I've been running Spire for a while already, across ~five scenarios, give or take. With a single version of the city and a shared timeline among the groups - them indirectly feeling each other's influence on the City (and reading on the events in newspapers!)

These games helped us get into both the setting and the rule set, form a core group of key players that are really into Immersive Fantasy City Simulation and seed the core Factions progression into what must be a Midgame for the Spire play, when the characters should try and face the secretive City Council itself.

In the upcoming Kings of Silver scenario chapter I want to bring in some novelties, like a Safehouse and New Character Options from the Magister's Guide supplement (also Beats that lie in accordance with the Heart rules, and Acquisitions - but I've been using these under the hood already).

Other rule adaptations will be adapted from the Heart, where some things are done better in my opinion, and other are just different. Dabbling in them would lay a foundation for the upcoming spin-off games in the Heart.

The campaign frame called Kings of Silver will serve as a seed for our Spire Midgame Campaign. Some other scenarios with ties to the area - Silver Quarter and surrounding Upper levels of Spire - will be inter-twined with its events.

The structure of "Kings of Silver" supports the game in an Open-Table style, providing the players with a base of operations and a rather open-ended decision making. I will follow this approach (although not certain if I will have both enough players and resources to afford more than one game night per week).

So dear players, expect to commit to decision-making during the downtime! That includes:

• analyzing the sources of information on potential targets

• selecting next target or mission to investigate - that rhymes well with Beats discussion

• upgrading Safehouse (and running its cover business)

I do my best to make our persistent game board as visually appealing as possible. But I am also a ruthless blood-thirsty Referee who does not hesitate to punish poor decisions and violation of immersion. Don't you forget it! Go check your raven's mailbox.

Characters in K.O.S. start with a Safehouse [Magister's Guide #13]: a casino they administer as a cover for a cell HQ they are running in its basement.

Safehouse comes with Upgrades! They work akin to character Abilities, and are obtained with a Medium Advance, or through plot-driven Acquisitions [Magister's Guide #13].

I intend to picture the growing basement of "the Manticore" on a diorama, as I did with its main floor, adding to the proverbial immersion.

A makeshift system of players' progression is put to action.

All players by default can select a Class for their character from the Core Spire Rulebook. A memorable death of the character - one that is worth mentioning in Vermissian Sages' chronicles - gains its player a star in the character's Class. A single star grants this player access to the Additional Materials [Magister's Guide #17] for that specific Class. With 2+ total stars the player unlocks Prestige Classes: the ones found in the Strata and Sin sourcebooks (namely, Gutter Cleric, Mortitian Executioner, Inksmith and Shadow Agent).

My core players mostly succeeded in bringing their initial characters intact, and their main characters team is already a powerhouse of Low and Medium Advancements...

Take care! The overall difficulty of the game will increase, as presence of the Ministry on the City-scape becomes sound. Expect tough opposition in all unfamiliar territory. And as your characters climb further to the topmost echelons of the City's administration, enemies will be deadlier and vast in numbers.

However, the Ministry's influence also grows with every successful operation. New characters in this game start with one extra Medium Advance. Besides, together with the class abilities one can choose a Noble House, or an Advancement granted by the cell's City-level Faction Bond (e.g. the Hellionites, the Knight Fighting styles, the Ministry trusted Associates etc).

Rules backported from the Heart for stress removal and delves, influence the game difficulty too.

The Spire prerequisite for character progression - make a visible change in the City - stays in place, but it is extended with Beats [Magister's Guide #8]. Beats are basically intended events to happen to a character, chosen beforehand (two at a start of a session). They are not always good, positive events, but they allow to paint a desired storyline for a character, and develop their abilities at the same time.

The Guide provides some sample beats, inspiring groups to create more in the downtime.

Narrative acts for Stress removal become more difficult. Instead of a free action one can perform:

• paying a haunt (medics, traders and fixers in certain location) with Resources in order to attempt a Refresh roll [Heart #81]

• transfer Stress on an individual Bond while visiting them. The Bond in question rolls for Fallout. [Heart #102]

Each character individual Bonds number is capped at 3. Resources [Heart #93] are to be looted during missions - their rules apply together with Equipment rules from Heart. Therefore, it's possible to attempt to heal a PC comrade provided one has a narratively justified Fix skill and necessary equipment.

Rules for trading in [Heart #100] look better than the ones in Spire: instead of completely failing to find the desired item, its price (in quantities of Stress to Silver) can increase at the moment of a purchase. Or decrease, not becoming, however, completely free of charge.

Finally, I want to introduce Heart's Delve mechanics for reaching different parts of the enormous City (instead of mostly pointcrawl-teleportation that happened until now). It represents the dangers of navigating the hostile City-scape of Spire [Heart #103].

By default, hidden or guarded landmarks inflict default D4 Stress; traveling to locations in adjacent levels will be D6 Stress and going beyond will be D8. And the most suitable "Delve" skill analog in Spire is Pursue, although sometimes maybe Sneak will better suit the way of navigating between locations.

I'm also adding the Scheme of Vermissian from Vermissian Black Ops. It already comes with difficulty ratings for individual lines, together with other details on the abandoned hellish web of a metro.