Care sources
Learn the principle.
Consult the professional.
Every object, condition map, treatment plan, and score in Tender Relics is invented. The general ethic the game teaches, that a conservator inspects before acting, prefers the least aggressive suitable action, keeps decisions reversible, and preserves evidence of age, is drawn from the public guidance below. No source supplied a puzzle layout, an artifact, or a rule.
Canadian Conservation Institute
Care of objects and collections. Supports the game's separation of material types, its insistence that handling itself carries risk, and the idea that storage and environment matter as much as any treatment. Reviewed 2026-09-03.
American Institute for Conservation
Caring for Belongings. Supports the game's central restraint: that cleaning, polishing, and repair by an untrained hand often removes evidence permanently, and that a qualified conservator should assess a valued object first. Reviewed 2026-09-03.
United States National Park Service
Museum Handbook. Supports the game's documentation loop: a treatment is recorded, an examination precedes an intervention, and the record of what was done is part of the object's history. Reviewed 2026-09-03.
What the game deliberately does not model
The five condition codes, three inspection views, and five tools are abstractions with no real chemistry, solvent, adhesive, or consolidant behind them. Conceptual ultraviolet is a colour-coding device, not diagnostic imaging. Real decisions depend on material identification, testing, reversibility, ethics, environment, insurance, ownership, and qualified judgment. Nothing here is a treatment instruction, and the game should never be used to justify work on a real object.
Two links were replaced on 2026-09-03
A link check found that the American Institute for Conservation had retired its "Caring for your treasures" address, which returned a not-found page under a normal response code, and that the National Park Service Museum Handbook had moved. Both were repointed at the current pages above rather than dropped, because the principles they support have not changed.