NOTE - This is the guide for Chronicle 3, its here for reference only and many things have changed, click "Manor Guide" above to see the Chronicle 5 updated manor guide.

First, here are the official patch notes for the manor system. It was introduced in Chronicle 2 and then given a major overhauls and changes through all the following Chronicles.

Chronicle 2 Manor System Patch Notes

Chronicle 3 Manor System Patch Notes

Chronicle 4 Manor System Patch Notes

Chronicle 5 Manor System Patch Notes

General Overview

Each castle can choose to sell seeds to other players via the Manor Managers in each town. Players can buy the seeds, plant them in mobs, harvest crops from dead mobs and then sell the crops back to the Manor Manager. The rewards for selling the crops back vary by seed and then the settings the castle lord chooses in the type of reward and the amount. The castle lord can make full items such as enchant scrolls from the harvested crops. That’s it in a nutshell. If you want all the gory details, read on.

Production and Buyback limitations
Seed production and Crop buyback reset everyday at 8PM PST. There are caps on the amount of seeds produced (for each type) and the amount crops bought back (for each type). Lords may only adjust the amount of seeds produced and amount of crops bought back the next day between 8PM PST and 8AM PST. Changes you make during this time will go into effect at 8PM PST.

Castle Lord
Seed Production
You must buy the seeds from the castle in order to sell them at the manor manager. Then you set the seed sell price per seed for each seed type, which is the price the farmers will pay from the manor manager for that seed type. When setting the seeds' sale price, you cannot set the price at 60% or less, or 1000% or more of the seeds' base price (what you pay the manor manager for them). You also set the quantity of each seed type to be sold. In order for seed production to occur (to sell seeds to farmers via the manor manager NPC) you must have enough adena in the castle vault to purchase all of the seeds you want to produce. If you do not sell the seeds at the end of the day (8PM PST), those seeds are gone and you do not regain the adena you spent producing them. In addition, you must be selling seeds in order to buyback the crops.

Harvested Crop Buyback
You set the price you want to pay to purchase the harvested crop, as well as the quantity of each of each harvested crop type. When setting the crop's compensation price, you cannot set the price at 60% or less, or 1000% or more of the crop's compensation price. The seed and item compensation prices may be viewed by speaking with the particular castle's Grand Chamberlain. In order for seeds to be produced or to buyback harvested crops, you MUST have enough adena in your vault to cover the TOTAL amount buyback for all of your harvested crop settings. This adena is deducted at 8PM PST at the start of the crop-day. If you do NOT use all of that adena (you didn't buy back the amount of crops you set to buyback) then whatever funds are leftover go back into the castle vault. You do not lose that money.

You set the reward to either Type I or Type II, which determines which kind of reward the crop gives to the farmers who turn them in (see below)

Crop Maturation
When setting up your matured crop buyback, remember that not only do crops take a day to mature, but also the manor NPC keeps 10% of the crops. Once people sell crops back to the manor manager, the next crop day, the mature crops will appear in your clan warehouse. So if somebody sells you 1000 crops on Monday before the manor system reset, Tuesday after the reset you will have 900 mature crops in your clan warehouse. Take the mature crops to the castle blacksmith and make whatever items you want. In addition to using the crops, there is of course, a blacksmith fee in adena that varies depending on the item you are making.

And remember, if you do not have enough adena in your vault to cover EVERYTHING (all seed purchases and crop buyback), then NOTHING will be produced or bought.  Also, if you don’t keep your farmers happy with the rates and types you’re setting, then they won’t buy your seeds and you won’t be able to produce any items.  So do the right thing and set your prices and types to make it profitable for the farmers and not just yourself.

Farmers
Seed Purchase
Seed sales reset everyday at 8PM PST. Once the seeds are sold out, they will not restock until the next day at 8PM. The Castle Lord can choose to stop selling or increase the amount of seeds produced on any given day. Seeds have a level range (10 levels) which you can view by clicking on the seed, as shown below. Besides buying the seeds, you will also need to buy a harvester from the manor NPC.

For 100% crop harvesting rate, you, the seed, and the mob you are harvesting must all be within that range. Otherwise, your plantation and harvest can fail.

Farming
To farm you simply target a mob and click on the seed you want to plant. You will get a system message of either planting failed or planting succeeded. You CAN replant the same mob if you failed the first time (although there is no timer on the seed icon). Once you kill the mob, simply click on the harvester and it will say either "harvest failed" or "earned [Crop Type]." Seeds MUST be used in the areas in which you bought them (Giran seeds can only be planted in Giran area mobs). However, the crops you harvest may be sold to ANY manor manager providing that castle's Lord set the NPC to purchase that crop type (You can farm sea codrans in Oren and sell them to the manor npc in Heine, providing the Heine lord set the NPC to purchase sea codrans). In addition, if you plant the seeds in mobs that are yellow or red to you then you will have a chance to harvest multiple crops from one seed.

The Catch
Mobs planted with normal seeds only drop adena, they do not drop anything else. If you use alternative seeds (which cost more and fail more) then the mobs do still drop items while seeding and harvesting.

The Payoff
The payoff depends on your castle lord. First of all, you do not get ANY adena when turning in crops to the manor manager. Instead you get raw materials of worth equivalent to the buyback price the castle lord set and the type of reward. The type of raw materials for each reward level (type I or type II) vary by seed type as well. Here is a sample of what the buyback window looks like and the reward for these crops. To view the list of rewards, talk to the manor NPC, choose the last option to receive more information and then click on the "rewards" link in the NPC text. You should see the following dialogue box:

As a farmer, it may be important to remember that the castle lord may NOT be buying back the seed types in the same quantity everyday. S/He can change it daily. Farmers may view the next day's buyback between 8AM and 8PM PST. There is also a maximum amount the lords can set to produce and buyback, so don't expect to be able to farm 10k seeds in a week and sell them all back at once. You HAVE to sell them back over several days.

In addition, you can view the current condition of the crop purchase for both regular and alternative seeds (yes, they are bought back separately as well, but they do have the same rewards) for EVERY castle from ANY manor NPC. So you can shop around and see which castle has the best exchange rates and how many the castle is still buying without needed to teleport all over the map.

Happy Farming!