Azetyth Ideas

024 - Town-specific mourning

So perhaps there was a local war and an individual or family (or sub-set of the town's population) was killed.

Or maybe they were maimed.

Or are still alive but shamble on in a different form - and the town wishes to respect them but treat them as dead.

The idea is here is that the town would have a day or week of mourning.

Maybe the shoppes don't open or have limited hours.

Maybe places only offer limited services.

Or maybe different stores/locations offer mourning-themed offerings to respect those the town is remembering.

The notion here is that this town, unlike any other, would recognize those particular people. And the townsfolk would act accordingly.

025 - Town-specific music

So this one is a little abstract for a few reasons - one of which is I play games with my sound off.

But I like the idea that you could have a small bit of music play when something town-specific occurred.

Maybe you could configure/choose between 1 - 25 sounds - and the selection would play for you when something happened in your town.

Maybe it would play when you arrived home.

Maybe it would play when your chickens were three or fewer days from being dead.

Maybe it would play if you won a competition.

Maybe it would play when one or more members of your party returned from an expedition.

Maybe it would play when you have less than 5% of your health left.

The game has lots of channels for for information - and, as such, certain events can get lost.

This would allow for a chime / melody to be played (or looped, if you're insane) when such an event occurred.

026 - Town-specific tools

This could be the notion that certain tools are better made in certain towns.

Or it could be that certain tools could only be made in certain towns.

Or it could be that certain tools only work in certain towns.

Or it could be that certain tools simply last longer in certain towns.

Regardless, the idea is that your location impacts the available utility or enhancements for a tool.

Maybe Spero blacksmiths are so attentive to farming that fields ploughed in Spero have 5% less wear during usage.

Or Sarmiz carpenters are so effective that furniture made in Sarmiz lasts 5% longer.

Or maybe Azetyth alchemists are so precise that their potions last 5% longer.

I'm not suggesting a massive mis-balance - but perhaps it matters if you made a fishing potion in Camaar and use it near Sarmiz.

This might be too much to code/implement - but it would certainly add flavor to whether something was constructed and where it was used.

Which I suspect might be relevant and add an interesting texture to game play.

027 - Town-specific illness

So the idea here is that maybe there is a particular illness / sickness that is caused by something in the town.

Maybe growing up in Azetyth a person might not get access to a specific herb or vegetable and thus be more susceptible to a particular single or group of diseases.

Maybe growing up in Azetyth makes them LESS likely to get or more immune against a particular poison or sickness.

Or maybe growing up in Azetyth has no impact - but the curative for the diseases is town-specific.

Maybe spending the wrong time of day at the Grail Monastery, or in the sun while in a particular building there, might give you a disease that is only curable in a particular town.

Or maybe the witch can build a general curative - but it has ingredients found close to the town furthest from your home (like your body is inured to the local flora so she has to have something from somewhere else).

It could both potentially upon up a greater in-game need to travel but also might open trade opportunities for those who already travel.

Or if we let each town handle the curing -perhaps each town's hospital might handle a Camaar pox or the local alchemist might handle the Spero blight (maybe the disease only affects plants?).

The point here is that this is another layer that the towns could be distinctive AND could provide a nice scoped means of adding complexity that could row as wide as interest and occasion imply.

028 - Town-specific armor

So maybe this would tie in to citizenship (if you're wearing another town's custom armor, it would have no effect - have to be a citizen with no tax debt).

But perhaps you're a good guy, you have a following, you are helpful - and so you represent your town well.

And you'd like to dress the part.

Doing so might positively impact you: maybe you get a specific tiny bonus to walking. Or fishing.

Doing so might benefit the town; perhaps those wearing a town's armor function as an emissary - and so that town gets a little bit more tax, or things just work better there.

Or maybe it's literally only for in-game benefits: maybe you could learn things faster, get a little bit more stamina daily, or heal a little bit faster.

Or maybe it's negative - and when you try to offer guard duty, you have to stay there an extra hour ... or maybe get paid a little more.

Or maybe you get a free drink when you're in the tavern and wearing your town's colors, as it were.

029 - Town-specific dangers

So this is hinted at in the other ideas - the idea that each town is dangerous for different reasons.

Maybe this should only apply after 100 days - given how several quests only open up then.

Maybe it applies at the beginning of days and you have a tutorial / beginner quest which ties into your town - helping you understand what to look out for.

Or maybe this is just a particular event class that is more likely to occur.

Maybe in one town, if you are on the town-viewing screen without navigating to a specific building, you are more likely to be pick pocketed.

Maybe in another town, tax is higher and there is interest ... or you are sent to the jail and you are obligated to fill in any dug hole.

Maybe eating the free bread from the restaurant has a chance of making you a little sick.

Maybe in certain towns, books are poisonous - if your reading skill is too low, you aren't trained enough to understand how to turn pages without being poisoned.

Maybe ploughing fields takes 41 stamina instead of 40.

It wouldn't be good if only 1 town had an issue - and perhaps each curse should come with a blessing to even it out.

030 - Town-specific dungeons

So maybe each town has a dungeon in the same place and you do the same things to get to it.

Or maybe each town has a dungeon but they're accessible via different methods or different rituals.

Or maybe each town has a dungeon and they're just in different locations.

Or maybe the location is moot - and the dungeon is only revealed after you complete a quest - but it then shows up on the town map.

The dungeon, like every other building, could have levels - the higher the dungeon level, the lower you could travel into it.

It could be manned (top few floors) by NPCs and maybe rats. As you get lower, there could be interesting or weird things.

Maybe the dungeons are all connected - and it's how the witch gets from point A to point B faster.

Maybe some reckless seeker built it years ago and quit - and so dangerous creatures/mobs discovered it.

Maybe you could spend stamina to build it - and it winds up being a town-sponsored work of art that isn't dangerous at all - merely underground.

031 - Town-specific shields

So this is an idea that could easily be a part of a broader thrust to add a global or national threat.

Maybe the region is overrun with something dangerous or just irritating - the undead or simply frogs ... millions of frogs.

And the shields are magical, or require maintenance, or rebuilding, or are perpetually decaying and require ingredients to be gathered.

Or maybe, in addition to manning the gate, someone could opt for ensuring there is coverage for the wall.

Or maybe there is no threat - and manning the shields is code for goofing off.

And if you sign up for it, you're actually pranking NPCs ... or pranking guards ... or pranking pickpockets.

032 - Town-specific relations

A seeker can have relationships with NPCs and also with other seekers.

This is the idea that the things you might spend time doing with someone are impacted by whether you're not at home.

If you're at home - you might do less, or you might do more.

If you're a traveler - maybe you would never think of hitting up a McDonalds because you have them back home; when you are home, you visit once a week.

If you're at home - maybe you'd never think of visiting the library; when you're a traveler, you visit for the architecture, or local legend, or something other than utility.

That's the idea - the notion that you have a different relationship with the people (PC and NPC) and buildings and opportunities at home vs not at home.

An obvious example: perhaps, if you're not in your home city, perhaps you don't have a residence. Instead you either hang out with a friend who has a guest room. Or a hotel.

033 - Town-specific enhancements

This is the idea that when you're travelling - you don't get to enhance things. You're not home.

But our home are all unique. Some homes have a sunroom. Or a balcony.

And if we are game-play centric - perhaps for a little coin you could build a guest room.

Maybe it's just a spare cot in the same room you sleep.

Maybe it's literally just the abstraction of a room (so you don't need an actual UI to interact with it).

Or maybe this is a whole are where you can trick out your home.

Buy and build furniture for your green room. Or your guest house.

And then, if someone is visiting your town, you can offer the guest house for a small fee.

You'd make a little coin and someone without a residence (as they don't live there) could have a mentor, make a friend, etc.

And maybe person could pay for their room and board by offering to teach class, repair a tool, work a plot of land, etc.

034 - Town-specific amenities

I believe, a long time ago, people travelling would need somewhere to stay - and the options were something like:

Sleep outside
Sleep in an inn
Stay with a friend
Stay at a church

Well most people don't have a great deal of free space - and so hotels cropped up - a powerful solution to a problem that used to have a much more human answer.

This has applied to all sorts of things that are offered for people who travel - so much so that even if you live in a city, you might find yourself making use of them.

So maybe each town has specific amenities that are unique to that town - except their target audience isn't the people who live in that town.

Instead their target audience is the traveler.

Maybe there are stores that are only available if you're NOT from a particular town. The fees are higher but the options are nicer.

Maybe there are goods that can only be bought if you're foreign. Like - local merchants offer truly unusual things, or simply remarkable crap, but sell it for premium prices.

Maybe there are convenience stores / bodegas that offer particularly cheap tools - call them traveler-quality single-use tools; they last half as long or something.

If nothing else, I'm suggesting a local shopper is of a different class than a traveling shopper - and their shopping experience/optiions in a town should reflect that.

035 - Town-specific augur

This could just be the witch in a special outfit.

Or it could be someone trained in the ways of the skill.

Or it could  be someone who mans a booth that has a certain sufficiently high-level skill in something related.

The augur could be paid to see the future.

The response could be town-centric in the sense that it informs the seeker when a particular event is going to happen.

Or when an event won't happen (in case they are concerned about something actually coming to pass).

Or if traveling on a particular day, or on a particular path, might be safer (maybe it's safer to travel at 3 AM on a particular road).

Likewise, the response could be town-centric in relationship to other towns. Maybe visiting one town's augur gives you insight into secrets about another town.

Or maybe it could tell you how many times you would have to play a particular game of chance to win - or maybe enhance it by 25%.

036 - Town-specific pickpocket competition

For some reason this game allows you to steal from other players; even has a separate skill level for it.

Let's take it to the next level.

Maybe there's a leaderboard for how much an individual has stolen.

Maybe there's a competition for people to hit every other town and collect a certain amount.

Maybe there's simply an in-town competition where mayor-designated people try pickpocketing people - and to compare their spoils.

Maybe if your skill is high-enough: you can steal books from the library, or bread from someone's kitchen, or do silly things - steal wood from a tree.

The idea here is that the scope of pickpocketing could broaden in capacity, or plausibility, or collaboration.

Maybe you could have a grift skill where two or three person scams could be performed on people.

It might even become the beginning of a dark skill tree - wherein you could be a mafia member in training.

037 - Town-specific celebrities

Traditionally, in games of this nature, there are two sorts of people: PCs and NPCs.

Seekers are clearly PCS. So is the creator: Lord Aro.

And then you have NPCs.

But - generally NPCs are background at best and plot device at worst.

And they often don't have any depth.

This idea is that the NPCs have a rich internal life.

Maybe most of them are farmers and the like.

But there might be some that are fantastic. Or showy. Or particularly smart.

The celebrities of the NPC set.

This idea is that each town would have NPCs that were special in some way.

Maybe it is purely related to a mission / quest.

Maybe it is only game-play related and would not impact any Seekers.

Maybe there is a particular NPC mentioned in 50% of the books in each town - and once a seeker has read those books it impacts the seeker.

Or maybe there are just NPCs that are only visible or available for interaction after a Seeker has been around long enough.

Or maybe the only celebrity NPC is Udgar.

038 - Town-specific newsletter

So a newsletter is non-trivial.

Part of it is vision - having a plan for what the newsletter ought to include to build a corporate whole over time.

Part of it is content - a newsletter with just one sentence is deeply lackluster.

Part of it is recognition - giving certain seekers special consideration or accolade can give a seeker a reason to read and share the newsletter.

And part of it is consistency - having a newsletter regularly (once a month / once a week, more frequently?) can give you something to do while you're waiting for reset.

You could even add things - puzzles (crosswords), editorials, and the like.

Maybe it could be a place for contributions for town fan fiction.

Ultimately, of the suggestions so far, this one would require far more work for the mayor.

The upside is that it doesn't necessarily require a coding change - someone could quite literally make it right now.

If there were in-game provision, it could have the veneer of professionalism - regardless, having a town-specific newsletter could potentially be big.

039 - Town-specific charities

Maybe one town has an eye out for the downtrodden.

Maybe another town cares more about the sick than other towns.

And maybe a third town wants all of their seekers to be minimally leveled-up in a particular combat skill.

The here is that there would be town-subsidized support for specific things.

These would function as town charities.

And each town could have one or more that the collected taxes could go towards.

Maybe those with a level 40 chicken handling are near and dear to the major.

Maybe you get a special pair of bracers that you can't sell, that you can't craft, and is only given to those that help the town in a particular way or with a specific task.

Likewise, maybe there's a town money tree or variant that someone works for 20 days.

Once they've worked it for 20 days (maybe even 20 consecutive days) they gain access to the money tree - shake it once every three days for 50 free bronze and the timer resets to 0 if they miss a day.

The daily login bonus is a good example - but it's not town-specific.

040 - Town-specific time-zones

I have no illusion this one will be picked up.

I am, however, including it for completeness.

This is the idea that time is slightly different for each town.

Maybe they're each off by 15 minutes.

Maybe they're off by an hour each.

And maybe it's parts of an hour - like the time-zones of Australia.

It would be interesting if there were feats one could perform, and one of them was "time travel".

And to do it, you'd have to leave a town on one day and arrive in another town the previous day - which could/would be possible with time-zones.

It also might add an interesting level of confusion for planning when you're in one town and trying to relate to another.

041 - Town-specific water flavor

This might presume every town has their own water supply.

But we won't discuss where it comes from.

Instead this is a mention for flavoring.

Maybe a town whose water supply is fed tasteless water.

Maybe a town whose water runs through or under a particular flower adds a light lemony flavor.

Maybe a town whose water is gathered from rain water tastes more like clouds or sunshine or something.

Regardless as to why - this is the notion that the way each town gathers it's water for public consumption would impact the flavor.

And, of course, people would generally prefer water from their own town.

042 - Town-specific classes

In a traditional game of mock-medieval context there are usually classes.

Warrior, rogue, magician, healer, and lots of variations of the four.

In 'The Grail Lords" we don't have classes - but they are kind of implied.

The idea here is that each town would have its own implied classes - inferred from associated skills available only in each town.

Maybe you secretly wanted to be a bard? Azetyth might have someone teaching singing lessons, or instructions in heraldry, or guidance in story telling.

Maybe you were harboring a notion of being a rogue? Azetyth might offer someone who could make you better at backstabbing, hiding in shadows, or making poisons.

Maybe you wanted to be a druid? Azetyth might have a book in its library on how to shape-change into animals, talk to plants, or chamoflage in a tree.

Being able to learn specific secondary or tertiary skills in different towns would definitely make each town more distinctive.

043 - Town-specific healing

So you got sick - where do you go?

The idea here is we broaden what it means to be hurt and to heal.

Right now all health is reduced to a number.

Maybe you were walking outside of town and the creature that hurt you damaged your shoulder.

Or you accidentally found a pit and almost broke your legs.

Or maybe you walked through a forest and vines lacerated your arm.

The damage is regional - and so would the healing.

So maybe Azetyth specializes in healing just the skin (the single largest organ in the human body).

Or maybe the healers of Azetyth focus on the arms. Or the head.

This could be implemented as "general healing" at 5% and part-specific healing at 10%.

That is - everyone still has the same ability to cause healing, but different towns let certain parts heal faster.

It could even be a sub-skill - maybe you are an amazing healer ... but have an intuitive sense of bones or hands.

And so you personally can help heal damage done to those parts faster.

044 - Town-specific champion

This is the idea that the town would designate their champion.

Maybe it would be on rotation - like a town-appointed position.

Maybe it would be one of the obligations of the mayor.

Or maybe the champion is an arrogant NPC.

When the champion is present (NPC would be certain times of the day, PC when they're logged in and in the town), things would happen.

Maybe better luck would be active.

Maybe things would fail more often.

Maybe you'd take less bravery to enter the forest.

Or maybe you'd be socially obligated to buy them a beer in the tavern.

045 - Town-specific humour

Different regions of a country can often have a different sense of humor.

Maybe one can have deeply ribald humor.

Another can be terribly high brow.

The idea here is that each town would have its own class of humor.

Maybe one town likes cow jokes.

And another likes witch jokes.

And another likes water jokes.

This could just be a marquee on the town center page.

This could be a standing contest for submitted jokes to the mayor.

If they are on-brand and funny that person gets a certain amount of bronze.

This could be part of a riddle "Which town prefers jokes dealing with almonds" for example, asked by a random mob. Answer correctly to get a random drop.

046 - Town-specific tools

Maybe the NPC that is in charge of the blacksmith in each town simply favors certain tools.

Maybe the materials each town has access to result in superior tooling in specific domains.

If you make a sword in Azetyth - maybe it's simply better: has more endurance.

This might be companioned with labeling - normal tools don't have a history but a tool made in such a town could have a randomly-generated back-story.

Example: you mouse over an "Azetyth-crafted Spiked Club"

Maybe it has a quote from the city.

Maybe it has a little bit of an enchantment or a boost to an associated skill.

Maybe it has an unusual positive benefit (example:Azetyth-crafted gloves give +1 to unarmed fighting).