Hi! This game seems pretty neat, and I just had some thoughts reading it:

-Am I correct in assuming that a "rotating cast" is less of an expectation as it is with Blades in the Dark, where characters can be expected to be jailed or killed?

-Would some mechanic to prevent one player from "hogging" unity make sense? What if you could only spend it from another? An affiliate spending 2 unity to avoid a 3 harm dragon's breath is OK... an Aegis spending it to deflect the dragon's breath on the affiliate is way cooler!

-The Aegis really seems to be starving for load, especially if armor costs load, to the point where Walking Arsenal seems near mandatory.

-It would be cool to see a bit more flexibility in some of the equipment options. Imagine an Affiliate who's dressed in knightly garb with their sword, or a priest carrying a holy weapon. The Tactician and Whisper also seem to lack any real weapon, although I think it's intended more are added?

-Are you changing up any of the downtime resting/healing rules at all? They've consistently been one of the most frustrating parts about Blades, and may not be as appropriate for a game that from what I can tell isn't meant to feel as gritty and hopeless as Blades.

-Likewise, I'd be interested in seeing a re-examining of effect and positioning: blades doesn't handle big monsters well, I don't think. Band of Blades makes some strides here, but it's one of the biggest places I feel like there's been room for improvement, and really important if there are dragons and stuff.

Overall, it looks very cool and I'm excited to see what comes next!

Hey, thanks for the excellent feedback!

- You're right that it'll feel less "rotating cast," though I've always felt like it's pretty hard to unintentionally die in Blades in the Dark anyway since you can resist rolls and just take a trauma when things get real hot. That being said death will still probably be a risk to about the same degree. No jail though :P. If you do need to rotate cast members for some reason, as the guild tiers up, more NPCs will join as "b team" members so there'll be a pool of characters to pick up and play if you want.

- My hope was that players would be adults and share unity cooperatively. I'll probably  include some lines about how you should agree as a group how unity is spent.

- Equipment is still one of the big pieces of the puzzle I'm trying to work out. I would really enjoy evoking the feeling of gear builds or acquiring Cool Magic Shit in some way, without getting too prescriptive and in-the-weeds like d&d does. It's been a tough challenge to figure out.

- I do plan on re-examining how healing works in an upbeat world full of magic. I also don't want to upset the balance of the system so I'm being a bit careful about it. As vice and overindulgence, I plan on changing up how that works at least a bit. Thematically it'll be called "unwinding" and my goal is to make it almost feel way more slice-of-lifey, maybe even something akin to a miniature game of Stewpot.

- Effect, positioning, and scale with regard to Big Things is already something I'm stumbling my way through actually. You can see it in the Mage's "Explosion!" special ability. I don't know what the answer is yet but it's on my radar for sure. That being said, I would prefer the solution to be simple and scalable. I think part of it will be just encouraging GMs look at and use encounter clocks in a particular way. I've run a few sessions of Scum & Villainy with Giant Space Monsters that worked out pretty good with clever use of clocks.