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Passing through the Portal of Fate forges the soul for greatness, but it also creates some very substantive obstacles, one of which is the fact that your memory has many holes. Some people may face the challenge of finding the lost familial threads of his or her life. This is not an easy task as even your parents may not easily recognize you, perhaps because of actual physical alterations or perhaps because reality itself has slightly shifted as the Fates spun your destiny. Whatever the case, if you think you've found your parents, you must go through a period of time where you consider whether these people are indeed your parents, and where they consider if you indeed are their lost child.
In order to have a hope of finding your parents, they must be married and willing to consider whether you are their child. If they are not bound together in marriage, the emotional, spiritual and psychological boundaries set by the Fates themselves will make the task impossible. The parents you find may be your parents by blood or the ones who raised you. They could be couples of different races or even a same sex couple. That is for you to discover. Once the consideration period has passed, which takes about one Lusternian year, this couple will forever be your parents so use this time to consider wisely.
If you think you have found your parents, one of them must, in the presence of you and the other, do FAMILY CONSIDER [child], and the consideration period will begin. During the next Lusternian year either parent or yourself may FAMILY REJECT [PARENT|CHILD] if any of you come to the realization that this was a mistake. Both parents must be married to each other and, of course, at least a 13 year span must be between you in age. Parents may only consider one child at a time. Any child considered must have spent at least 75 Lusternian days awake in the realm before they have enough experience to make a decision as to whether this is truly their family.
If you are the progenitor of a family, you may BLOODBOND WITH [person] to bring new siblings into the family as progenitors. During the next 24 Lusternian months, any of the other progenitors may FAMILY REJECT [person] AS SIBLING to break the bloodbond. After the period has ended, another progenitor must FAMILY ACCEPT [person] AS SIBLING to bring them fully into the family as a sibling. This can only be done for the progenitor generation, and all others must be considered through parents (siblings with parents do not get to pick their family, after all).
You and your spouse may FOUND FAMILY [name] at the Hall of Records for a fee of 25,000 gold. Only a couple with a family name may find their children. Your children will take on your family name. You can use the CONFIG command to always show your family name.
**REMEMBER TO CAPITALISE YOUR FAMILY NAME WHEN FOUNDING A FAMILY***
FAMILY STATUS will show the status of your close family.
FAMILY RELATION [person] will show your relationship with another, if it exists, up to such distant relations as a second cousin or great aunt or uncle.
FAMILY TREE [family|person] will show the family tree by generation for families or the family status of another.
Marriages cannot occur if there is a close family relationship between a couple (for example, brother and sister). If only one of the couple has a family name, marriage will bring the spouse into that family. If both couples have family names, the person who proposes will be the primary spouse and the secondary spouse will take his or her partner's family name. If the couple divorces, the spouse will return to the birth family name. Couples may be of any race or of the same sex.
You can reject your family by FAMILY REJECT FAMILY, in order not to be actively associated with your birth family. You might wish to do this for a number of reasons: perhaps you no longer wish to be associated with your family, or you might wish to marry and start a new family of your own.
However, please note that you cannot rewrite history. Once you have found your birth parents or bloodbonded with a sibling, the pure fact of that cannot be changed. You can reject your family, and refuse to recognise your sibling or your parents, but this does not change your blood relation to them. After all, the Fates would never have let you bloodbond in the first place if you weren't related.
To return to a family, you can FAMILY ACKNOWLEDGE [family]. It costs 10,000 gold to acknowledge a family and you must do so at the Hall of Records. Note that if your spouse is active in a family, you may not acknowledge a family that is different from his or her active family, and that if your spouse is not active in a family, acknowledging a family will also bring your spouse into that family (and require their presence during the acknowledging). In other words, it isn't possible for you and your spouse to be in different families.
If a family grows to 15 or more active members, then that family will be considered a "Bannerhouse" or Lesser House, which confers upon them a news section and family aetherwave. Lesser Houses may also elect a family head and gain limited honour. The most notable feature of Lesser Houses are that they may pledge to other Lesser Houses or Great Houses, and 1/4th of their active family members will count towards the total of their pledge House for determining whether that family is a Great House or not.
If a family grows to over 50 active members (that is, 50 people can use their family name), then that family will be considered a "Great House". Great Houses are able to keep a family bank account, and participate in the family honour system. If a family drops below 50 active members, it will lose its status of a Great House and the privileges associated with it. Great Houses compete against one another for honour and esteem, vying to become the most influential House in the Basin of Life.
NOTE ON HISTORICAL FAMILIES: Established family names that exist in the histories or that can be found in areas can be used for player family names. However, historical family names will only be given to EXISTING families upon application. The families must have Banner House status to apply. If the application is approved, then the existing family name is changed to the historical name. (RP-wise, the old family has "discovered" their roots.) The application must include why you want the family name, how it will be roleplayed, and a brief history that provides the foundation for taking the name. The application should be submitted to a god willing to sponsor the application.
See also HELP FAMILY HONOUR
However that's a pretty big change and Achaea seems to be less than fond of cannibalising features from other games, for I'm sure valid reasons.
Given that most if not all families of note already has a family clan, the easiest way of dealing with this would no doubt be to build it into the clan system somehow, instead of creating a whole new structure of it (as awesome as that'd be).
I don't see why that couldn't eventually be expanded upon for the other prominent families that contribute a lot. If cities can pay X amount of gold for more humgiis, why not fundraise for NPCs?
There is a more informal setup of this in Mhaldor, but it is completely optional.
Stories by Jurixe and Stories by Jurixe 2
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Whoever has authority over it should have to grant the name, you shouldn't be able to do "LASTNAME Lucoster" if Lucoster is one of these special family names, but once that person's in the family, I don't think anyone should be able to remove the name except the person themself. If someone invites Jurixe to the Lucoster family and she accepts and takes up the name, the Lucosters should absolutely be able to express that she is no longer welcome in the family, but I don't think they should be able to forcibly strip the name. If they kick her out and she wants to roleplay the disgraced former family member or the black sheep or the family-member-turned-enemy, I think the system should support that, not offer a way to make that less compelling. If she changes her last name afterward, then she shouldn't be able to change it back to Lucoster without getting the family's permission again, but she should absolutely be able to keep it if she wants - that's opens up many new interesting roleplay opportunities, while allowing it to be stripped opens up very few.
Think families like the Blacks in Harry Potter - imagine how much more boring it would be if they could simply wave their hands and family members could no longer bear the name.
A de Vermiis defecting to Targossas and keeping the family name could make for some really compelling RP - how do others in Targossas see the name, how do the remaining de Vermiis feel about it, why did the character keep it (are they still proud of the name, do they want to "redeem" the name, do they wear it like a scarlet letter, is it a reminder of how far they've come, have they abandoned their family or do they ultimately hope to reform the other members too)? Is the family worried that people will think the person represents them? Are they worried about how a family member's visible defection harms their reputation? Many, many possibilities.
On the other hand, I don't see how being able to take the name away from people when they defect adds anything to the game at all.
I mean, I definitely see the possibilities, but I'm not sure there's a probable middle ground unless the black sheep can found his or her own family hierarchy that uses the exact same name. I guess that's already possible now with clans, though, so I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a stretch.
Stories by Jurixe and Stories by Jurixe 2
Interested in joining a Discord about Achaean RP? Want to comment on RP topics or have RP questions? Check the Achaean RP Resource out here: https://discord.gg/Vbb9Zfs
If we use A Song of Ice and Fire as example, there's the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, and those of Lannisport, which are a related but often thought lesser House. And in Lannisport you also find Lannys, Lannetts, and Lantells, who have the same breeding as Lannisters (yellow-to-gold hair) but aren't purebred enough to be in the noble branch.
Also for the record I'm highly liking the idea of family clans, like highclans but built entirely for families.
- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
- Xaden says, "Xaden confirmed scrub 2017."
Even if this issue of descendants/spouses and outcast family members is viewed as a problem that constrains potential family RP, I think not being able to keep the name at all against a family's wishes constrains RP a lot more. I really don't like the idea of a family that can never get stuck with what they view as a bad egg - the possibility of something like that is exactly what makes families compellingly distinct from other types of organisations in the game. If a warlock gets cast out of the Warlocks, they're not really a warlock anymore. If an Aristata gets cast out of the family, they're still, in a sense, an Aristata. That remains a part of their identity. While you're talking about houses that are not necessarily entirely governed by bloodlines, there's a reason that bloodlining can't be undone and I think it applies to a lesser extent here too.
Honestly, I'd like to see surnames functioning as a sort of disease, where you tentatively get them from relatives (by blood or adoption), and after X years of having the surname, you keep it forever and can pass it on in turn.
Any system requiring organization will have some difficulty standing up against dormancy. Maybe bigger families will benefit from it, but they could also just start a high clan. Of course, perhaps there could be multiple types of surnames, since we apparently already have Order-only surnames that wouldn't fit the above. The most ruthless way would be to let people attach organizational requirements somewhere along the line (whether you can use it / obtain it / pass it on / etc).
I don't think high clans are, in any way, the answer to this issue. I think people may be mistaken in how little effort it would be to take a family clan (or any clan for that matter) to High Clan. It's not as easy as the scroll indicates it might be. Likewise, high clans have patrons, who support the roleplay behind the scenes in various ways. The high clan system, as it stands now, would not work well for family clans.
My suggestion is that we not call these high clans (high clan-like organizations, perhaps). But first, let's put all the problems such a late-starting system would need to addres into a list and then think up a way to have such a system do what we want and address or work around those difficulties.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
A LASTNAME command would be great for reasons in the OP. Nothing more complicated is really necessary - players have already proven that they're capable of managing these specific family names informally and there are already organisations available to formalise families: the aptly-named "clans".
Or has that changed while I was gone?
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."
(Blades of Valour): Draekar says: "Synbios if sunbeams sparkle off that I'll kill you where you stand."
(Party) Halos says, "Disbar?"
(Party) Draekar says, "You know here we have disbar."
(Party) Draekar says, "And over there we have datbar."
Just going by this announcement at the top of Golden Dais section, might be best to cover all bases to actually get the ball rolling on this one