Token of Ra

Tokens of Ra are a rare object awarded to the faction that wins the bidding war for that region's control for the week, for some regions. It can occur much as bonuses like +3 Flax and +1 Wood can occur, randomly, for some regions each week. The Token is deposited at the Great Hall of the faction that won the bidding war for that region when Tribute is evaluated for the week, and can be picked up by anyone of that faction who is not on a Token of (Faction) or Token of Ra taking cooldown. A message is noted in the faction information channel, indicating that regional leaders of (Region) have provided gifts to our Great Hall.

No faction rank is required to take the Token of Ra from the great hall, but like taking a Token of (Faction), it places you on a cooldown before you can retrieve another Token, whether of Ra or of (Faction), from the Great Hall.

There are presently three known uses of Tokens of Ra intended, and one likely to be discouraged by faction leaders.

1. At Tribute Posts:

• 1) Have a Token of Ra in Inventory. Tokens of Ra cannot be used by Faction Elders! This is because using a Token of Ra decreases your faction standing bar, by about 2000-3000 units of material donated worth, much like donating materials to research increases it. As Faction Elders are locked at a set point on the bar, they cannot use Tokens of Ra - the option does not even appear on the post for them. It is possible for the faction standing bar to go negative and show in red instead of blue, but there are no longer consequences to that beyond requiring you to donate more materials to qualify for your next faction standing promotion.
• 2) Click on the Tribute Post
• 3) Click "Use your Token of Ra to force an early evaluation of tribute".
• 4) This does what it says on the tin, and only that: The faction that has donated the most Tokens of (Faction) to the post between the time Tribute was last evaluated, and when the Token of Ra is used, immediately controls that region. If all factions' tribute is 0 then the region goes neutral. If two or all factions' tribute is equal yet non-zero, then I believe ties go to the region's defender if it is owned, but let's try it and find out some time. Note that unlike in the screenshot, tribute totals are not visible in Tale 9, so you have no way to know whether you are, in fact, leading in the bidding unless you have observed the post since Tribute last occurred and seen no other faction members approach.
• 5) Once tribute is evaluated, exactly like the Day of Tribute, the token totals to that post are reset to ZERO for all factions. If you wish to continue holding the region after flipping it back with a Token of Ra, you still need to donate more Tokens of (Faction) to the post than any other faction, before the next Day of Tribute or the next use of a Token of Ra at that post, whichever comes first.

2. At a University of Progress:

A Token of Ra can be used to bypass the timer to demonstrate a test, should the University still be on the one-week RL Ducktime cooldown since the last Test was opened at the University of Progress. It does *not* remove the requirement to bring the materials, the players, or any other demonstration requirement needed to unlock a Test.

3. At a University (or, presumably, Great Hall for those techs):

A Token of Ra can be used to immediately bypass the research timer for a single technology. Tokens of (Faction) may be spent to shorten it, but Tokens of Ra immediately make the technology available to learn regardless of how long the timer is.

4. At an Offering Vault

Tokens of Ra are rare and somewhat useful! Not many people will put them in a vault, so good points if nobody else had the same bright idea and managed to obtain a Ra that week. This is likely to be discouraged by faction leaders, due to the usefulness of the Tokens for resolving minor to moderate diplomatic crises and returning regions to the faction's control if they were lost due to oversight or bug.