Gear - Retainers

Function
Retainers are earned through your Primary class abilities. This means that each Hero class gets access to only one category of Retainer, and only one can be equipped at a time. Lords on the other hand get an entire Class-Gear set from their secondary Lordship class, meaning that they will will eventually be able to equip both their primary class Retainer and a Butler at the same time. 'Crafting' an item of Retainer gear requires Bread and some other appropriately sustaining good, but it's assumed there's a secret organization maintaining a standard of training for each retainer type. Their exacting standards that keep Retainers the same in every settlement also refuse to hire out to characters of too low a level. Their mysterious qualifiers will keep players working to earn the privilege of hiring a personal servant to tend their needs.


Retainers

Bodyguard - By the time a personal Bodyguard will work for you, you're already such a badass it might seem silly. On the other hand, you're an important person with big awesome things to do. You could benefit from a personal assistant and it would be foolish to hire one who can't defend themselves. By literally being able work for and shield you, they raise your effective Toughness and Might. These loyal retainers require only Meat and Bread to train and sustain them throughout their service to you.


Valet - Your valet is there to ensure that you don't look like a fool in public. They know that your mind is busy making decisions that will effect nations and no no longer have time to keep your collar tidy and remember which Heroes belong to which local Ministers. Their gentle tending of your great person will make your Charm and Guile attributes more effective. These are very useful retainers who love to make you look good.

Assistant - The Primary-Traders get their Assistant earlier in the leveling process than other classes. This may be because their natural skill set involves being a good employer that the organization of Assistants allows themselves to be hired by such inexperienced players. Every assistant makes your business their personal concern. If you choose to keep one in your retinue, they increase your Acumen and Arithmetic attributes. In order to 'craft' and 'upkeep', all they demand is Beer and Bread.


Secretary - The Secretary is a quiet, unassuming soul. Once they allow themselves to be hired, they are putting their lives and reputations into your hands. They are with you always, keeping your records and notes and helping you tend your vast spiritual flock. All this care allows you to make better use of your Fervor and Philosophy and require is reasonable pay in Silver Thalers and Bread.


Astrologer - Your personal Astrologer is there to enhance your immediate local spiritual knowledge. With them at your side all day, you can know what the 'stars' have in for you at any moment by demanding an on-spot reading. Forcing them to branch out into auguries and logic will further enhance your Creativity and Judgement, but they require a constant supply of Glass with their bread.


Butler - Every Lord eventually is allowed to hire their own Butler. Whether you have your own estate or are renting a room, you may eventually rule something and have to keep up appearances. The butler's association will gladly provide you with a butler based on availability and your personal price-range. They do of course cost both regular Bread and discreet stacks of Gold Florins These helpful retainers increase your apparent Judgement and Oratory attributes by always being there to support you.

Everything Equippable

Throughout these posts, we've written a lot about all the stuff you can equip and readers may be wondering what the sum total of equippable things are in Brunegame. There are a lot of things that you can equip personally and a few things that can, themselves, be equipped. Following is a comprehensive list of all things that can equip or be equipped.

Your Characters
The players are the reason everything is so equippable in the first place. Everything that you can equip somehow enhances the function of your character. Basic gear enhances your combat stats while class gear improves your attributes. Your units form your personal Army that defends you and joins you in combat. Personal transport units can serve multiple functions, but only one at a time.

Basic Gear
Even at level 1, all characters can equip one of each type of Basic Gear. They will not get a second slot for any, but will be able to do things like equip two weapons (one ranged, one melee) and one of all three spell types. Each sub-type of gear provides an attribute effect. Most provide two bonuses, but some provide a bonus and penalty.

Arms Gear
Basic Gear consists of Weapons, Armor and Spells. Weapons come in the Melee and Ranged varieties, both sets having 6 sub-groups and each item has an Arms Rating that determines which classes can equip them. Weapons come in Knives, Staffs, Clubs, Spears, Axes and Swords. Each progressively higher in Arms Rating. The Ranged Weapons vary from Throwing Knives to Bolas, Bullets, Arrows, Crossbows and Javelins. Likewise ranging from low to high Arms Rating. Which Armor you can equip is also based on Arms Rating and they include Robes, Leather, Fur, Ringmail, Studded and Scaled options. Weapons improve your Physical Damage while Armor improves your resistance to Physical Damage.

Spells
There are 3 types of spell, Buff Spells, Ranged Spells and Blessings. Your ability to equip these spells is based on your Magic Rating, which must be equal or higher to that of the spell. Buff Spells generally target a single Attribute and improve it to an extent based on the rank of the item. Like all gear, they are separated into 6 sub-categories; Might, Guile, Celerity, Toughness, Health and Reason. Ranged Spells inflict Magic Damage and range in strength from Burn, to Splash, Blast, Quake, Ray and Shock. Blessing spells offer protection from a variety of things. The lowest rated is 'vs Melee' which counters any melee-based physical damage. 'vs Magic' resists Magic damage while 'vs Ranged' obviously resists ranged-based physical damage. 'Dmg Absorb' resists all physical damage and 'vs Damage' protects you from both physical and magical attacks. 'Dmg Reversal' is the most powerful type of Blessing which actively turns damage back on your attackers.

Class Gear
Class Gear slots are very selective. They can only be unlocked in your primary and secondary class ability chains. Like basic gear, there are 6 types of class gear and each is separated into 6 sub-categories. Each of these sub-categories is associated with the class that will eventually unlock it.

Each piece of Class-Gear provides a bonus to two attributes. Usually these attributes are two of the three class-attributes of the class that earns the gear. Sometimes it is only one of the class-attributes and another that is helpful and relevant to the gear type. Fully leveled characters will generally have access to one sub-group of each class-gear type and a little extra. For double-class heroes (ie: Merchant is a trader-trader hero), this extra may be two of one slot (like Ledger sub-group of Books). Types of Class Gear are Accessories, Books, Symbols (ie: Tattoos and Crests), Emblems (ie: Flags and Banners), Companions (pets) and Retainers.

Personal Army
Every character can recruit/hire military Units for their personal army. These troops work for you and must be paid an upkeep in order to stay. You can arrange these units in same type/level stacks in a Formation around your person, or choose to take the lead and the first damage in battle. Once you've got your troops and assigned their Formation, you can also give them a basic Tactic with which to respond to most threats.

Equipping Units
Each stack of units can be equipped with two to four pieces of gear. One of these will always be a specific type of weapon that will enhance their damage. The other one to three vary based on the inherent social class and variety of the Unit. These can be either basic or class gear, but usually one is a sub-type of Armor.

Transport Unit
Characters can choose a single Transport unit to make their personal transport. This unit does not require a storage slot in a building and by default all it does is add it's storage space to that of it's .... 'wearer'. While with watercraft this may seem silly to visualize, it's assumed your personal vehicle is always somewhere nearby, waiting to hold your stuff. Alternately, you can set your personal vehicle to auto-trade for you. This allows you to set up a repeating auto-trade but doesn't provide you with the storage space of your vehicle.

Unit Troops
Large Ships that are NOT your personal vehicle can be filled with a certain number of Units. These units do not function as part of your personal army and aren't taking up Garrison space. In order to assign these troops to a ship, you must own (or have permission to manage) both the Ship and the Units. This ship can be sent on auto trade/raid and the units inside will do their best to help with combat.

Trading Ships

Trading Ships

There are six types of Transportation unit. These are separated primarily into Carts, Boats, Ships and Trains. Boats and Ships both separate into Trading Boats and War Boats, and Trading Ships and Warships. This post will cover the general details of Trading Ships. Trading Ships have massive Cargo space and are second only to Trains. Ships have the greatest Health of all Transport Units, but Warships are somewhat more resilient than Trading Ships. Trading Ships can carry more Cavalry units but Warships can carry more Infantry on board.


Construction and Recruiting

The building of Ships requires Boards and Oil, more so with every increasing rank of Ship. Ships overall employ the largest number of Crew. Trading Ships in specific appear to recruit more Peasants per rank than Warships, but fewer Yeomen and Peer crew per rank. Starting construction on a ship will consume the Material costs and remove the Crew from your population for training. When the Trading Ship unit is available, the physical ship will be built and it will be staffed a full crew of Peasants, Yeomen and Peers.

Research

Building Trading Ships requires your settlement to have knowledge of Navigation. This is the science of finding your way around and without it, Ships would be no more powerful than boats, unable let the shore leave their sight. In order to research Navigation, you must first research Physics, which has it's base in Science which is where you'll need to start.


Auto-Trading

Trading Ships can be sent to targeted Regions to auto-trade. This entails assigning your ship to a Region and letting it leave your sight for long-ish periods of time.  Each ship you send has a percent chance to bring back Coins, Goods or Resources depending on the Rank and size of your ship. Ships can definitely be lost at sea, but each larger, better built Trading Ship reduces the chances that this will happen. Sovereigns building things like Lighthouses throughout your settlement will also improve your chances of Ships returning from Auto-Trade routes.


Auto-Raiding

Auto-Raiding is when you assign your transport units to go find some other schmuck and and take their stuff. This occurs as Interceptions in which players can interfere with each other's shipping plans. Trading Ships are not the most effective way to auto-raid but they can hold a lot of loot. The Auto-Raid cycle takes several hours, more if you send your Ship to a foreign region. These transport units suffer the highest chance of loss while auto-raiding because they are often heavy with cargo and have a limited ability to defend themselves. They also have the lowest chance of Intercepting anything except for carts that almost never intercept while auto-raiding.

Regions and Distances
The Region you choose to Auto-Raid or Auto-Trade with determines the coins, resources, goods and other rewards you can get back from your transport units. On the other hand, going far from your homeland can increase the amount of time each Raiding and/or Trading cycle requires.

Shipping Buildings

While a number of buildings have effects on Shipping, there are very few that can actually build or store a ship. Buildings that can create Ships are limited to the Port Authority Office, the Naval HQ and the Dry Dock. This means that if you're not a Sovereign or Minister of the Port or Shipyard districts, your only chance to build your own boat is to convince the Secretary of the Navy to sell you a Dry Dock or a Shipyard lot to build one one. Buildings that store boats are not quite as exclusive. They include the Boathouse, Cargo Dock, Cargo Terminal, Floating Docks and the Harbor. Of these, the Boathouse is the only building that isn't locked into a specific district. While the mechanic is potentially silly, players can buy a lot anywhere in the settlement and build a Boathouse to hold their personal Ships. It will eventually be possible to rent out Ship (and Boat and Cart and Train) storage slots from Ministers and independent owners.

Unit Spotlight - Auxilia

Auxilia
Originally, the Auxilia troops where those Roman units that were not yet Citizens. The name refers to being helpful and they were there to support the Citizen-filled official legions. They were often recruited from the provinces, and then stationed in their home provinces as one of Rome's friendly ways of spreading Roman culture with a nod to existing regional loyalties. While historically this varies, Auxilia in Brune all move as Infantry.

Base Social Class

Recruiting Auxilia troops pulls from the Yeoman population. This means that every Auxilia lives in a Yeoman house, requires Yeomen Happiness and isn't working a Yeoman job while being your Auxilia. 'Deconstructing' an Auxilia unit will allow them to return some of their recruitment cost and return to being a regular member of the Yeoman populace. Because they are Yeomen, they prefer to be paid in Silver coins.


Base Character Class

The Auxilia are essentially Mercenaries, making them different from most other Units. They're in it mainly for the cash and will have higher Management, Acumen and Arithmetic attributes than most other units as well. When they level up, they will level like Mercenary heroes.

Training Resources

In order to train even on Auxilia, you'll need an Infantry, Yeoman or Ranged unit training building. Each unit requires an allotment of Iron Ingots and Leather to make up their armor and weaponry. If they are hired from an encounter or other random opportunity, they will also want to be paid in Thalers.

Equipping Gear
Auxilia are fairly well-equipped units. As Yeomen, they can only equip their weapon and two other types of gear. While it may seem like this should be focused on combat gear, the Auxilia can equip a Flag. As this enhances their warrior attributes it can serve to enhance their performance in battle. All units come with basic weaponry, but equipping them with the appropriate weapon-gear and make them even stronger. Auxilia are Javelin-wielders and can be equipped with any Ranged Weapon in the Javelin category. Finally, they can be given Scale armor to seriously increase their physical defense and chance to survive.

District Profile: Siege Works

Siege Works

There are not a lot of spaces ideal to construction of large-scale wheeled contraptions. Building a Siege Works allows you to have a place for these handy construction projects. Of course, nice peaceful settlements who had no interest in knocking down the walls and buildings of their enemies wouldn't need a Siege Works but the world has never been a perfect place. This is functionally an Education district, belonging to the Department of Education. The district itself relies on Science and Engineering research to craft it's complex war machines.

Action - Practice Siege Warfare
Using the siege weapons and watching them used increases the inherent understanding of your Regiment/Brigade. Players can visit the Siege Works (if their Sovereign has built one) and show off how to use these impressive machines. This action increases the Arithmetic by a percent for the Regiment/Brigade.

Main - Siege HQ

The Siege HQ handles everything that it should. It makes Boards, it hires Engineers, and it constructs/trains Siege units. On top of all this great stuff it also increases local Education, so any housing buildings constructed in the Siege Works will be particularly well educated, and really good at throwing rocks at each other. Constructing a Siege works and keeping it running requires Beer and Magnets. The Engineers will accept no alternatives.

Exclusive - Siege Workshop

The Siege Workshop is where they practice building and firing your Siege weapons. As many can be built in the Siege Works district as you can cram in but they're not really useful anywhere else. Every level of Siege Workshop decreases local training costs and always has a catapult lying around that will join the settlement Garrison forces for combat. They also increase Education across the entire settlement.

Linked - Sawmill

Sawmills are vital to a growing settlement, as they produce Boards in every district. While they are most efficient in the Siege Works, it's likely that many (peaceful) settlements may choose to forgo the Siege Works entirely and concentrate a few Sawmills in another district when they need to construct one of the many buildings that requires Boards.

Minister - Chief Wrecker

The Chief Wrecker is possibly the coolest seat in the Education department. Sure, they have to do a bunch of math but the fun part is doing shit-tons of damage. They are backed by the Ministry of Demolition, a similarly smug set of badasses among their administerial counterparts in other Educational Ministries.

Favorite Astrology Sign Bonuses

Zodiac Trait
While during character creation you can select your Zodiac Sign, this is not something your character is assumed to have control over. This represents under which house of stars you were born under, which some believe effects your personality and fate. Whatever you believe, choosing to have a zodiac sign provides a bonus and penalty to your gameplay, slightly shaping your experience away from others of your chosen class. While this is a decided-by-birth kind of detail, characters can find ways through the game to change their zodiac sign.

Zodiac Signs

Aries - Aries are considered hot-headed and energetic. They are quick to temper but also quick to recover and move on to the next thing. This constant energy and forward motion provides them a small percent AP bonus for the rest of their natural life (including restoration and resurrection). Unfortunately, their short-sighted outlook causes Logisticts to cost them more.


Taurus - People born under the Taurus sign are renowned for their stubbornness. Few comment on their native reliable and friendly natures. Those who take on the unstoppable traits of the Taurus are more resistant to getting killed, as their HP is always a percentage higher. On the other hand, their weakness is incorporating new ideas and experiences and thus suffer a small XP penalty.


Gemini - The Gemini love being around people. They always have a joke and a thoughtful comment for any situation and can usually make the best of a bad situation. These canny social characters gain more from every personal Bond. On the other hand, they spend more time talking than training and always have a percentage lower HP than their peers.


Cancer - Cancers are generally considered pleasant people. They are associated with emotional responses and creative expression and everyone is sort of happy to have them around.  This overall positivity provides a small amount of all universal Happiness to their home district. They also tend to be a little disorganized end up paying slightly more in personal equipment upkeep.


Leo - Leos are warm and accepting friends. They have gained an eternal reputation for being good leaders and characters under the Leo sign gain a percentage more Importance throughout the entire game. These characters also tend to jump into battle quickly and without consideration, making them slightly more vulnerable to physical attack.


Virgo - Virgos are known for being both shy and exacting in their personal lives. This unforgiving nature allows them to straight up resist a small amount of Magical damage. This magical resistance cuts both ways. The clear cut form of a Virgos world lowers their natural MP capacity.

Libra - Libras are best known for not getting too excited by anything and always trying to find a compromise between extremes. This dedication to being even-headed allows Libras to gain more from XP with every experience. The penalty for being a Libra is reduced Ranged damage by a small percent.


Scorpio - Characters born under the Scorpio are known for their passion and aptitude for dangerous situations. This powerful nature allows them ton inflict more damage with Melee attacks. This fearlessness in battle translates to a certain lack of awareness, leaving Scorpios more vulnerable to Magic in battle.


Sagittarius - Born under the archer's sign, Sagittarius characters can dish out more Ranged damage than their peers. Care-free and good humored, Sagittarius are known for being overly optimistic, and sometimes tactless. This gives them a slight penalty to the effect of their personal Bonds but leaves them free to care somewhat less about those close to them.


Capricorn - Capricorns are known to be cautious and thoughtful people. They are likely to weigh a situation before jumping in and choose their words carefully. Their ability to follow through on a plan, once decided, gives these polite characters a surprising resistance to physical damage. Their careful lifestyle causes them to be less impressive, and gain slightly less Importance than usual from their actions.


Aquarius - Aquarius are known to be generally positive, but also somehow hard to predict. Characters born under this sign are more connected to the forces of nature and have a percentage more Magic capacity than others. Their native tendency to daydream slightly decreases their overall AP regeneration.


Pisces - These creative and unworldly characters are connected with their fishy brethren and the ocean. This affinity provides them with an increased understanding of the sea and their ships sink slightly less often. Their ability to manage on-land structures are less successful, causing the maintenance of personally owned buildings to cost more than usual.


Ophiuchus - For characters who want nothing to do with the game of assigning traits and assuming that the starts have something to do with their fate, they can choose to have been born under the mysterious sign that most people haven't had time to assign traits to yet. This provides no bonus or penalty.

Gear - Companions

Function
Companions are specially trained animals that can go with you wherever you go. Even the Pack Animals and Horses are well mannered enough to accompany you to meetings and social gatherings. They are neither cheap nor simple to train, so their trainers are a little careful with who can equip one. Companions are linked to the Primary class ability paths, so most characters will only ever gain access to one category of Companion and will not be able to equip two at once. Lords are the exception, and will eventually be able to equip a Falcon along with their Primary Class associated Companion.

Companions

Hound

Most warriors are comforted by the steady, loyal, predictable companionship of a well trained hound. These friendly animals will keep you company and are always watching your back. Hounds also act as great conversation starters with mission contacts and shy attractive members of society. Running and training with your Hound increases your Celerity and Might attributes. Training them  involves a lot of time and Groceries put into a batch of normal hounds. The best and brightest of these will emerge as gear-worthy companions.

Horse

Nobles have been riding little pet ponies since they were small children, but these Horses are nothing like those delicate, docile creatures. Your personal Horse acts as friend, ride, protector, and extended opportunity to accessorize. The beauty and grace of this creature combined with it's powerful frame frame provides you with a Celerity and Toughness bonus. Like the Hounds, many average horses are fed lots of Groceries and the most talented, sensitive, and combat effective creatures will be sold to Nobles as companions.

Pack Animal

Your personal Pack Animal is a sign of wealth, taste, and necessity for extra mobile storage. Every Trader eventually needs one but they cannot always be found. If a building that produces Companions has yet to be built, or it's owner has not been incentivised to train the beasts, there might not be any on the market at all. No matter, Traders are good at getting things produced and shipped. Each of these increasingly exotic animals enhances their owner's Management and Might.

Songbird

The Songbird is a classic pet of the gentle Clergy. Many priests can trap and keep wild sparrows but few have birds that are bright and charming enough to aid their day to day life. This little bird will put your guests at peace and charm them into opening up to you. Thousands of birds must be tested for intelligence and sweetness in order to find even one worthy companion bird. Such a rare creature increases your Grace and Creativity while you have them equipped.

Falcon

The Falcon is a majestic but dangerous creature. Unsatisfied with grains and small insects, these birds require fresh meat and prefer to take the kill themselves. The striking leather glove and masterful control over a beast of prey is somehow inherently impressive to onlookers, increasing your apparent Influence and Guile. No one wants to argue with a crazy Lord with a meat eating bird on their arm.

Brunelleschi Through the Oculus

We've worked hard in the 3D client version of Brunelleschi to offer an experience that's equally enjoyable through the Oculus Rift. When we first got our DK 2, we went so far as to design an entirely new pointer-system so players will be able to select the buildings they're looking at and walk around inside the Main Buildings of each district. Players who don the Oculus will find themselves with an understandable movement and pointer mechanics. Moving around, zooming in and out of first person and controlling the camera should be relatively simple. Now you can explore your city.

Download the most recent Oculus Client on Indie DB.

The first thing after the initial loading screens is the Animated Menu. This is a cute little representation of a small NPC town. During the day, day-time peasants work and play behind the menu items. In the evening, a pair of ladies take a walk while friends share a drink near the Aesop Games button. Selecting [Play] with your pointer will allow you to move on to the next stage.

This is the part where you log into your web-game character so we can find out who you are and where you live (in the game!). The Oculus pointer may feel clumsy at first but it works just fine in the web-view. Navigate through your login process and hit [Play] to move on.

This is what it sometimes looks like while logging into the MMO client. I like to use the Wizard avatar, so that's usually who I see during this phase. If the clay tile weren't there, we'd instead watch ourselves fall into nothing until the next scene loads. It can also look like this.

Finally, you've loaded into the MMO part of the game. Look around, you're probably in the Fields district of whatever your home settlement. The buildings you see here depend on how it was built by the sovereign/minister. You know a developed city when you see Post Offices and Fountains in your Fields district. From here you can start running to another district (this will take a long time), check out the local buildings, head into the Granary or open up your Character Sheet.

This is what it looks like when you're checking out the local buildings. This is a farm that I don't own. That's why there's a big 'Unauthorized' panel over the place where employment information would be if I were the owner. Right now, most of those buttons will say 'Coming Soon' or 'Unauthorized' for the same reasons.

From your Character Sheet there are many things to check out. You could look at your personal info, your Attributes, open up a web-view to manage your character or travel through the Settlement Map. Here on the main page of your Character Sheet, we've recently added the 'Go Home' button.

This is what the original Player Room looks like in the Oculus. The room you find yourself in will depend on the room you're currently renting as your home. We are already working on the mechanics for players to visit each other's rooms and meet in a specific player's room. Living in a player-room provides a cool in-game bonus as well as providing a fun personal location in the 3D client.

This is what the Settlement Map looks like. Your red pointer works exactly like the mouse pointer in the normal PC client. Hovering over a district will highlight it and name it in the upper left corner. Clicking will select it, keep it highlighted, and fill in the basic data in the side-scroll. It will also allow you to open the District Map for that district. Clicking a selected district again will teleport you to that location, saving a lot of in-game running time.

This is what the inside of the Central Bank looks like.