CHANGELOG between January 23rd Draft and Final Draft

General Changes

- Removed all placeholder art. All art in the book is final and in their final positions, discounting any last minute changing of my mind. The only missing art pieces are the final Playbook Paintings for The Dwarf, The Heir, and The Squire, and a last minute Overlord art commission.

- APPENDIX I: THE GLOSSARY has been Updated.

- APPENDIX II: THE INDEX has been added.

- The "your maximum level is 10" thing has been entirely dropped. I'm not actually sure which draft I removed that in, or where it even was in the old drafts, but it is not in the game anymore. Mechanically, you will run out of advances you can take at level 12, so that's the new soft-cap on your level, and there is no hard-cap.

CHAPTER 2

- Added two paragraphs on Advantage and how it works, so it is hopefully a less nebulous concept now. Some basic moves now explicitly mention that they may be used to gain Advantage.

- Reworded the 6- result on Talk Sense

- The Look Closely questions list has been changed, again. The old list was too vague - the new list requires the player to ask about specific things they are looking at, but in exchange, they get a lot more info about it, which fits better with how you would want to use the move. The current list contains two questions for finding new things to ask about, and three questions to ask for close, detailed information about specific things in different ways.

- Look Closely and Speak Softly both let you ask a question even on a 6-, and ask two questions on a 7-9. Yes, this is because Apocalypse World 2E does that - it is a really good idea.

- Look Closely and Speak Softly no longer provide +1 forward when acting on their answers - I have found in practice this bonus is usually forgotten and often unimportant. The information from the moves is their true value, and +1 bonuses here and there are basically nonexistent in Fellowship in favor of the Hope/Despair dichotomy.

- Added "When to use this move" examples to all Basic Moves. Also added some clarifying secondary paragraphs to some of the Special Moves, most notably the moves involving Bonds.

- Added two new Special Moves: Heart of Fire, and Heart of Iron. These moves relate to using Bonds between the Fellowship and the Overlord.

CHAPTER 3 / PLAYBOOKS

- Some Bonds were re-written. It was pointed out to me that they were too skewed towards antagonistic or dismissive Bonds, even though Bonds are meant to represent friendship, trust, and respect. The example Bonds have been re-written to reflect this.

- Some Agendas were re-written, for being too close to other Agendas. The Heir's A Better World was re-written for being nearly identical to the core Agenda Improve The World Around You, and the Squire's Agendas were entirely rewritten for all being too close to each other. All other playbooks had some minor wording tweaks to their Agendas, but no major changes.

- Fellowship Moves were removed from the individual playbook sections, and consolidated into a single list in Chapter 4.

- The Dwarf's People have had a couple changes. Deepdelve's Secrets were changed to fit the changes in Talk Sense and Look Closely. Firebeard's move has been made more flexible. Ironblast's bombs were toned down to 2 Uses.

- The Dwarf's All That Glitters move has been improved to be more in line with the new Look Closely questions' wording.

- The Dwarf's Earth Friend move has been changed because it was boring, and too close to both All That Glitters and Let Me See That while not being as useful as either.

- The Elf's Faerie people option has been completely rewritten. No one picked the old one, because if you wanted to be better at Camouflage, you'd pick Wood Elf, and if you wanted free Elder Arts, Merfolk does that better too, and if you wanted to be a tiny trickster, you played the Halfling. The new Faerie move has a much better niche going for it.

- The Harbinger's Angelic Remnants people option has been changed. Its two parts had nothing in common, and the 'reading destiny' half of the move is more interesting. The 'rolling without despair' half has been removed, and the 'speak softly about people who are not here' half has been clarified/improved.

- The Harbinger's Magical Focus Gear option had different rules between the book and the playbook. They now match.

- Fixed a typo on The Heir playbook printout. The Heir is only supposed to start with 2 Custom Moves, not 3.

- The Heir's Custom move Strike True move has been clarified. "Beaten Down" now prevents them from causing harm for the rest of the scene, not forever.

- Minor wording fixes to The Heir's Custom moves Quiet! Don't Move! and How Dare You.

- The Orc's Core moves have undergone a couple changes. Fires of Industry now limits the number of Orc-Made weapons you can have with you to 4, but also lets you justify having 4 weapons at the start of any given scene in a new place. Death Before Dishonor now lets you break a weapon to Pay A Price or create an advantage to Finish Them with, turning those weapons into combat insurance.

- The Orc's Junk Cannon gear option now only fires Orc-Made weapons, instead of anything.

- The Orc now only starts with two Orc Custom moves, instead of three. With the expanded value of the Orc's Core moves, they no longer need an extra Custom move to be as powerful as other starting characters. With this change every playbook now picks 2 Custom moves during character creation except the Harbinger, who only gets one.

CHAPTER 4 / STARTING THE FELLOWSHIP

- Chapter now exists. Give it a read-through, it's full of advice. I especially recommend the Guided Establishment segment, as it is now THE recommended method of setting up your first session of Fellowship.

- The Fellowship Moves are here now, instead of spread out between all the different playbooks.

CHAPTER 5 / DESTINIES

- NEW COMPLETED DESTINIES: The Ascended, The Cyborg, The Leader, The Lord of Beasts, The Witch. The Witch and The Leader are backer-funded Destinies. All Destinies for the core book are now complete!

CHAPTER 6 / OVERLORD

- Overlord printable playbook completely changed. There is now an Overlord Basic Moves sheet like the Fellowship one, and separate Overlord sheets with just your unique Overlord stuff on it. The Overlord has many pages to keep track of now.

- The Overlord has had their Core moves split into Basic Moves and Core Moves, in a big way. Your Generals have access to your Basic Moves, but only the Overlord has the Overlord's Core Moves.

- Added two new Overlord's Basic Moves: Heart of Fire, and Heart of Iron. These moves relate to using Bonds between the Fellowship and the Overlord.

- Twist the Knife has moved from Overlord's Custom to Overlord's Basic Moves. It also has a little more bite to it.

- Split the Threat To The World move into four moves: Threat to the World, Overlord Stats, Overlord Damage, and My Generals. Threat to the World and Overlord Damage are basic moves, while Overlord Stats and My Generals are Core moves.

- Splitting Threat to the World and Overlord's Stats has caused some changes in how the Overlord works on a fundamental level. They are now only a single Threat to the World, like their Generals and some Destiny playbooks, and Threat to the World is officially a tag that functions the same in all cases. The Overlord's Stats no longer cause Despair and no longer choose from a short list - they are now open ended and can be written in by the Overlord player. There is a list of examples.

- Split My Only Weakness! into two moves: My Only Weakness! and Overlord Foibles. The Foibles are a Basic Move, meaning they also apply to your Generals, and My Only Weakness! is a Core move.

- The new basic move Master Plan is an update/clarification of the old "advance your plans" level up mechanic the Overlord had. They are now a three step process, with an additional "planning" stage before you do anything else with them. This gives the players the potential to learn your plans and foil them in advance, while also requiring you to commit to specific acts of destruction and giving you the ability to foreshadow them.

- Whenever the Overlord could advance their plans, they may now recruit a new General or heal one damage instead. Damaging the Overlord and removing their Generals may now them down in the overarching scheme of things.

- To reduce confusion between the old Overlord's Plan agenda choices and the new Master Plan move, the old Overlord's Plan has been renamed to Your Agenda.

- With the improvements to the Master Plan move, the moves Good News and Bad News have been removed from the Overlord Advances.

- The Overlord's Custom move And In The Darkness, Bind Them has been partially rewritten.

- Three new Overlord Custom moves have been added: Heart of Ice, Mastermind, and Team Rocket.

- The Rule of Three has been slightly changed, with regard to Area attacks against them. Before, Groups and Gangs and Armies could each only have their group stat damaged by Area or Dangerous attacks. Groups have lost that ability, and can now have the Group scattered by any kind of attack. Armies have had this defense improved, and cannot be damaged at all except by Area or Dangerous attacks. Gangs work the same as before.

- Added a section on Sources of Power to the end of the chapter.

CHAPTER 7 / OVERLORD'S TOOLBOX

- Added two Beast Set Pieces: The Unstoppable Kraken and The Wild Dragon.

PLAYBOOK CHANGES

- Playbooks have had their layout entirely re-done. Font size has been increased across the board, there is an extra two pages for Basic Moves, and there are four new Overlord Basic Move pages.

- Most of the game is now available in condensed form within the printable playbooks. The main things you need the book for are Fellowship Moves, Destinies, the Overlord's Toolbox, all of the advice/additional info in chapters 1, 2, and 4, and the convenience of the Glossary.