Factions

[Ailander]

The city is home to a lot of guilds and organizations with each of them their own perks/feats/benefits and we thought that we couldn't recreate the city without implementing them. The factions influence the everyday life of any citizen and adventurer one way or another. Becoming unliked (or even an enemy) of a faction can bring a lot of issues for the character, but also opportunities since, as obvious, the factions are not always getting along.There are several important things to know about the factions

What are the benefits for a character to join a faction?

First and foremost, a practical bonus is that of special items (badges most of the time) given to the characters that will unlock specific bonuses in the city or the surrounding areas with it.These items will improve with the improvement of their ranks.

They will have access to special tasks/quests that they can take in the private faction hall area and special merchants that would sell exclusive equipment items.Some of these items will be bound to character since they are supposed to be faction bound, but others will be more common items that will be acquirable though only as a factioned. Is up to the characters, if they want, to resell said items or gift them to others.

Finally and probably the most important bonus is that specific factions will give access to exclusive prcs or npcs henchmen.

What kind of items/npcs/prcs?
They will be detailed in a specific faction topic that will give a general idea of the purpouses, bonuses and (eventual) maluses of joining the factions.

Rules
There are 3 importat rules that wil be always in effect

The first is: no player can join more than one faction. In waterdeep words travel fasts and nobody likes a backstabber. Is it possible to leave a faction after a grace period of 1 week (during which the initial rank of the character will be the equivalent of an initiate) but once that 1 week passed (or the character raise in ranks) the choice will be definitive and, depending of the faction, if someone leaves it will not be allowed to join another or (in some cases) harsh penalties will be delivered*

Second: no character can become head of a City faction.There will be prestige ranks (like a player can become a marshal in the city watch) or achieve higher position by themselves (it is possible, if people play well their cards, to become a secret lord of waterdeep) but being the head of a faction means give your life to it and this kind of commitment can bring a lot of issues on the long terms, from the most common sudden breaking apart of the faction if said leader disappears for RL issues to more rare (and hopefully unlikely) discontent with those in charge causing issues OOC. For these and more reasons the staff decided that city factions leadership will be holded by npcs only and while some developers that unlocked a high DM ranks may take charge of a faction (see the DM ranks) they will still have to pass through the staff for approving of their plans or changes with the npc

Third: Will not be allowed to roleplay "spies" in another faction. DM of high ranks may be granted such possibility for a quest to a faction but is something that will ever and always be discussed with the staff. The reason of this rule is because we have seen in the past someone that "for their fun" did something like this and, in the end, it always ended the same way: untrust growing among players to the point of paranoia and/or damaging the community relations to the point of no return. For such reasons, similar plots will be granted only to people that have proven to be excellent roleplayers and would not abuse of a such thing

Consider also that a player will be able in the future to create their own faction and permanent area, either in the city or outside, so joining a faction is not "Mandatory".