Epoch of Eulyros

The Lore: by LordFandon and InternetNinja

As it is written in the year 548, of the First Landorian Age (first Landorian or first Eulyros?)Time is kept in Landorian.

Landoria:

This kingdom represented the heartland of Arminian agriculture and other nature-based industries. It had a thriving population and a militia based army that could be called to action by King Elessar Shadow-Hunter in times of need- in addition to the professional army of its vassal, The Duchy of Kusalom. After years of unprecedented growth (usually by peacefully absorbing neighboring states into the whole, while largely leaving them intact) and prosperity, it began to stagnate. A desire to, keep things as they are lead to fewer and fewer expansions and new laws. Eventually several of the vassal states split off from the Landorian government and declared their independence following the death of King Elessar. Though this had been building for some time, it happened so suddenly that the new King Everin Shadow-Hunter was unable to rally his civilian army to retake the states before they became established by themselves- or worse. . . be absorbed by the now independent Kusalom. Weakened by the loss of their vassal states and struggling to hold the core heartland together, the young King Everin called upon his officials to invest heavily in the military, a faucet of Landorian life that had always been anaside, or an afterthought within the royal court. Pouring a vast fortune into a more professional army with the highest quality weapons, armor, and training facilities, the Kings gambit succeeded in creating a force capable of holding its own- and defeating the longstanding military traditions of neighboring Kusalom. Therefore, the former vassal-states of Landoria, wishing to avoid a military takeover by Kusalom in the future, (as many of the former vassal states held no favorable opinion of the Kusalomic administrations expansionist attitude); signed renewed vassal-treaties and trade agreements with their former, and now current, parent and quickly flourished under a renewed Landorian banner, their taxes going to the impressive Landorian war-machine. Having annexed nearly all of the states that declared independence during the latter years of the reign of the great King, Elessar Shadow-Hunter; his successor cast off the Kingship and enthroned himself as Emperor Everin ShadowHunter in the year 545. Now, her strength recovered, and indeed- greater than ever, Landoria seeks to conquer the rich lands of neighboring Eulyros. To that end, Everin commanded the fielding of an expedition in 548 to be placed under the command of the celebrated veteran Landorian commander, Madfast Hillborn. As the expedition set out to the North they encountered little resistance and construction began on the Capital of New Aidolon, in memory of a land from Landorias past, long abandoned. From this new city- the influence of Landoria could not be denied, soon the entirety of Eulyros would be under the command of a grand Empire. Then again. . .

Kusalom:

The Duchy of Kusalom, once a stalwart ally of the Landorian Kingdom, fell away from its subservient attitude following the death of beloved Lord-Duke Nicholas Fandon in the year 540, and in 542 it too seceded from the Kingdom and set out to conquer the lands of its fellow vassals. The Wars of Kusalomic Annexation lasted from 542545, and when they were completed both Landoria and Kusalom emerged as the two dominant powers of Arminia, having split the land between them. Emboldened by his success and envious of his Landorian counterpart, young Lord-Duke, Dorian Agalor Fandon, proclaimed himself Emperor of Kusalom and began to greedily monitor the more temperate lands that belonged to the Landorians for any sign of weakness. Then it isnt any surprise that as the Landoria Expedition prepared for its sojourn into Eulyros, a counter-part was being created in Kusalom. To be led by the Emperor himself- a force of the fearsome Kusalomic Knights, builders, laborers, architects, and some of the greatest scientific minds marched northward, and with great bravado they built an Imperial highway from Kusalom Keep as they went to send a message to Landoria: Eulyros belongs to Kusalom. Settling deeper into the country then the Landorians- and locating the vast snowy peaks way up in the hinterlands, the capital of VhorDaen was founded.

Church of the Holy Cube:

The Church of the Holy Cube is an ancient organization that predates most of the known kingdoms of today. It has roots in some of the earliest texts of recorded history, and its influence is far-reaching. The worship of the Church focuses around a holy block, the first block, through which the rest of the world is formed by the Gods. Though both Landoria and Kusalom rule themselves, they both host the Church of the Holy Cube as their state religion and have numerous temples, cathedrals, and churches throughout their settlements. Over time the Church has grown into a sort of nation in its own right, even going so far as to move its headquarters from Marseni (the capital of Landoria) to a new holy city. As its influence continued to grow, the reigning High Priest became as much a player in politics as the leaders of both nations. Because of its close ties with both kingdoms empires, the Church was inevitably brought along with them both as they expanded to the new world. The church has no official settlements in the new land besides its bases within Kusalomic and Landorian towns, though rumors abound of a holy city called Ipsus being constructed out in the wilds.

Premise:
People can be Kusalomanians, Landorians, Crusaders, or ANY new thing they choose to create that is native or NOT native to Eulyros. Through the admin factions we will be controlling the flow of the game, and ultimately, if it is the will of the player, the Expeditionary forces will fail to conquer the land.

Technical Wizardry:
Time
I propose we use Minecraft time only to keep track of important IG (in-game) dates. As InternetNinja and I discussed earlier, time will only be used to keep track of events sanctioned by the admin team. For example, say there is an important siege: we will want to keep track of that particular date so we will move the official time forward. We predict (or will try to make sure) these events will happen with regularity so player-made projects suddenly appearing overnight will not become a serious Lore-breaking problem. A coherent timeline will allow players to more easily participate in the admin-created lore and to make their own lore that jives with what has come before. Lets use the calendar thusly. Say something happens in winter: then the event is said to have happened: 42rd Day of the Season of Winter, 548 1 Landorian Age (we should use this format primarily though) . . . which can be written shorthand as: Winter-42 , 548 [1 LA] [W,Sp,Su,F]42, 548 [1 LA] (even shorter?) (edited with brackets) Because there are only four seasons, there are roughly 91 days in every season except winter which has 92 for a total of 365 days in a calendar year. As a personal note here: I like this system, because Ive always wanted to say it nd was the 32 day of the month!
st nd st st

Land Claiming:
Much like in AoM, we will have a land-claiming thread, but unlike AoM we will have different sets of rules for different types of claims: Let's not make it too convoluted. Land claiming is a system that can be different on every server, so ours should be easy to grasp and understand instantly. I just changed up the language a bit but it's all the same information.

Large Projects- A project which is designed to encompass a large area (75sq Blocks+) and have multiple players
working on it together. Kingdoms, empires, large towns, forts, and fortresses all fall into this category.

Before you officially claim your land, you must mark the boundaries of your land with torches at a distance no greater than 10 blocks apart. Claims must be accompanied by a forum post in the appropriate thread with the following (in game signs can be posted directing players to the name of your thread): A map of the claim, using MS Paint, or whatever other programs you see fit to use: as long as the entire claim is outlined (EoE will provide overview maps of the terrain for you to use.) General coordinates of the area (XYZ) are required. Claims are first come first serve. A dedicated group with a dedicated forum thread must be formed before land can be claimed for large

projects.

Small Projects-A project which is designed to encompass a small area (-75sq Blocks) and have multiple players
working on it together. Modest homes, small villages, manor estates, Inns, and outposts all fall into this category.

Before you officially claim your land, you must mark the boundaries of your land with torches at a distance no greater than 10 blocks apart. Claims must be accompanied by a forum post in the appropriate thread with the following (in game signs can be posted directing players to the name of your thread): General coordinates of the area (XYZ) are required.

One man MAY be allowed to claim enough land for a modest home, small village, manor estate, or other small-scale project. However, lore-related reasons must be provided for the structure. However, in the case of villages or projects designed to house more than the builder or his family an appropriate forum thread must be provided. This rule confuses me a bit. It sounds like a rule for individual projects lumped into the small category list. I typed an alternate version below:

For individual homes, no land claim forum post is necessary if your location is unclaimed and over (150? 200?) blocks away from any previously existing settlement. I have a mind like a lawyer, so I constantly try to clarify to leave no chance for a loophole. Your revision will be sufficient, methinks.

Towns
Towns are large project claims. Once you found a town, you have the town square center of a town (50x50 bock around center?) which is premium land (lots sold for x marks a lot), but there needs to be a town hall in the town square area. Then a secondary land zone which sells for .5x marks a lot. All money from the lots goes to a fund the town founders can use, so they can pay back their investment on the town if they sell all the lots. Alternatively they can keep all the lots for their own use. The lot system would be either unofficial based on the honor system like it was in Aidolon's grid system or it could be hardwired in (players join the town faction and then must buy a lot before they can build at all). Towns set their own requirements for membership. I prefer the more freeform honor system, but lets give the players the ability to choose for themselves the system that they would like their personal villages, towns, cities, etc to have. I know that VhorDaen will require citizens to fill out a form- and there may be some form of taxation. That said- the forum must be used in some capacity to keep track of residence-locations and registry.

Currency
The standard currency of Eulyros will be the Kusalomanian Mark, shortened to Marks on the users interface. This currency will be used as a medium of trade and will not have a tangible marker or item in-game. This will give us the ability to use automatic-player shops and for trade to flourish even when merchants are not online. To that end we should look into NPCs to give player shops a better hint of realism (but only if it doesnt kill our available memory). The ways to get Marks will be, killing monsters, and selling material to the admin owned stores in the 3 original capital settlements. Instead of accruing millions of marks, we might consider having a second tier currency. For example, one idea that was thrown out was that 100 marks would be worth 1 ducat (Landorian currency). Or maybe we could have marks and ducats be the separate monies of separate countries. RP events could affect the value of each currency in relation to the other. For example a war in Old Landoria could half the value of the ducat for awhile. Then players would make real-world esque economic choices. They could buy up tons of ducats with valuable marks while the price was low, so that when the ducat rose back up in value they would make money on the deal. Or maybe, if the ducat went down over time, others would panic and dump all their ducats into marks as quickly as possible to minimize the risk. The exchange would start out 1:1 and go from there. The 1:1 ratio is a terrific idea to begin! It will give us a chance to establish things and experiment with the currency at a steady pace. Wonderful! Should there be a currency penalty for death? Yes, a player should lose 5%-10% of their currency on-hand if they die. We don't have banks (or a feasible way to store currency), so it doesnt make sense to have the player lose all their money when they die, like they do their items. But if we DID have a bank, players would have to balance the risk of carrying their money around with them vs. keeping it locked up safely. They would withdraw money to make purchases and keep their money safe (and gaining interest) in the meantime. Well have to consult with TBE about the possibility of a banking system, but I dont think well be able to have interest unless there is an existing plugin for that. All of this is non-technical oriented speculation, so I don't know the limits of the system. I don't think making the system too complex to grasp would be too much of a problem (with the ideas above) because most people know how banks and exchange rates work already from real world experience.

Shops
There will be commands for players to give money to each other, and combined with regular trading of items (throwing them out of the inventory screen), this can work for player-run stores. Players who establish stores, especially in towns or settlements, will garner additional benefits such as a locked chest within the store to house goods, exclusive block rights on a parcel of land, and so on. They will be able to put materials in the supply chests which others can purchase via an interface system (similar to the NPC window, but with a custom welcome menu the player could write) so that they could buy even when the shop owner is not online. In terms of NPC stores: We want to encourage people to found their own stores (presumably by buying a permit and making a petition post on the forums), so we can list the going values for items in marks, then have the NPC shop keepers jack up their prices A LOT. We could even have different NPC shop keepers in different areas have different prices. And of course the blacksmith would ONLY sell metals, stone, and prefabricated armor/weapons while the lumber store would sell ONLY wood based products (wood, doors, fences, ladders, and axes). The same goes for plant supply stores (bonemeal too?), bakeries (maybe have general food stores that sell all food, but the bakery sells bread for cheaper), mining suppliers (ore blocks and picks/shovels?). Having one general store seems bland and uninteresting to me. In order to encourage this diversity among player-made stores, we could have the permit system set up like so: Base level shop permit: 500 marks Specialty permit (wood store, blacksmith, etc.): 400 marks Additional specialty permits: 300 marks Of course there's no way to FORCE people to only sell one thing, but we could arrange it so that (and again, Im saying this with no regard to technical limits) only the items the player bought a permit for could be stored in the supply chest and thus sold without their presence. With all of this, the question arises on how to encourage players to buy shops AT ALL? Why not just conduct unofficial business outside of town, without the need for permits and locations? Why not just meet wherever is convenient and schedule it so you're both online? These are very good questions. One thing I know is, if premium territory in a town is hard to get, and the only way to get that central land is by buying a store, then players will inherently value that land and will buy it for status. Then they will of course use it because they have it. But we still need some sort of incentive for the player who doesn't care about his status in that particular town and is fine with selling items outside the shop system. We need a good answer to this. Maybe being a shop keeper gives benefits directly to your character? Like the ability to transfer items between chests with the touch of a button or a command line, so you can transport great quantities of goods great distances without the need for many trips? Maybe shopkeepers have a once-an hour port to their shop? It probably shouldn't be anything that affects PvP combat. A more freeform system is the order of the day. Of course, players who run cities may choose the system they wish to implement in regards to commercial development. That is the beautiful thing about giving people a choice. The clever mayor or King would make things more lax for development: lower costs in taxes and land ownership and a competent guard force with strong defensive provisions will create a good climate for business and player-traders will undoubtedly flourish. On the flip side, ones own RP may not make that entirely possible, but if the kingdom with terrible laws is safe and moderately wealthy, theyll find business too.

Quests
We were beginning to work on this at AoM, and I think we had the right idea. Player/admins make a post in the (quest board?) of the forum detailing the RP background of the story (including how it fits into the overall narrative), a brief description of the requirements of the quest, and rewards, both in material and reputation. Example Quest: The conquest of the Tanigua Forest! Quest giver: Foreman Carl Backstory: This mighty forest has blocked Kusalomic expansion long enough! Our boys have been itching to get at that prime Taniguan lumber, but hostile natives that dwell within the wood have repelled all the expeditions we've sent out. Go forth and establish three guard towers on the edge of the wood so that we can better protect the lumberjacks. There's a mighty fine reward in it for ya!! Requirements: (1)This quest can only be completed by one person or group. (2)The first person/group to finish three towers and contact the questgiver will earn credit -all other contenders must then remove their attempted creations. (3)Towers must not be higher than 15 blocks nor wider than 10 blocks. (4) restricted building materials: Gravel, sand, dirt, and obsidian. Reward: A crate of six fine Kusalomic wood axes, a bundle of wood, and a purse of 75 marks. In addition, the completers will gain reputation with the Kusalomic lumbermen and the opportunity to participate in further quests that will be unavailable to laymen (such as a second stage to the quest like building a lumbermill or fighting off natives, or an unrelated quest like building a road to link the lumber yards to a new forest area). Quest completers with higher or lower reputations with a faction will receive better different rewards than what is listed, due to their standing.

Someone completes the quest and then makes a reply in the post with pictures. That way there will be no contest of who got their first. Of course, there will be some quests that can be completed by multiple people/groups, like leveling the trees in the forest down to one block height (to leave a stump) and turning in a stack of lumber.

The quest system will be a jewel of EoE. We will be able to have dedicated threads, tracking players standing with different organizations and factions. This also gives our players the opportunities to make their own quests, and record other players standing with their respective player-created factions.