Chapter 6.8 Runic Creations - Banners, Flags, and Signs

Runic Creations
Runic creations use magical logos and colors as symbolic markers across the world. They create visual identity and functional grouping across buildings, crafts, and communities. Runic creations use logos and colors for signage for many things, such as:

• Mark buildings and signs

  • Route markers, store brands, inns, restaurants and warehouses

• Use with clothing crafting

  • Depict uniforms for guilds, different groups in utility, military, or faith factions

• Use on construction

  • Brand furniture, tool, and weapon craftsmanship

• Use for pirate and faction flags

  • Required for piracy skill activation

• Grouping members and resources

  • Link members and controls across the land without explicitly using trade routes, or firesource links

Player Grouping Examples
A military faction or thieves’ guild may operate across scattered settlements without trade route connections. By uniting under a single banner, these players are treated as one entity, regardless of their physical separation. Nested banners still count toward the overarching group, but may be organized under different sub-factions with their own objectives.

Individual Item Examples
If a runic creation is not set as a group's banner, they can be used as branding. Players can own and use items branded by a runic crafter. While these items aren't counted towards a specific world challenge, it adds to the brander's legacy. Brands can be marked as items of importance and contraband in settlement and property law. A player can only add a brand to an item they created.

Banner Usage and Management
Leaders of groups can change their banners at any time. Groups can manage their groups at their settlement, property, building hub, and core menu. Players can set a parent banner (the banner they are under) as well as their current assigned banner. Parent banner groups need to accept the link. Parent and lower banners can split their groups at any time, and players may respond with conflict or acceptance depending on the context of the link break. Perhaps a general or guild leader will not allow one of their branches to defect without repercussion. Or perhaps they are agreeing to reorganize, or create new branches of independence.

Banner Craftsmanship
Players unlock new runic symbols (logos and shapes) and creative modifications (frames and masks) by gaining abilities, skills, and other experiences. You will only get notifications of unlocked assets for banner creation after creating a banner workstation. You can toggle the notification of new stickers unlocked on or off at any runic workstation, or your core menu. Banner creators gain legacy from their creations. However, you do not gain legacy from using your own creations. Legacy is only awarded when a banner is used by other players, NPCs, monsters, animals, or within world culture events.

Creating Runic Tools and Assets
Players can unlock the ability to create a runic workstation after creating a certain amount of crafts. There are different phases of a runic workstation. They feature a glowing sigil on the tabletop surface that indicates the current phase of the project. The sigil is linked to players uniquely based on what phase of creation they are in. Allowed players can use pre-created workstations, but the sigil will appear different depending on the user’s progress.

Creation Phases - Different Sigils

• Not Started

  • There is no saved creation

• Creation Phase

  • A runic creation is in progress

  • Players can save up to 3 drafts at a time

• Creation Is in a Review State

  • Player has submitted creation for review

  • Player is waiting to get an accepted notification

  • If denied the workstation returns to a creation phase

• Creation is Accepted

  • Players can use the banner on crafts

  • If future review is needed for abuse reports, it may return to a review state

Limitations

• Each players can only have 1 active banner

  • Players can sell and claim else's banner, but they will be notified if the banner is already is use

    • This counts as owning it, but it allows the original creator to create another

    • The buyer of a banner will need to delete or resell the banner to get another/create their own

    • This allows a player to be a banner crafter

  • For faction umbrellas, players need to use other player's designs

• A player can use banners as a texture for items, similar to hides

  • Owning a runic textured item is not the same as claiming a banner

  • Runic crafters can only add their texture on crafts they have created, they cannot add them to existing crafts

• Runic crafters gain runic creation legacy from those who use their banner

Runic Design Rejection Reasons

• References to real world groups

• Creations too close to currently existing creations

• Creations too close to previous old designs, that have legacy history

  • Even if created by the same player

(If a banner has 0 legacy upon creator death, it is automatically removed from the similarity pool used by admins and moderators during review.)

A Redacted Creation
If a player deletes their creation, or moderation has redacted it, the runic creations worn and used by a group, will revert to the item's neutral colors/texture (selected before submission). All links and mechanics are still in place, but without the custom runic imagery. Leadership of groups affected can apply a new banner, and the new runic symbols will update on all membership items. Canonically, all logos, brands, and banners are all based on magic runic sigils that can appear and disappear based on the whims of the gods (but are admins in real life). Craftsman can also redact their creation if groups using it are no longer in alignment with their vision of use for it, or perhaps they wish to edit the design.

Stolen Banners
While mostly aesthetic, banners and logos also link spirit values under that asset, affecting world event progression and culture-based systems. (Threats and world events don't not count assets and players with stolen banners.) Stolen is defined as any use of a banner-tagged item, used by a player who is not a valid member of that banner’s affiliated group. Stolen banners used for disfavor rituals, and will flag original banner's leaders via their hub that a banner was stolen. If they can witness a purpetrator, they can set a war on a claim if not already activated by the stealer.

• Casual trophy-keeping, collection, purchasing or owning objects with banners without disfavor activation will not trigger war flags

• Crimes committed outside banner membership automatically flag a bounty at that banner’s leadership hub

• Commiting crimes within membership of a banner still needs the discovery using riftmist (crime trails)

Distribution Crime within Groups
Branding is tracked at the item level. Selling or gifting branded items is not a crime by default, unless a local hub or property explicitly flags it as restricted. In those cases, branded items fall under contraband rules and generate riftmist (crime trails) when transferred illegally. Possession and contraband laws are only crimes within group owned territories, just like all laws. Distributing and possession is not part of the culture-based system, and will be handled by crime discovery, not automated bounties. (Crime is covered in detail in the crime chapter.)

Creator Character Death
When a craftsman dies, banners becomes a relic, (except in cases of needed moderation,) but all runic creations follow regular rules of decay. The creator will retain legacy points by valid users of a created banner. This number includes solo users, as well as groups.

Using Branded Written Crafts
The instructions themselves carry the brand, but not the final construction or result. A runic crafter gains legacy when others use their branded written crafts, but brand is not automatically applied to the outcomes of those actions.

Some Examples

• Construction Blueprints

  • The written craft has player A's brand, used by player B

    • Player A gets legacy for branded craft being used for learning

    • One-time legacy reward

• Player B creates a group with a different banner (Player C) using the construction created

  • Player C gets the legacy for creating the faction banner the building runs under

  • On-going legacy reward

  • Player A doesn't gain any new legacy