how to assassin?

Sorry. Missed that. theyd have to be in with the staff to avoid getting fucked over because some imm has their dick twisted about a player running something independent. It'd be great if I was wrong; fixers would have been sweet to have in the game.

Shadow artists used to work like this, not sure they do now..

Amos tells Templar he wants to be a shadow artist. He provides some kind of explination / RP around it. Gets a black-crown tatty on his person. He then hides this tatty. No one knows he's an assassin except the Templars (usually at least) They write it down with WORDS on PAPER because its official like that.

Then, Amos is an assassin, legally. But to work, he needs a contract. These come in two ways. Either Amos works for an important dude and the dude knows he is an assassin. So the important dude will go to the templarate, pay for the license, it gets written up in WORDS on PAPER (this always just amuses me. Its all skull-inked and cheesy paper too!)

Then the important dude gives the paper to the assassin. The assassin must keep it on him at ALL times, until the hit is fullfilled. He then presents it to the Templars and RP happens and payment is transferred. I've heard it both being arranged as coming from the Templarate (out of the fee) or in this scenario, right from the important person upon confirmation.

The other route, is a person who goes and buys a license but doesn't know a shadow artist, or have their own, for whatever reason. These hits are limited of course, you can only take one out on someone of equal station or less. The Templar collects payment for the hit, writes it up, and picks out a shadow artist from their ledger at whatever time is best for them. They assign it in the same way, give them the cheesy paper. The assassin keeps it on them and turns it in when finished. Gets paid.

There is often a timeline too. Like, you have a month or whatever, to finish it or it expires. That is bad and hurts your rep, you do not get paid and they will not look at leave resume at the top of the pile.

Also there are other rules, like, you cannot have someone help you with a hit, even if you don't tell them it's a hit. Shit like that. You also cannot purchase your own contracts to make your own hits.

This is what I knew to be true from times long since past.

Alternative

There is very little room for non-clanned assassins in the game.

If you become powerful enough to assassinate important (sponsored) PCs, you will find yourself scrutinized severely at all times. If you attempt to assassinate one such PC without submitting an essay to explain your motivation and receive approval, you will very likely be punished for the action, both in the form of the world animating, often in unlikely ways, to kill you, and in the form of account notes and karma deductions.

The prime reason for sponsored roles receiving so much unreasonable protection (and this protection is the reason many behave with unreasonable bravado towards non-sponsored PCs) is the trouble it takes to replace them, thanks to the bureaucratic nature of the games administration.

It can be easier in a clan to carry out assassinations as they are often ordered by sponsored PCs who have been pre-approved by their staff handler, but even if you survive the intrigue of clan life and the inherent OOC danger of being the target of someones instant messenger revenge machinations, you will find your character is at some point either stored or killed by animated clan NPCs for reasons you are likely to neither understand or have properly explained to you at any point in time.

It often comes down you killing someone you shouldn't have, or disrupted some kind of staff driven or staff assisted plot and you need a lesson in how not to meddle in affairs you didn't even realize existed. There won't be anyone giving you hints that you might want to reconsider, they will let you go right ahead and carry out the plans you've reported to them in advance, let it ruin the plot and then punish you for it.

Please, dear player, pay no mind to our touting of "Murder, Corruption & Betrayal." on the front page. If you would like to commit the act of murder, you will need to complete forms A, B and C and await approval. It may take a week or more to process your request and formulate a response, so we have prepared some wonderful tavern-themed waiting rooms for you to enjoy.

Have a nice day and thank you for waiting to play ArmageddonMUD!

Personal experience and the experiences of close friends that I trust not to embellish overly much.

I had an half-elf assassin that had very loose ties to the Guild (non-clanned), with very favorable stats and high enough skill to mortally wound most PCs and NPCs with a backstab + offhand mini-backstab. She had a personal vendetta against a Byn Sergeant of the sponsored role variety that had tried on two different occasions to rape her.

When it came time for her to start stalking him for a kill, NPCs and the world would jump to life and seem to revolve around this Sergeant whenever he would pass through places I had planned to ambush him. The most glaring incident was when I had specifically avoided using personal monologue prior to leaving the 'rinth to go hunt for him, but as soon as she had him spotted and started thinking about the best way to handle the "impromptu" murder, a generic NPC soldier walks into the room and starts to case my character, following her around.

This NPC would under normal circumstances have no chance of spotting her thanks to her skill level, stats and gear bonus.

The Sergeant died to NPCs down the line as part of another generic evil sorcerer plot, but I had long since contrived a reason for her to give up the hunt, realizing there was no way I was going to be allowed to follow through with it.

On the flipside when you do write that essay the imms will sabotage and/or kill you. Unless you're a Muark. in which case you can do whatever because Muarks are the srs rp clan.

So if you have a grudge against an immpet or sponsored role, make sure not to give the imms any warning. Because they are dishonest favorite-playing fucks.

Whoah. Was this recent, or long time ago. Like 6-8 years ago or therebouts.

only quoted this part because everything else u said was spot on - but i have a diff conclusion about indie killers.

if u want to be an unclanned killer that can worry less about the wrath of butthurt imms pissed off at you ruining their plots/giving them more work, try letting others hire u out instead of deciding for yourself who u will target. ur reasons will be legit icly (someone paid u) and the scrutiny falls on the guy who hired u to explain or justify their reason beforehand - which most clanned pcs (who i would recommend taking contracts from, for the following reason) are more likely to have gotten and been cleared through their clan staff.

of course even when doing this u may find the virtual world suddenly becoming a lot more 'alive' when u go to make the hit, but that's a risk u take anytime ur aiming to ice a sponsored or otherwise important char. just something to keep in mind.