Factions and politics
Running a faction
For a faction's leaders and officers: the coffers and the ledger, what each member earns, the ranks and their rights, an oath to a lordship, and diplomacy - alliances, wars and peace.
The faction's bank
The coffers are the faction's single purse. Tolls, shop takings, fines and claims flow in; wages, upkeep, claims and sieges are paid out. Any member may pay in, from their purse or from their account at the moneylender (the Bank tab, or /ftreasury deposit 100 and /ftreasury deposit 100 bank). The crown takes its royal tax each Monday from the coffers of a faction that holds a town or a ward: 10% of the week's tolls, takings and fines between 5 000 and 20 000 gr., 20% above, nothing on the first 5 000 (see Town property and the treasury). Withdrawing, into the purse or the account, is a right of the rank (/ftreasury withdraw 100), and so is reading the ledger: every movement, who made it and when (/ftreasury log). Every member sees the balance.
The members' earnings
The ranks that may read the ledger also see what each member earned. In the Bank tab, the ledger's Members switch (next to Coffers) lists every member with this week's and last week's earnings (weeks start on Monday, 00:00 UTC), their share of the faction's total and when they were last seen, with a total line. Click a member to see the detail by activity.
Only coin earned by work and trade counts: deliveries, convoys and coachman fares, supply orders, market and merchant sales, takings drawn from your own business's till, contracts, work orders and town works, hunting, the night watch, bounties, wages (from the faction or a town court), alms, and the rest (tournaments, treasure, the dice league's prize). It never counts the purse or the account themselves, coins given or traded between players, staff grants or refunds, or money drawn from the coffers. The figures are at most a minute old.
Ranks and rights
A faction has up to twenty ranks. The master's rank stands above all the others and may do everything; it cannot be moved or removed. The master - and any rank given the right to edit ranks - can create ranks, rename them, move them up and down, remove them (their members drop to the rank below) and choose what each rank may do. You can only act on ranks below your own, and only give rights you hold yourself. In the window, use the Ranks tab (a list to reorder, a grid of switches by theme, and the members of each rank). In the chat: /franks, /frankedit, /frankname and /fwage (up to 120 a payday).
| Theme | Rights a rank may hold |
|---|---|
| Money | withdraw from the coffers · read the ledger · set the wages of the ranks below |
| Members | take people in (and hear the recruiters' requests) · expel members of a lower rank · promote and demote members below your rank · edit the ranks |
| Property | a key to the houses opened to the faction · the faction's vehicles: drive, bring out, put away and lock the carts opened to the faction · run its businesses (stock, prices, name, till) · buy a business for the faction or sell one back · pay its upkeep from the coffers |
| Territory & war | claim or challenge a town · give one up · declare a siege · work the gates of the towns held · the town court: name the Bailiff of the towns held and ask them for money (see The town court) · diplomacy: alliances, wars and peace (below) |
| Other | the faction chat · the message of the day · for the law (the City Guard, and a lordship's sworn Constables): the watch's powers (bind at once, fine, the pillory, notices, impounding), bounties, trials · for a faction holding a town: the watch of our towns - the watch's powers (bind, search, fine, the pillory, impounding) in the towns it holds, for the ranks given it · for a church: absolution |
Sworn to a lordship
A Lord may swear in one faction as the Constables of his lordship - his own faction or another, but never the City Guard or the City Council. Its leader takes the oath from the Overview tab (or /oath accept). The faction's page then shows the badge Sworn to the Lordship of X, with its powers and the towns where they apply. The ranks' law rights (the watch's powers, judging, bounties) then appear in the Ranks tab, and work in that lordship's towns only. Apart from the City Guard, a faction of the law has no powers anywhere without such an oath. See The Right of the Sword.
Diplomacy: alliances and wars
A faction deals with other factions from the Diplomacy tab of its window (F2 > My faction, the last tab), or from the faction page of the account site. The master acts for the faction, and so does any rank given the Diplomacy right (under Territory & war). Every member can see the tab: the allies, the wars and the offers waiting.
| How it works | |
|---|---|
| An alliance | One side proposes; the other side's leaders accept or decline. They are told at once, in the chat and with a notice, and find the offer in their tab. Allies cannot hurt each other: a blow between members of two allied factions does no harm (a sparring duel, /duel, still counts, ally or not). An ally who turns on you - who assaults your guards or kills on your land - can be named an enemy with /enemy <player>: for 30 minutes the alliance no longer shields that player from you, nor you from them, so you can strike them down. It holds between the two of you alone, not your Houses; the player is told, and it ends when either of you falls, with /enemy off <player>, or after the 30 minutes. Either side may break the alliance at any time; the other side is told. After a refusal or a break, neither side can propose a new alliance to the other for 30 minutes. An offer nobody answers lapses after three days. |
| A war | One side declares war on another and gives its reason - its casus belli. Both factions are told. The war shows in both Diplomacy tabs (since when, and why) and in the list of factions on the account site (only the fact of the war), and the staff are told. Declaring war on an ally first breaks the alliance (you are asked to confirm). |
| Peace | Either side may offer peace with its terms, in a few words. The other side accepts (the war ends and both factions read the terms) or refuses. The side that declared the war may also simply withdraw from it. The staff can end any war. |