Communication
From Lithmeria
Contents |
Crimson Couriers
Pick up the letter. Find the destination. Deliver it. No matter what.
- -- Hrael Alam, Crimson Guild Courier
The delivery of goods, packages and information across two continents embroiled in an endless conflict is problematic in the extreme. Neither the Aspalarian Sovereignty nor the Accord of Teladir enjoys sufficient trust from the other party to allow its couriers to travel unmolested. This impasse created a commercial vacuum for a neutral party capable of filling the role of unaffiliated postal and delivery service. Thus, the Crimson Guild was born.
- -- Jarled Grym, Crimson Guild Courier
Founded on condition of absolute, fanatical neutrality, the Crimson Guild approached the leadership of both factions with an offer to act as neutral couriers. Hiring couriers on a strictly quota based system; the Crimson guild is equal part Aspalarian and Teladir. The Crimson Guild uses primarily Aspalarian couriers in Aspalaria and Teladri couriers in Teladir. When a letter or package must cross from one faction to the next, it is passed from one courier to another at the border to minimize time spent by Crimson Guild couriers in ‘hostile’ territory.
Though initially reluctant to exclude anyone from their world spanning conflict, the authorities in the Accord and Sovereignty soon saw the benefit of an unaffiliated, neutral delivery service. The strongest of laws were enacted granting Crimson Guild couriers immunity from assault when going about their business. As the Crimson Guild grew in reach, influence and power, they became able to punish a faction that mistreated their couriers through work stoppages and strikes. At one point, all of Teladir was left without communication for months when a group of tribesman ripped apart a Crimson employee in a drunken brawl. The strike ended only when the tribal leaders were publicly executed and substantial damage fees paid.
In contemporary times the Crimson Guild's primary function is the servicing of mailboxes that exist in every major settlement upon both continents. Letters and packages placed within these frequently checked boxes swiftly make their way to their destination, free from interference by either faction.
- -- Bandit Jakron Hril, standing over the body of a slain Crimson Guild Courier
The mail system, run by the Crimson Guild and spanning the globe, allows you to send letters and packages to anyone. Once mailed it will take an hour before it is delivered and a tell (or message if they are offline) will be sent to the recipient to let them know they have a delivery. The MAIL command is used from anywhere in the world to see if you have any mail waiting. You can go to a mailbox and MAIL RECEIVE to collect any packages or letters you have waiting.
The Couriers will only send official packages through the system, which can be purchased from their post offices around the world in varying sizes. The cost of postage is included in a Crimson Guild package, and each package or letter can only be mailed once, after which they will already have shipping information written on them and can't be mailed again.
Letters and stationary are written on with the WRITE <letter> [SIGNED] [ink] command. You can write on any letter that hasn't been SEALed in wax, a common practice before mailing. If you specify that the letter is SIGNED then it will bear your signature when examined, otherwise it will be anonymous. You can also specify which ink to use, if you don't specify an inkpot then it will use plain black ink. After entering the command a blank document for the letter will be started in your editor.
Those trained in Merchantry can learn to make stationary and inks of their own. The raw materials used to make stationary are bundles of unprepared parchment sold by, as you might have guessed, the Crimon Guild. This allows for those trained in the skills of the merchant to customize their missives, as well as being able to sell decorative stationary on the side for a pretty penny of course.
Editor
The editor in Lithmeria doesn't require you to leave the realm in any fashion, and in fact you can edit documents while you converse or just about anything else. The editor is used for everything from news posts and help files to letters and books. All of it goes through the EDITOR command, which when used by itself will display the various syntaxes.
editor Syntax: EDITOR VIEW EDITOR ADD <text> EDITOR INSERT <line> <text> EDITOR DELETE <line> EDITOR COPY <letter> [line] EDITOR PASTE EDITOR SUBMIT EDITOR CANCEL
The view command allows you to review your current document in the editor. It will display the type of document you are working on followed by the text of the document with each line numbered for ease of editing.
The add command will simply add the text you specify to the end of the document, using add without any text will add blank line to end of your document. The insert command on the other hand will insert your specified text before the line number you give. You can also use the delete command to remove a specific line entirely.
The copy command enables you to copy a letter or page of a book into your working document. You can also specify a line to insert the contents of the letter before a specific line of the document.
The paste command will make the game interpret all your commands as being prefixed by EDITOR ADD for a very short period of time. This is used to be able to paste large quantities of text from another source into the editor.
The submit command will complete your document. If a letter it will write the text onto the letter, if a post it will put it up on the news board, etc etc. The cancel command on the other hand will discard whatever you have in the editor, allowing you to start working on a new document.
Messages
The most basic features of messages remain the same to what you may be familiar with in other realms. MESSAGES will enable you to review your messages, with the most recent messages at the top. You can message another with MESSAGE/MSG <person> <message>, and you can read your own with RMSG <#>. In the below example I cut my messages off after showing 5, in actuality it will show as many as your page length allows and then you can use the MORE command to continue reading down the list. You can also specify a number to start from. MESSAGES <#>
However that just brushes the surface of the features that messages in Lithmeria provide. You can narrow down the messages that are shown to you with a few filters enabling you to find exactly the message you're looking for. These filters are FROM <person>, SEARCH <text>, and UNREAD. The from filter will only show messages from a specific person, search will only show messages containing a specific word, and unread will only show messages you have not read yet.
And finally with the messages system, you can also review those messages you have sent. The OUTBOX command is used similar to the MESSAGES command to view those you have sent, and works with the TO <person> and SEARCH <text> filters. You can read a specific message you have sent with RSENT <#>
News
The most basic command of the news system is that of BOARDS (the command NSTAT will also work for those comfortable with this command, and similar aliases exist where applicable to make the system more user-friendly). This command will list all the news boards you can read and how many messages are on each. The message count will be displayed in red for any boards you have unread messages on.
You can read messages from a board with the command READBB <board> [#]. If you don't specify a number for which message to read then it will automatically display your next unread post, or if you have no unread posts on that board, the most recent post. You can also view a summary of posts on a board with BSUMMARY <board>. Similar to the MESSAGES command this supports the From, Search, and Unread filters to make finding a specific post that much easier.
To write a post you use the command WRITEPOST <board> <subject> which will take you into the editor, which is the next section of this post, and probably the coolest!
Advanced Says
Our say system allows for a wide variety of options and customization with how your communications are displayed. Ending your say in doubled punctuation (!! or ??) will change your say style to exclaiming or asking. You can also end your say with a smiley to convey some emotion with your say. There are more advanced options for says as well. All say options will be shown in examples at the end of this section. You'll also notice I have a shiny prompt in the example, more on that later.
If you start your say with a phrase between : : you will be able to change the way you express your communication. You can include a @ in the midst of the phrase to put your name somewhere other than the beginning. If using this when talking to someone, then $t will be used to indicate their name in the phrase.
Finally, you can use two commas together to break up your say into two parts. This enables you to give your says a more literary feel if you so choose.
Advanced Emotes
Emotes have a variety of targeting options that enable you to interact with items, mobiles, and other players in your emotes. You can include an item in your emote by prefacing its name or number with an asterisk, (*sword for example). Items in your inventory or room can be targeted in this way.
You may include players/mobiles in two different ways. If you just wish to include their name in your emote, while allowing it to appear correct to all parties you can merely preface their name with a tilde (~zombie). If you wish to include pronouns for your target with your emote you will instead follow the EMOTE command with your target and include $t in the emote for their name. $p, $s, and $g are used for various pronouns. ($p = his/her, $s = him/her, $g = he/she)
Channels & Tells
The lore behind channels and tells within the game is the Voice Crystals. Powerfully spelled crystals that exist in every city with which the player characters are attuned, as are major NPCs and guards. All channel communication as well as tells sent/received are by means of these Voice Crystals.
Rogues - once again using the same sort of mystical harmony they use to bring forth energy on their daggers, crack wards, or form disguises - can attune themselves in a temporary fashion to an enemy Voice Crystal if they can get within its room. When attuning as such they can eavesdrop on a specific division or city channel served by that Voice Crystal.
Attuning yourself to multiple voice crystals like this greatly hampers your ability to communicate outward. You can not speak on any channels while so attuned, and can only send tells at a limited rate, having a cooldown after each tell before you can send another. You also must stay within a short range to maintain your clandestine connection, staying within a range of around a dozen rooms of the crystal. Once you sever a connection either voluntarily or by going out of range you will be able to communicate normally again, but can not form another tap on a Voice Crystal for a period of 5 minutes.
