Iteration Rules

character Creation & Starting Packages

Varrowynd is the beginning of a three part story where players are encouraged to submit a character application for a starting package. It is not required to do so, though the experience may be more difficult without it.

Characters themselves will not carry between the three parts, but each player that has a character that has completed the previous book(s) will have a bonus for the next iteration. Character creation options are as shown below:

- Peasant – Characters who have not done the application will begin play as a Peasant and have 7 RL Days to submit a character application if they choose
- Villager – A set of 60Q tools to fit their craft (2 tools), 3 Gold Coins, Simple Clothes, (5) Five Ingredient Food, Sack.
  Landowner – Land Deed, Tax Slip, 2 Gold Coins, (5) Apple Buns, Pouch.
- Wanderer – Backpack, 4 Gold Coins, Staff
- Knight Of Kheldir – Begin play as part of a Faction known as the Knights of Kheldir. Knights start with T1 Armor, a nordic sword, and 1 Gold Coin.
- Title Roles – Particular roles exist within the Castle and Village that will be available to apply for during launch only. These roles will be loose enough to allow individual takes on the characters to which the approved will take on the role during the iteration.

2 Characters per Player

During Varrowynd players can have 2 characters, though 1 must be a peasant. To avoid metagaming issues these two characters have the following requirements to be observed by all players.

- Known Relationship – Both of your characters are known to be somehow linked in relationship, through marriage, family, mentor/apprentice, or other such relation. It is common in character knowledge that both of your characters are familiar with one another and talk to each other. If you find yourself in a situation where one of your characters might be getting information that shouldn’t be getting back to your other character, or if any player asks in ((OOC notes)) you are required to post in local ((FYI – My other character is ___)) so that players are aware to avoid accidental knowledge share.
  Shared Loyalties: Both characters on a Players account must have the same loyalties. If one character is loyal to Ebrya or another faction, then the other character must share this. You cannot play both sides of a conflict or spy with one character for your other character.
- Shared Information – Your characters live together, meet up randomly, or otherwise find a way to communicate information between each of your characters. This is assumed to happen alone between the two on a semi-regular basis to avoid the juggle of which character knows what information.
- Shared Legal Responsibility – If one Character has a Bounty or is in other legal trouble with Ebrya, your other character can be captured and will automatically give up the other Character. You cannot cause trouble with one character, and then swap over to your other character to avoid repercussion.

Guilds

Starting guilds are assigned based on your starting package of Citizen or Knight. Characters can choose to leave their guild and will be considered a Peasant, or to create their own guild. There are two types of Guilds based on the existence of a Guild Monument or not.

- Physical Guild – If a guild monument is established with clear boundaries of a Guild’s land ownership, this is a Physical Guild. Physical Guild claim boundaries have the Queen’s Protection for combat purposes and require RP before PVP.
- Professional Guild – A Guild that is brought together of professions or like minded individuals under a certain cause are considered a Professional Guild. Professional Guilds need to proclaim their base of operations, and any holdings or land they may declare. If it’s within Eastbourne Village it needs to have the approval of the Queen.

Claims

Claims during the Varrowynd iteration will lean more heavily on personal claims over guild claims. Eastbourne Village will be the central guild claim where characters will have varying degrees of access according to their role.

- Guild Claims – are achievable through two options:
  - - Acts of Loyalty & Heroism – Some quests may include a reward to bestow the Queen’s Favor on a character that has shown loyalty and has the support of their peers. The character can then take their volunteers along with the Queen’s favor to settle under the Ebryan banner.
    - Sizable Donation – A large sum of money being donated to the Queen of Ebrya can also persuade the Queen to provide her favor to settle on Varrowynd. The favor can then be used to settle a claim, though under an independent banner. Though it is preferred that the new claimant makes a promise of peace with Eastbourne Village, it is not required. This route allows players to create their own claim, and aren’t necessarily required to be loyal to Ebrya or beholden to their laws and protection.
- Personal Claims are the recognition on or off guild claim, of a person’s right to land. For the personal claim to have the Queen’s Protection (See Combat below), it has to be on a guild claim. Certain rules apply to personal claims:
  - - Cost – Personal Claims will be more expensive to build, though cheap to maintain, to make the decision to claim land more impactful.
    - Guild Claiming – Using a guild claim to take other player(s) personal claims is not allowed. If placing a guild claim where personal claims currently exist, local chat RP proving their consent must be supplied in a GM ticket.
    - Usage – Personal claims can be used to claim your own constructions individually, or combined by teaming up with other characters. Four people could have four personal claims out in the wilds, protecting their gates and warehouses as an example. Or, it can be used to secure yourself a small house or shop in Eastbourne Village under the Queen’s protection. They can be used to claim resource plots, groves, or whatever a player wishes, though they cannot be used to claim things belonging to other characters.

Combat & Consequence

The rules for combat in Varrowynd provide much more freedom for combat, though it is balanced by Ebryan law. Combat rules are defined below:

- On Guild Claim Combat – On claim is considered to be under the Queen’s Protection. All combat within the boundaries of a guild claim requires mutual role play between the involved parties. Drawing a weapon, running away, or contrary/antagonizing RP response constitutes a reason for PVP to continue. Yielding on claim (Guild or Personal) or otherwise agreeing to the terms of the aggressor should be knocked out only.
- Off Guild Claim Combat – Without the Queen’s Protection, there is no one watching to prevent crime. Role play is not required before engaging in role play, known as Kill on Sight (KoS), though this does not supersede the community rule that all actions should be in the spirit of role play.
- Crossing Onto Claim – Fleeing onto claim causes a Hide Timer of 30 minutes for the fleeing character to hide on claim where the pursuers must wait off claim. Once the hide timer is over, the pursuers can enter the claim to look for the hidden character, and/or the hidden character can flee the claim. Engagement thereafter has to apply to the standard on/off claim rules again. Yes, characters may log off during this time as we will not police people’s time, but griefing of this mechanic will be handled on a case by case basis.

Law

Those who break the laws and can be reported by reliable information provided via “IC-Report a Crime” tickets to the GM. Affter review of the evidence, the report will be posted for character knowledge by the GM team.

- Recognition – Full helms that cover your face can disguise a character’s identity, and screenshots that cannot provide identity otherwise, will still be reported, though it requires 3 such screenshots to reveal the true identity and form a bounty.
- Character Memories – A character that is knocked out via non-lethal damage, or “killed” by lethal damage, still retains their memories. If the character can provide evidence, charges still may occur.
- Court – Once charged, the accused can appear before court to defend their actions and is encouraged to bring evidence supporting their recounting. Court will be attempted in character if schedules align, otherwise will be handled “off camera”.

Bounties

Failing to appear in court will issue a bounty, allowing players open right to bludgeon on sight until knocked out. If the capture allows death, once knocked unconscious the player is allowed to coups de grâce. A screenshot of a knocked out criminal or tombstone collects the bounty, and the criminal undergoes a period of restricted PVP according to the bounty level as their “jail time” but are otherwise free to move around as normal. Knocking someone out is considered non-lethal, where in game mechanics, killing a player, is considered a lethal assault.If attending court the accused can appeal to the court their innocence, or can pay a fine equal to half their Bounty. A fine can only be paid twice, and Criminals & Murderers are not allowed to pay their fine.

Bounty Levels

Thug – Non-lethal assault, repeated acts of aggression.
Capture: Alive / Bounty: 50 Silver / Jail Time: 2 RL Days

Bandit – Repeated non-lethal assault or Robbery
Capture: Alive / Bounty: 1 Gold / Jail Time: 3 RL Day

Outlaw – Lethal assault, conspiring against the Crown.
Capture: Dead / Bounty: 10 Gold / Jail Time: 4 RL Days

Criminal – Repeated lethal assault, outright acts of treason.
Capture: Dead / Bounty: 20 Gold / Jail Time: 7 RL Days

Murderer – Excessive lethal assault and acts of villainy
Capture: Dead / Bounty: 50 Gold / Jail Time: 14 RL Days

Justice – If found innocent in court, or once having completed the fine/jail time, the character is considered a lawful citizen. Past crimes will be considered in the event of being found guilty of future crimes and can increase the bounty.

Renegade Knights – A Knight of Kheldir who is convicted of betraying the Knight’s Oath, can be branded as a Renegade Knight. Per the faction rules for the Knights of Kheldir, one that is labeled as a Renegade Knight adheres to the rule of permadeath. For the rest of the iteration the player is not allowed to have a character in the faction Knights of Kheldir.

Encounters & Events

Within the iteration, there are scheduled events that are tracked both on RPCLIF.com, and on the Discord. These events will be pivotal moments in the timeline where the players’ actions will impact the overall storyline. This impact could be as simple as opening a trade route which provides additional clay to the village, or extreme as to change the course of Ebryan’s history. Events can result in skill loss if the character is killed via game mechanics. The Encounters are random mini-events that will involve players, NPCs and/or spawned animals with GM narration. These encounters may provide treasure, information, or even lead to further encounters.

War

An occurrence where a Guild declares a conflict with another Guild, a war will ensue. Wars can happen between either Physical or Professional Guilds and have to follow the rule set.

- Open Declaration – Wars consist of two guilds that represent opposing sides. Both Guilds must declare the war, and the agreed on victory conditions.
- Participant Count – A maximum of half your active (>3H in last 7 days) guild roster can attend a battle. During your declaration you must indicate your participant max, whichever group has the highest sets the max count for both sides. Both sides can use their own guild, or allies declaring for your guild, to meet that max. When the battle takes place, neither side is allowed to have more than 150% of the other team, rounded down, participating in that battle which may need to be decided during the battle depending on schedule availability.
- Field Battle – For the first battle, a location will be agreed upon, or assigned by GM if necessary, and scheduled via When2Meet to confirm highest participation rate and GM oversight. For physical guilds this location will likely be half way between them. For Professional Guilds, this could be the alleys of Eastbourne Village or another applicable locale. This can end the war unless the participants choose two out of three.
- Base Defense – The victor of the Field Battle will have the opportunity to schedule an assault on the opposing guild’s base. This would be the Guild Claim if it’s a physical guild, or its proclaimed base of operations if it is a professional guild.
- Tie Breaker Or Draw – If there is a 1-1 after the Field & Base battles, the winner of a coin toss chooses another Field or Base battle. You cannot siege a base more than once in a given war. During a tie, the participants are also allowed to call a draw and avoid victory conditions on either side, returning to peace.
- Single Combat – Both sides can agree also to put forward a champion to represent their guild. The victor of this single combat will have the same results as the complete war. This champion can be part of the representing guild, or someone swearing to fight for the representing guild. This representative does incur the role play ramifications of those witnessing the battle seeing which guild they declared for.
- Victory Conditions – Becoming the victor in war, either through group battles or single combat, will have narrowly defined results. Participants that engage in behavior likely to, or even potentially capable of, engaging in war should fully understand the Victory Conditions. War is meant to be a contained and finite conflict where thereafter involved parties return to respectful and peaceful relations. You are not allowed to engage in war with the same guild more than once in the same iteration. This goes for mercenaries as well, if wars always seem to contain the same players aggressing others, they will not be allowed to participate in the war. Agreed on during the war declaration, both guilds must agree on one of the following conditions.
  - - Payment – The victor will receive 3 gold per active guild member as plunder from the opposing guild. The opposing guild has 7 RL days to pay, failure to pay will result in the Queen getting involved to repossess goods in enough to cover the payment. Once the payment is made, the guilds return to peace and no further aggression is allowed between them.
    - Vassalize – The victor has named their guild the overseer of the opposing guild. Vassalization lasts for 10 RL days, and the vassal is expected to gift goods or crafting/production services during this period. This can include military assistance if the vassals are capable/willing. Failure to provide the gifts within the allotted time will result in the Queen getting involved to decide the gift. After the 10 RL days the vassal is seen as having fulfilled its service to the overseer and is given independence once more.
    - Occupation – The victor has occupied the guild of the opposing guild for 5 RL Days. If this is a physical guild, their guild is allowed usage rights within the guild. If a Profession Guild, allowed into the main locale or applicable personal claim(s). The occupied guild is to act with minimal resistance to productive requests (i.e.; crafting, building, etc.). This should act as a way to RP a story, share group culture, and for both sides to make the situation believable. After the 5 RL days, unless parties agree otherwise, the occupied state overthrows their occupiers and return to peaceful relations, deciding not to pursue the aggression further this iteration. Additional permissions are not allowed in order to destroy or otherwise grief or terrorize the occupied state. GMs reserve the right to halt an occupation if it’s causing too much trouble than story. As per the community rules, role playing slavery is not allowed.

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