Lore

Lore is background the narrator should know: histories, customs, gods, the reason nobody fishes the north cove. It is only shown when lore is on in Setup.

How it's used

Entries are looked up each turn. Only the ones relevant to what is happening reach the narrator, so a hundred entries cost no more per turn than five. Write as much as the world deserves.

Relevance is found two ways: by the name and its aliases matching what players type, and by meaning, so a question about "the old gods under the sea" can find an entry named The Drowned Ones even without the words matching.

An entry

• Name: what the entry is about. The Drowned Ones.
• Aliases: other ways a player might refer to it. the ones below, sea gods, the Choir's masters. More phrasings mean the entry is found more reliably.
• Body: what the narrator should know. Write it as background, not as a scene:

The Drowned Ones were Gull's Rest's gods before the chapel was built. The old families still leave salt on the sills at new moon. Nobody under sixty admits to believing in them.

What goes in lore, and what doesn't

Put it in	Because
Lore	background any scene might touch: history, religion, customs, rumors
A character's GM notes	secrets one person holds
A location's description	what you see and hear standing there
A location's lore	the history and talk of one place, known whenever the party is there
A faction's relations	how two groups treat each other

Lore is for things that are true in the world. What a character merely believes belongs in their memories or description.