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.