So, the weight of all your gear makes up your "Fatigue score". This is sometimes referred to as "fatigue threshold" or "fatigue rating," I think these three things are the same?

Failing a fatigue test means increasing your fatigue score by 1 or 2 points, depending on the season. (This confused me quite a bit at first, by the way... the text usually refers to the "encumbrance value of your travelling gear" which I assumed meant *all* the player's gear, leading to much greater fatigue loss-- the fact that "travelling gear" has a specific meaning should probably be emphasized more strongly.)

So I follow all this so far, but what I don't see is when the Fatigue score is ever lowered. As characters keep failing Fatigue checks, their fatigue score will rise higher and higher until it surpasses their maximum endurance and the character is always Weary. Nothing in the "recovery" section talks about lowering Fatigue (save by permanently discarding gear), just raising Endurance.

My best guess is that Fatigue gets reset to the starting encumbrance value during a Fellowship phase, and there's no way to lower it during an Adventuring phase, but if this is the case I can't find any reference to it in the books. Anyone have other thoughts?

You lose one point of Fatigue accrued from failed fatigue rolls while traveling per prolonged rest under good conditions at the end of the journey. I'd say "good conditions" would indicate somewhere warm and dry, with beds, good food, etc.

You can recover lost endurance while resting on the trail, but you don't lose the accumulated Fatigue until you get a proper rest at the end of the journey.

Obviously, if a character ends the adventuring phase still having points of accrued fatigue from traveling, I'd assume they get lots of rest during the fellowship phase, and start the next adventuring phase with no fatigue from travel.

John

You also recover Fatigue at the rate of 1 per prolonged rest at the end of the journey.