Downtime Activities

Between adventures, time passes. The world moves, and so do your characters. Downtime is the space between the action—the days, weeks, or months where heroes train, craft, build relationships, pursue personal goals, and spend their hard-won coin on something more meaningful than another healing potion. In Halcyon Aces, downtime isn't dead air between sessions. It's where characters become people.

How Downtime Works

When the GM declares a downtime period, each player chooses one Downtime Activity per unit of downtime. A "unit" is typically one week of in-game time, but the GM can scale this to fit the narrative—a single day for a brief respite, or a full month for an extended stay in a city.

Each activity requires a Downtime Check: draw cards equal to the relevant stat, play one, and compare against a DC set by the activity. The result determines the quality of your outcome. All downtime checks follow the same core resolution rules as any other check—Resonance applies, Talents apply, and face cards are still powerful.

Downtime Activities

Train

You dedicate your time to honing a skill, drilling a technique, or conditioning your body. Training is how characters sharpen what they already have.

Stat: Any (choose the stat you're training)
DC: 10
Cost: A few Silvers (access to training grounds, sparring partners, or study materials)

Craft

You create, modify, or improve a piece of equipment. Crafting lets you build items that aren't available in shops, add properties to existing gear, or create consumables from raw materials.

Stat: Body (smithing, leatherwork), Mind (alchemy, engineering), or Spirit (enchantment, runic inscription)
DC: Varies by project
Cost: Raw materials, typically half the item's purchase cost. Enchanting requires an additional catalyst component (GM's discretion).

On a failure: The materials aren't destroyed—you just haven't finished yet. You can retry next downtime week with a +2 EV bonus (representing accumulated progress).

Work

You take a job to earn money. Honest labor, mercenary contracts, street performance, or less reputable pursuits—the fiction determines the flavor, the check determines the payout.

Stat: Depends on the work (Body for labor, Mind for bookkeeping, Heart for performance, Spirit for temple service)
DC: 8
Cost: None

Connect

You spend time building a relationship—with another PC, an NPC, a faction, or a community. Connection is the social fabric of the campaign. It's how you turn strangers into allies and allies into friends who'd risk their lives for you.

Stat: Heart (emotional bonds, trust-building) or Mind (political maneuvering, negotiation)
DC: Varies by relationship
Cost: Narrative—time, a gift (Silvers to a Gem), or a favor performed

Convalesce

You rest, recuperate, and tend to wounds that a Full Rest can't fully mend. This is for characters carrying narrative injuries into downtime.

Stat: Heart (self-care, meditation) or Body (physical rehabilitation)
DC: 8
Cost: A few Silvers

On success, clear one lingering narrative condition (a broken arm, a curse's aftereffects, deep exhaustion). On a strong success (beat DC by 5+), also start the next adventure with +3 temporary Vitality above your maximum, representing peak readiness. This bonus Vitality is lost first and doesn't regenerate.

Investigate

You research a mystery, scout a location, track down a lead, or gather intelligence. Investigation turns downtime into a narrative engine—what you learn here shapes how the next adventure begins.

Stat: Mind (research, analysis, surveillance) or Heart (interviewing, reading people, working contacts)
DC: Set by the GM (10 for public knowledge with buried context, 12 for guarded secrets, 14+ for conspiracies)
Cost: Silvers to 1 Gem

On success, the GM provides a meaningful clue, a tactical advantage, or a narrative lead. On a strong success, the information comes with a bonus: a map granting +2 EV on navigation, a dossier revealing an enemy weakness (draw with advantage on the first check against that enemy), or a contact offering ongoing help.

Carouse

You cut loose. Tavern crawls, festival nights, gambling dens, underground fighting rings—whatever your character does to blow off steam. Carousing is risky, unpredictable, and sometimes exactly what a hero needs.

Stat: Heart (charm, revelry) or Body (drinking contests, brawls)
DC: 10
Cost: 1 Gem (you're spending freely—that's the point)

Tend

You care for something—a place, a community, an animal companion, a garden, a shrine. Tending is quiet work, but it builds the roots that give a campaign world weight. It's also the primary way to develop a home base.

Stat: Heart (caretaking, community-building), Spirit (sacred places, restorative magic), or Body (construction, labor, animal husbandry)
DC: 8
Cost: Varies (Silvers for gardens, Gems to Pouches for construction)

On success, the thing you're tending improves. A base gains a feature (a workshop grants +2 on Craft checks, a library grants +2 on Investigate checks). An animal companion grows more loyal (one simple combat task as a free action). A community becomes more welcoming (better prices, more information, willing to shelter the party). On a strong success (beat DC by 5+), the improvement is more significant—the GM and player negotiate the benefit.

Downtime Activity Summary

Extended Downtime & Time Skips

Sometimes the narrative jumps weeks or months. A ship voyage. A winter in a mountain monastery. A year between campaign arcs. For extended downtime, let each player choose multiple activities—one per week, up to a maximum of 4 per timeskip (even if the skip covers months). This prevents extended downtime from becoming a shopping spree of bonuses while still rewarding the time.

For skips longer than a month, ask each player to describe what their character focused on during the gap. This isn't mechanical—it's narrative. Did they train relentlessly? Tend a vineyard? Travel alone? Fall in love? Grieve? The answer shapes how the character feels when the action resumes and gives the GM threads to pull later.

GM Guidance: Running Downtime

Downtime works best when it's woven into the campaign's rhythm rather than tacked on as an afterthought. Here are principles for making it sing:

• Make downtime a scene, not a spreadsheet. When a player says "I want to Connect with the blacksmith," don't just call for a check. Ask them what they do. Do they bring a gift? Help in the forge? Share a drink? The check resolves the mechanical outcome, but the scene builds the world.
• Let downtime create problems. A failed Carouse leaves debts. A successful Investigate reveals something unwanted. A Craft project requires a rare component from dangerous territory. Downtime should generate adventure hooks as often as it resolves them.
• Respect the time cost. If a villain is on a deadline, downtime has consequences. Every week in town is a week the enemy uses to fortify. Make this explicit: "You can take two weeks of downtime, but the cult is three weeks from completing their ritual." One week of downtime becomes a tactical choice, not a freebie.
• Spotlight different characters. Downtime is where characters with high Heart or Spirit—stats that sometimes feel secondary in combat—get to shine. The diplomat's Connect checks, the healer's Tend checks, the scholar's Investigate checks. Make sure every player gets a moment.