A noble House with a great precept for non-boredom...

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

The nobles of this House oversee the villages around Allanak and conducts much of the practical matters involved in foreign affairs. The Rennik greenhouses, filled with exotic plants culled from across the world, are famous. They often send out trade missions or expeditions to sites outside the city.

Seems rather interesting and opens avenues for exploration as a House Guard.

[jmordetsky]

The nobles of this House oversee the villages around Allanak and conducts much of the practical matters involved in foreign affairs. The Rennik greenhouses, filled with exotic plants culled from across the world, are famous. They often send out trade missions or expeditions to sites outside the city.

Seems rather interesting and opens avenues for exploration as a House Guard.

The villages around Allanak are SO under utilized.

[Cale_Knight]

They're pretty boring, too.

[Moofassa]

They're pretty boring, too.

Ditto. It's like going to saskatchewan.

[ale six]

I think Rennik is a neat concept for a House, but from your topic title it seems like you think the noble Houses we have now are all boring, 7DV. Any particular reason you think that?

[John]

I think Rennik is a neat concept for a House, but from your topic title it seems like you think the noble Houses we have now are all boring, 7DV. Any particular reason you think that?

I personally think Rennik could easily replace Tor. I just find Tor boring and I'm not the only one (although I will admit back in the day when I first started, it was actually pretty cool). I think with all the military clans (Byn, militia, every fucking noble house), we don't need yet another military clan in Allanak. Now Rennik, that would open up some possibilities. Some very cool possibilities.

Tor does serve one purpose. To be honorable (which just means all the "crazy Allanakies" are sent to the one noble house, which IMO somewhat detracts from Allanak's atmosphere) and excell in fighting. Well I personally could do without a clan that "excells at fighting" for Rennik. Tor has the position of being the lower house for the big 2, Rennik would serve that same role.

[Anonymous]

Tor crazy?

my god.  I've been seeing things, then.

Doctor! Doctor! where are my meds!

[Briarfox]

I would like to see some more Houses opened, or atleast one noble from each. That could be interesting.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I personally think Rennik could easily replace Tor. I just find Tor boring and I'm not the only one (although I will admit back in the day when I first started, it was actually pretty cool). I think with all the military clans (Byn, militia, every fucking noble house), we don't need yet another military clan in Allanak. Now Rennik, that would open up some possibilities. Some very cool possibilities.

Tor does serve one purpose. To be honorable (which just means all the "crazy Allanakies" are sent to the one noble house, which IMO somewhat detracts from Allanak's atmosphere) and excell in fighting. Well I personally could do without a clan that "excells at fighting" for Rennik. Tor has the position of being the lower house for the big 2, Rennik would serve that same role.

I have to say, you do have a point.  When I was playing a templar of the War Ministry (both times), which is the group that House Tor would logically have the strongest relationship with, I had trouble getting my mind around why House Tor even existed.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I think Rennik is a neat concept for a House, but from your topic title it seems like you think the noble Houses we have now are all boring, 7DV. Any particular reason you think that?

I don't really find any of them boring, but I know a lot of people that do. I was just looking at a House that could bring a lot of neat opportunities to the game. Like John said, I think Tor could easily disappear and Rennik take their place, since they are still a second tier House.

Rennik does things with the villages, so until that was developed, that would be boring, maybe. But they explore and collect plantlife from around the Known World. That is a good reason for Magickers, expressly Whirans but others to certain degrees I'm sure, to be hired, so Oash is no longer the only option for those folks who desperately need that interaction. It's also a great reason to write up several hundred new types of plants. Heh.

Tor does serve one purpose. To be honorable (which just means all the "crazy Allanakies" are sent to the one noble house, which IMO somewhat detracts from Allanak's atmosphere) and excell in fighting.

If you really, really want to be honorable, join the Militia. What more honorable task than upholding the Justice and Peace of the Highlord's City?

[John]

If you really, really want to be honorable, join the Militia. What more honorable task than upholding the Justice and Peace of the Highlord's City?

While a nice bit of propaganda, anyone that's playing an honorable character really should stay away from the militia Unless of course you think bribe-taking is honorable

[Angela Christine]

If you really, really want to be honorable, join the Militia. What more honorable task than upholding the Justice and Peace of the Highlord's City?

While a nice bit of propaganda, anyone that's playing an honorable character really should stay away from the militia Unless of course you think bribe-taking is honorable

Of course it is honourable to take bribes, or at least not dishonourable, that's perks.  Lots of business in North America don't charge the cops or firemen for a cup of coffee, and it generally isn't seen as a huge problem.  Once you accept "free coffee" as OK, after that it is just a matter of scale.  The only time militia taking a bribe would be dishonourable is if you took a bribe to betray the Highlord, to commit treason.

Paying a bribe to get out of trouble, whether to a Templar or Militia officer, is really just a very efficient legal system.  Instead of the police giving you a ticket, which you then go down to the courthouse to pay or contest, you make an offer directly to the officer.  Cut out the middle men: the clerks, lawyers, judges and other revenue sucking parasites.  It also makes the lawmen more effective, because now they are sort of working on commission, the more bad guys they find the more money they make.  Everybody wins!   :twisted:


Angela Christine

[jhunter]

House Rennik sounds very interesting and different from those that are currently open.

Good find 7DV, I think opening up Rennik in place of one of the others would be very cool.

[Bebop]

I've used the villages quiet a few times.  I like them myself.  If people choose to utalize them, that's up to them.  But I think they are used well enough.

[Angela Christine]

As is, the villages get a fair bit of use.

1.  They are dandy as background.  To make the background more authentic, whenever I use one of the villages as background I try to go and actually visit the village and maybe buy a couple local items.

2.  The gates are open an hour later than the gates of the city, so it is a good place to crash if your group is running a little bit late and just misses the main gates closing.  (I am assuming that this is not IC sensitive, because there would be no reason to keep it secret, and the hunters, miners and others that go outside regularly would be likely to know).  I wouldn't want to live there, but their taverns are a good spot to spend a night grumbling.

3.  For both IC and OOC reasons, the public dormitories attached the their taverns are more secure than similar public dormitories in the city, so if you get attacked by a scrab and barely escape with your life (and can't afford a private room in the city) it may be safer to "sleep it off" in a village.  

OOCly it is safer because there are fewer PCs around, so you are less likely to be thoughtlessly robbed by someone who just can't resist the OOC urge to test out the steal code against a sleeping person.  (In this case thoughtlessly means "didn't

think it through" and "didn't consider all the factors involved" not someone who is a big meanie.)  

ICly, the villages simply don't support as much of a criminal element.  Desperate 'rinthers are unlikely to hang out in the villages, and would stick out like sore thumbs if they tried, they wouldn't be able to blend in at all well.  Local punks who don't want to work for a living as honest farmers probably leave the village for the excitement of the bright lights of the big city (or the forbidden pleasures of Red Storm or Luirs outpost) at an early age.  If anything there seems to be an even higher density of lawmen to citizens, so they probably don't put up with much shit (it is a long, long way to drag someone to jail, so they probably really discourage repeat offenders).  The locals may not be thrilled when hunters and miners crash at their taverns for the night, but they are unlikely to steal their pants.[/list]



I would like to see a few changes.

Shopping First, I would likely to see a couple more merchants or a small market square in each village.  Some families might be willing to go into Allanak to shop once a week, but none are likely to go more often than that because trudging for leagues through the open desert is unpleasant and dangerous, some families might dislike the city and only go in a few times a year.  Every town should have at least a grocer, with slightly different stock and pricing than a city grocer (products grown at that village would be a little cheaper, but imported products would be even more expensive).  A merchant with a few more rugged local clothing items and perhaps a few trinkets to show the local fashions would be good too.  Bracelets woven of straw, items made from stones cleared from the fields, jewelry designed to show devotion to the Highlord or ward off evil, and other rural crafts (these would primarily be useful as personal items for PCs who claim to be from the village).

Shrines  I think people in the villages would be likely to be more religious and more superstitious than city folk.  They are out there on the frontier, they know how bad the outside world is, and their walls are lower and thinner than the city walls. The grace of the Highlord and his servants is all that preserves them, and they know it. They can't make it to morning devotions or either of the Temples in Allanak on a daily basis, even the most devote families probably only make the trip once a week at most.  (A PC can make the trip in a couple minutes, but for a family with children a journey of several leagues would probably take most of the morning, and these people work for a living).  There should be more signs of religion or superstition in the villages.  A small public shrine in each.  Religious decoration on buildings or personal jewelry.  Nothing as grand as the steel dragon or even the Templar statues in Allanak, but -something- to show the beliefs of these people.


Private rooms  Not tenement buildings of course, but each tavern could have a private room to rent, like many taverns throughout the world do.  The largest of the villages (Menos, I think) might even have a "rooming house" with 4-6 rooms for rent that would be functionally identical city apartments but flavored a little differently.


Documentation  What is life like for the free farmers?  What would it be like to grow up there?  Do the freeborn farmers own/lease their own fields, or are all the fields administered by the government, or is it a combination of both?  In the latter case the free born people would be skilled employees of the government, likely over-seeing the large slave labor pool and doing tasks to important or difficult to be left to unskilled laborers.  The difference between being an independent or semi-independent farmer and being a skilled employee on a government-run farm is Huge.  If you hold your own fields and are expected to pay a certain amount each year as tribute or tax, with whatever is left over being your family income, then you have good years and bad years and the typical tribulations we associate with farmers.  If you are merely employee, with a set wage your situation is completely different.  Even if you are set a quota and offered bonuses and penalties based on performance it isn't the same as having your own family farm with your own plot of land.  Likewise, are the houses and cottages in the village owned (or permanently leased) by families, so that the same cottage may have been built by your ancestors and been in your family for generations, or are they merely rented from month to month, or are they all owned by the government and assigned to farm employees by the state (much like housing on military bases)?  Is the same method of land and labour used in all the villages, or does each have it's own traditions and history based on how and when it was founded?  Is there rivalry between the villages?  What sort of crops are grown, just grain as the room descriptions suggest or are their individual "kitchen gardens" that grow a wider variety of foods on a smaller scale? You can't "find out IC", because no PCs know for certain, and I'm not even sure the even the staff knows, these things might never have been officially decided.  Ok, it might not be hugely useful documentation, but I'd like to know.


Angela Christine

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Rennik.

What do the Immortals think about this?