Downtimes refer to what your characters are doing between events. In between our events magic often lies dormant and many of the main activities of the game such as the casting of Rites, discovering of Lores and going easily to various strange places are difficult and dangerous to do.
But your characters do not stop living, breathing and acting. We are planning to use downtimes as a way to bridge this gap to show what your characters might be doing in between gatherings at the Unfinished Tome.
Any character who has attended at least one previous event and is attending the next event will be able to submit a downtime via the form below. You will be able to write up to 150 words describing what you would like to be doing in your downtime, what ground work you have laid for it and how you are achieving it.
If there is a problem or clarification with what you have submitted a member of the game team will be in touch.
The Downtime form can be found here.
Things Downtimes can be used for: (provided you have a mechanism to do so)
Arranging a meeting with an NPC for next event for specific discussions
Major infrastructure projects such as constructing a building or founding an organisation
Mapping an area of the world
Looking for adventure sites or a Mark Stone within a specified area
Find out basic info on a topic such as history, politics, culture, location of game resources, generic fact finding that is relatively available or discoverable.
Influencing the broad politics or culture of a place
Larger scale warfare, skirmishing, or raiding - some resolutions may happen in uptime if the foe has reasonable forces - awakened winning a confrontation will decide the battle
Things Downtimes cannot achieve:
Resolution of major enemies or plot points
Gathering of ribbons or resources such as crafting materials or lammies
Anything that requires player choice on a moment by moment basis
Magical research and Lore discovery
Fixing curses and maladies or learning their cures. Though you may be able to find storied examples of their uses in the past.
Casting of rites or spending of ribbons
Killing, incapacitating or crippling other player characters or NPCs
Downtimes will mostly be delivered through updates to the world book, pre-event briefs, rumours, character pack contents, or via encounters at an event. The intent is not to provide fluff or fiction about the characters in the game. The responses will vary from downtime to downtime as the game team thinks will be most appropriate and multiple characters can undertake the same thing in down time should they so choose.
We’re aiming to use this system to achieve a few things, first and foremost giving players and their characters another lever to interact with and change the world. Whilst we want the majority of important events to always appear on screen (gotta keep the Live in LARP) some things are just better achieved in a downtime or with some chance for us as the Game Team to prepare for them. Your time in game is valuable so we want to make sure you can use it for the highlights of your character’s activity. This is why certain activities are not achievable in downtime, we want to make those key moments appear in game for you.
In addition time passing is an element of this game, as it does in the real world between events, so recognising this is also important to us to better realise the game we are aiming for.
Example 1
My name is Valkan, I want to explore the ground north of Wyrdr, I have already been to X, Y and Z place that are north of Wyrdr in uptime and have a map for some distance. I am wise in Journeys and want to fill in some of the blank spaces on my map.
Result
Valkan would receive a map in their character pack at the next event covering what they explored.
Example 2
My name is Leticia and I found some documents talking about the history of Keld at the last event they aren't fully complete and I want to try and learn more. I am going to visit Keld (my hometown) and try to either find an expert in this topic or look in the archives for information on this topic. I am Wise in Death if that becomes relevant.
Result
Leticia either gets some research notes in their character pack at the next event or an expert NPC encounter may come to speak to them at the next event to talk through the information that they could find.
Example 3
My name is Creation I am aiming to try and found a school to teach others about Magical theory. I had spoken to the Arch-Vendor of Aligona at the last event and they agreed to sell me some land in return for some of the hoard of dragon's gold we got from killing the dragon at E2.
Result
There would be an update to the world book and future encounters would likely utilise this information. Most likely there would be an encounter at the next event from some new students at the school to lead into the schools creation.