Wiki / How it is played
Companies - the Charter, the Line, the Syndicate
A house is a name, a fund and a roll; it opens no door and pays no credit, and everything an officer or head does is written with their name.
A company is the thing with a name, a fund and a rank. One account, one company, bound to your Compact, up to forty names. It counts nothing the game counts - no dominion, no XP, no loot, no discount - and opens no door. It gives a name on the map, a plaque at a counter and an address book. Concord calls it the Charter, Sepulchre the Line, Ashaari the Syndicate; the word decides how the door opens. Every verb is /house.
Founding
Docked at the Citadel, a Trade port or an Arms post of your own Compact: /house found <name>. One to 24 characters, not all digits, unique in your Compact however it is spelled, never one of the game’s own names. Then two pilots off your own ledger say /house yes at the same counter within ten minutes, and the founding fee - 45,000 credits - comes out of your purse. The two hands are the real price: a house founded by people who have finished something with you starts with three members and a history.
Joining
| How a name gets on the roll | |
|---|---|
| Charter (Concord) | an officer offers; you say yes, at any counter |
| Line (Sepulchre) | two members, each on your own ledger, stand for you; you say yes |
| Syndicate (Ashaari) | at your own Compact’s counter you buy a stake - 8,000 credits at least, into the fund, nobody’s hand needed; 24,000 or more makes you a partner, an officer |
Leaving is free and instant: /house out. Being struck costs only the name.
Rank
A hand does nothing. An officer sets the house’s word - a mark beside one writ kind the counter offers, once a week - and in the Charter holds a place out to a pilot. The head makes and unmakes officers, strikes names, renames once a season, dissolves, and alone spends the fund. The Line appoints nobody: its officers are derived from weeks on the roll and ledger rows shared with the house. When a head leaves - or their account is deleted - the head passes to the longest-standing officer, or to the longest-standing member when there is none; a house with nobody left on the roll dissolves. Every use of a rank is written to the acts with the name that used it - /house acts reads the last sixteen.
The fund
Members fill it themselves: dues, /house dues <0-10>, a standing instruction of nought to ten per cent of an earning, paid after the assay duty and any Tithe. The Charter’s dues reach every earning; the Line’s only salvage sold across a counter, never ore; a Syndicate takes the stake at the door and nothing after. Nothing ever leaves the fund into a pilot’s purse; dissolving burns it.
The head spends it on two things. The claim, /house claim, puts the house’s name over the zone you are docked in for a ledger week: 7,500 credits the first time a season, half as much again every time anyone pays for that zone after. Carrying a road, /house carry <road>, bought at either of its ends, puts the house’s name on its sailings for a week: 1,500 credits per threat band of the deepest sector it crosses. A sailing robbed under it goes on the house’s record. Neither opens a door. Convoys.
What the roll gives
Every station, every season, carries the name of the company that did the most work at its counter - the House over the berths. The roll of the dead (/house dead) keeps the last sixteen hulls members lost by name, and counts them all. And the roll is an address book: a signal reaches every name on it, anywhere on the map.