Merchants are of any class and the entire subcabal is based on gathering wealth. They have the ability to secure loans, invest in cities, have items sold by commission at the bazaar behind the Inn etc.

Powers:

51 Grant Loan % to <target> : the % is the interest on the loan automatically deducted from the targets bank account each Theran month. If they default on three payments they automatically become wanted. The target must agree to the loan ie enter yes when asked.

-- Tribs will get the power to 'summon Herald representative' who will collect all the criminals things to take back to the Merchant who the debt is owed to.

51 Commission Item: Mythic Artisans will be present in the bazaar and when a Merchant brings a selection of things to them to have an item crafted they will charge a price to first assess the potential and then a charge for the crafting process and finally the bill to pick it up.

43 Summon Companions: basic fighter types with no specialization. Level depending on how much gold a player has in the bank(ie the reknown of the Merchant). Bank account is automatically deducted the correct amount to pay the companions.


34 Enhanced bartering: Merchants get better prices for exchanging things as well as better prices for selling gems, jewelry, treasures etc.

Mythic Artisans could be another subcabal within Herald.

The Heralds aren't merchants, one could be, but as a whole they're not. I wouldn't like to see them turn that route either. If they need a change, I'd say it was just simple tweaks their powers. Let the items they decorate keep their functions if it's an rp object (i.e. pipes, dice, etc.) Let food and drinks they dish out give +1 morale, nothing big but people would like to see the "feel good after eating a fine meal" echo. Make toss also cast power word kill on the target, nothing big, just like 2/3 chance of landing or something.

Toss = PWK.
Now there is a solution to keeping peace in the Inn.
Why not just have a place where we toss them were they get thrown into instant death or some insane aggro mob. I know. We toss them to Tiamat. I do hope that last suggestion was just for fun.

I do like the idea of + morale affects and such that they could give.
I pour you a drink, you take a sip, it gives +2 morale for maybe 2 hours with every sip. You get a specialty one from a bartender it's say +5 instead.

You could watch a song/dance performance and get the inspiration affect for 12 hours or a day. Those I think would be good perks for the Inn, encourage people to visit often an give heralds an incentive to be a bit more proactive. Just set it as the performer so when you say finsih a song, the performer can use the ability to do an area affect. Maybe taletell could give a small boost to wis like +1. Things that are relatively minor so as to not really upset any kind of game balance. I could see a group of fortress guys stopping by for a drink, a meal and a show to get a little boost before say going on a raid.

The little tweaks are not so big as to be abusable, but it would be a fun little Rp addition.

Yeah, the last one was just a little jest. The little affects would help more with RP than anything else, and the Heralds are an RP cabal, so I think it would be fitting. There have been a few different Herald revamp ideas, but like you said in the other post, Heralds shouldn't get bonuses to exploring or something just because they're Heralds. Tweaking their powers gently like this would flesh out what the Heralds already are, instead of taking them in a new direction.

All the Herald talents could use a little sprucing up, but decorate needs it most. It should be more like sew, where it changes the look of an item, but not the function. As it stands now, decorate essentially takes a non-useful object and makes it completely useless. The only thing I could do with the doll Braell gave me was socials. I couldn't even hold it(still loved it Braell). The objects you can decorate aren't very useful anyway, so you wouldn't be able to hide powerful objects as mundane. I would love to see thieves rolling decorated dice with ruby studs in them and that sort of thing.

I am glad you liked it! If anyone else wants a toy just let me know, I take special requests! haha.

Seriously why the fuss over loans? That most definitely would be part of the world of Thera.

Item creation could have mandatory rot death or possibly an option for two-death rots(not sure how feasible this would be for coding). Or if the items were tied to a player's pfile they could be set for rot-death with the pfile delete.

Variety, economy, story = Big time reasons for putting this into CF. Suddenly economy has meaning and newbies have access to new stuff.

As well you could always have many ways to role play ways to pay back the loan:
1) sworn fealty.
2) your soul.
3) your firstborn.
4) your voice.
5) strength.
6) constitution.
etc

I just think heralds are fine. Most rp away all the time and despite some players wanting to give them more powers, I find most who are playing them are quite happy as they are. I play one, I can explore fine as it is, I don't really think I deserve bonuses to that because I'm a herald. People who roll a herald know what it is they are getting into, and I'm happy to see quite a few people joining now, much better than it was a few weeks ago in terms of numbers.

Loans would be like the bounty system. If it would exist, it would never really be used. Coins are largely valueless to players except maybe extremely low ranked thieves (compared to anything else at least- I know I wouldn't trade a point of con or str or anything else for any amount of gold). Most can get a fair amount pretty quickly. And you can already give loans and rp repayment in any fashion you want, don't know why you want this to be a herald power now. Use pen. Write a scroll. Give it to them. Have them pen their name. There, you created a note. Basically, do the rp instead of granting a power if that's what you want to do.

And if I give a loan, it's up to me to enforce it, and if I can't that's my problem. Maybe I pay someone to collect. But mandating the spire do it? Makes it seems like loans are now law based. Heralds are pretty much passive observers without ties to anything, and the second you link them to tribs in any way you've brought them into cabalwars, which they are not supposed to be in. (If I were an outlander and this existed, I'd kill heralds all the time since I'd see them as an extension of the spire/order and perpetuating use of coins/civilization.) The Inn is a passive place for chars to relax and have fun, though there are the occassional PKs in there. If heralds were a true cabal with an item, fine, give them a few powers that are not purely RP useful, but I don't see that happening.

Crafting unique items I just don't see being given to players. I would love to see them, but I think it's probably a lot of work to implement. (determining stats- effects- what is needed- it seems like it would be very complex and ultimately something abusable)

I'm fine with leader weapons and other Imm rewards being the rare unique item perks. Giving a player this ability sort of takes away from that sense of accomplishment you get when an Imm does it for you. And dwarves have forgecraft, and there are enchant scrolls, so in a very limited sense this can be done by a herald dwarf or person with scroll ability. Like forging a rapier for some rank 14 guy and it goes up +4 +4. Thats a nice little bonus I'd say, and it makes that rapier rare since it would be a +9 +5 (think it is 5 1 originally) In essence I think people that want to RP doing this will find ways to RP this, making it a power on tap just seems like a bad idea.

I don't think anyone wants to see loans hardcoded IC. They're obnoxious enough in real life.

Splntrd

I applaud the thought, but I don't like any of this for heralds. Heralds are already subdivided into various things, and most anyone that has a unique RP angle can find a place to do what they want in the Inn.

Linking heralds to tribs is blah. You give someone a loan, you expect tribs to enforce it? The Inn is not a spire jurisdiction, its protected by heralds. Who is going to take a loan? If people hate gathering gold, they sure don't want to do it plus interest. Or if they do do it, and don't repay, PK them. But mandating essentially a full looting? No thanks.

Mythic Artisan makes almost no sense. Unless the items have no value outside of RP purposes, in which case that already exists to an extent (look at Braell) If they do, I'm even more against it. Let me give some guy easily gathered decent gear to turn out something kick ass? No, that's something Imms can do if they want to, and have done in the past. Special items and such are a rare perk/imm reward I always thought.

Enhanced bartering (maybe you meant haggling?) exists in the shrewd trader edge, and the haggle skill for the most part.

Summoning companions, reknown of a merchant would be commerce exp more than money, but I still don't like another group getting mobs to follow them around.

...Herald Repo-Men.

That's right. A Herald AP could now be viable.