Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-29298199-20160727032455

An important part of lord of the rings is the cunning of Sauron, as he gathers information through many spies. Crebain from Dunland fly across Rohan, tracking the movements of the Rohhirim for Saruman. Yet how do we manifest this in the game?

On the various movements of ravens and crebain

To acquire a crebain (Or raven for the free peoples), the player must acquire a bird trap (Uncraftable- but can be traded by certain merchants). He must then place seeds in the bird trap, set it up above a ground height of -1, and wait. (The chance for a crebain to be spawned in a trap is 5% for each seed in the trap with a chance every 5 minutes.) Once caught, the crebain can be held in hand like an inventory item.

To use a crebain, right click above a ground height of -1, and own a spare inventory space. The bird will fly off, then after 2-3 minutes, a piece of paper will drop onto the player’s inventory, detailing all of the players in your particular chunk and their allegiance. This could be useful in predicting attacks, knowing how many defending players could be in an above-ground fortress, and if they come as friend or foe. (The bird will not notice underground players, or players under the ground height of -10.)

''Example: Player1 wants to know how many Gondor players there are in the vicinity. He places 10 seeds in a bird trap, and waits 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, he catches a Crebain. He launches it, and after 3 minutes, finds that there are 5 players in the vicinity. 3 are Gondorian, and 2 are Mordor. He does not know about Player 6, who is mining at the time and underground.''

On spies, and how they may be found out

A very important part of a spy is their disguise. To craft a disguise, you must have plain iron armour, and the banner of the faction you want to spy on. To craft, place the armour on a crafting table and the banner. The iron armour will take the shape of the faction’s armour, but will only have the strength of chain mail. The banner will remain on the crafting table.

While wearing the false armour, npc’s of the faction you are spying on will not attack you, but they will be doubtful of you, as evidenced by their speech bank. Players on the other hand, may or may not be fooled, based on how well the spy acts in front of others. Alignment would be false, showing a random number between 1-100. (This counts for all faction which the player has interacted with negatively. However, faction with positive alignment will show a number randomly selected between -1 to -100)

''Example: Player1 has put on false Gondor armour, and has positive alignment with Mordor. His gondor alignment will show a false positive number, and his Mordor alignment will show a false negative number.''

To reveal a spy, a member of the faction being spied on must damage the spy directly. The spy’s armour changes to chain armour, and his alignment will return to what it was.

''Example: Player1 was punched by player2. Player1’s false Gondor armour will change to chain, and his alignment will return to normal. His best course of action is to make a hasty exit. ''  