Introduction

The settlement system is a means through which players who are interested in creating and growing their own settlements can track their progress.

Defining Terms

Settlement

A settlement can mean anything from a standard village to a travelling caravan of nomads, a self-sufficient monastery of mages, or even an independent fleet of pirate ships; anywhere where a significant group of people set up a self-reliant community under a player character's command. These can be away from any existing rules or governments, or they might work with existing governments or even be government sponsored. Make sure this is clear when you apply.

Settlement Tracker

This is a thread specific to the settlement. Whenever you complete story lines or actions which would impact the settlement, you post here. Your overseeing mod will then assign consequences to each entry, as appropriate. A full list of consequences can be found <linkie>

Founding Skill

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. It is the skill on which your settlement is founded and your level in this skill impacts your starting numbers.

Survival Skill

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? This is the skill which has a seasonal impact on Order, depending on your level in it.

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 larceny, 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. This is the skill which has an impact on all rewards given to a settlement in its tracker.

Before You Begin: Things To Note

• 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 formally 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.
• Only fully approved PCs may apply for a settlement.
• To apply for a settlement, you must be at least Competent in your Founding & Survival skills
• To apply for a settlement, you must be at least Expert in your Focus Skill

Getting Started

Apply To Start A Settlement

You should fill in the following information:

1. Name of Settlement
2. Location of Settlement
3. Theme of Settlement (a 1-line description, which we'll use in the thread description for your settlement location)
4. How this settlement will be founded (ensure you identify a Founding Skill which relates to this). Please note that you do not have to RP the founding of a settlement – but if you choose to do so there are advantages to this.
5. How this settlement will survive (ensure you identify a Survival Skill which relates to this).
6. What the focus of this settlement is. Link this clearly to your focus skill and be specific here.
7. Where the initial settlers will come from.
8. What resources will be needed for startup - and how you are going to afford them (please see "Founding The Settlement" below.
9. Will this Settlement exist inside or outside the law?

Settlement Locations

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 .

Post in <SOMEWHERE> and identify the current status of the forum you will be posting in (Moderated, Unmoderated, Wilderness, etc)

Founding The Settlement

Once your settlement has been approved, you have two options:

Pay For Founding (Full Cost)

You can pay to have buildings built (although remember - this is a settlement - see "Population") - if you do this (and you should make it clear in your application) then you'll agree an IC date from which the settlement begins.

If you take this option, you must pay full price (although you may apply capstone or renown discounts)

RP Founding (Reduced Cost)

If you wish to write the threads where your settlement is set up, where buildings are built etc, then you can do that! Please feel free to assume that you, and some (no more than 10) of your initial settlers are doing this. These "Founding Threads" will reduce cost of your initial buildings and will also add to your initial population.

• 1 thread - cost is reduced either as though the buildings were 1 Tier below their actual, or 10% (player choice) - +1 Settler.
• 3 threads - cost is reduced either as though the buildings were 2 Tiers below their actual, or 20% (player choice) - +3 Settlers.
• 5 threads - - cost is reduced either as though the buildings were 3 Tiers below their actual, or 30% (player choice) - +5 Settler.

Once you have written up the location for your Settlement - you are good to go.

Once Founded

• You may assume that the remaining Settlers arrive.
• A Settlement Profile will be created for you (you'll be asked for images, etc)

The Settlement Profile

The Settlement Profile contains all relevant information for your Settlement. An example is shown here <LINK>

Settlement Statistics

You'll get a few statistics for your settlement.

• Wealth - This is the number of WPs available to your Settlement. It starts at 10 for all settlements, but can be adjusted by awards given for Founding Threads.
  • Tax - This starts at 0 and any change to this must be RP'd. If you choose to tax your settlers - then your PC must decide on a tax %. You can, from the IC date of taxation starting, add that to your seasonal wage. If, for example, your settlement has 130 WP, and you tax at 10% then you can add 13 WP to your seasonal wage from then on. However - your Order will decrease by the same percentage as you tax.
• Population: - This is the number of people in your settlement. All Settlements start with 25 settlers. This start up number can be increased in 3 ways:
  • Through Founding Threads (see above)
  • By Founding Skill. Your level in your Founding Skill will give you the option to add the following:
    • Competent: No Change
    • Expert: +5 Settlers and -5 Order to Start (you don't have to take this, but there's no "splitting" it.)
    • Master: +10 Settlers and -10 Order to Start (you don't have to take this, but there's no "splitting" it)
    • GM: +10 Settlers and -5 Order to Start
    • Tier 2: +10 Settlers. No impact on Order.
  • Renown. The more well known you are, the more settlers you can attract.
    • 250+ Renown: +5 Settlers and -2 Order to Start (you don't have to take this, but there's no "splitting" it.)
    • 500+ Renown: +10 Settlers and -4 Order to Start (you don't have to take this, but there's no "splitting" it.)
    • 750+ Renown: +15 Settlers and -6 Order to Start (you don't have to take this, but there's no "splitting" it.)
    • 1000+ Renown: +15 Settlers and -4 Order to Start (you don't have to take this, but there's no "splitting" it.)
    • 1500+ Renown: +15 Settlers and -2 Order to Start (you don't have to take this, but there's no "splitting" it.)
    • 2000+ Renown: +20 Settlers and No Impact to Order to Start (you don't have to take this, but there's no "splitting" it.)
  • Military - How many of your settlers have military training and / or act in a military role. At start up this is dependent on the type of settlement.
• Order - This is a rough measure of how happy your settlers are living with your leadership. 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. A new settlement starts with 50% Order, before any adjustments for renown.

At the very beginning the settlement will have just been founded, so most of this will be blank or filled with low numbers. But don't despair! Rome was not built in a day after all, and neither will your settlement. But the more effort you put into writing settlment threads the more this profile will be updated, and the more fleshed out your settlement will become.

Settlement Demographics

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.

Settlement 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 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.

Industries do not have to be created by building literal buildings; they could be farmland, ships, or even whole districts dedicated to a certain type of resource. You don't worry about building houses if you don't want to, settlers can be assumed to be capable of sorting out accommodation for themselves.

A Note About Resources

In order to gain a new resource for your settlement, you have to consider the story. A resource for the settlement is sustainable and sufficient to be useful. Therefore, in order to gain a resource, you need to write a story which both makes sense, is played to your skill level and, also, clearly shows how you gain sufficient of this resource to be a settlement resource.

It may be that the mod in charge of your settlement tells you no, this isn't enough. If that happens, that's fine - it's a chance to do more! Just remember - this is about the story. If the story makes sense, changes are that we will approve!

Settlement 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:

"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."

Keep in mind though that not all effects are positive:

"Kin to Fire. Johny is a Defiance mage who has formed a kinship with fire, and fire loves him. [i]Really[/i] 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."

It is possible for effects, both positive and negative, to be removed after a certain time has passed or if the character does something in threads that would realisticaly end that effect. Additionally reviewers may award effects to player settlements after reviewing a relevant thread, but effects should not be requested by the player in their review ticket.

Making Changes In The Settlement

There are a number of ways you can change your Settlement.

Threads

Any thread in which a Player Character takes some actions that changes or impacts the settlement should go into the tracker. Once the thread has been properly reviewed in the peer review forum, the player must fill out another quick form and post it in the Settlement Tracker. Once a relevant moderation approves it they will update your settlement profile to include this new information. Available rewards / consequences to threads are included <HERE>.

Consequences / Challenges / Plotlines

The consequences given in thread reviews, PC challenges and PC plotlines will often impact settlements. These are the "big story" things which can also have an impact. Rather than submitting individual threads, where there is a large plotline, you might submit a number of threads to the tracker. If you're unsure, submit the first one, explain the plot, and the moderator will modnote it and let you know.

Survival & Focus Skills

Each season you should ensure that you demonstrate your settlement inhabitants (either PC or NPC) using the "settlement skill".

Survival Skill Impact Per Cycle

The Survival Skill has the following impacts per cycle:

• If the Survival Skill is NOT used in a single cycle: Order -5%
• If the Surivival Skill is NOT used for 2 cycles in a row: Order -25%

When the Survival Skill is used:

• As long as the Survival Skill is used, then it gives the following bonuses to Order, once a cycle.

• When the PC Survival Skill is Competent - no change
• When the PC Surival Skill is Expert
  • + 1% Order if only NPCs have demonstrated the Survival Skill in thread
  • + 2% Order if settlement PCs have demonstrated the Survival Skill in a settlement thread (must be at least 1 knowledge claimed)
  • + 3% Order if the settlement leader has demonstrated the Survival Skill in a settlement thread (must be at least 1 knowledge claimed).
• When the PC Surival Skill is Master
  • + 2% Order if only NPCs have demonstrated the Survival Skill in thread
  • + 4% Order if settlement PCs have demonstrated the Survival Skill in a settlement thread (must be at least 1 knowledge claimed)
  • + 6% Order if the settlement leader has demonstrated the Survival Skill in a settlement thread (must be at least 2 knowledges claimed).
• When the PC Surival Skill is GM or above
  • + 3% Order if only NPCs have demonstrated the Survival Skill in thread
  • + 5% Order if settlement PCs have demonstrated the Survival Skill in a settlement thread (must be at least 1 knowledge claimed)
  • + 7% Order if the settlement leader has demonstrated the Survival Skill in a settlement thread (must be at least 2 knowledges claimed).

^ The above are not cumulative and may not be claimed more than once. Go with the highest one.

Focus Skill Impact

The focus skill demonstrates the settlement doing what it is there to do. This can be used to the advantage of any PC posting in a settlement, depending on their level.
In any thread which is claimed in the settlement tracker, where the focus skill is used, include the following information (please note that where this is a collaborative thread, use the information for the PC with the highest skill level in the Focus Skill (as long as they used it). In this circumstance, "using" the skill means that you must claim at least one knowledge for that skill in your review request.

Novice - -1 (minus 1) to the current Focus Points Total

• Competent - no change to the current Focus Points Total
• Expert - +1 to the current Focus Points Total
• Master - +2 to the current Focus Points Total
• Grandmaster - +3 to the current Focus Points Total
• Tier 2 - +5 to the current Focus Points Total

Focus Points: For every 10 Focus Points gained by a settlement, the settlement leader may claim +1 to either Order, Military, Population or WP. To claim this, the Settlement Leader must post in the tracker and clearly state what bonus they wish.

Having a negative number of focus points is entirely possible, and it does not have any negative effects - but it does mean that you'll take longer to build up Focus Points to gain rewards.

Settlement Roles

Leader

The settlement leader is the only one who can benefit from taxing the settlement, and is the one who has overall responsibility. While there is not a set time which you are expected to be in your settlement - if you are absent from it IC, it will be noticed. This will be dependent on the settlement itself, and what its focus is, but a leader is expected to be leading.

NPCs

Blurb about settlement NPCs here.

PCs

Other PCs can, of course, write in any settlement. However, before doing so, you should check in with the settlement leader. Please ensure that you submit threads to the tracker.

Settlement Locations

Main Write Up

The Settlement location is the main source of information for a settlement. It should contain all the information needed to RP in that settlement - so please ensure that it does.

Sub-Locations

As your settlement grows, you may develop sub-locations. These should be written up so that other players can use them - please liaise with local mods. Until a location is written up, it may not be used IC.

When Is A Settlement No Longer A Settlement?

There will come a time when the settlement is large enough / focused enough / in the moment it's the right time enough that they are no longer really a settlement. At that point, make a claim in the Settlement Tracker and become an Advanced Settlement