In development · PC

Nobody’s
chosen one.

A deckbuilding rogue-lite in a kingdom that pays by the task. Half your deck is combat. The other half is chores — swinging a pickaxe, gutting a fish, chopping a tree — that happen to hurt when aimed at a goblin.

Wishlist on Steam SOON
What is it?

One email when it ships. Nothing else, ever.

Costs 1 energy

Rusty Cudgel

Deal 8 damage.

melee, common
Costs 1 energy

Pickaxe Swing

Deal 5 Crush damage. Gain 1 Ore.

craft, common
Costs 1 energy

Ember Bolt

Deal 7 damage. Apply 2 Burn.

magic, common
cards
121
bodies
40
certificates
17
regions
6
relics
32
people with a scheme
44
The loop

A contract, a road, and a bill at the end of it.

Chores are cards

Ore, logs, herbs and fish are both card fuel and shop currency, so the greedy line and the safe line are genuinely different decks. Mint them mid-fight with a pickaxe; spend them at a forge, a fletcher, a brewer or a cook.

The pack has a limit

Tokens carry between fights, and past twelve of them you draw an Overloaded Pack curse every turn until you put something down. Greed is a real decision, not a slider.

Intents are a promise

Each enemy picks its next move at the start of your turn and then commits. The badge over its head is exactly what will happen — so an enemy that reads the board back is something you can play around, not a coin flip.

You keep the certificates

Runs end. Skills don’t. Seventeen certificates level from the verbs you actually did — Crush damage dealt, Ore mined, debuffs cleansed — win or lose, and they decide which cards exist for you at all.

Four disciplines

Every card belongs to a school, and every school owns one number you can watch move.

Melee

Momentum

Each melee card played this turn adds +2 to the next one, up to +6. Chaining is the point of a cudgel.

Ranged

Mark

A ranged hit paints the target, and every attack of yours deals +2 per stack. Archers set up; anyone can profit.

Magic

Through Block

Spells read straight through Block and leave the target burning. Magic is the answer to an enemy that turtles.

Defence

Guard

Each defence card played shaves a point off every enemy attack for the rest of the fight. It compounds; Block does not.

Chores — gathering, cooking, brewing — are Craft, and stay out of it.

Read the body

A damage triangle you can see before you commit.

Strong is ×1.5, weak is ×0.66 — enough to make you read the enemy, never enough to brick a deck. Armour tags are printed on the map node before you take the fight, and arming a card previews the exact number it will do to every body on the row.

Crush

Strong againstPlatedSkeletal
Weak againstHideSwarm

Pierce

Strong againstHideSwarm
Weak againstPlated

Blast

Strong againstPlatedWarded
Weak againstSkeletal
The deck

A hand that fights and a hand that works.

A sample of the pool. Faces are built the way the game builds them — art to all four edges, the cost in the top-left notch, rarity down the left rail — because in a fan, the left edge is the only part of a card you can still see.

Costs 1 energy

Rusty Cudgel

Deal 8 damage.

melee, common
Costs 2 energy

Shoulder Charge

Deal 14 damage. Gain 6 Block.

melee, uncommon
Costs 1 energy

Break the Plate

Deal 6 damage. Remove 8 enemy Block. Double both vs Plated.

melee, uncommon
Costs 1 energy

Splinter Arrow

Deal 4 damage three times.

ranged, common
Costs 1 energy

Tendon Shot

Deal 6 damage. Apply 3 Bleed.

ranged, uncommon
Costs 1 energy

Ember Bolt

Deal 7 damage. Apply 2 Burn.

magic, common
Costs 1 energy

Arc Lightning

Deal 6 damage to every enemy.

magic, uncommon
Costs 1 energy

Raised Guard

Gain 6 Block.

defence, common
Costs 2 energy

Shield Wall

Gain 16 Block. Retain.

defence, uncommon
Costs 1 energy

Pickaxe Swing

Deal 5 Crush damage. Gain 1 Ore.

craft, common
Costs 1 energy

Gut and Scale

Deal 7 Pierce damage. Gain 1 Fish. It was going to happen anyway.

craft, common
Costs 0 energy

Grudge

Deal 3 damage. Permanently gains +2 damage each time you play it this run.

melee, uncommon
Costs 1 energy

Enchant Weapon

A Crush or Pierce card in hand permanently gains +3 damage. Exhaust.

craft, rare
The road

Four legs out of five, and Emberkeep last.

The Guild deals you four regions and the Gilded Wyrm at the end of all of them. Each leg is a branching node map — contracts, a Notorious elite, gathering seams, a shop, a campfire, and the occasional person with a scheme.

Tier 1

Bramblewick Meadows

Fenced fields, a windmill, and a farmer who will absolutely make his cow problem your cow problem. Teaches the loop with almost no punishment.

fishherbslogs

BossThe Prize Bull100 HP

Written for Woodcutting 2

Tier 2

Mire of Sallowfen

A swamp with a wizard's tower in it, because of course there is. Introduces status effects and the first cards that ask you to lose health on purpose.

fishherbs

BossSallow, First Draft170 HP

Written for Apothecary 4

Tier 2

Karn Deep

Dwarven mineworks, still operating, extremely unionised. The Ore economy region: this is where a gathering deck stops being a joke.

logsore

BossThe Seam Itself200 HP

Written for Mining 8

Tier 3

Ashkarn Sands

Desert crossing with a Thirst meter: every third node costs a Waterskin or 8 HP. Cash-rich, resource-poor — the region that rewards a lean deck.

THIRST · every third node costs a Waterskin or 8 HP.

herbsore

BossKhenet, the Sealed Vizier260 HP

Written for Footwork 6

Tier 4

The Unwarded

Outside Guild jurisdiction, so nobody insures you. Ambush nodes are hidden until entered, and death here loses your carried tokens rather than your run. The optional greed leg.

UNINSURED · some nodes are hidden until entered. Dying here costs your tokens, not your run.

fishherbslogsore

No bossThe optional greed leg

Written for Pilfering 8

Tier 5

Emberkeep & the Gilded Wyrm

A volcanic fortress converted into a bank. The dragon is the vault manager, and it has read your file.

GAUNTLET · no rest between fights. No shop. No excuses.

ore

BossThe Gilded Wyrm600 HP

Written for Warding 10

Progression

You don’t unlock cards by winning. You unlock them by doing the verb.

Every point of Crush damage feeds Cudgelry. Every Ore mined feeds Mining. Every debuff cleansed feeds Litany — win or lose, every run, forever. Each certificate drops new cards into the pool, grants a passive from turn one, and changes what the map offers you.

Cudgelry

Crush damage dealt

Heavy single hits and self-harm payoffs. The trade you fall back on when the clever plan dies.

Fletching

Pierce hits landed

Multi-hit, poison and ammo economy. Turns Logs into damage without ever visiting a forge.

Lore

Blast damage dealt, cards drawn

Area damage, status and deck manipulation. The certificate that makes a bad hand into a good one.

Warding

Block gained

Retain, reflect and Block-to-damage. Nobody thanks you for it and it wins the Vault.

Litany

Debuffs cleansed, prayers spent

Once-per-fight blessings drawn from a shared prayer meter.

Bounty

Notorious enemies killed

The Guild assigns you a target species each run. Clear it for +50% coin and a relic.

Mining

Ore gained

Ore is the run's hard currency: it buys upgrades outright and feeds the biggest damage card in the game.

Woodcutting

Logs gained

Logs feed Fletching and Tinder. The quiet skill that makes two other skills work.

Fishing

Fish gained

The healing supply line. Unglamorous, and the reason you survive leg three.

Smallholding

Seeds planted between runs

Plant at the end of a run, harvest at the start of the next. Herbs without spending a node.

Pilfering

Successful steals

Steal a card mid-fight. Adds locked-chest nodes to every region.

Smithing

Ore spent at forges

Permanently upgrade attack cards mid-run. Converts the mining deck into the killing deck.

Cookery

Meals eaten

Bigger heals and buff-food. Watch the burn chance disappear forever.

Apothecary

Herbs brewed

Potions as single-use cards, and every poison you apply scales.

Sigilcraft

Sigils inscribed at altars

Attach a sigil to any card, permanently, for the run. The build-defining skill.

Footwork

Shortcuts taken, hits dodged

Shortcuts on the map and Dodge cards in the deck. Skips are free tempo.

Tinder

Fires lit

Light a campfire anywhere for 2 Logs, and every Burn you apply hurts more.

What waits at the end

Enemies talk, and the chatter is not the rules.

One boss per leg, each with an intent loop you can learn and a mouth it says things out of. Nothing narrates at you from the middle of a panel; the story comes out of somebody’s face.

Bramblewick Meadows

The Prize Bull

100 HPhide

Gains Rage every turn you spend gathering. It can hear the pickaxe.

(The bull has been waiting for this all week.)

Mire of Sallowfen

Sallow, First Draft

170 HPwarded

A failed homunculus that copies the last card you played, badly.

I was going to be somebody's hero. They redrafted me.

Karn Deep

The Seam Itself

200 HPplated

A wall with 300 HP that you mine down while it drops rocks on you.

(The rock face inhales.)

Ashkarn Sands

Khenet, the Sealed Vizier

260 HPwarded

Three sarcophagi. You choose which one to open first.

Sealed for the kingdom's protection. Not mine.

Emberkeep & the Gilded Wyrm

The Gilded Wyrm

600 HPplated

The vault manager. It has read your file.

You are not on the list. Nobody is on the list. That is what the list is for.

The Guild will write when there is work.

One email when it ships. Nothing else, ever.