Characters and Agents

Mercania’s houses are nothing without the men and women who make up their lineage. Every noble member of a family and every agent hired by a family counts as a character. The most important character of any family is of course the family’s leader.

Characters
A character is any member of a noble house that is controlled by a player (any human not controlled by a player be they king, peasant or personal advisor is known as an NPC). A character's’ ability to do any kind of action in the world outside of the Small Council is determined by his level in three skills - 

 
 * Diplomacy
 * A character’s skill in negotiation, politics and the handling of official documents (Be they real or otherwise). Strong diplomats will be skilled in brokering trade deals, quelling disputes and recognising forgery.
 * Subterfuge
 * A character’s skill in dealing with spies, scouts and assassins under his employ. A character skilled in subterfuge will be almost unknowable and have a retinue of employees from the seedy underbelly of Mercania waiting to manipulate their foes. Characters skilled in Subterfuge are also able to blackmail others to undermine their positions in diplomacy.
 * Warfare
 * A character’s skill in the martial arts and their ability to lead any number of soldiers, sailors or mercenaries. A character skilled in Warfare will be able to strong-arm his opposition by defeating them in martial combat or successfully leading their armies or navies against them in war. On top of these abilities, characters with a background in the art of war are always followed around by a professional group of bodyguards and are skilled in rooting out spies and assassins.

Upon a character’s creation (being hired by your house or a family member coming of age) they will roll a d5 for each of the three skills. That score will be the starting level for each of the skills for that character, the score can change over time.

<span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family: "TimesNewRoman";color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">All skills range from 1-10. No character can be worse than a 1 or greater than a 10. Skills can be improved through learning/training and can diminish through hostile actions of other characters or through injury. ==<span style="font-size:15.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family: "TimesNewRoman";color:#666666;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">Agents <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family: "TimesNewRoman";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"> == <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family: "TimesNewRoman";color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">As well as your family members who have reached adulthood, families can have a number of agents under their employ. Agents do not have access to all three skill trees but rather specialise in one of the three. Agents can be sent off on missions appropriate to their role or can be kept in reserve to protect members of a player’s house. When an agent is in reserve he can be allocated to a member of a family’s house and his/her skill level will be used in place of theirs when protecting against enemy actions. Agents also roll d5s to determine their level upon creation, however they add 2 to the result.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family: "TimesNewRoman";color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">There are three types of agent that can be recruited: <span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">
 * <span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">The Politician (Diplomacy)
 * <span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">From a Tier 1 Court building
 * <span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">The Spymaster (Subterfuge)
 * <span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">From a Tier 1 Den of Iniquity building
 * <span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">The Captain (Warfare)
 * <span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">From a Tier 1 Veteran’s Hall building