I like the suggestion of providing some protection from the major events early on (though maybe taking misfortune should negate that protection).
My concern is more that it is so impractical to take turmoil and or misfortune though that no one will do it, so there is an imbalance here. The benefit of 40 or 80 design points is nothing compared to the serious consequences of an early catastrophy, its more than likely game over for that player. That is the imbalance I percieve (though maybe it's not that bad, you tell me
)
I hope Illwinter will take another look at this and maybe rework the chances of a bad event being a 'big bad event'