A Paperclip Track marking how close to your doom you are.
Each row has a die value and one of the medieval Christian hours of prayer. The die value is your level of Doom. When you face Doom you’ll only advance if the Perilous Dice triggering it rolled higher than this die1
WIP - how do you lower this?
Not easily, but you can lower it by rest and especially over the winter down to your current canonical hour, which is determined by your actual age (plus maybe some severe hurt, which can raise it). At certain years you mark an additional diamond next to this track, and each year you can at best start and heal down to2 this level, meaning age slowly puts you close and closer to your doom.
The Canonical Hours
| Hour | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Matins | The morning prayer, before the dawn. Childhood. |
| Lauds | Daybreak. The start of the day, and your life. |
| Prime | The “prime” (first) hour. Also can make sense as the “prime” of your life, in terms of being young and strong. |
| Terce | The third hour. |
| Sext | The sixth hour. |
| Nones | The ninth hour. |
| Vespers | The evening prayer, or æfensang. Your glory days are definitely behind you at this point. |
| Compline | The end of the day, and similarly, your wrap up - completorium. |
| Vigil | Prayer in the night. Your end is here. |
Swan Song
I don’t think Vigil necessarily means the character falls dead at that moment, but it should more mean “you don’t get out of this alive”. I don’t know exactly how to bound or incentivize this time yet, but several games have a kind of last-gasp mechanic, which this would be.
Footnotes
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So as you rise on the track, it’s harder to rise more (but also, you’re closer to destruction). This also means as you rise in Doom, Doom will only be triggered on more and more successful rolls (though Cut can still steal that from you). ↩
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Maybe with a few exceptions that are hard to push really hard down in. ↩