Heat and Corruption

Sporebound uses two numbers to measure just how bad things are in a given location: Heat and Corruption. Heat is a measure of how much pressure the systems of government are putting on people, while Corruption is a measure of how much influence the Blight has in the local area. Usually, “an area” is the City or place the game takes place in. Storytellers may divide that area up if it suits the needs of their game.

Heat and Corruption are both given a rating, between 0 and 10. This is an in and out of character shorthand Sporebound have developed to rapidly communicate a very large and nuanced problem.

This rating will change in between games based on the player’s actions. In general, doing things that draw the attention of local law enforcement and public scrutiny will raise Heat. Doing things that make the public calmer, or manipulating people with influence can lower Heat. Unraveling the Blight’s plans is the only thing that will lower Corruption. Allowing the Blight’s plans to proceed will cause Corruption to increase. If the Sporebound do nothing, Heat will increase very slightly while Corruption will increase rapidly.

Corruption can best be thought of in terms of how much the Blight is exasperating issues. At Corruption 5, the Blight is taking existing issues in the area and making them about 50% worse. At Corruption 10, a full half of the problems in the area can be traced back to the Blight.

To give an idea of what different amounts of Heat mean, consult the following chart. Although the example uses Police, you can expect similar amounts of involvement from politicians, journalists, and other institutions influenced by the government.

Heat 0 The Police are no more or less proactive than normal.
Heat 1 The Police are motivated to respond to leads and investigate..
Heat 2 The Police are going to be on edge and respond to reports aggressively.
Heat 3 The Police are going to be proactively investigating and punitive.
Heat 4 The Police are making a show of handling problems with excessive force.
Heat 5 The Police are going to get revenge beyond what the law should allow.
Heat 6 The Police are a pervasive, constant disruption to a wide group of people.
Heat 7 The Police go beyond mere disruption and are ruining lives.
Heat 8 The Police are actively raiding places and trying to break up perceived enemies.
Heat 9 The Police are itching to try out the large military weaponry they just bought.
Heat 10 Martial Law. There might literally be tanks in the street.

Hotspots are smaller places within the area where Heat and/or Corruption are higher than normal. Often, a Hotspot is centered around a single community or event. A Hotspot includes a location as well as a Category/Tag combination of People that it affects. Players can expect Heat to be considered 1 higher regarding the situation when gauging how police and local officials will act regarding the area.

In general, Hotspots will have some sort of problem related to the area that the PCs can interact with. This can be things like police tearing up homeless tents or the Blight appropriating them for one of its schemes. In general, Underdog Hotspots usually deal with Heat-themed problems, while Affluent Hotspots tend to deal with Blight-themed problems, but this is not a hard and fast rule.

Handling a Hotspot’s situation that removes the influence of the Blight or gives relief to the pressure that official sources are putting on that group of people will resolve it. Hotspots that are left unresolved will, generally, get worse between games.

For every 2 Heat, one category of the player’s Anchors with the Underdog tag will be in Crisis. For every 2 Corruption, one category of the player’s Anchors with the Affluent tag will be in Crisis. While in Crisis, that category of Anchor is treated as though it were Exhausted.

For each category that has been affected, there will be at least one Hotspot related to that group of people. If the players resolve that Hotspot in a way that takes pressure off of that group of people, then that category is no longer in Crisis.

If there are multiple Hotspots related to that category, then only one needs to be resolved to bring everyone out of Crisis for the rest of the game.