Great heroes are often great leaders. It is not uncommon for people to gather around a strong leader for safety and support, nor is it unheard of for these leaders to assume the roles of generals, explorers and kings. When the population of a city grows to the point of overcrowding, or when a group of people are forcibly displaced from their old homes, then it is to these leaders that people look to guide them out into the untamed wilds of Idalos and create a new home. The bloodlines of all royal families can be traced back one such leader; heroes who learnt not only how to destroy their enemies, but also how to create new beginnings for whose who rely upon them.
The settlement system is a means through which players who are interested in creating and growing their own settlements can track their progress. A settlement can mean anything from a standard village to a travelling caravan of nomads, a self-sufficient monastry of mages, or even an independant fleet of pirate ships; anywhere where a significant group of people set up a self-reliant community away from any existing rules or governments under a player character's comand. It should be noted that the settlement system itself is not used as a method to grow a settlement. The only way to create buildings, gather resources, attract new settlers and protect them from threats is to do so in threads, and the ways in which one can do that are as numerous and varied as the stars in the sky. The settlement system is simply a way of formaly tracking the important details of the settlement: its wealth, population, and all the other little factors that make it unique. This is done so that everyone on the board can together get a clear, united view of the progress the settlement has made since its founding and prevent any misunderstandings in future. It will also help the player themselves remember what they have and have not done for their settlement, and help them to avoid accidentally powergaming. Finally the settlement rewards players for the creativity and effort they put into the creation of these unique new locations that will become a part of the ever-expanding lore of Idalos.
How do I get started?
So you're interested in founding your own settlement are you? That's excellent!
The first thing you'll need to do is obtain a suitably high level in the appropriate skills to make sure that your character is capable of founding, maintaining and growing the kind of settlement you have in mind. There are three types of skills you will need, which you should clearly identify to the moderator you contact about starting your settlement.
- Competent in a founding skill, such as leadership, persuasion or intimidation. People aren't going to be convinced to follow any old person off the streets into the untamed wildlands. A founding skill is some form of social-based skill that proves your character has the force of personality needed to convince others to trust in their leadership.
- Competent in a survival skill, such as agriculture, fishing, tactics, logistics or business management. Your settlers need to make a living in some way. Farmsteads need to farm, fleets need to fish, and bandit camps need to raid. As a leader, you will be expected to at least know enough about the main skill necessary for your people to survive. How else will you make informed decisions about them?
- Expert in a focus skill. A focus skill can be any skill that reflects the purpose of your settlement: the main goal that it is trying to achieve. If your settlement was founded to make the settlers rich then you'll want a skill like business management. If it was to be a festival town you'll want something like singing or dancing. If its a hive of crime and vices you'll want something like gambling or brewing. The focus skill is very flexible, but proves that you have the know-how to show your settlers that you can make not just a surviving settlement, but a place that they would want to live in.
Settlements can be built close to a modded city in the villages section of a forum, or far away from an existing city in any of the wild lands forums. These wild lands forums are: In both cases however the moderator is charge of that area must approve of this. In order to start up a settlement the player should PM the mod of the area they want to build their settlement in, explaining:
- The overall theme of the settlement they want to build.
- Where the initial settlers will come from.
- How they are going to afford the resources needed for the startup.
At the same time a new thread will be created in the Settlement System forum also bearing the newfound settlement's name. In the first post of this thread the player will find their settlement profile. This profile is a sheet containing the most relevant information about the current state of the settlement, and will be constantly updated after a player completes a thread impacting their settlement to reflect the changes that have been made. A settlement profile looks like this:
Player Name:
Lead Mod:
Founding Skill:
Survival Skill:
Growth Skill:
(Picture Here)
Settlement Name:
Settlement Location:
Description:
Statistics
Wealth:
- Tax:
Population:
- Military:
Order:
- Demographic:
Industry:
Lead Mod:
Founding Skill:
Survival Skill:
Growth Skill:
(Picture Here)
Settlement Name:
Settlement Location:
Description:
Statistics
Wealth:
- Tax:
Population:
- Military:
Order:
- Demographic:
Industry:
- Primary
- None
- Secondary
- None
- Tertiary
- None
Location NPCs
Places of Interest
Settlement Aesthetics
What does the profile mean?
This profile aims to be a happy balance between keeping track of the way your settlement has progressed, and not becoming a maths based minigame. Remember that all the work done to improve your settlement is done in threads, so the only time this profile is used is either when a moderator updates it following a thread you have written, or when someone looks at it to get an overall impression of what your settlement is currently like.
There are three key areas to keep in mind when managing a settlement.
1. Statistics
Statistics are the basic numbers that tell you the most important details about your settlement: how wealthy it is, how many people live there, how happy are people overall, and so in. The maths isn't too hard, but provided a good general idea of how big a settlement is growing and how successful it is. There are three major statistics to consider, each with its own relateds sub-statistic designed to either grant your player benefits or give a clearer idea on what your settlement looks like.
a. Wealth
Wealth is the measure of how valuable your settlement is: the price of the buildings, the money held by the people who live there, the value of the resources it produces. Anything that contributes towards making your settlement richer will increase this score. It is perhaps the most objective measure of how successful a settlement is; the higher the ratio of wealth-to-population, the better quality of life your settlers live. Of course the wealthier a settlement is, the more attractive a target it is for bandits.
Each settlement has a score of wealth points. These wealth points are just like the ones characters earn by completing job threads, however as you might imagine settlements deal with much higher numbers of wealth points. Wealth points do not necessarily reflect how much currency your settlement has though; it could mean you have a large store of gemstones, or a surpluss of other items to bargain with. Whenever your character does something that will make their settlement richer, such as creating a new building, setting up a new business, or even looting other nearby settlements, the wealth score on your settlement profile will be increased to reflect this. Similarly taking actions that are beyond what your settlement would reasonably be able to afford at its current wealth level, such as trying to build a huge stone castle for yourself when you only have a small village who all live in wooden huts, might detract from your settlement's wealth score.
You can divide your settlement's wealth score by the population of your settlement to find out the average wealth score of the settlers living in your settlement. You can compare this to the wealth tiers for clarification on what quality of life the average citizen in your settlement has. Note that if you are taxing your settlers you should take away the wealth points being taken as tax before you divide it by the population.
Tax
It's only fair that if one creates a kingdom they should live like a king. If you write about your character setting up a system of taxation in a thread, this will create a percentage tax score on your settlement profile. Every season, when you complete one of your job threads (and yes, you can class being the leader of your settlement as a job) you can also claim that percentage of your settlement's wealth points as your own. So if your settlement had 100 WP and you are charging 2% tax, then you would get +2 WP on your job thread. If this percentage is not a whole number then it is rounded up to the closest one.
Keeping in mind though that tax isn't free money. The higher tax you charge, the lower your order score will become to reflect your settler's increasing unhappiness about their wealth being taken away. Tax too heavily and the peasants might start revolting, and which point you could be banished from your own settlement at best or executed at worst. By all means take what is fair as a reward for your work, but beware the consequences of greed.
b. Population
Population is the measure of how many people live there. This can be increased by your character gaining new followers and settlers in threads, or might even increase a little on its own as your settlers... *ahem*... adult forum each other. Similarly this might decrease if your settlement is attacked, during plagues, or even as a result of natural disasters. The larger the population grows, the larger buildings and industries you would realistically be able to create a run in your settlement. For example its no good building a twelve story casino and red-light district if you've only got 10 people living in your settlement, as there wouldn't be enough people to work there. When you have 100 people though it suddenly becomes a lot more viable.
Military
A larger settlement needs a larger military. Players can push to recruit and train their civilians as warriors. This will lower your settlement's wealth score but increases your order score, as more soldiers patroling your streets tends to make said streets cleaner of crime. More importantly however it allows your player to bring these soldiers with them in threads and use them as their own disposable minions. These soldiers will be flavour NPCs unless you want to write up any of them up as a personal NPC, though you must stil go through the usual process of applying for a personal NPC if this is the case. All flavour NPC are assumed to have 15 XP in strength and in a random combat skill. They can gain higher skills as an listed effect if your character dedicates threads to training them or brings them on combat intensive missions.
c. Order
Order is a rough measure of how happy the settlers are with living under your leadership. Low order leads to crime, rebellions and an increase in civil problems, just as high order leads to the settlers being more willing to follow your orders. This is expressed a percentage between 0 - 100, with 100 being singing your praises in the streets and 0 being moments away from ripping your head off. Note that settlers wont only start rioting against you at 0%; if you've hit that low it means that literally everyone in the settlement wants to kill you. 50% is the "meh, no strong feelings" score, with anything higher meaning that people generally like you and anything lower meaning they dislike you. Being safe, reasonably wealthy and healthy is enough to maintain order at the beginning, but as the settlement grows bigger people will inevitably start to desire more: entertainment, culture and greater freedoms. People are quick to forget the victories of the past when faced with a problem in the present.
Demographic
The demographic is a simple way of showing the diversity of people living withing your settlement. This is mainly used to distinguish between races, but could be used to show any significant groups of settlers living in your settlement. For example a basic village might have a 100% human population. A village between Rharne and Sirothelle might be 50% human, 50% aukari. A city run by a master necromancer and his apprentice, and run by their undead thralls, might say 10% necromancer, 30% undead thralls, 60% others.
2. Industry
The industry section is used to list what resources your settlement produces. Just because your settlement doesn't produce a type of resource doesn't mean it's impossible to find there, it just means that your settlement imports that resource from elsewhere, and must pay a lot more for it to cover the cost of the trader deliveirng it out across dangerous lands. However if your business does produce that resource that means that it is much easier and cheaper to get ahold of, and probably means that your settlement is selling it to passing traders to earn some money too.
When your character creates a building or a business in a thread, the industry section of your settlement profile will be updated to show that these resources are now being produced there. For example if your characters helps plant an apricot farm, "appricots" would be added to your resources list. There's no need to track how much of each resource is being produced, just that your village is capable of producing it.
Resources are divided into three types: primary, secondary and tertiary.
- Primary resources are ones that are grown, harvested or mined directly from the world around them. You might call them "raw materials." This incuded things like grain, iron, wood, fur and meat.
- Secondary resources are ones that are made from primary resources or other secondary resources. You might call them "products." For example a blacksmith takes iron, a primary resources, and turns it into some kind of metal item like a sword of horseshoe, which is a secondary resource. This could also include things like pottery, paintings, medicine, and other artisan products. In order for your settlement to produce a secondary resource it must already be producing the necessary primary resources.
- Tertiary resources are places that provide a kind of service rather than an actual, tangible good. These could include banks, temples, prisons, insurance brokers, or anything else that does not need a large, regular supply of raw materials to function. These are likely to provide your settlement with some kind of listed effect, but might also decrease your wealth score.
3. Effects
This is what really makes settlements unique. An effect can be the results of anything special about your character of settlement: GM level in a skill, a magic spark, an Immortal's favour, an interesting thread, a unique industry, a focus on developing a unique culture; anything that makes your settlement special. Each effect grants a customized boon to your settlement. Some of these effects can directly affect the other scores in your settlement profile. For example building a temple to Daia, the Immortal of prosperity, might grant you a 5% increase in total wealth as long as you keep it protected and maintained.
Other might be more unique. Rather than giving a measurable change to your other score, they will tell you a unique feature of rule your settlement possesses. These are used to give a settlement its own individual flavour. For example a settlement belonging to a character who is a defiance mage might recieve an effect like this:
Off Topic
"Kin of the Water. Johny is a Defiance mage who has formed a kinship with water. Whenever it rains in their settlement the water just so happens to drain in a way that avoids causing property damage, and the nearby river never dries up or bursts its banks no matter how extreme the weather grows."
Off Topic
"Kin to Fire. Johny is a Defiance mage who has formed a kinship with fire, and fire loves him. Really loves him. Fire gets jealous when Johny spends too much time working on managing the village and doesn't pay it enough attention. Large scale fires seem to break out far more often around here than usual, and nobody but Johny can quite place why."
Here is an example of what a completed settlement profile might look like.
Example
Player Name: Billy
Lead Mod: Trouble
Founding Skill: Intimidation
Survival Skill: Agriculture
Growth Skill: Baking
Settlement Name: Bobstown
Settlement Location: Eastern Plains
Description: A quaint little village entirely inhabited by people named Bob. They are famed for their skill at baking cakes, but little do outsides know that this village is ruled with an iron fist by the might head chef Bobert.
Statistics
Wealth: 50wp
- Tax: 10%
Population: 25
- Military: 5 (this means that out of the 50 settlers living in my town, 5 work for my military force.)
Order: 50%
- Demographic: 100% Yludih named Bob.
Industry:
Lead Mod: Trouble
Founding Skill: Intimidation
Survival Skill: Agriculture
Growth Skill: Baking
Settlement Name: Bobstown
Settlement Location: Eastern Plains
Description: A quaint little village entirely inhabited by people named Bob. They are famed for their skill at baking cakes, but little do outsides know that this village is ruled with an iron fist by the might head chef Bobert.
Statistics
Wealth: 50wp
- Tax: 10%
Population: 25
- Military: 5 (this means that out of the 50 settlers living in my town, 5 work for my military force.)
Order: 50%
- Demographic: 100% Yludih named Bob.
Industry:
- Primary
- Apples
- Apricots
- Avocardos
- Flour
- Water
- Secondary
- Pastry
- Apple tarts
- Tertiary
- Hospital
- Inspiring Leader: Due to being a grandmaster of leadership the settlers in this town are much more willing to place their trust in you. Order increases by 1% every season.
- Running Training: You taught your soliders the basics of running away from battle. Each soldier has +10 running XP.
- Stepped on a Bug: Remember that time in that one quest where you stepped on a bug in front of Lisirra? Well she sure does. Your settlement is constantly beseiged by a swarm of mildly annoying flies.
Location NPCs
- Head Chef Bobert
Places of Interest
- Boberts Bakery
Settlement Aesthetics
How do I improve or make changes to my settlement?
Through threads! All you to do is write a thread in which their character takes some form actions that changes their settlement. They could recruit skilled civilians, plan or help build new buildings, run a public art contest, train their soldiers, declare a tax rate... the possibilities are endless. They can do as many of these as they please. Once the thread has been properly reviewed in the peer review forum, the player can fill out another quick form and post it in the same thread as their settlement profile. Once a relevant moderation approves it they will update your settlement profile to include this new information.
Challenges
Every season a moderator will post a new unique "challenge" for your settlement in the same thread as your settlement profile. These challenges could be anything from rat problems, criminal gangs, assassinations, invasions; anything that poses some kind of threat to the safety and happiness of your settlers. These events will scale with the size, wealth and order of your settlement to become increasingly difficult.
If your character does not take some form of action by the end of the season to deal with this problem in a thread (or series of threads) then they will suffer a consequence: a loss of wealth, population or order, the loss of a resource, a negative effect... whatever best reflects the fallout of that problem not being dealt with. If they address the chalenge with a very basic post then the issue will be resolved and so there will be no consequences, but also no rewards. Essentially nothing wil change. If they go above and beyond to solve this problem then they may be given rewards, either to their settlement or to them personally, by the moderator. A player can note in their player journal what kind of problems they would be interested in seeing their settlement face, but this does not guarantee they will get it. These threads can be modbombed or even modded entirely to allow for interesting and personal storylines to develop at each settlement.
Other PC's and PC Businesses
Other PC's can write threads in a PC owned settlement which can also have an effect on the settlement profile, though if they intend to stay there for a long time, buy a business or residence or obtain a position of high power they should ask the player who owns the settlement first. If a PC sets up a business in a settlement that they or another player has made which produces the relevant resources their business needs to function then the business owner may claim +1 WP on their job thread for that business each season.
NPCs
A feeling of community is important to any settlement. The majority of your settlement's population are to be considered as Flavour NPCs, and while they can be used in threads they should never have much of an impact nor possess any notable skills. However if you plan to use a character more frequently, you can writeup that character as a City NPC in the most relevant development forum to your settlement. By writing up an NPC, you should keep in mind that it will be available for all PC visitors to your settlement to use in their threads as well within reason. Additionally to prevent NPCs being written up purely for the sake of having a skillset to use that the PC does not possess, all these City NPCs may only have up to 100 skill points, no more than 30 and no less than 5 in one skill. NPC skills are always on a 1:1 ratio and, therefore, out of 100. These NPCs will count as an existing part of your settlement's population rather than an additon to it. NPCs may be awarded additional skills points when your settlement profile is updated at the moderators discretion if an NPC plays a prominent supporting role to your character, but not if they do everything for your PC.
Vassal Settlements
Not all settlements have to be their own independant city states. Many new villages are built to house the growing population of an existing state, or as colonies designed to provide a rare resource back to their homeland. These vassal settlements are provided with resources, information and trade links to their homeland, but are expected to follow their homelands laws and customers, and to ultimately bow to the authority of whatever government rules the homeland.
It appropriate to the circumstances in which your PC gains the settlers necessary to begin founding your settlement, you may opt for your settlement to be a vassal of an existing city, or even another players settlement. If this is the case you can assume, within reason, to have a trade route set up between your settlement and your "homeland." From this trade route you have access to resources produced by yourt homeland and may recieve benefits such as soldiers or resources to help you build your settlement and maintain order. However in return you must abide by the laws of your homeland, follow any instructions sent by the government, and will be considered an enemy of any cities at war with your homeland by default. You may become a vassal to an existing city in threads through shrewd diplomacy, or can loose this status by rebelling against them, but beware the effects on public order such changes can bring.
Retirement
If you no longer wish to run your settlement, or are inactive for two full seasons, your settlement will be converted into a regular village. At this point your settlement profile will be archived and your settlement will become a regular settlement under the control of the moderator in charge of the area it is built in.
Developing
You can get rewards for developing unique buildings, flora and fauna in your settlements. Any developed pieces should be submitted in the development forum of the nearest moderator controlled city, as these developements might also be found in or eventually spread to other settlements in the nearby lands, and thus may become a part of the nearest main city's lore as well. Once this development piece is approved by the city moderator you should fill out a quick form and post in in the same thread as your settlement profile, and then once it is approved your settlement profile will be updated as needed. The rewards for developed peices will most likely be positive effects related to the developed piece, but this is not always so.
Rewards
Are you a fan of rewards? Each cycle there will be a table posted in the settlement forum, listing a collection of unique rewards. The more posts you write developing your settlement each season, the more of these rewards you are able to claim.