The majority of your PC's actions will be described in the weekly 'Turnsheet' which is written and submitted in 'Downtime' to represent your characters actions during the year between Covenant meetings.

In real life the Turnsheet deadline is FRIDAY 6AM. If you submit the turnsheet late, the GM team will not have time to consider it.

Players are encouraged to communicate outside the weekly Court meetings. You may not have enough time to speak to everyone you need to or you may come up with a brilliant scheme when given a bit more time to think.

See the E-mail system for information on the system we use for player-communication that keeps the GMs in the loop and abreast of your plans!

Turnsheeting is the process by which you tell the GM team what you want your character to be doing in the year gaps between Covenant sessions. You need not tell us the minutiae of everything they do, but any actions you wish to take to affect the rest of the gameworld, other PCs or NPCs, you should register with us.

You should upload your turnsheets directly to the wiki; instructions are provided on the user accounts page.

The deadline for turnsheeting is 6AM on Friday. We cannot guarantee that we will read any turnsheets submitted after this deadline.

Each turnsheet consists of eight Action Points (AP). Typical actions will cost 2AP; minor actions, or actions that your character doesn't put much thought or effort into, might cost 1AP; particularly complex or lengthy actions might cost more than 2.

Do bear in mind that while the “throw AP at it until it dies” technique may work for some tasks and problems, there are many cases in which a decent plan and good preparation will hold far more water.

Some actions will be so minor, or require so little participation on your character's part, that they will require 0AP. Examples of 0AP actions include attending a party (but not attempting to seduce anyone in particular), ensuring the delivery of certain items to someone else or appointing a new secretary for your Knightly Order. These minor actions are generally called housekeeping.

You may not have more than FOUR actions of 1AP or more in your turnsheet (that is four actions that will happen - you can still figure in as many conditional actions, but only four can ever happen). For 0AP actions see below.

You have been insulted by the Grandmaster of one of the minor Knightly Orders. It is simply unacceptable that you, the foremost scholar, having studied in Alexandria and Constantinople, should be affronted so! Fortunately, you have significant influence with Salah ad-Din and he has permitted you the charge of one of the Ayyubid fleets. This could well be the way to pay the Grandmaster back.

1 AP - You decide caution is the watch word. The Grandmaster knows what he is doing in military terms, so you decide that you will send a number of agents to investigate the harbour on the Mediterranean coast being used by his Order. When you strike, you know that it will be at the moment the Grandmaster is least prepared!

2 AP - You order your fleet to stand off the harbour and take some of the Order's ships, increasing the number of slaves who can row the Ayyubid galleys and increasing your own force at the expense of the Grandmaster's.

3 AP - You launch a daring raid into the harbour and burn the ships at anchor. It's a telling blow against the Order's commerce, even more so against their pride and you'll be able to thumb your nose at the Grandmaster.

8 AP - You have stormed the harbour, defeated the garrison, burned all the ships there and taken the Order's cash-chests. The Militant Orders are horrified by your actions and swears vengeance on you and your master and vow to take the war to Saladin. This does not mean that the harbour is utterly destroyed and levelled to the ground though, that would take several mass attacks like this one over a few turns.

Sometimes another player will oppose you. Unfortunately the Governor of the minor Byzantine town on the borders of the Crusader Kingdoms has had a run of bad luck and has misjudged the presence of a Bedouin trading caravan. In the confusion caused by their maddened and enraged animals, they made off with some of the town's grain stock and the gold cross off the town's main Church!

The Governor is determined to not let this mar his reputation and standing as governor and spends 4AP on reporting the incident as an attack, rather that incompetence on his part and taking the opportunity to request military forces into his command, furthering his own goals.

Unfortunately, the Governor is mired by the presence of a retired general who has taken an unhealthy interest in the Governor's meddling of the Imperial administration. The General spends 2AP on arranging fast horses to take him to Constantinople where he knows a few bureaucrats who might take his story over the Governor's and even give him forces to command in defending the border town.

In this case, both actions may in part succeed. The Governor's report is very persuasive and detailed, having clearly researched his actions, but the General's presence in Constantinople makes him the obvious bearer of the message and man to put in charge of the force sent to assist the Governor. The Governor's position is secure, for now, but how will the General use his small army?

Players may co-operate to achieve the same goal, pooling their AP to achieve it.

Lord Blackbear is a master spy and has spent a number of turns placing his best agents in the courts of two individuals contending for the position of Pope, hoping to influence the outcome and determine who will be the Pope and who the Anti-Pope.

He learns that one of the candidates, 'Pope Julius IV', is now arranging close alliances with the Emperor of Byzantium, hoping to bring their military might and prestige to bear against any dissenters. Lord Blackbear however would rather see 'Pope Johanna II' succeed and so, using his spies, imparts this information to her and suggests that she may find allies in the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Venetian Doge, who currently has a fleet returning to Italy. Together, Blackbear, Johanna, the Patriarch and the Doge hatch a plan to end Pope Julius. Johanna will appear at the head of the Doge's fleet, which will take Papal holdings on the Italian coast, and the Patriarch will try to both influence the Emperor and come out in support of Johanna, neutralising much of the Byzantine threat.

This plan plays to all of their strengths and as long as no-one opposes them it has an excellent chance of succeeding.

If you are co-operating with one or more other players on an action, please mention their names in your turnsheet.

As mentioned on the Skills page, you gain one Experience Point (XP) per turn, which you may spend on raising your Skills, if you have taken relevant actions in previous turns. If you wish to spend XP, note it in the Housekeeping / 0AP section of your turnsheet.

Some actions will be so minor that you don't need to spend AP on them. These are 0AP, or “Housekeeping” actions. You should generally put these at the bottom of your turnsheet. Examples include spending XP to raise a skill, forwarding correspondence, and other trivial actions which have no great effect on other players or the gameworld.

The GM response to Housekeeping actions will be limited to a maximum of three sentences. This should give you an idea of what you might want to use them for.

You will have many different quirks and skills which are relevant to the different actions you wish to perform. Please remember to list all those you believe applicable to a particular action to help us determine the outcome more precisely.

There is a sample turnsheet with formatting guidelines here to help you format your turnsheet so it's easy for us to read and process.