Rules update 2026

Overview

Every year we carry out a review of some part of the game looking to see what we improve. This process of continuous review allows us to keep the game fresh and ensures we remain happy that we're running the very best game we can. We don't have many updates this year, but the ones we do have are important for the players who are affected. This page summarizes and explains the changes so that players can identify and understand the changes easily.

We try to include a section after each update to explain the reasoning behind the change, as well as providing an in-character rationale for what has changed where appropriate. As ever, it is important to remember that the rationale is there purely to provide a way for characters to explain any changes, it's not an actual plot development.

Vallorn

We have overhauled the page on the vallorn to provide much more information about the vallorn and the threat posed by it.

Reasoning

Up to now, we've been treating each incident involving the vallorn as a seperate unique piece of plot. When the vallorn has threatened adjacent regions, or when it has been vulnerable for any reason, we have written specific rules for that plot opportunity. These rules have been different each time - based on how we've set up each piece of plot. This is the normal way that we write plot for Empire involving novel threats that aren't part of the ongoing military campaign. In most cases, this approach doesn't cause problems because each plot involves different protagonists each time, so the circumstances are unique.

This approach has caused significant problems with the vallorn. Because it is a recurring problem for the Empire, players have been trying to identify the underlying mechanisms that determine how it operates, how it attacks and how it can be repulsed and beaten. Because we've treated each incident involving the vallorn as a unique plot, it's been impossible to identify consistent rules for how to beat the vallorn. It's also become harder for the plot team to keep the writing consistent when each incident is treated separately rather than as a mechanical threat following codified rules - the way the Druj and other barbarians operate.

To fix this problem, we've brought together all the existing content for the vallorn, codified it into a single coherent set of rules and published it on the vallorn page. We've tried to ensure that everything that is predictable about the vallorn is on that page, but if we later identify anything that we've missed, then we'll add it to that page. We've aimed to make this thematically consistent with everything that has gone to date, but where there are differences in how the vallorn has acted previously, those should be regarded as anomalies unique to the previous situation.

The new rules should allow players to be confident they know about how the vallorn will fight in the Empire's ongoing military campaigns. It doesn't mean the vallorn is completely predictable - we will continue to run plot with it, just as we do now with the barbarian threats. However any deviation from the published rules will always be outlined in the winds on the run up to an event. This will make it easier for us to create plot involving the vallorn and make winds of fortune more concise and easier to write because we won't need to lay out the situation each time - we only need to describe anything that is unique to a given plot.

We apologise to everyone who was caught out by this - particularly those Navarr players who have been unable to provide the kind of accurate information on the vallorn that their characters should have had access to. We want Navarr characters and others who have studied the vallorn to be able to speak authoritatively about this particular nemesis. The new page is intended to make it dramatically easier for that to happen.

IC Justification

The updated knowledge represents continuing discoveries made by the scholars studying the Great Library of Hacynian, coupled with insights and experience from relevant characters in the field like the Advisor on the Vallorn. Now that the knowledge has been tested and confirmed by the Empire's best prognosticators, it has been more widely disseminated by the civil service.

Sturdy castles and vigilant soldiers protect the Imperial heartlands.

Fortifications and Citadels

We've changed the rules for fortifications so that a single fortification now has a bastion which makes the region it is in harder to take, and a garrison of troops who will protect the territory. The new rules replace the old rules for fortifications, and the previous rules for citadels have been completely dropped - they no longer apply at all, as they are completely superseded by the new rules.

Reasoning

The simplicity of the original rules published for fortifications contained a number of problems. It was hard to create convincing narratives around the idea that a large fortification on one side of a territory would somehow protect the entire territory. Not least because it would do that without inflicting any damage on invading armies (unless they attacked the fort directly). Fortifications tended to fall down almost immediately if they were attacked, encouraging players to try and build them as far from the front lines as possible, neither of which is what we want from a game design point of view.

Last year, we attempted to resolve those difficulties by creating citadels, originally intending them to replace fortifications. However, because it made no sense to put a citadel in the location where the forts were, that proved impossible. Having realised that error late, we opted for a partial implementation and ran the new rules alongside the old rules. That didn't work either, because citadels were simply not as good as fortifications.

So this winter, we've gone back and started again with a fresh set of rules for fortifications. The new rules mean that the fortification helps to make a region more difficult to take - which is one of the things we wanted forts to achieve. They are also much more resilient, meaning they are more likely to change hands and be captured rather than simply fall down when an army attacks them. Finally, having each fortification include a distinct garrison means that we can be clear in the narrative of a campaign about what is happening (the garrison is sallying forth to attack invaders) while also having the garrison take and inflict damage, reifying the fact that the garrison is fighting the invaders.

Explicitly separating the bastion (the castle that makes the region harder to take) and the garrison (the soldiers who staff the fortification and defend the territory) allows us to reference them directly in the game, both in the narrative and with plot opportunities.

The Imperial budgets will be adjusted so that the change in total upkeep of all the Empire's existing fortifications does not affect the money available to players at events. These rules will only affect new fortifications that are built.

Changes

• Several recent winds of fortune have been updated
• Many rituals dealing with fortifications have been updated

Several recent winds of fortune have been updated to bring them into line with the new rules:

• Outside the wall and the accompanying Senate motion - is now an opportunity to ward the walls of the fortification in Delev.
• Golden magicians fayre - the Rimebound quality would now affect any mortal fortification in the region, making rituals cast on it more effective.
• Our eyes in Spiral - is now an opportunity to build a fortification in Screed to protect and contain the Black Plateau.
• Eight for a wish - has been updated to be an opportunity for the sodality to build fortifications.
• The war of thorns and flowers - the section introducing citadels has been removed. Attacking vallorn forces will usually target a fortification if the bastion is adjacent to a vallorn heart.
• For those in peril on the sea - now an opportunity to build a powerful fortification in Oranseri.
• Germinating a city - now an opportunity to build a powerful fortification in Calvos.

We've also made changes to many of the rituals that deal with fortifications, either by enchanting them, cursing them, or creating temporary defences. They include:

• Stone's Unyielding Defiance and Ramparts of Ashlar provide additional force to the garrison of a fortification
• Thunderous Tread of the Trees and Mountain Remembers Its Youth affect both the bastion and the garrison, and how their damage is inflicted has been adjusted slightly.
• The Wolves of Winter, a ritual not in Imperial lore, provides additional strength to the garrison of the enchanted fortification, but only for purposes of inflicting casualties.
• The four "citadel" rituals - Frozen Citadel of Cathan Canae, Forge the Wooden Fastness, Dripping Echoes of the Fen, and The Basalt Citadel have been changed significantly, and each provides different benefits.

Some of the rituals have also had their magnitude adjusted.

Arcane Projections

• Arcane projections that affect fortifications are likely to be impacted by these changes

If you have an arcane projection that targets a fortification, its likely its effects have been impacted by these changes. An email sent to rules@profounddecisions.co.uk along with the name of the arcane projection will allow us to update the effects if necessary, and provide you with a replacement physrep at your next event.

Further Reading

• Rules update 2026
• Rules update 2025
• Rules update 2024
• Rules update 2023
• Rules update 2022
• Rules update 2020
• Rules update 2019
• Rules update 2018
• Rules update 2017
• Rules update 2016
• Rules update 2015
• Rules update 2014
• Rules update 2013