Hi everyone!Last week's Dev Diary we presented some info on how armies are structured and used. Today, we'll tell you how to raise those armies. And we'll go into the reputation system, as well.Units are recruited in two ways. You can either go to a barracks structure or you can broker a deal with a NPC.The barracks are the primary location for recruiting new units. Each city has a barracks where units of the same race as the city can be recruited. There may be hidden barracks in more uncharted areas of the map, though, so keep your eyes open. There’s a limit to how many units of each type can be recruited from barracks. Some quests can unlock new unit types and increase the number of units of an existing type that you can recruit from a certain barracks.Not all barracks will offer you troops, however. Each barracks is tied to a faction in the game and only barracks of the factions that have reason to like you will open their doors for your character. So if you complete quests for characters from a hostile or neutral faction, one possible ancillary reward is that the barracks of that faction will open their services to you.Some NPCs are just sellswords and will offer their services for a price. Others will join you as a quest reward or they might give you an exotic unit of some kind if you help them. Units gained from NPCs are standard units but can start at a higher level than those units recruited from barracks. Some units can only be acquired from NPCs.In Runemaster, it's important to manage your actions so you can keep your reputation high with those factions that are important for you. Where you stand between Change and Stability can be considered a special faction, since that decides which side you’re helping during your journey towards Ragnarök. If you go too far towards Change, you're considered a collaborator of Loki and you'll have a hard time being allowed to help Thor at the end of the game. If you tend too much towards Stability, then you're considered an ally of Thor and it will be difficult to set Loki free when the time comes. If you balance it right, even the gods won't know which side you're on until the final moments.Besides this struggle between Change and Stability, there's one faction for each race and every race also has three sub-factions that can become important when deciding which side to support in the internal power struggles and politics within a specific race.The Troll faction for example, has the following three sub-factions, representing the changes that are already happening within Troll society:who want to settle down in villages and have a peaceful relationship with the humans and are curious of their ways.who want to keep the old nomadic traditions and stay away from humans as long as humans don’t threaten them.who see mankind as prey and will eat humans if given the chance.So you can have generally a good reputation with Trolls, but even within the Trolls you may have made powerful enemies.Factions have relationships to each other which will cause your reputation to change with other factions if it changes with one. Trolls and Humans are considered hostile to each other, for example, so if you gain reputation with the Trolls, you may lose reputation with the Humans. And if the Trolls don't like you, then the Humans probably think you're doing something right; the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This means that it can be really difficult to be a friend of both Humans and Trolls at the same time, you'll have to make choices. Strong friendships with both sides of opposing factions will be impossible, but you might be able to make each side tolerate you.To give you a little taste, here's the Reputation screen as it looks now (Alpha):Keep your axe sharp, but your wits sharper!And make sure to read all the previous devdiaries here: