I hate it all - HackMD

# The Gaffer and mercenary guild design doc (not definitive) # Gaffer, mammons and the economy ## Gaffer's impact on the economy Recently, Gaffer has been forced into the spotlight due to its supposed effects it has on the economy, causing an overabundance of mammons to clog up the economic flow of the game world, I find this claim rather shallow when looked at deeper. The general issues of the economy were present prior to the existence of the Gaffer, yet despite that, those issues were never fixed before the finger landed on the Gaffer. The thing to point out is, an abundance of mammons is not a problem in on itself, the game does not simulate inflation, none of the serfs jack up their prices as a response to it, and neither does the prices of imported goods so with most of the goods being either perishable or degrading, as long as the economic cycle is able to be fulfilled, more mammons just means you have more opportunity to engage with the economic cycle at all. **However**, the economic cycle in Vanderlin, does not actually exist. What do I mean by this? The economic cycle requires that: **A mammon is born**: For money to be spent, money must exist. This stage represents the printing of the cash, Which in Vanderlin, money is born through a variety of ways, either found from dungeons, earned through passive income, gained from exports, or gained from the HEADEATER. **A mammon is fulfilled**: A mammon must be fulfilled and enriched during its life, this stage represents the transfer of mammons from place to place during transactions, whether for goods or services, the mammon must know the warmth of many people's palm before it reaches the final stage. **A mammon is laid to rest**: The eternal takes its inevitable kill. All is as it should be. The final stage of a mammons' life that concludes a single turn of the economic cycle. This stage represents the removal of the mammon from the global pool of cash. In real life, this would be a hefty defense budget or a generous donation to an ally of the state, but in Vanderlin, the only way to get to this stage is through being used in imports. So, we now know the economic cycle, but how does Vanderlin fail to uphold the sacred legislation? Well. Let's explore the average life, fulfillment and death of the average mammon in Vanderlin through some examples: ### example 1: A mammon is born: Amongst a sea of gold, a new scale emerges to the surface. A noble has just gotten paid through passive income, They run into the nearest ATM and greet the younglings with a leather pouch... (mammon is born) ... "Well? What comes next?" in fact. Nothing is set to come next. The Average Noble eats and sleeps in the keep. And since those are the only 2 expenses that are *required*, the coin cannot be fulfilled, and is immortal. The cycle is halted. This is obviously not fair, the whole point of giving nobles income is to let them do stupid but fun shit with their money, even if it's not enforced in any way, they are owed the money, so let's continue: The Noble hires a pack of wild, disgusting and dare I say... a little unrefined group of bard performers. They fill the keep with songs of grandeur, steal food from the kitchen, steal money from the nobles, steal the furniture, steal the walls, kidnap the people, sleep with the hand, sleep with the queen, sleep with the keep keeper, sleep with the prisoners and the dungeon keeper... A lot happens. None notice it, and they are awarded their work in full, with mammons. (mammon is fulfilled.) The bards move on to celebrate their pay at the inn. They order a round for the house and meals for themselves. The innkeeper is paid (also the innkeepers' daughter sleeps with the bards) (mammon is fulfilled.) A wave of soilsons come to deliver the daes harvest to the inn. After a minute of haggling, the soilsons are paid. (mammon is fulfilled.) The soilsons. Do not have any expenses. They do not need mammons to purchase food, on account of them growing it, and they do not need new equipment, and neither do they replace the old ones. At best, they feel like wasting mammons socially, by going to the inn anyway for food. Then the Innkeeper has the mammons. Then the soilsons have the mammons. The mammons are stuck on the fulfillment stage. And never die. This type of eternal loop will come up again in the other examples, so hereby it shall be referred to as "inkept." ### Example 2: A mammon is born: born long ago in writhing darkness, the golden ones gleam for the first time as misplaced fire walks on its own. An adventurer comes across a pile of coins in the dungeon and stashes them for later. The adventurer finishes their plundering of ancient structures and returns to the town, they wait in line at the smithies for an hour, and pay for their new, essential equipment; The Iron thong. And pay the piper. The smithies. Do not have expenses. They obviously do not need new tools, they make those. the essentials they require to survive will be spent at the inn and "inkept". The miners sell directly to the smithies instead of using the stockpile, since this path lets them actually roleplay and talk to people, (in the RP server, shocking.) so the smithies do not pay tax for the ore with the stockpile. The mammons given to the miner (if the miner even wants it, it isn't unusual that miners just mine for the love of it.) will simply go to the inn. And will be stuck "inkept". The smithies also do not pay mammons to import ore (majority of the time) considering that their job is essential for the keep, the town, the church and the adventurers, they are simply owed the ore. The mammons are not even stuck in the fulfillment cycle, they are merely dormant, collecting dust. ### Example 3 These are starting to get wordy, so: man gets mammons from selling to the merchant. man goes to buy a potion. the delicious seller of delicious potions grow their own herbs, they do not pay anyone, they don't need new tools, if they go to eat, "inkept" ### Example 4 (the only time when a mammon dies): --- Adventurer gets money from head selling. Buys something from merchant. The money is used for imports. The mammon dies. Horaay. ___ You get the point. It doesn't matter from where, how much or at what time a mammon comes from. A single mammon is statistically immortal and will always be in the pool, so technically, **a single mammon printed is too much mammon.** Things need expenses, but besides taxes, **what would it be**? Well...(continued at conclusion) ___ ## Logistics of giving head, or... "why the Gaffer should have exclusive rights to the heads." In a bid to make the Merchant "The heart of commerce" there is a constant push to make heads legible for purchase from the merchant. This desire shows a clear misunderstanding of what a merchant's objective is. A merchant's role, without distractions, is to always **TAKE** money, rather than **GIVE** money. So, a Merchant must always "**sell**" rather than "**buy**". This might seem like a weird thing to point out, but for some reason the merchant is being seen as someone who is sold to, rather than bought from, and this view is hurting the design philosophy in its roots, what do I mean by this? A hunter selling meat, fur and hide from their hunts to the merchant is **odd behavior**, as despite the fact that the merchant can indeed export (some) of these goods, **it trades their fluid use for binary value**, in that the meat has better use in the inn, and the fur/hide has better use in the tailors. (I know they don't exist, okay? We are doing the analysis under an ideal scenario) These interactions, apply for every single type of good or item. A potion from the dungeon would have better use re-sold from the alchemist, a used sword has better use in the smithy as more supplies, a bunch of spare organs from ~~people,~~ orcs, goblins and skeletons(they do have organs) has better use in the clinic as spares or as neat decoration, gem/gold trinkets and valuables have better use to the steward (even if would be the technical same use). So therefor, the merchant being the one to buy heads does not actually interact well with their gameplay loop at all, as it teaches the wrong lessons to the merchant. Now that we acknowledge the merchant's true role, we have a bigger problem. The merchant shouldn't be buying, but the town has a specialist maker for most all goods and services, **so what would they sell**? (continued at conclusion) ## Proposed fix So, the economy suffers from the lack of coin death, serfs, peasants and much else alike not having any expenses to warrant coin death, and in the merchant's true goal not being completable with the given landscape. Now I seriously question why I have to come up with fixes for the economy when I already stated exactly how that the problem is far more grand than just the Gaffer, which is the subject of the PR, but I am fucking mandated to do it for whatever god-damn fucking reason so here is "Clown's modest proposition". Down with equal rights, let merchants seize the means of production. By letting freelancer roles; like Miner, Woodcutter, mason, soilsons et cetera, et cetera choose whether they keep being unshackled or work as private workers for the Merchants guild. As well as paperwork that allow merchants to hire workers within the rounds' length, we provide an expense to the majority of the serfs which does cause coin death, let merchant sell goods in a way that isn't them just paying to buy it, and cement the Merchants guild as the heart of commerce, as with guild pressure, it is very unlikely that these roles would get away with giving free services to the serfs. This comes with the bonus of the reliance on the stockpile working, (which never does) when trying to balance expenses to serfs no longer being the case, as unlike the stockpile which is set arbitrary and lacks input from the actual serfs, this method lets the serfs be face to face with their expense, negotiate for better deals, and letting the merchant know supply and demand, which means they can still export excess goods for coin. Another boon from this method, is that by attaching the lesser roles into a guild, we give them more forward direction for interesting encounters. This comes up more in the expansion part of the document, but one of the reasons why specifically "town roles" are extremely unplayed is because of the lack of interesting input they have, they rely too much on the church or the keep giving them direction and do something that matters in the round, when the keep or church does not need **them** to have interesting, internal politics. A question can be raised that perhaps this method could cause the maker's guild, inn and alchemists to have too little power against the merchants, and instead be a shell company for them. This is a fair assumption to have, though it forgets the fact that these groups can communicate externally as well. In comes the Gaffer, the Mercenary guild represents the majority of the returning customers for these establishments, and they would be against complete ownership of them. This means these semi factions still do have their own agency, they act as buffer zones between mercs and merchs where neither side can claim too much without retaliatory action against it. This is drama, it is fun, it would be fun to experience, it forces people to not be job bots but rather play as small pawns in the grander game, where their actions can genuinely influence change within the town. now, is this a complete fix to the economy? no. absolutely not. claiming that type of stuff on paper without even trying it in practice would be wishful thinking. But with the economy being in a place where it can't even work in hypotheticals, the fixes for it would simply be speculative and would be very unlikely to work. The motto is "apply, observe, improve" notes: "Actually if there is more money, you can order more iron and coal for steel until everyone and thing is made/covered in steel, which is permenant" This is just a seperate issue that the de-steeling PR pushed aside but didn't go into the depths of, and now gets fluxuated with the economy problems. My fix for this? go the project zomboid route, fixing something kills its max health until it is not worth keeping. This means items are now ever degrading and the demand doesn't end just because there was a lurch of supplies. It also means jobs with steel on them from spawn won't have the privilage of never going to the smithies now, as their gear will eventually go brittle. # The town and the Gaffer. There is a belief in internal discussions that suggest only the following factions exist: Town, Church, Keep. This type of reductive design clashes terribly with the server's other design, like "everyone can self antag". When the design does not acknowledge that the "town" is far too vast of an ecosystem to allow for idealistic thinking like this, it turns the whole experience rather **lame**, especially when there is motive to make town roles more played, and instead of asking "well what does the town offer?" we instead limit pilgrims and adventurer roles. Firstly, if we accept that the town is its own faction and that the mayor is the leader of it, we must believe that the mayor has enough push to force the "town" to act a certain way, when this is not the case at all. Any amount of standing the mayor has can be bought tenfold with the merchant's enormous budget, and the mercenaries are very very very unlikely to be intimidated into doing anything, and usually has a standing army bigger than the town watch. Even semi-factions like the smithies, what does the mayor hold over the smithies that has sway over them outside of goodwill, or any other faction for that matter? In my opinion, the mayor is far better suited to be a neutral overseer of the town shell rather than a faction leader. What supports this claim further is how the town is treated by the other factions already. When a priest says "get the town involved", sure they are using a blanket term to cover everyone, but do they seriously mean get the miners, the cheese makers and lumberjacks? They certainly do bolster numbers, but they aren't the focus of recruitment. Instead, what defines a succesful recruitment drive is: getting the smithies on your side for gear, getting the merchant guild for financial backing, and getting the mercenary guild for the people. Everything else comes secondary, and this is no different for the keep as well. Furthermore, regarding the point that the town is its own faction. Does this decision not stonewall a lot of possible scenarios of internal politics that the town can play around with? "The town" entity, requires too much push from the church or from the keep to have any intrigue happen within its walls, but a problem arrives when we point out that the church and keep only have need of the town when they are fighting in-between themselves, something which is not set up at all from the start. The keep was given power by the church, and the church has no reason to kill the king when they were the ones to coronate the monarch. The decision to involve the town requires the king or the priest to get a little bit bored, when both of these factions do not need to start anything major to have interesting internal drama. Court RP always exists within the keep, and the relationship between the inquisitor and priest already breeds interesting situations. The town, however, does not have this. The town does not offer anything to the player at all in terms of internal conflict, as it is "supposed" to be a mob, a unity. When we have already stated that this hardly happens. To cause more intrigue within the town, we must accept that the town is merely a shell, and the dominant players within it, are separate factions. These being Merchant and Mercenary guild, with non-leader-based demographics, like soilsons, physicians, makers guild et cetera being entities which are the buffer for to butting factions. The stage is simple: The Mercenary guild represents the overwhelming majority of the serfs customers, they need the coin the Gaffer brings to them to stay afloat and do the job that they enjoy doing. On the other end of the rope, we have Merchants (as discussed in (Gaffer, mammons and the economy)) as the source of materials for the serfs, they are unlikely to meet demand without the supply of the merchants guild. The reliance of both of these guilds services sets the round start map in a delicate but wonderfully spray-painted seesaw, where both factions have equal influence, and any attempt to stray from the status quo results in retaliatory action from the other side. With the elder acting as a neutral force that would prevent an all out war between the two, we have already set up the following: - The serfs are more involved in politics. Instead of these town roles playing the same round every single round, we now let them be influenced by town affairs. They are far more likely to have a more memorable round, play for and against the schemes of the clashing titans. - More interesting plots for the other factions. These affairs are not private theater, other antags or factions can influence series of events, a priest intervenes on schemes on religious grounds, a lich uses the divide within the guild to start turf wars and collect the bodies. so if the guilds are their own factions, how do we give them more tools for conflict? easy, the primary reason to cause conflict is to expand, but that is very vague, how would a mercenary guild expand, how would the merchants expand? ## Expansionism (paperwork) The rules for interesting Expansionism that isn't just beating the other person until they submit, is forced defeat. This is where paperwork comes into play. In this case, Bureaucracy is a front for all the ways the guild showcases their power, gained through not direct violence, but through coercion, blackmail, intimidation, yada yada. Design wise, paperwork and Expansionism has a few rules: - It must have immediate feedback: The paperworks must have immediate, constantly visible effects on the stage, imagine it like gang graffiti, they are not meant to be stealthy grabs of power, it is directly yelling in people's face just how much influence you have so, even the new spawns out of the boat should be able to tell that stuff is happening and who is in the lead. Signing contracts is already a very dismissed and forgotten event that happens in real life, you do not feel any emotion when you skip through a site's privacy policy or a game's terms of use, this problem is far worse in a video game where the consequences of a contract will not even affect you, the person. So the world calling you back to remind you that you did make a decision should be a necessity to give anything weight - It must make someone mad: If a paperwork contract steps on the shoes of someone, that person must have a negative emotion. A Gaffer calling forth more mercenaries to bulk up their numbers is stepping on the shoes local law, and therefor, they must be at least a bit miffed. Even a very minor stress event goes a long way here. - Can't simply dismiss a signed contract: The point of most of these paperworks is that the participant relinquishes a sum of their power "willingly", however, the difficulty should come from the act of getting them to sign it at all, as enforcing a contract on the king without any mechanical depth would be impossible, and lessens the effect of the agreement they signed off on, we want this to be a tough decision, or a hard pill to swallow. Now while I fully intend to give merchants their own contracts, that is beyond this PRs scope, so since that is separate, I will only talk about Gaffer contracts, and Gaffer contracts have a few rules of their own. - The expansionist papers should be litigated to other stronger factions rather than the common folk: The mercenary guild is a faction whos folk consist entirely of battle ready idiots, so enforcing paperwork on commoners would be incredibly easy through intimidation, which is both not that fun and not fair. In an in world sense, it makes sense that the mercenary guild would not antagonize the public as much, considering their income and workers come from the public, should their view of the guild diminish to a certain point it would simply suffocate the future of the guild. So paperwork should instead be for factions that are equal or higher combat power to the guild, such as the church or the keep, where both direct intimidation or clash is not favorable. - The merc gang graffiti should not be directly traceable to the guild: Seems like a weird decision to keep the signs vague, but since the paperwork they get targets stronger and erratic factions like the church or keep, the gang graffiti would simply cause direct altercation with those factions, if the paperwork resulted in a vandalized astrata statue that said "lol merc rulez" that would just cause war. So preferably, the signs are instead vague, metaphorical and can't be tied to the guild. The people would still be able to tell something is wrong, but can't point direct blame. - Instead of giving power directly to the Gaffer, the majority of the expansion papers should instead be benefits for all members of the guild: The Gaffer is a people person, they do not have any political power without the people in their guild. So the paperwork should enforce this, it should not expand to give more power to the Gaffer specifically, rather it should be for the guild as a whole. --- so, with that, here are the paperworks for the Gaffer: ### Merc_contract The most basic start of expansionism. Hiring more people. Gives the Mercenary_guild trait that results in them getting all the benefits the guild provides. All mercs (round starts, not migrants) are signed into it by defult. If the signed paper is destroyed, it removes the trait and gives a mood debuff allows for the Gaffer to "Recall" (give a message like the hags call) to the person whenever they hold the contract over candle or torch fire. It is a massive problem that the Gaffer cannot easily tell their people to return from a job or place, considering that these roles are expected to be out of SCOM range like in the woods or the bog. They are a faction leader, they should be able to utilize their people to the fullest extent. The contract also allows the Gaffer to tell if the signature holder is alive or not via examining the condition of the paper. If the signature holder is not unconcious or dead. it will state on examine text that the parchment is still warm. This is needed so that the Gaffer knows the true size of the guild at any given time, without making it too easy. If a mercenary is trusted with a specific mission or job, the Gaffer should at posess enough knowledge to send someone else instead, as to not let quests or jobs go undone. ### Merc_worker_contract Same as the merc_contract, but favored for non combat roles instead, like hired bards or physickers ### merc_work_onetime a simple, non-expansionist paper that pays mercs directly from a bank account rather than from a purse for ease of payment. ### merc_work_conti same as above, except this allows for the input of days, allowing for continuous payment throughout the week, good for things like guarding duty where you are supposed to be paid daily. ### merc_autograph as the name gives it away from how clear it is, it is a piece of paper with the mercs signature. This is tied to renown which is just the levels of adventurers delver added. looking at a signed paper gives a moodbuff depending on the level of the adventurer/merc. This is a good way of letting mercenaries/adventurers brag about their achivements. It also works to organically introduce "famous" people into the town conversations. It is also just neat. ### merc_will Deceptive named contract, which in reality works as a will. Allows for the merc to sign anyone in their known list as their inheritor to get all the coins they have in their bank account. They can also inherent their debt. This paperwork needs the signature of a steward to function. "why is this for the Gaffer and not the steward?" Because a Gaffer is more likely to keep track of their people dying than the Steward. Sure it would make sense if the Steward had it instead, but expecting Stewards alone to keep track of people's death is a huge burden that they would probably rather not have. Instead, this is something that all faction leaders should get separately, since it needs the signature of the Steward it is still a mechanic specifically for them, the only difference is they don't have to keep track of people dying. This is also an organic way to force mercs and adventurers to actually keep their money within the bank and contribute to the economy, instead of keeping their money on them at all times, and leaving it off to rust when they die during their duties ### adven_will same idea as above, but this one is bought for cheaper, and it does get taxed. ### merc_parade starts a merc migrant wave after its signed by the captain (not definitive role, open for suggestions) and sent through the mail system. After it is sent it will be repeated on SCOMs that a merc parade has started, and hearing that message will cause a mood debuff to the town watch. why I suggest stopping regular merc migrant waves for this: It is a commonly known problem that most merc players play mercenary as a secondary adventurer role rather than its own thing. This comes from the fact that a mercenary who isn't hired to do anything will always get bored and wander off to adventure. There is talk of enforcing mercs to not go to the dungeons through admin or mechanical enforcement, but I very much disagree with this approach. In my opinion, limiting more mercs to the Gaffer works as a way better deterrent than invasive enforcement. In practice, if a merc parade is being called, that means the Gaffer **has use for them**, so when they do arrive, they will not be subject to being jobless and forced to adventure. It organically stabilizes Mercenaries depending on their demand, which breaks the learned behavior of mercs leaving off due to boredom. ### exemptfromlaw a contract that adds the clause that mercenaries cannot be subjugated by the law, to the law (when read through the SCOM). Signed by the king. After about 7 seconds, SCOMs start individually calling pro revolutionary quotes (once per SCOM), such as "no kings, no masters!" causing negative mood events with nobility. The law is removed if the signed paper is destroyed. holding it over a lit torch or candle light allows the signature holder (king) to experience a "nightmare" encounter that lowers their stats and gives them a mooddebuff for a few minutes This is a fine, diegetic way of showing that the monarch is losing their stance. And since there is nothing to mechanically enforce this added law from being kept by the guards, it is pretty much only there to show the people how mercenaries are becoming above the law ### exempt_from_cruelty a contract that holds the church accountable for cruelty on its people. effectively setting the guild as a sanctuary for heretics. can either be signed by the priest or the inquisitor for different effects. Should the priest sign it. all statues of Astrata will form a crack around the neck, giving a mooddebuff for Astrata followers that examine the statue. or if an inquisitor signs it. all Psydon crosses will "rust" and give a moodebuff at examine. Both of these effects dissapear if the signed paper is destroyed. holding it over a lit torch or candle light allows the signature holder (priest/inquisitor) to experience a "nightmare" encounter that lowers their stats and gives them a mooddebuff for a few minutes Why Astrata statue? because she is the symbole of tyrany. With the priest agreeing to not pursue mercenaries, it works as a not subtle metaphor that her ways are slowly crumbling. It is also a consistant calling card for the HEADEATER, as any object tied to the HEADEATER will eventually lose its head, like the subdued statue, or how the ring of burden lacks the "head" part of the ring. It does not suggest that the HEADEATER is anyway stronger than her, it merely states that she is losing control on a specific group of people. This can be changed if its a big deal. Why Psydon crosses?: well there isn't much else to work on, it is the same scenario with the inquisitor giving up their power, so the crosses rust over to show psydons will degrading, but its not particularly in the HEADEATER's domain of influence. This one is just the only thing I could come up with that works visiaully. ### merchant_merger the olive branch, or the ultimate defeat. merges the merchants guild with the mercenary guild, removing merchant as the faction leader. after the paper is signed and given to the headeater it will drop a headeater spawn and the currently unnamed ring. the headeater spawn can be smeared on a gold face to allow the merchant to sell heads(with a 10% cut to the gaffer) as long as they wear the given ring. destroying the paperwork causes the infected gold face to rot until its back to normal This is obviously the end game power move for the Gaffer, and must be very undesirable for the merchant. and so, the ring causes the merchant to "think" (get the maniac text pop ups) in more agitated and aggresive ways (example text: Their whine constant, my jaw clenches...) while randomly lowering their mood. ### inn_partnership The first and only time when the expansion papers don't fuck someone over. This adds the innkeeper into the guild, and when the signed paper is given to the headeater, it gives a hailer core and Nescient's chain. The hailer core is a two use item, one use spawns the "INN-HAILER", the hailer machine for the innkeeper, the second use builds an "INN-HAILER BOARD". The hailer board the innkeeper themselves can place wherever they want. The INN-HAILER checks for the Nescient's chain to be used. Nescient's chain, which is just a gold necklace, works much like the merchant's ring, however, as they are considered the common man, they are not antagonized. Instead, Nescient's messaging leans to "ignorance." and provides positive moodles (example text: knowledge; a tide, I would drown in it's waves!, Enlightenment, such radiance, I cover my gaze.) Why?: All of the Headeater artifacts have some kind of messaging and theme, the ring of burden is paranoia, the merchant's ring is anger. The Innkeeper is guilty of letting the guild expand, but not maliciously, and so do not deserve punishment. However, they are, in a sense, ignorant for letting it happen. Hence, the theme is ignorance. Who is Nescient?: no one, it's just another word for "ignorant". Yes, there is no subtly at all. # The aesthetics of the Mercenary guild. What are the themes, aesthetics and lore of the mercenary guild that come into mind, and must be kept during development. Well, here are a few that come to mind: - It is a shady business: This is not immediately recognizable if you consider the mercenary guild as more of a high fantasy adventurer's guild, but it is not that. It is the mercenary guild. A mercenaries job covers a vast lane of things, mercenaries can be hired into the army to bolster troops, they can be hired to kidnap people, recover dead or alive bounties on people, they can be guards, they can be companions, their business is not always bad, nor is it always good. It is in the middle. Sure things like the Merchants guild can also end up shady, but that comes about from their greed and lack of ethics, their job, as written in paper is very clear. Whereas even on paper, a mercenaries standing is legally and morally dubious. so, the game should enforce the aesthetics that, at its core. The mercenary guild is kind of shady. - It is an odd bunch: The mercenary guild is accepting of people/non-people of all species or non species, of all patheon or non patheons. It is the workplace of both the most religiously righteous Psydonite dwarf, and the most unhinged zizo dark elf. By design, you must make peace with the fact that you will never know who you are working with, just how well they are doing and how much of a good job they are doing. So, the game must acknowledge the fact that the mercenary guild is a sorted, odd bunch. - Confusing affairs with the mercator guild: Within the text manuscript, we know of the mercator guild and its exploits, yet within the game world itself these factors seem like distant noise, as the merchants and mercenaries tend to not work very well with each other at all. And I am suggesting for it to get far worse within the PR, so how will that be explained? --- noting all of these things down, I will be talking about the "new" ""addition"" to the mercenary guild mythos, the mercenary guild """"patron""""(as in boss or benefactor), The **HEADEATER.** (the thing on the wall is not the headeater, it will probably get a name change) As I have said before, the mercenary guild is a shady business, but hinting at those themes is hard when the Gaffer is not briefed on these ideals. So, an external agent will be needed to push this narrative forward. However, to suggest something as shady, it must first be open to devilish deeds, this is a problem, as most all evil type influences in the lore are directly tied to actual sources of evil, like matthios, zizo, baotha, yada yada. This does not work well with a round start role, we cannot directly tie the guild to zizo, or matthios or what have you, as that directly ties the guild to antagonistic forces, putting up a round constant target on the guild which will always result in clashes with the church. In this case, the external agent must be its own thing with their own agency. I would also like to add that this approach is just more thought-provoking than what ever other server will provide, all other guild leader type roles in other servers present the guild is inherently good, which is fine, but its the abundance. And the mercenary guild, having a few skeletons in the closet while harboring the most cookie cutter hero types is interesting. Furthermore, as said prior saying that the guild accepts all types of people, regardless of religion, this also means that the external factor must also not care about these aspects, which is pretty progressive in the vanderlin lore, and doesn't track well with much of anyone. Discriminated races find companionship and warmth within the walls of the guild with the acts of heroism they give. Heretics zealots are allowed to hide their sin via helping the community. These things are **UNHEARD** of in a world like vanderlin, and nothing really supports the amount of freedom the guild provides. And last of all, The Mercator shaped problem in the manuscript. This issue can easily be stitched away, by suggesting that these problems are localized entirely within the round cities walls and do not reflect to the rest of the game lore. The mercator guild of rosewood, vanderlin, white whateverIforgotthename, recently had a revolution which seperated the guilds, with the influence of the external agent, HEADEATER. And anywhere else on the map would not have this going on. But, who or what is the headeater? well, the headeater is never visually shown. It never talks directly to the characters. It's goals, ideals or plan are always told through unreliable narrators, whether that be the ring bearer themselves or the headeater lying on its own accord. So, what is it? **nothing** the character of headeater is completely irrelevant. The entire job of the HEADEATER is to have a vague goal, vague set of ideals and some vague conspiracy **but never actually answer any of the questions raised**. We leave what, who, or why of headeater entirely into the headcanon theory bubble of the player who has the ring that round. "Is the headeater a sort of white bloodcell of the world to clean the monsters in its form?" Sure, "Is the headeater a gragger monster paying for the heads?" Course, why not? "Is the headeater the only indonesian person in world, and they just do that stuff?" not my first choice, but okay! the HEADEATER is just a vague **thing** representing a shady patron that can be plastered around stuff as needed. And since nothing is enforced, why not just let them have their fun? None of it is real anyway, this is just a neat thing people can churn their head over. And before you call this edgy I must remind you that this is not a unique idea, it is literally just choosing your sorcerer patron in DND. # Misc stuff that doesn't fit a theme. ## Ring servant. What is the point of the ring servant? well, while the job description might make it sound like ring servant is just grease for the guild cog, and maybe it is a bit, but it is a necessary grease specifically for the guild. - The guild does need more workers: The Gaffer is incentivized to move around. They are supposed to go make deals in the fly, go teach new adventurers/mercs how to survive, generally be knowledgeable on the goings of the town. If the Gaffer is the only person who can sign paperwork and process heads, they are socially forced into standing behind the counter the whole game, which would be a great shame, most people point to being taken to the bog with the Gaffer and learning mechanics in character to be a massive highlight of their game. This cannot happen should the Gaffer be forced behind the counter processing heads, writing paperwork or the like. - Anyone can be the next gaffer, the only requirement is wearing the ring. That's the whole design. But, a problem, what if the person with the ring, is a cunt? what is stopping the ring from being stolen by a homeless beggar, taken to the woods, and never being seen again? or if the ring is taken on the behalf of some other faction and ruining the rounds of unrelated mercs? nothing is stopping anyone from doing this, undesirable gaffers will eventually come into being. So, This is where the ring servant comes into play. Since the Ring servant is tied to the ring, that means they are responsible for the vessel that is binded to it as well. It is a ring servants job to get rid of undesirable Gaffers and letting the guild function. This problem does not have many fixes, we cannot enforce "clocking into the job every 20 minute" type implementation, as that also breaks the flexibility of the Gaffer. OOC enforcement is also undesirable, as players would not know the full context before getting an admin involved, possibly wasting their time. - The next "anyone" can also simply not be able to affectively perform their job due to social standing, IE, The lich, vampire lords, bandits. These roles still can be the next Gaffer because that is aweasome. However being immortal and or generally immoral does not mean you get to skip out on your union obligations, they still willingly got into a pact and must continue the agenda. So in this case, the ring servant works to keep the regular business of the guild afloat, delivering the checks and balances that can only be signed by the guild leader, discreatly to the tarnished Gaffer who the people that work in the guild never really met and seems to favor the new skeleton army or the vampire expansion a little bit too much... how shady. (do note, an antag will not be able to use certain paperwork in the full extent that non-antag gaffers can) ## Sentient mobs a hostile mob turns sentient(player controlled) after acquiring 3 sentinet kills. they also gain skill and stats with ever 2 regular kill they get. I don't know what to write about them. dynamic antagonistic forces, a taste of quest generation something something firstly secondly other essay wording. I just think its neat and cool. I could write a paragraph about it, but come on. Is it needed? ## HATEFACE or "SEIGFREED" The machine that lets the Gaffer print out the paperwork for a generous sum of mammons. This acts as the expense for the guild, as the merchant would would not really work as an expense for that, so. Their expense is the expense of growth. The machine is a broken and possibly stolen GOLD-FACE that has been repurposed. It is implied to have some kind of intelligence as, randomly it will go on AM (I have no mouth but I must scream) inspired monologues cursing out anything around it self about how much it hates them. The name is a refrence to Siegfried (opera), its about a person who gets assassinated for a ring of power. Obvious parralels to the Gaffer's own ring, as by using seigfreed, they set up their own future assassination. I thought it was neat. ## That PR I dislike https://github.com/Monkestation/Vanderlin/pull/2874 don't know if I even have to put this here, but I will acknowledge it. I give my opinion of it in the PR but, yea. Let players come up with their own lore, don't mechanically enforce stuff thats just coder enforcement overstepping. This type of enforcement is not present anywhere else, because it shouldn't be. They can already play this way should they want to, or if they don't, They don't. **Do not insert yourself into the player's creative process, especially not retroactively. This is inately lame. The vet can have a bad past with the matron, They can have a bad history with the court mage. None of it has to be forced by the game, because they are playing it. A role isn't defined by the script, its defined by the person playing it.** though obviously, especially with this PR's additions, the Gaffer being too friendly with the old party will get in the way. However I already have a fix for that, and it doesn't change the player's character. Instead it is the ring of burden which will try to sway the Gaffer from being too close to the friends that could hypothetically help him. The ring will try to keep the Gaffer paranoid around the other party members by calling the others traitors, backstabbers and the like to influence their interactions. Unlike the PR above, this doesn't force anyone to change how they see the gaffer, or how the gaffer truly sees their friends, it is third party interference that doesn't reflect their character to enforce neutrality.