If you are already in an unofficial clan, or if you just fancy the challenge of creating your own clan, you may wish to officially register your clan at the Clan Camp south of Falador.
Things to Consider
Before you create a clan, it helps to have a vision of what you want to do with it - what sort of players you'd like to join it and what type of things you'd like to do. It's likely that you have a small group of friends already, but ensuring that you all know what you want to do with your clan will minimise the chance of any problems occurring in the future.
Do you want to train skills, fight boss monsters, play minigames or PvP? Who do you want in the clan? How many people? Should they all be in the same time zone to make arranging events easier? What entry requirements should you have for the clan, if any? Perhaps most importantly, what should your clan be called? Note that official clan names can be up to 20 characters long. Once you've determined these things, you'll be better prepared to create your clan.
If you don't already have a group of likeminded players, but do have a vision of the clan you want to create, you should consider using the general clan forums to find other players who would be join you to found such a clan. As well as the forums, the in-game Friends Chat feature can also be a good way of discussing things before taking that first step.
Founding a Clan
The clan scribe
Once you have decided on all of the important elements of your clan, you can officially register it at the Clan Camp south of Falador. To do so, you will need five players - one of these five will be the clan leader, who should head to the camp's north-east corner and speak with the clan scribe, then ask for a clan charter. The clan leader should then use the clan charter on the other four players, who will become the clan's founders. Once four founder names are on it, the clan leader should take the clan charter back to the scribe and use it on him.
It is recommended that you don't try looking for founders at the clan camp itself, but rather contact your friends, or even try on the forums, on the "Looking for founders" sticky in the "Recruitment - looking for a clan" section.
Upon handing the completed charter into the scribe, you will get a prompt to input the name of your new clan, as previously agreed upon with your founders. Make sure to take the time to input it correctly! Also, be careful not to pick a name that other players might find offensive. If you do, other players can (and likely will) report it.
All five players must be logged in and be within the confines of the Clan Camp for the clan to be registered. If any log out or leave the area or world, their name will be removed from the charter. A clan cannot be officially considered a clan with fewer than five players in it. Once in a clan, it is possible to start the ritual to connect your clan to a Clan Citadel. Make sure the five of you have RuneScape memberships, lest you cannot create the Clan Citadel.
Clan Customisation
The Clan Settings interface
Once the clan is created and named, the next step is to customise your clan - this will include designing your clan's motif, setting your clan's colours and motto, and noting some other useful information. You can do all of this customisation in Clan Settings, which can be found in the Clan Chat tab of the side interface.
The first tab you see is the 'Clanmates' tab, which is used to set the ranks and roles of your clan's founders and subsequent clanmates (ranks and roles are explained in more detail on the clan recruitment page). Clicking on the 'Clan Settings' tab will bring up choices for these other options below.
- National flag: Clicking on the flag will let you pick from a huge list of country colours. There is a world map, or a RuneScape flag if your clan is made up of players from around the globe.
- World: If your clan predominantly makes use of a specific world (e.g. for a specific activity) or has a 'home world', you can set it here.
- Clan time or game time: Choose whether your events are display in 'game time' (which follows the GMT/BST standard) or clan time (which is set in the time zone drop-down).
- Time zone: You should set time zone to whatever the local time is for your clanmates (or the majority of them at least), in relation to the GMT/BST standard. This then becomes your 'clan time'.
- Basic permissions: On this tab you can allow or disallow guests from entering or speaking in your Clan chat, choose which ranks can view your signpost and whether or not guests can access your Citadel.
- Clan recruiting: Toggle between yes and no, allowing prospective recruits to see whether or not you are currently recruiting new clanmates.
- Edit thread ID: In this box you can input the QFC (Quick Find Code) of one of your clan's forum threads (e.g. for prospective recruits to see your entry requirements).
Designing your clan motif
Also on the 'Clan Settings' tab, you can input your clan's motto. This should be a short phrase (up to 80 characters) that sums up your clan's credo, its raison d'etre, its purpose for being, its reason for existence. This will give prospective recruits an idea of what you're all about. Again, try to consider how other players will view your motto so as not to use anything potentially offensive. They might even report your clan if they see fit, so watch out!
Main article: Clan Cloak
Next up is picking your clan motif and colours - these will become your clan's visual signifier, visible on your clan vexillum (used to recruit more clanmates), on your character's page on the site, and on your clan cloak. You can pick two symbols to make up your motif, one for the top (and left) of your vexillum, another for the bottom (and right) of it.
You can then also set your clan's colours. Clicking on each large block of colour will bring up a colour picker so you can select the exact colour you want for each element of your motif; the arrow next to each large block of colour shows you swatches of the other three colours you have set, so you can quickly make one or more elements use the same colour. Only Administrator and above can edit the clan's motif, so ask your clan's administrators to change the motif, and if they think the shoe fits, they'll do their best to put the new motif into action!
Get your clan cloaks here!
You can collect a vexillum from the clan scribe, and a clan cloak from the Captain of the Guard. The vexillum can be used in a couple of ways in clan recruitment, which should probably be the next thing you think about for your clan. The clan cloak works like a team cape, useful when partaking in clan-based minigames such as Rated Clan Wars.
The final option on the 'Clan Settings' interface is to set your clan's keywords. Here you can choose up to ten keywords that best describe what your clan is all about, and are useful to other players looking for a clan like yours, and useful to you in recruitment. These keywords will appear on your vexillum, and can be searched for by other players in the website's clan home, so prospective clanmates can find a clan that shares their interests.
The third tab in the interface is 'Permissions'. This is where you can set who can do what within your clan in much more detail.
