SAFEGUARD
As a team, you need a place in HOPE to return to between Missions. That’s what your Safeguard is for. It changes and grows in accordance with your team’s needs, acting as a second home when not in the field.
The strange nature of Hope means that your Safeguard becomes what your team wants it to be and changes with you over time. And being located in Hope means it’s safe from Anomalies. You’ll always have your Safeguard to return to.
You don’t have to be the only ones to live in your Safeguard; it can act as a haven for loved ones, friends, or those without a home you encounter through the Worlds. Although non-Hands require an escort to get to Hope, they can stay there just fine.
RULES OF A SAFEGUARD
No one can enter a Safeguard without the Team’s permission.
No one can cause irreparable harm to the Safeguard itself without the Team’s permission.
Any decision made about a permanent feature of the Safeguard must be made in consensus by the Team.
CREATING YOUR SAFEGUARD
During character creation, your team will work together to create Safeguard. However you want to divy up the decision-making is up to you, but everyone should have a hand in deciding what it looks like and how it works. Safeguards can be quite large too, so don’t think they can’t accommodate multiple biomes. One player wanting an iridescent glass desert doesn’t have to exclude the high tech utopia in white and gold another player wants.
Very few things in a Safeguard have to be made; Hope creates objects as they’re needed. Buildings, vehicles, materials, almost everything you could ever want can appear on its own.
Your team can get as detailed as you want, but these are the basic questions you should answer:
Name of safeguard
Level of technological advancement
Predominant biomes
Special feature, if any
What does your habitation look like?
Does it welcome visitors?
WHAT CAN YOU DO IN YOUR SAFEGUARD?
While it’s primarily a place of rest and relaxation, players can also study or train, connect with Bonds or other loved ones, or explore other welcoming Safeguards. Hands are encouraged to do more than wait around for another Mission; life is worth living beyond work.
HOW DOES IT EVOLVE?
When a Mission is completed, the effects of that ripple through the environment in your Safeguard. Things stabilize or change shape, depending on how the Team approached the problem. Reality changes when Hands interfere, after all, and it’s up your Team to determine how they want to shape the reality you’re the custodians of.
Your GM will be keeping track of how your characters handle the Mission; the types of decisions you make and solutions you implement, and will let you know which REALITY IMPACT (if any) is spread through the Safeguard. These changes won’t usually be dramatic, but if the team keeps picking the same sort of solutions, the results build up over time.
CONQUER
A few particular biomes begin overtaking others.
GROW
Everything seems larger, more lush, more real.
EVOLVE
Things change subtly into similar but different forms. Trees might change their leaf shape, or building would develop more streamlined corridors.
MAINTAIN
Your Safeguard does not change; it stays as it ever was.
RESTORE
Environments that resemble your home Worlds begin appearing.
UNIFY
Disparate biomes begin merging together, adapting harmoniously.