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affinity ranks;
✽ AFFINITY RANKS | ||||||||||
Areas of Repute Within Aifaran are some unofficial factions that represent some of the interests or aspects of the city life. These are not ICly recognized groups (that is, there are no guilds or formal organizations representing these areas that a character can approach ICly) in that they have no defined structure, but merely areas of general repute.
Upon application acceptance, each character will receive a randomized set of starter rankings totaling 20 points altogether, which are randomly distributed throughout all the factions using RNG when a character joins the game. This point cap will prevent anyone from being able to max out too many affinity factions at one time. OOCly, each faction has ranks from 1-5 (with 1 being the lowest, 5 the highest), with each rank producing multiple different types of interaction with that group throughout the month. Players can choose to have their characters experience one or more of these instances to happen, depending on what their rank standing is with that respective group. Characters will not be required to experience all instances for all factions in a given month. This Google Spreadsheet is kept current by the mods that can be viewed by the players at any time, so players will always have access to their various Affinity standings at a glance. EXAMPLE: CRIME Rank 1 • Slippery Fingers: You are targeted for pickpocketing on the street! • Get Trashed: Your property (home, work, etc) suffers vandalism. • Shakedown: Your preferred places of patronage are harassed for protection money. Rank 2 • Supply & Demand: You sense eyes on you frequently, and when looking to purchase your usual staples, you find them either out of stock or ridiculously marked up in price. If asked, the shopkeepers will avoid answering the questions, as if they've been intimidated into silence. Rank 3 • Swag Swap: You are targeted for a mugging, but you're offered a cheap set of crystal glasses in exchange for all you lose. • Insurance: You're offered an insurance policy against theft for the month, but if you don't pay up, you may be more heavily targeted. Rank 4 • Mistaken Identity: During what looks like it will be a mugging, the perpetrator seems to recognize you and breaks off the attempt. • Guardian Criminal: Alternatively, during what looks to be a mugging, ANOTHER mugger will intervene, successfully chasing the first offender away from you. Rank 5 • Sudden Windfall: An anonymous person mails you a package containing what is definitely stolen, but likely untraceable, money and luxury items, the contents of which are now yours to do with as you please! Affinity Rank Changes Each month as part of AC, players will be required to submit their rank changes, moving 4 points total per month in any combination of their choosing. An affinity cannot be ranked at 0 or over 5, and all the Affinity ranks must collectively total 20 points - so points being added to one rank must come from subtracting from another rank, etc. Part of the AC requirement is a (VERY) brief description of the character's behaviour that led to the fluctuations in affinity. EXAMPLE AC COMMENT: Character: Bugs Bunny AC Proof 1 (required): LINK AC Proof 2 (optional): LINK Allegiance Rank Changes: +2 Sci-Tech, -2 Faith Notes: Bugs offered to teach a class on network basics to some less-than-tech-savvy elders (+2 Sci-Tech) but flipped off some Ban Om devotees when they wouldn't take a hint (-2 Faith). Affinity FAQ What happens if my character gets randomized Affinity starting ranks that don't make sense? IE; my sweet cinnamon roll gets a high Crime ranking? That's half the fun! ICly, it's explained by characters arriving that don't have any background in the city yet. Since these aren't literal, recognized factions, it's a little bendable. Maybe they're going with a gut feeling. Maybe they just don't like your character's face. Who knows! These rankings aren't static either - they go up or down with each AC, depending on what you want for your character. What if I don't want to use any of the monthly instances for my faction rankings? You don’t really have to if there isn’t anything in there you’d want to play with. Or make up something (reasonably) within the parameters that would be better suited to your character. Why do I have to move Affinities rankings around every month? As your character interacts with the peoples of Khu Ioduan, they will naturally get along with some groups and people, but not others, just as in the real world. Adjusting Affinities rankings is based on how you think your character's choices have been viewed by the various factions in the city. There is no 'right' or 'wrong' standing with the factions, so don't worry about keeping a set number; every option has new opportunities! | ||||||||||
APRIL 2018
JUSTICE
RANK 1
• Still On The Books: You're cited for violating a law about "suitable clothing" that hasn't been enforced in at least 50 years, if not longer.
RANK 2
• In The Lineup: The Sentry
ordersasks you to be part of a witness lineup because you may or may not look like a described criminal. You're not arrested, but now there's a certain association with you and crime...RANK 3
• Sorry For The Wait: You witness an assailant fleeing a crime scene and are asked to give a statement. Unfortunately, it takes hours until the Sentry actually get around to asking you questions, and there's basically nothing for you to do at the station while you wait. They're very apologetic when someone finally comes to talk to you.
RANK 4
• Accidental Influence: While at one of your preferred cafes or places of patronage, you end up engaged in conversation with a woman who disagrees with you on some topic; by the end of debate, she's seen your side of things. Later, you learn she's part of the Alliance Assembly, and she's using your argument on a piece of legislation she previously opposed.
RANK 5
• Reward For Information: A wanted poster announces there's a reward leading to the arrest of a known thief. The face on the poster is definitely the man who lives above one of your favorite shops; if you submit a tip to the Sentry, you'll get three cobalt rhinn (about $300).
CRIME
RANK 1
• Bar Fight: A fight breaks out at one of your preferred places of patronage, and you take a hit to the face. Even though you were barely involved, the Sentry charges you with disturbing the peace.
RANK 2
• Pawnshop Fence: You purchase an item of some value at a pawnshop you're told is reputable, and it was sold at a discount. Within a week, however, investigators are at your door to confiscate it; turns out it was stolen! You're taken in for questioning.
RANK 3
• Unearned Reputation: You find a gold piece where the face on the coin has been carved into an elegant skull, and a strange symbol on the back. When you are targeted by a pickpocket, they later return your entire purse and apologize in person before fleeing in terror.
RANK 4
• Extra Muscle: You're approached with a job offer: help take care of some dirty work, and you'll get part of the cut for the crime. It's low risk, they say, and there's opportunities for more work later if you prove yourself.
• Early Warning: Someone slips a note under your door, warning you to stay away from a certain shop tomorrow. Later, you learn it was the site of an armed robbery.
RANK 5
• Speakeasy Insider: A finely crafted pin is left for you along with directions to an unassuming tailor. As you enter, the shopkeeper ushers you to a dressing room with a false wall, behind which is a private club that entertains a variety of fashionably unscrupulous folk. For now, all that's required of you is to have a good time, but the owners may list 'membership requirements' to keep the pin.
FAITH
RANK 1
• Banned Om: If you try to take a coach to the turtle's head this month, you find it rather hard to book passage even though no one else is having this problem. It seems someone at the Ban Om may have decided they don't want you visiting.
RANK 2
• Cynical Preacher: A Sabonile priest tries to engage you in conversation, but before he gets very far into his spiel, he abruptly stops and says he can't keep preaching what he doesn't believe in. He departs quickly, announcing he's leaving the order. Other Sabonile give you strange looks for the rest of the month, as though this was somehow your fault.
RANK 3
• Pricy Divination: A fortune-teller in the street says they saw you in a vision, and he has life-changing information for you. It'll cost you a crescent rhinn, about $20, though.
RANK 4
• Tia-cheal Tea: A group of Castians invite you to join them while they repair equipment by the piers, treating you to a special seaweed and roasted rice drink and teaching you sea shanties.
RANK 5
• Gifts from the Great Turtle: A care package of your favorite treats (some of which are from your home and can't be found in Aifaran) is left at your door without a 'from' address, and features a curiously decorated tag: a feather on one side, and a turtle on the other.
COMMERCE
RANK 1
• Something Fishy This Way Comes: You're walking down by the piers when someone dumps a bucket of chum… directly onto you. It takes days to make the smell go away, and in the meantime shopkeepers will sometimes ask you to leave the premises because it's bothering their other customers.
• Avon For Aifaran: You see a cart featuring cosmetics and skin care items. A charismatic salesman with aggressive tactics grabs you by the arm to test overpriced salves and salts on your skin.
RANK 2
• Third Hand’s Third Hand Store: You wander into a dingy-looking store - mistakenly or on purpose, that's up to you! - that sells knick knacks, junk, and other random items. Whether you find an item you like or not, the owner refuses to let you leave until you buy something.
RANK 3
• Totally Legit Goods: There's a really shifty looking stall in one of the markets; at first glance it all looks like junk, and probably stolen junk. The merchant is ragged in appearance, shifting about nervously and is initially very rude. If you stick around to talk with him, though, you'll learn he just doesn't like busy crowds, but he has to be here to sell his work. On closer inspection, the 'junk' is actually cleverly recycled materials transformed into artistic, functional tools and furnishings.
• Check The Date: Those bottles of your favorite drink were more than half off! Unfortunately, the beverage will expire within a week. Bottom's up!
RANK 4
• Made For You: While shopping, an excited clothing designer comes up to you. She wants you to try on one of her outfits, because she thinks it'll look amazing. Not only does it fit perfectly and look fantastic, she's willing to sell it to you at a discount for fulfilling her vision of the piece. Oh, and would you like to be a paid model for her in the future, too?
RANK 5
• Shark Tank: If you're looking to start a business, today's your day! Your pitch catches the eye of an enthusiastic, savvy investor who gives you great terms. They want to be your partner in making this idea take off.
• Super Trooper: A landlord reaches out with a great deal on a nice apartment so you can move out of the Dreaming Bridge. If you're willing to be the super, you'll get a steep discount on rent.
ARTS
RANK 1
• Murphy’s Law: If you were thinking of some DIY construction or crafts, you’ve certainly had better ideas in the past. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Warped wood, dry clay, busted tools - let’s just hope you didn’t have any deadlines to meet.
• Broken Base: You managed to amass a bit of a following on the XaXa network, but a social faux pas has left your minor fanbase bickering. At best, the general consensus they reach is that you’re “problematic”.
RANK 2
• A River of Colour: You purchased some rather pricey pigments, but unfortunately they were knocked from your hands and washed away by the floodwaters. Not all is lost though - you managed to get a shot of it and the post on the XaXa network has gone viral. You may have just started a new tradition...
RANK 3
• A Good Eye: While purchasing some decorative supplies to fix up your living spaces - whether inside the Dreaming Bridge or your own space if you've since moved out - an excitable kedan comes by to compliment you on your colour choices! They'll ask for your yimo number, and if you give it to them, you may receive several image chats from the kedan's friends, all wanting to know your opinions on similar projects.
• Inspirational Sounds: Some work of yours impressed a merchant so much they offered you a set of windchimes that, when they sound, can give one a stroke of inspiration. And at such a nice price too! Unfortunately, there’s nothing truly magical about these chimes if one were to get them looked at by a professional, but they’re certainly pretty looking and sound nice, and despite knowing they’re not enchanted, you still feel a slight urge to create whenever a breeze passes through….
RANK 4
• He’s Having A Stroke… Of Genius!: Your work has inspired a fellow artist who has gained quite a bit of popularity. They’ve emphatically cited your own work as a major source of inspiration, and this has turned quite a few eyes your way, and you’re finding more and more opportunities opening up to you. Also a few love letters that may be from your not-so-secret admirer.
RANK 5
• The Way To Your Heart...: A famous chef in the city contacts you one day out of the blue, and they want you to be their dedicated taste-tester for their new spring lineup of meals. Over the course of several days, you'll be plied with dish after dish of fantastic food, so you might want to loosen that belt a little. At the end of the week, they'll assure you that you've been an invaluable help, and the next time you want a privately catered meal (perhaps for you and a special someone?) to give them a call.
SCI-TECH
RANK 1
• Escaped Experiment: A genetic research lab has lost one of the Mungas they've bred to be less poisonous, and it bites you. It may or may not be less toxic than usual - the scientists haven't actually tested it yet.
• The Waves Are Responsible: A particularly vehement stranger approaches you while you're using your yimo, insisting that the technology is damaging to the body and foisting several brochures on you to provide evidence.
RANK 2
• Warning Sticker: While out on a walk, you come across a bottle of… something. It has a warning sticker on it that's mostly inscrutable, but has lots of exclamation points and images on it that suggest this contains unpleasant chemicals of some sort. The only thing you can read is "Call Zemke!", which is less than helpful.
RANK 3
• Wrong Number: An older Sinayg you don't know keeps calling your yimo, insisting that you're a friend of his, he can't tell your faces apart. It takes nearly a dozen tries over the course of two or three days until he accepts he's got the wrong number, but now he'd like to get to know you better anyway.
RANK 4
• Hydroponic Bounty: You must look like you enjoy plants, because a woman who oversees hydroponic farming and research has just recruited you to test one of her new in-home units. You can eat what you grow and even keep the setup as long as you give her occasional updates; she'll be disappointed if you say no, but she understands if you have a black thumb.
RANK 5
• Hand Me That Wrench: Someone bent over an engine calls to you as you walk past, asking you to hand them a tool. In exchange for the assistance, which helps them put the finishing touches on their new engine design, they want to offer you thanks: naming the engine after you, giving you one of the prototype vehicles, or a job as a mechanic's apprentice if you need employment.
METAPHYSICS
RANK 1
• Voices on the Other Side: It’s a strange thing but you swear your dreams seem to linger a bit after you sleep. You can still hear the faintest echo of the subject of your dreams or perhaps the lingering after image of shadowy forms. As deeply unsettling as it is, these things are harmless.
• I See Me: The Dreaming pops out a doppelganger of yourself that always seems to be a few hours ahead or behind you in time. People around you might ask you about something you said or did or the repetition of an earlier action, but it wasn’t you. At least not the you you are right now. Time to track down this ‘other’ you and put a stop to these zany shenanigans. Fortunately, once you catch up to your doppelganger, an equilibrium is made and they vanish.
RANK 2
• I Bless the Rains Down in Aifaran: The constant storms are causing some strange interference with your magic. If it does not have an affinity with earth, rain, electricity or wind, it’s spotty at best. If it does, however, the results are nigh explosive.
RANK 3
• Love Potion #9: In the latter part of the month, the pink wisterias are in bloom which also happen to be the key ingredient in a popular ‘love potion’. Does it actually cause amorous feelings…? Not really, except in Kin’nal who excrete a pheromone similar to a chemical in the pink wisteria and is considered something like a sort of viagra for them. However, other components have caused interesting reactions with other species, such as intoxication lasting for several days or unusual hair growth. Someone even developed a prehensile tail. Consume at your own risk.
• Illogical Extreme: Somehow the localized physics in your immediate proximity have gone topsy turvy - down is up, left is right, inside is out and hot is cold. It’s deeply disorienting, but fortunately it only seems to happen when you’re indoors. Although opening the icebox may start a fire.
RANK 4
• Pattern Recognition Is My Jam: Through pure happenstance, you've noticed a peculiar patterning in the pearlescent barrier that protects the archipelago, and upon reporting it to anyone at the Aisling Tower, they'll become highly excited and praise your keen perceptions. It turns out you unintentionally solved something that the researchers have been working on for months, and they're happy to reward you with a nice sum of rhinn.
RANK 5
• And The Winner Is...: Having entered a raffle (either knowingly or unknowingly), your name is selected as the grand prize winner, providing you with a small, enchanted household item - so perhaps a self-sweeping broom, a tea kettle that somehow knows when you want it to boil, or linens that zoom outside under their own power to shake clean all by themselves.