Experience Points (XP)

Experience Points represent how your character grows through choices, risk, identity, and consequence, not through defeating enemies alone.
Loot, reputation, allies, and enemies are the rewards for victory.
XP is the reward for how you played.

Most sessions award around 6 XP.
High-impact or climactic sessions may award 8–10 XP.

At the end of each session, answer the following questions honestly.
Each “yes” earns 1 XP.

Core Play XP (3 XP)

Answer all three of these questions.

1. Did you engage with a meaningful challenge, danger, or conflict?
   This can be physical, social, environmental, or supernatural.

2. Did you spend Effort, accept a consequence, or push yourself when it mattered?
   Playing safely does not earn XP here.

3. Did your actions move the situation forward rather than preserve the status quo? Change counts, even when it makes things worse.

Character & Identity XP (Choose Up to 3)

From the questions below, you may earn up to 3 XP total.

4. Did you play according to your Background, Ambitions, or Loyalties, even when it complicated things or created risk?

5. Did you meaningfully approach or solve a problem by leaning into an Attribute emphasized by your Species or Background?
   This should feel characteristic, not routine.

6. Did you take a meaningful risk, make a hard choice, or accept fallout you could have avoided?

7. Did you meaningfully use, reveal, or develop a Gift, special technique, or supernatural capability?

If an answer feels forced or trivial, it does not count.

World & Arc XP (Group Awards)

These questions are answered once for the whole group.

8. Did the group meaningfully change a conflict, faction, or ongoing problem, beyond the scope of the current scene?
   Everyone gains 1 XP.

9. Did the group resolve or fundamentally transform a major obstacle or story arc?
   Everyone gains 1–2 XP, as agreed by the table.

10. Did this session mark a major turning point in the campaign?
    The GM may award +1 XP to everyone.

These awards are not expected every session.
They represent moments where the world cannot easily return to how it was.

What XP Is (and Is Not)

XP is earned for engagement, risk, and identity, not for body counts.
Fighting may earn loot, allies, or enemies, but XP comes from how you acted.

Playing cautiously is valid, but characters who take risks and accept consequences will advance faster.

End of Session Reflection

At the end of each session, after XP is awarded:

• You may change, add, or remove one Foundation or Ambition.
  This reflects how recent events have reshaped your priorities or self-understanding.

• Loyalties normally remain fixed.
  They should only change during major campaign turning points or significant narrative upheaval, with GM agreement.

This reflection is part of character growth, just as much as spending XP.

Relationship Advancement (Effort Sink)

At the end of a session, a player may spend 2 Effort to create or advance a relationship if they have 7 or more Effort remaining.

This represents unresolved emotional momentum being invested in another person.

How It Works

• The player describes a brief narrative justification. This may occur:
  • Off-camera.
  • As a Flashback-style moment.
  • Between scenes or sessions.
• The relationship does not need to have been a focus during the session.

Examples: - Sending a letter. - Remembering someone’s kindness later. - Choosing not to leave someone behind. - Realizing someone mattered more than expected.

Effects

Spending Effort this way may: - Create a new relationship. - Deepen an existing one. - Add or change a relationship tag. - Remove a negative or uncertain tag.

Limits

• Requires 7+ Effort before spending.
• Costs 2 Effort.
• The GM may veto if the justification does not fit the fiction.
• This cannot be used to bypass major narrative consequences. If a relationship already advanced naturally during play, no Effort is required.