Queen's Impatience

At the beginning of a new city.

Creating a successful settlement is a race against the clock. This clock represents itself as the Queen's Impatience. If it rises too far, your game will result in a defeat, and will be handed only a portion of the potential rewards you would've otherwise gotten. Be cautious that even when you lose, you still make progress to a new storm cycle

The red bar on the bottom right of the UI represents the time you have left to win. Impatience slowly and gradually increases during your mission, starting from the moment after Embarking. Some modifiers make the rate of increase faster or slower, and some events can instantly subtract or add Impatience. Hovering the mouse over the skull graphic reveals a tooltip with the current value of the Queen's Impatience and the current rate at which Impatience is increasing per minute.

Sources that affect Impatience

By default, the Queen's Impatience increases at a rate of 0.255 per minute. On average this means a run will end in about 55 minutes. There are however sources that reduce this rate. These modifiers all work additively, not accumulatively.

Impatience Rate Modifiers

• Several core Upgrades reduces the Impatience rate by 2% each
• The Important Matters Modifier reduces Impatience rate by 70% during Drizzle
• Having a Human as firekeeper at the Hearth reduces Impatience rate by 25%

Impatience Increases

• A villager leaving or dying increases Impatience by 0.3
• Letting certain Glade Event threat run out of time increases Impatience by 1.0
• The Mist Piercers Perk increase Impatience by 0.5 when opening a Glade
• Calling a trader from a Trading Post increases Impatience by 0.5, increased by another 0.5 for every call thereafter

Impatience Reductions

• Reaching a Reputation milestone reduces Impatience by 1.0