Some questions, villages, darkness

[Kaol]

Got a couple of questions.

1) What is the difference between villages and normal claims.

2) Is there any way to tell when you enter the darkness? I got the help message but have no idea which way is the darkness (think its north but could be west) and whether i'm inside it or not. As i don't want to risk the penalties of being in there yet.

[Procne]

1) Everyone can walk on village claim without criminal acts on. Village claim requires silver to maintain. Village claim is expanded by building special objects, which can be done only by village owner. All village members have full permissions on village claim. Village claim can overlap personal claim, and personal claim's permissions are stronger - if pclaim allows something and vclaim does not then you can do that. If vclaim allows something and pclaim does not then you can't do that. Personal claims overlapping with village claim can be removed by village owner by paying 2 silver for every tile or said personal claim.

2) darkness is west, north and south from Boston if you play on Plymouth. Basically its in every direction in certain distance from the main city. Although on new servers those areas might not be available yet

[ramuller]

The village claim is a mechanism designed to let multiple characters to organize for common defense without all sharing the same personal claim. As I understand it, if a crime is committed on a personal claim within the village claim, the defenses of the entire village are activated. I would expect that any group of players who aren't tied tightly together in real life (like spouses) will find the village organization a good approach when they have enough silver to form one (a shared claim is an invitation to group discord and at some point the added defense is useful--if only to keep someone else from stealing your claim with their own village claim).

As was mentioned, the village claim has the power of eminent domain over the personal claims within it, which makes sense if a village member begins to work against the interests of the village (but can be used offensively to destroy some one's claim if one is willing to spend the silver to do it).

Also, from what I have read, the only real indication that you are in darkness is that it starts to affect your humours (draining or slowing recovery, IIRC).