Conditioning economy

A reinforced thought raises how far some skills can go. In dissonance, the same thought lowers that ceiling and adds pressure.

Conditioning a thought costs 1 skill point and time on the clock. A skill point comes with every 100 XP. Unlocking another thought slot costs 1 skill point; 2 slots are open at the start and 9 is the most. Thoughts resurface after 12 hours of play, and dissonance lasts 2 hours.

Conditioning a thought: 1 skill point
Unlocking a thought slot: 1 skill point
Thought slots at the start: 2
Thought slots at most: 9
One skill point: 100 XP

resurfaces after: 720 min
dissonant for: 120 min
Pressure: +1
Skill modifiers: -2 / -1

Anxiety Delirium Fatigue

Skill value or maximum rank

A reinforced thought raises the potential of the skills it names: how many raises they can take. It does not change their current value, so a check rolls with the same value until you spend a skill point on the raise it opened. Clothing works the other way: it changes the current value and never the potential. The build planner counts both.

Absolute Magnitude is one example: reinforced, it raises the potential of Grey Matter; in dissonance it lowers it again.

Conditioning a thought

A gained thought can be reinforced, suppressed or forgotten. Conditioning is a conversation of its own: the thought argues back, brings its own skill checks and can end on its positive or its negative branch. What you consume and the choices you make can also feed a thought.

During dissonance

Dissonance raises the thought's pressure and, for 2 hours, lowers the potential of the skills it names. Each thought names what sets it off: Jar of Faces, for example, turns dissonant when you cover your face.

Choosing what to carry

Thoughts pull different skills in different directions. Compare their effects with the checks you expect, and leave room on the dial their dissonance fills.

Where a thought comes from

A thought reaches you in one of three ways. A passage in a conversation adds it. A count of your choices reaches the threshold the thought's record names, as with Absolute Magnitude. Or an item adds it: Anti-LASS Medical Stamp adds the thought The Phantom Pain. Every thought's page lists where it is offered. Below are thoughts players often ask about, each with the passages that add it or a note that nothing does.

Where these thoughts are offered

Landau, Summer 81

"Hello again."
A memento from the protests in 81. The bullet by your heart, the one that could move an inch and kill you.
"Spare me the bleating you call an accent and listen up: metoprolol, you eunuch-diddling Azzurri. That's what I paid for -- not atenolol!"…
"Don't worry, it spoke highly of you. Not a drop of narc blood inside."
"Spare me the bleating you call an accent and listen up: metoprolol, you eunuch-diddling Azzurri. That's what I paid for -- not atenolol!"…
"It spoke highly of you, though. Not a drop of narc blood inside."

Party and the Party

You return to the staircase.
Where's the ghost party? I'm definitely going to that.

The Year Zero

"CASCADE." The barest of nods. "I've been playing 'I Spy' relentlessly with myself to pass the time. Pretty even as things stand, but I'm…
"Better to end it. Roll credits. Then smash the projector."
"My agent of fortune returns. Happy Dante."
"Don't misunderstand. There's no restarting history -- Anonimo saw that coming more than a century before Latour-Woolgar. What's necessary is to fashion a new consciousness, the Final Subject, who can act on history directly."
"Welcome back to our program, Lieutenant Prophet Wilk." He raises his hands and claps slowly for the cameras.
"The trouble began, as it often does, with a signature. First, they burned our calendars. They promised it would take seven years to restore the world to its previous state. They were wrong."
"Operant."
"The Luzian motivation's clear enough: They were left out of the post-historical settlement -- the lines were frozen while the old Illuminated Empire was fragmented and weak."