Faction Warfare¶
The heart of the shard is open, sanctioned war between the three factions. This document explains how that warfare works — who you can fight, what you earn, and the rules that keep it honest.
Sanctioned Combat¶
Members of rival factions are enemies to one another — and the world treats them accordingly.
- A member of a rival faction appears to you as an enemy (orange), and you to them.
- Attacking a rival faction member is not a criminal act. There is no guard interference, no criminal flag, and no murder count for faction-on-faction combat. This is open, lawful warfare between declared enemies.
- Members of your own faction appear in their normal state — the faction system does not override the ordinary notoriety of an ally, so a criminal or a murderer among your own ranks still shows as such.
- Non-faction players are unaffected. Faction warfare is between the factions; those who have taken no side are neither targets nor participants.
This means faction warfare can erupt anywhere in the world, at any time, between anyone flying rival banners — no declaration, no dueling ground, just the war.
Kill Rewards¶
Defeating an enemy faction member is rewarded in two currencies:
Kill Points (glory — see Ranks, Titles & Standing) - The victor gains kill points; the victim loses an equal amount. - The award scales with the victim's own standing — a higher-standing enemy is worth more. - Very low-standing victims are worth little or nothing ("not worth enough").
Silver (the currency of trade) - Silver is awarded only when the victim carries positive standing — fresh, pointless victims yield no silver. - The reward is split: a tithe goes to the faction's treasury pool, and the remainder is paid to the victor as physical silver coin placed in their pack. - This physical silver is the currency spent at the faction reward vendor (see Rewards & Economy).
A separate lifetime silver-earned figure is tracked per character for the record books and leaderboards — this is a cumulative measure of a character's career contribution and is distinct from the spendable coin in their pack.
Anti-Farming¶
Open warfare invites abuse, and several rules exist to prevent players from manufacturing easy rewards:
- Repeat-kill cooldown. After you reward a kill from a particular victim, killing that same victim again grants nothing for a period of several hours. You cannot farm the same person over and over. This cooldown is tracked per victim-and-killer pair, so it does not interfere with genuine combat against other enemies.
- The cooldown persists. Unlike some older systems, the cooldown survives server restarts — you cannot reset it by waiting for a reboot.
- One player, one faction. Because all of a player's accounts must share a single faction (see Citizenship & Membership), a player cannot place characters on opposing sides to feed themselves kills. The exploit is closed at its root.
- Diminishing returns on the weak. Because rewards scale with the victim's standing and bottom out entirely for the pointless, farming fresh or defeated players is simply not worthwhile.
Checking Your Standing¶
Say "showscore" at any time to display your current kill points above your head — a quick read on where you stand in the war.