Downtime refers to the time between two events (sometimes referred to as a Season). During this time your character returns to their life in The Concord, works their investment, fights wars and perhaps goes on adventures. There are a few things of note that you need to do to ensure your downtime goes smoothly.
Hand in any relevant IC items
At the end of the event you’ll be asked to hand any relevant items back to the ST Team. Previously, players had to hand all of their IC possessions including currency and items, however now all players have to hand is in anything relevant to their downtime. This includes Artisan Craft materials, any remaining Traumatic Wounds, a Repaired Investment sheet signed by the Exchange ST, a Damaged Investment sheet if still applicable, or anything relevant to an Upgraded Investment (usually Wains or a signed sheet from the Exchange ST).
For example, Waldo, a Wandering Merchant from Weiland, wants to upgrade his Business from a T1 to T2, so he hands in 2 Wains of Arcstone to the ST team, who make note of this. Waldo is also an Artisan who wishes to craft Artisan Oil and a Scout's Bow, so he brings the relevant resources for the Expert Item and the relevant Keys for the Artisan Oil, all of which the ST team notes down.
As an additional example, Gerome, a Liberartiste of Lerona Mere, was unable to have their Arcane Wound fixed, nor their damaged Investment! Gerome hands in both the Wound card and the Damaged Investment slip to the ST team, who note it down.
A few weeks after the end of summit, Downtime activities, submitted via a web-form will be released where you can specify what you did during your down time. This is also where Artisans can re-confirm their chosen Crafts for that Downtime!
It is important to remember our guidelines around conversations online and IC content. In general, leave the world and characters on the field. If you’re advising folks pursue a certain action, sharing information, pushing an agenda or planning an action and you’re not wearing a fancy costume? You shouldn’t be doing it. Leave that sort of gameplay to the field and letters. This also applies to planning downtime.
Income
During the season following an event that your character attends they will receive income from their Investments and a standard amount of currency. The amount of income from Investments will depend on the actions taken with that Investment as well as the nature of the world. However all characters will always receive 10 Keys each event, this amount cannot be reduced or increased.
Characters income will be determined by the downtime immediately after the event they have attended. So if you attended the Autumn Summit, but skipped the Spring Summit before returning, your character's income would be based on the events of the downtime after the Autumn Summit, not the Spring one.
Communication and Play Between Events
Between Summits there are two methods for characters to communicate. They are as follows:
Sanctioned Events
Characters attending a sanctioned event can interact, trade resources and plan as much as they wish. It is expected by the Concord team that this is part of the reason for such events. Sanctioned events do have some limitations, primarily that as they lack a sanctified square, Ceremonies may not be completed at Sanctioned Events.
Written Communication
Characters can communicate with each other using letters between events. OOC these letters must be exchanged in hard copy, either by handing them between players or by mailing them using standard real-life letter boxes. The intent here is to provide hard copies of interactions to keep the Concord world grounded and to avoid online roleplay were possible.
A note about online Roleplay
As live-action events, it is our intent to keep as much of Concord Live. As such we do not want online-roleplaying (be it in forums, on facebook or elsewhere) to occur. While players can advertise their IC services on the various Concord pages, we ask that it is left at that.
We do acknowledge that nearly all player groups will have their own group chats, discord channels and the like. We expect this and encourage this as it helps players stay organized and binds groups together. We expect players to share information with their bandmates through these sorts of methods.
Communication with NPCs
Our NPCs will never communicate with the players during downtime and while you may use Concord foes in Sanctioned events, they will not include notable characters and these characters will not be available during downtime.
Keeping track of your characters place
We ask that as players of Concord you keep a solid understanding of your characters location during downtime. This is predominantly important for characters who may be notably indisposed during the season between events (such as on adventures relating to plots from the last Summit). You should try not to attend Sanctioned events where it would not make sense for your character to be present. In all but the most notable cases, we are fine for you to fudge the explanation as to why you are present, but if your character is importantly somewhere else, keep that in mind.