Combat & Adventure

Crime, Guards & the Jail

Rob the dead or kill the innocent and your name changes colour, and from then on the guard is looking for you: in every lawful town square, and in every mine, wood and dungeon a town's patrol walks. This is what counts as a crime, how long it follows you, where you will be found, and what happens when you are.

The short version

Innocent: A blue name. Nobody may raise a hand against you anywhere but Buccaneer's Den.
Criminal: A grey name under a [Criminal] tag, on a clock. Anyone may attack you in any town square, and every guard is looking for you.
Murderer: A red name under a [Murderer] tag, from 3 murder counts. The same, with no clock to wait out.
The guard: Arrests criminals and murderers on sight in every lawful town square, and sweeps the mines, woods and dungeons its town answers for.
The jail: A sentence served in ONLINE time, in a cell, in an orange uniform, with everything you carried locked in a bag in your bank.

What it looks like

Three players side by side: a blue name, a grey name under a Criminal tag, and a red name under a Murderer tag — **An innocent, a criminal and a murderer.** The colour and the tag are over your head for everybody to read, in every scene of the game. These three are standing in Buccaneer's Den, the one town where all of them can.

Blue, grey and red

Your standing is the colour of your name, and everyone who can see you can read it. Grey is a clock that runs out. Red is a count that fades.

Standing	Your name	How you come by it	How it ends
Innocent	Blue	It is how everyone begins.	—
Criminal	Grey, under [Criminal]	Robbing an innocent's remains, striking an innocent first, or a murder.	The clock runs out and your name is blue again — or a guard takes you, and the sentence is the rest of it.
Murderer	Red, under [Murderer]	3 murder counts: each kill of an innocent who did not strike first is one.	One count fades for every 8 hours you spend ONLINE. Below 3 you are no longer red. A served sentence clears them all at once.

What makes you a criminal, and for how long

All three run the same grey clock. Time taken from the dead is ADDED to whatever is already on it.

The crime	On the clock	Worth knowing
Taking from an innocent's remains	15 minutes for every item	A stack is one item. A bag is one, plus one for everything inside it. The clock can never stand more than 24 hours ahead.
Striking an innocent first	2 minutes	Only possible in Buccaneer's Den: nowhere else may an innocent be attacked at all.
Murder	30 minutes, and a murder count	Killing an innocent who did not strike first. At 3 counts the grey clock stops mattering: you are red.

⚠️

You are warned before your first theft. Reach into the remains of somebody who died innocent and the game stops and asks: it names them, tells you what each item will cost, and waits for you to choose Steal. Somebody who is already grey or red is not asked again.

What is NOT a crime

Your own remains: Always yours to take back.
A criminal's remains: Somebody who was a criminal or a murderer when they died is fair game, and stays so even after their own clock would have run out.
A friend's remains: A party member's or a guildmate's. Carrying a friend's gear home is not theft.
Your own kill: Somebody you killed in a fight, in the 2 minutes the body belongs to you and to them alone. The kill has already been counted against you.
A dropped pile: Something a player put down on purpose is not a body.

Being a criminal

The moment the clock starts you are told so in your journal, and a Criminal mark appears on your Buffs bar counting it down. When it reaches nothing your journal says so, and your name is blue again for everybody at once.

The Criminal mark on the Buffs bar, a hooded face with 44:09 beneath it — **The mark,** with what is left of the clock under it.

A journal with two red lines: a refusal to leave because of a crime just committed, and a warning that the guard of Britain is coming — **A criminal's journal in Britain Mines.** First the crime lock refusing them the road, then the warning that Britain's patrol is on its way.

The crime lock: no slipping away

What starts it: Every crime in the table above, the moment you commit it.
How long: 1 minute. Every further crime starts it again from the top.
What it stops: Leaving. No travel, no Recall, no moongate and no "I'm Stuck" until it runs out.
Why it matters: You cannot rob a body and be on the road before anybody looks up. Whoever is coming for you has that long to arrive.

In a town square

Which towns: Every lawful one, whatever rung it stands on. Its guard knows a grey or a red name, and looks every 10 seconds: "on sight" means within moments of your arriving.
Getting there: You are still free to TRAVEL to a town. Standing in its square is what gets you taken.
Where they wait: They will not take you from inside a house, off the road while you are still travelling, or while you are dead. If you are in the middle of a fight they wait for it to end.
The cry: The Town Guard calls the arrest in Local chat for everybody who watched, and the Herald tells the whole shard who was taken, where, and as what.
Buccaneer's Den: Keeps no guard. Nobody is ever arrested there, which is exactly why it is where criminals and murderers bank, heal and trade.

The banner shown on arriving in Buccaneer's Den: Lawless Ground — **Buccaneer's Den says so when you walk in.** No guard, no arrests — and no law protecting you from anybody else either.

How often the guard comes

A town's rung is the whole shard's doing: every donation to its Town Collector raises it, and neglect lets it slide. So the players who keep a town's rung up are the ones keeping its mines and dungeons safe from people who rob the dead.

The town's rung	Standing it must hold	Its guard sweeps each place
Quiet	0	never — it has no guard to send
Watched	5,000	every 2 hours
Patrolled	20,000	every hour
Fortified	80,000	every 30 minutes
Resplendent	300,000	every 15 minutes

Which town guards what

Every mine, wood and dungeon answers to exactly one town, so there is never a doubt about whose donations are guarding it.

Town	Its guard walks
Britain	Britain Mines, Britain Sewers, Britain Graveyard
Minoc	Minoc Mines, Orc Fort, Wrong
Moonglow	Verity Woods, Deceit, Ice Dungeon
Vesper	Vesper Graveyard, Vesper Woods
Yew	Shame, Yew Forest
Trinsic	Trinsic Woods, Despise
New Haven	New Haven Mines, Covetous
Cove	Cove Mines
Jhelom	Jhelom Mines
Skara Brae	Spiritwood
Nujel'm	Fire Dungeon
Occlo	Hythloth

🐉

Destard is never patrolled, whatever anybody gives. No guard will go near Destard. Buccaneer's Den sends no guard anywhere, and Serpent's Hold has nowhere to send one yet.

How a sweep goes

The horn: A sweep is called 2 minutes before the guard arrives. Everybody standing in the place hears it in Local chat, from the Town Guard, naming the town the patrol is out of.
The warning: If you are a criminal or a murderer you are told in your journal as well, in red, exactly what it means for you: be gone, or be taken.
The countdown: From that moment the Travel map's tooltip for the place counts the patrol in, second by second, for anybody who looks — whether they are there or not.
The arrival: Every criminal and murderer still standing in the place when the clock reaches zero is seized and jailed. Being in the middle of a fight with a monster does not save you: the arrest ends it.
If it finds nobody: The patrol says so, moves on, and the place's clock starts again from the town's rung.

⏳

The warning is 2 minutes and the crime lock is 1 minute, on purpose. A criminal who was already there when the horn sounded always has time to leave. One who commits a crime with the patrol less than 1 minute away has chosen to be caught.

🤫

The guard does not publish its rota. You can see a sweep that has been CALLED, never when the next one is due — only how often that town's guard comes. A town that climbs a rung brings its faster clock to bear within about a minute; one that falls to Quiet stops sending patrols altogether, though a sweep already on the road still arrives.

One patrol, from horn to cell

Britain's guard, called to Britain Mines with a criminal standing in it. These are the same two minutes seen three ways.

Local chat: the Town Guard announcing that a patrol out of Britain is on the road to Britain Mines and will be there in two minutes — **The horn.** Everybody in the mine reads this in Local, innocent or not.

The Travel map with Britain Mines hovered: a red panel reading Guard sweep arrives, 1:55 — **The countdown.** Hover the place on the Travel map and the patrol is counted in to the second. The vein of light runs back to Britain, whose guard it is.

Chat showing the Town Guard seizing a criminal and the Herald announcing the arrest to the shard — **The arrival.** The Town Guard to the mine, and then the Herald to everyone on the shard.

Reading the guard on the Travel map

Hover a town: Blue light runs out from it, like veins, to every mine, wood and dungeon its guard walks. Its tooltip lists them under "Guards" and says how often each is swept.
Hover a guarded place: The single vein back to its town lights instead. Its tooltip says "Patrolled by" the town, and how often.
The rung is the brightness: The light is always the guard's blue; what changes is how much of it there is. A Resplendent town's veins are wide, bright and quick. A Watched town's are thin and slow. A Quiet town's are not light at all: one pale dashed line to each place, still, showing what it WOULD guard if somebody raised it — which is what its tooltip says too.
Unguarded: Means what it says: either the town that answers for the place has no guard to send, or no guard will go there at all.
A sweep on the road: Turns the place's panel red and puts a clock in it. The town's own tooltip marks that place with the same countdown.

The Travel map, tooltip by tooltip

Open Travel and rest the pointer on a place. The towns in these pictures were set to different rungs so that every case could be photographed; on your shard each town stands wherever its players have raised it, and the map shows you that.

The whole Travel map with Britain hovered: blue veins run from Britain to its graveyard, sewers and mines, and a tooltip lists the three places it guards — **A town, hovered — and a Resplendent one.** These are the widest, brightest veins there are, with a sweep every 15 minutes. Britain's veins run out toward the Graveyard, the Sewers and the Mines, and its tooltip lists all three under **Guards**. The Mines are marked in red with a clock, because a sweep is on the road there.

The other four rungs

Trinsic hovered at the Fortified rung: veins to Trinsic Woods and Despise, sweeps every 30 minutes — **Fortified.** Trinsic walks its Woods and Despise every 30 minutes.

Minoc hovered at the Patrolled rung: veins to Minoc Mines, the Orc Fort and Wrong, sweeps every hour — **Patrolled.** Minoc's guard reaches its Mines, the Orc Fort and Wrong once an hour.

Moonglow hovered at the Watched rung: thin veins to Verity Woods, Deceit and the Ice Dungeon, sweeps every 2 hours — **Watched.** Thin, slow veins: Moonglow's guard comes by every 2 hours.

Yew hovered at the Quiet rung: pale dashed lines run to Yew Forest and Shame, and a tooltip reads Would guard Shame and Yew Forest, it has no guard to send — **Quiet.** Pale dashed lines with no light in them. Yew *would* guard Shame and its Forest, and has nobody to send.

A mine, a wood or a dungeon

Despise hovered: Patrolled by Trinsic, its guard sweeps here every 30 minutes, with a vein running back to Trinsic — **Patrolled.** Despise answers to Trinsic, and the vein runs back to it.

Shame hovered: Unguarded, Yew has no guard to send, with a pale dashed line running back to Yew — **Unguarded, for now.** Shame is Yew's to guard, and Yew is Quiet: the line back to it is dashed. Raise the town and this changes.

Destard hovered: Unguarded, no guard will go near Destard, with a vein from Cove fading out before it arrives — **Unguarded, for good.** The vein reaching for Destard from Cove gutters out on the way. No rung changes this.

How long you serve

It is the same sentence whether a town guard recognised you in a square or a patrol found you in a mine.

Taken as	Sentence, in online time
Criminal	Whatever was left on your criminal clock, and never less than 1 minute
Murderer, 3 counts	45m
Murderer, 4 counts	1h
Murderer, 6 counts	1h 30m
Murderer, 8 counts	2h
Murderer, more than that	15 minutes for every count, never less than 30 minutes and never more than 24 hours

The Jail

One gaol for the whole shard, standing in a walled glade that is on no map. You arrive in a cell; there is no walking there and no walking out.

The whole jail seen from above: a stone gaol with five cells either side of a corridor, a guard at every door, tomato tables by the entrance, and a prisoner in orange in cell 1 — **The whole of it.** Ten cells either side of one corridor, a guard on every door and two sergeants at the gate. The prisoner in orange in cell 1 is the criminal the patrol took above; the figure on the path is a visitor.

Inside

The cells: 10 of them, a guard on every door. You are put in the emptiest; when there are more prisoners than cells, people share.
Your belongings: Everything you were carrying or wearing is put in ONE bag in your bank, exactly as it was: a bag you had in your pack arrives with its contents still inside it. Only your Virtue Binding stays on you.
The uniform: An orange shirt and trousers. They cannot be taken off, traded or dropped, and they are taken back when you leave.
The clock: Counts down ONLY while you are online. Close the game and it stops; nobody serves a sentence by logging out.
What you can do: Talk. Local chat reaches the other prisoners and anybody who has come to look. You cannot travel, Recall, fight or leave the cell.
If you were dead: You are raised first. A cell is not somewhere to wait for a Resurrection.
Release: The guards unlock the cell and walk you to Britain, where your bag is waiting in the bank.
The debt is paid: A guard's arrest is the reckoning. Walk out and your murder counts are gone and your name is blue: the guards no longer know your face.

What a prisoner sees

A prisoner in an orange uniform in cell 1, under a panel giving the time left, the reason and who sentenced them — **The cell's own panel:** the time left, that it only counts down while you are online, what you were taken for, and by whom.

A journal recording an arrest: thrown in jail by The Town Guard, cell 1, the sentence, the reason, the belongings bagged in the bank, and that the sentence only counts down online — **The journal, at the moment of arrest.** Who took you, the cell, the sentence, the reason, where your belongings went, and how the clock is counted.

A prisoner's screen: an orange shirt and trousers in the equipment slots, and the cell beyond — **The uniform is in your equipment slots,** where your own clothes were. Everything else you had is in the bag in your bank.

Visiting the jail

How: Say "visit prison" in Local where a town guard can hear it, or right-click one. He walks you over.
Where from: Any lawful town that keeps a watch — Watched or above. Buccaneer's Den has no guard to ask.
Who cannot: A murderer. The guard has other plans for them.
The tomatoes: Trestle tables by the gaol door are heaped with rotten ones. Take a handful of 5, step into the corridor and throw through the bars at any prisoner within 7 flags. About 80 in 100 land. It costs the prisoner nothing but dignity.
Leaving: Walk back to the gate and say yes, right-click a sergeant at the gaol door, or use the Leave button, the Travel map or Recall. You come out in the town you left from.

A visitor standing on the path at the gaol door, with tables of tomatoes either side and a prisoner in the first cell — **A visitor at the door.** The tomato tables are either side of the path; the corridor past the sergeants is where you throw from.

Fights between players, in brief

Where: A town square, and nowhere else: never a dungeon, a wood, a mine or a house. An innocent may only be attacked in Buccaneer's Den; a criminal or a murderer in any square.
One on one: Somebody already in a fight cannot be attacked by a third.
No walking out: Neither fighter can leave for 30 seconds after the last blow, and a fight nobody is winning ends on its own after 10 minutes.
The body: Everything the loser carried falls. For 2 minutes it belongs to the killer and the dead alone; after that it is anybody's.
Defending yourself: Killing somebody who struck you first is never murder, and neither is killing a criminal or a murderer.
After a death: Raised after dying to another player, you cannot be attacked for 10 minutes unless you attack somebody first. The same player cannot kill you more than 2 times in an hour.