Spirit of the House Rules

No Teamwork.

Stress is automatically cleared on reaching a Minor Milestone or some equivalent sufficient breathing room moment.

Consequence Recovery is mostly as in Fate Core. Recovering from either a Consequence or stress can result in a boost if one overshoots the target (which is always the same as the severity/box size) with a Success with Style. But when recovering from a Consequence, one can cut the recovery time in half instead. **NEW:** Mild Consequences will begin to automatically recover on Minor Milestones. Severe Consequences will begin to automatically recover on Significant Milestones. As for Moderate Consequences, those will begin to automatically recover somewhere in between, i.e. generally on Minor Milestones after "breather" sessions.

Environmental damage of all sorts remains arbitrary, usually passive and set by me with old SotC rules as a loose guideline.

You can run (i.e. move more than one zone for free) or do some equivalent "simple overcome" action for free on each turn, difficulty depending on obstacles or active opposition you might encounter; if successful, you can then do your action proper, but if not, you probably waste the turn. This does not include overcoming Advantages which is a full action. **NEW:** Running again after that is another action, allowing you to move three zones in a turn. However, you will need to succeed in an Athletics roll again.

Sneaking requires that you either overcome (probably same as "simple overcome") or actively maneuver with Stealth or similar against enemy Alertness (**of all enemies who would be able to notice them normally, but this is largely situational**). Stealth maneuvers have to be aimed at someone specific. Have to roll one last time before a sneak attack (**or maneuver**). Of course if the sneak attack (**or maneuver**) goes through it faces a +0 opposition.

The usual self-directed passive maneuver difficulty is 2; 4 if it is something difficult but more important (=more flexible invokes) or something tedious and unlikely to be of such major benefit.

~~Declarations can be done at any time, with any skill, for free (once per turn though). They represent character knowledge (from science to sword styles or someone's personality) and bold guesses based on the same assisting in their actions. The difficulty is determined by me with old SotC rules as a loose guide and depends on both whether or not it is true and whether or not it is sufficiently interesting. It is effectively a free maneuver. If you succeed, you get free invokes. If you fail, however, I get a free invoke on you, and maybe a boost if you fail hard enough. If you succeed, then either you were right or you were not quite right but still on to something useful. If you fail, you were either wrong (and suffer for your false assumptions) or right but it was not as useful as you thought and your confidence in your aforementioned bold guesses is turned against you.~~

**NEW:** Declarations can be done at any time (so long as it is BEFORE you do the main roll), with any skill, for free. (Once per turn per character, BUT different characters can stack Declarations for the same roll if they have unused ones.) They represent character knowledge, bold guesses and striking coincidences (like you happening to have a certain item or the enemy happening to run out of bullets) that may assist in their actions. They are effectively like free maneuvers: if you succeed, you get free invokes; if you fail, I get a free invoke and maybe a boost on you. If you succeed, then either you were right or you were wrong but still on to something useful. If you fail, you were either wrong or right but it is not as useful as you thought and your excessive confidence in your advantage works against you.

**NEW:** Declaration difficulty guide. They start at 0 by default and get a +2 for each negative answer to the following questions: 1) Is it true?) 2) Is it interesting or funny? 3) Does it propose a specific interesting or dramatic/heroic course of action? (Advo note: Meaning a course of action that you would not have naturally pursued otherwise, i.e. is not "I attack the monster" when you are already fighting the monster... Attacking a much stronger monster you did not want to fight or standing your ground in a losing fight would count though.) 4) Will the declaration have interesting consequences if it is acted on but wrong? (Advo note: By interesting consequences what is meant is that the declaration will open you up to Narrative Retribution, sometimes even if you succeed but definitely if you fail. i.e. beyond you getting invokes or anti-invokes it may also complicate your life in some immediate way, kinda like a Compel. Kinda like a Compel is actually supposed to act according to some extraneous nerds.)

**NEW:** You can declare minor details with Fate Points (duh). This gives no *direct* mechanical benefit but may be very useful narratively, of course.

**NEW:** Fortune-Telling: ☀http://www.faterpg.com/dl/sotc-srd.html#id99 Just read this...

If you defend against a create an advantage action with style, you automatically get a boost. Completely independently of that, if you defend against it successfully, you might get a free invoke yourself, assuming your counter is of a sort that would grant you some kind of advantage (up to me).

To overcome an advantage someone created on you, you must either overcome their active opposition or beat the original success number, up to whoever created it+common sense.

You can always try to stop someone from doing something else (Interruptions), assuming common sense allows it. i.e. for instance you are close enough to get in the way. However, more than one such Interruption a turn leaves you dangerously exposed to appropriate compels for stretching yourself too thin (effectively creates a free Advantage on you that I can use, though probably without free invokes).

At appropriate moments there may be Endurance and Resolve checks to keep going despite exhaustion or horror at the terrible things that happen all the time around you. Difficulty is determined circumstantially; probably starts relatively low (1 or 2?) and grows higher with each successive check in a session before being reset.

Artifacts cannot be upgraded, at least not by any remotely normal and easily accessible means. But becoming more attuned to them can offer fringe benefits (fewer bad compels, more room for invokes, story benefits). **NEW:** Artifacts *can* be upgraded, gadget-style, after undergoing a special SPIRIT QUEST. I will not set down any rules for spirit quests and how one can embark on them. IT WILL JUST HAPPEN.

**NEW:** Compels that inflict penalties on your rolls will inflict -3 rather than -2. Same, of course, goes for you compelling your enemies. To compel your enemies, spend a Fate Point (one of yours, dammit Shiker) and say what it is that you're compelling, some guessed or discovered Aspect of theirs or of the environment. They *cannot* resist a reasonable compel, but judging what is or isn't reasonable and how precisely it would manifest is up to me (i.e. you can't use it to demand that Reckless gunslinger shoot at friendlies but you can make it to demand that he do some reckless shooting, and I may interpret it as giving him a chance of hitting friendlies).

**NEW:** Aspects created with Maneuvers linger until overcome or until a drastic change of circumstances. If their attached free invokes are used up, they may still be assumed to apply at least until the end of the session and thus can be invoked/compelled. (Unless overcome/there is a drastic change of circumstances.)

**NEW:** Cryptic Rolls (i.e. stuff that NPCs do when you're not there to hassle them) are fun and good. Sometimes they include Cryptic Maneuvers that grant them various advantages. If they fail in those, however, this may result in anti-invokes that would grant them -2s to certain rolls instead. If you succeed with the right observation rolls, you may become aware of their invokes and anti-invokes, and use the latter at your own discretion, instead of hoping I will use them for you when they will be of most benefit rather than mostly wasted.

(To clarify, this is the same as with usual maneuver failures sometimes, if situationally appropriate, granting invokes to your enemies instead. Or to ME.)