TIME: The aspect of opportunity

Includes: Dave, Aradia, Caliborn, Damara, Alpha Dave, the Handmaid

Time players are destined to have a rough time. They start off dealt a bad hand and have to overcome that as well as everything else around them. They hit the ground running and never feel safe slowing down. But as the players who start the game with their eyes open, they sort of know the stakes of what they are doing right away, and thus are ready for the core of their power: windows of opportunity.

To work with Time is to be resigned to the Hurry-Up-And-Wait. There is nothing but critical hits or critical misses here, and the Time player is forced to have patience for the right time to act. Time is a demanding dance partner; but Time players have an inclination towards music, towards inexorable motion.

Aspect is a cruel maestro to all of the Time players. Dave is wracked with anxiety about the tempo he has to keep up with in the game, and only finally gets the chance to grow into himself when everything stops for three goddamn years. Aradia spends much of her time bored and waiting for everyone around her to catch up, and only becomes truly happy when she goes to a place where Time stops mattering. Damara is locked in a drawn out dying gasp of a session, and the Handmaid has so much Time she’s poisoned by it. And Caliborn arguably screws up his entire personal journey by skipping ahead, breaking the rules to accelerate events, and missing his opportunity grow by taking the opportunity for freedom instead.

It’s not an accident that all Time players feel relief when finally freed from its grasp. Their greatest struggling is everything is always going at the wrong speed, too slow or too fast with no middle ground. Predictably, Time players are going to be predisposed towards severe anxiety and the feeling they cannot relax. There is nothing they appreciate more than the ability to breathe, to slow down, to not have a deadline. They are in dire need of a vacation to unspool their wound-up nerves, to have a drink other than a Redbull, and to work on their personal projects a bit.

Talismans: Repetition, timing, music, schedule anxiety, midday naps with the timer set, staying up late to finally work on a project, arriving to any event first and having to wait for everyone else.

You may be Time if… you always know your personal schedule; you may choose to be artfully late or ten minutes early, but you always, always know when you’re supposed to show up.