Handbook

What this is

Tumbleweed is a text game about someone else's life. Earth, twenty-third century: the sky stood under an orbital blockade and has just opened — a flight up is possible now, for anyone who can afford one and has somewhere to go. There are still no interstellar wonders — there are cities, work, rooms for rent, and people who get by somehow. The hero is one of them.

You cannot steer the hero. There is no "walk" button, no "fight" button: they decide, hour by hour, on their own. Your part isn't the hands — it's the voice. You set a character, weigh priorities, and give an order; the hero hears you, and still does things their own way more often than you'd like.

It reads like a serial novel: open it, read what has happened, tweak a setting, close it. There's no need to sit in the game.

How to read it

The diary runs by the hour. An entry is an episode of the hero's life, timestamped: a shift at the port, a fight by the bar, a night under someone else's roof. Hours arrive on their own while you're busy with your day; check back tomorrow and you'll read a whole day at once. The world does not pause: while you're away, the hero keeps living. At night they sleep — the diary goes mostly quiet through those hours, and wounds heal instead. The newest is always on top; wander off into the past and the diary remembers the spot — next time a button at the bottom brings you back.

The wording is picked fresh each time. Underneath every hour lies a plain fact: who, where, what was lost and what was found. The description on top of it is written anew every time. That's why two identical hours read differently for two heroes, and why the whole game reads equally well in Russian and in English.

Cities and districts

There are several cities, all real places on the old Earth, from Baikonur to Rotterdam, and each has its own temper: one is a port with shifts that never let up, one is a bazaar, one is a rust belt of cheap rooms. Some cities don't open right away — the hero has to grow into them.

A city splits into districts, and a district sets the price of living: cheaper sleep and easier trouble in the slums, the other way round in the clean quarters. Places — bars, eateries, pawnshops, clinics, gyms, shops — live lives of their own: they open, close, and remember regulars.

The World tab shows every city's cheapest business up for sale, and an owner also sees what their next one would cost: each new place comes dearer than the last. On the same tab, in a city's plan of quarters, a vacant venue carries its asking price right in the line: no flying out and no asking around for that.

Every day has its own weather, and it isn't just dressing: in a downpour the urge to wander thins out, on a clear day sitting indoors does. Bigger things happen too — festivals, fairs, riots — and the city lives differently on those days, in ways the hero notices.

When a storm, heat, rain or fog is due tomorrow, the hero hears about it the evening before — from neighbours, traders, old signs. The omen doesn’t lie: tomorrow really will be like that. You can give an order that suits the weather right under it; skip it and nothing is lost — the hero adapts to the day anyway.

Standing

The hero has a standing of their own in every city — separate from the purse, and separate from what's said about them elsewhere. It grows with honest shifts, debts paid back, patrol service, a favor for the mayor, an hour behind their own counter, a gift to the right person. It drops with an arrest, a bribe gone wrong, contraband found, a city levy left short, stolen goods on the counter, a patrol fine for a brawl, a wrecked hall, a tab left unpaid at the bar. A town remembers the bad far longer than the good.

It shapes quite a bit: how readily a trade promotes, whether the patrol takes someone on or promotes them, whether a shift earns a bonus, what tone greets the hero off the ramp. A familiar town warms up faster than a stranger's, and a place that doesn't want to see the hero shows that too.

A trade rank is something a city hands to its own: promotions come where the hero is known, and that acquaintance doesn't travel — in a new town it has to be earned again. So an order to reach the next rank keeps the hero in the city that knows them best, and takes them there first if that city is another one.

It shows on the World tab — a word next to the city's name, from "unwelcome here" to "a name in this town." If the city remembers the hero by something bad, the line below names what it was and when it happened.

Food, sleep, and a home

The hero eats twice a day and sleeps somewhere — that's the first line of expenses, and the first reason to work at all. An empty pocket doesn't mean starving: there's charity soup and a free shelter, but neither is much of a life.

A room is arranged on its own, by what's in the wallet: a bunk, a room, an apartment — the better the room, the calmer the night, and the faster wounds heal. The hero doesn't move for every spare coin; the difference has to become noticeable. A rented room stays in its city: fly off, and it's lost. Buy a home in that same city, and the rented room is given up too — nobody pays for two roofs at once.

A home of your own isn't for sale in every city. Where the market exists, the hero can end up with a pod, a house, or an apartment: the price of the place decides the kind, the district the exact sum; the purchase won't leave them penniless — some money is always held back for living. A home never goes away: while the owner is off travelling, a tenant is let in, and pays noticeably less than the full rate — but pays. The place wears down and asks for repairs: a tradesman costs money, while smaller damage the hero handles alone — a household kit off a shop shelf patches the place for free, though never back to new. Break-ins happen only in a rough district, and even there they're rare: in decent neighbourhoods the neighbours and the patrol keep an eye out — unless a riot sweeps the city, and then no address is spared. The furnishings can be upgraded: expensive, and it shows.

A place of one’s own can also be sold: the hero puts up a listing and a buyer turns up quickly — the same day, sometimes the next morning. The price is below market, but well above what a forced auction pays; a well-kept home fetches more than a run-down one, and a knack for haggling adds to the sum. The deal goes through an agent, so there is no need to fly to the city where the home stands. Left to himself the hero parts with a roof only out of need — but a player’s order he will carry out in fat years too. A listing cannot be taken back: once it is up, the buyer will come. The hero owns one home at a time: an order to buy a place in another city starts with selling the old one, and the order’s line says so until the sale goes through.

Once a month the city collects property tax: the more property the hero owns — homes and businesses alike — the steeper the bill. Money in hand is not taxed: the city does not punish saving, only owning. Skip the levy and the debt piles up, and a debt ends in seizure: someone comes and takes what's owed.

The road

Atmospheric flights run between cities: a ticket costs money, the flight takes hours — real geography, so farther means longer and pricier. Never more than one flight a day.

The sky stood under an orbital blockade and has just opened: the Ring in orbit hasn't gone anywhere, it still watches the sky, but now it lets through any ship with a code — the code is issued by the Registry now, not by a single owner of the one gap. Flights out of Nadir aren't limited to the Moon anymore: routes are open to the orbital Yard, to Mars, to the Belt, and beyond — wherever there's somewhere to go and something to pay with.

The road everywhere runs in stages, and the connecting craft is named for the side that builds it: a lifter crosses Earth's atmosphere, a ferry takes the lunar orbit, a tug does the berthing at the Yard, a wedge comes down through Mars's thin air, a hopper meets the Belt's low gravity, and something like an airship — a float — descends into a distant moon's haze. The diary tells the crossing in order: the climb off the surface, docking with the main ship, the crossing itself, the descent before landing.

A flight off Earth, like a flight between cities, never runs more than once a day — but the days add up differently: the near orbit is hours away, while the far bodies take several days running. The diary doesn't skip that time: the crossing is told like any other hour, only the hero spends most of it asleep — that's how the road stays safe.

With a ticket off Earth the hero is careful both ways: they won't buy it while it costs more than a noticeable share of everything they have, and the way back costs the same as the way there — coming out of it broke means being stuck, wherever the hero ends up. Business that calls them there overrides this: with a goal at that address, the hero flies.

In flight the hero isn't quite their own master: the hours in the air belong to fellow passengers, the buffet, dice on a fold-down table, dozing, and the view out the window.

Landing in an unfamiliar city is always an event: first impressions, the hunt for a room, unfamiliar prices.

Beyond the fence

Cape Canaveral has a stretch that shows up on no map: a closed perimeter, cordoned off and guarded — by whom, and for what, no one admits. It's old news by now, and people just call it the zone; going past the wire happens in raids.

The way in runs in stages, and each next one is farther and more dangerous than the last: the little that's visible near the border is nothing next to what's hidden deeper in. The hero can't cover the whole route in one trip — they go back past the wire again and again, and each time make it a little farther than before.

While the hero is beyond the perimeter, the diary goes quiet: several hours pass with no entry at all, and the next one tells you what they saw and what they came back with. Only a whole, well-rested hero heading out in daylight even tries — hurt or worn out, the zone doesn't let them in at all.

At one of the stages the zone hands over a pass on its own — something that opens what used to be locked. Reaching that stage is what earns it: not a lucky find, but a routine that was set there long before the hero showed up.

Making it all the way in is rare: most trips end well short of that. And whoever does get there stops talking about what they saw afterward — the subject just doesn't interest them anymore, whatever you ask.

An order can send the hero there directly, and sometimes the zone calls on its own — a rumor, a chance encounter, or a voice that suddenly says the hero's name. Under an entry like that the diary offers a button: take the case without picking the words.

City secrets

Seven cities — Nadir, the Grand Bazaar, Rotterdam, Detroit, the domes, the Hive, and the Kraken on Titan — each keep a secret of their own, and the city doesn't explain it up front: what's really going on there comes out gradually, not at first glance. The Kraken is a special case: the matter finds the hero there from the very first shift or evening at the bar, and the work pays in cash.

In the first days in such a city something odd can snag on the hero — right in the middle of an ordinary shift, an evening at the bar, or a scavenging run: a detail that doesn't quite add up on its own. That's where it starts.

There are four ways to take the case: right under that very entry in the diary there’s a “take the case” button; the city offers it on its own, but only to whoever already noticed that odd detail; on Strategy, while the hero is in that city, there's a separate card with a button; or you can simply order it in your own words, naming the city or the secret itself. If the hero already has an order, the new one either runs alongside it or joins the queue, depending on how many are running at once.

After that it goes a step a day, and the whole day is mapped out in advance: in the morning the hero follows the trail, by afternoon finds something new, in the evening comes back — and the diary gets all three entries at once. While such a day runs, the hero doesn't fly anywhere out of the city.

Not every attempt pays off, but a failed day isn't wasted either: the hero comes back with a scrap of the truth, the ground already covered stays covered, and the next try goes easier than the last.

The last step gives a straight answer to what the city was hiding. The hero is left with a keepsake, the city radio tells the story with their name in it, and the city keeps bringing it up for a while after.

A hero has one city secret at a time, same as a trip beyond the fence: until this one's closed, they won't take up another.

Character and priorities

The Strategy tab has two levers, and both change how likely things are, not what happens.

Character is four pairs of extremes: cautious or reckless, peaceable or quarrelsome, generous or tight-fisted, level-headed or a gambler. Recklessness pulls toward risky earnings and shady deals, quarrelsomeness toward a fight, tight-fistedness toward an extra coin at any cost, a gambling streak toward games for money.

Priorities split the hero's whole attention between training, earning, travel, and social life. What counts are the proportions: give something more of the split, and the hero leans toward it harder.

Your levers aren't the only thing at play. Standing alongside them are the hero's own inborn traits, their backstory, their trade, the district they're in, the weather, and plain fatigue from repeats: the same activity, twice in a day, wears thin. Extreme settings give a tilt, not a script.

Style of dress is a matter of taste alone: it decides what the hero tries on in shops and how they look in a scene, and changes nothing about their life. Change the style and they'll re-dress at the first chance to stop by a shop, money permitting; while they're saving up on your orders they'll dress modestly — the stash doesn't go on a wardrobe.

Changing the levers takes effect fast: whatever's left of the day gets reassembled around the new character on the spot.

Next to these two sits a third switch, and it's a different kind of thing entirely — not a leaning, but a boundary. Two settings, "within the law" and "free life", with new heroes starting on the first. While the law setting holds, the hero simply won't reach for a pickpocket's job, a con, or a break-in on their own — no matter how reckless you make them, that road stays shut, not just unlikely. Free life opens it and makes such jobs noticeably more common than before — and with them everything that follows: a warrant, a cell, a trial. Switching a hero who's already deep in the trade back to the law is how they quit: they stop looking for new dark jobs, get by on honest shifts, and after ten or so of them the old trade lets go on its own — shifts, mind, so in a city with no work for them quitting takes longer, or takes moving. A player's order outranks the switch either way it's set: tell the hero to go into crime or pull off a big job, and they will, law setting or not — that's your word, not their choice. The switch itself isn't a pardon: a warrant or a conviction already on the books stays exactly where it was — cleared the same way as ever, by a stretch inside, a bribe, or time.

Attributes

The hero's six attributes are shown on the Character page. Each one works twice over: it decides how things turn out, and it pulls the hero toward what comes easy — the strong end up in fights more often, the clever reach for a book.

Strength

Hitting hard and heavy work. It feeds dockers, miners, and farmers, helps in street games, and lets a police officer on patrol pin down an offender. Grows through sparring.

Dexterity

Dodging, getting away from a lost fight, lifting what isn't yours without getting caught. It helps in fights, darts, and pool, and draws the hero to street games. Grows at the shooting range.

Intellect

Cracking systems, asking around, tracking down the missing, cards and backgammon. The clever are drawn to books and films. Coders, mechanics, and traders need it, and it helps leave no trace in shady dealings. Grows through study.

Charisma

Haggling and people. It lands better shifts and better prices from pawnbrokers and dealers, opens doors to influential people, loosens tongues when asking around, helps at cards, and softens a court. The charismatic are drawn to high society, gigs, and calling friends. The trader's main asset. Grows through talk and haggling.

Tech

Hands and hardware. The handy are drawn to scavenging runs — and find more on them. It decides gear upgrades, hacking together with intellect, raids into the closed zone, and what the hero's own workshop earns. Mechanics, coders, and miners need it. Grows at the workbench.

Luck

A bit of fortune in every roll: in fights, in any game, in finds and errands. The lucky are drawn to the gaming table, and it gives farmers a hand. It can't be trained — now and then it grows on its own, with a win.

Stamina

How much the hero can take. It decides when a wound turns dangerous and when the hero is in no shape for fights or training. On screen it is the second number of HP — the ceiling the hero heals up to. Grows through running and endurance work.

Traits, growth, and training

The hero is born with traits — out of their backstory and their fate. A trait isn't decoration: a gambler is drawn to a game for money, a generous soul to sharing, and now and then a trait overrides every lever you hold. New traits arrive from what's been lived through — most often as scars.

Body and mind — strength, agility, wits, technique, charisma, luck — grow reliably in training and only once in a while on the job: a fight that took real effort might teach something, an easy one won't; luck itself sometimes grows off a win at the gaming table. The hero trains on their own, health permitting: sparring, shooting, endurance work, books, tinkering with hardware — what exactly is decided by priorities and place. A hero whose strength, technique, or luck sits near the top of the scale leans that much harder toward a fight, a scavenging run, or the gaming table.

Trade skills — loading, mechanics, haggling, code, and the rest — grow only from work: more shifts, a steadier hand. A trade climbs through its own milestones — apprentice, journeyman, master, guild legend — and each new rung gets its own line in the diary and its own card on Milestones; a shift also pays more experience when a senior or a chief runs it rather than a hand, and moving up a trade rank is a solid chunk of experience on its own — the higher the rank, the more it's worth.

Experience trickles in from almost everything and adds up to a level. What pays best is the new: a first landing in an unfamiliar city (off Earth, even more so), a trade the hero takes up for the first time in their life, a first meeting with someone of real standing, a first win over an opponent never faced before, and a truly big job or arrest. A home, a business, or an office are worth just as much — a big purchase sticks in memory. Repeats pay less: beating the same beast or machine over and over stops being worth it, and the experience for it fades with every win, while a run of fights on the same day teaches the hands next to nothing by the third one; a weak opponent teaches at only a quarter rate. A level means more health and doors that used to be shut: cities, ranks, sides, and the top of the gear catalogue.

Fights and health

A fight is short and mean: a handful of exchanges, and it's settled. Sometimes the other side is out of the hero's league; a battered rib, a second fight in a day, plain fatigue — all of it works against them. Armor softens the blows, and even a win can cost health.

Wherever the hero's nature genuinely tipped the outcome — a fight, a shift, a scavenging run, meeting someone, the gaming table, a break-in — the record says so plainly: strength, agility, wits, technique, charisma, or luck, taken near the edge of the scale, shows up in the entry itself, not only on the Character page.

Where the fight happens matters: an evening brawl in a gym ends with a bill for the furniture, a street fight in a city with patrols ends with a fine. Not every opponent counts, though: a downed machine or something shaped like a person gets written up, while a dead beast does not — no fine, no bad name.

Heavy damage leaves a wound: it heals over days and leans on everything the hero does while it lasts — work and fighting both go worse with one. A truly bad day doesn't end in death but in a blackout: the hero comes to, carrying a scar — a new trait.

Sleep, a med-kit, and a clinic all heal. A clinic costs more but is more reliable; some cities have no clinic at all — best not to arrive there beaten up.

Stimulants

The hero carries a combat ampoule for the worst moments. They jab it mid-fight, when things have truly gone sideways: an opponent out of their league, health already low, or a fight taken while still hurt. Under it they hit harder and cleaner — but only for that one fight, and the next morning they pay for it: the body comes out of that night wrecked, not rested.

Calmer stuff gets taken as its own hour and holds until that day is out. A clear head helps the hero pick up more from both a shift's craft and a gym's lessons that day. A painkiller keeps a wound from getting in the way of things — it just doesn't make it heal any faster; the pain backs off while the injury itself keeps to its own schedule.

The combat ampoule has a price the morning after: the crash takes the whole next day. No stomach for a fight, hands that won't quite obey, and whatever the hero tries to learn sticks worse than usual — and no pill will paper over it: the shot is paid for in full.

Gear

The hero has three slots: weapon, armor, gadget. The best of what they find, they wear; the rest goes to scrap and sale.

Gear arrives as loot, purchases, and gifts. A pawnshop deals in cheaper used goods but takes an old piece in trade, and its shelves sometimes carry real antiques too; a shop stocks working-class new stuff; a trading house carries the top of the catalogue, and not every city has one. New always costs a markup.

The top tier of the catalogue is locked behind a level: the hero has to grow into it. Below that threshold, nobody sells it, hands it over secondhand, or drops it as loot; an order to "get something better" will say plainly that there's still growing to do.

A piece can be upgraded by a craftsman — one solid add-on per item. And on a bad day a pawnshop will take one of the lesser pieces — for good: cash on the spot, and no way back.

Work and career

Every city has its own trade: dockhands where there's a port, farmers where there are the domes, traders at the bazaar; there's also code, mining, and machine work. A hero's first shift in a city is how they get hired.

After that come ranks: an apprentice hands over the keys, a lead runs the shift, the chief doesn't pick up a tool at all anymore. Rank grows with shifts and skill; pay follows skill, rank, and city — the same shift is worth noticeably more in some places than others.

A shift is handed out for the day and can land anywhere in the city — work doesn't stick to one address. In a city without their trade the hero gets by on odd jobs but keeps their seniority: changing profession takes your order. Such an order is carried out the same day the hero stands in a city that teaches the new trade — and if your order named a city, they head there first.

An order to keep working the trade has no deadline and no finish: the hero stays in a city of their trade and takes shifts more often until you lift the order yourself. It works at any rank — including the very top, where there's nowhere left to climb and the pay is best.

A criminal record spoils the file: high ranks and a police badge are both closed off until the record ages out — or until it vanishes from the registry some other way.

Crime and the police

The dark road isn't open to everyone: on its own, only to a hero who's set the Strategy switch to free life rather than a life within the law. A law-abiding hero won't step onto it themselves, however tempting — not unless you order it directly. Where it's open: theft, fraud, and for coders with the right streak, hacking — including breaking into the state registry to clean a record. Smuggling stands apart: no hero volunteers to run goods past customs under any setting — it is always someone's commission, yours or the world's, and the law setting only decides whether grey cargo gets offered unasked. Successful jobs add up to a criminal trade of its own, with rungs from pickpocket to someone the streets know by name. The more patrols a city has, the harder the work; some cities are lax, some are better left alone.

For a hero living free, it is a road of need: an empty pocket or a hanging debt makes the hands reach on their own, while for a hero with money a petty job is worth far less than the record it can leave — and such a hero takes one on noticeably less often. Three are exempt: the reckless by nature, the one for whom the trade has already become a craft, and the one told to do it by the player. A second job in the same day comes harder than the first — a day does not turn into a string of thefts.

Once enough jobs land, the trade pulls harder than the payroll — but only on a hero living free: they walk out of the legal job, and the entry says so, a departure, not a no-show. A law-abiding hero is never pulled this way at all: if one is already deep in the trade, switching them back to the law is exactly how you stop it. One exception: while an order about a craft is open, the jobs go on but no longer pull the hero away.

A job's take grows with more than the trade's rank — a skilled pair of hands or a sharp head pulls noticeably more out of the same score.

Being wanted is a shadow at the shoulder, but not forever. A stretch inside lifts it outright; a bribe can too, but that conversation is illegal, costs a noticeable share of everything the hero is carrying, gets pricier the longer the wanted list runs, and can just as easily end with the hero taken on the spot instead. And if two weeks pass without a new job in that city, the notice lapses on its own — no fine, no conversation; every new job starts those two weeks over.

Getting caught doesn't end in a cell without a word: the arrest entry names exactly what for — petty theft, fraud, hacking, a major job, smuggling, an old warrant, a debt to the treasury, or the bribe attempt itself — what fine got taken on the spot, and what sentence got handed down, then says the case moves to a standing tribunal the same hour.

The trial entry opens with who's defending. With enough in pocket to cover it and still eat, the hero hires their own lawyer, who argues the case far better but takes the fee up front, a noticeable share of whatever the hero is carrying, named plainly in the entry; short of that, they get a public-defence lawyer, free of charge, with a folder and a minute to spare. In cities with no law at all there's no defense to speak of — the trial is quick and held on the spot. The hour's money tags are labelled to match: the fine on its own line, the lawyer's fee on its own, any fine refunded on a good outcome on its own, and whatever a failed bribe cost seized on its own — the hour's tally reads without doing sums.

Most of the time the sentence stands. Now and then the defense manages to shave the term and win back part of the fine; rarer still, the case falls apart or the hero is cleared outright — they walk out of the courtroom free: no record, nothing to serve, and the fine paid returned in full. A debt to the treasury cannot be undone this way — there the defence only bargains over the measure. The odds run better with a clean file and when the hero wasn't taken red-handed — an old warrant or a routine search instead: caught red-handed, a case almost never falls apart, and a hero with a long record more often sees the judge add to it than let it slide. A record still fades over time if the hero keeps quiet.

The police are a mirror trade: patrols, arrests, and pay above the civilian scale. Two thresholds of its own — grown enough, and clean enough. A greedy patrol officer risks an envelope — and an internal check. Only a hero without a job walks into the station on their own, and never on the way to another city; a working hero gets there only by your order.

A patrol officer can be ordered to arrest someone by name. They search fast — running the name through police records and asking around the street — and usually find the person within a day. If the detainee is wanted in any city or lives by crime, a court follows, naming both the charge and the officer who made the arrest, and the officer earns a bonus. Someone taken for nothing is let go with apologies and money out of the officer’s fine, and the officer gets a dressing-down from the chief.

And the hero drifts between the two roads on their own: luck pulls them deeper, failure pushes them out.

Cars and private planes

A car is property, not gear: the hero buys one when the wallet allows, or on a direct order. A jalopy costs a thousand credits, an off-roader four thousand two hundred. It stays where it was left and travels only with its owner: if the hero flies off on a scheduled flight, the car waits at its parking spot.

While the car runs, the hero takes it on nearby overland roads instead of buying a ticket — paying for fuel, not for a seat. No leg longer than three stages is driven; a long road across the wastes stays with the flights. Parking is billed once a week, and in the yard of the hero's own home the car stands free. The road wears it down; when it looks truly bad it stops starting and waits for a service, and the hero takes it to the garage before it gets that far. The garage also tunes it up — engine, suspension, alarm — each tune-up costs money.

A car helps at work: on wheels the hero makes it to a better shift farther from home, and arriving in one's own car adds confidence in high society. A night in it is no hotel, but it's a roof when there is no other, and costs little health. There is a downside: from the yard of a rented corner in a poor district the car can be stolen. A home yard and a paid lot while away protect it, and a tuned-up alarm halves the risk. An old car can be traded in when buying a new one.

A private plane is for the very rich: a turboprop costs eighteen thousand credits, a business jet thirty-six thousand. It can't pay for itself, only be kept up: every flight costs more than a ticket, the hangar bills weekly, and an inspection falls on the first of each month. The hero won't buy one without a direct order. It flies only between airfields — Nadir, Istanbul, Rotterdam, Detroit and Glassfield; the Farms, the Hive and closed Canaveral stay with the scheduled lines. Flights wear the plane out, and in poor condition it isn't cleared to fly.

Skip the hangar bill and a debt accrues, shown as its own line among the hero's belongings. After two weeks of non-payment the plane is seized and sold at auction, with the proceeds going against the debt. Selling it yourself on order pays better than waiting for the auction.

A venue is also a way to earn from other people's wheels: the owner gets a share of what other heroes spend there. In the business summary this money shows as its own line, "from other heroes", and another hero's card shows who arrives on their own wheels or flies their own plane.

Bodyguard

A guard joins the hero only by a direct order: it's an expensive choice — a retainer up front and a wage every week — and the hero won't spend money you might be saving for something else on protection unless you say so.

What it's worth is modest but real: a bit of extra help in a fight, and on the street it's a shield against other heroes who prey on passersby — mugging someone with a bodyguard nearby is harder, and a failed attempt earns a beating from the guard.

It stays only as long as the pay keeps coming: fall short of a week's wage, and it leaves on its own, no scene, no warning. You can also let it go early with its own order — a clean, peaceful parting.

Robbing other heroes

Not every hero mugs another player's hero on their own — only one already working a criminal trade or living free with a past behind them does that from time to time, of their own will. A direct order naming the target overrides that rule, same as other criminal goals: it goes through even with "within the law" set on Strategy.

The outcome comes down to experience — how many such jobs are behind the hero and how quiet their hands are. A beginner fails more and gets spotted more; a seasoned hand walks away clean almost every time, and the diary entry says plainly which one decided it.

City patrols decide what happens to someone spotted: getting recognized turns into a manhunt by name, and getting caught on the spot means an arrest that same hour — with the loot handed back to the victim in full. The victim's own bodyguard, if there is one, cuts the odds of success and punishes failure on top of whatever the patrol does.

Some heroes keep their own security detail — not a city patrol, but private muscle. A victim with one doesn't have to gamble on a manhunt: within a few days it finds the culprit on its own, demands the full sum back, and whatever the pocket can't cover becomes a debt. The debt pays itself off the moment the debtor has free money to spare, and it eventually reaches whoever is owed.

Figures and society

Every city has its faces: a mayor, a police chief, the owners of its pricier places; corporate types travel between cities. This is the shared world — the same figures for every player, and they're born, age, and pass on.

Meeting them happens in society, at gatherings in the well-off districts. Society favors money and manners, but knowing a figure brings jobs, connections, and doors that don't open from the street.

Figures have their own temperament too — some clean, some not, and it's more than a detail of the biography. In a city where the police chief isn't clean, patrols on the street are noticeably thinner — the chief is the one who commands them; and that kind of power, chief or mayor alike, occasionally comes asking for shady favors — the same sort the traveling corporate types ask for — and pays the same for them.

An owner of a place is a figure too: buy a business, and the hero becomes a face of the city themselves — everyone sees the name.

The whole circle is laid out on the Character tab: who they are and where they sit, how close the acquaintance is, how many errands for them have been seen through, and whether there's live leverage on them. The name leads to the figure's own page.

Alongside the figures, that same circle shows ordinary people of the cities too — whoever the hero has already dealt with along the way: a bartender, a fixer, a fence. They have no page of their own, but the circle remembers the city, the day they first met, and how many times their paths have crossed since. The count starts the day the circle began: talks from before it are not written in.

Acquaintances live only while they are kept up. A connection without meetings slowly cools, and the hero can't keep everyone close at once: new acquaintances crowd out the old ones, and the diary tells you when an old tie is fading. When a figure leaves the world, that is noted in the diary too, not only in the papers.

As the closeness grows, people open up on their own: first a frank word, then a personal story, then a request or a confided secret, and with the very closest, the acknowledgment of one of their own. Ordinary townsfolk the hero deals with often become regulars: a fence who's one of yours pays a little more, a bartender who's one of yours pours a little cheaper.

You can ask for work straight from the Circle: an acquaintance you're close enough with has a button for it. It's a favor, and the tie weakens afterwards, as after any ask. While one request is in the works, a second can't be made.

Patronage

Knowing a city's corrupt power can be more than pleasant — it can be useful. If the hero gets caught, a word with the right person sometimes saves them from an arrest outright: no fine, no cell, and whatever wanted level the city carried eases off a little. The police chief is the more reliable of the two — the patrols answer to them. The closer the acquaintance, the more likely it comes through, but the favor costs a piece of that very closeness — every time it's called in, the acquaintance cools a little, and sooner or later there's not enough of it left for the next ask.

An honest police chief or mayor won't bury the case, but if the acquaintance is close, they may put in a word: the arrest still happens, only the fine and the time come out lighter. That kind of backing cools the tie a little too.

A successful hack in a city where the hero knows a corrupt figure occasionally turns up more than money — dirt on that very person, someone's private accounts and correspondence. While the paper is fresh, it works without needing any luck at all: an arrest there gets buried for certain. But dirt that's been put to use stops being a secret and is spent right there, and left unused, it ages and loses its bite on its own.

A place of your own

A place can be bought and stood behind as owner — a bar, a kitchen, a den, a machine shop, a pawnshop, a shop, a trading house. The hero never takes that step alone: a venue costs more than anything else bought in a lifetime, and a business is only taken on by order. It earns something every day, but it's never quiet: shakedowns, inspections, wreckage, fires — every business has its own troubles, and the owner's manner decides which ones show up more often: a careless owner gets robbed, a greedy one gets shortchanged, a generous one keeps its regulars.

The quarter sets both the price and the take: the dearer the address, the dearer the venue and the fuller the register. So a business in an expensive city pays for itself in roughly the same time as a cheap one — the term is held by the tier of the quarter and the trade, not by where the door stands.

A pawnshop lives on a different turn — pledges, the pieces never bought back, and antiques on top of that — and its own troubles come with it: stolen goods slipped onto the counter, a former pawner showing up with a grievance, a fake taken for the real thing. And an owner can't pawn their own things or buy back used gear at their own counter — that means flying to another city.

An owner standing behind their own counter takes home more than a manager running it without them: while the hero is away, part of the take doesn't make it into the register. But the choice of where to spend the hour isn't simple: for a solid craftsman a shift elsewhere feeds better than their own counter, and the higher the rank and skill, the more readily they take one. A hero with no trade has nothing to lose — they mind the counter themselves.

Every venue can have its own people too — a seller at the counter, a hand at the workbench, a server in the hall, a keeper at the pawnshop desk. On their own the hero only finds them in an hour spent behind the counter, no more than one person a day; an order handles the hire without the trip — the venue just needs to be open that day. The payment up front is the same either way, then a share of that venue's own take rather than a fixed wage — a bad day pays the worker less, but never runs the owner into a loss. The staff belongs to the place, not the hero — they can't be moved to another city, and if the business is sold or lost, they go with it. While the owner is away, staff hold the register noticeably steadier than an empty counter; with the owner right there the gain is modest — they're already minding the counter themselves, and showing up in person still beats any hired help. Room for them is limited: a couple to a venue as a rule, one more in a well-off quarter, and one more again for anyone keeping an HQ, wherever it stands. A machine shop goes quieter than any other trade without its owner, and needs staff most of all — though the master's own hands at the bench are worth more than any hired help.

The rule is simple: never two places in one city — you can't stand behind two counters at once. Each next venue costs more than the last, and the city takes a larger cut from a chain too. And from the third business on, one person can't run it all alone: an HQ is opened by an owner who already holds two venues, and without one the third can't be bought.

On its own an HQ is walls and paperwork; the people hired into it give it its worth — one to a post, taken in the order they're named here. Without an order the hero hires them in person, but only standing in the office's own city, whenever their turn comes. An order speeds this up and, unlike the plain hire, lets the player name the post themselves — bookkeeper, security, or lawyer; a post already filled sends the order back with a note, and an unnamed one still goes to whoever the chain needs most. An order hires without the trip — the hero doesn't need to fly to the office's city. A bookkeeper holds the take of every place where the owner isn't right now — without one, an absent business earns no more than it would under a plain manager. A head of security makes trouble across the whole chain — shakedowns, brawls, raids, pilfering — rarer everywhere at once. A lawyer eases the property tax, halves the fines wherever the argument is about paperwork — an inspection, a raid, stolen goods on the counter — and shows up in court with a defender the hero never pays for separately. Those people draw a wage every day, but only while the HQ has something to run: a chain left without a single venue doesn't lose its office, but doesn't feed it either.

Under the head of security serve the operatives. They are taken on by order only, one a day at most and only in the office’s city: they cost money every day, and the chain may not spend that way on the player’s behalf. How many the office holds grows with the number of venues. While the detail stays at the office it works for the whole chain: trouble at the venues comes rarer than with the head alone, and a break-in at the home in the office’s city comes rarer. The detail can be posted to a city where the hero holds a venue or a home — the order is given on the hero’s page, the detail leaves the next night and stands there until recalled. In the city of the post the venues hardly know trouble and the home is never robbed; at the office, though, fewer people remain, and the chain lives with those left. Besides a post, the detail can be set to watch the authorities of any open city — the mayor or the police chief. For a few days the people follow, and at the end either kompromat lands on the one they watched, or they come back empty-handed. Kompromat holds a person tighter than acquaintance: with it in hand the seat hushes up the hero’s arrest, however clean the person is. A spotted tail turns into a wanted notice on the hero. And only a detail with people in it hunts down whoever robbed the hero: the head alone is not enough for that.

A chain climbs through three stages, and the hero never picks one — they show up on their own, from whatever's already in hand. A business of one's own and at least one hired person, at a counter or in the office, is an outfit. An HQ, at least two venues, and a hand behind every counter, none of them empty — that's a firm. The same again with four places and eight people, the office staff counted in — a corporation.

A venue trades in whatever the owner themselves lives by, and every trade has its own working day: for a shop that's scavenging, for a pawnshop scavenging and selling salvage across its own counter, for a workshop it's a shift at the bench, for a bar or den it's an evening among people, songs and talk running late. A hero who lives that kind of day in their own venue's city sees a fuller register the next day, and salvage sold across their own counter pays more than a stranger buyer would give for it — the piece leaves its own shelf, not someone else's hands.

A second venue in a different trade stops being just another income and becomes a chain: different trades feed each other however they can. A workshop mends what later leaves a shop’s counter; a pawnshop passes on what was never redeemed to whoever will sell it; a bar shares its crowd with both, and in return gets its counter fixed and its stock delivered. Whatever pair the hero ends up with, both registers come out fuller. A second venue in the same trade, in another city, adds nothing to the register at all — but under an already-known name people push their luck less, trouble comes around less often, and a manager left in charge while the owner is away steals a good deal less. Neither one is arranged by contract or by order: both stages show up on their own, from whatever the hero already holds. Different trades pay in money; the same trade pays in peace of mind.

A venue can be renamed to whatever the hero likes: next to it, on the Character tab's Business sub-tab, there's a "Rename" button that opens a box for the new name. It can't be done more than once a week, and that limit is kept separately for every business. The new name is public — everyone sees it on the city's district map in place of the catalog one. A name that raises an eyebrow isn't posted right away: it goes through review first, and until that's settled, the place keeps answering to its old name. A place that's sold, burned down, or seized doesn't carry the given name forward — the new owner, or an empty counter, starts back at the catalog name.

Partnership

A partnership is a deal struck over the counter: the owners of two businesses agree to work together. It's the first mechanic in the game that ties one living player to another, rather than a hero to the world.

Not just anyone can strike one. Both heroes must know each other — meetings are what make an acquaintance — each must own a business, and the two businesses must be different kinds: a drinking place, a craft, trade, or a pawnshop. Two bars won't get a partnership — it rewards different trades, not a second copy of the same counter.

It's struck with the order "offer <hero's name> a partnership". The order is checked right away: no acquaintance, no business of their own, or both businesses the same kind, and instead of a deal the diary gets a note explaining why.

The word belongs to the partner, not to another order: the offer waits for them on the Strategy tab, and they decide on their own, with a button — accept or turn it down. It costs them no slot of their own order. An offer left untouched lasts two days and then fades on its own.

While the partnership holds, both tills take a markup. It's the full amount when the two venues stand in the same city, on the same street; noticeably smaller when the cities differ.

There's no shared purse: each owner keeps their own money, debts, and troubles — one partner's losses never land on the other.

Only one partnership at a time. Either side can end it, also with a button, and the markup disappears the next day. It fades on its own too: if the signed business is sold, burns down, gets seized, or the partner leaves the world.

After a breakup, a new partnership doesn't come together right away — some time has to pass first.

Trade and supply

A shop and a trading house are the only businesses where skill shows straight in the till: someone who can haggle takes home more, and hours behind the counter grow that very skill on their own. A trading house sells only in well-off districts, and only to someone who already knows how to haggle.

A shop can be set up with a supply line: the hero travels to the source city, strikes a deal, and from that day the till takes a markup — for about a month, while the contract holds. Not every hero is trusted with one — it takes standing in the trade and a real gift for haggling. The contract belongs to the shop, not the owner: a sale, a fire, or a seizure ends it the same day.

Some supply runs go around the duty. A smuggling contract brings in noticeably more than a legal one, but rolls the dice every day: get caught, and it's a fine, a broken contract, sometimes an arrest.

A pawnshop builds its own clientele a different way — a collectors' circle. It's struck right at the hero's own counter: collectors come to them, no travel needed. The circle lasts about a month and belongs to the place itself, not the owner behind the counter — while it holds, orders come the pawnshop's way now and then.

An order sends the hero after a rare piece in another city: they fly out, bring it back, and it waits at their own pawnshop for the buyer to collect. Some pieces travel without papers, and a search at the gangway can seize those. What the buyer does with the piece afterward is their own business — and the hero only finds out after the fact.

The hero drops into other people's shops on their own too — for a soda, a snack, a gift, and with enough money, something new off the shelf.

Leisure, a diary, and pets

The hero doesn't live by work alone. A bar isn't only for drinking: before noon the counter serves more tea and compote than a glass. A game for money comes up at most once a day, and a gambler sits down more readily than most: the place and the city decide what's on offer — darts here, billiards there, cards or backgammon somewhere else, plain old dice elsewhere still — and different games test different things: luck, quick hands, wits, charisma. There are favorite places that pull harder than the rest, and a tab left unpaid if the drink came without the money for it.

In a place the hero is known at, the counter now and then tells a story — a short one, about people, trades and roads. Strangers don't get them: the face has to be familiar first, and the same story is never told twice. It runs the other way too — the hero remembers a city they have actually been to.

The city adds its own flavor: an hour in the park, a game in the yard — every city has its own, from backgammon to a game of street ball — a book, a show that fits the hero's taste, karaoke. Every week or two there is an evening at a screen: old film from two centuries back, watched at home off a battered reader or in a bar that runs it in the background — and the hero marvels at how much more convenient everything is in there than in life. Once in a while the hero starts a diary of their own: writes for a few days, then leaves the notebook behind.

And now and then a living creature settles into the home: a cat, a dog, a bird — whatever the hero happens to notice at a stall. A pet lives in their room, travels with them between cities, and claims its own share of time: walks, fuss, feeding. It's no use to anyone — that's rather the point. Every animal has a temper of its own: one sleeps on the warmest thing around, another hears you coming a block away, a third sings exactly at dawn — and the diary knows it by that habit, not by its species.

The animal arrives with a name, but the name isn't final: on the Character tab, next to the pet, there's a "rename" button — the new name goes straight into the diary and into every entry that follows. It can be changed once a day; until the day turns over, the button simply isn't there.

Trade meets

Now and then the paper announces a meet: a contest of one trade in one city — dock hands at the port, mechanics on the shop floor, coders at the terminals. It is announced a few days ahead, the morning paper reminds readers of it every day until it is held, and the notice stays on the News tab until the meet begins.

On the day, at two in the afternoon, every hero of that trade who happens to be in town takes part — no entry is required, being there with the trade in hand is enough. The judging weighs skill, seniority, nature and a little luck; a hero who arrives bruised has it harder.

By evening the whole list is read out: every competitor learns their own place — fourth and last alike — and the top three are named apart: the gold, silver and bronze cups stay with the hero for good — a keepsake in the dossier and a card on Milestones — with prize money besides, and the town remembers its prizewinners. The city radio reports live from the ground on who came out to compete, and the evening paper prints the results: the prizewinners of every trade and how many rivals they faced. Meets of one trade are numbered in order: the third dock hands’ meet is the third, wherever it is held.

A hero can be entered straight from the notice — the “enter the meet” link under it; the order lands on Strategy and leads the hero to the host city. The link appears only for a hero of that very trade. Miss the day and the order is withdrawn with a note; the next meet will be announced in its turn.

Other heroes

Other players' heroes live in the same world. Two of them in the same place at the same hour, and a meeting may follow: a drink, a game for money, gossip, or a fight, by the temper of both. Shared favorite places bring people together more often than a random street corner does.

People do not cross paths every day: a meeting is an event, and the longer a hero keeps to themselves, the more readily they strike up a conversation. The sociability setting makes them easy to know, and an order to find or provoke someone will not wait its turn.

Meetings build into relationships: friendship with some, a feud with others, and both carry across days and cities. Sworn rivals the world tends to throw together again on its own.

The big things a hero lives through — cities, trades, arrests, friendships, closed orders — settle onto the Milestones tab: a chronicle of their life, and one visitors to their page can read.

People of the world

The World tab has a third door — People of the world: a census of every hero currently alive, laid out across a handful of boards. The census is taken every morning, so whatever a hero lived through yesterday only lands on its board tomorrow — today is still on its way.

Each board measures something different. One is experience: level comes first, ties broken by who has gathered more experience and, failing that, by who has been in the world longer. Another is how much a hero is worth in money: cash on hand plus whatever is sunk into a business or an office, rounded off rather than counted to the last coin. A third is how far a hero has climbed in a civilian trade or on the beat. A fourth is how many places of business stand behind a hero, and among equals, how far that network has grown — an outfit, a firm, or a full corporation. A fifth is how many cities a hero has seen with their own eyes, and among equals, on how many celestial bodies those cities stand.

A criminal trade never enters the trade board — the world hears about such people's standing some other way: rumor, a warrant, a record, not a line on an open board.

Each board shows only a handful of leading names, but wherever a hero takes part, their own line sits underneath — findable even far from the top. A hero with no business, trade or travels is not on that board at all, and a brand-new one waits for the first morning. An arrow beside a name says whether the hero climbed or slipped since the last count. Heroes who are gone — started over, or left the world for good — do not appear at all: the census counts only the living.

A name anywhere on the board is more than letters: following it opens that hero's own page, with their own chronicle to read.

Orders: how it works

An order is a goal, put into plain words in the field on Strategy: "save up for a home of your own", "fly to Istanbul", "get a dog". The game parses what's written into a goal it knows how to check for completion; parsing takes time, sometimes until morning.

An order doesn't command — it tilts the choice. Under a "save up" goal the hero takes shifts more often and spends less, but they don't turn into a machine: they still eat, sleep, get distracted, and get into trouble. Money set aside for a goal — whether it's a sum, a home, a business, an HQ, or a trip — doesn't drift off elsewhere: any other big purchase that comes up along the way draws only on what's left over.

Up to three goals can run at once: the hero works on them side by side while the rest wait. Dropping any of them can happen any time. The hero writes an opening line about a goal just taken, an evening line about one stuck in place, and the closing arrives with the very hour that settled it. Outcomes pile up on Milestones. A world assignment is separate: there's only ever one, it runs alongside your orders and doesn't take one of the three places.

Orders can also be lined up ahead of time — up to five in all. It's a single list, and the order in it is yours: the top three places are the ones being worked on, the rest wait. Drag a running goal below the third place and it's set aside, losing nothing: its aim and the ground covered stay with it. Lift it back up and it carries on from where it left off. A goal can only be set aside when there are more than three; when a place frees up, the topmost waiting one takes it on its own.

Some goals can't be set aside, only dropped: a trade showdown, a search for a person, a robbery, a partnership, security service surveillance, a courier run, supply deals, a circle of connoisseurs, and a request from an acquaintance. An attempt to drag one of these down is undone, and the row goes back to its place with an explanation.

Two goals about the same thing don't run together: a second training goal while the first is running, or "sell a home" next to "buy a home" — such a goal waits, and its row says which one it's waiting for. If two running goals need the same money or the same road, the lower one in the list gives way: it keeps going, but its row says who it yielded to.

An order can be turned down: not grown enough, nothing to sell, nothing to heal from — and a refusal arrives with a reason. Too big a reach gets trimmed down to something reachable, and an order that's flat-out impossible sometimes gets swapped for the nearest one that isn't — with a note explaining why.

And the hero isn't tireless: some goals that haven't moved in weeks, they can drop on their own. Milestones will carry a card marked "didn't work out".

Not sure where to start — suggestions sit under the input field: folders by direction (work, money, home, business, travel, people, the hero themself), each holding ready-made wordings. The one you tap lands in the field and can be edited in your own words. Only what the hero can actually attempt is shown: no locked cities, no property they do not own.

Below are the goals the game knows how to parse.

What to try

If you're not sure where to start, here are two experiments. Neither one breaks anything: you can always drop an order and give another.

Goals: money and a home

Save up

Gather the named sum. The hero takes shifts more often and spends less; the goal closes the hour the whole named sum sits in the pocket at once — not the hour that much more gets earned on top of whatever's already there. An ambition can run past what the hero takes on at once: then they take on the part they can and say so in the first entry about the case.

Find a room

Stop sleeping wherever's free: a rented room that's not among the worst. A home already owned counts too.

Buy a home

A place for good. Doesn't sell everywhere; a city can be named, or left to the hero's own pick. Off Earth only a few cities have housing on sale, and where it isn't sold the order has to name a city — the hero won't get there on their own.

Sell the place

Get rid of a home of one's own and pocket the money: the hero puts it up for sale and waits for a buyer — the goal closes on the sale itself, not on the notice. No need to name a city: the hero has only one home. With no home, the order is returned with a note.

Gather a circle of collectors

Build a clientele for the hero's pawnshop: agree with collectors that orders for rare things go to this very counter. It's set up at the hero's own counter, no city to name. With no pawnshop yet, the order turns into buying one; if the circle already exists, the order is returned with a note.

Fix up the place

Repairs on a home or a business. Expensive, but it shows — and the place holds up better for it.

Hire a bodyguard

Bring on a guard of their own: a retainer up front and a wage every week, but muggers will have a harder time near the hero from then on.

Dismiss the bodyguard

Part ways with the guard cleanly — before the money for the wage runs out.

Goals: the road and cargo

Fly to a city

Get to the named place. The ticket, the hours in the air, the unfamiliar prices — all on the hero. Under such an order the hero saves for the road: until the fares are covered they stop spending on trifles and take work more readily. Food, a bed and treatment are never touched. On Earth runs the difference is barely visible; the road upstairs costs enough that saving becomes the point.

Deliver a shipment

A courier run from city to city: pick up a parcel, carry it, get paid. Cargo can be off the books too — a jumpier trip and a better fee, but a chance it gets seized at inspection.

Leave the city

Fits when a place has turned uncomfortable — say, the hero is wanted here. Where to fly is the hero's own call, and given a choice they'll head somewhere nobody's asking about them yet; the order closes the moment they've stepped off the ramp in another city. A warrant doesn't travel with them, either — it stays behind, waiting where it was. If the hero isn't in the named city anymore, the game says so and leaves it there.

Find out what this city is hiding

Dig into the secret of one of the cities that has one. Name a city, or leave it to the hero — then it's the secret of wherever they're standing right now. The case takes more than a single day, and until it's closed the hero won't take on a second one.

Goals: people and creatures

Meet someone

Make an acquaintance — a random person, or a city figure: the mayor, the police chief, an owner, a corporate. Figures are found in society, and not everyone gets in. A named figure is sought on purpose — and the hero goes out more often until it's done — but an evening in a hall is still an evening: who turns up is up to chance.

Find a person

Track down a named hero of this world and meet them: talk, drink, play a game — or settle a score.

Settle a score

Get into a fight. Who with, life will decide.

Hire hands

Put your own people behind the counter of a venue already bought — a seller, a hand at the bench, a server, a pawnshop keeper. The hire happens without the trip — the hero doesn't need to fly to their own place. A city can be named too — the one where the right business stands. With no venue of their own or no room left behind the counter, the order comes back with a note; if the place is shut that day, the hire waits until it opens.

Get a pet

Bring home a cat, a dog, a bird — whatever the hero happens to notice on the counter.

Rob <hero's name>

Mug another player's hero by name. Usually only a hero already working a criminal trade or living free with a past does this — but a direct order overrides the Strategy law switch the same way other criminal goals do.

Goals: strength and health

Grow stronger

Gain a level. Too far a reach gets trimmed down to something reachable.

Hit a mark

Bring one stat — strength, agility, wits, charisma, technique, health — up to a named number. Until the mark is hit, nearly every training hour goes into that one thing; charisma, though, is drilled in conversation rather than at the gym.

Get better gear

Upgrade weapon, armor, or gadget. If nothing better sells in the hero's own city, they'll travel to where the serious stuff is sold.

Heal up

Get back on their feet: a goal for someone badly beaten, closed only by full health. A healthy hero gets this order turned down — a scratch doesn't earn a ticket to the clinic.

Goals: trade and sides

Get a job

Take up a trade — any, or a named one. Every trade has its own cities: no coder work under the domes, no farm work at the port. You can name the city too: then the hero flies there to be taken on, not to the nearest place that fits. If nobody teaches that trade in the named city, the game says so and drops the order — the slot frees up at once.

Rise in rank

Climb the ranks of the hero's own trade: from apprentice up to lead and beyond.

Take the meet

Enter the hero for an announced meet of their trade — by the link in the notice on News, or in words (“enter the meet”): the game picks the nearest one. The hero flies to the host city and performs at the appointed hour; if no meet for the trade has been announced, the order is returned with a note.

Pick a side

Join the police — or go into crime. Both roads have their own thresholds; for crime, the hero heads for a city with fewer patrols. This is a direct order, and it carries out even with the Strategy switch set to "within the law".

Pull off a big job

One loud criminal episode for a payday — not a change of life, just an episode in it. The risk matches. Like picking a side, it goes through regardless of the law switch on Strategy — an order is an order.

Steal a ship

A dream with a known ending: the hero will travel to the port, ask around, get an access code — and be met at the ramp. This game hands out no ships of one's own, but the attempt is worth it. The price is a fine or bruised ribs.

Pay off a warrant

Clear a warrant with money instead of a stretch inside: the hero finds the right person in the city where they're wanted and pays to make the paperwork disappear. It costs a noticeable share of the wallet, and the conversation can go badly — then the money is gone, the warrant stays, and the hero is taken on the spot; the warrant is then cleared by the cell instead: the order counts as carried out, and the price is the money and the time served. A clean record sends this order back with a note: there's nothing to clear.

Erase a conviction

Break into the court registry and wipe a single conviction off the file — not the whole record at once. It's near-certain for a hero who's risen far in code, and near-hopeless for anyone else. A failed attempt usually ends with someone at the door the same hour, and the verdict adds one more conviction on top of the one they came to erase; less often they get out unnoticed, and the diary names the reason it fell apart. The steadier the hand, the rarer the patrol; when the hands are not there at all, the diary says so outright instead of blaming circumstances — and says it on the day the character takes the work on. One attempt a day at most. A clean record sends this order back with a note: there's nothing to erase.

Hire a hacker

Pay for what a hero's own hands can't always manage: the hero finds someone on an anonymous board and pays up front, the moment the order is placed — the more convictions on the file, the dearer the order, and the whole file is wiped at once. The money is gone right away, and the hacker sits down to the job in the first hour of the next day, wherever the hero happens to be by then; travel doesn't get in the way. Their hand is steadier than the hero's own: with one conviction the job nearly always lands, and a thick file makes it rarer. A miss never echoes back to the hero: no arrest, no warrant, no new conviction, only the money already spent. There's only one order and it can't be called off — dropping the card from Goals changes nothing, the hacker goes ahead that night regardless, because the pay is already in hand. The order sends itself back with a note: no convictions — nothing to erase; not enough money; or the order is already paid for and waiting on the night.

Goals: business and trade

Buy a business

Take the counter as owner — in a named city, or wherever it works out. Name the kind — a bar, an eatery, a workshop, a shop, a trading house, a den, a pawnshop — and the hero will look for that one; if none is for sale, they take what stands free and say so in the diary. Remember the rule: one place per city.

Sell a business

Cut ties with a place and pocket the cash: the hero goes looking for a buyer right away, and if the venue stands in another city, flies there first.

Open an HQ

Walls and paperwork worth only as much as the people hired into them — a bookkeeper, a head of security, a lawyer. No HQ, no chain of any real size — and an order for one place too many quietly turns into an order for an HQ instead.

Hire for the office

Speed up hiring at the office: without an order the hero staffs it anyway, just whenever the turn comes, and with one it's the first thing they see to, and without the trip — the hero doesn't need to fly to the office's city. With an order the post can be named — bookkeeper, security, or lawyer; a post already filled sends the order back with a note, and an unnamed one is still the chain's own call.

Build a corporation

Push the whole climb at once instead of stalling on one step: pick up places, open an HQ, hire staff. The order carries the hero forward on its own, until the chain stands solid.

Set up a supply line

A deal with a supplier for the hero's own shop: a trip to the source city, negotiations, a markup on the till for as long as the contract lasts. Without a shop, the order turns into a courier run instead. Sometimes it runs smuggled — better pay, more danger.

Scout the city

Fly to a named city and ask around over the counter — everything at once (what housing and travel cost, what the city lives on) or one thing in particular: what guns go for, what a smith charges for a proper edge, what a room or a place of your own costs in a given district, what the ticket up costs. An hour and a round of drinks is the whole price, and the hero comes back with the answer the same day. What they learn holds for a couple of weeks, and shows on the World tab the whole time, on that city's card.

Offer a partnership

Strike a deal with a named hero so their businesses work together. Both need to know each other and each needs a business of their own, of a different kind; the answer belongs to the partner, by button, on Strategy. While the deal holds, both tills take a markup — bigger if the two businesses stand in the same city.

Hire for security

Take one more operative into the detail at the office; the goal leads the hero to the office’s city. It needs the office itself, a hired head of security and an open place in the detail — otherwise a note comes instead of a hire.

Put someone under watch

Set the detail to watch the authorities of the named city — the mayor or the police chief. The hero takes no part; the people do the work. At the end either kompromat lands, or they come back empty-handed; a spotted tail turns into a wanted notice on the hero. No free operatives, no such figure in the city, or a watch already running — the order is turned back with a note.

A whim

Not every order is a goal. "Take a swim in the Bosphorus", "drink until you black out", "go watch the sunset from a rooftop" — that's a whim: a one-off stunt, no use and no plan behind it.

A whim plays out within the hour — but only if the hero has nothing on their hands right then. Written over a goal already under way, it takes a place among the running goals, or, if all three places are taken, joins the queue and waits its turn: a stunt meant for "right now" happens when its turn comes round. The hour that comes of it is like no other, with consequences that are real: money gone, bruises, sometimes even a new trait.

An order with neither a goal nor a stunt to be read in it — a single word, a string of letters — the hero takes their own way: they step out into a crowd and shout it, word for word. Heads turn, the world moves on.

World assignments

The world hands out jobs of its own too: word of a beast, a recruiter at the gate, an old acquaintance who's bored, a merchant who needs a courier. Such an assignment shows up in the diary on its own and sits alongside the hero's own order, without taking its place.

An assignment can simply go undone — the window closes, and it's forgotten. A finished one pays out: money, experience, connections.

Requests from people the hero knows by name stand apart. A mayor, a police chief, a venue owner, a corporate — whoever the hero has grown close to may one day ask a favour in person: fly to another city and have a word with someone, the kind that lands, or collect something left there. Such requests pay noticeably better than a small favour over a call, and they aren't made of passing acquaintances.

A simple-looking favour isn't always simple. Sometimes someone else comes for the item the hero was sent to collect, and that becomes clear on the ground rather than in the conversation with the one who asked. Whether they knew, the game doesn't say.

Staying in touch

Acquaintances don't end at distance. Now and then the hero spends an hour calling or messaging someone from their circle — another hero, wherever they are, or a face from a city they left long ago. Most of the time the talk is about nothing in particular: that's how a connection holds.

Sometimes more comes of it — news of someone else's life, or a pointer they wouldn't have found alone. Far from home, and after a hard day, the pull towards one's own is stronger.

A call to another player shows up in their feed: "so-and-so called yesterday." If you've called each other, it's no accident anymore, and such mutual calls bring you closer.

What the game doesn't do

The hero doesn't die. A truly bad day ends not in the end of the story, but in a blackout and a new trait — a scar. You can let a hero go and start over; losing one for good in a fight, you can't.

The game doesn't ask for money. No purchases, no ads, no paid shortcuts: the game itself is all there is.