House Vault

Accessing House Vault

Requirements:

• You must actually be in a House. Admiring one from outside does not count.
• Must hold a House rank (not "None")

Navigation: Common Room page → footer navigation → "House Vault" link

Opens House Vault interface showing current vault balance and available actions.

Vault Contents

Each House has separate vault storing:

• Gold: Shared gold pool (max 20,000, normally)
• Gems: Shared gem pool (max 100, normally)

Current Balance: Displayed at top of House Vault page

Example: "Vault contains: 5,432 gold and 12 gems"

Depositing to Vault

Permission Required for the "Deposit" nav option: Minimum House rank, normally 40

Below-rank members aren't shut out, though. If your House rank is below that minimum, the vault's main page swaps the "Deposit"/"Withdraw" links for a separate "Donate" option instead. Donate uses the same form and the same gold/gem transfer as Deposit, just labeled as a donation and flagged so House leadership gets a "Here's a little donation..." notification mail. In other words: every member, regardless of rank, has an ungated way to put gold or gems into the vault - low-ranked members just call it "donating" instead of "depositing."

How to Deposit/Donate:

• Enter amount of gold and/or gems to deposit
• Click "Deposit" (or "Donate") button
• Gold/gems deducted from your inventory
• Added to House vault immediately

Limits:

• Cannot deposit more than you have
• Cannot exceed vault max capacity (20,000g / 100 gems, normally)
• Deposits are permanent (can't undo, must withdraw to get back)

Withdrawing from Vault

Permission Required: A senior House rank AND minimum character level (level 10 or higher). Both conditions must hold - there's no bypass path for the House founder or anyone else. Here's the catch: rank 40 ("Head of House") is a display-only label the game never actually hands out. The founder of a House is really assigned rank 31 when the House is created - a full 9 points short of the rank 40 threshold. As things stand, Withdraw is locked to a rank that no player, not even the founder, holds. Unless House leadership lowers the minimum withdraw rank to 31 or below (or staff manually bump someone's rank), nobody can withdraw at all - only Stipends and Requests move gold out of the vault.

How to Withdraw:

• Enter amount of gold and/or gems to withdraw
• Click "Withdraw" button
• Gold/gems deducted from vault
• Added directly to your on-hand gold/gems - regular Withdraw always pays out to your hand, never your bank

Note on where gold lands: the vault's hand-or-bank rule does not affect Withdraw at all. It only changes where a Stipend lands (see below). Withdraw is hand-only regardless.

Stipends (Head of House Grants Resources)

What is Stipend?: Head of House/Prefect gives gold/gems to specific member from vault

Permission Required: Rank 2 or higher. That's a very low bar - it only excludes the raw "Newly Sorted" applicant rank (0). Full Members (rank 10) already qualify to grant stipends, not just Prefects and above, so don't assume this is a leadership-only tool.

How to Grant Stipend:

• Select House member from dropdown
• Enter amount of gold/gems to grant
• Click "Grant Stipend"
• Resources deducted from vault
• Added to target member's inventory
• Member receives notification (if they have notifications switched on)

Limits:

• Max gold per stipend: 1000 gold (normally)
• Max gems per stipend: 5 gems (normally)
• The daily stipend limit caps how many stipends the sender (officer/leader) can send per day, not how many a member can receive. Each officer has their own stipend counter (normally 5, refilled at newday) that ticks down by one every time they successfully send a stipend to anyone. A member could theoretically receive stipends from multiple different officers in one day - the cap only throttles each individual sender.
• Resets at newday

Gold Destination: stipend gold is the one place the hand-or-bank rule actually matters. The vault can be set to send stipends to the recipient's bank, or (normally) to their on-hand gold. This is specific to Stipends: the regular Withdraw action ignores it entirely and always pays to hand.

Why Use Stipends?: Anyone at or above the minimum granting rank (normally rank 2, which in practice means any full Member and up, not just leadership) can reward active members, help low-level housemates, distribute vault surplus.

Requests (Members Ask for Resources)

What is Request?: Member asks Head of House for gold/gems from vault

How to Request:

• Enter amount of gold/gems needed
• Enter reason/message (optional)
• Click "Submit Request"
• Request sent to House leadership
• Wait for approval/denial

Limits:

• Max gold per request: 1000 gold (normally)
• Max gems per request: 5 gems (normally)
• Max 5 requests per day (normally)
• Resets at newday

Head of House Approval:

• Heads of House see pending requests in vault interface
• Can approve (grant resources) or deny request
• Approval = resources transferred to requester
• Denial = request deleted, no resources transferred

VE Tax

When Tax Applies: Every time a House member completes a Voldemort Encounter

Tax Formula:

• If House has 1 member: Tax = 90% of vault (normally)
• If House has 2+ members: Tax = vault value / number of members

Example:

• Vault has 10,000 gold and 50 gems
• House has 5 members
• Member completes a Voldemort Encounter
• Tax = 10,000 / 5 = 2,000 gold, 50 / 5 = 10 gems
• New vault balance: 8,000 gold, 40 gems

Why Tax Exists?:

• Prevents Houses from hoarding infinite resources
• Creates resource sink (gold/gems leave game economy)
• Balances House advantage (shared resources are powerful)
• Encourages spending vault before VE

Notification:

• Tax announcement posted to House commentary (if the House has switched on tax announcements)
• Heads of House receive a mail about the tax (if the House has switched on tax announcements)
• Player who completed the Voldemort Encounter sees tax message at newday

Rank Permissions

House ranks control who can do what:

• Granting stipends: Minimum rank to grant stipends (normally 2, low enough that any full Member already qualifies, not just Prefects+)

No Bypass for Withdraw:

• Withdraw requires a House rank at or above the withdrawal minimum AND a level of at least 10 (normally) - both, always. There's no rank-bypass shortcut, even for the Head of House.
• Members below the withdrawal minimum don't get a blocked "Withdraw" button - they simply see "Donate" instead of "Deposit"/"Withdraw" on the vault's main page.
• Smart Houses lower the withdrawal minimum to 31 (the actual founder rank) or below early on, since leaving it at the usual 40 means nobody can ever withdraw.

Usual Terms

Everything below is how the vault normally behaves. Any of it can be adjusted, so treat these as the usual figures, not promises.

General:

• Gold storage and gem storage are both normally open
• Max gold capacity: normally 20,000
• Max gem capacity: normally 100
• Minimum level to withdraw, in addition to the rank requirement: normally 10
• Stipend gold goes to hand (normally) or to the bank, for Stipends only, never Withdraw

Stipends:

• Max gold per stipend: normally 1000
• Max gems per stipend: normally 5
• Stipends each sender (officer/leader) can send per day, not a per-recipient cap: normally 5 (it can also be set to unlimited)

Requests:

• Max gold per request: normally 1000
• Max gems per request: normally 5
• Max requests per member per day: normally 5

Tax:

• The VE tax is normally on
• Tax for 1-member Houses: normally 90%
• Whether the tax is announced in the House commentary: normally not

Strategy

For Members:

• Deposit surplus gold/gems regularly to build vault
• Request resources when needed (equipment upgrades, healing)
• Don't abuse request system (ask only when truly needed)
• Thank House leadership for stipends (builds goodwill)

For Heads of House:

• Set fair rank permissions (don't hoard vault access)
• Grant stipends to active/helpful members as reward
• Approve legitimate requests, deny frivolous ones
• Spend vault before VE to minimize tax loss
• Communicate vault strategy to House (when to deposit, when to request)

VE Tax Mitigation:

• Withdraw/distribute vault resources before a member attempts a Voldemort Encounter
• Coordinate VE timing to empty vault first
• Accept tax as cost of House membership