Q: Are there any conflicts between Warmaidens and other mods?

For the most part, Warmaidens should run fine with just about any mod. There are updates to various locations through the world, mainly the bar squads, to place Warmaidens in the bar for recruitment. This has also been done across various override states. So, for instance, if Trader's Edge becomes prosperous, there will still be Warmaidens there, even though a change in world state will completely redraw/repopulate the area.

Mods like Reactive World, however, which add new override locations or new world state events, might create conditions where Warmaidens no longer spawn in the bars, because you're now using a mod's brand new override, rather than that of the base game.

This proved to be a vital fix in the case of Reactive World, since if the Shek take over the Hub, one of the required quest characters would not spawn at all.

Patches will be made for these mods as needed, with priority given to mods with a great many subscribers. (Reactive World, with 28,000 subscribers, certainly fits that bill).

Q: What is a Warmaiden's starting gear? Is Warmaiden armor craftable?

Craftable? YES! Though the ability to craft it can only be unlocked via blueprint.

This blueprint is in the inventory of all players who use the Warmaiden start.

Additionally, if you join the Warmaidens during gameplay, once you are welcomed to the fold you will be instructed to go to the "Warmaiden Requisitions Officer" and pick up your starting gear. That will include your full Warmaiden Swordsister gear, a selection of weapons of decent quality, a ration pack, medical supplies AND the Warmaiden Armor Crafting blueprint.

Hexia also sells the blueprint, and on rare occasions you can find it at the Warmaiden bar. Note the latter is the *only* way that non-Warmaidens can get the blueprint.

Warmaiden Armor Crafting has prerequisites, to keep it balanced and lore Friendly. You will need to know Plate, Leather, and Cloth armor crafting. The various components of Warmaiden armor are created at the Heavy Armor crafting bench, the Leather armor bench, or the Clothing bench, depending on which type of armor is being crafted, and what materials it is made of.

Q: How does NPC recruitment work? What are the chances of finding a solo recruitable Deathbride in the game?

Recruitment works differently, depending if you are a Warmaiden faction member, or an outsider.

Outsiders recruit Warmaidens with money, like any other mercenary. There are no restrictions on your squad size or anything else, other than your ability to pay. So long as you aren't an enemy of the Shek Kingdom, that is.

Warmaidens can ask their fellow Warmaidens, from *most* squads that exist (War parties and the HQ squads are exempt from this) to join their squad, until their squad has 3 members. Note, there are ways to exploit this, even in vanilla, but I'll leave that to you to figure out.

You can also remove these limits altogether with my cheaty 'No Recruitment Limit' mod. See the description on the main page for a link to this mod.

Deathbrides are not recruitable, outside of rare circumstances.

Solo Warmaidens who spawn in bars for recruitment/hiring will offer the option for bodyguard work, or to join the squad, so long as they are in a squad by themselves. This applies to any Warmaiden, Deathbrides included.

It's just that Deathbrides don't spawn by themselves very often. When you see a Deathbride in a bar, it's usually going to be with the rest of their squad.

In terms of finding a given type of solo Warmaiden in a bar, the percentages look something like this:

Swordsister: 70%
Bladedancer: 30%
Deathbride: 2%

I realize this adds up to more than 100%, but these are relative values. So this is why I have said in the past that there's a < 2% chance of seeing a solo recruitable Deathbride at a bar.

I have yet to see one in the wild myself, but it *is* definitely possible. Just very rare.

Q: Sometimes I can talk to Warmaidens, and sometimes I can't. Why is that?

Warmaidens are kinda snooty. They don't want to talk to some hireling. They only want to talk to the leader of your squad.

In fact, a lot of Warmaiden interactions are based on judging the leader of your squad. If you want to become a Warmaiden, it's the leader of your squad who will be judged. If the leader of your squad isn't a female, you're out of luck.

Just check and confirm that your leader is selected when you try to talk to another Warmaiden.

Unfortunately, this may be a problem with some starts in which no leader is assigned.

Still need to investigate what happens in the game if your leader dies...is a new leader assigned?

Note that Warmaidens also won't talk to you if you're an enemy of the Shek Kingdom.

Q: How do I destroy the Warmaidens faction?

There's a way to find this out in-game. Seek out the Traitorous Bladedancer at the Hub. No spoilers.

Q: Can I leave the Warmaidens faction?

An option will eventually be added for this, a 'no hard feelings' sort of exit from the Warmaidens, in case you want to leave without trying to attack the leader or something.

In the meantime, you will be *evicted* from the Warmaidens if your reputation with them drops too low and you are counted as part of the faction.

When you are evicted from the Warmaidens in this manner, all faction gains awarded by becoming a Warmaiden are removed, and the Warmaidens will view you as a traitor/enemy and become hostile to you.

There is little tolerance among Warmaidens for a fallen sister. They'd have held more respect for her if she'd never became a Warmaiden at all.

Q: If I become enemies with the Warmaidens, will they raid my base or will other groups get involved?

There are currently no 'campaigns' for the Warmaidens, so unless the base game just decides that anyone who is hostile to you can show up at your base, screaming for blood....then no. Of course, if the game *does* do this, then there's nothing I can do to prevent that from happening.

Warmaidens have their own faction relations, so if you become their enemy, it won't affect your standing with other factions, even the Shek Kingdom, their closest ally.

Warmaidens also handle their own bounties, so if you anger them and get a bounty, the bounty will be for the Warmaidens, not any other group.

The caveat to that rule is that since Warmaidens are allied with the Shek Kingdom, if you start fightiing Shek Kingdom soldiers in range of a Warmaiden squad, the squd will definitely defend the Shek Kingdom against you attacking them....and in the course of doing so, you will likely accrue some negative rep with both factions.

Note that if you're an enemy of the Shek Kingdom, no Warmaiden is going to talk to you or offer their services.

Q: Why do Warmaidens wear red? Why aren't there any walls protecting their outpost? Why do they wear veils?

See the Shek bartender at the Warmaiden Outpost for answers to these and more Warmaiden lore questions. She's got a lot of information available for those who are curious.

Unlike some Warmaidens, she'll talk to just about anyone.

Q: What sort of steps towards game-balance have you taken with this mod?

Warmaidens are very skilled warriors. Compared to the Mercenaries Guild, which was the original basis for them, even a Swordsister is more skilled than most of their warriors. This is true even in vanilla Warmaidens, without the 'Stronger Warmaidens' optional mod.

A Bladedancer is more skilled than their leaders.

A Deathbride is close to the 100 max, representing peak conditioning and skill.

Mercenaries can roam in groups of 20-50.

Warmaidens will generally never exceed a squad size of about 25, even in a War Party.

This is one form of balance used to address the faction. While their warriors are more skilled, there are fewer of them and they travel in smaller groups which could allow them to be overwhelmed by a faction that travels in larger numbers.

Essentially, a battle between Warmaidens and most other factions is going to be a battle of skill versus numbers.

Additionally, Mercenaries tend to be better armored than Warmaidens, and this is the other aspect of balance to the mod.

Paradoxically, as Warmaidens become more skilled, they become even less armored.

This is done both for purposes of lore, and also for purpose of balance. Warmaiden Armor is not about min/maxing. It's not about covering every single area. It's not about using the toughest materials, or the best possible armor.

Basically, it's not about hiding from death. It's about taking that risk--taking the risk to die--every single time you're in combat.

It's rising up from the ground, bandaging yourself up, and keeping moving.

Warmaiden War parties emphasize this, as everyone dons the War Party Bindings (which are blood red) to represent they are going out to fight, to invite death. War Party Bindings leave the stomach and chest largely exposed and thus, even though the War Party obstensibly exists to find and target enemies of the Warmaidens, they are actually less armored than a standard Warmaiden party.

Q: Do I have to wear my veil or armor if I'm a Warmaiden?

So far as I can tell, there's literally no way to enforce this. I'd have loved to be able to create some Warmaiden reactions if you're not wearing a head covering, like, "Sister, where is your veil???"

But I have yet to find a way to do this in the engine. I will continue to investigate, to see if there's something I missed, because the veil in particular would ideally be enforced.

I have zero plans to ever enforce you wearing every piece of a Warmaiden's armor, however. If you want your Warmaiden to wear Samurai Armor, that's up to you.

And at least for the time being, if you want to wear a different head covering, or no head covering at all, the Warmaidens won't care.

Q: Follow-up to the last question: So will I get in trouble as a Swordsister if I buy some Bladedancer gear from Hexia and start wearing it before I'm a Bladedancer?

No, you won't. However, once the ability to become a Bladedancer is added, you will be provided with starting Bladedancer gear (including the armor).

So you might just want to save your money for that, unless you just find a really good upgrade piece of higher quality sold by Hexia.

Q: How did the Warmaidens begin?

The lore is still in development for this, but here's what we do know:

A fairly short time ago (maybe a decade or two ago) the Warmaidens were formed by two female Shek warriors, along with a Greenlander friend of theirs who had earned their respect.

Though the Shek Empire does not make much distinction between the sexes, Shek females still often found it distracting to be among their male counterparts on the battlefield, and many female Shek warriors ended their battlefield career after finding out they were pregnant.

Ionica, the only surviving member of these original three female warriors, decided along with them to segregate their units, to create their own unit.

At first, the Shek did not understand this decision.

Some even saw a group of women in uniform as an enticement of sorts.

In order to avoid any confusion, the newly-formed Warmaidens began wearing a veil over their face.

"Sorry, brothers, we are betrothed to the battlefield," they would say. "Only Death shall see our face."

On the border of Vain, just outside of Admag, was a ruined outpost. Ionica and her sisters requested permission to reclaim it.

Over time, their numbers grew, and sisters from beyond the Shek Kingdom came to ask to join their cause.

At first, the Warmaidens wore white, to signify the purity of a maiden and their devotion to their cause.

Once battle began, their robes would be stained as red as blood. In time, the red robes became their symbol, not the white.

They continued to refine their teachings, their dogma, and their training practices until Warmaidens began to take on an air of uniformity--including in their uniforms.

Today, the Warmaidens are spoken of in awed whispers by some, by grumbling from others. Unfailingly honorable and steadfast, the Warmaidens have earned a reputation for trustworthiness, to the point where today the Shek Kingdom sees them as an ally, and will grant a great deal of respect to anyone who belongs to their august number.

Q: What can you tell me about the Warmaiden Start?

Even though you start as a solo Swordsister, there's a certain 'rule of three' among the Warmaidens. Any sister traveling alone can request the help of another Warmaiden. At least until the group reaches a squad size of three. So you should have no trouble getting 3 Warmaidens (including one or more Bladedancers) in your squad, so long as you keep the leader alive. After that, a Warmaiden faction leader can also recruit solo bar Warmaidens until their squad size reaches 9.

Note that most of the Warmaiden dialogs are triggered by the squad leader, not other members of the squad.

One of the nicest features is simply that Warmaidens band together when asked, and provide assistance. Talk to any Deathbride, and she'll offer the escort services of her squad. It's essentially open-ended, free bodyguard service.

This is true until your squad size reaches 8, at which point the Deathbride likely figures that your squad of 8 Warmaidens is probably badass enough it doesn't need an escort anymore.

Unlike a regular Merc in the game, since the contract is open-ended, a Warmaiden can actually talk to a Deathbride at any time to cancel the contract and send them back home.

You could thus create a small squad of Warmaidens for exploring, and drag an escort of other Warmaidens (including one badass Deathbride) along with you indefinitely, and then send them home, returning to the Warmaiden outpost, or checking the local bars whenever you need to replenish your numbers.

There is also a unique "leader" at the outpost known as Ionica with custom dialogue, and a trader known as 'Trader Hexia' there with a green mohawk, who will sell items (only) to fellow Warmaidens like yourself.

As a Warmaiden, you can eat also any of the food in the barracks or sleep in any of the beds in the barracks (outpost/towers) for free.

Note: There is no way of restricting you from going against all reason and choosing a male character for the Warmaiden start. However, if you do so, you will find there *is* a way of restricting you from becoming a Warmaiden and punishing you for your foolish attempt. Sorry, no boys allowed.