Hello, Imperian,

A number of contentious questions have been arising of late, so this post serves to clarify our position on a few things.


RAIDING CLARIFICATIONS
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Allowing for your allies to claim objectives in order to prevent the repercussions of your enemy holding them is not an intended part of the system. At the same time, we don't want to prevent legitimate squabbles between organizations of the same circle. It's sometimes difficult for the administration to determine when a situation is one rather than the other, and I don't want to mechanically prevent all raiding between same-circle organizations. To this end, I'm currently considering additional effects of "allies" holding objectives, and other mechanical ways to discourage abuse of the system. In the mean time, should the issue continue, there will very likely be in-character repercussions.

The one change I am making at this time - it is no longer possible to deface the monument of an organization in the same circle. It doesn't really make sense, thematically, for a city to be defaced with the glory of... the same source of power they use. I'd also like to add additional repercussions to allowing your city to remain defaced, and am open to suggestions via email or message.


TOME OF THE UNBORN MISUSE
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There has been some misuse of this promotional artifact, so I want to clarify its use. As with all characters you create, you should NOT be transferring any promotional rewards you earn on your tome characters to another character you own, as this is a violation of HELP SECONDS.


Sitting outside of an enemy city
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This one is a bit contentious, and we've generally had issues with the rules that are in place, Any loosening of those rules would lead to a similar situation of players gaming whatever restrictions are put in place. Rather than make any change to the current rule, I am instead simply going to clarify that blocking entrance into a city is an act against that city; if you block the entrance (via the BLOCK skill, or a wall, or some other method), the city can then pull you into guards with impunity. If you are standing outside a city with the intention to bait or begin conflict, you will be less likely to find favor from administration via Issues.


BOUNTIES AND CARAVANS
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As noted in a previous post, bounties CAN be placed for attacking or defending a caravan. These bounties should ONLY be placed by an organization that actually attempts to contest the caravan - if you roll in, see you're outnumbered, and leave without any attempt to claim the caravan, your organization should not be filing bounties. Because bounties may be placed for caravans, this also implicitly means that you should do so, and specifically NOT target someone on an individual basis for participation in a caravan if no bounty is filed.


HOLDING ASPECT MONOLITHS
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Because it is possible to benefit on one character while holding a monolith on another character, it is our established policy that you may only hold Aspect monoliths on one character. This is now mechanically enforced - the CONTROL and DISPUTE commands will no longer allow you to take possession of a monolith if you hold one on another character. At the time of posting, no one is doing this, so I haven't cleared any current monolith ownership.

Unrelated, but aspect type changes are no longer free, as this was always intended to be temporary and I just noticed I never took it out.


As always, we're open to input via the normal channels.

Penned by my hand on the 10th of Halitus, in the year 219 AM.