And implies that the family has rp beyond "don't marry out"

EDIT: That said, if great house had some application process behind it then this could be part of that.

In a family of that size it probably does just by virtue of having enough people willing to stick with something.

Not sure why you think this. People who founded Historic Great Houses already put forth a rather LARGE amount of effort. To give you an idea.. I had to write a rought draft/outline of my idea, get that approved to even begin with, write a story that correlates with Estarra's history in Magnagora, had to wait months and months for it to be approved, had to revise it, wait for that to get approved, had to pay alot of gold for each family member, had to do IC interactions with several mobiles... it's alot of work. I think it's quite fair to allow Historic GH founders to have an alternate option. It's harder than Newton Farming =/

Speaking as a dude who knows that there aren't too terribly many options to become an official canon history, and the sheer volume of work required, I'm inclined to agree with Revan. Even claiming a Great House for yourself under canon requires a whole hell of a lot of prestige.

I'm not a particularly good writer, but we have good writers in the family. I'm pretty sure it's not particularly hard, and farming newton 25 times is quite tiresome if not particularly difficult. Paying the gold and IC interactions are part of the benefit, not part of the work!

Also, this option isn't available to a large bunch of pre-existing families, like Mes'ards, and it doesn't really seem fair on them. Besides, we want to -discourage- farming newton, not encouraging it, surely. No family got that as far as they have by farming Newton so they put in a lot of effort into selecting quality members.

EDIT: Ok, paying the gold isn't part of the benefit, that makes no sense. But it's not exactly strenuous work. I'm sure anyone'd be happy to pay a bunch of gold to cut down members required. And the IC interactions are part of the benefit, I stand by that.

I thought once you completed that initial period to get permission you then proceeded with the newton farming

I assure you, this isn't merely winning a prestige competition, or even a bardic. The Administration themselves will take considerable interest in your work, and demand a quality worthy of the official histories. Even your best work will require constant editing to conform to Estarra's vision. IC interactions are lovely- no doubt at all. However, if a family is going to take considerable interest in portraying a certain aspect of life in a city (eg: a scholarly family in Magnagora with an extensive history of research), then the qualifications required for Great House status should reflect that. There's no way someone who's even brushed with the process could possibly regard it as a minor detail, and the difficulty of other tasks, such as gathering people to the House, should be decreased in difficulty to reflect this.

I gotta agree with Revan's point myself. Not only would it balance out all that work put forth and money (gold) spent in order to get the family approved and created, but it also doesn't really make a lot of sense (or seem like great roleplay) to me to call a family a great house, but omg it's not really a great house cus it's not literally labeled as one. That's just my two cents.

That's fine, but I think by the same note some ability should be made for houses like Mes'ard and Talnara to etch themselves into history.

When you become a Great House, you GET that ability to become a part of our shared history. This is for the Great Houses that are a part of canon itself, from old times, and have only recently been refounded.

I agree the amount of work that Historic Houses put in to become one should get the benefit of being made a Great House sooner. Read: Lesser member cost.

They still have to maintain the House status, and perhaps the Admins should not just be approving and forgetting, but making sure that these Historic Houses are maintaining the roles they claimed in order to get their status.

OMG... arpee? with denizens even!?

This system is atrocious! How could you all!

Still.. remove the harvesting and the effect it has on influencing, or it just encourages everyone to to join current greathouses for the perks :/

If we do remove those perks (which we may or may not), what tangible benefit should members of the top Great House get? I'm asking for ideas. Pure RP benefits are fine!

Why not just put a delay on it? Like, you have to be in the family for 1, 5, 10 (in game) years before the benefits get to you or something?

*cough* as a little sidetrack... what do you think of the Historical Great House discussion we've been having? >.>

Same problem as now.. just requires longer term.

*Culture is fine I suppose, power isnt that hard to come by anymore it seems
*The family vs family thing is a neat concept
*Maybe allow some custom designs within only the family (I know theres something like this but make it greathouse only... A royal purple robes with the symbol of d'Murani)
*Seat on council should actually require a larger vote. d'Murani want to have a seat on the council (an official one) and any d'Murani with a position can approve it, doesnt need the majority (they would have it I am sure but the point is a family can self appoint to just get an extra chair)
*Special family artifact, mostly rp value
*Sanctuary area for greathouses? Built where they specify but that wont allow aggression against that greathouse while inside
*If Greathouse have to get a perk, make it so that when getting a reprieve, if the person asking for a reprieve is a d'Murani they have a better chance of success? (Even the denizens of the Basin respect the greathouses?)

Can the sanctuaries have some method for bringing shame upon the house... In a noble fashion of course.

I am only sad that this was not around when I was more active, and we had the entire family in positions of power within Glomdoring...

It saddens me really that I can't really participate in this great feature.

Frankly, I'm personally not crazy about giving a leg up to a historical family that usually takes sooo much work for ordinary families to achieve, despite the fact that there's more work involved in founding a historical house. Also, not all cities and communes have equal access to known historical great houses -- right now that would obviously favor Magnagora.

My only thought is that maybe this could be worked into how people have always wanted Prime houses. Each Great House could have one but their honour decides how big it is, if they lose the honour then they are locked out. I am sure other people can think of much better things that honour could decide for the house.

quick edit: If something like this was done then historical families should have the option to build on thier traditional prime home. I.E. d'Murani could add to the d'Murani tower in Magnagora. (sorry if no other orgs have areas like the towers, I really don't know.)