Essential PvP Standards, Raiding Guidelines & Conflict Etiquette

Narrative Justification

Every blade drawn and every arrow loosed must serve the story. Mechanical combat is an extension of roleplay escalation, never a substitute for it.

⚔️ In-Character Reasoning

All PvP encounters must have clear and demonstrable in-character reasoning that arises naturally from established roleplay.

• Valid Drivers: Direct betrayal, territorial disputes, active blood feuds, unpaid debt conflicts, political rivalry, or deep-seated cultural hostility.
• Insufficient Drivers: A single offhand insult, a minor verbal disagreement, or "looking at someone the wrong way" is not sufficient justification for lethal escalation.
• Prohibited Drivers: Out-of-character (OOC) grudges, boredom, mechanical advantage, or personal real-world dislike are never valid reasons to initiate conflict.

📈 Visible Escalation

Conflict must follow a visible, documented trajectory before combat mechanics are triggered. Threats, clear warnings, face-to-face confrontations, or a recorded hostile history must exist before weapons are drawn. If this escalation cannot be clearly demonstrated in chat logs during a staff review, the PvP encounter may be voided, and disciplinary action may follow.

🧠 Self-Preservation & Realism

Characters must behave with realistic self-preservation. Habitual random violence, reckless suicide charges, or constant hyper-aggression without regard for narrative or physical consequences constitutes fail-RP.

Administrative Note: Repeatedly engaging in unjustified, erratic violence will trigger an immediate administrative review of your character concept.

Declaring & Initiating PvP

Attack on Sight (AOS) is strictly prohibited. No player may initiate mechanical combat without executing proper declaration procedures, except during active, staff-approved raid windows.

🧷 The PvP Command Sequence

All PvP encounters (excluding consensual, non-lethal sparring) must utilize the server's mechanical declaration system. Once an escalation reaches its breaking point, players must utilize the following protocol:

• /pvp intent - Describe your hostile action or escalation clearly, as well as your intention once pvp is concluded.
• /pvp surrender - Automatically fold, and progress to the Consequence Phase.
• /pvp join - Describe which side you are joining.
• /pvp flee  -  Run away from the aggressor.
• /pvp abstain -  Step out of the way, and spectate without interrupting or interfering.
  Abstainers cannot interfere with the consequence phase of the conflict they've abstained from.
  You cannot abstain if you are actively targetted by a pvp intent, only if you are third-party to a conflict between other characters.
• /pvp start - Initiates a 10 second countdown. Done only after ALL involved parties have stated their PvP Stance

📋 Declaration & Ultimatum Standards

A /pvp intent broadcast must include a clear threat AND a clear demand or ultimatum. You are strictly prohibited from initiating PvP with a single hostile emote that deprives the target of an opportunity to respond.

❌ Invalid Formats:

• /pvp intent "Bob draws his weapon and attacks Sally."

• /pvp intent "Bob lunges forward without warning."

• /pvp intent "Bob silently strikes from the brush."
  

✅ Valid Format:

• /pvp intent "Bob draws his broadsword, blocking the tavern exit. 'Hand over the stolen lockbox, thief, or I will paint these floorboards with your blood!'"

Threat → Response → Outcome

Before combat mechanics begin, the targeted player must be given a reasonable opportunity to respond to the threat via text.

💰 Reasonable Demands

Aggressors must issue clear, achievable demands tied to believable roleplay goals, such as roadside robbery, political intimidation, legal capture, or territorial conflict. Demands must never be absurd, humiliating, or intentionally impossible purely to force a PvP outcome.

• Valid Demands: Handing over a purse of coin, dropping a specific weapon, vacating a claimed hunting ground, or submitting peacefully to capture.
• Prohibited Demands: Demanding a character strip entirely naked, bark like a dog, or hand over their entire base inventory on the spot. If a demand is determined to be unreasonable or designed solely to force a fight, staff will invalidate the scene.

🎭 Contextual Examples: Roadside Robbery

Situation 1 – Compliance (No PvP)

• Bob: "Give me your coin purse, traveler, or suffer the sting of my blade!"
• Sally: Sally trembles, slowly detaching her pouch and tossing it to the dirt. "Fine… take it. Just let me pass."
• Outcome: No PvP occurs. The aggressor received their objective, and the scene resolves narratively.

Situation 2 – Negotiation (Delayed or Avoided PvP)

• Bob: "Give me your coin purse, traveler, or bleed for it."
• Sally: Sally steps back, keeping her hands visibly empty. "I carry no coin on this road, highwayman. But I have rare lotus salves in my pack. Take them instead, and let us both walk away whole."
• Outcome: In-character negotiation begins. PvP occurs only if talks break down or a compromise cannot be reached.

Situation 3 – Refusal (Valid PvP)

• Bob: "Give me your coin purse, traveler, or bleed for it."
• Sally: Sally spits at his boots, her hand instantly snapping down to the hilt of her arming sword. "Try and take it, dog."
• Outcome: The ultimatum is rejected. PvP mechanics may legally proceed.

Dice Overpower Rule (Mechanical Clarification)

If a player attempts to physically overpower or coerce another character using textual dice rolls, the targeted player has two explicit options:

1. Contest with PvP: They may completely refuse the dice attempt and immediately escalate the scene into mechanical combat using /pvp intent.
2. Comply with Dice: They may accept the mechanical format, responding with their own defensive dice rolls to resolve the confrontation purely through statistics. This method must be agreed upon by all involved parties. This method is not mediated by staff due to its RNG nature. 
   

⚠️Dice-rolls cannot be used to completely incapacitate a person and easily skip to the Consequence Phase unless agreed upon by the victim. All characters that comply with dice-rolls retain the privilege of contesting the roll with pvp, at any given moment if the situation takes a darker turn.

⚠️ The Commitment Clause: If a player chooses to resolve an interaction via dice, the confrontation must continue using dice until fully resolved. You are strictly forbidden from switching to PvP mechanics because your rolls went poorly, and you cannot abandon a dice scene once committed.

❄️ The Proximity & Time Freeze Protocol

The moment a /pvp intent command is dropped into the chat log, the following structural rules apply instantly:

• Time freezes immediately. Every involved player must stop moving their character model.
• Proximity Lock: Only players within immediate, visible roleplay proximity at the exact millisecond of the intent broadcast may use /pvp join.
• No Reinforcements: Players who were not present at the initial declaration cannot run in from render distance or act as external reinforcements.

🏃 Fleeing & Commitment

• The Commitment: If you type /pvp join, you are fully committed to the mechanical engagement. You must win, lose, or be reduced to an incapacitated state. You are allowed to flee, but you are not allowed to enter Safe Zones or Clan Bases to escape combat.
• The Pursuit: Typing /pvp flee triggers an active pursuit phase; it is not an automatic escape. If your pursuers catch up to your character model and deal damage, PvP combat begins immediately. If distance, line-of-sight, complex terrain successfully separates the parties for  5 minutes or more, the combat phase ends. 
• The Countdown: Once the /pvp start command is issued, a global 10-second countdown begins. After the countdown concludes, combat is strictly locked to the declared participants.

🩸 Post-PvP Resolution

Once a participant is mechanically downed, all structural consequences must be processed and applied via the server's RPR system.

To prevent downed players from being held in mechanical limbo indefinitely, if the victorious party fails to apply an official narrative consequence within 15 minutes of the fight's conclusion (accounting for group engagement cleanup), the defeated party automatically applies a Minor Injury to themselves and may freely disengage from the scene.

Gear & Combat Restrictions

To maintain visual clarity, combat balance, and immersive visual storytelling, the following mechanical limitations are enforced:

🪓 Visually Equipped Weapons

Large, unconcealable weapons must be visibly equipped on your character model. 1H and 2H Swords/Axes/Maces, Spears and Bows, must be visually represented on your avatar's back or hip. If a weapon is not actively showing on your character model, you will be treated as unarmed, and you are strictly barred from drawing or using that weapon during a /pvp intent scenario. (For clarity: Your only options are Flee or Surrender)
Exceptions to this rule: Daggers and Claws.

🧪 Healing Limitations

You are restricted to a maximum of 20 Aloe Potions per individual PvP encounter. Combat in our world is intended to be high-stakes, tense, and decisive. Intentionally dragging out engagements through excessive, unrealistic potion spamming is classified as combat abuse and is strictly prohibited.

To preserve fair play and mechanical integrity, the following technical exploits are completely banned:

• No Watertrolling / Waterbaiting: You are strictly prohibited from jumping into deep water to exploit swimming mechanics, avoid being downed, or escape capture once active combat has been initiated. This falls into Terrain Abuse
• No Terrain Abuse: Utilizing climbing exploits, retreating to intentionally unreachable building edges, exploiting mesh geometry, for pure mechanical advantage is forbidden. Double-jumping on a small rock to heal, and stagger anyone from climbing after you and damaging you, is prohibited. Running in and out of your base, and cheesing the door that is inaccessible to your enemy, in order to heal, also falls under this rule.
• No Combat Logging: Disconnecting from the server, closing your client, or logging out during an active PvP encounter or a pursuit phase will result in immediate, severe administrative action against your account.
• No Third-Party Interference: Spectators, passersby, and unlinked players are strictly barred from interfering in a fight once the /pvp start countdown concludes.

Safe Zones

Safe Zones are highly guarded areas meant to foster trade, diplomacy, and civilian roleplay. Manipulating these zones to avoid consequences or grief other players is an actionable offense.

• Baiting is Prohibited: Provoking or baiting players into committing hostile actions inside a Safe Zone is strictly forbidden. This includes intentionally insulting characters near city guards to force an automatic NPC arrest or intervention.
• Jurisdiction: If your character intends to fight someone, you must take the conflict completely outside the guard's structural jurisdiction. Safe Zone borders cannot be abused by stepping in and out of protection lines mid-conflict.
• Caravan Protection: PvP within Caravan Safe Zones is completely forbidden. These trade/transport arteries are heavily protected by active in-character guards. Violating this peace will cause your character to be eligible to have a bounty on their head, and hunted down relentlessly by Al-Zarah or Sanctuary forces, aswell as other Players.
• Major Strongholds: PvP inside major hubs, including Sanctuary Fortress and Al-Zarah, is strictly prohibited. These locations are treated as permanently secured strongholds.
• Event Protection: All server-announced events, whether hosted by staff or organized by players, are automatically treated as absolute Safe Zones unless explicit narrative permission has been granted beforehand by the event host

Capture, Kidnap, Slavery & Consequences

🎯 Purpose of Consequences

Consequences are lasting narrative marks that shape a character's journey. When you wound, capture, or bind another character, you are creating a new chapter in their story, not ending their ability to play the game.
 
During the Consequence Phase in the aftermath of PvP or Dice no external parties may interfere, interrupt or hinder the application of consequences, including the scenarios of capture and enslavement.

All applied consequences must adhere to the following principles:

• Narrative Depth: They must deepen the roleplay experience for both the victor and the defeated.
• Hyborian Realism: Effects must remain grounded in gritty, low-fantasy realism.
• Agency: They must leave the affected player with meaningful room to react, plot, resist, adapt, or seek future vengeance.
• Reversibility: Every consequence must be inherently reversible unless an official Character Permadeath (PK) ticket has been formally approved by the administration.
• Proportional Severity: The severity of an injury must realistically match the text emotes of the scene. A minor scuffle cannot result in a crushed spine, and a brutal, prolonged torture scene cannot be brushed off as a minor scratch. Staff reserve the ultimate right to adjust unrealistic downplays or gross exaggerations.

⚔️ Injury Tiers & PvP Restrictions

Applying or suffering an injury places direct mechanical limitations on your character's ability to initiate future combat:

🔁 Stacking Consequences

New consequences may only increase a character's current injury severity by one tier at a time. You cannot jump from a perfectly healthy status or a Minor injury directly to a Critical injury within a single escalation phase unless the physical realism of the scene clearly justifies it and an administrative review confirms the outcome in a staff ticket.

🗂️ Types of Consequences & Recovery Times

🩸 Physical Wounds

Tangible physical trauma caused by direct combat, accidents, or environmental cruelty.

• Bruises: Caused by blunt weapon glances, sword pummels, shield slams, or heavy falls. Mild tenderness or discoloration. Lasts 4 hours real-time (1 hour if treated with basic herbs/poultices).
• Minor Wounds: Superficial sword cuts, small campfire burns, split lips, or a single cracked rib. Recovers in 8 hours real-time (2 hours if treated with standard bandages/salves).
• Moderate Wounds: Deep, jagged cuts requiring stitching, clean bone fractures in arms/hands, shallow spear thrusts, or concussions without full blackout. Recovers in 24 hours real-time (8 hours if treated with splints, mandatory bed rest, and skilled medical care).
• Severe Wounds: Major bone breaks in the legs, deep puncture wounds to the torso, prolonged unconsciousness, or temporary vision loss. Recovers in 48 hours real-time (Requires an official staff ticket to recover).
• Critical Wounds: Complete loss of a limb, severe third-degree burns covering large areas of the body, crushed ribs severely impairing breathing, or permanent blindness. Recovers in 96 hours real-time (Requires a coordinated healer + alchemist ticket to recover). May leave permanent scars/disabilities and grants the victor permanent-kill eligibility.

☠️ Afflictions

Sickness, internal toxins, and supernatural contamination not caused by direct weapon trauma.

• Minor Affliction: Short-lived fevers, mild dizziness from spoiled water, mild rashes, or hangover effects. Lasts 8 hours real-time (2 hours if treated with basic remedies).
• Moderate Affliction: Severe food poisoning, spreading skin infections, low-grade hallucinations, or partial numbness in extremities. Lasts 48 hours real-time (12 hours if treated with crafted, specialized medicines).
• Severe Affliction: Plague-like illnesses, violent muscle spasms from animal venom, constant hallucinations, or extreme, debilitating fatigue. Lasts 72 hours real-time (Requires an open healer ticket to process).
• Critical Affliction: Rotting flesh, crippling muscle degeneration, profound madness from foul sorcery, or irreversible organ damage from rare poisons. Lasts indefinitely until cured by rare alchemy, divine blessings, or high sorcery (Requires a Healer + Alchemist ticket).

🔮 Curses

Long-term or permanent spiritual burdens caused by high sorcery, dark artifacts, or direct divine intervention.

• Minor Curse: Recurring horrific nightmares, faint shadowy figures lurking at the edge of vision, or sudden chills in sacred temples. Lasts 8 hours real-time (Easily lifted via a minor ritual or religious offering).
• Moderate Curse: Periodic unprompted blackouts, uncontrolled physical trembling, severe weakness when standing on consecrated ground, or the inability to cross specific regional boundaries. Lasts 48 hours real-time (Requires a registered sorcerer or priest ticket to resolve).
• Severe Curse: Persistent auditory whispers urging violent acts, eyes bleeding under the light of a full moon, sudden unprovoked rages, or an agonizing inability to touch raw iron. Lasts 72 hours real-time (Requires a rare relic or a major server ritual).
• Critical Curse: Total possession by a hostile entity, permanent transformation into an unnatural form, complete enslavement of the character's willpower, or being marked for immediate death by a deity. Permanent until lifted by a monumental narrative quest or divine intervention (Requires strict admin approval).

⛓️ Captivity & Slavery Guidelines

Captivity must always serve as an active narrative hook, never an OOC tool to sideline a player or keep them from playing the game.

• Short-Term Captivity: Temporary detention for interrogation, legal holding, ransom extraction, or transport. Lasts 48 hours or less real-time. No prior OOC consent is required if it is the direct result of a legitimate PvP encounter or clan raid.
• Long-Term Captivity: Forced labor, extended imprisonment, or prolonged coercion stretching over 48 hours real-time. Requires explicit OOC consent from the victim.
• Critical Captivity: Indefinite enslavement, planned ritual sacrifice, permanent identity stripping, or total psychological breaking. Requires mutual written OOC consent OR direct administrative approval via a PK ticket.

⚖️ The Interactive Rule: Captivity must remain engaging. If you cannot provide consistent roleplay to a captive, you must release them, transfer custody, or conclude the storyline. Unrealistic physical restraints or uncounterable powergaming bindings are prohibited. If a captive receives no meaningful roleplay for 60 consecutive minutes while the captor is actively online, they may open a staff ticket with timestamps to request an immediate narrative release from the scene.

👥 Clan Captive Holding Limits

These limits apply strictly to player captives captured during PvP or raids. They do not apply to flavor slaves purchased at the server economy auctions.

• Large Clans (4+ Members): May hold a maximum of 3 overnight captives (stretching over 24 hours).
• Small Clans (1–3 Members): May hold a maximum of 1 overnight captive.
• Exceeding these structural limits requires the immediate release, narrative transfer, or immediate sale of excess captives.

Character Permadeath (PK) Rules

🎯 Purpose of Permadeath

Permadeath (Player Kill) permanently ends a character's story on the server. It is the most extreme consequence available and must represent the natural, satisfying conclusion of a massive, long-standing conflict—not an impulsive act of convenience or revenge. PK is a narrative climax, not a punishment mechanic.

• Conflict ≠ Death: Insults, petty theft, physical defeat, or single isolated incidents never justify a permanent kill.
• Buildup Required: A PK can only be pursued following a documented pattern of severe, repeated offenses, significant IC buildup, or Critical-level consequences.
• The Right to Align: The first time a character faces potential execution, the aggressor must offer them a reasonable in-character path to survive (such as permanent exile from a region, a massive financial ransom, a binding oath of fealty, or total political submission).

🪢 PK Eligibility Criteria

A permanent execution ticket may only be filed when the target has reached Critical Consequences or has demonstrated a documented pattern of severe, destructive behavior with zero path to peaceful resolution. Valid examples include:

• Attempted or successful ritual sacrifice of another player character.
• Inflicting multiple severe, unprovoked injuries on members of the same clan over an extended period without resolution.
• Repeatedly and intentionally breaking sworn, signed truces or narrative survival agreements.
• Documented, prolonged acts of unconsented torture, extreme enslavement, or graphic violence.

⚠️ The Two-Way Street: Permadeath permission applies equally to both sides of the blade. If you open a ticket to execute a target, execute a raid to do so, and your raiding party fails, the target instantly acquires valid narrative justification to execute your character instead.

⏳ Administrative Requirements

All permanent character deaths require mutual OOC agreement between both players OR formal admin approval via a staff ticket. The ticket must be filed before the action occurs and must include a full summary of the conflict escalation, logs of prior consequences applied, and clear evidence of long-term roleplay buildup. Surprise, unrecorded, or unapproved PKs are entirely invalid.

🔄 After a PK Resolves

A permanently killed character receives a free account reroll. To maintain narrative integrity and prevent metagaming, the brand new character may not rejoin the same clan, reclaim old buildings, inherit previous items, or immediately step into the same conflict plotline to seek revenge. The new character must represent an entirely fresh narrative start.

Raiding & The Tier System

All base raiding must be conducted through our structured tier system. Tier II and Tier III raids must be formally scheduled, justified, and fully approved via a staff ticket  prior to initiation. No ticket = no raid. Unauthorized structural attacks are treated as griefing.

• Realistic Infiltration: You are barred from bypassing defensive walls higher than 2 foundations unless you visibly roleplay a realistic scaling method (such as ladders, siege gear, or climbing ropes). Walls and gates exist for structural protection; bypassing them mechanically without roleplay text is powergaming.
• Defender Requirement: Raids may only be initiated while at least one member of the defending clan is actively online, unless explicit offline raiding permission has been granted by the administration for narrative reasons.
• Proportionality: The number of Attackers should not exceed the number of Defenders by more than two.
• No Mid-Raid Escalation: Raiding groups cannot arbitrarily increase their raid tier mid-combat without opening a new ticket and securing explicit staff approval.

📜 The Structural Raid Tiers

🔹 Tier I: Skirmish Raid

• Ticket Requirement: None.
• Scale: Small-scale engagement consisting of 1–2 attackers.
• Objective: Short-term harassment, disruption of outer operations, rescue of a captive, or targeting external resource wheels and light perimeter defenses.
• Loot Limits (Per Raid Total): Max 25% of up to 2 distinct resource types OR 1 weapon and 1 armor piece total per attacker.
• Restrictions: Siege tools and explosives are completely prohibited. Tier I raids cannot be spammed repeatedly within a 48-hour window against the same target to bypass higher tier requirements.

🔸 Tier II: Warband Raid

• Ticket Requirement: Mandatory staff approval required.
• Scale: Medium-scale engagement consisting of 3–7 attackers.
• Objective: Striking key internal structures, seizing primary item stockpiles, capturing specific players, or conducting large-scale compound rescue operations.
• Loot Limits (Per Raid Total): Max 50% of up to 3 distinct resource types and a maximum of 2 weapons and 2 armor pieces total for the entire raiding group.
• Restrictions: Siege tools are only permitted if explicitly requested and approved in the underlying ticket. Moderate, controlled structural damage is permitted as defined by the approving admin. A strict 72-hour cooldown applies before the target can be raided again by anyone.

🔥 Tier III: Siege Raid

• Ticket Requirement: Mandatory staff approval + active administrative oversight required.
• Scale: Large-scale military engagement consisting of 7-12 attackers.
• Objective: Completely breaking territorial control, forcing total political surrender, or dismantling a faction's regional power base.
• Buildup: Requires extensive, documented narrative buildup submitted in the ticket (including intercepted letters, in-character witnesses, and long-term economic or military escalation).
• Loot & Damage: All structural damage limits, explosive use, siege engines, and final loot boundaries are pre-determined and strictly dictated by staff during ticket approval. Potential outcomes include forced structural relocation, signed tribute agreements, or mandatory political exile.

Mercenary Use & Targeted Violence

🎯 Purpose of Mercenary Rules

Mercenaries represent organized, professional, and deliberate violence. Hiring a mercenary faction is a massive escalation of an ongoing conflict. It is designed to provide a narrative avenue for non-combat characters to defend themselves—it is never a shortcut to initiate a war or easily silence a rival.

⚖️ Core Principles

1. No Initiation: Mercenaries can never be used to launch a brand new conflict or strike a character out of nowhere.
2. Established Buildup: Mercenaries may only be contracted if the employer is engaging in direct self-defense against recorded, ongoing aggression, or if a clearly roleplayed, long-standing conflict is documented.
3. Overt Violence Threshold: The intended target must have committed at least one direct, hostile act of physical violence against the employer or their faction (such as an attempted murder, a base raid, a successful capture, or a severe assault). Off-screen plotting, rumors, political rivalry, or cultural/religious dislike alone do not qualify as valid justification.

📜 Approval, Scope & Limits

• Staff Approval via an official ticket is mandatory before any targeted mercenary action can be executed.
• Mercenaries must operate strictly within the approved boundaries of the ticket. They cannot escalate a warning strike into a full siege, and all loot or captures must align with the approved raid tier.
• Mercenaries cannot be used to bypass established raid cooldowns or attacker limits. Utilizing alternative alt clans as "shell mercenaries" to dodge in-character responsibility or administrative limits is strictly prohibited.