Faction turf and attacks

Purpose and authority

Southland’s website publishes a staff-controlled turf map. The map gives criminal factions stable geography for recruitment, diplomacy, threats, and organized attacks. It is a roleplay agreement, not a game capture system.

The published map revision and this policy govern turf scenes. The gamemode does not detect entry, assign ownership, score activity, create gang zones, or pay a holder.

What turf means

A holder may present the territory as an area where it has an established presence. Other characters may recognize, dispute, avoid, visit, live in, work in, or roleplay around that claim using information their characters have.

Holding turf does not grant:

  • ownership of public streets, unrelated properties, businesses, interiors, or the characters inside them;
  • permission to order ordinary players out, search them, tax them, rob them, or attack them without an independent IC basis;
  • immunity from police, evidence, property, business, or community rules;
  • automatic knowledge of who entered the boundary;
  • money, items, supply, faction capability, or another game advantage; or
  • permission to deathmatch a rival or attack on sight.

The drawn line is an agreed boundary for faction attack outcomes. It is not a perfect description of every corner, roof, interior, or private parcel. Staff resolve a genuine boundary ambiguity from the published revision rather than a player inventing precision during a scene.

Eligible factions

Only an approved criminal faction with recognized leadership may request or defend a turf attack. Temporary groups, personal crews, public-service organizations, and a player’s alternate characters cannot acquire a territory through this process.

A faction must use its current roster and leadership. It may not borrow members, conceal another faction as unofficial reinforcements, or move participants between its own characters to change the numbers.

Staff may refuse or postpone an attack when faction status, leadership, recent conduct, attendance, the selected place, or server operations cannot support a fair scene. Refusal does not transfer turf and must include a reason.

Request and approval

A faction submits a private request through the published Discord route. The request identifies:

  • attacking and defending factions;
  • the exact territory key and current map revision;
  • the IC basis and prior roleplay leading to the attack;
  • proposed dates and times;
  • expected participants;
  • the proposed objective and end condition; and
  • any requested vehicle, weapon, location, or event support.

No request is approved until staff publish one bounded attack brief to both faction leadership teams. The brief fixes:

  • territory and map revision;
  • start, assembly, and end window;
  • participant roster or cap and substitution rule;
  • starting areas and any excluded interiors/private property;
  • objective and win, loss, draw, cancellation, and interruption conditions;
  • equipment, vehicle, outside-assistance, and public-service boundaries;
  • treatment of late joins, disconnects, incapacitation, death, and observers;
  • responsible staff and evidence route; and
  • when the result and any map update become effective.

The attack does not begin and has no turf consequence until that brief is approved. Ordinary unscheduled faction conflict remains ordinary roleplay under the charter.

During an approved attack

Follow the attack brief and roleplay charter. The brief adds constraints; it does not suspend normal rules.

Only approved participants may pursue the turf objective. Bystanders retain the right to ordinary roleplay and may face consequences arising naturally from the scene, but they do not become scoreable participants or reinforcements merely by being present.

A participant who is killed or accepts death receives a PK by default; removal from the attack does not itself create a CK. A participant removed by that death, the brief’s injury rule, or staff takes no further part. They may not return, relay prohibited knowledge, join on another character, supply replacements, or direct the remaining participants through OOC channels.

A genuine disconnect does not create an automatic win or permit a replacement. Follow the brief’s interruption rule and staff instruction. Deliberate disconnection, idling, or timeout avoidance remains a charter violation.

Do not use Discord voice or another OOC channel to direct the attack. IC text, organization communication, and game-owned radio channels remain authoritative.

Staff may pause, move, cancel, or declare the attack void when a technical failure, safety issue, serious rules breach, or material deviation makes the approved objective unreliable. A pause is not permission to reposition, resupply, or gather OOC intelligence.

Outcome and map changes

The responsible staff review the declared objective and preserved evidence, then publish a win, loss, draw, cancellation, or void result with a bounded reason. Kill count alone decides nothing unless the approved brief explicitly made it part of the objective.

A territory changes holder only when staff approve a source-controlled update to turf-boundaries.json. The website shows its new revision and effective date. An in-scene claim, screenshot, forum post, Discord message, or game restart does not update the map.

A result creates no automatic money, supply, property right, or mechanical permission. Factions may roleplay the political and reputational consequence within the charter.

Boundaries, revisions, and corrections

Use the website’s current effective revision. Each territory has a stable key and label. Holder labels and polygon changes are reviewed repository changes, not live staff commands.

If the website is stale, unavailable, internally inconsistent, or differs from the approved attack brief, staff pause boundary-dependent adjudication and use the release-paired source. They do not guess a new line during combat.

A correction publishes a new revision and effective date. It does not retroactively change a completed attack result unless the appeal finds that the wrong source materially affected the decision.

The map uses labels and patterns as well as colour. A player should not need colour perception to identify a territory or holder.

Conduct, reports, and review

Faction leaders must brief participants and prevent retaliation against a reporter, opponent, or staff reviewer. A faction may face governance review for organized rule breaking, but membership alone is not proof that every member participated.

Use /report for a live breach or technical problem. Preserve evidence and use the attack’s private review route for a disputed result. Continue following staff instructions while review is pending. Do not relitigate the result through public accusations, unrelated attacks, or harassment.

The roleplay charter governs IC cause, metagaming, powergaming, violence, fear, death, and scene avoidance. The community-safety policy governs harassment, privacy, consent, and OOC conduct. Faction and event guides explain their game systems but do not grant turf authority.