I. Recover Moves

Life as a chalksworn is not easy or comfortable. When your resources are strained, your health and spirit ebbing, your equipment in disrepair, you’ll need to find relief from the perils of the Hereafter and the burdens of your sworn oaths.

Make these recover moves when you attempt to rest, recover, or refit.

Making camp can be a purely narrative activity and can be abstracted or roleplayed as you like. However, if you need to recover from the struggle of your adventures while traveling through the wilds, make this move.

Unlike most moves, you will not roll + a stat. Instead, you roll +supply. This represents your access to provisions and gear. Huddling in your cloak on the cold ground is a different experience than a warm fire, good food, and a dry bedding.

On a strong hit, choose two from the list. You may not select a single option more than once. On a weak hit, choose one. If you recuperate or partake, you can also apply those benefits to your companions (NPC assets).

If you are traveling with allies, only one of you makes this roll for the group. Each of you may then choose your own benefits on a strong or weak hit.

On a miss, you gain no benefits of your downtime. Perhaps you suffered troubling dreams (Endure Stress). Poor weather may have left you weary and cold (Endure Harm). Maybe you simply just don't feel well rested after camp breaks (Lose Momentum). Or, maybe you were attacked. If in doubt, roll on the Pay the Price table or Ask the Oracle for inspiration. Depending on what you envision, you can play to see what happens, or jump to the next day as you continue on your journey the worse for wear.

When you rest, replenish, and share fellowship within a community, make this move. Depending on your level of success, you can choose one or more debilities to clear or tracks to increase. If you share a bond or connection with this community and score a hit, you may select one more.

You may select an option only once. If you recuperate, you can also apply those benefits to your companions (NPC assets). If you Sojourn with allies, only one of you makes this move, but all of you can make your own choices on a strong or weak hit.

Make this move once when visiting a community. Your Sojourn should require several hours to several days, depending on your current circumstances and level of aid and recovery required.

On a hit, this move also includes an option to roll again for one of your selected recover actions. The second roll either provides a bonus to that activity (on a hit), or causes you to lose all benefits for your recovery. For example, if you are suffering from low spirit, you might choose to focus on the consort action, representing time in the mead hall or intimacy with a lover. Roll +heart again, and take the bonus if you score a hit.

You should envision what makes this community and its people unique. Give every community at least one memorable characteristic. If you need inspiration, Ask the Oracle.

Narratively, you can imagine much of the time in this community passing as a montage. If you choose to focus on a recovery action, zoom into that scene and envision what happens. You might be in the healer’s house, at the market, dancing at a festival, or speaking with the clan leader and making plans. Envision how this scene begins, make your roll, and then narrate the conclusion of the scene - good or bad - based on the result of your focus roll.

You can also perform additional moves while in the community. If you need to Gather Information, Compel someone, or Draw the Circle to resolve a feud, zoom into those scenes and play to see what happens. Sojourn is an overarching move that sets the tone for your stay and defines the mechanics of your recovery. It is not the only move you can make.

On a miss, you have a choice. If you accept the burden of a trouble or demand, resolve this move as if you rolled a strong hit. Otherwise, something goes wrong. You are not welcomed. The citizens are hostile to you. Your dark mood alienates you. A perilous event threatens you all. Envision what happens based on your current circumstances, or Ask the Oracle.

When you tend to physical damage or sickness—for yourself, an ally, or an NPC—make this move. Healing might be represented by staunching bleeding, binding wounds, applying salves, or using herbs to brew a tonic.

Healing takes time. A few minutes for a quick treatment to get someone on their feet. Hours or perhaps days for more severe injuries. Use what seems appropriate to the circumstances, and consider how this downtime affects your quests and other things going on in your world.

A miss can mean you’ve caused harm rather than helping, or some perilous event interrupts your care.

NPCs who are not companions do not have a health track. When you attempt to Heal them, make this move and apply the result through the fiction. They will improve, or not, as appropriate to the move’s outcome.

When isolation, stress, fear, regret, heartache, and misfortune have taken their toll, make this move to renew your mental energy and fortitude.

First, envision the opportunity to Hearten. This might mean spending meaningful time with a connection or ally, seeking opportunities to socialize or indulge within a community, finding solitary comfort through prayer or meditation, or gaining inspiration through natural wonders.

On a strong hit, you gain spirit. If you have the shaken debility, you may clear it. On a weak hit, you recover, but this interlude is bittersweet and introduces new complications or emotional unrest. Envision what happens and Lose Momentum to represent this setback.

On a miss, your attempt to find comfort is undone by a dramatic event, emotional conflict, lingering trauma, or dire realization.

If you Hearten by building your relationship with an ally, such as sharing something of yourself or providing mutual emotional support, one or both of you may make the move and roll the dice. If the results are wildly divergent (such as a strong hit for one and a miss for the other), consider how the two of you come away from this time together with a different understanding or reaction. If an ally is instead focusing on providing emotional support for another member of the team, they can make the Aid Your Ally move to bolster that character’s attempt to Hearten.

First, pick the stat that best represents the situation and your approach, and make the action roll. A strong hit gives you a choice between bolstering your general supply or some specific, helpful items or resources. Take the option that best fits your needs and intent.

A weak hit offers the same benefit, but an obstacle stands in your way. Envision the concession you must make or danger you must overcome to
obtain the resources.

On a miss, you take no benefit and things get worse. You attract unwanted attention, uncover an unexpected threat, are swindled by an underhanded merchant, or waste valuable time.

If you’re adventuring with allies, you share the same supply value. When one of you makes this move and gains supply, each of you make the same adjustment to your supply meter.

Visiting a community is the most reliable means of bolstering your supply or obtaining unusual or valuable items. Large communities may have bustling markets where merchants peddle a variety of goods (lawful or otherwise), but even smaller settlements are often willing to lend support to a traveler.

Currencies largely don't exist in the Lowlands, so bartering is the norm. When you Resupply within a community, envision what you seek and what you may need to offer in trade. Accurate information on the goings-on in the rest of the Wastes is a common offering, but services and tools are also readily accepted.

Whenever you gain specific items with this move, you should only pick items that make sense within the narrative - it's not likely you can find a surgery tube or med-paste in some bushes.

The life of a ranger is a dangerous one, and sometimes the gear you rely on bear the brunt of those perils. When things need mending, make this move.

If you’re making your own repairs, or if you offer instruction to a companion, roll +wits. If you are instead relying on the skill and good graces of another character - such as a ricemetal smith or a thopter mechanic, roll +supply or +heart. Making this move +supply represents using goods to subsidize the work of a skilled NPC, while heart represents relying on your good graces with the NPC.

When you Repair and score a hit, you gain repair points. This is a limited resource used only within the scope of the move to prioritize and make repairs. The amount of repair points you earn varies according to the situation and the outcome of the move, per the included table. Here’s a summary of those situations:

• At a facility: You have access to a well-equipped location suited to conducting repairs, such as a settlement dockyard or repair shop.
• In the field: You are on your own in the wilderness or in a community that lacks equipment and infrastructure.
• Under fire: You are in the midst of a crisis, such as in combat, navigating a hazardous environment, under extreme time pressure, or dealing with life-and-death mechanical failures.

If you’re unsure whether a particular location has the infrastructure needed to count as a “facility,” Ask the Oracle. But feel free to give it the benefit of the doubt. Even the most far-flung settlements often have the skills and resources to keep their machines running.

If you roll a hit and want to bolster your available repair points, you can Sacrifice Resources and trade supply for repair points, one for one.

Then, use the list of costs in the Repair move to allocate repair points to specific items you need to fix. If you are playing with allies, repair points can be applied to their gear if it’s reasonable under the circumstances.

Items without durability but suffering from narrative complications can still be fixed using this ability. If a skybarge's chalk engine is failing and you spend 3 repair points, it is fully repaired. If you spend only 2 points, envision a lingering issue for the device that may cause future trouble, such as it risking explosion down the line if pressure keeps being applied.