Glim & Promotions

The loop

Everything in Standing Orders turns on one wheel:

1. March. A squad is mustered, ordered, and sent to a well.
2. Battle. The field resolves itself under the squad's writs.
3. Verdict. The plate rises — held, lost, or spent — and grades the march.
4. Glim. The light drawn from the well comes home to the hold.
5. Return changed. The company, Reach, and pressures at Lanternhold reflect the result; then you decide what must be answered next.

Screenshot · Verdict plate with Glim drawn

Glim drawn — the march's pay, in light.

Glim

Glim is the teal-luminous essence that keeps a kingdom's fields alive, and it is the prize of every march. Wells of it pool in the deep wild, guarded by the things that live there — and by other crowns' squads, who want the same light you do. The better the march goes, the more Glim comes home.

Glim is not just treasure; it is time. The whole Reach draws from a shrinking pool, the decline is published for all to see — the Overview posts how much World-Glim remains, falling — and a hold that stops bringing light home is a hold the grey wild eventually takes. It is the campaign's clearest strategic pressure.

Glim comes home two ways: the Glim drawn on a Verdict plate, and the weekly draw from any well your companies hold. It banks in a single kingdom pool, and the Treasury will not trade it — the traders deal in crowns, grain, timber, and iron; Glim is not for sale. What the pool is for is spending on things that matter, and today that means promotions.

Every order written in haste is read twice on the field — once aloud, once over the fallen. — From the Codex

Promotions

Promotions happen in the Barracks. A soldier whose class has a road up shows a Promotion panel on their sheet: what the class promotes to, the price in Glim, and how much the kingdom has banked. If the pool covers it, press Promote and the soldier steps up on the spot. Every promotion currently costs 300 Glim, paid from the kingdom's pool. The class paths are:

From	To	What changes
Fighter	Knight	The line-anchor: heavier stats, Guard Crush, and the Bodyguard reaction.
Hunter	Sniper	Distance becomes certainty: accuracy, evasion, and a much sharper crit.
Cleric	Bishop	A senior cleric whose blessings outlast any siege.
Witch	Archmage	The master of the arcane; the hedge-craft made whole.
Wizard	Archmage	Witches and wizards alike end here, by different roads.

Not every class has a road up. The Hedgeblade has no promotion, and the omission is deliberate rather than unfinished: she is a second practice inside the hedge tradition, not the start of a line, and the arcane apex already has its two doors. Her sheet — like a Knight's, a Sniper's, a Bishop's, or an Archmage's — reads no further promotion; this calling is complete. Field her for what she is on the day you hire her.

A promoted soldier keeps everything they knew—a Knight can still slot every Fighter skill on their writ, and adds the new class's arts on top. The full class-by-class detail lives in the class reference.

Who gets promoted first?

The soldier whose writ you rely on most. A promotion makes an existing plan stronger; it does not fix a bad one. Rewrite first, promote second.

Veteran marks

Promotions are the growth you buy; veteran marks are the growth a soldier earns the hard way. A soldier who survives a battle they nearly died in — walking off the field after taking the better part of their health in wounds — comes home carrying a mark: a small, permanent change to how they fight, layered on top of class and gear. A soldier can carry at most three marks across a whole campaign, and never the same one twice.

Marks are scars, not builds. Each one nudges a stat or two by a point or three — enough to notice, never enough to plan around:

Mark	What it changes
Battle-Scarred	Tougher against blades and blows.
Grim Resolve	Steadier aim, a touch more likely to guard.
Quick to Flinch	Markedly harder to hit.
Old Wound, Hard Lesson	Hits a little harder, takes a little less.
Steadfast	Guards more often and shrugs off a bit of magic.
Death's Near Miss	Sharper eye for the killing blow, a shade more evasive.

There is no level counter and no experience bar in Standing Orders — a soldier's history is written in their promotions, their gear, and the marks they carry.