Guilds, Thieves, & Faith

There are three levels of operating a kingdom within UBuild. The first is by grasping the reigns and retiring a character to become a ruler, or using characters to help build up a kingdom by retiring them to leadership positions. The second way, is by ignoring the kingdombuilding aspect of UBuild, and creating a character to enjoy having fun with the character itself, while ignoring the kingdombuilding entirely.
The final way is by forming a guild or religion. this final way allows you to operate your character, while operating a type of simple kingdom within the game.
For all purposes, a guild is a collection of people with a common goal. In the world of UBuild, these guilds are separated into three categories, but use similar rules as a kingdom, but use the settlement sheet

instead. All of the guidelines for creating a guild require knowledge of a few key terms.
BP: Build points, explained in Settlements & Kingdoms. In the absense of a system of finances, BP is used as an exchange of goods and services throughout a kingdom, and all finances are simplified to BP after a system of coinage is established. BP is used for a wide variety of purposes.
Buildings: Explained in depth in Improvements and Buildings. All guilds can purchase buildings for the same BP that a kingdom has paid to have the kingdom constructed. A guild can upgrade buildings that they own in the same way that a kingdom can. A guild can only build a building 1 time per kingdom turn, but may purchase any number of buildings that they can afford. When a requirement asks for a building, this does not include tile improvements.
Additionally, any building owned that increases the base value of a kingdom, also increases the income via BP production of the guild with an equivalent exchange rate for BP equal to the guilds size.
Leader: The leader of a guild sets up the rules for a guild, and makes decisions as if they were a ruler of a kingdom. Unlike kingdoms, a leader does not have to be a retired character, but if a guild becomes a kingdom, they must retire to become the leader, or choose a leader to rule the kingdom. A guild requires only the leader, but only benefits from actions leaders can take.
Consumption: Similar to a kingdom, a guild has a consumption that is based on their building count. For every tile that they own a building in, the consumption of the guild is increased by 1. After a guild owns 36 lots within a settlement, the consumption increases by an additional 1.
Attributes: Guilds still maintain the three main attributes of a kingdom. Stability, Loyalty, and Economy. Unlike kingdoms however, guilds gain these three attributes off of the buildings that they own. For every 3 of a specific type of settlement bonus that a guild owns, this increases the Stability, Loyalty, and Economy of the guild.
Stability: Stability is the most important stat for a guild that is attempting a coup. The guild with the highest stability rating in a kingdom once it reaches anarchy, becomes the new leader of the kingdom.

Comparing Guilds to Kingdoms

When it comes to guilds, they follow the same rules as kingdoms each kingdom phase, with the following exceptions for each kingdom phase.

1. Upkeep Phase: A guild does not track unrest, so it does not perform a stability check. A guild does lose BP should they own buildings that have a consumption cost.
2. Edicts Phase
• A guild does not gain leadership bonuses, but may have any number of "leaders" so long as the owner of the guild is well known.
• A guild does not take hexes, create settlements, nor get the benefits from tile improvements. They can create tile improvements in any hex that are owned by a kingdom, but pay +1 BP to create tile improvements outside of a kingdoms borders.
• A Guild does not perform the Holiday, Promotion, or Taxation edicts.
• Diplomatic edicts allows a guild to set up in a new city. The owner of the guild must pass a check, with the DC being the kingdoms base check DC. This is the only diplomatic edict available to a guild.
• A guild may offer a trade or exploration edict. A guild pays for the exploration edict when it is taken. A guild that sponsers a trade edict will gain the full benefit of the edict, and grant 1/2 to the city it resides in.
• A guild may use the vassalation edict only to combine with other guilds of the same type.
3. Income Phase: Each guild type earns income in their own way, but otherwises uses BP at the same rate as the city/kingdom the leadership is in at the time of performing their actions.
4. Event Phase: A guild has a random event every kingdom phase. If a guild rolls a kingdom event however, nothing happens. If a guild would normally take unrest during the event phase, they instead lose the same amount of BP.

Additionally, any guild can create 1 building per city they operate within, and for each districts worth of buildings that they own within a city, but can upgrade any number of buildings that they own. A guild may offer to buy a building from a kingdom in order to upgrade them. Usually this will be at half price for the building, but this is determined between the guild and kingdom.

Trade Guild

A guild is a collection of people with a common goal or purpose. As such, a trade guild is an overarching banner for a union, guild, golf club, or any variety of collectives of people. A trade guild in general can attempt to build up a stockpile of debtors in order to purchase a city outright from a kingdom, instead of taking it over by force, and provide loans to the kingdoms they inhabit.

Creating a Guild

When a guild is created, a guild may choose to specialize their guild in some way shape or form. The three options a guild may choose are as follows.

• Choose 2 specialties. Gain 1/2 of your guilds size as a discount to buildings of your specialty.
• Choose 1 specialty, and 1 skill. Gain your guilds size as a discount to buildings of your specialty, and as a bonus to the chosen skill for all guild members.
• Choose 2 skills. Gain your guilds size as a bonus to the chosen skills for all guild members.

Specialty: Certain Improvements and Buildings have a building type associated with them. This building type becomes the specialty of your guild, providing a discount based on how many specialties you choose. You can never have more than 2 specialties.
Should the owner of a guild decide they do not like the chosen specialties, they may change their choice, and chosen specialties and skills after 1 year. Doing so requires paying 100gp per lot owned by the guild.

Special Abilities

Trade guilds are able to provide a discount to a single building made by the kingdom the guild operates in. This discount is equal to the guilds size, and applies to either the building type that the guild specializes in, or, to any building that provides a bonus to the skill the guild uses. When a kingdom chooses to take advantage of this discount, the guild will automatically take control of this building. This does not give a kingdom the ability to build extra buildings each turn.

Kingdom

Once a trade guild owns 1/2 of the buildings within all settlements of a kingdom, it may begin to try a coup. Every kingdom phase, instead of building any building, a trade guild may spend BP equal to the size of the kingdom they want to take over, to increase unrest by 1, up to +5 unrest. Once a kingdom goes into anarchy, and the trade guild successfully gets the kingdom out of anarchy, the trade guild takes over the kingdom, turning it into an Oligarchy. As per usual, the owners of a trade guild must retire at that time.

Thieves Guild

A thieves guild is a collection of like minded individuals who believe that they can circumvent, if not totally avoid the law. This collection of people is usually small, but their influence can be felt throughout the world.

Creating a Thieves Guild

For all intents and purposes, a thieves guild is a group of people acting illegally. As such a thieves guild can be a rebellion, a group of cutthroats, pirates, and other similar groups. There is no mechanical difference between any of these different types of thieves guilds, and as such their special abilities persist throughout all types of thieves guilds. The only requirement for creating a thieves guild is the ownership of property within the settlement they wish to inhabit.

Special Abilities

Should a thieves guild desire to do so, they may provide a discount on buildings the same as a trade guild to the people who run their kingdom, but this discount must be paid out of pocket for a thieves guild.
A thieves guild gains BP in two ways. First, through exchanging guild membership dues for BP, and seccondly, during the income phase, they can make a Crime check for each city they inhabit. This check uses the settlements crime modifier, plus the guilds size against a single settlement stat of their choice plus the settlements law modifier. They will always gain the difference between the two rolls if they succeed, or lose BP or buildings should they fail. If a thieves guild does not have enough BP to lose, they will lose their choice of buildings until the difference has been paid.
The amount of BP that a thieves guild can gain can be no larger than the stat that the thieves guild chooses to attack. The amount of bp that can be lost is limited to the settlements law modifier.
Buildings that thieves guilds own also provide +1 income for every 3 crime they provide to the city, so long as crime is above law.

Kingdom

If a thieves guild owns 1/2 of the buildings within the city, it may attempt to start a coup. A thieves guild can grant unrest by creating armies and storing them within the city to cause +1 unrest per kingdom phase (maximum +5). Once the kingdom goes into anarchy, and the thieves guild helps the most to bring the kingdom out of anarchy, they take over the kingdom, and become a criminal syndicate. As per usual, the owner of a thieves guild must retire at that time.

Faith

Also called a religion, creating a faith can only be done through a 20th level retirement, or by creating a cleric. A cleric does not need to create a faith upon creation, but may choose to do so at any time. Faith requires word of mouth, and gradual buildup to become the ruler of a kingdom, or spread its influence throughout the world.

Benefit

Unlike other guilds, a faith can create any number of buildings, and creates armies to turn religious buildings into ones of their faith. However, a faith does not gain BP during the income phase using economy checks, but instead gains BP based on the number of followers it has. Followers are calculated as 100 followers to 1 BP. A faith gains 1 follower per loyalty, and per level of cleric that they have per kingdom turn and the bonus based on the portfolio of the divine. A settlement can only have as many followers as there are people, but followers are not sharable between faiths.
A faith will also gain additional income based on the loyalty benefit from buildings and relics that the faith owns. This is 1 income for every 3 loyalty from buildings outside of a theocracy. This benefit is removed from any settlement that is against their religion, or the religion is forced to be secretive within a settlement.
Should two or more different faiths have reached maximum capacity for followers within a settlement, they make opposed loyalty checks every kingdom phase. The winner gains the difference in followers that kingdom phase.
Third, armys owned by a faith can be disbanded at a religious structure that has been unclaimed by another faith or is unoccupied by another army, in order to take ownership of that faith. In addition to owning the building, the faith gets an amount of BP equal to the level of the army disbanded, multiplied by the loyalty provided by the building. This is spent instead of the cost for building a structure, but does not count towards the limit for building a structure if the faith is a theocracy. If any army is taking refuge in the building to be claimed, the army cannot claim the building.
Finally, an army owned by a faith or theocracy can take refuge within a religious building to grant +1 follower per army level per kingdom phase.

Kingdom

A faith can become a kingdom if the faith has more than 1/2 of the population of a kingdoms poulation as its followers. A faith can cause a coup by attacking a kingdoms income, by reducing it by 1 per kingdom turn. A kingdom can oppose this by forcing the income back, but will take unrest equal to the faiths size. Any hexes lost during this time increase the unrest gained by +2, any armies, buildings, or improvements lost due to lack of upkeep increase the unrest gained by +1. Once a kingdom forces themselves to regain income from a religions coup, they cannot stop the religious coup again for 1 year, or unless they are an overlord kingdom.
Once the kingdom reaches Anarchy, the newly formed kingdom becomes a Theocracy of the faith.

What is Faith?

As a cooperative worldbuilding experience, Religion can be considered a sort of additional aspect or variety of a culture within the world of UBuild. Faith is not limited to what one believes, but also the abilities that a deity or philosophy grants to their clerics, and potentially followers of the faith. As a game progresses, and the faith becomes stronger, they become their own settlement within other settlements, and break even the boundaries of settlements and kingdoms to become their own dominant empire within other empires.
A religion can be broken down into three different categories, Philosophy, Deity, and Pantheon. When a cleric is created, they can create any of these three for their chosen divinity, which are described as to their application later on. When two clerics meet, they can potentially combine their faith, should all active clerics of both faiths choose to do so, and should their ideologies match. Should two Philosphy clerics combine their faith, they create another philosophy. If a Deity and a Philosphy cleric choose to combine, it will create a sort of 'sect' or branch of the divines teachings. But if two deities meet, or a deity and a pantheon, then in both cases they will become a pantheon. A cleric can separate from their beliefs to create a different religion. Treat this new religion as if it were a new, fresh religion of their level.

Creating A Faith

When creating a cleric, you must create, or choose an active faith. Follow the steps below to create your chosen faith.

Name

The most important factor. What will people call your religion? Note that even if the religion sounds strange or silly, this will not prevent people from believing in it, but a combination/reformation/separation can change this name later on.

Alignment

The Alignment of your religion is about the sort of openness that a religion offers. If a religion is evil, sacrifices will be expected. If a religion is good, charity will be inspected. If a religion is lawful, it will usually be welcomed with open buildings in a city, but chaotic ones will be best found in the wilds, outside of common law. Use this to help build the philosophy of your religion, and their best practices.

Domains

Your religion should have anywhere between 2 to 4 domains, but potentially more if your religion is strong enough in the world.

Symbol

The holy symbol of your religion. Useful for helping to identify different religions in your world. Keep in mind that the simpler the symbol, the easier it is to draw, carve, and recognize. Keeping the symbol too simple may force it to be confused with other symbols.

Extras

Consider these extra bits of information for your religion, as they can help people understand what the religion is about. If there is any confusion as to what extras you should add, find a similar deity in the list of pathfinder 2 deities.
Divine Ability: Choose two different stats to potentialy increase for the faithful.
Divine Font:Harm, Heal, Harm or Heal
Divine Skill: One skill that is important for the religion.
Favored Weapon: The material type does not matter, but cannot choose a weapon from outside of the confines of the technology of the world.
Alternative Domains: What sort of domains could be available to sects of the religion.
Extra Spells: The extra spells granted by the strength of the religion in your world. Will most likely not have any when first created, but can gain spells with more followers.
Edicts:Teachings and practices of the religion.
Anathema: Acts fundamentally opposed to your religions teachings.
Details: Give as many details as you can for your religion, as they can help assign bonuses to shrines, temples and cathedrals within a settlement.

Shrines and Temples

When it comes to shrines, temples, and other religious buildings, a religion has a choice. Each one of the buildings within the border of a town grants a static bonus based on the portfolio of the faith that controls them, which replaces the Loyalty, Economy, and Stability bonuses of the religious buildings. Here is a list of options that you can choose for your faith owning a religious building. This bonus can be different between different types of religious buildings, but need not be decided upon until that building is created.

• Alignment: Gain a bonus equal to the lost bonuses of your religious buildings based on your faiths alignment.
• Dual Purpose: Take a penalty to the religious buildings kingdom stat, to a minimum of 0. Apply double the modifier on any one city modifier, and an equal number of followers per kingdom turn where the building resides.
• Sanctuary: Provides no inherant bonus, but any army that takes refuge in the building grants a bonus to a stat of your choice equal to the armys level, but no higher than the bonuses that the building would have normally applied. Armies have no upkeep when taking refuge in this building.

Religion and Society

A religion can have a wide impact on society as a whole, and can form a fundimental basis for not only the society stat of a city, but its loyalty as well. Any city without at least one religion within its borders via a holy building, or at least a 100 followers of various religions, the city gains the Atheistic disadvantage.