Townships

Guilds are able to purchase a township stone which will be placed along side their current guild stone.

Purpose

The purpose of Townships is to vest player guilds with control of a long range goal. Townships will allow players of all play styles to design, create, control and protect their creations while creating a significant point of interest and interaction to the entire shard.

Township Stone Overview

Player guilds will be allowed to purchase a Township deed which must be placed in the same structure as the guild stone. The Township stone (hued guild stone graphic) will provide the menus necessary to run the Township. Provided the following conditions are met, a dynamic zone of X number of tiles, in each direction from the stone, will be created.

• A Township stone may only be placed if a large majority (X%+) of houses within the to-be created dynamic zone is in the same guild as the Township stone placer. This will prevent guilds from trying to use Townships to force home owners out of an area.
• A Township stone may not be placed if the to-be created dynamic zone would overlap with another Township or guard zone.

Township Features and Rules

• Township houses may not be traded to non-Township guild players.
• Township guild members, who have houses within the township, may not refresh their houses should they leave the guild.
• All Township guild members can view the Township stone and add gold to the Township. The owner and co-owners of the house in which the Township stone is located may fully access the Township stone (township administrators -> Manage Township NPCs, adjust law levels, adjust travel restrictions, etc).
• Any Township guild member may deposit gold with the Township (Double-click the Township stone and then click the Add gold button and target gold or checks), but gold can never be taken out of the Township stone it can only be used for Township expenses.
• Township expense payments and purchases are tracked in an expense log which can be accessed through the township stone.
• When a guild disbands, the Township associated with it disbands as well.
• Township guild members will receive a warning if their Township will run out of funds within 7 days upon login.
• Township and Guild stones may not be moved once a Township stone has been placed.
• Township administrators may create an enemy of the Township master list by double clicking the township stone and selecting the option to create an enemy list. This will gather all the ban lists from all of the Township guild member houses within the Township zone and compile them into one master list for X gold.
• Declared enemies of the township (those on the master list created in the feature above), may not use any Township NPCs and will be announced by Lookout NPCs (See Township NPC Overview below)
• Once a Township has been established, no other non-Township/Guild player may place a house within the Township dynamic zone.

Township NPC's

Township guild administrators (those who own or co-own the house in which the Township stone is placed) may purchase Township NPCs by double clicking the Township stone and clicking on Buy NPC. The purchasing player is given a deed for the Township NPC. The Township NPC deed may then be used by any Township guild member within his or her public house to place the Township NPC. Township NPCs may be dismissed through the Township stone.

The following features and rules apply to Township NPCs:

• To access the functions of a Township NPC, players must be standing in the same house with the NPC or on the porch of that house.
• Only the OWNER of the house in which the Township NPC resides may customize the clothing of such Township NPC.
• When a Township is dissolved, all associated NPCs are disbanded.
• The Township guild generates NO income from Township NPCs purchased through the Township system (i.e. standard profitability or lack thereof still applies to player vendors).
• Township NPCs can only be placed in public houses. Only one Township NPC is allowed per house. Township NPCs may not be placed in the same house as player vendor NPCs.
• Township NPCs can only be purchased once every X days (this number to be determined through testing, but is currently set to 7 days).
• Township NPCs do not use context menus and must be spoken to in order to access their services.

The following Township NPCs may be purchased (this list is subject to change):

• Banker Provides access to a players bank.
• Innkeeper Allows players to log out in the same building instantly and/or to purchase items sold by the innkeeper.
• Stable hand Provides access to a stable.
• Shopkeeper Provides access to a specific shop.
  • Mage Shopkeeper
  • Provisioner Shopkeeper
• Trainers Provides training in specific areas.
• Emissary Allows Township to be set to Grant of Authority (See Law Region Overview below).
• Evocater Allows Township to set magic travel settings (Recall In/Out, Gate In/Out). It costs X gold to change one of the four settings and each setting can only be changed once every X minutes. The travel settings are set through double clicking the township stone.
• Town Crier — Provides shard-wide news and increased the size of the dynamic zone by X number of tiles. A township can only have one town crier. By double clicking the Township stone, a message will indicate whether or not the Township can be expanded. If it can not be expanded, the guild will not be given an option to purchase this NPC.
• Lookout NPC will notify the Township guild, through guild chat, when it sees an opposing kin, opposing chaos/order, a warring guild member, or an enemy of the township (see Township Stone Overview). They can see a long distance, but cant see hidden characters or through walls.

Law Region

A Township may have three different Law Settings:

• Standard normal murder count rules apply
• Lawless no murder counts can be given to or received by anyone.
• Grant of Authority (requires Emissary NPC) normal murder count rules apply with the exception that the Township Guild may not receive murder counts.

Township Borders

Players should receive a notice when entering a Township area. The message generated should be based upon the Guilds name, Activity level of the Township and the law being applied. You have entered the <Activity Level based title> of the <Guild name>. <Applicable Law>.

Activity level based titles

• Hamlet (Low Activity)
• Village (Medium Activity)
• Township (High Activity)
• City (High Activity)

Applicable Law

• The <Guild name> has received a grant of Authority by Lord British to enforce the law within this <Activity level based title>. (Grant of Authority Setting)
• Lord British enforces the laws within this <Activity level based title>.
• Beware! There are no laws being enforced within this <Activity level based title>!

Examples:

• You have entered the village of the Perilous Adventurers Guild. The Perilous Adventurers Guild has received a grant of authority by Lord British to enforce the law within this village.
• You have entered the hamlet of the Orcs. Beware! There are no laws being enforced within this hamlet!
• You have entered the city of the Serpents Sword. Lord British enforces the laws within this city.

Lastly, when leaving a Township area a message should be displayed. You have left the <Activity Level> of the <guild>. Example: You have left the village of the Perilous Adventurers Guild.

Township Expenses

The amount of gold a Township requires to operate depends on several factors. The first is the activity level of the Township. The more active a Township becomes, the lower the associated costs. The reasoning behind this is that when a Township becomes active it creates a point of interaction on the shard which is valued by the players and the staff. It also discourages Townships of convenience where very wealthy players seek a Township for the sole purpose of having their very own Animal Trainer (stable). While such Townships of convenience will be possible by the wealthy, it will require a great deal of gold to upkeep. This will eventually draw gold out of the economy or require the Township guild to generate more gold (thus creating interaction -> hunting parties, pk targets, etc).

The second factor in determine expenses for the Township are the type and quantity of Township NPCs placed within the Township. The Township NPCs each have their own pay scale and will add to the weekly upkeep expense of the Township.

In short this system allows guilds to build truly functioning towns that can be tailored to how they desire to run their town.

Daily Fees

	No Activity	Low Activity	Medium Activity	High Activity	Very High Activity
Base Fee	12500	5000	3750	2500	1875
No Gate Out	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000
No Gate In	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000
No Recall Out	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000
No Recall In	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000
Lawlevel: Lawless	20000	10000	5000	2000	1000
Lawlevel: Authority	50000	25000	12500	5000	2500
Extended Size (towncrier)	12500	5000	3750	2500	1875
NPC Type 1 #	10000	6000	3000	1500	1000
NPC Type 2 %	20000	12000	6000	3000	2000
NPC Type 3 ^	50000	30000	15000	7500	5000

^{#: includes innkeeper, provisioner, trainers, lookout, crier, emissary, evocator
%: includes mage shopkeeper, alchemist shopkeeper
^: includes banker, animal trainer}

One-Time charges

Township deed	250000 (includes 125K ‘initial deposit’ into fund)
Change lawlevel to Normal	5000
Change lawlevel to Lawless	500000
Change lawlevel to Authority	500000
Change travel rule	25000
Update Enemy list	1000
Emissary deed1	100000
Evocator deed1	100000
Alchemist deed1	100000
Animal Trainer deed2	100000
Innkeeper deed	100000
Mage deed1	100000
Banker deed2	1000000
Provisioner deed	20000
Arms Trainer deed	20000
Mage Trainer deed	20000
Rogue Trainer deed	20000
Town Crier deed1	5000000

^{1: Activity level must be Medium before a township can purchase this deed.
2: Activity level must be High before a township can purchase this deed.}

Township Crafting System

Township owners can construct walls, floors and some decorative items using the Township Builder Tool. This tool is purchased from township provisioners.

The walls and decorative items can be damaged and destroyed by other players once every 5 hours, and can also be repaired just as often using the tool.

You must be a grandmaster Carpenter and be trained in masonry in order to use the tool. Anything you create using the Township Buikder Tool will appear on the ground at your character’s feet.

Walls

Types:

• Palisade

• Fieldstone

Walls appear as scaffold when constructed. You need to single click (or shift + click depending on your settings) to open the context menu on the scaffold and select “Craft Item” in order to complete the construction.

Decorations

Types:

• Lamp Post

Floors

Types:

• Cobblestone

• Welcome Mat

Welcome Mats

Welcome mats act as beacons for the Gatekeepers stationed at each of the Moongates. Placing a welcome mat will allow the gatekeeper to alter the moongate to send players to your township.

Once the mat is placed, simply say your guilds name or abbreviation to the gatekeeper. If you create a second mat, the first one will be deleted. (You may only have one Welcome Mat at a time.)

Easement

Townships are not meant to be for creating death traps. One of our townships had constructed a death trap around the ban location from their house out of the walls we allow townships to build; quite clever indeed.

These walls were not indented for this purpose, nor were they intended for blocking the entrances to dungeons. While walls are a very cool idea, they are a little too wild-west for my tastes without some oversight. Short of removing them, I’ll be imposing commonsense guidelines to their use; some in code, some handled manually.

Any walls constructed as death traps will be torn down. Walls constructed that block any easement will be adjusted to allow the easement. Note that players can destroy walls using a demolition ax as well, which is purchasable from NPC carpenters.

The courts of Lord British define easement as follows: An easement is a non-possessory interest to use real property in possession of another person for a stated purpose. An easement is considered as a property right in itself at common law and is still treated as a type of property in most jurisdictions.

Easement laws will not come into play if you simply wall in your township, but if you block an important land asset like a Dungeon, Lord British’s builders will be dispatched to tear down those walls.