Territory & Factions[/u]
Every Faction has two things in common: a Faction Leader and a purpose.
The Faction Leader is the forum account used to manage the Faction's private password-locked sub-section of the forum (over which they have limited administrator privileges) and store the Faction's wealth of Points and other assets for use and distribution. It's also considered a good idea to have a character setup for this account as the Faction's in-story leader / administrator. While in actuality a Faction's decision making can involve as many people as are in the faction, a council of veterans, or a few close friends, the official
actions will always come from this account.
A Faction's purpose is closely tied to its role in the overall story of the RP. For example, Shibusen's purpose is protecting humanity from Kishin Eggs and witches; similarly so with the Exorcists. The Witches' purpose is more individual, namely enabling its members to continually grow in magic skill and prevent rogue witches from putting them all in danger of being hunted down. The Heretic Cabal has the purposes of your stereotypical evil organization: unlock superior power and use it to take over the world / revenge for Arachne.
A Faction's purpose is central! Factions can be rewarded for actions that are in keeping with their purpose or lose rewards for failing to achieve aspects of their purpose. This generally takes the form of Faction-specific Missions or story-related instructions from the Admins: if followed through successfully large sums of Points or other benefits can be earned... but failure will typically
deduct Points from a Faction Leader's reserve and leave the Faction as a whole impotent. For example: if a Mission was given to Shibusen's Faction Leader from the Admins to deploy students to hunt down a particularly vicious Kishin Egg, and either the Faction Leader never sends anyone on the Mission or the players fail to defeat the enemy, Shibusen loses Points.
Territory Control ActionsTerritory Control is another way Factions can better themselves. It's rather like playing a game of Risk -- the end goal is to either have more Territory than your enemies or simply wipe them off the map altogether -- but instead of sending out tiny plastic battalions and seizing entire countries you'd deploy a Faction's Loyalist characters to take specific locations of interest. Taking Territories grants a Faction sums of Points, both to its victorious members and to the Faction Leader account.
The Faction Leader earns Points every two months based on the following formula: total Point value of all owned Territories X 5 (be sure to factor in any Bonuses that increase the Point Value). This means that, if a Faction is doing well and holds several Territories, it will have regular income to meet its strategic objectives and invest in its Loyalists.
Attacking a Territory follows three simple stages: declaration, action, and resolution.
Declaration is the initial phase. The attacker (this can be a Faction Leader, Loyalist, or Freelancer) posts
[HERE] using the following format:
[b]{Faction name here} IS ATTACKING {Territory name here}![/b]
[i]Attack Leader:[/i] {name of posting character goes here}
{Defending Faction / Freelancer name here} has two weeks to declare a defense. All attack and defense characters will be finalized at that time.
In the event of an attack on Unclaimed Territory replace the final line with:
All challengers have two weeks to declare their intent. All attack and defense characters will be finalized at that time.
Once the declaration is posted everyone seeking to be involved in the fight, including all attackers, defenders, and third parties (Freelancers / additional Faction Loyalists) have
two weeks to the day to post in the declaration thread before it is locked by the staff. Everyone should make it clear what character they'll be using and what side they'll be fighting on.
Limit one character PER PERSON per battle. This doesn't include Minions or self-made teams / squads (if of high enough Member Rank). Additionally,
a character may only be in ONE TC BATTLE AT A TIME.
Once the declaration is locked the responsible staff member will post the battle thread. Posting order
must be followed: the first post will include a posting order created by the staff that alternates between attackers, defenders, and others in a one-by-one sequence (or as closely as possible). Attackers will always get the first post unless the Faction holds (and decides to use) a Territory Bonus that causes it to be otherwise.
Limit six players per side per battle. If a player fails to post within a week of their turn then they are automatically removed from the fight. The actual fighting is Hybrid style by default; other styles may only be used if approved by staff ahead of time.
All battles only last a maximum of six weeks, starting at the time the battle thread is posted. If one side hasn't achieved clear victory by the time six weeks are up the staff will lock the battle thread and the fight will be judged based on (A) writing skill, (B) tactics, and (C) advantages / disadvantages at the time the fight was locked. A winner between the two (or more) competing sides will be announced and the reviewing staff member will write up a brief one-paragraph after-action report detailing the conclusion of the fight. This is the resolution stage.
Any staff member with a character in the battle itself, or who is Faction Leader of an involved Faction, may not judge the battle thread. If there are any concerns from either / any side that resolution was not impartial and accurate the results of the fight will be decided amongst the Admins.[/ul]