Players may have aspirations for their characters immediately in some cases, but even if not, eventually the city will impinge on their lives, and they're going to have to step outside of their daily routines to accomplish things. The rules below detail how these things are accomplished using Energy.

Energy

Energy is a generic term that represents any of a number of different things. Physical resources such as food or materials are part of this, as is money as a representation of credit for such things.

Energy Availability

Net energy is available each day. Energy not used is “lost,” though we imagine that the character expends it on things unimportant to the plot of play. Energy is gained at various points during the day, but is abstracted.

Energy Loss

A character's full net energy may not be available for any of several different reasons. One is lack of proximity to the sources of their energy. If they are in a cell somewhere, they may well not have any of their usual sources of energy, for instance (instead relying on the jail food to keep them from going to negative energy).

Negative Energy

If a character should ever go to -10 Energy, the character dies.

Task Energy Cost

Each task has a cost to accomplish. This cost is set by the GM, but often has a set value if it is one of the particular types below.

Invest

Investing is essentially storing energy away for a later expenditure. The nature of the investment has to be either general or specific. General investment is very inefficient, but allows flexibility. Specific investments dedicate energy to a single project, but are far more efficient.

General Investment

General investments represent such actions as resting, or recreating in such a way as the character has a little of the energy involved available at a later date.