2023 rolls on, and we've hit March! Just a small update this month, with a few changes to look forward to on the Advancement ranks.

We've also finished the Feb flash event on the arctic blast, so no more special encounters can be requested. Don't worry if you missed out; there'll be another event come mid-March, so keep an eye out for the announcement!

The planned server migration in February has been pushed back to March as well, so keep an eye on any announcements in the Discord for planned downtime soon.

Development

• The Cursed, Possessed, Undying, and Spirits have gained an additional Cantrip at Apprentice rank.
  
• Shifters have gained another Aspect at Apprentice rank.
  
• The Half-blood ability “Embody” has been further defined as an additional Cantrip and Maker’s Mark.
  

Upcoming

• Host Migration - We plan to move hosts during March, so expect a bit of downtime. We will keep you updated as we get closer to that time.
  
• The Master-Legendary Keywords are changing. The main categories of Space, Time, and Reality will be broken into three keywords each. More to come.
  
• Advancement Prompts for Apprentice and up.
  

Site Mini-Event

The Ritual Murders
The Exchange and the EPD have been pursuing a string of murders for the past few months where the culprits have disappeared before anyone, or anything could catch a glimpse. Very few clues have been found.

So far, only Exchange Agents have investigated the ritual murders. They know the rituals are necromantic, one victim was a half-blood, and a strange seal broken into fragments has been found at two locations. All threads are taken and underway. Once these are complete, the following stage triggers.

The Train Station of the Dead
Check out the Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat City Mystery Event. Read all about it at the link!

March Hotspots

Wicked Shipping Co. & Forum Industrial Park

City Mysteries

Our City Mysteries meters are in our footer, under the board statistics. No Fly Zone is close to triggering!

We made it through cold, icy January, and now we're in rainy and still cold February! A few things are happening this month. The Sheol event, Train Station of the Dead, has kicked off, and all of the ritual murder first-phase threads are underway or complete, so we're getting somewhere!

The planned host migration is coming at the end of February, hopefully improving our server stability. Anticipate some downtime in connection to this, but we'll give a warning beforehand in the Discord server before it starts.

As always, the updates relating to mechanics only kick in in the month they're announced, so older threads can choose to carry on using the old mechanics.

Development

• Familiars can now cast their associated Arcanist's Charms, although the instances where the familiar uses the Charm do not count towards Advancement.
  
• A "Lore Addition" thread has been added to keep track of and ensure internal consistency of the different groups and orgs. on-site.
  
• Afflicted Shifter DCs have been adjusted. Their DC is 4 in human form and 5 when entirely shifted.
  
• The amount of times a shifter can shift before turning feral has been adjusted. They now can shift up to half the number of dice in their Cinder pool, rounded down, before they become feral. They can be feral in both shifted and human forms.
  
• Added Reputation section on the Monster Encounter Request
  

Upcoming

• Host Migration - We plan to move hosts at the end of February, so expect a bit of downtime. We will keep you updated as we get closer to that time.
  
• The Master-Legendary Keywords are changing. The main categories of Space, Time, and Reality will be broken into three keywords each. More to come.
  
• Advancement Prompts for Apprentice and up.
  

Site Mini-Event

The Ritual Murders
The Exchange and the EPD have been pursuing a string of murders for the past few months where the culprits have disappeared before anyone, or anything could catch a glimpse. Very few clues have been found.

So far, only Exchange Agents have investigated the ritual murders. They know the rituals are necromantic, one victim was a half-blood, and a strange seal broken into fragments has been found at two locations. All threads are taken and underway. Once these are complete, the following stage triggers.

The Train Station of the Dead
Check out our recent kick-off of the triggered Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat City Mystery. Read all about it at the link!

February Hotspots

Barton Art Gallery & Easthaven Brewery

City Mysteries

Our City Mysteries meters are in our footer, under the board statistics. No Fly Zone is close to triggering!

Introduction

Chapter I: Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat

The Upper Fens train station has always been somewhat strange. Practically everyone has a first, second, or third-hand story about it:

"My grandma was at the platform alone-"

"My brother was coming back from a night out, and he saw-"

"-she heard-"

"-they all swear they spotted-"

"Ghosts."

Little glimpses of shades, cold spots, odd sounds, unearthly smells... Train lights for trains that never arrive. People standing on opposite platforms, shrouded in shadows.

There are a few fun urban legends: keeping a little packet of salt in your pocket before heading down to the platform ensures your train arrives on time. The deli at the Fens Field station entrance hates this one. Unfortunately, people keep stealing their little salt packets, so they keep it all behind the counter and have a sign out front that says 'no salt'. Newcomers assume it means to behave. Old townies know they can't get their SIS there.

But all of it can be dismissed as superstition. Right? Odd stories, something spooky to tuck the kids in with at night on Halloween.

Unfortunately, nobody knows everything, not even the people in the know. The most they know is that the subway lines seem to have been built along leylines, either by coincidence or design. One could find this in the libraries of Baxendale and the APL, sorting through old city maps. They know that there are rumours of long-abandoned subway tunnels in the Upper Fens that go somewhere subterranean. They know that sometimes the ghosts aren't just a trick of the eye.

The only truth is that something extra odd is going on in the subway, and it seems to have spread along all the lines. That people are now claiming to have spoken to ghosts. That there are creatures lurking in the far back tunnels. There have been hallucinations of ghostly waters flowing along the tracks, and the sound of a distant bell, tolling the dead.

The Exchange and perhaps some other organizations are on the case, keeping the very strangest things contained or studying the phenomenon, but things always get through the cracks.

Ethereal sightings and encounters abound. Who will venture into the subways to find out the truth?

Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat

• Upper Fens | In the light of an oncoming train
  
• Old Town | End of Line
  
• Lower Fens | Safe as Houses in an Earthquake
  
• Newton | Ticket to Nowhere
  
• Thread 5
  

???

• To participate in Chapter II, you must have participated in Chapter I or join a character who has participated in Chapter I.
  

???

• To participate in Chapter III, you must have participated in Chapter II.
  

How-To & Rules

• Begin a thread in one of the five subway locations in Easthaven. If you post an open, note it is for the "Train Station of the Dead" event.
  
• There are limited threads, so a player should stick to one to two characters for this event.
  
• For Chapter I, there is a limit of 2-3 characters per thread.
  
• When you feel like it's time for the encounter to drop, submit a Monster Encounter Request and tag @Admin in the #mod-request channel on the Discord. Be sure to note that it is for the "Train Station of the Dead" event.
  
• Once you have the encounter, you may solve it with combat, socially, or by escaping.
  

Ringing in the new year, and we're still alive and kicking! The recent game updates in December are still being tested, but they look to be working out for us so far. Encounters are now shorter and snappier, with plenty of risk for players and monsters!

The plan for the year ahead will have more Events, more City Mysteries, and hopefully more growth for Three on a Match! You may have noticed some changes slowly creeping in as we work on updating the skin, so look forward to that in 2023.

Development

• Added a new field for secondary avatars in posts
  
• Reordered the forums in anticipation for a new layout, keep an eye out!
  
• Added prefixes for Businesses, Connections, and Scenarios to the Wanted Ad forum.
  
• Prefixes are now required for the Wanted Ad forum.
  

Upcoming

• Host Migration - We plan to move hosts at the end of February, so expect a bit of downtime. We will keep you updated as we get closer to that time.
  
• The Master-Legendary Keywords are changing. The main categories of Space, Time, and Reality will be broken up into three keywords each. More to come.
  
• Advancement Prompts for Apprentice and up.
  
• Sheol Event
  

Site Mini-Event

The Ritual Murders
The Exchange and the EPD have been pursuing a string of murders for the past few months where the culprits have disappeared before anyone or anything could catch a glimpse. Very few clues have been found.

So far, only Exchange Agents have investigated the ritual murders. They know the rituals are of a necromantic nature, they know one victim was a half-blood, and a strange seal broken into fragments has been found at two locations.

Threads:
The Lighthouse March 2022, Volume 1 Issue 4
The Lighthouse May 2022, Volume 1 Issue 5
Old Town These violent delights have violent ends | Theo & Don
Lower Fens This town is only gonna eat you | Theo & Khoury

January Hotspots

Fort Aston & Ashford Hotel

City Mysteries

Our City Mysteries meters are in our footer, under the board statistics. Currently Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat has maxed out, so look out for something coming up soon! No Fly Zone is close as well!

December's here and so's a major update to the Strike and Cinder dice! We've officially moved to version 3 of the system, so a great big thank you to everyone helping us test the system and find good solutions! We'll keep developing and fine tuning as we go into the third iteration of Strike & Cinder, so don't expect these updates to go away.

The Halloween event is also now concluded! No more pumpkins can be gained in the Halloween Hullabaloo thread and the Headless Horsemen no longer drop rewards for defeating them. The threads can continue until people conclude their interactions, however! An announcement post will drop soon in the Halloween Hullabaloo thread outlining everyone's prizes.

For site events, we've got a small murder mystery going on in Terror on the Tracks, so go check it out! This is a player-run event, but still worth looking into, as it does count toward the Advancement requirements.

Development

• Major Update to Luck: All Paths now begin with a base of 4 Luck. More details on bonuses from Keywords found on the Strike & Cinder page.
  
• Major Update to Rolling: Targeted Cinder rolls now must meet or exceed the DC of the target, not the Success Range. Untargeted rolls with Strike and Cinder still use the Success Range.
  
• Exchange Equipment no longer provides a bonus to Shifters or Undying.
  
• The mini-profile fields for Luck, Strike and Cinder fields must list BASE numbers. Any situational bonuses must be calculated for the individual roll where it is appropriate to apply. This includes Mundane Keywords and Exchange Equipment.
  
• True Sunlight reduces Strike pool to 4d6 unless the undying has Daywalker, then the roll is contested. It deals 2 to Luck when the True Sunlight touches the Undying in a physical hit.
  
• Silver's effect has been modified. If a shifter is touched by silver it saps their strength (-1d6 to Strike), and wounds by silver weapons will heal at a human rate. It deals 2 to Luck when Silver touches the Shifter in a physical hit.
  
• The Magic Keywords Empathy, Mimicry, Psychometry, Null, and Prescience have been added to the Shifter's Path Keywords. These must still take into account a Shifter's Wild Magic and the physical nature of the Path.
  
• The Fortune keyword has been updated. After a successful hit with Strike or Cinder, a character with Fortune can do an additional Cinder roll to "steal" a Luck point from their opponent This will either add to their Luck (if their opponent missed) or keep their Luck stable (if their opponent hit).
  

Major Updates to Rituals

• Rituals no longer take 3 posts, but 3 successful Cinder rolls, plus the activation roll. These illustrate the arcanist laying out and planning their ritual based on making the circle, setting the components, writing the runes, defining the power source, and offering blood to the ritual. In the first three stages, if the arcanist fails the roll, they may retry the roll on their next post. They may not retry the activation roll, which is the fourth Cinder roll. More information here.
  
• Casting without an energy source now brings a caster's luck down to 1. More information here.
  

REMINDER: Arcanists may create rituals with keywords outside of their chosen keywords, but they always roll with the Circlebreaker Cinder pool with a Threshold of 5 due to unfamiliarity.

As always, these updates do not apply retroactively to threads started before December 1st, although you are welcome to switch to the new rules at any time.

Upcoming

• The Master-Legendary Keywords are changing. The main categories of Space, Time, and Reality will be broken up into three keywords each. More to come.
  
• Advancement Prompts for Apprentice and up.
  
• Sheol Event
  

Site Mini-Event

The Ritual Murders
The Exchange and the EPD have been pursuing a string of murders for the past few months where the culprits have disappeared before anyone or anything could catch a glimpse. Very few clues have been found.

So far, only Exchange Agents have investigated the ritual murders. They know the rituals are of a necromantic nature, they know one victim was a half-blood, and a strange seal broken into fragments has been found at two locations.

This phase of the event will only trigger again in Newton, Old Town, and Greater Easthaven.

Threads:
The Lighthouse March 2022, Volume 1 Issue 4
The Lighthouse May 2022, Volume 1 Issue 5
Old Town These violent delights have violent ends | Theo & Don
Lower Fens This town is only gonna eat you | Theo & Khoury

December Hotspots

Groovy Burger & Copeland Lane

City Mysteries

Our City Mysteries meters can be found in our footer, under the board statistics. Right now Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat has maxed out, so look out for something coming up around December as we let other Events conclude.

Here's a little November update! The Halloween event will continue until the end of November. The pumpkins in Halloween Town will be tallied on the last day of November; after the 30th, players will not receive rewards for beating the Headless Horsemen.

We also have a little murder mystery going on in Terror on the Tracks, so go check it out! This is a player-run event, but still worth looking into, as it does count towards the Advancement requirements.

Below are the developments over the last month, so update yourself on any changes!

Development

• If a human without a Path has Exchange Equipment in combination with Iron Will, they receive an additional +1d6 to the Iron Will effect, for a total 5d6 in their mental resist Cinder pool.
  
• Component collection information has been added to the dice cheatsheet in the sidebar.
  
• Combination keywords mechanics have been clarified. For a combo keyword to succeed, a player must roll a successful roll for a normal keyword and a successful roll for a combination keyword roll. For shifters, the combo keyword roll must be Cinder.
  
• The combination keyword "Heal" for Shifters has been renamed "Fortify", and its effect has been adjusted. It allows a Shifter to return up to 2 Luck to another character if they successfully rolled for it. The Luck boost cannot increase the maximum luck of the target.
  

Upcoming

• The Master-Legendary Keywords are changing. The main categories of Space, Time, and Reality will be broken up into three keywords each. More to come.
  
• Advancement Prompts for Apprentice and up.
  
• Sheol Event
  

Site Mini-Event

The Ritual Murders
The Exchange and the EPD have been pursuing a string of murders for the past few months where the culprits have disappeared before anyone or anything could catch a glimpse. Very few clues have been found.

So far, only Exchange Agents have investigated the ritual murders. They know the rituals are of a necromantic nature, they know one victim was a half-blood, and a strange seal broken into fragments has been found at two locations.

This phase of the event will only trigger again in Newton, Old Town, and Greater Easthaven.

Threads:
The Lighthouse March 2022, Volume 1 Issue 4
The Lighthouse May 2022, Volume 1 Issue 5
Old Town These violent delights have violent ends | Theo & Don
Lower Fens This town is only gonna eat you | Theo & Khoury

October Hotspots

McCoy Apple Orchards & Bruant Hall

City Mysteries

Our City Mysteries meters can be found in our footer, under the board statistics. Right now Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat has maxed out, so look out for something coming up around December as we let other Events conclude.

And the spooky month is upon us! We have an event planned for October, but it'll start mid-month and last out November. The announcement will drop with all pertinent information when the time comes!

For now, the Bacchanalia is concluded, and the unclaimed threads or threads without two players to complete them are discontinued. For those of you in the middle of your event threads, keep going! The Event threads have been moved to Greater Easthaven and the Event instructions to the archives.

Below are the developments over the last month, so update yourself on any changes!

Development

• Narcotic Saliva, the Undying keyword, is folded into Poison/Venom.
  
• Poison/Venom can now be resisted with a Strike roll from the target. The strike roll must meet or exceed the number of passes the successful Cinder roll had.
  
• Shifter animal species requirements clarified: primarily apex predators. A longer list of species has been added as suggestions.
  
• For the Arcanist advancement to Thaumaturge, one requirement has been changed to "Perform a ritual with 5 collected components"
  
• The Cursed Sorrows have been expanded to include clarification on potentially including mechanics in the Sorrows.
  
• Adjusted phrasing in the Encounter guide and expanded on Social Encounters.
  
• Added a small guide on what an application needs to have filled out on the Creation page.
  
• We are phasing out the [ps] and [tldr] post tags. [tldr] will still work, but any [ps] tags will be broken. The new tag listed in our documentation is now [footnote] to make its purpose clear.
  

Upcoming

• The Master-Legendary Keywords are changing. The main categories of Space, Time, and Reality will be broken up into three keywords each. More to come.
  
• Advancement Prompts for Apprentice and up.
  
• New Time Untils.
  
• Path Icons and other badges
  

Site Mini-Event

The Ritual Murders
The Exchange and the EPD have been pursuing a string of murders for the past few months where the culprits have disappeared before anyone or anything could catch a glimpse. Very few clues have been found.

So far, only Exchange Agents have investigated the ritual murders. They know the rituals are of a necromantic nature, they know one victim was a half-blood, and a strange seal broken into fragments has been found at two locations.

This phase of the event will only trigger again in Newton and Greater Easthaven.

Threads:
The Lighthouse March 2022, Volume 1 Issue 4
The Lighthouse May 2022, Volume 1 Issue 5
Old Town These violent delights have violent ends | Theo & Don
Lower Fens This town is only gonna eat you | Theo & Khoury
Upper Fens Even in the grave, all is not lost | Theo & Jahan

October Hotspots

Wicked Shipping Co. & UMass Easthaven

Time Until

Our Time Until meters can be found in our footer, under the board statistics.

It's September! Not quite spooky season, but spooky enough for us! The Masked Madness event will keep running out the month, so everyone's still got plenty of time to join threads. Below are some updates for the documentation and some upcoming updates and changes.

Development

• We've updated the wording for Aspect of the Beast. It should be clearer what shifters can think up for it!
  
• A player can now choose to make their Familiar ability into a Focus Object instead of an animal, which provides the same bonus. An Arcanist will only be able to get the bonus once, so if they pick a Focus Object, they will not get a Familiar.
  
• A guidebook page dedicated entirely to rituals and enchanting has been made, moving that information out of the Arcanist page and making it all easier to navigate. Navigate to it directly here; otherwise, it is linked both in the Toolbox modal, on the magic page, and the Arcanist page.
  
• The wording around the mechanics for rituals done without a power source has been elaborated on and clarified. The loss of Luck has been changed from "half luck rounded up" to "rounded down." When someone rolls a Partial Failure, everyone in the proximity of the ritual (and the caster) will lose half of their Luck rounded down.
  
• The Keyword Teleport has been changed to Transmission. Teleport now falls under the Space Master-Legendary Keyword. No character with Teleport has to change their defined powerset, as they still work under Transmission (we checked!).
  
• We've elaborated on how afflictions such as curses impact Half-bloods. Curses cannot take root, but they will make Half-bloods very ill.
  

Upcoming

• The Master-Legendary Keywords are changing. The main categories of Space, Time, and Reality will be broken up into three keywords each. More to come.
  
• Advancement Prompts for Apprentice and up.
  
• New Time Untils.
  
• Path Icons and other badges
  

September Hotspots

Stoddard Stables & Easthaven Downs

Time Until

Our Time Until meters can be found in the Player Toolbox, under the toolbox icon in the sidebar.

Welcome to the last month of this lazy river we call summertime (in this hemisphere anyway). Hopefully, it won't stay lazy. For this august month, we have a few clarification updates and, in even better news, an exciting new event to throw your characters into. The event will drop in the next few days, but we'll be sure to tag @members in Discord once it's all ready!

Development

• Salt and Spirits - when a spirit is trapped in a circle of salt, they retain their full cinder pool but cannot affect the luck of anyone outside the circle.
  
• Clarification on Spirit's Luck - Spirits are always at 4 Luck whether or not they have manifested.
  

Upcoming

• Advancement Prompts for Apprentice and up.
  
• New Time Untils.
  
• Path Icons and other badges
  

August Hotspots

McCoy's Apple Orchards & Farmer's Market

Time Until

Our Time Until meters can be found in the Player Toolbox, under the toolbox icon in the sidebar. Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat is looking close!

Happy July, everyone! In a fun turn of events, we don't have any mechanical updates to bring you this month, which is great news for the build of the Strike & Cinder system! We may be making our way out of alpha, slowly but surely.

Regarding current events, we still have the first thread of the mysterious suicide drawing to a close, although the case is far from solved! Maybe some new faces can join for the next phase. And a few of the ritualistic murders that began in March are still waiting to be investigated!

Development

• New Issues of the illustrious Lighthouse rag will be coming out quarterly until later updates. Unfortunately, although it was fun, it became a little bit of a task to do every month with the other things we had going on. So the next issue is set to come out in October, and we'll be looking for some fun player submissions to squash through the lens of the most reliable rag in all of Easthaven!
  

Upcoming

• Advancement prompts for Apprentice and up.
  
• New Time Untils.
  
• Path Icons and other badges
  

July Hotspots

Industrial Park & Mottershead Asylum

Time Until

Our Time Until meters can be found in the Player Toolbox, under the toolbox icon in the sidebar. Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat is looking close!