So you have decided on aquiring a house, let me be the first one to congratulate you on that! :) House is very important in your Obsidian Shard experience and you will soon notice what a great... blablabla... I'll just stick to technical details of house management.

House deeds are sold at NPC Architects. Currently they can be found in Britain, Trinsic, Wind and Cove. Just ask some passerby, he'll most likely point you to the building where architect resides. But don't be hasty about it - find a spot for house first. Try to find one close to your areas of interest (hence "don't be hasty" - gotta figure what your interests will be) and/or close to runestone chamber exit or a moongate. Make sure you will be able to place a house of your chosen proportions at the place you chose. You don't want some tree sticking through the floor (usually wouldn't be allowed to place a house anyway) or getting your house deleted just because you didn't read the rules and blocked some pathway, heheh. Also try not to overlap your house area with the houses already placed nearby. That might lead to some unexpected results and hinder your (or their) house usage. To sum things up, make a careful pick and only then buy.

To place a house, just dbl click a house deed and target click where you want it to be placed (you'll be presented with an outline, so don't worry). Also, you can always just press Esc to cancel the house placement process, in case you decide that isn't a place for you or are simply not able to place it at that particular location. In order not to place a house on yourself (in which case you'd get stuck) your screen will go black if you try that, so choose your standing position to the side of where the house is supposed to go.

After placing a house you end up being an owner and master key for that particular house is placed in your backpack (a copy of it will be in your bank box). You can rename master keys by dbl clicking and targeting it then entering name and pressing Enter. Also, if you find it convenient you can buy key ring from NPC Tinker and put your master keys on it (just drag the keys on it, dbl click and target key ring to remove keys from it). Bought from NPC key rings are newbied (meaning they can't be looted off your corpse, same goes for the keys created upon house placement and through house sign menu) and can lock/unlock doors by simply using a key ring on them if the master key for that house is inside. The drawback is that you won't be able to lock/unlock items from your house area with only a key ring, you'll have to remove keys from it and use apropriate one for that.

To get inside your house you need either a door key (must create it through house sign menu) or you can simply use an in-game open door macro. However for an open door macro to work the door can't have a door key used on it earlier. So make sure you really want that if creating a door key. A macro will open/close the door if the door is unlocked (lock/unlock it by using a master key on it) or if it's locked you need to have a master key present in your backpack. Another good this is that door will auto close in 1 minute if you're using an open door macro instead of a door key. However if you're thinking of sharing a house with someone or more importantly, just letting them use your house temporarily, you're better off just creating door keys, because you can always just change locks and create new door keys to deny them access inside your house. While master keys (which you'll have to give them to let them open doors) aren't affected by "change locks" command and are for life (it's also possible to make duplicates of master key with tinkering skill). It's your call, but be careful who to trust.

Okay, currently a house can have 1 owner, 1 co-owner, 2 friends and unlimited number of ppl with the keys to open door and use house space except accessing the secure containers. Friends are able to access secure containers. Co-owner can pay the taxes, add/remove friends, kick some imposter from the house, add/remove/access secure containers, rename the house (co-owners can't use rename crystal atm it seems) and use an option for removing house crystals from his pack (those are items used in house renaming). Owners, in addition to all listed, can add/remove co-owner, transfer ownership of a house (careful with that, as you don't want to transfer it to some NPC critter), change locks, create keys and change house sign. In order for your house not to decay, losing all the items inside, you need to refresh it (use refresh option in house sign menu) wihin 60 days from the last refresh or within 30 days from house placement. As mentioned before, only owner and co-owner can do that. If you fail to refresh it in time, your house sign will disappear and the house will be flagged for deletion. Which will happen when the cleaning script is next run or some passing staff decides to remove it. Decayed house removal script seems to be innitiated manually, so you may or may not have up to few weeks to try to get your house back. That would need you paging in-game explaining the situation and asking staff to fix it. No guarantees there, though.

Let's see what the house sign menu looks like and what option does what:

This is the first pane "Info" which everybody will see including friends of the house (except for "refresh" option, which is only available to owner and co-owner). It will tell who the owner and co-owner are ("0" if none), how many days are left till the house decays, how many secure containers are placed out of the number available for that particular house type, what the montly tax rate is and how much would need to be payed if it was chosen to refresh now.

"Friends" pane lets you manage co-owner and friends. Choosing "Eject.." option will bring a targeting cursor to target a person inside your house for him to be placed at the location of the house sign. After choosing "Add secure container" option you'll have 10 seconds to walk into a position where you want a secure chest to appear and double click the deed that'll be placed in your backpack. Bear in mind they come aligned looking south (called north orientation) and won't look very well if placed at a west/east wall. If you screwed up in placing a secure chest, next option will let you target a secure chest for removal. Also when placing a secure chest try to place it so that it couldn't be accessed from outside of house area, as doing that will make it disappear (uh oh). To change the house name, you'll have to dbl click the crystal put in your backpack and add letters one by one through the menus, then target your house sign after finished. Be it you decide to abort the naming, just use the last option in the "Options" pane.

Last "Options" pane is for owners mainly. Transfering house will require you to target whoever you're selling/giving it to. Selling houses that way will require to rely on trust, which isn't always a factor in anonymous online games. And though such scamming doesn't seem to be tolerated, just to be sure you could try paging and asking a Counselor for help as a middleman in such operations. Creating keys will simply place the key in your backpack. Their newbied ability won't help if you won't keep the keys in your main backpack, as the bag in which you might want to put it won't be newbied and could get looted off you upon death. Changing house sign will allow you to choose the sign appearance you want from the given list. Changing locks will make current door keys useless. It won't however allow you to use open door macro to open/close door, so you'll need creating door keys again.

NPC Architects also sell a variety of deeded items that some will find useful. Some of them and items not sold can be made by player carpenters. Deeded items are usualy placed by standing on the tile where you want it to appear and dbl clicking the deed. Where it matters, deeds will have "North"/"West" added to their name. That shows the orientation of an item, near which wall it should be placed or which way it's "back" is gonna be turned. You will not be able to move most of deeded items after placing, so choose carefully. What isn't the case with a trash can, hence make sure to lock it down, as ppl find it amusing stealing them. Important addition of your house might become a guildstone, cause those can be placed only inside a house area too. Wheather to place it outside the house, for others to see, or inside, to limit access to it, is up to you. Also, might want to read guild info for help on managing it. Then there're items not available through crafting/NPCs and only sold by GMs, like a loom or an ATM Chest. If you ever need one, try paging asking to buy one, they should cost ~20k.

Surely you'll want to decorate your house too or simply put down a normal chest/bag for keeping items for characters not added to the friends list. Be sure to try out a .flip command on various items. It will make most of them change direction/appearance, letting you fulfil quite awesome decoration projects. Which will look even better if you're going to use temporary stacked tables (and other items) to control placement height of decorations. And for someone not to run off with your items (items from normal containers can still be taken by anybody no matter what) you'll want to lock them down. For that the item must be inside a house lock down area and you must target it after dbl clicking your master key while yourself standing inside house lock down area too. Don't miss that, cause you'll think you locked it down just to find it missing some day. Easiest way to check if you're inside a house area is to type a .where command. If you're inside it, the type of the house will be written in parenthesis. Move around saying .where command to get a feel of it or just check house info which has the lock down areas listed for available house types (click on a house picture to see layouts for different levels). Take note that in addition to being able to lockdown items, even unlocked items won't decay inside a house area (that includes the house interior of course). Another thing to keep in mind is that some items can still be taken/used when locked down. That includes shrunk animals and stackable items. And be careful about leaving items where others can get below them, as ceiling and floor doesn't stop you from accessing items on other levels, unfortunately. If creating a rune library, keep in mind that you won't be able to use them while locked down.

House will also be where you'll place your vendor to sell your items to other players. As with all such deeds just stand where you want your vendor to appear, dbl click a vendor deed (buy it from NPC Tavernkeepers) and target a house sign. Again, you have to be inside your house area. Don't miss vendor info if you decide to take role of a merchant. And don't place vendors inside a house unless you're going to keep it open at all times, as others won't be able to buy goods off them through walls.

P.S. Okay FINE, I didn't manage to stick to technical details only.   :(

Noticed you keep hanging out with the same ppl? Feel like you could use some help in training, hunting, fighting, crafting or just want to be a part of something? Might be just the time to join or start a guild. You would be expected to do your part in contributing to guild's wellfare, but everyone else would be looking out for you too. Guilds can be organized upon anything and really only require trust and willingness to be there for their guildmates, to shape the guild towards it's ultimate goal.

While guild itself relys more on an idea of ppl working together, guildstone makes that idea substantial and gives tangible benefits to members of the guild. They can stop worrying about their karma differencies, as they'll never go criminal for performing any action upon a guildmate. Be it accidentally killing one of them, looting each other's corpses to save items upon death or performing helpful actions on a low karma guildmate. They can also make themselves standout by having their guild name abbreviation show up near their name and having individual custom titles in their paperdolls. Finally the possibility of aligning a guild towards Chaos/Order pathway gives a new meaning to PvP. Where you can wage fighting in protected areas without the fear of guards ruining the fun (might be not working correctly atm). Chaos/Order aligned guild members won't get kill counts upon killing a member of another Chaos/Order aligned guild. Guilds not willing to be actively involved in guild wars can still go neutral, which isn't an open invitation to come and try to kill them.

Upon buying a guildstone deed from NPC Architect for 50k use the deed somewhere in your house lock down area (it might be at this point that you type in the guild name and press enter, iirc). The one who places the guildstone gets to be a guild master at first, but with more ppl in the guild, a member who has the highest number of votes gets to be one. Dbl clicking the guildstone will bring up a guild menu.

Such menu is available to a guild master. Same, but without guild master functions option would be available to guild members and candidates. Candidates wouldn't be able to use recruiting or changing fealty (vote) options though. Some unrelated to guild passerby would only be able to view current roster/charter and declarations of war involving that guild. Recruiting would require targeting a character making him a candidate, which later would need to be confirmed by guild master to make him a member. Roster displayes current guild members. Charter shows the guild description set by a guild master. Declaring your fealty makes you give your vote for one of the members and the one with the highest number of votes is a guild master. Next option enables showing the guild abbreviation in brackets near your name and your assigned title in paperdoll to ppl not belonging to your guild (default is "off"). Resign from guild makes you leave it. Listing candidates will show not yet confirmed members, they already have a guild tag though. Next two options would list available war status with other guilds. One can use the teleporter and checker options (supposed to give means of transporting back to guildstone), actually paying money for it, but teleporter deed simply disappears upon using it and checkers option gives you a portal which also disappears in a short while after placement, but doesn't allow you to enter. Only guild masters would see guild master functions option, which takes to a guild management menu.

It lets setting guild's name, it's abbreviation which would be shown near members' names, choosing guild alignment. Guilds are neutral by default, but don't be too hasty in going Chaos/Order if you're not yet ready to enter fighting everywhere/anytime. Other aligned guild members will have a custom highlight colors then, which can be set in client options (on default green is for same alignment, red for opposite). Also after changing alignment you get to wait 7 days before changing alignment again. Another good thing about Chaos/Order alignment is that it lets you use corresponding Chaos/Order shield. They have the AR equivalent of Shadow Heater (Chaos being a bit stronger), but have a very high durability. To get one you'd need to travel to Chaos/Order island (by using an ankh) and dbl clicking a shield dispenser after defeating all guards there. They hit hard though so have few friends and fight them 1 by 1. In guild's charter you can set it's description. Dismissing a member would require you to choose one of them from the list. Declaring war will let you choose appropriate guild from the list of all existing guilds (except the ones you're already at war with). Declaring peace will let you choose a guild from the ones you have war declared on. For the war declaration to be complete, another guild must declare war on your guild too. War mode will make opposition members highligh orange by default (can be changed in client options too), but that's about it. No other benefits are given (which supposed to be free kills between warring guilds, even if alignment is neutral) for being at war, unless for roleplaying aspect of course. Next two options let you accept or refuse someone seeking membership who was added by some member. Finally, guild master can set his or other members' titles. Those are shown in paperdolls, replacing highest skill name or race name.

Actually it shouldn't be hard finding a guild to join, as there's always few of them accepting experienced and new players alike. And figuring out how things in a guild work shouldn't be complicated after that. I wish you luck in finding that perfect, for life guild sooner.

Once you've started accumulating a surplus of items/resources from crafting, hunting or PvP, it might be a good time to setup a vendor. Will help you get rid of unneeded stuff, earn some cash and save from nuisance of haggling as well as trouble of listing everything on forums.

First of all you'll need to find NPC Tavernkeeper to buy a vendor deed for 2k. If you have trouble locating one, visit a tavern immediately south from Britain bank. Then you need to find a place for your new vendor. Choices are limited a bit though, as you can only place a vendor at your house (or at friend's house of course, but owner of the house would have to actually place it). Try to set it at some easily accessible location too, for the convenience of potential buyers. To place it you stand in a house lock down area where you want a vendor to appear (usually outside of the house, but if you want it to have a shop look then go ahead and place it inside, just have means for ppl to get to your vendor), dbl click a vendor deed and target a house sign. Now wait for a world save, after which you should be able to hire him and begin stocking goods on him. He will be charging 100gp per day (24 hours irl) out of the money you keep on him.

If there's noone around (including your pets), you can say bare commands to vendor. If however there is somebody, who game would think of as a target for your speech, then you should use commands preceded by "vendor" or even better - his name. Commands available for vendors are as follows:

• hire - Just drag at least 100gp on him if he responds with the line "I will work for you for 100 gold coins a day" or similar to hire him. If he's playing dumb and is saying "Huh?", means either he's already hired (use animal lore skill on him to see who he belongs to) or there wasn't a world save yet since his placement. Try to keep at least 1k on him at all times. That makes him work for you for 10 days which should be enough if you can't check him because of some emergency. Money got for selling items will be on the same account, so you should be safe. However don't despair if money does run out and he abandons you, your items will be put into your bank box and you can just re-hire your vendor again when appropriate.

• release - Will make a vendor leave your service, as if the money have ran out. Your money (except for 100gp) along with items that were on a vendor will be put into your bank box.

• status - Will tell you how much gold he is carrying, how many days he'll work for you for that gold amount and how many items he has for sale.

• cash - Will give you his gold (except for 100gp). Don't forget to drag some money on him afterwards!

• drop - Items in his backpack (NOT the ones for sale) will be dropped at his feet. You can always access his backpack by opening his paperdoll and dbl clicking on it. Also, while here you can drag clothing/armor/jewelry/weapon on his paperdoll to make him wear it. Choose wisely here, cause you won't be able to undress him and can only use special dyes to dye his clothing afterwards. However clothing could be cut with scissors and other items can be destroyed if you'll keep fighting him (not advised though, as such action could be seen as training, which is illegal if done on smth that can't fight back and will get you in trouble).

• stock (inventory) - Opens a container where items for sale are put. Just drag what you want sold in there. It's not necessary to use this command, as you can simply drag items on vendor directly and then set their price on the buying list. Although if you want items in inventory to be sorted for quick re-pricing or removal later, you should drag them on that special container.

• price (price #) - Will let you target an item inside his inventory or on a buying list to set a price for it. If you don't give the amount indicated in the command, then after targeting you must say the price. Take note that if you move an item after pricing it, the price will reset to game value standards (or unsellable 100k), which will be low. So make sure to re-price any items you move around in inventory.

• buy - Will open a buying list. Don't forget to use it after finished re-stocking vendor to make sure items have the right prices. Also it could be used to retrieve items by not going into inventory, as owner of the vendor is not charged (it'll still say the price of the items you chose to retrieve that way).

• go - Will let you target a place for vendor to go for a few minutes. It's very useful to be able to simply port him into your house near the chest (you must be close to him to drop items for sale) for restocking. Or making it go to town for a short while, to show what he has for sale to banksitting ppl (just use it after targeting rune for recall).

  Most items are fine to put for sale as it is, however there are some that needs description or simply can't be sold on a vendor just like that. For those ocasions there're Etching Tools at Britain, Vesper banks and Runestone Chamber. It consists of a book and a writing feather. To use it you enter the needed text into book's title space and then use a feather on a bag (doesn't work on backpacks or belt pouches). It becomes named "a bag of ...", which you put on sale in vendor's inventory after putting items for sale into that bag. Alternatively you can use color coded bags and have a book locked down nearby saying what's in which bag. Check the book often for the information to stay relevant (there're pricks everywhere). Or you can enter bag contents description in book title and put that book for sale just before the goods in question. That will give an intuitive categorized look in buying inventory and nobody will be able to screw around with it.

  Now for items that should be sold inside named bags. Any stacks of items, as there's a bug where if buying at least one item from the stack, the leftover items in that stack are deleted. Sets of armors or any items that should go as a group. Don't forget to mention quality of items and if they've been used before. Shrink potions/animals, because you simply can't sell them otherwise. Magical weapons that has a spell in them with charges, because the number of charges won't show up on buying list. Magical war axes, as they're buged where it doesn't say the equivalent of their strenght (ruin - vanq) and the strenght in numbers won't show up in buying list, hence making them all seem to be simple war axes on vendor. Spellbooks to say if they're newbied and full. And any other items you find doesn't look right in buying list.

  Once you have a vendor set up and ready for business, take a screenshot of it's location and post it in Buying/selling forum section along with what ppl would expect to find on him and how to travel there. Let's hope this will help you and your customers in trading and saving time.