McKay Mentoring Honor, Prestige, & Elements of Nobility

Day 10 - Honor, Prestige, and Other Elements of Nobility


Attributes are basic characteristics of your character. Two of these, honor and prestige, are based much on outside perception, i.e. what other people think of your character. Skills, on the other hand, are what your character has learnt and trained.

Honor

Honor symbolizes how courageous the character is. As a troop leader, this mostly depends on the number of battles he fights. Soldiers who avoid battle are usually viewed as less honorable than soldiers who are always there to meet with the enemy. Also, which kind of battles you choose affects your honor. Fighting even when outnumbered raises it more, as long as you are not leading your men on a suicide mission (which may be courageous, but not honorable). honor also determines the number of troops you may lead. You start the game with an honor of 10, representing earlier deeds that brought you into your current position of troop leader. The number of men you can have in your unit depends on your honor. With the starting value, you can command at most 25 men. You may only command half as many Cavalry or Special Forces with the same amount of honor.

Prestige

Important victories, such as the defence or assault of a major city, bring even more prestige. You start the game with a prestige of 1. Some unit types can only be commanded after you reached a certain prestige value. Cavalry requires a prestige of at least 5 and special forces require a prestige of at least 10. In addition, you need certain prestige values to become eligible for titles, command posts or to be elected as a realm ruler. Note that some realms distribute the weekly tax income based on prestige, so that newcomers have to prove themselves (raise their prestige) first before they get a good share of the gold.

Skills

Your character can also learn to do certain things better. Skills improve through using them, but can also be trained at the academy. If you do not use skills for a long time, they will deteriorate.

Skills available are:

• Swordfighting
  
• Jousting
  
• Leadership
  
• Trading
  
• Bureaucracy
  
• Infiltration
  
• Preaching
  

Families

In a medieval world, nobody stood alone. Especially among nobles, family ties and lineage were of utmost importance. Every player in BattleMaster represents one influential family. Players can have multiple characters, up to three at the same time if their information is public (four if they donate), but all of the same family. Characters share a common surname name, this will identify your character as a member of a particular house or claim. Please remember: Trying to circumvent this by registering for the game more than once is cheating and will be punished with the deletion of all accounts of the multi cheater.

Families accumulate fame, monetary wealth, and a reputation. Fame comes automatically when a character (or in some cases characters) of the family do something notable that brings renown to the family name. Wealth however is accumulated by characters sending money home to their family instead of spending it in-realm. Fame and wealth in turn help newly created characters, who can start the game with more prestige and initial gold.

Death

Death of a character in BattleMaster is rare, but it can happen as a result of choices that character makes. Because it is so rare, deaths often provoke strong reactions. Realms remember their fallen comrades, and families may nurse grudges for a long time.

Heroes

A character can choose to become a Hero. Heroes put themselves on the line in battle, and fight alongside their troops. This means, however, that a Hero can be killed in battle. What would cause a serious wound in other troop leaders will kill a Hero.

A heroic death can bring fame to a family, and inspire your realm to seek vengeance. The deaths of well-respected Heroes can result in an outpouring of condolences from all over the island, from friends and foes alike.

Executions

The Judge of a realm can do many nasty things to troop leaders who find themselves in that Judge's prison. If that poor troop leader happens to be banned from that realm, however, he or she may face the ultimate punishment: public execution. Infiltrators and rebel leaders are particularly vulnerable to being banned. Particularly dishonorable people such as rogues and known scoundrels may even be executed without even being banned.

Execution may also bring fame (or infamy) to a family. The execution of a hated traitor or feared assassin can be a cause for celebration in one realm, but become a rallying cry for revenge in another.

Duels

Friendly duels have been done away with and now will result in death to one of the parties.