist and two other characters and sets out to investigate the imprisonment of his or her father by the new King. Additional henchmen can be hired for a total of 6 controllable characters at the time.

The Aethra Chronicles is a fantasy role playing game similar in style to Ultima and Bards Tale. The player is on a quest to discover who has kidnapped the newborn prince and why. The game starts with the player creating his character and two companions. Additional companions may be hired or found at some point in the game. The quest will take the characters to every town and village in the land. Many fearsome creatures will have to be faced. There are over a hundred different monsters from the lowly Giant Rat to the fearsome Red Dragon.

— Advertizer as used on bulletin board systems