The nine kinds of card

At the venue

A scan opens the card face up. Collecting adds its points, coins and stats and marks it found. The story can make a creature a catch, or offer an optional timing bonus on a discovery. Skipping or missing timing still collects the card.

The rule

• Points, coins and stats — attack, defense, vitality — land the moment the card is found. The points are paid once per team, however many hands the card passes through afterwards.
• A collectable with a stat is gear: on a roles trail it takes a slot and pays in full or by half according to its tag, and it can be listed on the marketplace.
• The story builder chooses Catch, optional Timing, no challenge or the type default per collectable. Animal and Creature suggest Catch; Weapon suggests Timing. Enemies always duel.

You decide

• The points, the coins, and any of the three stats.
• The rarity, which sets how many copies are printed, and the type, which picks a skill game or none.
• Which cards it opens: name it in another card's lock and it becomes a quest key — free to carry, never for sale.

From the library

The demo deck's six gallery cards are collectables, and its boss requires all six.

At the venue

The question and its options, in an order this team was dealt and keeps. A right answer lands the points and the coins; a wrong one costs coins, scores nothing and leaves the card where it was, so the team can think again.

The rule

• At least two options and exactly one correct — the playtest fails a question with neither.
• The options are shuffled for each team and stay in that order for it, so the right answer is never simply the first one.
• Right: the card's points and coins, the first-find bonus on a race, and any stats. Wrong: the card's coins, never below zero, no points, and another try.
• There is no typed answer. A typed lock accepts one spelling in one language, and its author never sees who failed it.

You decide

• The wrong options are the question: pick them from things a player could actually believe.
• The points, and the coins — which are also the price of a wrong answer — and any stats a right answer grants.

From the library

The demo deck asks which dinosaur had three horns, one gallery on from the Triceratops.

At the venue

Somewhere safe — the tent halfway round the trail. A scan banks the card and, in RPG mode, a battered team's vitality climbs back to the most it has ever earned.

The rule

• Every deck opens on one: the Start card is a checkpoint, and the playtest fails a story without a Start.
• In RPG mode a checkpoint restores vitality to the team's earned ceiling — starting vitality plus what allies and gear have added — and never above it.
• It is the only healing a lost fight ever gets besides the bench: a knockout revives at half, a checkpoint at full.
• The playtest warns about an RPG story with no checkpoint after the Start.

You decide

• Where it sits. One before the boss is what makes a hard fight fair.
• Its points and coins, which it pays like any card.

From the library

The demo deck opens on The Burrow at Dawn, its Start card.

At the venue

The card states the stakes before the roll. Roll, and both totals are read out; walk away, and the team keeps its purse and the card waits for later. Nobody is ever gambled at.

The rule

• Each side rolls four six-sided dice and adds five — a total between 9 and 29 — and the higher total wins. A tie is a loss.
• Win: the card's points and its full coins. Lose: half the coins, rounded up, never more than the purse holds, and no points.
• The card is banked either way — the roll is the only way to claim it.
• The odds favour the team: the same dice on both sides, a full pot for a win against half of it for a loss.

You decide

• The points, paid on a win only, and the coins — the pot, and half of it the price of losing.

From the library

The Dice Roll type ships seeded, and every story names its own gamble.

At the venue

The boss arrives. The tide comes in. The gardener tells you what he saw. The card reads as a page of the story rather than a rules note, and the team moves on.

The rule

• An event pays the points and coins its author put on it and nothing else; most carry none, so the board does not move.
• It is the one kind that needs no flavour text of its own — the description is the prose.
• Available in basic mode as well as RPG mode.

You decide

• The prose. An event card is how a trail gets a middle.
• Points and coins, if the beat should also score.

From the library

The demo deck's The Sky Falls is an event.

At the venue

The stakes line, the enemy's numbers, the Fight button, then the arena — the one on the combat chapter, on a card. A team that loses walks back and fights it again.

The rule

• There is no stat comparison that skips the duel, and a custom enemy type fights it too. Gear tunes the fight; it never decides it.
• Three seeded types, one choreography each: Foot Soldier, Monster, Boss. A Boss ends the quest when it falls.
• An enemy pays its points and coins on a win and never its stats. On a loss it takes vitality and coins, and at zero vitality the team sits on the bench for a minute.
• RPG mode only.

You decide

• The points and the coins — what the fight is worth on the board and in the purse.
• Attack, defense and vitality — the whole of the duel's arithmetic.
• The type, which picks the choreography, and the cards it requires, which are what make a hard fight fair.

From the library

The demo deck's Tyrannosaurus rex is its Boss, gated behind six galleries.

At the venue

Two buttons, both priced before the tap: disarm, or step around. A purse that cannot pay the full toll sees the toll drop to what it can lose. Either way the card is banked and the trail goes on.

The rule

• Disarm: a coin flip. Heads, it costs nothing; tails, the card's full coin value.
• Step around: half the card's coins, rounded up, guaranteed.
• A trap takes coins only — never attack, defense or vitality — and never more than the purse holds. Any points on the card are paid either way; most traps carry none.
• RPG mode only.

You decide

• The coins, which are the price. A known half against an even chance at nothing is the whole design; how much the team has to lose decides it.

From the library

The Trap type ships seeded and RPG-only; every story prices its own tar pit.

At the venue

A scan opens the shop: every ware with its price and what it grants, a Buy button on each the purse can afford, and the team's coins counted at the top. Buying spends the coins and hands over the card on the spot.

The rule

• A ware is any card pointed at the merchant. It is revealed at the shop and hidden nowhere — it is a shelf, not a hiding place.
• The price is the ware's own coin value, checked again at the purchase; there is no haggling and no skill game.
• A bought ware scores nothing. Points are for what a team finds, answers and beats, never for what it buys.
• A ware with a lock of its own stays locked on the shelf until its cards are found.
• The merchant card itself pays nothing unless its author put points on it; finding it is the gate. RPG mode only.

You decide

• Which cards point at the merchant, and what each costs. Stock the shelf with the gear that makes the boss winnable and you have built a decision, not a shop.

From the library

A silver spade behind a night gardener is often the thing that unlocks the boss.

At the venue

A scan, a face, a gift: the ally's stats land on the team's numbers and the story moves on. The kind way to arm a team before you ask it to fight.

The rule

• An ally grants points, coins and stats the moment it is found, like a collectable that happens to be a person.
• It is gear: on a roles trail it takes a slot and pays by its tag, and it can be listed on the marketplace.
• Two allies early is how a story makes its own boss winnable without softening it. RPG mode only.

You decide

• Which stat it hands over, and how much. Vitality is the one a checkpoint will later heal back to.
• Where it sits: before the fight it is armour for, or behind a lock of its own.

From the library

The team the arenas fight as carries what two allies and a weapon hand over.