Diplomacy & Trade

Guild relations

Every rival guild holds an opinion of you, from Loathing to Devotion. Attacks and captures sour it; gifts of gold sweeten it. Guilds that bear you no grudge leave your lands alone — war is something you earn, by drawn blades and sour demands. Your sworn rival is the exception: capped at Hostility forever, they come for you regardless. And Entropy answers to none of it: its armies never range beyond the creeping edge of the blight, but where the rot has reached, they spare no one.

Raising the fallen

When a guild falls — to Entropy or to anyone else — its cities go dark. Take a fallen guild's capital city and you'll be offered a choice: keep the walls, or hand the capital back. Returned, the guild rises again with a fresh Lord and a seeded treasury — and they come back at Devotion, remembering who raised them. Even your sworn rival buries the feud if you restore them: they'll barter and warm like any friend, and another banner stands between you and the blight.

Parley & barter

Parley opens an audience with a rival lord. Gifts always work; full barter opens once they feel Empathy toward you. Build a deal from both ledgers — what you offer against what you request — and watch the scale: they'll call it Insulting, Stingy, Fair or Generous.

Your stance matters too. A Plea needs the sweetest deal, a Request is the honest middle, and a Demand extracts more but sours their opinion whether or not they accept. Generous deals warm it.