Handbook

What this is

Tumbleweed is a text game about someone else's life. Earth, twenty-third century: the sky stands under an orbital blockade, and only one narrow way up is open — a rare, costly flight to the Moon, not open to just anyone. 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 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 sign carries its asking price right in the line: no flying out and no asking around for that.

Other prices don't always need asking for. About once a week the diary turns up a real number on its own — a board in the square, a listing online, a shopfront passed on the way — and never the same subject twice in a row. What turns up depends on the hero's own situation: a homeless hero notices housing ads more, a beaten-up one notices the counter and the workshop, a business owner notices someone else's sign. Food, a bed, and a drink are quoted "from" — the real price always adds some give on the spot.

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.

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.

Once a month the city collects property tax: the more property the hero owns — homes and businesses alike — the steeper the bill. Skip it 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.

One route is different: a ship from Nadir to the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon, the one gap the blockade still leaves open. It flies far longer than any earthbound hop, the ticket costs nothing like an earthbound one, and a transponder code is checked at the ramp — not every hero can board, only one who has earned some standing.

The road up runs in stages, and the diary tells it in order: the climb off the surface, then docking with the interplanetary ship, the long crossing through nothing — and a short craft down just before landing. Coming back, the same road reversed.

With a lunar ticket the hero is careful both ways: they won't buy it while it costs more than a quarter of everything they have. There is only the one road, the way back costs the same, and coming out of it broke means being stuck — down below or up top alike. 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.

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.

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, charm — 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. The hero trains on their own, health permitting: sparring, shooting, endurance work, books, tinkering with hardware — what exactly is decided by priorities and place.

Trade skills — loading, mechanics, haggling, code, and the rest — grow only from work: more shifts, a steadier hand.

Experience trickles in from almost everything and adds up to a level. A level means more health and doors that used to be shut: cities, ranks, sides.

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.

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.

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.

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. Odd jobs happen in a foreign city too, and if the hero stays long enough, they'll pick up the local trade instead.

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 is always open: theft, fraud, smuggling, and for coders with the right streak, hacking. 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.

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: it doesn't wear off on its own. 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 sign 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 sign 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 in by mistake. 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 sign 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. They're hired in an hour spent behind the counter, no more than one person a day: a payment up front, then a share of that sign'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 sign 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, which used to sit nearly idle without its owner, holds up far better with its own staff — though the master's own hands at the bench still outearn any hired help.

The rule is simple: never two places in one city — you can't stand behind two counters at once. Each next sign costs more than the last, and the city takes a larger cut from a chain too. Past a certain size, one person can't run it all alone — that takes an HQ. On its own it's just walls and paperwork; the people hired into it, one to a post, are what give it any worth. 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. Security makes trouble across the whole chain — shakedowns, brawls, raids, pilfering — rarer everywhere at once. A lawyer eases the property tax, halves the fines from inspections and raids, and shows up in court with a defender the hero never pays for separately. The HQ's people draw a wage every day; an empty HQ costs nothing at all.

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 is an outfit. An HQ, at least two signs, and a hand behind every counter — that's a firm. An HQ, four places, and eight people across the whole chain — a corporation.

A big chain no longer falls in one bad roll: from the firm stage on, ruin turns into a takeover instead — a rival picks off the one sign in the worst shape, and the rest of the business stays standing.

A sign 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 sign'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 sign 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 sign 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 sign 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 sign. 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 sign 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 signs 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, charm. There are favorite places that pull harder than the rest, and a tab left unpaid if the drink came without the money for it.

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. 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.

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.

Other heroes

Other players' heroes live in the same world. Two of them in the same place at the same hour, and a meeting follows: 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.

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.

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.

There's one open goal at a time — the one the hero is acting on right now. Dropping it 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.

Orders can also be lined up ahead of time — up to five at once: one the hero is acting on right now, the rest waiting their turn below it. The waiting ones can be reordered however you like, and the current order stays first until the hero finishes it or drops it themself — only then does the next one get taken up.

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 nothing is sold at all — from up there the order has to name a city.

Fix up the place

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

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.

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.

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.

Get a pet

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

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, charm, technique, health — up to a named number. The hero leans into the training that grows it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 sign 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, 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.

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.

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 joins the queue like any other order 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.

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.