Persistent Items Between Worlds

Thoughts on the further development of Haven & Hearth? Feel free to opine!

Persistent Items Between Worlds

Postby Apocoreo » Fri Jan 17, 2020 8:23 am

… Is the most idiotic idea for this game ever, right? Hear me out. I have a weird larpy idea.

I look upon my humble hermit plot and feel frustrated. I have made so many wonderful memories, but soon that is all I will have left is those memories. Indeed, someday I will stop playing Haven. Or Jorb and Loftar will finally fight each other to the death, the winner consuming the corpse of the other, gaining his strength for the bloody rampage to come. But in the meantime, I would like to hold onto those memories a little longer, maybe have them persist between worlds in such a way as to paint an organic history of the hearthlands that can be followed from within the game itself. I will present these ideas in three parts.

1/3: Mementos

Trondur the elder admired the freshly cooled blade. The first he had ever forged. Swelling with pride, he etched a name into the blade.

After learning the skills yeomanry and ancestral worship, a hearthling may designated one item as their Memento. The item’s inventory sprite gains a golden hue, the hearthling may rename the item and provide a 1 paragraph description that will appear when the item is mouse’d over. Perhaps they must name the item to provide an emotional connection. This may or may not cost numen points, perhaps more than one Memento could be designated with additional numen point cost.

But beware! Should another gain possession of your Mementos they may claim or dispel them by right-clicking on the item. Claim instantly transfers ownership of the Memento to the claimant, possibly at numen cost. Dispel transforms it back into a normal item at no numen cost, so as to not deny a victorious warrior their loot.

No benefit is necessary to this system, as I will explain in part two. However, perhaps as a benefit a hearthling could retrieve a lost memento. At great numen cost, a Memento can be summoned, teleporting or recreating the Memento at the hearthling’s ancestral shrine. This does not work if another has claimed or dispelled the memento, of course. A memento cannot be retrieved within 24 hours of it leaving the owner’s possession (even if it’s just sitting in a cupboard on their claim), to prevent abuse.

2/3: Heirlooms

With reverence Trondur the younger blew the dust off his father’s blade. The old man had fallen to a boar, and the beast lived yet. The boy would take his vengeance against the beast and earn the sword’s name.


If a hearthling has died, and their legacy been inherited, the descendant may summon the ancestor's Memento at an ancestral shrine as a Heirloom. Heirlooms cost far, far more numen points to summon than creating a Memento. This of course does not work on a claimed or dispelled Memento. A heirloom may be just as easily claimed or dispelled, but not summoned to the shrine again. Another claiming or dispelling a Heirloom may result in the original owner suffering a numen penalty, as the ancestors do not appreciate the mishandling or their artifacts. Perhaps Heirlooms are meant to be used by the descendant only, not to be loaned to friends, meaning them item can only be used for any purpose by the current owner.

3/3: Relics

Bjork bellowed a laugh as he gestured to the sword above his mantle. The blade was rusted, an etching now illegible across his surface. The man told the story of an idiot boy and his stupid father, who thought that merely wildly swinging a steel blade would fell a boar. He had extracted the story at swordpoint; from a descendant or distant family of the pair, before plunging his blade into the fool and taking the rusted thing as his prize.

Relics are Heirlooms and Mementos from previous worlds, summoned once more from the ancestral shrine. Now however, the item has decayed beyond all use. It cannot be used for any of its original intended purposes, in exception to display in a case, on a wall, or in a container. That is all that is required, as these are meant to be prizes from past worlds, a way of sharing old tales. Any may claim a relic but the process takes a whole week of real time to permanently shift ownership. It is easier though, as a Relic cannot be summoned back to the shrine, once it has been brought into the world, similar to the Heirloom. It can however, be destroyed, even instantly, by right clicking, which counts as vandalism while on claims. Best to lock such things away in museums behind visitor gates or in locked cases.

I toyed with the idea of relics providing a realm buff, like a bonus to authority or learning ability. This would incentivize collecting relics and hoarding them like a dragon, and nations fighting over sacred objects. However, I think that would only make the strong stronger. If an item is significant enough, ego and showing off should be enough to fight over it. I can see many important or silly Relics destroyed simply to spite the owner.

Patton the Pervert held aloft an item most sacred; passed down in his family generation after generation. A branch one might describe as having singular quality, it was known as... The Poop Stick. Patton did as his father did, and his father’s father, and many father’s before he, and assumed the position.
i like game grumps


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