v2.31 Changelog

V. 2.31 Changelog

Mission 3 Briefing: some rewording and simplification around Strike Team Wyvern and the tip Euryalos receives on Dulcinea's location to further signpost that the PCs should expect a hostage rescue component.

Downtime 2: edits to support Beat 14: Down To Business as a narrative transition into the mission itself, as well as adjustments to the location layout for Arakawa Marble

• The Underground Armory has been renamed to the Underground Hangar, and the related elevator has been edited to reflect this.
• Underground Storage has been renamed to Underground Garage
• Engineering Offices have been renamed to Research and Development Offices
• The engineering bay mentioned in the Underground Hangar now exists in Marble Refinement, freeing the Hangar to be a space that the PCs can attack without immediately derailing the finale combat.

Beat 14: Down To Business: the first of several new beats in v.2.31. This one serves as an interstitial lead-in to our first combat, with narrative text for the PCs' journey to Arakawa Marble and some light trappings for pre-attack conversation and scouting efforts.

Combat 6: Into The Breach: The addition of a read-aloud lead-in to set up the assault, as well as revisions to the Tactics and Narrative sections.

Beat 15: Tunnel Rats: This section now has a small lead-in to help GMs flesh out the tunnels, as well as some minor touches to Ari's dialogue examples and reasoning behind her contact. The big changes, however, are the skill challenge that follows and the Moving On Section

• The skill challenge to bypass anti-chassis squads is now its own section (Zoom Down), and has been expanded into a clock-based challenge similar to The Hammer Falls, if less punishing). 
• Moving On now includes a glimpse of Ari within the Underground Hangar and a narrative branch to breach it
• As the PCs can choose not to engage in it here, radio contact with Dulcinea has been moved to its own bespoke narrative beat

Combat 7: Gatecrash: an entirely new optional combat reworked from an old Holdout combat that longtime followers may remember from early Pilot.NET drafts (then called "Running Interference). In this combat, the PCs get a chance to earn a bunch of repairs and exotic gear, and rescue Dulcinea from Ari's clutches as she flees the hangar.

Beat 16a: Wayward Soul: a bespoke narrative beat detailing radio contact with Dulcinea.

• The underlying setup here has been changed to mesh with the events in Combat 7: if the PCs do not opt to raid the Underground Hangar, Dulcinea wriggles free from Ari on her own, forcing a team of Scions to retrieve and extract her instead of Ari. 
• Dialogue examples have been improved into a full-on overheard conversations
• The PCs now have a chance to try and briefly communicate with Dulcinea

Beat 16b: Flower of Her House: To factor the potential to rescue Dulcinea in Combat 7, the section where the PCs first meet and interact with her has been moved here. Rough guidelines on Dulcinea's demeanor and opinions has also been expanded into a full set of example dialogue, much like Ari's in Tunnel Rats.

Beat 17: Crossroads: as Wayward Soul is now a branching path, the establishing layout section of arrival at the Underground Garage is now its own small beat. 

• A small encounter with Scions infantry is also included here to better sell opposition and set up the R&D Offices
• Resting and making repairs in the Underground Garage is now no longer possible until until the R&D Offices are cleared. This will hopefully push players to assault the offices and rescue Dulcinea if they haven't already before engaging in further combat.

Beat 18: Conflict in the Workplace: This section is a heavily-rewritten version of the narrative combat in the original iteration of Flower of Her House 

• Rewrites to bring the mechanics of the office skirmish in line to the final versions seen in The Hammer Falls, with clock size and stress costs have been reduced to factor in the toll from Tunnel Rats. 
• Example text has also been added to sell the presence of Dulcinea and her captors if they have not yet been rescued, giving Dulcinea in particular active mechanical support for the players to balance out the extra bodies and lend more narrative agency. 
• Tidbits hinting at the Scions' intent to carry out a false flag attack and a way to scout out an upcoming Combat have been added.

Combat 8: Cutting Production and Combat 9: Informational Security: The details on the objective have now been codified into a sitrep called Deny Ground, found in the Appendix section of the document. The Tactics, Narrative, Outcome, and Moving On sections, however, are still pending rewrites.

Epilogue: The general epilogue section has been restructured and rewritten to better illustrate the political effects of the PCs' aid and offer hooks for narrative progression forwards, whether the PCs succeed or fail in their final mission. There has also been some rejiggering of the individual character background sections.

• Euryalos: simplification and solidification of the First Prince's shifting allegiances
• Dulcinea: a general status quo to Dulcinea's narrative after the module, with the consequences of burying evidence split into a branching path so that the GM is no longer guided to necessarily punish a party who chooses to do so as an act of kindness rather than actual support of her actions.
• Underworld Duo: some additional hooks to either yoink them from a continuing story, or lean on Pomegranate's background for layers of SSC intrigue and meddling to any chaos that follows
• Cayenne Athanasidhe now has a section intended to set them up as a character the GM can have crop up in a later narrative... or return after a period of time to play a more significant, larger-scale antagonist.