Additional Dwelling Keys

Requirements

• Dwellings module: Core housing system
• Must own a dwelling that supports extra keys

How It Works

Accessing the Keymaker:

• Go to your dwelling Management page
• Click "Keymaker" link (appears if dwelling type allows extra keys)
• Dwarf keymaker appears at desk

Purchase Flow:

• Dwarf tells you the cost (gold + gems + donation points)
• Default costs per key (configurable by admin):
  • Gold: varies by dwelling type
  • Gems: varies by dwelling type
  • Donation points: 50 (default keydonationcost)
• Click "Yes" to confirm purchase
• Resources deducted, addkeys pref incremented
• Dwelling's maxkeys increases by 1

Dwarf Dialogue:

• Enter smithy: "Soso, you would like to buy more keys?"
• Success: "Think about it carefully, whom you like to give it."
• Failure: "Did I not just tell you what it costs to get an extra key? So why do you waste my precious time?!"

Costs & Validation

Resource Requirements:

• Must have enough gold (keygoldcost)
• Must have enough gems (keygemcost)
• Must have enough unspent donation points (keydonationcost)

If You Can't Afford:

• Dwarf yells at you for wasting his time
• Leave embarrassed without key
• No resources deducted

How Keys Affect Roommates

Maxkeys Calculation:

• Base maxkeys = dwelling type's default roommate capacity
• Extra keys = addkeys pref for your dwelling
• Total maxkeys = base + addkeys

Example:

• Mansion base maxkeys = 3 roommates
• Buy 2 extra keys → addkeys = 2
• New maxkeys = 5 roommates

What a Key Actually Opens

For a long stretch of the game's history, a dwelling key was a formality. The door checked nothing. Anyone who arrived at a house with the right number attached to the link went in, read the conversation on the walls, saw who was asleep in the beds, and let themselves out again, and the key was simply a note about how many people were allowed to call the place home.

The door checks now. Entering a dwelling, and going to sleep in one, is granted by exactly three things, tried in that order:

• You own it. The owner always gets in. There is no arrangement of settings, keys, roommates or bad luck that can lock you out of your own house.
• You hold a key to it. The key you were handed is now the key. This is the whole point of the Keymaker: keys were always intended to be the guest list, and the door has finally been told about it.
• The dwelling type is an open house. Some kinds of housing have no meaningful notion of a lock. Shacks are the standard example. They are published in the Dwellings Registry with a public Trespass link, which is the game being honest with you about what walking into a shack is, and that link still works for absolutely everybody. Nothing about open-house dwellings changed.

Fail all three and you get a short, unimpressed line of text: "The door is locked, and you do not have a key. Whoever lives here would have to give you one." Then a Leave link, and the Hamlet, and the dignified walk back down the path.

What is behind the door, and therefore what the key is protecting:

• The dwelling's name and description, as written by its owner
• Its private commentary section, filed under "The walls echo past comments," which is a house conversation and not a village one
• The list of who is currently asleep there
• The ability to go to sleep there yourself, meaning log out inside the house rather than wherever you happened to be standing (subject to the type's own sleep settings and its bed count)
• The Coffers, on dwelling types that have them

Two consequences worth knowing before you spend gold at the smithy. Handing somebody a key hands them the room and everything said in it, so the extra capacity you are buying is also extra audience. And turning in your own key, which the inside of a house politely offers you a link to do, gives up the entry along with the residency. The door will not remember that you used to be welcome.

Clubhouses are a separate matter entirely and are refused earlier, with their own explanation, before any of this is consulted.

Strategy

When to Buy Extra Keys:

• You have a large active house with many potential roommates
• You want to run a "boarding house" for new players
• You have excess donation points to spend
• Your dwelling type's base maxkeys is too low

When to Skip:

• You live alone or with just 1-2 roommates
• Donation points better spent on other lodge items
• Your dwelling already has enough room

Cost-Benefit Analysis:

• Each key = permanent +1 roommate capacity
• 50 donation points = ~$0.50 USD (default donation ratio is 100 points per $1)
• Worth it if you actively use roommate system
• Not worth it if you rarely interact with roommates

Limitations

• No Refunds: Once purchased, keys are permanent (can't sell back)
• Dwelling-Specific: Keys bound to specific dwelling, not transferable
• Admin Control: Admin can disable extra keys for specific dwelling types
• No Limit: No hard cap on number of extra keys you can buy (theoretically unlimited roommates)

Compatibility

• Requires Dwellings module 20051118 or later
• Compatible with other dwelling addons (Dwelling Upgrades, etc.)
• Works with any dwelling type that enables "keys" setting