The Realm: Houses, Guilds & Taxes

How Rookery Isles turns ArcheAge 3.0's guilds and housing tax into a living feudal realm, where the Houses you join are paid out of the tax that real players generate.

Table of Contents

• What This Article Covers
• Base Game vs Rookery-Custom: Read This First
• The Noble Houses
• Joining a House
• The Guild Rank Ladder
• Base Game: How Housing Tax Actually Works
• Base Game: Heavy Tax on Multiple Properties
• Base Game: Dominion and Lord Tax
• Rookery-Custom: The Royal Tribute and House Treasuries
• Rookery-Custom: Salaries and Paid Roleplay
• The House Management Portal
• Player FAQ
• On Rookery Isles

What This Article Covers

Rookery Isles is a roleplay-focused ArcheAge private server running the ArcheAge 3.0 "Revelation" era (AAEmu 3.0.3.0 NL0bP fork). On most servers a guild is a chat channel and a banner. On Rookery, your guild is a House: a roleplay institution with a treasury, a rank structure, and (on this server only) a budget that pays its members.

This guide separates two things that are easy to confuse:

• The base ArcheAge 3.0 mechanics for housing tax, multiple-property tax, and the lord and dominion tax. These are real game systems you will meet the moment you place your first scarecrow, covered in full in Housing and Land.
• The Rookery-custom realm layer built on top of those mechanics: the noble Houses, the royal tribute, House treasuries, and salaried roles. These are server design, implemented in the realm content-management system and the website, not in the ArcheAge engine.

Both are true on this server. The point of keeping them separate is so you always know which rules come from the game and which come from Rookery.

For the full mechanics of placing, taxing, and decorating a property, read the companion article Housing and Land. This article is about the realm and the politics that sit above it.

Base Game vs Rookery-Custom: Read This First

This is the single most important table in the article. Keep it in mind as you read.

Bottom line: when you see a copper tax amount, that is the game. When you see a percentage tribute, a treasury balance, or a salary, that is Rookery.

The Noble Houses

Rookery's realm is organized into the realm's noble Houses, each anchored to a region of the world and led by a Prince. Above them sits the Crown, held jointly by the Eternal Phoenix and the Eternal Tempest. One outlaw House, the Pirates, sits outside the political map and answers to no Prince.

Important: the realm's House lore (House names, the duchy names like Thaloria or Skjaldor, the bloc each House holds) is Rookery roleplay canon maintained in the realm CMS. These are not in-game zone names. The actual ArcheAge continents are Nuia (west), Haranya (east), and Auroria (the northern endgame continent). When a House is described as "holding the western bloc," that means a set of real Nuian zones, not a separate continent. For the canonical in-game geography see the World Atlas.

You can read each House's full profile, motto, holdings, and current leadership on the Houses page on the website. You do not create a new guild on Rookery Isles; the realm is intentionally guild-locked, and you join one of the existing Houses.

Joining a House

Every character eventually picks a House. You can be a sworn member of only one House at a time, because the in-game Guild window enforces a single guild membership per character. To join:

• Step 1. Make contact. Talk to the House's Prince or an officer in-game, or post in the recruitment channel on the Rookery Discord: https://discord.gg/xYKNcfkRdR
• Step 2. Receive the invite. The Prince or an officer with invite rights sends a guild invitation, which appears as the standard ArcheAge guild invite popup.
• Step 3. Accept. The House name appears above your character and you show up in the member roster.

If a House is not responding, contact a Crown admin on Discord and you will be routed. You are never stuck without a House.

Switching Houses is allowed but discouraged for roleplay reasons. To change, leave your current guild in-game, then accept an invite from the new House. Any in-guild contribution standing resets; your character's reputation is a roleplay matter, not a database value.

The Guild Rank Ladder

ArcheAge guilds use a fixed set of engine rank roles. Rookery re-labels those roles per House for flavor, but the underlying engine role is the same everywhere. The role number is what actually controls in-game permissions; the title is roleplay dressing.

The Prince (General role) and the Consort (Commander role) get automatic access to the House Management portal where the treasury, ledger, and salary roster live. Crown admins can grant portal access to any lower-rank character at the Prince's request.

Base Game: How Housing Tax Actually Works

This section is pure ArcheAge 3.0 mechanics. It is true on every ArcheAge server, Rookery included.

When you place a house or farm, it owes a flat weekly tax, charged in copper, and you pay it by depositing Tax Certificates (item 31891) into the property. The amount depends entirely on the property's footprint and type, not on its decorations or contents. The exact tiers are read straight from the server database.

A few things worth knowing:

• Tax is paid in money, not labor. You buy or craft Tax Certificates and feed them to the property. There is no labor cost in the tax itself.
• Useful certificate items: the standard Tax Certificate (31891), a Wrapped 10-pack (34825), and a Prepay Tax Certificate (35299) for paying ahead.
• Grace period. Most housing provinces allow one week of late tax before your property is at demolition risk. Pay on time and this never matters.
• House classes are exact in-game names. The ladder runs Cottage (16m), then Manor and Townhouse (24m), then Villa and Chalet (28m), then Mansion (44m). Use those names, not generic "small/medium/large plot," when you talk to other players.

For the full house catalog, farm plots, construction bundles, and decoration system, see Housing and Land.

Base Game: Heavy Tax on Multiple Properties

ArcheAge discourages land-hoarding with heavy tax, a surcharge multiplier that kicks in once you own several houses. Your first two properties pay only their base tax. From the third onward, a multiplier is applied on top.

The bracket values above are confirmed in the server database. The precise way the multiplier compounds with the base tax is engine behavior, so treat the surcharge as "the more land you hold, the steeply more each extra property costs," and budget Tax Certificates accordingly. A small number of structures are exempt from heavy tax entirely.

Base Game: Dominion and Lord Tax

Separate from personal housing tax, ArcheAge 3.0 has a territory tax tied to castles and dominions on the lawless continent of Auroria. This tax is not paid in copper: it is paid in Lord's Coin (item 26880). In the server data, castle and dominion structures owe Lord's Coin per collection phase, ranging from 220 Lord's Coin for most territory structures up to 23,000 to 25,000 Lord's Coin for the top-tier capital structures (Fortress, Castle, Palace).

This is the base game's lord economy: a guild that controls a castle pays its Lord's Coin upkeep to hold the territory. For how Lord's Coin sits alongside Gold, Honor, and the rest of the server's money, see Currencies and Vendors. It is entirely distinct from the personal copper housing tax above, and from Rookery's royal tribute described next. Do not confuse Lord's Coin (a base-game territory currency) with any Rookery percentage.

Rookery-Custom: The Royal Tribute and House Treasuries

Everything in this section is Rookery server design. It is built on the realm CMS (a rookery_realm database) and the website, layered on top of the base-game tax above. None of these percentages or treasuries exist in vanilla ArcheAge, and the tribute percentage is a Rookery number, never an ArcheAge one.

Here is the flow Rookery adds on top of the base copper tax:

• Every plot in ArcheAge sits in a named zone (a real in-game zone such as Two Crowns or Solis Headlands).
• Rookery's realm layer maps each zone to the House that currently controls it.
• When the weekly tax is collected, the base-game copper tax a player paid is attributed to the controlling House's treasury in the realm CMS.
• A configurable percentage of each House's collected tax flows up to the Crown as royal tribute. The Crown sets this rate per House, and the Crown does not pay tribute to itself.

On the tribute rate: the realm uses a sliding tribute percentage that the Crown can adjust per House. The exact percentage in force at any moment is a realm-management decision set in the portal, not a fixed game constant, so check the House Management portal or ask a Crown admin for the current rate rather than treating any single number as permanent.

Every collection writes an audit line to the realm ledger, recording the source (which zone and how many plots) and the destination (the House treasury, plus any tribute to the Crown). The ledger is visible in the portal so that no coin moves untracked.

When a House loses a zone: realm boundaries shift through open-world war, treaty, or storyline. When the Crown moves a zone (see the World Atlas for the real in-game geography) from one House to another, future tax revenue from that zone immediately flows to the new controller. Existing treasury balances stay with the old House. Losing land cuts future income; it does not seize past savings.

Rookery-Custom: Salaries and Paid Roleplay

This is the reason the treasury system exists, and it is entirely Rookery design. A House treasury is not a trophy: the Prince spends it on the people who play the House's roles.

A Prince can use the treasury to:

• Pay Knight salaries. Knights are sworn fighters who patrol, escort, and answer the Prince's call. Pay is sent as in-game mail with coin attached.
• Pay Noble stipends. Court Nobles advise and handle internal politics. Stipends are typically smaller but carry prestige.
• Hire Mercenaries. One-off contracts for a specific job (a trade pack smuggling run, a bodyguard contract, a sabotage), paid as a lump sum on completion.
• Fund House projects. Festivals, commissions, and reputation efforts as the realm phases roll out.

Because the treasury is filled only by tax that real players generate, the economy is closed-loop: a Prince's budget is exactly as large as the activity in the House's territory. To take a salaried role, approach your Prince directly or watch for the in-realm hiring board as it comes online. Pay continues as long as you remain a sworn member of that House.

Salary figures are set by each Prince, drawn from that House's treasury, and are not a fixed server rate. Any specific gold-per-month figure is a per-House budget decision, so confirm terms with your Prince rather than assuming a standard amount.

The House Management Portal

The House Management portal is a Rookery website console, not an in-game window. It is where the realm layer's treasury, ledger, and roster live.

Access defaults to the Prince and the Consort (the General and Commander engine roles). Crown admins can grant access to any lower-ranked character on the Prince's request. Because the portal is web-based and reads the realm database, it reflects the same data the weekly collection writes.

Player FAQ

Do I have to pay housing tax to be in a House? No. House membership is free. Tax is charged only on properties you actually place in the world. If you own no plot, you pay no tax, but your House also earns nothing from you. Building in your House's territory, working its farms, and running its dailies is how you support it.

Can I build in a zone my House does not control? Yes. Your base-game copper tax is the same wherever you build, but Rookery attributes that revenue to whichever House controls the zone. Living in a rival's territory is legal; you simply enrich them. Some players do this deliberately as merchants or spies.

Is the 15% (or any percentage) an ArcheAge rule? No. Any tribute percentage is a Rookery realm-management setting, adjustable per House by the Crown. ArcheAge itself has no royal tribute. The only base-game taxes are the flat copper housing tax and the Lord's Coin territory tax.

What is the difference between housing tax and Lord's Coin tax? Housing tax is the weekly copper you pay on your personal property (5 silver to 50 silver depending on size). Lord's Coin tax (item 26880) is the base-game territory upkeep paid by whoever holds a castle or dominion on Auroria. They are unrelated systems.

How do I become a paid Knight? Talk to your Prince. Salaries are paid from the House treasury at the Prince's discretion, sent as in-game mail. Watch for the in-realm hiring board as the realm phases expand.

Can a Prince empty the treasury and run? Mechanically a Prince controls the treasury, but every spend is logged to the realm ledger and Crown admins can audit it. A Prince who plunders without justification is a roleplay choice with roleplay consequences, up to being deposed by the Crown.

Where do I see my House's treasury? On the House Management portal, available to Princes and Consorts by default, or to any character the Crown has granted access.

Can I have sub-groups inside a House? The engine allows only one guild per character, but informal sub-orders are pure roleplay convention and are encouraged. They have no separate in-game guild.

On Rookery Isles

Rookery deviates from canonical ArcheAge in a deliberate, clearly bounded way:

• The game's tax systems are untouched. The flat weekly copper housing tax (5 silver to 50 silver per property, paid with Tax Certificates), the heavy-tax surcharge on three-plus properties, and the Lord's Coin dominion tax are all standard ArcheAge 3.0 mechanics. Rookery does not change the numbers; it reads them.
• The realm layer is additive. The noble Houses, the royal tribute percentage, the tax-fed House treasuries, the salaries, and the House Management portal are Rookery server design, implemented in the realm CMS and the website on top of those base mechanics. They are real on this server and false on a vanilla one. Never quote a tribute percentage as an ArcheAge number.
• House lore is not in-game geography. House names and duchy names are roleplay canon. The real continents are Nuia, Haranya, and Auroria. Use those for any in-game navigation.

Residual risk to verify: the exact count of noble Houses is not settled in the source data (the realm-CMS House-to-guild mapping and the roleplay roster do not currently agree, with counts seen at both 12 and 13). This article intentionally says "the realm's noble Houses" rather than a fixed number. Confirm the live count against the realm CMS before quoting it anywhere, and update the Houses page as the single source of truth.

See also

• Housing and Land
• World Atlas
• Currencies and Vendors
• Trade Packs and Commerce
• PvP, Factions and Open-World Conflict
• Dailies and Endgame Progression
• New Player Guide