The Working Class

The trade of Equinox includes all from the pauper to the noble. None are too poor to take part of it or too wealthy. It is the growing trade that permits for shops to blossom and take root as landmarks within each city. Maintaining a well-stocked shop may not be easy, but it is well worth the effort. It enriches the city in which you ply your trade and adds to your own individual role-play. Whatever you may have to offer, there might be a player willing to pay for it.

Npc Involvement in Trade:
For those only starting out, the more established merchants (Npcs) may have smaller tasks that need doing or a small parcel that must arrive before it is too late. These are known as jobs and merchant quests or deliveries.

Performing Jobs for an Npc:
When you approach the Npc and request to perform a task for gold an example of what you might ask is “Do you have any jobs available?” The keyword in the sentence that the Npc will respond to is “job.” You will be able to perform enough jobs to earn five thousand gold pieces in a twenty-four hour period. Do not worry if you lack the materials or skill to do the job, your character will manage just fine. Click “ok” to accept the job and watch your little creation go to work.

Each NPC only has so many jobs they need done. If you are not at your five thousand gold limit for the day, move on to another NPC and request a job. Your payment is a reflection of how much skill it takes to perform the job and how much skill your character currently has. Your first day performing jobs you might not make much gold at all per job, but as your skill improves so will your pay.

Once you have accepted the job, a little blue bag will appear in your top pack. These are the items you are making for the job requested. Once you finish working you can give this bag to the NPC. If you wander too far away from the NPC while doing the job (or allow them to wander too far away from you) you will stop working. You can still hand in the work you have completed, the difference is you did not do the entire job and will not be paid the full amount.

Player Merchant Quests a.k.a. Deliveries:
If jobs are not your to your liking, you can always deliver goods from one Npc to another. An example of what you might ask the Npc is “Is there a delivery that needs to be tended to?” The keyword in the sentence that the Npc will respond to is “delivery.” Depending on how big the package is (scroll, crate, or chest) the amount of gold you will earn for each delivery upon completion will vary. If you take too long however, you will receive no gold for the delivery. You will also gain a small amount of virtue and experience for successfully completing a delivery, but again this is limited.

Player Involvement in Trade:
There comes a time when every player becomes bored of performing the menial tasks the Npcs hand out on a daily basis. This is when your character may want to go into business for themselves!

Vendors or Player Merchants

Each city may have their own laws as to what is permissible to sell or permits required so be sure to check with the local authorities beforehand! Barring an exile from the city, all player trade areas in human cities are open to everyone. Once you are cleared with the ruling powers of the city (if there is one) you may purchase a stall and prepare it to attract customers. You will not be online at all the various hours we have players nor will you want to be chained to your shop. There is an alternative.

Attaining a Player Merchant

If you pay a visit to your local provisoner, he or she may be able to sell you an employment contract. The employment contract allows you to hire an Npc of your very own specifically for selling your creations and finds. The player merchant hired will only respond to player commands, such as "buy", if they are within your property or a property you are friended to. Each account is permitted thirteen player merchant deeds. If you try to use a fourteenth deed you will not be permitted. Please be sure the deed is in your top pack before double clicking it to hire your merchant. You will not need to pay your merchant on a regular basis, they will take a very small percentage of gold that other characters spend on your wares.

Keeping your Player Merchant

Your vendor requires that you contact them at least once every 30 days! If you do not, then they will assume you are not coming back and will run off with your items and profits. If you are expecting to be away for longer than the 30 days, for whatever reason, it is recommended you give your vendors a holiday. Staff will not replace items lost in this manner.

Various Player Merchant Commands

To place an item for sale on your own player merchant, hand them the item you wish to sell. If it is placed in a container it will ask you what you would like the container named. Finally, it will ask you how much you wish to charge for each item. This is what the item will be sold for.

Player merchants do not only sell things to you, they will also buy things from you! To sell an item to another’s player merchant simply hand them what you would like to sell them. They will purchase the item from you and place the gold in your top pack. The owner of the player merchant must hand their merchant enough gold to complete such transactions or the merchant will not buy.

Please remember: this is a role-play shard. You should not be shouting one word phrases at players or at Npcs and player merchants are no different. Please use the following key words in a suitable sentence. Most commands meant for use by the owner of the merchant require you use their full name.

“buy”	will allow you to see what is available to buy.
“sell”	will allow you to see what the player merchant will buy and for how much. Should the owner wish their player merchant to buy items from other players, care should be taken to ensure that adequate funds are available for the transaction. You can give your merchant gold by handing it to them.
“purchase”	will allow the employer to tell the player merchant what items to purchase from other players and the amount to pay for them. A cursor will allow you to select items in your pack for this purpose. To stop your merchant from purchasing an item, repeat the process.
"log"	The merchant will recite a list of the sales they have made since the last log they reported.
"status"	The vendor will tell you how much gold they hold, and if they have any items bought from players.
"collect"	This allows the master of the vendor to collect their profits. The sales log will also be recited, if it has not already been asked for separately.
“contact”	will allow the employer to set contact information for finding their character in game. If someone other than the employer says “contact” to the player merchant, it will tell them what the employer has instructed them to.
“follow”	will tell the player merchant to follow you, but you must use their full name.
“stop”	this command will tell the player merchant to stop and stay in a spot. If this spot is the property of your character or a property that your character has been friended to, the npc will begin to sell your wares. If it is not your property in any way, then it will not sell items and give you a lecture about how "Union Rules forbid me" to begin sales.
"undress"	will strip the vendor of their clothing, returning it to their master's pack.
"strip"	will strip the vendor of both clothing and stock, returning them to their master's pack.
"wear"	will bring up a cursor. The owner may then select clothing from their own pack in which to clothe their merchant.
"release"	will fire your vendor. If they have items or gold, they will hand them over first. A replacement contract will also be issued to you.

Librarians and the Haven of the Bookworm:
Each city has one, the library. Each library is run by a librarian who oversees a handful of scribes. There is no actual scripted system for loaning out books, however players are encouraged to work at libraries to create this loaning system. Staff will assist in the way of containers or anyway needed. If a player is not running your local library, then you can simply buy or donate books to a librarian.

When you donate a book you will not receive gold for your hard work, but the book will become a part of the library stock. When a person requests to buy a book from the librarian, they will potentially see your creation and have the chance to own their own copy. It could be your character might become a world-reknown author through these means! The stock of books available are rotated from time to time and the prices changed to suit the condition of the books being offered. To donate a book, use the keyword "donate" and a cursor will appear. Select the book in your pack and the librarian will gladly take it. Soon your writings will be on display for purchase at your local library!

Authors amongst us, you are needed! This system is nothing without the creativity and work of the community. The more that is contributed the more useful, interesting, and realistic the libraries will be! There is no book or poem too short, silly, or strange to be donated! Please keep subject matter tasteful and relevant to the world in which we play. Your book will enrich the culture of Equinox for years to come!

Mercenaries for Hire:
There are men and women who know little else than how to wield a blade. They are without direction or purpose, they need a leader. Once you become their leader you can equip them, train them, command them, and rename them. Only two of your henchies will follow you at any one time however and the maximum that will obey your command is eight. If you try to convince others to join your following, they will ignore you or chatter with you but they will not join you.

While they will not sell things for you as the player merchants will, they are in your service if you choose to hire them. They can be used for hunting with, protecting your home, or protecting your shop. Everyone needs a purpose in Equinox, these hired hands are no different.

Henchie Stats

When a henchie joins you, their stats begin with basic level stats. Their stats will raise to either match your stats or to match your level in leadership, whichever is lower. If your health stat is 99 but your leadership is only 80, your henchie will only have a health of 80. If your intelligence stat is 53 and your leadership is 80, your henchie will only have an intelligence of 53. It will always take the lower of the two and never the higher. Your henchie will tell you when their stats raise.

Henchie Skills

As for a henchie's skills, skills are different. When the henchie joins you, they will get the same skills
at the same levels you have. The only skills that will change are their combat skills such as swords, maces, fencing, archery, parry and tactics. All other skills will remain where they were set when they joined up. Skills are capped at your leadership + 20%. So If you have 100 leadership, your henchperson's skills are capped at 120%.

Henchie Equipment

Your henchperson will be limited to whatever armor and shield combo their strength allows. The only way to determine what they can wear is to have them try to wear a particular item. If they cannot wear the item, they will say they are not strong enough to wear that. You do have to tell a henchman to wear a shield. If you give them a two handed weapon to use, they will take the shield off until they are told to use the one-handed weapon.

There is very little you actually need to give your henchie. They can use bandages and arrows/bolts if they use an archery weapon. If damaged enough (1/3 of max hit points) they will also attempt to use a Greater Heal Potion, if they have some in their backpacks. They cannot use scrolls, wands, or other tools. To give an item to your henchperson, simply drop it on them and they will place it in their backpack. Henchies can only use items in the top level of their backpack. To access a henchie's backpack you need to stand right next to them and double click them. Their paper doll will appear
and their backpack will open.

Your henchie can use any item that you have marked as owned. It is common practice to place your owner's mark on any item your henchie will be using. This will help you get their equipment back if they are killed in combat. It has also been suggested that placing a .owned bag in your henchie's pack will help others return your stuff to you if the henchie is killed in guard mode and can not be resurrected.

Henchie Death

On the subject of death, your henchie can be resurrected. You do not have to be present or even
online (in the case of disconnects) for your henchperson to be resurrected. The resurrection can be performed with any of the normal methods: spell, wand or bandage. The number of times your henchie can be resurrected is your leadership skill divided by 10 and rounded down. (For example: 96% leadership = 9 lives for your henchmen). Your henchie will retain their skill levels when they die, but
will loose 10% of any virtue they have gained.

Henchie Virtue

Your henchie will gain virtue and virtue titles (wicked, honorable, and so on.) The title they earn is on their paperdoll and does not reflect your title. Should your henchman die, they will loose 10% of the virtue they have gained upon resurrection.

Henchie Commands

Should you decide to enlist one of these mercenaries, here are the commands they will follow. All commands must be preceded by the name of the henchie to work, some will work if you precede
the command by "all.".

"join me"	will convince the henchie to follow your command if you have high enough leadership. Please note that your leadership level determines how many henchies you may have under your control.
"follow"	will instruct the henchie to follow the npc or pc of your choice.
"follow me"	will instruct the henchie to follow you without having to use a cursor as in the command "follow"
"come"	This tells your hireling to come to you. This will not stop him from attacking, following, chasing or any other commands. This will also not guarantee they reach as they seem clumsy and trip over even the flatest surface.
"undress"	tells your henchie to remove all items that they are wearing and places them in their pack.
"wear"	allows you to target an item of clothing or other wearable item (like jewelry or weapons). The item will be immediately worn by the hireling. Hirelings can wear your .owned items.
"drop"	will cause your hireling to drop all items in their back pack to the ground.
"status"	This will display a gump showing your henchman's skills and stats. Only skills that henchie actually uses are displayed (weapon skill, tactics, healing, etc) while skills that henchie can't use anyway are not (tailoring, lockpicking, etc.) The status menu does not give exact numbers, instead giving a description of their skill level. The skill levels are the same as the ones used to describe player skill levels (except that for players, its for the average of their skills, but for henchie its for that single skill.) At the bottom of the status screen is your henchie's stats. The first number is the 'real' value of that stat. The second number (in parenthesis) is the base value (sans buffs, stat enhancing items, etc.)
"speech" [slot]	will display a gump asking for a keyword, then another for what the henchman should respond with upon hearing that keyword. Each henchman has 5 slots you can use for this.
"title"	allows you to set the title displayed on the henchman's paperdoll. For example, the default is “<name> the Warrior", but you could set it to “<name> the Servant"
"guard"	will instruct the henchie to attack anything that attacks the target of their guarding. Your henchie will not leave five spaces of their target not even to pursue a monster. You may wish to have your henchie follow the object of their guard.
"guard here"	will instruct the henchie to protect an area. Be careful, they do not log out even when you do. They will continue to guard the spot until death but will not leave five spaces of their spot. There are certain commands that will only work in guard mode after giving the "guard here" command such as: "Attention", "Right face", "Left face", "About face", "Present Arms", "Forward march", "Halt", and "Move" The commands are self-explanatory.
"disarm"	will instruct the henchie to put away anything they are holding in their hands. This includes weapons, candles, or fishingpoles. The item will be placed into their backpack for safe keeping.
"rearm"	this command makes the hireling drop what he's holding and try to equip the first weapon/shield that he finds in his pack (weapon first, so that if it's a two-handed weapon he won't be able to equip the shield). The rearm command makes the hireling cycle through the "holdable" items in his pack, this includes candles, fishing poles, etc. He will arm one set after another. If the hireling is engaged in melee, and his opponent is adjacent to him and he's holding a bow (other ranged weapons), he'll drop the bow and look for a melee weapon immediately, no matter how many times you try to get him to rearm the bow.
"heal"	if your hennchie is equipped with bandages and is directly next to the target you wish to heal they will heal them using the bandages unless they are already busy healing someone else or themself.
"heal me"	if your henchie is equipped with bandages (has bandages in their pack) then your henchie will heal you from their personal store of bandages if you are close enough to them. Henchies are lazy and will not walk to you to heal you. They will not attempt to heal you if they are alerady busy healing someone else or themselves.
"mount"	will instruct the henchie to mount a steed. The mount must be owned by the same player that owns the henchie. Please note, henchies are very fast on horseback and even more difficult to "stop." Consider allowing them to run on foot as an option especially since they will be able to keep up with you anyway.
"dismount"	will instruct your henchie to dismount their steed and walk on foot.
"train"	will instruct the henchie to attack a training dummy for the purposes of raising their stats, but this will not raise their skill levels. Only one henchie can use each training dummy at a time. Henchies will continue to train until their stats are capped even if you are offline. The henchie will automatically teleport to your character, wherever they are, once the henchie has capped their stats.
"attack" or "kill"	will instruct the henchie to attack a real target. If you use this command on yourself, the henchie will commence sparring with you.
"stop"	will instruct the henchie to cease their current action and stay put. This command overrides "Follow", "Guard", "Attack", and "Kill." They can be hard of hearing so you may have to repeat the command to "Stop" but they will listen.