My Players Guide as a Mentor for (Reading) and (Carlisle)

***Need more Updates***


First, go to the Town screen, click "Town Hall" and find out who your mayor and town mentor are. Then try to get in touch with those people by mail. Or else, go to your town's Taverns and ask some of the people there. They will be able to help you a lot better than I can.

Overview
So, you just started out, you’ve got two scrumptious looking pieces of bread in your hands and 50 pounds in your pocket. You’re real happy and things are looking bright for you. The first thing you’re going to do is… well… you really have no idea what to do, do you?

What is Renaissance Kingdoms
Renaissance Kingdoms is two things. It is a very nice interface that is constantly being tweaked and updated in new and interesting ways. It is also a highly involved and very welcoming community of people who like to Role Play as people from the middle ages.

I’m imagining that what attracted you to this game was its Medieval setting. You probably thought, “Wow! A game set in the middle ages! I have many vivid fantasies of being a knight in shining armor/ a king/ a princess/ a busty wench!” As you read through this guide, please know it takes 5 minutes a day to do all that is essential to proceed through a day in the game. “Where’s the grind!?” you’ll ask. Well, here’s the thing. RK has no “grind”, a set of activities you must do repeatedly. (I like to think that the developers decided to skip the whole “Go press click on something for two and a half hours option to jump right to the role-play) Since the action is more or less turn-based, you don’t have to stay online all day long to make sure that that attack from the bad guys isn’t going to bear down upon your precious hamlet. So why do I spend 5+ hours a day that I should be working playing this game? Because of the community and the chance to daydream an adventure. That is what keeps most people in this game.

What kind of RP is there in this game? It’s not weird stuff like “Verily, I say unto thee, good madam, forsooth I have slain the dragon and saved the kingdom!” (I had to look up “forsooth,”). While certainly no one will be upset at you if talking and writing this way is your thing, most people write and RP speak like you would read in any modern fiction novel. While many people take great strides to ensure that they are factually accurate for the 1400’s, some people don’t find out until after the fact.

Our Role Play covers topics from weddings and parties to adventures and politics to dragons and magic (for those daring enough to enter the Weald (which turns out to mean “the forest” for the un-indoctrinated). *Please note that fantasy RP is confined to the Weald. RP writing styles are usually very intricate, but don’t be frightened, I'm not as good as you think I am in writing either, but I try.

Another fun place to visit is the local taverns. You don’t have to drink, but they are great places to chat and meet people. Don’t feel discouraged by crowded taverns as people are usually open and inviting. At any rate, you will never interrupt a conversation, seriously.

Eating
Just like in real life you have to eat every day. You must eat 2 hunger points of food per day (You’re REALLY hungry!). Some foods have special effects, here’s a list of the hunger points, skill updates, and typical market price:

Bread = 2 hunger points = 6-6.50 pounds
Corn = 1 hunger point each = 3-4 pounds
Fish = 2 hunger points = +2 intelligence
Milk = 1 hunger point = +1 intelligence
Meat = 2 hunger points = +2 intelligence
Vegetables/Fruit = 1 hunger point = +1 Charisma

*Note: there is an alternative, not recommended eating method that involves eating 1 hunger point food every other day (e.g. even days eat 1 HP, odd days eat 2 HP). This is supposed to save you money without lowering your stat points, but in reality and in RP it never seems to be worth it (but can be useful if you are in a pinch).


What do I do if I can’t eat? If you cannot eat, you should go into retreat, you can get there by going to the church. If you are playing on a day, and will be gone tomorrow, you can select to go into retreat that day, and it will take effect the next. Be careful, as you must wait until 24 hours after you went into retreat (at reset) to come back out of retreat.

Clothes
You may have noticed that you are wearing rags. That’s alright, don’t worry about that until you are level 1. You do not need to be wearing clothes until you level to level 2, so don’t worry about buying them now. Your goal now is as follows:

Leveling to level 1
To reach level one, you need to save 90 pounds and achieve 5 reputation points. At a max 3 of those points can be from other people (give a town mentor a ring, we have 2 reputation points to give to people per week). The other two you must gain from the church. I am also going to require you to save 30 more pounds for when you level up (save 120 pounds) as they take all 90 of your pounds to give you a field, and you will need to feed yourself in the future. Working at the church gives you 5 pounds, but you earn trust points. At level 1 you earn a field. When you hire someone to your field, you also gain trust points. Once you have a farm, your earning power will increase. Mostly, I would recommend you view reaching level 1 as a way to gain more privileges in RK. At level 1 you can travel and visit new and far-away towns. You can also vote for our beautiful mayor.


Working
How will you gain 120 pounds? You should work, obviously. :-P Most jobs can be found on the Job Market, it can be reached through the Town Hall at the Job Offers tab. Until you gain stat points (something else you should do only after you level up), you can only work jobs that require 0 stat points. These jobs will have wages from 15-17 pounds (depending on how generous the employer is). Here’s something to take note of:
You should only take jobs that offer 15 pounds or more. Why? Unless you worked out an agreement with an employer to pay off some kind of debt, you can make more money working in your town’s mine; also, in some towns there are minimum wage laws which prevent someone from posting jobs below a certain amount (be sure to check whether or not your town has such a law). This brings me to another point, another job opportunity for you is to work for the county. This can be accessed through choosing the Out of Town screen and the Works tab. Click on a mine to work there, mines have a set maximum population they can accumulate per day. If you are completely unable to work a mine, you may work for the inter-county minimum wage (IMW). This wage will be EXTREMELY low, but is usually more than you get working for the church, it will enable you to buy at least 1 bread the next day. Remember, the early bird gets the worm.

If you are really hurting you could fish, pick fruit, or cut wood; although most of these things require stat points to be of any real use.

When you take a job, your character will go wherever they need to do that job. Don’t worry about finding some place in particular. It’s like I told you in the introduction, there really is no grind, just role play. :-P

What should I purchase?
Hopefully you haven’t neglected my advice and purchased something yet, because I’m going to give you a quick rundown of what kind for things to purchase. Until you reach level one you shouldn’t purchase anything but bread or corn, that’s it. But you want to know about the other items anyway, you won’t need any of them until you reach level 1 (some you will never need).

A Staff (or stave)
You won’t need this until you go traveling (or join an army) and you can’t travel until you reach level 1, you also don’t need a weapon to guard your town (oddly). Buy a staff when you reach level one if you plan on traveling: Staves and Swords have not been shown to provide a bonus in non-army fights. I recommend having and equipping a stave because if you get robbed on the road, you can sell the stave for money to buy food.

The Knife
WHAT COULD BE COOLER THAN BEING A ROGUE WITH A KNIFE!!!!! Don’t buy this, this isn’t a weapon at all. This is used for butchering cows, sheep and pigs.

An Axe
Do NOT ever, ever, ever buy this* it is perfectly useless to players. It is not a weapon (*yet) and you cannot equip it for use in the forest (*yet), so the town hall is usually the only place that has any need to buy axes. They also do not look to kindly on people snatching up their axes and trying to sell them off to other towns/for a higher price. *These are functions that are spelled out in certain rules sections, but are not coded. So far there is no evidence that they will ever be coded into the game.

Stat Foods, fruits, veggies, fish, meat, milk
You don’t need to increase your stats at level 0, save your money to level up. However, stats are important at level 1.

Clothes
Unless you can’t stand the thought of your character freezing, it is best to just rush to level 1 so you can raise a bunch of money to buy cooler clothes.

Boats and Oars
Carpenters make a boat out of a hull and two oars. The biggest reason you see oars on the market is because you get them as random events.

Rules
There are so many rules! How will you ever keep them straight and know whether or not you’ve broken a rule! To be simple, there are very few things you can get in trouble for at level 0. Here are some rules though:

Conduct: First and foremost. Don’t bully people and, more or less, follow what would be acceptable conversational rules in public. Breaking these types of rules do entail in game jail or fees, but unlike RP crimes, you will seem to be a worse person for being a bully. For more on this topic (and forum rules), refer to Game Rules to RK.

Next, some in-game rules. I’m not telling you to not have fun, or RP, or play a bad guy, you just asked how to stay out of trouble, so I’m telling you.

Rebellion: Try not to start a rebellion unless you have some really good reason; it’s a great way to get in trouble. ;-)
Slander: Some towns have anti-slander laws, so watch out, don’t lie (This is really more like the “conduct” rules).
Market Manipulation: The easiest crime for you to break at level 0 is “Fraud”, that is, buying something from the market and selling it back for more than it was worth. For instance, if I buy one bread for 6 pounds, and then sell it back for 6.15, that would be illegal almost everywhere. You would have to wait a couple weeks to resell the item, or simply sell it back for the same price or less than you bought it. This is what you can do with that axe you accidentally bought.
Monopolies: Also illegal is buying all of something (making a monopoly) even if you are going to sell it all back a week later, this is usually frowned upon (remember this is RK, not Monopoly :-P).
Hoarding: Another easy law to break is an anti-hording law. When there is a shortage of something, occasionally the town hall will step in and tell you how much (max) you can buy of it. This is posted in the town hall or as an announcement on the forums. For most of the things you need, you will not have to worry about hording laws. If you do break this law, you will likely receive a message from the mayor, respond back ASAP and move to fix the problem.

When you reach level 1 new and exciting opportunities to break the law will come up.

Slavery: First, MOST towns have minimum wage laws, this is usually somewhere around the wage for mining, but I suggest you find it for each town. (Exeter has a minimum wage of 14 pounds as determined by the county). Better still, check the job market and post your jobs for the same prices. It typically helps to go higher than the mine wage of 15 pounds
Robbery: Second, you can now travel and, thus, rob innocent travelers. As this is an Aristotelian Church friendly mentoring guide, I will not explain to you how to rob people.

My Mood
So, you’ve worked a few days in the mines and your mood has gone from “Very Happy” to “Very Miserable”. This will not affect your game-play at all, you just won’t receive random free gifts from your chosen deity. The BEST, way to improve your mood is to visit the church. The church times are posted at the church (at the bottom of the first tab) and the game time corresponds to the time displayed on the church clock (under “Church information” tab) which has been 2 hours off in the past. Make whichever mass is easiest for you.
Another way to increase your mood is to hang out with your friends in the pub. Even if you don’t drink, I’ve noticed my mood increasing by simply being there.
One way to waste a lot of money is to drink alone. Drinks are always more effective when offered to a crowd, but there is less of a chance you will improve your mood by drinking alone. Also, the taverns are a great way to meet people, don’t be shy!

The Forums
So, you’ve finally warmed up to RK, and you’re willing to dip your toes past the FAQ section. Maybe you’ll even post something to your town or county forum. Go for it, just follow the rules of RP. If you are writing a lengthy response, type it up in a notepad or word processor, as text typed in fields has a tendency of disappearing just when you spent 30 minutes typing up the description of your fantastic wedding.

Level 1
I will include a brief level 1 guide in here, as you may spend as little as a week in level 0. This will not give you the time to achieve the RP experience to intrinsically know what to do when you level up, so here are some details (level 2 should be easier on you, when you get there).

You will be able to receive a farm or a ranch or be vagrant.

I would suggest talking to your mayor or town mentor first to decide what kind of fields are most in demand by your town. This will ensure that you have the best possible ability to sell your goods on the market (as opposed to overrunning it with something).

PS: You can only have up to 2 fields, unless you are in a capital (Which Exeter is), then you can only have 1.

Farms
Farms grow produce like corn, vegetables, and wheat. Farms are really great for people who are often in retreat (and away from their own computers) as farms do not starve and die. You will however, need to care for them. For farms, the quality of your product determines how much you will make off of it. I will explain here: All farms start out at 50% quality. You can increase that quality by 1% for every 4 stat points someone working that farm up to 5% per working session. For your first field, in order to gain more product, you need to meet that percentage. (This gets complicated, will explain in each section). For your second farm (or ranch), the minimum yield is reduced to 75% of what it was originally (something like 37.5%) (stats are added normally). Some tasks will require you to have an item on your property. This is not in your inventory, but in your home’s property. You can transfer these items from your inventory to your home property.

Vegetables
I loved growing vegetables. They were very easy to grow. All you needed to do was harvest them every 5 days. No need to plant, sow, or otherwise worry about this field. The yield is real low, though. 100% yield would be 8 veggies. At the base 50%, they give you 4. You can increase your yield to 55%, but you don’t get 5 veggies, so it’s senseless to hire high stats to work your field. Instead, this is a job you can offer to level 0 players for reasonable wages. One note, however, vegetable farms are not useful in towns that have an orchard, (such as Exeter) as fruit provides the same benefits that vegetables do.

Corn
Corn is also a good field. It is a seven day cycle which should be easy to remember (I need a calendar). On the first day of the cycle, you need to sow your field. To have this work, you need to have at least one bag of corn in your home inventory. Only one bag will be sown. Corn grows five days, on the seventh day of the cycle, you will have to harvest your corn, nothing special is required for this. At 100% yield, you would gain 40 ears of corn. Since there are two working days in this cycle you can raise your percentage to 60%, which gains you 22 ears of corn. You may not change the culture of your second field to pigs if your first field is corn. This is considered too advantageous to you. You may however buy a pig field from a player.

Wheat
Wheat has a ten day cycle.. On the first day of the cycle, you need to plough your field (this requires nothing extra). On the second day you need to sow your field. To have this work, you need to have at least one bag of wheat in your home inventory. Only one bag will be sown. Wheat grows seven days, on the tenth day of the cycle, you will have to harvest your wheat, nothing special is required for this. At 100% yield, you would gain 16 bags of wheat. Since there are three working days in this cycle you can raise your percentage to 65%, which gains you 10 bags of wheat.

Ranching
Ranching tends to live animals such as pigs, cow, and sheep. OK, not trying to discourage you, or anything, but ranching is a high-risk venture. If you cannot care for your animals every day please consider farms (it is also for this reason that ranching can be a profitable venture, as you typically have less competition). Unlike you, animals are typically not fed while you are in retreat, as this would cost the county money (ranch keeping is not enabled in most towns).

Pigs
Pigs must be purchased from the sheriff. You can have as many as four pigs in your ranch at a time. Pigs are fed as a group and eat either grass (free) or corn (you buy). One note: you may not take corn as a second field if your first field is a pig field. This is considered too advantageous to you. You may however buy a corn field from a player.

Eating, predictably, makes your pig fatter. Eating grass, they have a 5/18 chance of increasing size. Eating corn doubles this chance (5/9) to increase size. This is why it often seems that, although you fed all your pigs, only one is ever growing (You’ve just got one lucky pig and 3 unlucky ones). Pigs can die of old age or starvation.

To slaughter your pig (and thus obtain the tasty half-hundredweights) you will need to have a knife on your property at the time of the event’s occurrence. Knives have a high breaking frequency (25%) so you should have multiple knives on your home property especially if you are going to be hiring from out of town. Skill provides no benefit, level 0’s are perfect for this task.

Lastly, here is a recommended strategy for pig ranching:

* Day 0: buy first pig
* Day 1: feed your pig, and then buy second pig
* Day 2: feed your pigs, and then buy third pig
* Day 3: feed your pigs, and then buy fourth pig
* Day 4-9: feed your pigs
* Day 10: feed your pigs and slaughter the first pig
* Day 11: feed your pigs, slaughter the second pig and then buy a new “first” pig
* Day 12: feed your pigs, slaughter the third pig and then buy a new “second” pig
* Day 13: feed your pigs, slaughter the fourth pig and then buy a new “third” pig
* Day 14: feed your pigs, and then buy a new “fourth” pig
* Day 15 - Day 4.

(Copied from RK wiki)

Cows
Cows must be bought from a sheriff. You can only have four at a time. They are more expensive than pigs, but provide milk in addition to hundredweights (HW).

Milking your cows requires you to have a bucket on the property (not an unhooped bucket, btw). Intelligence matters in milking, it will increase your yield of milk. Please note, milk provides similar status enhancements to fish, if you live in a fishing town, invest in a ranch with caution.

You can also slaughter cows to achieve the tasty HW’s. Cows, like pigs, die of old age and starvation and must be fed daily to survive. They cannot be fed corn, so the growing trend is 5/18 chance of increase. This is also why it may seem only one cow ever grows. A knife is required on your home property to butcher a cow. Skill is not a factor in this job, so level 0’s can do it.

Here’s a handy schedule:

1.day => Purchase of 4 cows for 180-200 pounds
2.day =>
3.day =>
4.day => hire a worker to milk your cows for 19-25 pounds
5.day => (+8 bottles of milk)
6.day =>
7.day => hire a worker to milk your cows for 19-25 pounds
8.day => (+8 bottles of milk)
9.day =>
10.day => hire a worker to milk your cows for 19-25 pounds
11.day => (+8 bottles of milk)
12.day =>
13.day => hire a worker to milk your cows for 19-25 pounds
14.day => hire a worker to slaughter a cow for 16-18 pounds (+8 bottles of milk)
15.day => hire a worker to slaughter a cow for 16-18 pounds (+3 hc)
16.day => hire a worker to slaughter a cow for 16-18 pounds (+3 hc)
17.day => hire a worker to slaughter a cow for 16-18 pounds (+3 hc)
18.day => Purchase of 4 cows (+3 hc)

(Copied from RK wiki)

Sheep
Sheep can be bought from the sheriff. You can have 4 sheep at a time. Unlike cows and pigs, sheep do not give food, but they give items that are useful to tailors.

Sheep eat grass, and must be fed daily. They cannot eat corn so the growing trend is 5/18 chance of increase. Sheep also die of old age or starvation. Sheep can be sheared (don’t know what this requires). Sheep can also be slaughtered for hides. To do this, a knife is required to be on the property.

Here’s a schedule for sheep:

Day 1: buy all sheep
Day 3: shear (get 6 balls of wool)
Day 6: shear (get 6 balls of wool)
Day 9: shear (get 6 balls of wool)
Day 12: shear (get 2 or 3 balls of wool)
Day 13: slaughter a surviving sheep (if there are any left. (an average of 3 hides))

(Copied from RK wiki)

Vagrancy
You can be a vagrant (and not have a field). There is nothing tying you down! Unfortunately, you’ve missed out on a free 310 gold by not getting a field. Had you gotten a field for 90 pounds, you could have sold it for 400 pounds and gained 310 pounds. If you miss-clicked “vagrant” sorry to tell you, you’re stuck. You might as well play the role. There’s a certain degree of mysteriousness in being a vagrant. Woo strangers, scare your enemies. Just remember, if you want to get rich, this probably is not a good choice. Also please note, that selling your field (even if you started as vagrant, bought a field, and sold it) will label you as “<your> has no fields” as opposed to “<your> is vagrant”. Sorry, even virtual life can be unfair ;-).

Assorted FAQ
Most FAQ answers can be found above, but I’ll put down some common items that bring up concern on the FAQ here:

How can I direct trade with someone else?
In short, you can’t. You can, however, put something on the market hoping that the right person will buy it. If you do this, be sure to use a price that no one else is using. Market trades are based on charisma, and you want to be sure that your trading partner won’t buy the wrong person’s product. You can trade items in one of two ways:
1) Sell them very inexpensively. This is the quickest and riskiest way. To do this requires a lot of coordination (and possibly telling people not to buy that product).
2) Coordinate market buys. Here’s how it goes, sell something for a whole lot more than it’s worth (more than someone would buy it for) and have your trade partner sell you something that you either need or do not need to cover the difference (if you don’t need it, they can buy it back for less of a cost).

How do grants work?
In a similar manner to the above, will expand later.

What is an oar for?
You just got a boat, do you need an oar? No. Oars are used by carpenters along with a hull to build a boat. You do not need them, do not buy them either (unless you are a carpenter).


FOR MORE INFORMATION

Here's A Hitchhikers Guide to the Kingdom: HERE

Closing
With nothing further to say, I wish you luck in this game and, most importantly, take your time, enjoy the people, and have fun.

***Updated Feb 3, 1458(2010)***

When I was 17, I went on a month-long backpacking trip with NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) in Wyoming and Montana. The scenery was impressive enough for a punk kid from Connecticut but what really impressed me (though I resisted ‘birding’ a bit on the trip – even though a couple of the instructors knew their birds – as I was more just psyched about being out of suburbia as opposed to putting names on things) was a pair of adult Red-tailed Hawks soaring/displaying to one another over some recently burned forest near Yellowstone NP. They were really impressive and I was struck with envy – how cool would it be to fly like that! It took a few months to sink in but soon enough I started noticing hawks back home in CT and then I started devouring everything I could about birds of prey and it went from there
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