Oh I love this! Its like if Harry Clarke illustrated Castlevania!

So many OSR games can feel either overly loyal to tradition or overly cut back to the point of being kinda rejecting design.
DURF feels like a game built up around what the game needs to be fun and easy to get the most out of. Im really looking forward to the full rules, especially the GM side ones

To me it made sense to have humans lean into the skill system, and gain a bit more versatility, getting a bit from a different class, although just a taste.
You can be a fighter with some distant fey blood who can Detect magic, a lockpicking Friar, or a Magician who knows some Monster Lore.

Versatile
Humans are quick to adapt and can start with a skill target of 6 in a skill belonging to a class other than their own, or improve either Search, Listen or Survival to 5. This skill cannot be improved further through normal leveling.

Im currently working on how to represent the surrounding gardens by stealing from Gardens of Ynn, but making it its own little thing.

Im building it around an escalating chance of getting lost. I'l post it when its presentable.

Thanks!

They found it while sneaking through the ruined abbey of St. Clewyd in my Dolmenwood game.

One them already used it to call her mom, but since it was at night and she was asleep, we played it as her thinking it was just part of her dream.

Using skill point advancements but Sanity/Hope depreciation as you age, this also allows a party of differently aged PCs, as age is a tradeoff between the two phases, with older PCs more skilled but more jaded with more vulnerable sense of self, as in the movie.

Tech advances and historical events could be done either as a deck of prompt cards or progress trackers, representing things like advances in weapons or communicatiom tech, opening new skills; or world events, like grand wars or inquisitions, that modify following missions.

This would require leaving behind the lush timeperiod depth of most gumshoe games, and leaving it more open to the group in the moment.

As for the time aspect, I like idea of being able to cover a large span of time over the course of a campaign, but this requires embrasing some active alternate history. Im thinking the rules caring less about what year it is, and more leaving that up to the group.

I like the idea this action invulnerability leveraged for good in the missions, while also having the vulnerabilities of trying to not lose yourself as the centuries go by.

During the timeskips, these pillars can get messed with, perhaps prompting a scene or mini-pseudo mission, but most of the time shit just happens. Ideals and symbols can be tarnished and corrupted, while people can fall out with you, become threatened, or simply just die.

The clever thing about the Sanity system, is that every three points have to be tied to something specific in the world, a Pillar. This can be abstract like a symbol or ideal, or concrete like a person. Each is fallible in its own way and are the PCs main vulnerabilities.

Here is where I want to expand on the quite good Stability/Sanity system from NBA/Gumshoe. This will function as the de facto longterm health stat of the PCs, becoming harder and harder to maintain the more ancient you become.