Social Life

The talk of the town, the Long Tale, rumors, busking bards, who keeps the city's streets, the Grenmarch Bequest, and the henchmen who help newcomers.

Aurin rewards conversation and public gathering. The busiest inn pays its talkers, innkeepers trade gossip, and anyone can add a line to a shared story by the hearth. This page covers those activities and the commands used to take part.

The Talk of the Town#

Any public inn, tavern or lounge, or Aurin's Amphitheatre, can become the hot spot, the talk of the town. The one where the most different people have spoken in the last fifteen minutes holds the title, and keeps it until another room is busier still. It takes at least two people talking, and everyone in a room hears when it becomes the hot spot. hotspot tells you where it is.

Conversation there is rewarded. A line counts when you say it or write it as a free emote (emote, pmote, premote or tmote), it has four words or more, it is not a repeat, and somebody else in the room has spoken in the last three minutes. A line that answers someone also counts for the person it answers, so whoever gets a conversation going shares in it. Lines that are plainly about the world outside the game count for nothing, and so do channels, tells and stock emotes such as smile.

All of one player's characters count as one person, so talking among your own characters earns nothing.

Each ten minutes of conversation (counted a minute at a time) earns a reward, up to eight a day:

hotspot also shows which guilds, clans and faiths have talked the most this week, and last week.

Busking#

A bard's perform counts as conversation at the hot spot. Performed in any public inn or lounge, or the Amphitheatre, while somebody else is listening, it is also paid: the crowd tips the bard, more for a bigger audience, at most once every ten minutes and six times a day, and the bard's guild thinks a little better of them. Everyone who heard it, the bard included, has Lifted Spirits for half an hour and recovers 5% faster.

The Long Tale#

A booklet lies in the Radiant Hearth Inn and in the Explorer's Guild Lounge, and both show the same story. read booklet shows the tale so far and the last one finished; write <a sentence> adds a line of your own, from three to forty words. Nobody signs a line, and nobody can write two lines running: somebody else must carry the tale on first. After 24 lines the tale is finished and shelved, and a fresh page waits for the next one.

Rumors#

Type rumor (or rumour) beside an innkeeper, or ask one about rumors, to hear recent public events, gossip other players have paid to spread, and places worth a visit. Serin at the Radiant Hearth Inn, Sabel at the Tiderest Inn on the docks and Tully at the Brightkettle Tavern all trade gossip.

For a hundred copper an innkeeper will pass on a whisper of your own: rumor spread <words>. It goes round every inn for two days and nobody is told who paid for it. A whisper is five to forty words, and you may start one a day. Innkeepers will not repeat talk of the world outside the game.

Who Walks the Streets#

The time adventurers spend in Aurin, its docks, the cemetery and the guild halls beneath the city is counted by guild over the last day, and each guild brings the city something while it keeps the streets. city streets shows the shares and what they bring, and the city overview names the guilds keeping the streets now.

A guild brings its full share once it holds 30% of the city's time, and a part of it below that. Nothing shows until two hours of adventurers' time have been spent in the city, and the streets add 5% at most to any one bonus. Every citizen of Aurin gains them, wherever they are; a citizen of another city does not (see Cities and Citizenship). Explorers have no guild yet and are not counted, and a single stay counts for half an hour at most, so standing still in the city earns your guild nothing more.

Out in the streets you will now and then hear how the city is getting on with whoever keeps it. What rogues, thieves and assassins bring shows in those lines, and costs nobody anything.

The Rogue Times#

The Rogue Times is the realm's newspaper, sold over the counter of the Aurin Post Office, east off Silverton Lane. buy times buys a copy for a few coppers, from your purse or from the bank if the purse runs short. A copy shows the news as it stood when it was printed. When something new has happened its front page says so, and a fresh copy waits at the post office; if yours is still the latest, the clerk tells you rather than sell it twice. buy another times buys a second copy anyway.

The paper fills itself from what happens in the game, the same news the realm hears in its banners.

The paper keeps the realm's silences. A player killed by another is reported dead, but the killer is never named, and the guilds that work in secret are never mentioned.

The paper's writers, columnists, reporters and editors are players appointed by its editors, and the paper pays them a wage unless they already hold another paid post. They write their articles with editpaper. A merchant can place a notice in Merchant's Row with advertise, and buy the front page's headline for a day with headline.

The Grenmarch Bequest#

Marshal Ivo Grenmarch left his house and grounds to the free citizens of Aurin, and they are open to everyone: leave the city by the Southern Gate and turn east off Silverwood Road. There are gardens, a kite meadow, a river and a lily pond to fish, and the Marshal's house with its ballroom for masquerades. Mabyn Tregarth's band plays in the bandstand every few minutes, and everyone on the bandstand or the picnic lawn beside it gains Lifted Spirits. Winnie Pollard's tea house sells tea and cake, silk kites to fly in the meadow (fly kite, which lifts your spirits too), and masquerade masks. The terrace, the ballroom, the tea house and the bandstand can all become the talk of the town.

Help for Newcomers#

Two henchmen look after adventurers still finding their feet.

A new healer is sent Fenwick instead of Hester, and he takes his tenth. Your guild's helper stays until you pass level 20, through every logout, and then takes their leave. After that, help is hired by the day at the Tidewarden Hall in Aurin (see Hired Help).

Both have plenty of advice, most of it about finding other players to adventure with.