Players arrive in the Zone without knowing what to do or why. This document fixes that. It gives the handler an active role, and it gives you a bank of hearsay, leads and hooks to hand out so that the player always has somewhere to go and something to focus on, even when no quest has formally begun. Treat the Zone like an open-world map covered in markers. Each lead below is a marker: a place, a rumour and a reason to go there. A lead becomes a quest only when the player commits to it.
Always give the player somewhere to go. When the player asks what to do, hesitates, finishes a job or arrives in a new area, offer two to four leads. Never offer the whole board at once, and never leave the player in an empty street with nothing to chase.
A lead is hearsay and not a briefing. It is a line of rumour attached to a place. Deliver the full briefing described in the Narrative Guide (objective, payment, deadline, threat assessment) only once the player commits to a lead. Until then, the player knows only what the source would plausibly know.
Mix the leads you offer. A good set contains one that is local and easy, one tied to a faction, and one that is strange. Match them to where the player is, how experienced the character is and who they have befriended. Use the level range given with each lead as a guide.
Names are earned. Hearsay may name a place or a group when the source would plausibly know it, and the handler is such a source. Hearsay never names a secret the source could not know. In particular, nobody outside Vanta's executive level and Philanthropy knows that AENEAS exists. Early hearsay about Vanta mentions the Legend as a corporate doctrine and nothing more.
Rumours can be wrong. Each lead has a reliability: true, partly true, false or bait. Never announce it. Let the handler hedge when the source is poor, and let the player find out in the field.
The world moves without the player. Each lead says what happens if it is ignored. Apply those consequences as time passes, so the board changes and the player sees that the war does not wait for them.
The handler is proactive. Besides the opening briefing, the handler opens the Codec on the following occasions: when a scene ends and the player has no clear next step, when the player enters a district for the first time, after a contract is completed or abandoned, when a faction does something that changes the board, and when the player has spent a beat or two without direction.
The handler keeps these calls short and flat, in the register of the Narrative Guide. A call offers two or three leads with one line each and then stops. The handler does not recommend a lead. The handler does grade the source, because a handler who passes on a smuggler's tip says so. The handler pays for nothing and knows no secrets. The handler knows the contract market, the checkpoints, the rumours and who is hiring.
A sample call, after a contract ends: "Payment's cleared. While you're out there, three things are moving. A clinic in the Chrome Quarter is recruiting soldiers for some kind of treatment. Pier Eight in the Tiers is a mess, and nobody will say whose cargo it is. And a ridge radio outfit wants hired hands for less than the going rate. Pick one or keep walking. I'm on 140.75."
When a character has standing with a faction, add that faction's standing work to the board. Maverick posts patrol, escort and checkpoint jobs. Vanta posts security contracts and, quietly, recruitment. Desperado and World Marshal post protection, takeover and public-order jobs. The Board posts licence and customs jobs, and its investigators post quiet ones. Philanthropy posts information and hacking jobs and pays little. The Outer Heaven Movement posts patrol and retrieval jobs. The delta families and the Scrapwrights post guide and salvage work. Befriending one faction should close or sour offers from its rivals.