What is the name of your allegiance and how many members do you currently have?
The monarchy name is Pandora's Hope, which goes along with the mythological story of Pandora. Currently I have 24 followers.

What is your current rank?
I'm currently a Baroness (Rank 3).

About how long have you been playing Asheron's Call?
I played a bit in the beta, and have been playing the full version since the day it came out.

What world is your allegiance on?
Morningthaw

Are any (or all) of your allegiance player killers?
None of my followers are PK at this time, and as far as I know, none of them intend to change that anytime soon.

Is it female only or co-ed? Do you have a variety of player types or are you limited to one or two types (like an all-mage allegiance)?
By complete chance, the monarchy right now, excluding me of course, is completely male. I'd love to have some females join the family, but it hasn't been in the cards so far. As to types, I am a war mage, therefore a great number of my followers are mages, though we have a few archers, and we're getting more and more swordsmen as time goes on.

Do you allow mules to pledge in your allegiance?
No. I have a few vassals who have second characters who are sworn in, but they are active characters, not mules.

What do you offer your vassals and what do you expect from them?
I offer my vassals equipment, spells if applicable, tips and tricks, and above all, friendship. All I ask in return from any of them is loyalty.

Do you organize your followers according to an allegiance tree or just allow them to join and recruit at will?
I allow them to recruit whomever they feel comfortable with. I think for a person to swear to someone or be sworn to, you have to trust that person, and so who their patron/vassal is should be their choice, not mine.

Does your allegiance have a history in any other games?
No - we all met in Dereth.

Were you ever a part of another allegiance? If so, why did you choose to leave them and start your own?
I've never been a part of another allegiance. I just had good friends at the beginning, and we struggled through the learning process together.=)

Do you recruit new members or just wait til people ask to join? If you recruit, how do you go about it?
I've never really "recruited." If I meet someone and we start talking and I feet that they could really benefit from the knowledge of the people in the family, I'll suggest that they join, but if they say no, that's fine. Some of the best vassals I have were my friends first for a long time, and then became vassals of their own choice.

Do you have an allegiance contract?
Not a written one, no. I discuss up front what I can offer that person, and what I expect in return. I take their word and their swearing as their promise of loyalty. Whether they choose to be loyal is up to them.

Do you have a town that you consider your headquarters?
Though it's never been "officially" called headquarters, most of us seem to end up meeting back in Qalaba'r. And Lytelthorpe for a few of us is home and where we met, so that could be considered one also.

Do you primarily adventure in one geographical area or do you cover the world?
If we find a good spot, we'll stick around for awhile, but traveling and seeing new places is, in my opinion, one of the best and most exciting parts of the game.

How much maintainence do you do in order to prevent your vassals from becoming unhappy and leaving? What do you do to keep their loyalty?
I do my best to keep my followers happy by simply talking to them. I ask them how they're progressing and what they need, and if they have any problems. And if an allegiance is broken, I always get in contact with that person (if their character is still in existance) to find out what happened, and to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Do members of your allegiance regularly team up to go adventuring, especially to do some of the more difficult quests?
My best friends in the game are my vassals. There are a number of us that are *always* out adventuring together. We've been to a great numbers of towns and hunting places all over Dereth, and have done many of the quests together as well. I also encourage lower level members of the monarchy that I can't hunt with to team up and do things together as well.

Would you like to see allegiance wars implemented in the game? If so, how do you think they would affect the game and how would they make it better?
This is something I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I think allegiance wars would be a fun and interesting addition to The game. It would allow for interactions between monarchies that we haven't had so far. On the other hand however, it seems to me that humans should be working together to fight the evil in Dereth, instead of fighting amongst ourselves.

Are there any allegiances that you currently have feuds with?
Certainly none that I know of, though I am allied with a few. Like I said above, I'm more interested in fighting the monsters of Dereth than with feuding with other adventurers.

Do you have any minimum rank-required type items that you use?
Well, I have a very nice War Mastery Self III, Mana Boost Other III that has an allegiance requirement of 4 that I obviously can't use yet. But hopefully one day soon...

What do you think is the best thing about the allegiance system?
I think by far, the best thing about the allegiance system is being able to meet a new character who's a lower level, help them out and care for them, and then watch them grow to be powerful warriors. It's an amazing thing - almost like watching a child grow up.

What would you change about the system if you could?
I'm not sure what exactly I'd change, but there's obviously a real problem of people taking advantage of the system. I've been ripped off by vassals that have sworn to me and then broken allegiance more than once, and I think that's sad. It seems that quite a few people in Dereth are very lacking in honor and loyalty, and that makes it hard for those adventurers out there that do have those traits.

Are there any in-game tools that you would like implemented in order to help you manage your allegiance?
YES. I would love to have a way to talk to all of my followers, not just my direct vassals, as well as giving followers a way to talk to the entire monarchy, and not just their patron or monarch. I would also love to have a way to see the names of all of my followers. As the monarch, I'd like to be able to get in touch and talk to anyone that has my name in their ID bar, and that's hard to do when the chains of command get longer. I talk to people all the time that say they've never even talked to their monarch, and I don't want followers of mine to have that problem.

Do you think men and women monarchs differ? If so, in what way?
In just my *own* experience, I've personally never gotten to talk to any other female monarchs, so I can't really say anything generalizing. In comparing *myself* with the many male monarchs I've talked to, the only differance I'd say is that many men seem to take the game a little too seriously at times. But again, that's only from my experiences with who I've met, and wouldn't dare try to making large generalizations from that.

Do you think men and women differ in their playing style? If so, in what way?
In small ways I think they do. I think men often have a tendancy to take the game a little too seriously, as I said above. I've also seen many men have a tendancy to get a little cocky and take risks that I wouldn't. But I know men that are exceptions to this rule as well as women, so it's not a hard set generalization.

Would you ever consider putting together a female-only monarchy? What do you think the pros and cons of it would be?
If you'd have asked me that before I met some of the amazing guys in my monarchy, I'd have said probably yes. But after making friends with the people I have in Dereth (almost all being male), I think that making an all-female monarchy wouldn't be fair to the people in that monarchy, because they'd be missing out on the knowledge and friendship of some wonderful guys in Dereth. Though I think having groups of women get together and be able to talk (such as the WOAC website) is a *wonderful* idea, I don't think anyone should be excluded from the closeness of a monarchy because of their sex.

Does your allegiance have a website?
Yes, there is one being worked on right now, but if I gave out the URL, the webmaster would kill me because it's not "perfect" yet. I'll let you know when it's ready to go live.