Foreword

These new rules have been an absolute pain to work on, but they were worth it. I've finally established a dynamic for travel and exploration that I can get behind and build off of once I start rolling out more content. Months of notes, weeks of work and endless hours of playtesting individual systems and dynamics have paid off quite nicely, I'd say. Here I have on my hand the longest single chapter i've had to write down, at a whopping 21 pages from start to finish, compared to combat's 7, and tech/witchcraft at 10. Even with its expanded, roundabout content, the Arbiter's Workshop chapter is only barely reaching 15.

And hell, I still want to polish and build upon this update's content. So many things I want to talk about and take into account for the future. This is only the beginning of a much larger thing. In the meantime, enjoy exploring the world more in depth than I've ever been able to offer.

Edits 1 & 2: A Little Extra

• Added a Lunar Calendar to the game files.
• Added a Hexmap Grid to the game files.

Changelog

Journey Rules (and Related Bits)

• Finished reworking the travel and exploration rules for Chapter VII: Journeys & Wanderings. 

This is the main event in this version. In this new revamped chapter you'll find out how long distances are measured, how to think of Regions in their main three elements (Terrain, Climate and Environment), what to do on a daily basis, how to organize travel day by day, weather patterns and how they affect you, different methods of travel for earth, land, and sea, moon phases, vehicle rules, and a bunch of other minutiae that I'm proud about how it turned out. This might be the deepest and most elaborate section of the entire game, and I love it despite how much they made me suffer.

• Updated Recovery rules and rates. 

Recovery without Healing Supplies is much slower now, to take in account the new ways to measure the passage of time. On the other hand, Extended Rests take a lot less time, reduced from a week to only three days. Additionally, Long Rests have been tweaked to fall into the new organization of time.

• Moved Healing Supplies to Chapter VII. 

All the Resources that influence the preparation and struggles of the journey have been moved to the Journey chapter as well. Additionally, you can now forage for healing supplies in the wilderness!

• Added Flying and Caravan Beasts. 

New Beast Mounts! Flying Beasts offer benefits reminiscent of Skyships at a smaller scale, while Caravan Beasts are the natural and lore-expanding choices for all your friendly animal needs.

• Updated Basic ADP Suits to fit the new rules surrounding climates and exposure.

With more grounded rules for temperature, ADP Suits finally have a direct, tangible benefit to offer. They work the same as they did before, except they now better reflect their usage.

Narrative Stuff

• Renamed Chapter VIII to Arbiter’s Workshop, and added some info on the creation of scenes. 
• Added “When to Roll the Dice” to Narrative Tools. 

I felt like a little bit of extra info and guidance on the more abstract matters was needed. The arbiter's chapter now has an introduction to the role of the arbiter, and some insight on how to set up scenes. I want to write more on the matter later on, but I felt like the structure of Scenes was the most basic topic to tackle before I started talking about doing your own worldbuilding and house rules.

• Added Arcana to the list of Skill Categories.

Arcana is an important bit of info for me. It used to be an Attribute before it got replaced by Instinct, and I realized recently that nothing else really covered its niche now that it was gone, and it was not something I'd consider to be filed under Lore.

Combat Stuff

• Replaced Turn Priority with Battle Tempo. 
• Added RESISTING to the list of Defensive Actions. 

The Priority system ended up feeling like team initiative with extra steps. Now I am not lying to myself about it! It's been replaced by team initiative where the "initiative roll" determines your readiness when entering battle, rather than your order in an arbitrary list.

Oh, and I also addressed the lack of an option for situations where you can't really defend yourself against attacks.

Tweaks and Cleanup

• Changed Sensory and Physical Augments to Scarce Rarity.

Augments were never meant to be a common baseline that everyone has access to, but it's not a rare commodity either. This is one of those "why didn't I do this sooner" kinda things.

• Changed around the sizes and styles for various header styles so I could fit more stuff on each page and keep a consistent visual theme.
• Fixed a buttload of typos that I had completely ignored up to this point. Whoops.