So I might be sidelining with some Rhapsody of Blood soon.

So I might be sidelining with some Rhapsody of Blood soon. I’m pretty tickled by it, but there’s some elements that I’m not sure I completely understand, and I’d like some help putting it all together. 🙂

1) I’m a little uncertain as it seems like there’s wording that implies both, but is the intent that usually, the explorers are traveling together? That’s what I’d assume given, for example, the shared Travelling the Labyrinth pool, but I’m not quite sure how to reconcile this with every bloodline having their own Breach, for example.

2) Page 16 indicates that the castle rewards the breaking of a covenant more the stronger the bond, but it seems like the reward is always a flat 1 contamination for 1 covenant. Is this correct?

3) A couple of places, such as the Reinforcements bloodline move, make reference to steps of the regent’s plans manifesting on certain clock ticks. I was unable to find anything explicitly explaining this; any thoughts as to what the intent here is?

4) Removed; was a question about the length of the regent’s clock, and I was getting confused by the intended length. The 12-point aesthetic had me overlooking the fact that it was an obvious 6-point clock. 🙂

5) All of the example castles seem to contain five wards, one of which being the regent’s. Is it generally expected that’s always to be the case? Are the nature and title of the wards known in advance to players?