The Gloaming Diaries Update: #10 - Memories of Mommur

This is a significant update that provides alterations to help balance Trait value, fix some inadequacies affecting certain Paths and Tales, and enhancing opportunities of risk. It also provides a needed lingo update for magic to help reduce the complexity of abilities that refer to what's been traditionally known as "elemental magic abilities" (which can get to be a mouthful and isn't always accurate).

Replaced Boring Abilities

The Elder, Hermit, Outlaw, and Persecuted paths all possessed an ability that raised the cap on a specific trait to 5. This was both boring (it didn't do anything interesting) and of low value (you still had to by the ability at rank 5 when the time came). These abilities have been dropped and replaced with interesting abilities that actually do something.

Improved Underpowered Abilities

A few abilities proved to be overcosted for their effect, under-effective due to limitations, or only happened in edge cases. As a result, they have been upgraded or altered to make them more useful and appealing.

The abilities in question are The Hermit's Quiet Don't Care Much, Tale of Fury's Shieldbreaker, Tale of Glory's Into The Mouth of Hell, Tale of Love's Lovesworn Champion, Tale of Mystery's Rewoven, and Tale of Terror's To Creep Unimpeded. The changes made are noted in the changelog below.

Magic Vernacular Change

To help with the language in game rules when interacting with "fae magic" or "elemental magic" or other non-elemental forms of magic, the magic system has had some language changes. Non-sorcery magic is now composed of "cantrips" (formerly elemental magical abilities) which are grouped in Lores (such as Air, Fire, Earth, and Water) which are in turn grouped in Domains (such as Elements). Other supplements will be seeing language alteration to keep in line with these changes. This is largely to help make the system less verbose or confusing around magical powers, and in preparation for the Death Magic coming with the upcoming Murk supplement.

Standardization of Tears, New Iron Vulnerability

Shrouds are now standardized to have 5 tears, to help reign in Heart's overvaluation as a Trait and the very wide range (and often high number) of tears that shrouds could otherwise take depending on characters. This is meant to also help make the risk of shroud tears more acute for more characters.

Furthermore, Iron is now a source of baleful damage and other negative effects to fae. In addition to this fitting with classic folklore, it helps provide more ways that talespinners can introduce a sensation of risk in play.

Although combat can be quite lethal, overall the game had few levers to induce meaningful risk. Between the higher risk of a torn shroud and the danger of iron, the game should be able to play with the theme of danger more during sessions.

The Full List of Changes

Below is the full changelog for this update.

Added

• The game now uses the terminology "cantrip" to refer to what was previously known as an "elemental magical ability". An elemental category is now known as a "lore", and lores are grouped in "domains". The Domain of Elements is the only one in the core book.

Changed

• Front Matter: Updated version number and nickname.
• Front Matter: Updated copyright dates.
• Weaving Your Gloamspun: The Nestreed ability text replaced "fae magic" with "cantrip or spell" to clarify how shroud can be destroyed.
• Paths: The abilities that raise the cap on a given Trait are both boring and largely useless. They have all been replaced as noted below.
• Path of the Elder: Replaced Fuller Heart with A Bad Feeling.
• Path of the Hermit - Don't Care Much: Truncated text so it blesses all Poise tests.
• Path of the Hermit - Quiet Strength: Replaced old "cap of Poise raised to 5" to instead allow ability to stay conscious while dying and heal faster between game sessions.
• Path of the Outlaw: Replaced Quick Thinking with Heist Meister.
• Path of the Persecuted - Survivor: Replaced the text to give max Might 5 to instead decrease the severity of Injuries taken.
• Tale of Fury - Shieldbreaker: Replaced "Swords gains Permit" with "Wands gains Pressure". No core techniques disables Swords, and Wands gaining Pressure helps suppress Recover, which fits the damage-dealing aspect of Fury.
• Tale of Glory - Into the Mouth of Hell: The ability now gives the +1 Hit effect to the next hitcausing maneuver, instead of only successful ones on that round. It also now is not limited to being used by a single Glory in a scene. This gives the power more usefulness (the next hit, whenever it happens, _will_ get the benefit) and prevents the penalizing of multiple Glories.
• Tale of Love - Lovesworn Champion: Now works if the connection suffers 3+ Hits, not an Injury. This lets this actually happen more in combat.
• Tale of Mystery - Rewoven: Removed experience cost, and changed number of tears for injury undoing to 3. This makes this much more likely to be used while still keeping rate limiting in place.
• Tale of Terror - To Creep, Unimpeded: Text clarified and removed reference to "minions". This is due to the severe impact that would occur against minions making it far too easy to kill the Terror.
• Fae Magic: Changed the introductory text and the text in the sorcerer's section.
• Lore of Earth - Crystal Carapace: Now makes user's pentacles maneuvers immune to Pressure. Recovery 2 turned out to be too strong for game balance, but this still pays to the notion of being useful for defending.
• Sorcery: No longer requires a Heart test.
• Playing the Game: Added Vulnerable to Iron to the Limitations of the fae. This helps increase danger in the game and adds new ways for talespinners to create a sense of risk.
• Playing the Game: In Shroud, changed number of shroud weaves to 5. This fixes large variances in the number of weaves players had and increases the sense of consequence for shroud-tearing actions.
• Playing the Game: Shroud text section updated to clarify that cantrips and spells both tear shroud if it's on. This previously was just cantrips.
• Playing the Game: Text around advancement altered to reflect change in magical lore verbiage.
• Violence in the Woods: The text for Baleful attacks has been made more noticeable with the creation of a headline and some slight change of text. This was previously easily lost.