I'm pretty sure the in game command IDEA is just a sick, sick joke the Divine play on us. Probably never recorded to begin with.

I think IDEAs are just sick, sick jokes we play on the divine. Probably never recorded to begin with.

Its a remement from the olden days. Most muds have an IDEA command, because smaller muds get a managable number of ideas.

Lisaera mentioned somewhere that ideas do get recorded, it's just nobody ever reads them...

but either way

I personally think some sort of mercenary guild would be pretty cool, but there would have to be some safegaurds to protect both the target, and the mercenary.

By that, I mean ways to make sure someone just doesn't get jumped repeatedly for no reason other than one person hates another, and has enough money to keep on paying mercs to kill him, and so that the merc in question could do his job without exactly having avenger and other things making being a merc completly undesirable.

So, to protect the target, maybe you have to have suspect on a person before signing a contract on them, and doing so removes suspect instantly. The target would get notified that he is being hunted (message could be: has hired a mercenary to kill you) and who is paying for the contract (allowing him to go after the person who paid), but not who is actually trying to kill him/her. At this point, both the mercenary and target have open pk on each other, without avechna interfering, until the contract is either complete or broken.

To protect the mercenary, when assinged to kill someone, they cannot give or recieve status from the the target and those who defend him/her. The mercenary has the ability to break the contract at any time (unless activly engaged with the target), refunding all but a certain percent of the cost of the contract (25%?) and giving the person suspect back, so if they find the target is too much of a challange, they can back away (and still have a little to possibly restore what damages have been done). The mercenary would not lose any karma for killing the target, but the person who wanted the contract loses a more than normal amount by signing the contract.

other ideas about a contract:

A mercenary can have only one contract on a given target at a time, but can have up to ten different contracts on different targets, and same goes for people paying for the contracts (so someone would have to go to multiple mercenaries in order to get multiple contracts)

Both people (the merc and person wanting a contract) have to be in the same room, and a bookbinder will fill out the contract by doing things like ADD (amount) (thing, like gold, credits, power, herbs, etc) to CONTRACT or REMOVE (amount) (thing) from contract, and the bookbinder would recieve something like 10% of what the merc gets. (so the merc gets everything listed in the contract, the person wanting the contract has to pay an extra 10 % to the bookbinder which is non-refundable). The process ends when both SIGN CONTRACT, and the target would get notified at that point.

The contract would be fufilled when the target becomes graced by some means (praying, resrugem, whatever the demigod rezz thingy is, etc...) so that the death actually means something (it would suck to have a contract on Munsia, only for her to transmigrate, or have someone lich). (Maybe the mercenary would have some kind of a skill to prevent conglutination that can only be used when they have a contract on someone, and can only be used on the target? or would that be a bit overpowered?)

If the person who wanted the contract want's to break it, the refund would depend on a couple of things. First, it can't be broken while the merc and target are actively engaged in battle. If the contract is broken within the first couple of days, they are only refunded half of the fee and do not gain suspect back. If broken within 4-7 days, they would recieve 66% back, and after that it would increase to 75% and recieve suspect back. Every 6 months after that, it would increase by 5% (so 75, then 80, etc) until 110% would be given back automatically, (with or without status?) to cover the bookbinder fee. If the mercenary goes inactive, the person can break the contract, recieving 95% of the contract back with suspect (can be checked with CONTRACT STATUS (MERCENARY)

that's all I can think of at the moment...

For bookbinders:



Good enough for you?

EDIT: If you get killed by an assassin, the contractor appears in your bullies list as 'someone', and calling the Avenger on him will generate a Deathsense-free death; this is to preserve the anonimity of the contractor. Crafting a contract that protects the contractor's identity would cost more, and signing it would cost the contractor all of his Karma and Esteem regardless of what he wanted to pay.

I was thinking that you could also put things, like herbs, poisons, and other such stuff could be put in the contract as well.

Also, I was thinking that the assassin, (seeing as this is supposed to be for a guild) would still be protected by Avechna by people who aren't his target.

I was also thinking that if the contract is torn, that the assasin would still retain some of the amount, so they didn't just spend time tracking someone down and fighting them, only to get nothing.

Again, this could be used to circumvent Avechna entirely.

no it wouldn't, seeing as in my way, you'd have to have status on the person in order to make a contract...

...which we do anyway by going off plane. So. Not the end of the world.

Perhaps instead of retaining an amount, simply make part of the fee a down payment, and the rest to be payed upon the death of the target

now that's a good idea

I like the whole contract thing... There could be a lot more work done on "contractual magic".

Idras, not Indra. And they were assassins, not thieves.

Just because you were necro'd from the pits of Japan doesn't mean you can necro threads. Especially new archetype threads.

I'm flappily awaiting the two mysterious Archetypes Estarra hinted at.