Today, we’re discussing the time between adventures for BEOWULF: Age of Heroes. While it can be exciting to rush from one Monster to the next, having downtime can help break up adventures and give a better sense of pacing to your Player. It also gives them time for the Hero to think about and work on long-term goals.
During downtime, the Hero can take on different challenges:
- Recuperation, where you can heal from long-term injuries, diseases and poisons
- Research, in which the Hero seeks out knowledge for wider campaign goals
- Shipwork and Smithwork, where the Hero takes time to repair a ship or other items or to improve them instead
- Training, in order to learn new languages or tool sets, which can give your Hero new capabilities during an adventure
Additionally, a Hero can maintain a journal, earning additional rewards for keeping a careful history of their adventures.
Downtime is also a good chance for the Player to review the Hero’s goals and ambitions and perhaps make changes if needed, based on what has happened in the game.
There are three different types of journals that players can use: a Hero journal (telling of the Hero’s activities), an Active Follower journal (tracking either a Follower than is still connected to a Hero even if they are temporarily ‘off stage’ or a Follower pursuing the path of a Hero themselves) or a New Follower journal that allows the Player to introduce a possible recruit.
Followers that take the path of a Hero have a given structure of journals to follow as the Player prepares a new character sheet for that Hero. At the end of the process, there is a new character ready to play as a 1st-level Hero.
An additional benefit of Player journaling is that the Player themselves contributes to worldbuilding, meaning that they will be more invested in the stories of the Age of Heroes by their personal contributions.
Next time, we launch into the Treasure chapter!
Learn more about BEOWULF: Age of Heroes