We wanted to take this opportunity to clarify a couple of things about how we see the retirement process, and what we’ll be doing with it, particularly as the first characters reach the point of XP slowdown next year
Firstly, anyone who’s created a character in the last few months might have noticed this, but we’ve added an additional question in the background template:
Life after leaving the Galloglaigh
Who do they hope to be after their time as a Galloglach? Do they aspire to a glorious death in battle? A comfortable retirement in their own riding? Something entirely different?
At this time we’re not going to require people to fill this in and resubmit their character, but we’d encourage people to do so if they have the answer in mind, as it’s going to be the main place we look at when it comes time to construct possible off-ramps for characters. You can send us your answer using this form
XP Slowdown and Retirement
We wanted to reiterate how retirement will interact with the XP slowdown – we’ve mentioned before that the world will start taking more notice of characters with 12+ XP, and what that means is that we’ll look closer at those characters, consider what their retirement goal is, and start proactively aiming opportunities directly at them through encounters in the field – opportunities beyond what would normally be available to less experienced characters.
Examples might include:
- Being granted a riding
- Becoming Thane of another band
- Becoming the head of the High Family your character belongs to
- Pursuing a goal that you can’t do as a PC that could have a significant impact on the world (e.g. through research, politics, the church etc)
This is not an exhaustive list, and if you have an idea for your character that doesn’t fit one of these categories, we encourage you to let us know your idea and we’ll see what we can do.
We won’t necessarily send out opportunities at the event you hit slowdown, as the numbers we expect to reach 12 XP at Summer and Autumn 2026 is too damn high. If you’re one of those people and you know you want to retire this year, please reach out to let us know you want to be at the front of the queue
Retiring Before XP Slowdown
If you want to retire your character before they hit slowdown, we’re still happy to support that as best we can, and work it into existing storylines if possible, but we aren’t able to commit ourselves to writing and running a dedicated plot to give a player a retirement path until they’ve reached that point.
Here’s how we see it working:
Quiet Exits
- At any time you can decide that your character is retiring to open a pub, settle down on a farm, move back to Orohogar, or any other variation on living a quiet life that doesn’t have an impact on the setting going forward.
- You don’t need to discuss this with Event Team in advance, though we’d appreciate if you let us know what’s happened to the character
Reasons to Leave
- If you want to stop playing your character, but it feels weird ending their arc because they don’t have a reason to stop, we can help if you let us know at least a month in advance of the event you want to leave at.
- For characters who are leaving pre-slowdown we won’t write a specific encounter but if it fits, we could fold it into an existing planned encounter. We anticipate that the majority of characters taking this route would get their “out” via letter
- Opportunities a character at this level might be offered could include:
- Any officer role in another band
- Leading a town guard or militia
- Joining the archivists of the Library of Uaircinn
- Players may not get exactly what they want – they may not be able to pick the exact band that headhunts them, for instance.
- Retirements in this manner may have a small effect on the setting but are unlikely to be world shaking.
Special Opportunities
- From time to time, plots may offer an offramp to a character (or characters) who interact with them in the right way. Some might be open to any character, and some may be limited to specific groups (e.g. Cinniri, Uasans, Fathach)
- This could be anything from “Liam and Rua stay behind to join the Termonn the band protected”, to “Gobnait solves a thorny problem for the guildmaster of the Gilded Scales and is offered a role in the guild”, to “Cara has managed to piss off big bad du jour so badly that they consider Cara their nemesis and dispatch assassins”
- Because player characters have limited opportunities to interact with the big movers and shakers in Tirneacht, you don’t really find these opportunities, they find you.
- However, if you do find yourself talking to the Réig, an Iarla, or a member of a powerful secret society and you can think of a creative pitch for why giving you a unique opportunity would solve a problem for them or further their agenda: you might just get it.
- These could allow characters who haven’t hit slowdown to have retirements comparable to post-slowdown characters such as becoming a Rider or a Thane. They might also die. There are no guarantees with this method of retirement.
The Retirement Form
Lastly, we wanted to publicly share the form for players to fill in after retiring their character – we actually meant to push this out a while ago, but had been sending it directly to players who retired characters for feedback and never got around to wider distribution.
Importantly, this form is intended as the final step, not the first step in the process (unless you’re taking a Quiet Exit, in which case this is the only step). Once you fill it out and we get a chance to process at it, then the character is out of your hands – you’ll be able to play them one more time to say goodbye, whether at a social or in the freeplay at the start of the next game, but that’s it – they’re heading out the door.