Shuttering Your Realm

Going away for a while? Shutter your realm. Close the gates, lock the ledgers, and send the watch home across every isle you hold. The world keeps turning, but no fleet sails for or against you while you are gone. It is the governor's leave of absence: protection earned by standing still.

Combat

What attackers see when they sail at a shuttered isle.

Settlement & Life

Happiness, food, and the neglect that shuttering pauses.

The Black Tide

The blight that cannot touch a shuttered shore.

How Shuttering Works

Open Settings, then Shuttered and lower the shutters. Your whole realm enters a still, protected state at once: every isle you hold, not just one. To return, raise the shutters from the same place; your realm also opens on its own when the booked stretch ends.

What You Can and Cannot Do

While shuttered, your realm holds its position in the world but gives no orders.

While You're Away

• Your alliance keeps your seat. Shuttering does not touch your alliance membership — a planned absence costs you nothing. Only true abandonment does: a governor who goes silent for 14 days without shuttering is quietly removed from their alliance, and an absent leader's mantle passes to the most senior member still standing.
• Hostile fleets are turned away. An attacker can still send ships at any of your isles, but they find the gates barred on arrival and sail home empty: no battle, no losses on either side. The sender receives a brief "turned away" report.
• Spies learn nothing. Reconnaissance against a shuttered realm finds no way in; the agents return unharmed with no intelligence.
• Curses and blessings are refused. Instant magic cannot reach a shuttered isle, friend or foe.
• Your isles do not decay. Colony neglect pauses across the realm for the whole stretch, and the Black Tide cannot mark a shuttered shore. You return to the realm you left, not a smoking crater.
• Trade keeps flowing. Incoming friendly support and trade-route deliveries still arrive, so resources accrue while you rest.
• Your market stalls close. Any open marketplace listings are withdrawn and their goods returned to your wharfs the moment you shutter.
• You step off the standings. A shuttered realm is hidden from the rankings and every scoreboard — Warlords, Plunderers, and the rest — while you are away, and rejoins them when you open the shutters. Anyone viewing your record sees a Shuttered mark so they know you are resting, not beaten.

The Rules

• Up to 21 days per rolling year — in one stretch, or split across a few.
• You may raise the shutters early, but only after the first 24 hours.
• After opening, there is a 12-hour cooldown before you can shutter again: no flicking the shutters to dodge a single fleet.
• You cannot shutter while hostile fleets are already inbound: no ducking a blow that is already on its way.
• You cannot shutter while you hold a contested objective island. Sitting on a prize untouchable would break the contest.

If You Simply Vanish

The Stewards no longer raise the shutters for you. A realm left silent without a shutter stands open to the world, and the longer the silence, the more it forfeits:

• At 14 days of silence your isles turn Forsaken — visibly blighted on the map, open to liberation and colonisation — and your alliance seat is given up.
• At 30 days, the Black Tide itself may begin claiming your isles, one a day, your capital last.
• Shuttering before you leave prevents all of it. That is what the shutters are for.

Master Quill: Margin note

Shutter with a clear conscience, Governor. Your isles keep themselves while you are gone. But mind the ledger: time-limited council matters may lapse while the gates are shut, and a stretch spent shuttered is a stretch your rivals spend building. Rest is a tool, not a hiding place.