Welcome back, Adventurers!

Day four of posting a highlight of one section of the book every day a week!

Today is...

In Crowns 2e, your Seeker will be spending plenty of time at Refuges enjoying their Downtime and improving themselves. There are a few fun systems involved with this that I'm excited to dive into!

A Refuge is a settlement, one of the few safe places left in the world. And it's not safe permanently. Every refuge is threatened by the world around it, and if given enough time, they will be raided, occupied, or even razed to the ground by the evils that lurk out in the world.

The size of the refuge matters. It determines their Market Limit (how expensive is the most expensive thing you can buy there, smaller economies mean less specialist items) and how many Specialists they have:

Every refuge has rooms to stay in, rumors to gather, someone willing to buy your scrap items, and a smith capable of refilling/repairing your items. Assuming, of course, the repairs cost less then the market limit! Repairs are 1/5 the cost of the item, so repairing one dot on your plate armor is 200c, and that means that unless the refuge has a specialist capable of making/selling plate armor, they can't even repair it. Chain armor, however, might not be able to bought everywhere, but it can be repaired in any Village or larger settlement.

Specialists are master craftsmen and experts in their respective fields that can provide services unique to their profession. There are eight different kinds which I'll summarize here:

Masterwork weapons are made for the user specifically (I got a lot of influence from reading The Princess Bride) and so takes time. Masterwork ammo/weapons/shields can reroll their own or their target's parries while masterwork armor takes up one fewer inventory slot (because it fits so well).

Some specialists, like Coiners and Occultists, let you sell your treasures at full price. A lot of these refuges are down on their luck and don't have need for gold bars, jewelry, and dragon scales, so you'll have to sell them at half their normal price. You'll still get full renown for bringing them back to civilization, just less money. That's why it's important to have an Occultist or Coiner you know to go visit and sell items to!

Temples can bless and consecrate items, what does that mean? Blessed items can attack incorporeal enemies as if they were physical. Consecrated items are allow the wielder to PARRY SPELLS, reducing the spell's power! Likewise, consecrated plate or chain armor reduces incoming spell damage by one.

The reason for all these different specialists, and the limits on how many can be in one place, is to encourage your players to build a network of towns that they want to defend from the evils of the wilderness for more than just roleplay reasons. If the refuge with the only Armorer becomes occupied by Orcs, suddenly the player in plate armor can't get it repaired until they take back the settlement!

This of course all ties back into the Keep system, encouraging players to build a base and watch over the land to keep everyone safe. Not just because they're good people, but because if they don't they'll be screwed!

Seekers can perform downtime actions (each one takes a week to perform) and they will want to do this. There are three main functions for downtime, and three side functions. They're not seperated in the game, but it will make sense in a second. The main one's are:

Seekers need to train. There is no "you hit enough Renown, you are level two now, all your stats go up." Seekers spend Renown to improve their ability scores and raise their resolve. Every week spent training only raises one of these things by one.

This is the main reason Seekers take Downtime. And while a party of Seekers will all get the same amount of Renown, they may not want to spend it the same way. A player with a low ability score may want to raise it, while another might want to save up for now to boost their resolve later. That's why having a diverse array of Downtime actions is important, it gives everyone else something to do while one or two Seekers Train.

Replicate and Transcribe are the other two big downtime actions. It allows the players to make copies of their potions or scrolls from their grimoires. Sometimes, the players just want to stock up on items, and that will encourage them to spend the time to do it.

The other three Downtime options are there for people who can't do these other three. They're still fun and don't feel like you're wasting time, but I've never had a player ask the party to take some downtime because of these three actions:

Inquiring gives the Seekers opportunity to ask and answer questions about the world. What kind of monsters are in this dungeon? Where can I find an armorer capable of forging plate armor? Why is the cult targeting this town? Usually, it helps my players know what to prepare for: should we stock up on holy oil or save the money and just get regular oil?

Carousing is a mandatory OSR table and I made sure it is a ton of fun. Players can win money, items, friends, all sorts of things. Likewise, they can lose everything! There is a mishaps and boons table you can find in the book that goes along with this and it's just fun.

No matter their other options, there will always be a player who just wants to work for some extra money. Who can blame them? This is there for them.

To be continued...

You can playtest the game on our Discord with me and our awesome community! We don't bite!

Let's get to $10,000!
Reese Surles, Ward Against Evil