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Bonds & trust

"Anyone will sell you a sword. Trust is what they hand you when they expect it back."

Role: How NPCs come to know, trust, and eventually open up to you. A bundle of metrics gates a long ladder of unlocks - banter, gift acceptance, secret-sharing, party promotion, romance.

At a glance
Scale Stranger → Acquaintance → Friend → Close Friend (+ romance branch)
Metrics Three 0-100 numbers - Trust, Familiarity, Affection - combine to a single derived status
Decay Slow without contact. Reset on betrayal.
Per-NPC Every speaking NPC carries their own metrics with you
Surface /bond <name> for followers; conversation gates for everyone else

The tiers

The engine derives a single named status from the sum of Trust + Familiarity + Affection (max 300 combined). Four platonic tiers, then a romance branch beyond Close Friend.

Tier Combined score What unlocks
Stranger 0-39 Default. Surface greetings. Vendor prices full markup.
Acquaintance 40-119 NPC remembers you. Small talk. Rumors begin. Vendor discount edges in.
Friend 120-179 Personal stories. Quest hooks open. First gift-acceptance.
Close Friend 180-199 NPC shares secrets you can use as leverage. Major quest unlocks. Class perk if a follower.

The romance branch runs parallel from Close Friend upward, gated on a romantic flag the NPC carries (their attraction + your moves to court them):

Romance tier Combined score What unlocks
Dating 200-249 Exclusive romantic interest. Romance scenes available.
Lover 250-299 Deeper intimacy. Beckon-rights. Bond-quest hooks.
Partner 300+ Lifelong commitment short of marriage.
Spouse (set by marriage) Married. Inheritance, household, full bond perks.

The romance branch is opt-in on both sides - high Close Friend metrics WITHOUT mutual romantic interest stays Close Friend indefinitely.

How it grows

  1. Conversation. Every meaningful exchange tips Trust up a little. Greet politely → small bump. Ask after their kids → bigger bump. Ask the question they've been waiting for someone to ask → bigger still.

  2. Shared experience. Travelling together, surviving the same fight, sleeping under the same roof - these tick Trust faster than dialogue alone. Followers gain Trust per combat hour.

  3. Gifts. Each NPC has a like_list (silently, in their data). Hitting a like = a chunky boost. Hitting an anti-like = a chunky drop. Generic gifts (bread, coin) tick neutral. Don't spam - repeated gifts inside a short window stop counting.

  4. Quest delivery. Completing a quest for an NPC pushes Trust hard. Failing it pushes the other way.

  5. Honesty rolls. When you lie to a high-perception NPC and they catch it, Trust takes a real hit. When they catch it and you've never lied to them before, they remember.

How it drops

  • Betrayal. Theft from them, attack on them, attack on someone they love. Reset, often to negative.
  • Faction collision. Joining a faction the NPC opposes can knock 10–20 points off in one beat.
  • Public humiliation. Pickpocketed in front of friends. Drunk and disorderly at their kid's wedding. Bad scene; bad week.
  • Wage failure (followers only). Miss a wage day, lose Trust even if the contract is technically still live.
  • Time + neglect. Slow decay if you don't speak to them for a long stretch. Stops at Acquaintance - the floor of any real bond.

Followers: the bond ladder

Followers (mercs + named companions) sit on a special slice of the Trust system called bond tier:

Bond tier Roughly Trust Effect
Paid Merc 0–49 Transactional. Wages on time, no funny business.
Sworn 50–74 Wages drop, combat buffs on, banter lines unlock.
Lifelong 75+ Class-unique perk fires (extra attack / revive / aura).

You don't buy bond tiers. You earn them.

  • Paid Merc → Sworn: ~8 combat hours with you in the party.
  • Sworn → Lifelong: ~30 combat hours + the class's bond quest complete.

/bond lists all current followers + their tiers + hours accumulated + what's gating the next promotion. /bond tier_up <name> attempts a promotion if the gates are clear.

The /bond verb

Command What it does
/bond List current followers + tiers + hours
/bond <name> Detail view - tier, hours, gate, current buffs
/bond tier_up <name> Promote if gates are met

For non-follower NPCs, Trust is implicit - there's no UI for it. You read it in their dialogue: do they remember you? Do they volunteer information? Do they call you by name?

What the bond unlocks for non-followers

  • Vendor prices soften as the bond climbs. Close Friend gets the back-room rate.
  • Secret-sharing. Close Friends drop secrets you can use as leverage (the blackmail / evidence-registry system). High Trust
  • the right conversation = a piece of someone else's life in your back pocket.
  • Quest hooks. Major personal quests sit behind status gates.
  • Romance. See romance - Close Friend is the entry threshold; the romance branch starts at Dating (combined score 200+) and goes through Lover / Partner / Spouse.
  • Faction referrals. A high-status NPC inside a faction can vouch for you, knocking real time off your rep grind.

Why bother

  • The relationship ladder is the single biggest accelerator in the game. A character with five Close-Friend-tier NPCs across the five cities plays a different run than one without.
  • The best loot, the deepest quests, and the most interesting scenes all sit behind Trust gates.
  • It's how the world opens. The richer your bonds, the more the game gives you.

See also