Retainer Guide

Creating a Retainer

There are five types of retainer, paid for with different types of resources. The type of resource they are created with is also the type used when spending XP with that retainer. As follows, they are

• Economic – Assistant
• Military – Animals, Champions, Guards
• Social – Small animal, Spy

Military retainers are used in combat actions. Animals are both mounts such as horses as well as larger animals which can fight; from bears to dogs. Champions are single, powerful individuals commonly used as bodyguards. Guards are commoners paid to wear cheap armor and carry a sword which might even be made of metal! They have good physical stats and a smattering of combat skills.

Social retainers exist to allow a character to interact more easily with the setting. Small animals are pets (but have a decent Survival, so might be good small hunting beasts such as light hawks and so on). All social retainers can carry messages for you (personalising the message function, and yes, that means your pet snake can carry a scroll across town for you), but spies can also learn to assist in investigations and receive messages discretely, stopping the message received notification popping up in the general chat. Spies have good social stats but no starting skills.

Economic retainers, assistants, have the same abilities as spies. They have good mental stats but no starting skills.

Retainers are created with the command

   @retainers/create <name>,<type>

With <name> being the retainer’s name - this can be changed later, and while you are personalising them, it’s often a good idea to have a simple placeholder name, and <type> being the class of retainer; animal, assistant, champion, small_animal, or spy. While it can be added later, retainers cannot be created with a comma in their name, as it breaks the formatting.

Guards

Guards are unique in how they are purchased. Most retainers start as level 0, but guards can be purchased at a higher level. The higher the level of the guard, the more competent they are; from conscripts with cheap leather at level 0, to powerful, battle-hardened troops at level 3 or higher. Buying guards at a higher level becomes increasingly expensive in terms of resources; the formula is as follow

• (level + 1)^5.

A level 0 guard, then, costs 1 military resource, a level 1 guard 32 resources, a level 2 would cost 243, and a single level 3 guard would cost 1024 military resources. Guards, however, do not need XP to be bought at a higher level – it’s purely an investment of resources. They cannot, though, be improved after creation. Go fire them and get better soldiers!

Before creating your guards, make sure you have a barracks for them. This does not mean you have to actually build a barracks, however. Just go to a room in your organization's building that will best serve as a central location (like an upstairs hallway) and type:

  +manageroom/setbarracks

Now you can move on to actually creating your guards.

Guards are created with the command

  @agents/hire <type>,<level>,<amount>=<organization>

With <type> being guards, <level> being as above, <amount> being the number of mooks you’re hiring, and <organization> being the @org you are hiring them for.

Retainer Information

Your retainers can be looked at with the command

   @retainers

This will show the names, IDs, locations, outstanding XP and Loyalty of each of your retainers.

   @retainers/viewstats <id>

This shows the character sheet for your retainers. It does not currently show their level or bought abilities.

Personalising Retainers

Both descriptions and names are subject to coding as usual, so you can add colors, gradients and the like to your retainer, further personalising them.

@retainers/name <id #>=<new name>

This changes your character’s name.

@retainers/desc <id #>=<new description>

This is used to create a personalised description for the retainer, and shows on command ‘look <retainer’s name>

@retainers/customize <id #>=<trait name>,<value>

A retainer’s traits are seen when looking at them, and are as follows - species, gender, age, height, eyecolor, haircolor, skintone. They are purely cosmetic, and let you get a better sense of a character at a glance.

Improving Retainers

Barring guards, all retainers must spend both XP and resources of the type used to create them when improving themselves. Retainers can gain XP in two ways; they can be given XP by their owner, and gain 3xp for every 1xp donated by the player character, or they can be Trained.

Training retainers is a function of Animal Ken or Teaching, depending on whether the retainer is an animal or not. Either way, this takes one of the training slots for the character for the week, and is done with the following command.

  @retainers/train <retainer’s owner>=<retainer’s name or ID>

This will create XP on the retainer equal to a Command+(Animal Ken/Teaching) roll. How the XP is spent is solely up to the owning player.

@retainers/transferxp <id #>=<xp>

This transfers XP from the owning player to the retainer, at the 3xp per 1 xp transferred, as explained above.

Example: Juliet gives Fidelia 12 XP. Fidelia now has 36 XP to spend.

The following purchases all improve a retainer’s capabilities in some fashion, whether directly (improving their stats), indirectly (improving their weapons or armor) or expanding the retainer’s repertoire in the form of abilities. Each purchase costs both XP and resources of the appropriate type in equal measure.

@retainers/buylevel <id #>=<field>

This increases a retainer’s level. Aside from guards, which cannot be trained, this always starts at 0. A retainer’s level is the maximum that stats and skills can be purchased to - they may start with a higher skill than this, but until their level exceeds it, you cannot purchase higher stats or skills.

@retainers/buystat <id #>=<stat>

This increases the retainer’s chosen stat by one point, subject to their level.

@retainers/buyskill <id #>=<skill>

This increases the retainer’s chosen skill by one point, subject to their level

@retainers/upgradeweapon <id #>=<field>

This increases either the ease of the retainer striking their opponent in combat, or increases the damage when they do. The <field> is either weapon_damage (which has a cost of 40 XP/resources for the first level) or difficulty_mod (which costs 50 XP/resources for the first level)

@retainers/upgradearmor <id #>

This directly increases the mitigation of a retainer by one point. The cost is always equal to the new level of mitigation; so going from mitigation 0 to 1 for an Animal costs 1 xp and 1 military resource. Going from mitigation 29 to 30 costs 30 xp and 30 military resources.

@retainers/buyability <id #>=<ability>

This expands what a retainer can do; small animals may learn how to carry messages (custom_messenger, at a cost of 25 xp/25 resources), while assistants and spies may also learn to hide messages being received by their owner (discreet_messenger, at a cost of 25 XP/25 resources) or assist in investigations (investigation_assistant, at a cost of 150 XP/150 resources). Thus far, abilities are only bought or not, and do not need the retainer to be of any level.

The messaging abilities can be toggled with the commands:

• message/custom <Retainer ID>
• message/discreet <Retainer ID>

Retainer Commands

@retainers or @agents

This will show the names, IDs, locations, outstanding XP and Loyalty of each of your retainers.

@guards

This shows the retainers assigned to your immediate org (your house, usually)

@guard/summon <retainer’s name>

If you are in the retainer’s location, this will bring the retainer on-grid and have them follow you.

ditch

this will command any retainers following you to stop it, right now. They will remain where they are (though will drop off grid and not be visible)

@agents/transferowner <id>,new owner

This permanently transfers ownership of the retainer to the new owner.

@agents/recall player,<id #>,<amt>

These two commands allow you to assign guards to another player or to recall them afterwards.

message/custom <Retainer ID>

The chosen retainer will carry your messages for you

message/discreet <Retainer ID>

The chosen retainer will stop others in your scene getting notified whenever you receive a message, as long as they are on grid and in your location

Retainers & Investigations

Assistants and Spies can both assist you in your Investigations. Before they can do this, they need the ability investigation_assistant, which costs 50 XP/resources.

@helpinvestigate

This is the basic code that adds a retainer to an ongoing investigation. They cannot run their own investigations, but they can help you or another player character

@helpinvestigate/new

First, clear anything with this command

@helpinvestigate/retainer <retainer ID>

Identify the retainer who will be helping. Remember, they must have the investigation_assistant ability.

@helpinvestigate/target <investigation ID #>

This sets the investigation your retainer will lend their help to. You can find this code at

   @investigate

if you're adding them to your own investigations, or you can get the code from whoever they are helping.

@helpinvestigate/story <text of how you/your retainer help>

Just like you've noted in your investigation how you are looking into this, your retainer gets to have their own story! Neat, huh?

@helpinvestigate/stat <stat to use for the check>

This fixes the stat they use for the check. It should fit with the story above.

@helpinvestigate/skill <additional skill besides investigation>

This fixes the skill they use for the check. It should fit with the story above.

@helpinvestigate/cancel

This clears off the work you've done, if you want to start again.

@helpinvestigate/finish

This finalises the work you've done, and sets your retainer to work! Sit back and reap the rewards.