19.10.9 ARTEFACT PETS

What is an artefact pet?
------------------------
An artefact pet is a special-purchase, custom denizen (restricted in MANY ways 
as to nature and type, see below) with special and unique powers and abilities 
that may be purchased for Bound Credits. (except: see GIFTS)

Artefact pets are loyal to a particular adventurer. They are NOT meant to
assist greatly in combat, though they are not useless either. See the PET
COMMANDS section at the end of this help file.


What isn't an artefact pet?
---------------------------
A mini pet is not an artefact pet. Some mini pets may be purchased for gold, 
others are obtained through other means. Please refer to HELP MINIPETS.

A mount or steed is not an artefact pet, though some pets may be mountable.
Even if you purchase a collar of Lupus (see HELP ARTEFACTS MISC), the mount is 
not an artefact pet. Most mounts may be purchased for gold at stables across 
Sapience. Please refer to HELP MOUNTS.

A follower or entity is not an artefact pet (such as a Magi's water weird, a 
Serpentlord's snake, a Knight's falcon, a Sentinel's woodland creature, or one 
of many entities found serving Occultists). These are available as special
class abilities. Consult the various classes for more details.

(We realise that mounts, steeds, falcons, snakes, weirds, and the like are
often referred to in casual conversation, especially on the newbie channel, as
pets. We don't mind this, as long as the distinction is clear for the purposes
of artefact pets.)

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All of the information below is pertinent to ARTEFACT PETS ONLY.
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Gifts
-----
As with other artefacts, it is possible that a pet may be given as a gift.
In such a case, you MUST have unbound credits in order to pay for the pet.
If your credits are bound, you must use them on yourself. You may not buy
a gift with bound credits.


Tradein
-------
Pets may not be transferred or traded in at all - no tradein value, no refunds,
no exchanges. Be sure that you want any pet you purchase, because it will be
yours, and nobody else's, for a very long time!


Requesting a Pet
----------------
To request a pet, send an e-mail to pets@achaea.com detailing what you want
your pet to be called and what its description should be. Include any special
features you want to purchase (see below). We need the name (either generic,
like 'dog' or more specific, like the actual pet's name; an appearance
description, a dropped description, an extended description; plus what you see 
when the pet is dead, when it enters a location, and when it leaves a location.
See HELP STYLE for more details on describing your pet.


Details
-------
You have two primary choices, various secondary choices (called add-ons), and
after that the sky's the limit!
  - Primary choice 1: The Basic Pet - 750 Bound Credits. (except: see GIFTS)
  - Primary choice 2: The Package Pet - 1250 Bound Credits. (except: see GIFTS)
  - Add-ons: discussed in detail below.
  - Anything else: ask. We'll see!


The Basic Pet (750 Bound Credits) (except: see GIFTS)
-----------------------------------------------------
  - The pet itself (including fully custom descriptions and name).
  - Resets to you so that it cannot get stolen or lost permanently.
  - Resets to you in the case of death.
  - The ability to order it to move about via tells.
  - The ability to order it to follow you.
  - The ability to order it to enter your inventory.


The Package Pet (1250 Bound Credits) (except: see GIFTS)
-------------------------------------------------------
  - Everything in the Basic Pet.
  - Add-ons 1, 2, 3, 4, and 11.
  - 5 reactions (see section on Reactions, below).


Add-ons
-------
1)  Invincibility - 150 Bound Credits (except: see GIFTS)
     Your pet will not die.
     NOTE: Pets whose functionality includes unrestricted reporting (see below)
     CANNOT be invincible.

2)  Sentience - 150 Bound Credits (except: see GIFTS)
     Order your pet to speak and emote, pre-defined and custom emotes, with the
     exception of racial or other special emotes (see add-on 10 below). Speech 
     will be in Achaean only. 

3)  Flight - 50 Bound Credits (except: see GIFTS)
     Your pet will be able to fly. We will only allow this for pets that flying
     makes sense for. No flying sea turtles, for example.

4)  Mountable - 100 Bound Credits (except: see GIFTS)
     Ride your pet like a pony! We will only allow this for pets that riding
     makes sense for. No riding a beetle, for instance. You could ride a
     giant beetle of course, but not a beetle of normal size. If your
     pet is mountable, you do not have to have riding skill in order to do
     this. You MAY have riding skill though, and you may use abilities in
     the skill while mounted on your pet.

5)  Reactions - Starting at 50 Bound Credits each (except: see GIFTS)
     These are described below.

6)  Amnesia - 400 Bound Credits (except: see GIFTS)
     Your pet will sometimes afflict your enemies in combat with amnesia.
     NOTE: you may only get amnesia OR custom attack message, but not both.

     More about attacks: no other attacks are allowed for any pets, at any
     price. Only amnesia is allowed as an attack for pets. Also you may only
     purchase two amnesia pets per character.

7)  Custom Attack Message - 300 Bound Credits (except: see GIFTS)
     Your pet's attack will have a custom appearance in the form we call
     an 'oact'. Oacts may not change the damage type or amount. Multiple
     oacts may be combined to give the pet various attacks. Each added
     oact is also 300 Bound Credits.
     NOTE: you may only get amnesia OR custom attack message, but not both.
   
8)  Mask Ability - 300 Bound Credits (except: see GIFTS)
     This is similar to the MASK ability. With it, you gain the ability to
     PETMASK or PETUNMASK. A masked pet does not appear in the room when
     someone LOOKs there, nor is it seen while entering or leaving. This
     does not mean that the pet is completely invisible, since someone
     looking directly at it will see it.

     If you are riding (mounted on) a masked pet, you are not masked.
     Masking affects nothing more than the pet itself, not the rider nor
     anybody else.

9)  No Auto Emotes - 50 Bound Credits (except: see GIFTS)
     This means that the pet will have absolutely no reaction to
     emotes from other players (unless of course you add some
     reactions as noted in 5 above). This can be requested in place of
     one of the 5 reactions included with the package pet.

10) Racial Emotes - 50 Bound Credits (except: see GIFTS)
     For pets who resemble races that have predefined racial emotes
     (such as Rajamala or Dragon), you may enable those racial emotes
     for 50 credits per race. So, for example, if your pet is a winged
     panther, the cost to enable both Rajamala and Atavian emotes would
     be 100 credits.

11) Reporting - 250 Bound Credits (except: see GIFTS) 
     The pet will send the owner a tell when a player emotes directly
     at the pet, gives something to the pet, sends a tell to the pet,
     and when someone enters or leaves the pet's location. The pet will
     also send the owner a tell with its room name/location when the owner
     does "TELL <pet> where are you?"

     In addition to this, pets will also report the details of says heard
     in its location provided the "invincibility" add-on is not included.
     Pets that are "invincible" can only report things said directly to the
     pet itself.

     NOTE: This reaction package requires the sentience add-on. There are
     no substitutions, and the included reactions cannot be customised or
     purchased separately. 

Things That Won't Work
---------------------- 
Before you buy credits for a pet, be sure to contact pets@achaea.com first to
make sure your pet request will be acceptable. There are a few common requests 
for pets that will be denied, including pets that are:

SPIES: Pets do not have the power to send you a tell repeating everything
they hear. They may repeat things said directly -to- them, however.

MULTILINGUAL: Pets will only speak Achaean. They will understand spoken
commands, if they are coded in as 'reactions,' without regard to language.

OVERSIZED CREATURES: Pets cannot be oversized versions of their normal selves. 
So, a snail may not be the size of a horse. In essence, you will never be able to
mount something that is not intended to be mounted.

HUMANOID: Pets cannot be humanoid, or of a living sentient or near-sentient
race, known or imagined. Thus no pet could be Tsol'aa or Tsol'teth, Troll or
Treekin. Not even a lich, centaur, or minotaur.

OF HISTORY OR LEGEND, or RELATED: Pets should also not try to make some
sort of real or imagined connection with history or myth or some known unique
being. Thus no pet should try to claim to be a direct descendant of the Spawn
of the Unnamable Horror, or the Hydra that Jason battled, or whatever. Generic
is the way to go! 
   
OVERLY SILLY OR OTHERWISE UNSUITABLE TO OUR ROLEPLAYING ATMOSPHERE: At
the discretion of the administration, your pet may be rejected if its
descriptions or its behaviours are simply too silly or otherwise detrimental
to the roleplaying atmosphere.


Reactions
---------
Reactions are responses to various 'events.' An event is something that happens
that the pet can be taught to respond to. The events they may respond to are:
   
  - Hearing something (spoken by any adventurer, or only a certain adventurer)
  - Being asked something (by the owner, a certain adventurer, or any
    adventurer)
  - Being told something (by the owner, a certain adventurer, or any
    adventurer)
  - Being greeted
  - Being given something
  - Being given gold (separate from other things given)
    * Any reaction involving gold will REMOVE AND DESTROY the gold.
  - Being attacked
  - Death (at the very moment) or dying (hurting bad, not dead yet)
  - Entry or exit of a given adventurer 
  - Random (the 'random' event happens every 15 minutes or so)

The things that denizens can do in response to these events include:
  - Say things
  - Do standard emotes
  - Do room emotes. A room emote is essentially sending out any text whatsoever
    to the room (the name of the denizen isn't necessarily in the results, as
    with a normal emote)
  - Move in a direction, start wandering around at random, or stand still
  - Follow someone
  - Tell someone something
  - Attack someone
  - Jump into someone's inventory

For instance, you could have your pet run over and pee on your worst enemy's
foot when he/she enters the room. Or you could have your pet attack someone if
someone gives it your dead body. Use your imagination, keeping in mind the
lists above and the limitations below. And if there is something you want your 
pet to do and it is NOT listed above, just ask!


Limits on Reactions
-------------------
Pet reactions MAY take into account city membership (e.g. If a member of city
x walks in, growl at him) or membership in an organisation in which you are
also a member (your order or house or even clan). Reactions may also take into
consideration your allies/enemies lists, but not friends/rivals.

Pet reactions may not take into account membership in any other organisation of
which you are NOT a part, unless the membership is a clearly visible, public 
thing, like city membership. So you couldn't have a special reaction that only 
occurs when a member of an enemy house, or a certain order (that you aren't a 
member of) does something.

Pet reactions cannot be used to deliver items to other players, like the mail 
system or Chivalry falcons. Pets may bring items to you, if someone else gives 
them something. Pets also cannot be sent directly to other adventurers' rooms.

Third-person messages or first-person messages to anyone other than the owner
should be no longer than 4 lines in Achaea's default setting (which is 80
characters per line). Anything longer may be broken up using delayed messages 
with a few seconds in between (and may cost more). First-person messages to the
owner may be as long as you like. Basically, if you want to spam yourself, feel
free, but not other people!


Pet Commands
------------
In addition to the commands in HELP DENIZENS, the following apply to 
artefact pets.

SAY <pet name>, FOLLOW ME       - Makes your pet follow you.
SAY CLIMB UP, <pet name>        - Makes your pet climb up into your inventory.
TELL <pet name> GO <direction>  - Make your pet walk in a direction.
                                  (no direction abbreviations, please)
TELL <pet name> COME HERE       - Teleports your pet into your inventory from 
                                  anywhere.

For Mountable Pets
------------------
MOUNT <pet>                     - Mount your pet.
DISMOUNT <pet>                  - Dismount your pet.
SPUR <pet> SKYWARDS             - Your pet flies to the skies with you on its
                                  back. (assuming your mountable pet can fly)

For Sentient Pets
-----------------
TELL <pet> EMOTE <xx>           - any pre-defined emote.
TELL <pet> EMOTE EMOTE <xx>     - any free-form emote.
TELL <pet> SAY <xx>             - pet will say whatever you want.