Rulebook

The rules for playing as a country.

General play

At the start of each round, roll for 'initiative'. In that order, go around the table and have each player declare what their country is doing during the established period of time.

If one action would take less time than another, the DM might decide to ask for an aditional action to fill the time deficit.

Generally speaking, actions are performed as they are declared. However, if complications could arise from an action, the DM might ask for a related roll. Instead of rolling you can sacrifice one of your surpluses that would be relevant and in that location.

Stats

A country has 3 stats:

• Reach: Represents your total influence. Used for diplomacy.
• Grasp: Represents your ability to project force and protect your resources. Used for forceful actions.
• Sleight: Represents your ability to hide your actions and misdirect others. Used for subterfuge, spreading misinformation, and framing others.

Additionally, you will have a Favour stat, which changes throughout the game, from +2 to -2. Favour represents the favour you have with the authorities in the Morawen Principalities and affects how your characters will be perceived.

Furthermore, Mood is determined by your surpluses and needs. It is the differences between the amount of surpluses and needs you have, and can vary from +3 to -3. Used to hold your country together against adversity.

Resources

There is a variety of resources in play. Your country will have a surplus of a resource, a need for a resource, or be neutral on that resource. Your country will start the game with both surpluses and needs, but these will change over the course of the game. Some resources will have a specific location that you control, which means you will first have to move them to the location of your action before you have access to them. Surplus' locations can be:

• Collected: The surplus is gathered and ready to be used. This does leave them vulnerable to being lost due to actions by the DM or other players.
• Dispersed: The surplus is scattered througout your country's holdings. It is resistant to attack or calamity, but cannot actively be used in actions.

The list of resources is:

• Attunement:
• As a surplus: The spirits and the gods lend you their assistance, and you are guided by their advice in your dreams.
• As a need: You are haunted, cursed, and shunned. The gods and nature will resent your attempts to draw on their power.
• Coin:
• As a surplus: You have the resources to obtain whatever luxury you desire, and you can afford many bribes.
• As a need: You can barely afford to pay your staff, and creditors are on the brink of knocking down your door.
• Crops:
• As a surplus: Your people are fat and healthy. You can hold regular feasts for your allies and soldiers.
• As a need: Your people are starving and riots aren’t far off.
• Defenses:
• As a surplus: Your holdings are firmly fortified, or defended by well-trained warriors.
• As a need: Saboteurs and bandits can raid you with minimal risk, and you’re at great risk of extortion.
• Engineers:
• As a surplus: You have skilled architects and engineers able to put advanced plans together, and the skills and tools needed to construct them.
• As a need: Everything you build is in constant need of repairs and patch jobs. Making something long-lasting is almost impossible.
• Herds:
• As a surplus: Your herds provide plentiful food and transport, and greatly augment your farming and logistics efforts.
• As a need: Your animals are sickly, or weak, or thinned out. Your troop movements, crop planting and logistics are greatly slowed.
• Information:
• As a surplus: Your spies keep you informed about foreign affairs, while your guards, patrols, or mapmakers ensure you’re well-informed about your own land.
• As a need: There are many things in your own country you don't know, and your foreign spies keep coming up with empty hands. Bandits slip through your networks and monsters are abound.
• Justice:
• As a surplus: Everyone who’s done you wrong has been brought to task, and others now seek you out to advocate for them.
• As a need: There’s a longstanding grudge that demands reparations. The group that hurt you hasn’t suffered at all, while you have to deal with the harm they dealt every day.
• Land:
• As a surplus: You control a vast swath of the continent, and you’re able to keep it safe and useable. Your living areas are spacious and you have room to expand.
• As a need: You’re penned in and cramped. There’s nowhere to house all your people, hide valuables, or build new facilities.
• Leadership:
• As a surplus: However your country is governed, it’s working well. They may have a charismatic leader who commands loyalty, a smooth and efficient bureaucracy, or a culture of respect and understanding.
• As a need: It’s unclear who’s in charge. There’s no clear voice managing discussions, and few have a clear idea of what they’re meant to be doing at any one time.
• Luxury:
• As a surplus: Your country lives at the height of opulence. Their holdings are soft, beautiful, comfortable and desirable.
• As a need: Life is harsh. Tempers are frayed, stress is high, and it’s hard to see how tomorrow will be better than today.
• Medicine:
• As a surplus: You can treat most ailments and maladies. Even dire injuries can be dealt with, given time.
• As a need: You’re vulnerable to illness. Maybe there’s a particular plague spreading through your holdings, maybe you have weak immune systems, maybe your lifestyle leads to regular injury.
• Morale:
• As a surplus: Your country has a clear sense of shared purpose, camaraderie and fellowship. They believe in each other, and think they can work together to do great things.
• As a need: Your government has descended into back-biting, factionalism and despair. Any attempt to organise them into a group action is likely to run into complaints, sabotage or apathy.
• Peace:
• As a surplus: You relax in hard-earned peace and stability.
• As a need: It feels like every time you blink a new crisis assaults your country. Between health, safety, shelter and innumerable other concerns there’s too many fires to put them all out.
• Prestige:
• As a surplus: Your people are at the forefront of society. They’re respected, feared or beloved, and other groups welcome their presence and seek their approval.
• As a need: Your people are pariahs, disdained, or beneath other’s notice. Your people get more done when they hide their affiliation, and others respect bargains and obligations only grudgingly.
• Rare Materials:
• As a surplus: Whatever exotic resource your country needs, you have some of it in stock. Strange minerals, ancient bones, spell components, and more.
• As a need: Your country is feeling the lack of something hard to find – components for their spells, chemicals to fix dyes and leathers, or sacraments for their worship ceremonies.
• Raw Materials:
• As a surplus: Your country has easy access to the resources needed for large-scale construction: lumber, ores, quarries and more.
• As a need: You have to scrape and beg for the resources to repair your possessions, and any grand projects are just a pipe dream.
• Recruits:
• As a surplus: Your towns are bustling with people. They may not be particularly skilled or handy, but in terms of raw manpower no- one comes close.
• As a need: Maybe you have a lot of sick or wounded, maybe you’re just only a few people. Either way, you don’t have the manpower to accomplish any sort of large-scale action with finesse.
• Scholars:
• As a surplus: Your people understand more of the workings of the world than most, and have used that to improve their quality of life. They're adept at the working of the arcane, and can use the weave to bend reality to their advantage.
• As a need: Your people have little knowledge of how to exploit the laws of physics, alchemy or arcana. Arcane magic is best avoided or fearfully warded against.
• Trade:
• As a surplus: You’re the focal point of a web of shipping lanes and merchants that spans the continent. You have your finger on the pulse of commerce, and collect a healthy skimming off the top.
• As a need: You’re isolated or ostracised. Maybe traders are too scared to visit you, don’t want to risk associating with you, or they just know that you wouldn’t be able to pay.
• Transport:
• As a surplus: You have a well-maintained stable or fleet, and when your government travels they can do so swiftly and easily. Transporting resources is a breeze.
• As a need: Getting your government anywhere in a hurry is a nightmare. If they even have vehicles or mounts, they’re ill-tempered and in constant need of maintenance. Moving goods around your land takes a while.

Lastly, there is the Influence you have on other countries. Influence describes the balance of obligations between you and other countries. You use Influence to restrict other country’s actions by calling in a debt, can apply leverage to help or hurt their chances of success. You gain influence by assisting other countries. Influence is not a surplus/need resource, you either have influence on a country or you don't.