Conspiracies#
Influence:#
Influence is a special resource used by conspiracies to measure their subtle control over territory. Influence could represent a network of hidden operatives, support from local peasantry, domination of local wildlife, or allegiances with minor local spirits. It is measured as whole numbers in each hex of the map. Other conspiracies can see your influence in hexes where they have influence (and vice versa), but other non-conspiracy powers don’t automatically know how much influence you have in each hex.
Influence Threshold: Many of your actions require that you have at least a certain amount of influence in a location.
Spending Influence: When you spend influence, you may remove any amount of influence from the hex where the action is occurring and up to one from each surrounding hex.
Spreading Influence: During tidings, you may shift influence any number of times. It must always shift down a gradient of at least two influence (from a 2 to a 0, making two 1s for instance), to prevent influence from walking itself all the way across the map.
Outposts: A hidden place where your conspiracy meets and plots. Outposts must be built in wilderness, though sometimes a town can later be founded on top of them. At the start of each season, during tidings, increase your influence in each outpost to a minimum of 3.
There are 5 generation mechanisms that create influence outside your outposts. Conspiracies pick a certain number of them.
Coercion - Once per season, when you provide an item or consumable to another power, gain influence equal to the asset’s rank in the delivery hex. This only works if the power accepts the asset, but they do not need to know you have this feature.
Emissaries - Once per season, when another power uses an agent or industry loyal to you, gain influence equal to their rank in the hex they provided assistance.
Intimidation - Once per season, when you win a battle in a hex, gain influence there equal to the greatest level of the opposed armies.
Sacrifice - Once per season, after you use an agent in a challenge, you may permanently sacrifice them to gain influence equal to their rank in the hex they were used.
Witchcraft - Once per season, when you cast a spell, gain influence equal to the spell’s rank in the targeted hex.
Basic Actions:#
*️⃣⚖️Infiltrate - Attempt to claim a town in which you have the most influence. Announce to other conspiracies with influence in the town and any powers with claims on it. Other powers with a claim to the town may ↩️ to resist. On success, other conspiracies lose any claims to this town. You lose the claim if you lose all influence in the town and all adjacent hexes. Difficulty: The number of towns you already claim, plus the sum of other influences in the town.
*️⃣ Channel Influence - Spend 1 Influence at up to 3 locations, generating a mana of the terrain element from each.
All Conspiracies are adept at manipulating the periphery of other powers:
*️⃣♥️Into the Fold: Attempt to bring an agent that is friendly with you completely into your employ. On a success, they become loyal only to you. With three excess successes, independents become followers. If they were loyal to another power, that power may ↩️. Cost: Influence equal to the agent’s rank. Difficulty: the agent’s rank.
*️⃣♥️Workers, Unite! Attempt to bring an industry in a claimed town completely into your employ. On a success, they become loyal only to you. If they were loyal to another power, that power may ↩️. If you lose your claims to the town, the industry becomes loyal to no one. Cost: Influence equal to half the industry's complexity. Difficulty: half the industry's complexity
*️⃣♥️Heretical Soldiers: Attempt to bring an army that is friendly with you completely into your employ. They cannot be loyal to another power. On a success, you gain control of them and all other powers lose control of them; you may move them up to their mobility plus excess successes to regarrison them. If they were controlled by another power, that power may ↩️. Cost: Influence equal to the army’s rank. Difficulty: the army size times 2.
[Note that agent loyalty is much less valuable and central than army loyalty, so the first two of these actions affect loyalty, while the third affects control, and specifically cannot target armies that are loyal to other powers.]
Circle:#
Moderately Skilled: Start with 5 ranks in other skills, with up to two ranks in each skill. 🌱 and 🔮 are recommended.
Sorcery: Start with 2 Fast and 2 Slow Spells.
Arcane Roots: Describe a magical defense that protects your outposts. Unless specifically defeated, your outposts cannot be removed.
Mystic Membership: Describe the normative member of your conspiracy. They may be magical beings, like undead or fey, or they may be mortals with minor magical powers.
Masters of the Circle: You start with 3 loyal follower agents, rank 2 in different skills or areas of expertise, that represent the highest echelons of your circle. Each is associated with a terrestrial element and generates one mana of that element at the beginning of each season. They have mobility 1.
Reclusive: You do not start with friendly contacts (See Creating a Power)
Circle Magic: You can store up to two of each mana during a given season. You can cast through any of your three masters.
Wild Influence: Choose two Influence Generation Mechanisms. You start with two outposts in wilderness hexes and one influence in hexes surrounding them to a radius of 1.
Strange Allies: Describe 2 rogue armies that are adjacent to different outposts, one rank 2 and one rank 3, such as the protectors of independent towns, reclusive fantastical creatures, or wild elementals. You have friendly relations with them, to the extent that you can take control of them for one season without spending an action. You can also negotiate with them on other seasons as an action to convince them that working with you is in their interests, granting you control over them for an amount of time based on the degree of success.
Runes: A special asset only circles can access or use (though runes can be destroyed for free by other powers when detected). A rune can be expended once as part of any ritual or challenge targeting that hex or a creature in it. Each hex can have at most one of your runes.
Starting Resources - Choose 3:
- One mana of each terrestrial element
- 5 coin
- One count of a rank 3 unique resource
- Rank 3 Runes in the locations of your Strange Allies
- Rank 3 Runes in your outposts.
Covert Procedures: You take four private actions each month.
*️⃣🌱 Reshape the Land: Use your mastery of nature to coax a hex into a new form, shifting everything from its foodweb to its terrain. Change the hex’s terrain type; you may make it difficult or nondifficult terrain. If another power can cast spells from the targeted hex, they may ↩️. When used in a town, disrupt all its industries for the season. Cost: 3 Influence. Difficulty: 4 in towns, 2 in wilderness.
*️⃣👤 Hidden Runes: Choose a hex where you have at least one influence and place a Rune asset there with rank up to that amount of influence. Cost: mana of the rune’s rank matching the terrain’s element. Difficulty: The rune’s rank.
*️⃣🔮 Uplift Master: Create a new master as per your Masters of the Circle ability, to a maximum of 3. Cost: AW. Difficulty: 4. You can reduce the difficulty by converting a willing follower or independent agent. The reduction is their rank.
Perks#
Immortal Masters: Once per season when one of your masters would be slain, you may instead have them teleport to an outpost.
Many Masters: You can have up to 4 Masters of the Circle at a time
Disrupting Runes: In a battle or ↩️ where an opposed power casts a spell, you can expend a rune of equal or greater rank to counter the spell and all effects. The rune must exist in the same location the spell was cast. When another power casts a spell from a hex where you have a rune, and a spell has a rank equal to or less than that of the rune, you may expend the rune to counter that spell. When another power attempts a ritual that you can ↩️ in a hex where you have a rune, you can expend the rune as a critical asset in the challenge.
Wodewalkers: *️⃣🦶 Choose an outpost. Gain 1 influence in that hex and each contiguous wilderness hex of the same type, up to the number of successes.
Cult:#
Highly Skilled: Start with 7 ranks in skills, with up to two ranks in each skill. 🔮and ♥️ are recommended.
Blessed Redoubts: Describe a divine defense that protects your outposts, the first boon granted to your conspiracy by your patron. Unless specifically defeated, your outposts cannot be removed.
Vast Patron: Describe the patron of this cult. What does the cult leadership know about the patron, and what do they not know? The leaders of the cult can communicate with the patron at roughly the speed of a slow spell.
Devoted Membership: Describe the normative member of your conspiracy. What do they know, and what do they not know, about their patron.
Cult Magic: You can store up to two of each mana during a given season. You can cast through even lower ranking cultists, but only in hexes where you have at least two influence.
Moderate Influence: Choose two Influence Generation Mechanisms. You start with two outposts on the map and one influence in hexes surrounding them to a radius of 1.
Patron’s Fingers: Design a rank 2 army which will serve as a repeated template using a controlled build process. Choose Deathless, Fantastic, or Boonbearer:
- Deathless: The army is composed of undead, constructs, or other mindless beings. It cannot be trained or otherwise level up, but units which would be slain instead drop into torpor, and return to life when the wounds are removed. Fee 1.
- Fantastic: The army is composed of magical creatures rather than mortals. It cannot use equipment and has no class, but has 2 base armor and gains a premium keyword of your choice. Fee 2.
- Boonbearer: The army is composed of your devoted membership, granted strange powers by your patrons. They gain a premium keyword of your choice. Fee 3.
Starting Armies:
- A 6 unit Patron’s Finger Army in an outpost of your choice
- A 6 unit army of rank 1 “Cultist irregulars” in your other outpost.
Starting Resources - Choose 2:
- 1 Favor
- 2 counts of a rank 3 unique material
- 7 coin
Covert Procedures: You take four private actions each month.
Secret Shrines: A common cult ambition is to place shrines to their patron in hidden places across the map. Placing these shrines is a👤*️⃣.
*️⃣🔮 Sacrificial Summoning: Your patron converts an army you control into a Patron’s Finger Army of the same size. Cost: FW Difficulty: The sacrificed army’s size minus its rank.
Advanced Perks#
Flexible Summoning: When you create a Patron’s Finger Army, you may redesign it, though you must keep the selection of Deathless, Fantastic, or Boonbearer. Ignore the second consequence on challenges to produce these armies.
Risen Ranks: *️⃣🌱Rise, Fingers: If you won a battle last season where mortal units were slain, you can try to use their newly freed souls to create a new Patron’s Finger Army. This must occur in the hex where the battle occurred. Create a new Patron’s Finger Army with size equal to the number of excess successes, to a maximum of the number of units slain. Cost: FW. Difficulty: 1
Gate Guardians: As a ↩️when an enemy army musters onto the hex of one of your outposts, attempt to quickly raise a Patron’s Finger army to protect it. The difficulty is equal to the army's fee, and the number of excess successes is the size of the army. These Gate Guardians disappear at the end of the battle step, and do not need to be paid their fee.
Protector Race: Towns that are not of your original ancestry produce double support limit, but armies that are not of your original ancestry cost two support per unit.
Cause:#
Broadly Skilled: Start with 1 rank in 5 skills and 2 ranks in another.
Hydra’s Hearts: Describe a motivation that fills your cause with hope. Unless specifically defeated, when one of your outposts is removed, you can create another at least 6 hexes away where you have at least 1 influence and is not in a town. You can also delay the decision and found the outpost as a Difficulty 0 action later.
Statement of Purpose: What brings people together to break the law and oppose powerful forces of the world? What keeps them bound to this shared purpose, rather than fracturing?
Convicted Membership: Describe the core demographic of this cause. What kind of person does it attract?
Greater Influence: Choose two Influence Generation Mechanisms. You start with three outposts in wilderness hexes and one influence in hexes surrounding them to a radius of 2.
Novice Mages: You can store up to one of each mana during a given season. You can cast through your outposts.
Veteran Rebels: Start with a rank 3 army with 8 units in one of your outposts, built as if from a levy of any ancestry, using a controlled build process. They gain Stealthy in addition to their other keywords.
Starting Resources - Choose 2:
- Fragments of a magic item of your own design
- 2 counts of a rank 2 luxury
- 3 coin
Torches and Pitchforks: You take two private and two public actions each month.
*️⃣ ⚖️Riot Shaping: Convert any amount of Uprising in a town into your Influence. Difficulty: 1, but increased by anything you’ve done to harm the denizens of this town.
*️⃣ 👤Saboteurs: Roll an Xd10 attack on any number of armies in a hex, where X is your influence in its hex after paying costs. Cost: 2 Influence. Difficulty: 2, increased by a further 2 until the end of the season.
*️⃣ ⚔️ Loyalist Levy: Levy an army in a town and immediately rank it up once. The size must be less than or equal to your influence in the town. Cost: Coin equal the army size. Difficulty: 3
Perks#
Righteous Magic: You can store up to two mana of each element during a given season. You can cast from hexes where you have at least two influence.
Molotovs: Your Saboteurs attacks may inflict Burn damage, but this increases the difficulty by 1.