Rating Changes

The rating tracks the strength of an entry's current type. Actions either align with the type (raising the rating) or oppose it (lowering the rating). The type only changes by passing through zero.

Reputation is GM-awarded. It is not purchased with XP or accrued automatically. The GM grants and removes Reputation at defining events and at act end.

Rating Up

An action aligned with the entry's current type adds to its rating.

  • For a Renown entry, aligned actions are deeds the target celebrates — heroism, public service, demonstrated loyalty, competence on the target's behalf.
  • For an Infamy entry, aligned actions are deeds the target condemns — betrayal, theft, public defiance, transgression against the target's interests.

Rating Down

An action opposed to the entry's current type subtracts from its rating.

  • For a Renown entry, opposed actions erode the celebrated standing — shady contracts, conflicting loyalties, scandals, drift.
  • For an Infamy entry, opposed actions erode the notorious standing — penance, going legit, supporting the target's interests, fading from criminal memory.

Burns also reduce rating; see Invocation.

Decay is a flavor of opposed change driven by fictional disengagement. If the story has moved on from a target — the character has not interacted with them in acts, public attention has shifted — the GM may drop the rating at act end. Decay is not a timer and is not automatic; it is judgment.

Type Flip

Rating is bounded 0 to 5 inclusive. At 0, the entry is dormant. The next qualifying event sets the type from scratch — whichever flavor the action implies — and the rating starts at 1.

  • A character with Infamy: League 0 who performs a heroic deed for the League: the entry becomes Renown: League 1.
  • A character with Renown: League 0 who betrays the League: the entry becomes Infamy: League 1.

No Moral Valence in the Mechanic

"Gain" and "loss" describe rating direction, not whether an action is morally good or bad. The type of the entry tells you what kind of action moves the needle which way:

  • Doing good for the League with Renown: League 3 → rating up to 4.
  • Doing good for the League with Infamy: League 3 → rating down to 2 (opposed to Infamy).
  • Doing harm to the League with Infamy: League 3 → rating up to 4 (aligned with Infamy).
  • Doing harm to the League with Renown: League 3 → rating down to 2 (opposed to Renown).

GM Cadence

Reputation changes are awarded after a defining event — a punctual fictional moment that obviously moved the needle — or at act end, recognizing cumulative behavior across the act.

  • Default rate: ±1 step per qualifying event.
  • Multi-step changes are allowed for act-defining moments — saving a fleet, single-handedly toppling a regime — but the default is one.
End-of-act Reputation review (required GM duty)Mechanic

At the end of every act, the GM reviews each player character's existing Reputation entries and any new entries implied by the act's events. This is the moment to:

  • Apply changes from defining events that have not yet been recorded.
  • Recognize cumulative behavior across the act.
  • Apply decay to entries the story has moved past.
  • Flip the type of any entry that has reached 0 and where the next event clearly implies a new type.

This is a required step in act-end procedures, not optional cleanup. Reputation that goes unreviewed becomes stale, and the rule loses its grip on the fiction.