Personal Claim

**Can be Lifted** | lift::No

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A personal claim marks your own piece of land, making it and everything on it your property. Claims protect objects from decay, prevent Hearthlings without Theft to steal your objects and items, and without Vandalism to perform actions such as digging, destroying, building, setting down piles, etc. Paving is no longer required to stop decay.

## How to Acquire

To claim land, you need the Yeomanry skill.

To build a Claim Pole, navigate to Adventure > Haven & Hearth > Claim land. Whoever places the construction sign becomes the owner of the claim.

The initial claim area is a 5x5 square around the totem. It can be expanded at the cost of 10 LP per square (note that personal claims do not refund LP anymore, so what's spent is lost after declaiming). This is done by increasing the dimensions of the claim (north, east, south, west); the claimed area is always rectangular. Claims have their aspect ratio locked to 1:5.

There is no limit to the amount of personal claims a single character can have, although any beyond the first, cost 4000 LP to finish building. Two personal claims can't be built or extended within 5 tiles of one another. They cannot cover a Localized Resource.

## Presence

Claims now require Presence to stay active, which works similarly to Authority on Village Claims. Presence will drain gradually over time. When it drops to 0 (two real-life months from fully charged), the claim becomes inactive: objects start to decay, no scents are left for Theft or Vandalism and the Claim Pole can be bashed by hand.

Upon completing the Claim Pole, the person who finishes it receives an item called A Bond of Blood & Soil. This is essentially your deed to the property, and shows how much Presence the claim currently has. You can name a bond by right-clicking it.

Claims start off inactive, with 0 Presence, 0 soak, and any damage to them is increased tenfold. Only after 8 hours AND after they have been visited again by the claim owner will they become active and begin accumulating Presence (this is to prevent troll-claims by providing some initial window during which they can be destroyed freely). After this window, you can refill your Presence at any time at the Claim Pole, do note however that this consumes LP, and is intended as an emergency measure only. The better way is to put your bond in your Study Report, which gives your claim a free Presence point for every LP you earn, without using it up.

If you should lose your bond by dropping, dying or by having it stolen, you can renew it at the Claim Pole, which destroys your old bond and gives you a new one. The cost for this is half your max Presence. Anyone who finds your bond can study it for 96 hours to take ownership of your claim, so it's advised to renew it as soon as possible.

## Notes

* Personal claims cannot be revoked by a village extending onto it. They can only be revoked if the village owned the land claim is on before the personal claim was made.

* If the claim owner dies and inherits from their ancestor, the claim is inherited by the descendant. The area covered by the claim is not reduced upon inheritance, unlike skills and LP.

* Permissions can be changed on the fly by changing a kin's chat colour.

* Caution when setting white permissions on a personal claim. Anyone you memorize or kin is set to white as a default. This is useful for claiming a spot and setting certain actions to allow "public access" to the claim, but may come with complications.

* Even a newly created character can walk through a claim they have no rights to by turning on Criminal Acts in Adventure > Toggles, but this action leaves an Odor of Trespassing.

* Party members will have **ALL** permissions to your claim regardless of what you have assigned to them via kin's chat colour. Only form parties with people you trust completely.

* Notable exceptions to the prevention of decay are looms and cupboards, which always decay when placed outside.

* If inactive, Claim Poles have no soak and can be easily destroyed by hand.

* You cannot claim a Localized Resource with a Personal Claim.