Do Shoals seem weak to anyone else?

[salientmind]

The fluff is terrifying, but I play with former D&D players. So I can write an awesome description, and the reaction to the negative is "whatever. We can pull it off"

[nofather]

It's like quicksand. You can't escape. And spirits and people can't escape. And more, they don't want to. They just sit there. Old friends could be there, lost packs and totems. Lunes or helions slowly going dormant. Hosts thought exterminated for centuries just waiting for something to knock them out and bring them back into the world.

If that's not enough you can make the roll harder, or have it be the lair of some sort of 'lacking' spirit or sloth spirit.

[Pale_Crusader]

The fluff is terrifying, but I play with former D&D players. So I can write an awesome description, and the reaction to the negative is "whatever. We can pull it off"

It does seem weak, and not accurate as well since it doesn't measure length of exposure only number of attempts to leave. I would add this to the formula:

Each Scene within a particular Shoal requires the aforementioned Resolve + Composure Roll to avoid accumulating the penalty, and penalties accumulated in that particular Shoal by failures are not cleared by success in leaving. These penalties may only be reduced back down to zero by performing cleansing (washing, grooming, bathing, ect..) actions within a Glade. Such a cleaning actions reduces the penalties accumulated in all Shoals to zero.

This also makes Glades extremely valuable territories to hold. Two birds with one stone.

Also harder penalties are less intimidating than lingering penalties, which mark the character as somehow tainted and fixing it is now contingent on access to a limited resource they may or may not control (bonus Controlling a Glade is now a Treasure you can reward your players with, with the twist of then needing to defend it)