Companies

The continent of Anura is rife with adventurers; part mercenaries, part archaeologists. Fueled by the kingdoms' need to project force and recover material wealth after the devastation of the plague, these adventurers form Companies. Some companies are as small as a person or two who adventure to put food on the table, while others are composed of hundreds of competent folk and the staff needed to outfit them.

What is a Company
A company is a group of characters that establish infrastructure to aid in adventuring. The term company is extremely broad one. It covers the classic adventurer's guild, but is also used to refer to the collection of things the lone witch in her hut brewing potions does to adventure. Families of adventurers that use their wealth to jump start the careers of the youngest are companies. A company can be anything you the player wants the company to be that grants the mechanical benefits below.

Forming a Company
Every PC is a member of a company. When a player creates their first character, they create a company that that character belongs to. This can be as simple as "that hut where this witch brews potions" to as formal as "The Western Stralovan Exploratory Company." When a player creates another character, they can chose to have their new character be another member of a company, or create an entirely new one. A PC starts out of a member of a company created and controlled by their player. These members are true members of the company. Any PCs controlled by another player who join through fame award are just simple members.

In world, the formation is a bit more nebulous. Players have a lot of leeway to decide how their company came about, just as they have a lot of leeway in what exactly the company looks like. What is true of all companies is that they require a good amount of work and trust from the region in which they form. This is the reason that new companies can't be formed in play, and why moving a company around the world is a difficult process.

Companies offer benefits to the PCs that are members of them, detailed below.

Fame
Companies have their own fame score. To determine a company's fame score, add all of the fame scores of the true members without adding their ability scores. Take this score and divide it by 5 to determine the company's total fame score. Like with PCs, the company's Fame is tied to a region (use the home fame of the member PCs to calculate the company's fame though).

A true member of a company can use their own fame score, or that of the company, whichever is higher (but they use their own PP).

If a company wishes to move from one region or another, it must have a minimum fame score based on the region it wishes to move into. This requires downtime, as a member of the company will need to travel from the current headquarters and it's destination, set up transportation infrastructure, and establish the company in the new region. This downtime is equal to twice the travel time between the old location of the company and the new one that must be spent by at least one true member of the company. During this downtime, the company cannot be used to craft magic items (see Ventures below).

Company Benefits
At base, a company is an excuse for different PCs controlled by the same player to interact with each other without any presumption of favoritism (in fact, it's likely that two PCs in a company will show more favor to each other than to PCs outside of the company). This means that goods, services, and things like magic items can be traded between a single player's PCs freely (assuming they're all members of the same company).

Initiate, Officer, Commander, and High Commander
True members of a company automatically receive fame awards as they and the company grow in reputation. When the company reaches 20 Fame, all true members with at least 20 fame gain the Initiate title. When the company first reaches 20 Fame, select up to 4 skills that are associated skills. Once chosen, these cannot be changed. When the company reaches 30 Fame, all true members with at least 30 Fame gain the Officer title. At 40 and 55 Fame, it also grants true members with enough fame the Commander and High Commander titles respectively.

Characters controlled by other players may spend PP on fame these fame titles to gain those benefits, and often other benefits decided by the player who created the company (e.g. access to the magic item ventures below). These titles (as with the company itself), can be flavored how the player wishes. A family can adopt or marry someone in; a gang of thugs can go without formal titles. The player who created a company has the option of excluding specific characters from joining their company, and it's assumed that the most famous true member of a guild is it's defacto leader, with the ability to strip these titles from other PCs who joined.

Ventures
Companies provide adventurers with ventures that help them to earn money to spend. Characters do something for the company that earns the company money. This might be crafting, some profession, pick pocketing, or any myriad of things that make sense for a character. The company makes 50 gold per day for each level of each true member, and then this gold is split however the player decides. For example, a company made up of a level 1 rogue, a level 6 wizard, and a level 11 fighter would get 50 gp x (1 + 6 + 11) per day. The player may decide that the characters just save the money up in one big slush fund, or they might decide that each character is more independent, and give each character 50 gp/level directly.

Characters do not need to dedicate their downtime towards earning money, as it's assumed that they're doing so outside of any actual downtime actions they take.

Magic Item Creation
As a part of the company's ventures, each company makes magic items. When a company is created, the player selects one group of magic items. When the company gains a fame tier (Fame 10, 20, 30, 40, and 55), the player selects an additional group of magic items that the company creates. These magic items may be directly created by the company, or they may be acquired in some other manner. For instance, one company might make metals because it employs a blacksmith, while another might make implements because it's in the business of looting wizard towers.

A character may acquire a magic item from their company in one of two ways. The first is by dedicating venture gold towards an item. Each day, the company spends some or all of it's ventures' gold on progress towards an item. Once 50% of the market value of that item in gp has been spent, the item is acquired. For instance, if the company described above were attempting to acquire a +2 Belt of Giant's Strength (market value 4,000 gp), it could dedicate 400 gp of it's 900 gp per day earnings towards the belt. After 5 days, it acquires the belt.

Alternatively, members of the company may spend downtime to 'buy' items from the company's magic item ventures. A character spends 1 downtime day, and can buy any items that the company could produce. In the above example, the fighter could take 4,000 gp and spend a downtime day 'shopping' at her company to acquire the belt. This can take the form of regular shopping, having the item expedited, or any number of other forms.

These are the only two methods of magic item creation in the game. This divorces the idea that magic items are made only by wizards or the like, as well as frees up feat space and downtime for those that need them. A company that doesn't have access to a group of magic items can rent that group for 1 week through a Fame award.

Mundane items can be acquired as normal, or they can be acquired through a company's ventures.

Magic Item Groups
Instead of being divided up through sometimes sensible, sometimes esoteric Item Creation Feats, companies have access to items by thematic grouping. The following are the groups of magic items, and a brief description of what falls under that group. A detailed list of every item available, and which group it falls under can be found here (Note: it is apparent in the description of most items what group or groups an item falls under; this list is mostly for edge cases or confirmation).

Augments
Things that are installed into a creature’s body. Demonic Implants, Elemental Augmentations, Fleshcrafting,

Brews
Potions, Elixirs, and any other wondrous item that requires drinking fall within the Brews.

Cloth
Cloth armors, wondrous items made of fabric (as opposed to jewels, metal, or leather).

Implements
Staves, wands, and rods. A smattering of other wondrous items that fall within focus components (such as mirrors and crystal balls).

Jewelry
Wondrous items that are made from precious metals, gems (including ioun stones), and glass. Rings and Shadow Piercings also fall under this category.

Leather
Leather and hide armors, leather wondrous items.

Metal
Metal armors and weapons, wondrous items that are primarily metal (as opposed to jewelry). This incidentally covers items that would be made of metal, but are made of stone (e.g. stoneplate).

Plants
Magical plants

Stone
Stone armor, weapons, and wondrous items made of stone, along with anything made with stone special materials.

Vehicles
Vehicles and wondrous items that work like vehicles.

Wood
Wooden weapons, darkwood armors, wooden shields.

Writing
Scrolls and book wondrous items.

Other Companies
If a player doesn’t wish for their characters to be bound to each other even through a loose flavored company, they can start a new company for their new character. There is a catch though: characters who belong to different companies owned by the same player cannot trade with each other. This way there’s still an option for players who wish to craft stories of multiple characters who interact closely and work together, while at the same time preventing abuses of alting.