A purgatorial realm marked with mile-deep fissures and folds of turbulent, transforming terrain.
Fragmented psychic creations, birthed from dream and memory, take form and seek sapience.
The Gloomtide swells and spews forth creatures of shadow and malice eager to feast on despair.
These challenges impose themselves between you and the souls locked away in perpetual twilight.

The sun cannot set because it never rises.

Speak your vow. 
Keep your vigil.
Be their light in the dark.

It is a turning of seasons both metaphorically and astronomically. The solstice passes and we gain a sliver more light each day in my hemisphere. I'm finding that this creative outlet is helping the remaining darkness to pass tolerably. I'm still trying to organize my notes into a publishable format (which might necessitate a non-layout version first), but it's starting to come together after a turbulent year. But enough about me; let's talk about the game.

In a lot of ways the new version of VIGIL has grown into it's own clothes, instead of trying to fit into the grimy jacket handed down by Blades in the Dark; I mentioned as much with regard to a lot of system aspects in my May devlog. Some of the biggest reworks that are coming in 0.2.x include regional expansion, company advancement, and sanctuary improvement. All were originally tied together as a development/pivot from BitD's "claims," but I found them to be too cumbersome or dissonant to my own design goals.  The newest supplement by John Harper, Deep Cuts, has also informed or solidified a lot of the changes that I've been working toward, and those familiar will find its influence on VIGIL fairly obvious. 

Still, I'm a bit surprised that some aspects of Blades have found their way back into the design after they were initially cut. One of these is Armor. It was somewhat represented in earlier 0.1.x versions, but comes back more prominently in this latest draft, after I was looking for a way to strengthen the playloop of "leave safety, do adventure, return", to incentivize groups to visit more than a single destination on their vigil.

Key to this design is the acquisition of a resource ("lumos"). It was previously useful in particular quantities for specific projects. Now it acts as a power catalyst for your home base — the more you come home with, the more downtime functions are available. This "extra" energy also acts as a limiter of how well supplied you are. More lumos = more resource potential on your next vigil. And you get more lumos by doing more adventure. But there needed to be something enticing in this resource=power structure, real reasons for wanting to get that extra lumos.

There are several things along this lumos-reward track to entice players to extend their vigils and acquire more resources, but at the apex of this structure is Armor. If you manage to max out your lumos collection on a vigil, the next time you leave home, you'll have access to a supernatural protection to shrug off harm of any degree. Armor usage bypasses the Harm systems and gains multiple usages with Tier. While resistance can be a useful mechanic to shrug off a consequence, it still has a cost; not so with Armor. Being able to stare down a leviathan nightmare woven from titanium and trauma and watch the blows glance off with barely a tickle? Feels good to know you can hold it off for the others.

Just... you know... have a plan for after you soak that attack, because the armor doesn't last forever!

Still balancing the levels and numbers on this, and will need to take it on a some more test drives before I'm satisfied with the polish. 

Stay watchful, and keep shining — even when the gloom closes in.