If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here.

Domain actions encompass the optional governance, intrigue and politics areas of play that are strongly encouraged in second edition. Aside from an additional board to play on, it give PCs another opportunity to use their hard earnt GP and to earn obscene amounts of GP.

I think I want to minimise the differences between downtime and domain actions, in terms of their procedures. But they need to be unique in a few ways:

• Made available by lieutenants
• Progress automatically
• Months to years, not weeks
• Cost is in debt, not gold

Birthright provides a complicated system of domain actions, but I think a key here is that you’re sending your lieutenants off into the world to act in your name. Diplomacy doesn’t need to be more complex than a clock, because it’s happening off-screen. If a PC wants to get it done, they can do it themselves. Therefore, domain actions reflect downtime actions, but are dependent on fortune:

Domain actions are special downtime actions. Each domain action has a clock, and while that clock is ticking, the lieutenant assigned to that action is unavailable for other actions. Discuss the implications of the action with the GM. They will determine with you whether a clock is required and the cost and outcome of the action, based on what you have in mind, and the diplomatic relations you and your domain have with the people involved.

For each real-time week, progress your clock by one. On every fourth tick, make a fortune roll and increase your debt by 1. On a failure, there is a wall or branch determined by the GM. You can withdraw from a domain action but gain no advantage, and must make a fortune roll, facing a consequence on a failure.

And the actions themselves, intentionally vague and dependent on the primary rule. The structure is if you have this lieutenant, you can do this thing and perhaps and be rewarded in this way:

If you have a secretary, you can provide patronage to someone of lesser station or to an artist; or you can issue a decree or enact a law within your domain.

If you have a chancellor, you can build a holding to gain access a unique asset.

If you have an ambassador, you can send them to establish a trade route with a neighbouring or distant domain with which you have a connection – when this clock is complete, you can trade an existing unique asset and gain favour with that domain.

If you have a spymaster, you can engage in intelligence collection or violent espionage; or you can seed disinformation and propaganda.

If you have a marshall, you can raise a battalion to send to war – when the clock is complete, gain debt and a battalion; or you can take control of a holding in or adjacent to your domain to gain access to a unique asset that someone else possesses – when this clock is complete, gain credit each week and access to a unique asset.

Other domain actions will need to be added later, for example:

• Build stronghold (no lieutenant)
• Embezzle (Chancellor)
• Diplomacy (Ambassador)
• Order Troops (General)

After much revision, I think I’ve found a balance of granularity, optionality, and broadness. The ill-defined credit/debt and favour/ill-favour resources are my takes on simplification of domain resources down to assets, debts and diplomacy, and so potentially I’ll have to go into that soon to clarify what that little system will be, aiming to bring some weight to the relationships between domains.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on domain actions, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

8th May 2022