Patch Notes: The Chapters

Daggerfall's guilds come alive online. Every guild now keeps a chapter in each region where it has a hall. A chapter grows strong or falls into ruin according to what its members do, its top ranks are seats players compete for, and every Season it has a story of its own. Offline, the guilds are exactly as Daggerfall made them.

Your standing, kept by the realm

• Online, your reputation with all twenty-two guilds, temples and knightly orders is kept by the realm, not your save. It moves only for things the realm saw you do.
• Reputation can rise by up to 15 a day with each guild. Anything past that isn't lost: it's paid out on the days after.
• Ranks 0 to 7 work exactly as in Daggerfall, earned with reputation and skill. Ranks 8 and 9 are now seats (see below).

Hall writs

• Each chapter posts hall writs on its town's Notice Board, under the Work tab. They ask for the kinds of materials that guild works with.
• A hall writ pays like a Court writ, plus +2 reputation with the guild. Hall writs and Court writs share your three writs a day.
• Members also get their own writ each day, one per guild, which earns Merit for the chapter.
• The Thieves Guild's and the Dark Brotherhood's writs are shown to their members alone.

Receipts

• Slaying a gate's guardian or defending a raided town earns +1 reputation with each guild you belong to that keeps a chapter there.
• A chapter's receipt writ gives +2 more for your first such deed of the day in that region.

Merit and Strength

• Merit is what members earn for their chapter: 100 for a member's own writ (only units you gathered yourself count, not bought ones), and a share of 50 for each receipt.
• You can earn up to 600 Merit a week at a chapter. You start earning it after a week in the guild.
• Every week at the Turning, each chapter's Strength (0 to 100, starting at 50) rises with its members' Merit and slips when they neglect it. At each Season's end it settles halfway back toward 50.
• A chapter's Strength sets its standing:
  • Failing (0–19): training and spells a quarter dearer, a poorer shelf, fewer writs.
  • Steady (20–69): Daggerfall's own prices and shelf.
  • Thriving (70–89) and Ascendant (90–100): training and spells a tenth cheaper, a richer shelf, more writs.
• The Notice Board shows each chapter's standing ("The chapter of the Fighters Guild here is Thriving").

The seats: ranks 8 and 9

• Each chapter has one Master (rank 9) and three officers (rank 8). The seats go to the members who earned the most Merit there over the last four weeks, and are settled at each week's Turning.
• To hold a seat you need 80 reputation, fourteen days in the guild, an account at least a week old, and rank 7 earned the usual way.
• A sitting holder keeps the seat on a tie. A seat no one has earned stands empty.
• At its own chapter's halls a seat gives you rank 8 or 9: its title, services and quests.
• Titles on your name: Master, Officer, and Former Master for the rest of the Season you lost the seat in. These appear once titles are switched on.
• A Master names the chapter's Focus each week: the kind of material its hall writs ask for more of.

The Hall of Records and the hall's roll

• The Hall of Records keeps each region's Chronicle: every seat that changed hands, every Season's ending and every patron. Open it from the Notice Board or at a seat's palace.
• The first book on every guild hall's shelf is now the hall's roll: its chapter's standing, its Master and its officers.

A living hall

• A thriving chapter's hall is busier. Its members gather there more evenings each week, and a failing hall stands half empty.
• Townsfolk talk about their chapters, whether they're failing, thriving, or caught up in a Season's trouble.

Seasons

At the start of every Season, each chapter draws an event. What its members did last Season tilts which one it gets.

• Calm: a quiet Season.
• Schism: two of the hall's people stand for different doctrines: cheaper training, a deeper shelf, or more writs. Members back a side, and the side whose backers earned more Merit wins. Its doctrine holds for the next Season. A guild is only offered doctrines its hall can actually provide.
• Succession: the hall's head steps down. The Master names an heir from three candidates by the Season's third week; with no Master, the top backer's choice stands.
• Crackdown: the watch hunts the chapter. Members' own writs earn half again Merit. A chapter that ends the Season under 30 Strength has its halls shut for the next Season: no services, no writs, an empty hall. You can still talk there, get your rank review, and receive free healing or recharge.
• Rivalry: two rival chapters in one region race for Merit, and the winner takes 10 Strength from the loser. The rivals are the Fighters Guild and the Thieves Guild; the Dark Brotherhood against the temples of Arkay and Stendarr and every knightly order; and the Mages Guild against the Temple of Julianos.
• Decline: the chapter loses 2 Strength a week unless its members earn twice the usual target.
• Ascendancy: the halls' training and spells are a further tenth off, and the Master is a High Master for the Season.
• A Master who holds the seat for an entire Season earns Season Master ("Master of the Mages Guild, Daggerfall, Season 3") for good.
• The Notice Board and the hall's roll tell each chapter's Season. Members can back their side right from the board.

Patrons

• A player guild's guildmaster can bid silver from the guild's treasury to become a chapter's patron for the next Season. Bids start at 1,000, are sealed, and can be raised but never lowered.
• When the Season opens, the highest bid wins and is spent. Every other bid goes back to its guild's treasury.
• A patron's banners hang beside the chapter's halls, and its members pay the Thriving price there whatever the chapter's standing. The Chronicle remembers who held it.
• Patronage buys no influence over the seats. The Thieves Guild's and Dark Brotherhood's chapters take no patrons.

The underworld keeps its secrets

• The Thieves Guild's and the Dark Brotherhood's chapters, writs, Seasons and seats are shown to their members alone. Nothing public says where they keep their halls.

What's Changed

• The Chapters (CHAP1-CHAP7b, AUDIT CHAP to AUDIT CHAP5): Daggerfall's guilds online by @Lattymoy in #734

Full Changelog: app-v0.1.7372...app-v0.1.7427