Rulebook
Every rule of the game, in full — and the same book to download and print.
The Charter
Every deck is designed under a charter. The charter sets the cards, the exact number of cards the deck must contain, and the complexity, the deck's total complexity that the summed complexity of its cards must fit within. A deck satisfies its charter only when both limits hold. A charter may also hold the manifest grant, an optional privilege stating a per-turn budget and the complexity one use of it accounts for.
Resources
A resource is the standard currency of play, kept in a running pool that clears at the end of each player's turn. Every deck realizes its own resource identities. A card's resource price states named requirements, matched only by the named identity, and additional requirements, filled by a resource of any identity. One resource pays exactly one requirement, whatever its tier.
Resource tiers
A tier is a property of a resource's design, chosen when the player creates the resource. A tier's weight doubles per step: tier 1 weighs 1, tier 2 weighs 2, tier 3 weighs 4, and so on. The combined weight of a card's named requirements is its resource value. Weight never converts in play; it measures balancing and restriction only.
Commitment
Committing a card spends its readiness on a task — an attack, an ability price, or production — until it is released. A committed card cannot be committed again. A card arrives on the board released and may be committed once its placement resolves. Committed cards release automatically during their owner's release phase at the start of the owner's turn, restoring their readiness, unless an ability on the card withholds its release.
Anchoring
Every card on the board is free or anchored to a host card. A card is anchored to exactly one host, and an ability that anchors names one host rather than all the cards a term matches; any number of cards may be anchored to the same host. A card enters the anchored state only through an anchor ability: carrying no clause it anchors the card once as it resolves, and carrying a spend clause its owner pays to anchor it or to move it to a new host. Ending an anchoring is the Free ability's alone. An anchored card moves with its host while both remain permanents. When the host leaves the board, or the anchoring otherwise ends, the card is immediately evaluated as free with whatever its type rule then does.
Construction
Construction is the bond between a structure and the location it stands on, native to the structure type and distinct from anchoring. A structure is played constructed on one of its owner's locations and survives only while supported: constructed on a location whose extent carries its size. A location supports structures whose total size is within its extent; whenever the total exceeds the extent, the location's controller chooses which structures remain supported, and the rest are destroyed as unsupported.
Locations
A location is placed freely and stands as its player's territory, and every location is a zone of its own, holding its structures and everything anchored within. Locations carry strength, resilience, and integrity — accumulating damage and striking back at unblocked attackers, though locations cannot attack — plus extent, which bounds how much construction the location supports. While a player controls at least one location, attacks against that player must be directed at their locations.
Structures
A structure stands constructed on a location and is destroyed while not supported — constructed on a location whose extent carries its size. No ability rescues a structure from that rule. A structure carries strength, resilience, and integrity, accumulating damage exactly as entities and locations do, plus size, how much of a location's extent it occupies. A structure may block attackers attacking the location it is constructed on — and only those — and structures cannot attack.
Objects
An object is placed freely and stands on its own: the game's small, portable things. Objects carry no attributes and do not accumulate damage; they are removed only by effects and their own type rules. An object has no native anchoring — it anchors only through an anchor ability its design carries — and when its host leaves the board it is evaluated as free and stands on its own again.
Entities
An entity is placed freely and is the only card type with the native ability to participate in combat. Every entity carries three attributes: strength, the damage it deals in combat; resilience, the amount by which damage dealt to it is reduced; and integrity, the damage it withstands — damage counters beyond its integrity destroy it. An uncommitted entity may be committed to an attack during its owner's combat phase, and any entity may block without committing.
Edicts
An edict performs its ability as it resolves and is destroyed while free, so an edict that resolves and stands on no host goes straight to its owner's discard pile — one-time use by default. An edict with a clauseless anchor ability anchors to a host chosen when it is played and persists there; when the host leaves the board the edict is evaluated as free, and the type rule destroys it.
Combat
Combat proceeds in three atomic actions: attackers are declared, blockers are declared, and all combat damage resolves simultaneously. Players may respond between atomic actions, never inside one. Each card deals damage equal to its strength, reduced by the receiver's resilience; damage accumulates as damage counters, and a card whose damage counters exceed its integrity is destroyed. Strength is a pool, never a multiplier: a card deals its strength once per combat, divided among the cards it faces, and a blocked attacker's damage goes only to its blockers.
Defense and defeat
While a player controls at least one location, every attack against that player is directed at one of their locations. Entities may block wherever the attack is aimed; a structure may block only attackers attacking the location it is constructed on. An unblocked attacker strikes the location, and a struck location with strength strikes back once per combat, divided among the unblocked attackers by the defending player. A player who controls no locations is exposed: attacks are directed at the player directly, and the moment any damage is dealt to an exposed player, that player is defeated.
Turn structure
A turn runs six phases in order: release, draw, maintenance, action, combat, and end. The player whose turn it is acts in each phase; other players may act only through interrupt-speed cards and abilities. Committed cards release, the turn player draws one card, maintenance obligations are paid, cards are played freely during the action phase, and attacks are declared and resolve in combat. When the end phase closes, every player's resource pool clears and the turn passes to the next player.
Game setup
Each player shuffles their deck and draws a starting hand of seven cards. Before the game begins, a player may take as many mulligans as they wish: each mulligan returns the hand to the deck, reshuffles, and redraws with one fewer card, to a minimum hand of three. No player may attack during their own first turn of the game.
Maintenance
Maintenance is a recurring cost: an obligation a card's player must pay during each of their maintenance phases for as long as the card remains on the board. An obligation states its price in any shape a cost can take, and the turn player pays each of their cards' obligations in an order of their choosing. An unpaid obligation triggers the card's stated consequence — destruction, unless the card states a different one.
Resolution
A played card does not take effect at once: it goes onto the stack, where cards and abilities legal at the time may be added on top in response. The opportunity to respond begins with the player to the left of whoever played the card and passes clockwise; each new addition reopens the round, and the stack begins resolving only once every player has passed in succession. The stack resolves top to bottom, the last addition first, and a card that resolves successfully and remains on the board becomes a permanent.
Zones
The board is divided into zones: each player has a free zone, where their free cards stand, and every location is a zone of its own, holding its structures and every card anchored within. A card's zone follows its bonds — a free card stands in its controller's free zone, a constructed structure in its location's zone, and an anchored card in its host's zone, wherever the host stands. A zone belongs to a player, and control of a card follows the zone it stands in, so a zone changing hands carries its contents with it.
Card states
A card's state is what is known about it, and every card in a game stands in exactly one of three: subliminal, in its owner's deck, where no player knows it as a particular card, not even its owner; liminal, known to somebody as a particular card and not in play, which is a card in a hand or in a discard pile; and manifest, in play and shown to the board. The state is read off the zone the card stands in rather than declared beside it. Manifested is the transition, a card passing from liminal to manifest, and it is an event rather than a state: nothing is ever in the manifested state, and a card that has been manifested is simply manifest. Manifesting is the player's act, which spends the privilege that permits it; a card's arrival is the card's, and a card put into play by an effect arrives without anybody having manifested it. The states are the axis a card's abilities are scoped along, and they are the game's account of hidden information read downward.
Control and ownership
The owner of a card is the player whose deck it originated from, and ownership never changes during a game: a card that leaves play goes to its owner's pile. The controller of a card is positional — the player who controls the zone it stands in as a permanent — so control flows downward along the board's bonds, and the board changes allegiance in whole pieces. An effect that instead takes control of an anchored card itself breaks the bond: the taken card is evaluated as free and stands in its new controller's free zone, with its type rule applying as ever.
Ambient abilities
An ability is ambient when its designer chooses that kind: persistent keywords serving the liminal state, and no clause but a condition. An ambient ability is always in force while its card is not in play. It does not fire, is not used, and never enters the stack — it changes what the card is while the card waits, and through that what its player may do with it. Interrupt is the reserved keyword of this cell: a card that may be played at interrupt speed is a card in a hand, and the permission is in force for as long as it is there. Because it is always in force there is no moment at which its controller chooses, so a term of an ambient ability that is not the card it is printed on names all the cards that match it and prints in the plural.
Vested abilities
An ability is vested when its designer chooses that kind: transient keywords serving the liminal state, and it is one of the two kinds that may hold a trigger clause. A vested ability fires from where the card waits — a hand or a discard pile — rather than from the board, and it is triggered's liminal twin in every other respect: it states a predicate and, where that observable can change two ways, the direction it watches for; its triggers are all required; and the trigger mark leads what they fire. When its trigger happens it goes onto the stack and may be responded to like anything else, added in turn order beginning with the turn player where several trigger at once.
Invoked abilities
An ability is invoked when its designer chooses that kind: transient keywords serving the liminal state and no trigger clause, its first spend clause the invocation price every invoked ability charges. An invoked ability fires when its owner chooses to use it, from where the card waits rather than from the board; paying to play a card out of a discard pile is this cell's plainest use. It is activated's liminal twin and carries a speed for the same reason — standard, interrupt, or reserve. It goes onto the stack and resolves like anything else, and its card does not become manifest by being invoked.
Enacted abilities
An ability is enacted when its designer chooses that kind: transient keywords serving the liminal state and no trigger clause, and it may hold spend clauses of its own — a price offered as part of what the ability does rather than as the price of using it. An enacted ability performs its effect as the card it belongs to resolves — the effect is part of the card arriving, not something used afterward — firing during the one moment a card is being manifested. There is no manifest counterpart of this kind, since a card becomes manifest exactly once. It charges exactly what its designer composed and spends no manifest use implicitly. An enacted ability does not enter the stack separately: it is part of its card's resolution, and answering it means answering the card, while the card is still on the stack.
Innate abilities
An ability is innate when its designer chooses that kind: persistent keywords serving the manifest state, and no clause but a condition. An innate ability is always in force while its card stands in play. It does not fire, is not used, and never enters the stack — it changes the nature of the card itself, and through it whatever the card touches: a standing fact about the card rather than an event. Because it is always in force there is no moment at which its controller chooses, so a term of an innate ability that is not the card it is printed on names all the cards that match it and prints in the plural. A term that can only ever name one card — a host — is exempt for the reason the card's own term is: it names exactly one card and needs no choosing. The persistent kinds are the ones that cannot choose.
Triggered abilities
An ability is triggered when its designer chooses that kind: transient keywords serving the manifest state, and it is one of the two kinds that may hold a trigger clause. A triggered ability fires when its stated trigger happens: the player controls the card, not the moment — the trigger decides when. When its trigger happens, a triggered ability goes onto the stack and may be responded to like anything else. If several abilities trigger from the same event, their owners add them to the stack in turn order, beginning with the turn player.
Activated abilities
An ability is activated when its designer chooses that kind: transient keywords serving the manifest state and no trigger clause, its first spend clause the activation price every activated ability charges. An activated ability fires when its owner chooses to use it; its text states its price and its effect. Every activated ability has one of three speeds: standard, usable only during its owner's action phase while the stack is empty; interrupt, usable at any time, including in response to another card or ability on the stack; and reserve, the slow speed, paid up front but with its effect deferred until the card next releases. Used abilities go onto the stack and resolve like anything else.
Ability keywords
An ability keyword is the canonical name the rulebook gives a recurring ability: the card states the keyword, and the rulebook defines the behavior. The rulebook reserves a set of ability keywords, open to grow as canon defines more. An ability keyword is of one of two classes, persistent or transient, and carries the complexity its behavior implies; the kind belongs to the construction the keyword is composed into and is chosen by that construction's designer. Every ability keyword also declares the card states it may serve — liminal, manifest, or both — and a chosen kind admits it only where that declaration names the kind's own scope. Interrupt is persistent and serves the liminal state, so its cell is ambient: the target card may be played at interrupt speed, the target defaulting to the card the ability is printed on and naming all the cards it matches where it does not. Anchor is transient, serves both states, and is the one keyword that puts a card into the anchored state: it anchors a target card to a host of the stated class, the target defaulting to the card it is printed on. Its clauseless construction is enacted, anchoring to a host chosen when the card is played; its spending construction is activated, paying to anchor the target or to move it to a new host. Anchor never frees. Grant is persistent and serves the manifest state, so its cell is innate: while the card is anchored, its host has the stated ability. Free is Anchor's counterpart, a transient keyword serving both states that ends a target card's anchoring, and it is the only keyword that does. Nine further keywords are transient, serve both states, and name what an ability does rather than how a card behaves. Control gains control of a target card for a stated length — this turn, this round, or with no time limit — and is priced steeply for it. Counter counters a target card waiting on the stack, and is the one keyword whose target may never be the card it is printed on. Damage inflicts a stated amount of damage to a target card, which accumulates as damage counters exactly as combat damage does. Destroy destroys a target card, which may be the card it is printed on and may be every card that matches it. Discard, Draw and Mill each name a player and a count: a discard moves cards from that player's hand to their discard pile, a draw moves them from the top of their deck to their hand, and a mill moves them from the top of their deck to their discard pile without their being drawn. Produce puts the stated resources into a named player's pool, and a player who is not the ability's own may be given only generic resources. Return takes a target card off the board and back to the hand of its owner, where it may be played again. Five further keywords are persistent, serve the manifest state, and each changes the attribute it is named for by a signed amount for as long as the ability stands: Strength, Resilience, Size, Extent and Integrity. Each says what a card HAS rather than what it gains, since a persistent effect is a standing fact about the card and never a tally.
Outcomes
An ability resolves through its outcomes — the list of effects it may perform, whatever its kind. An ability may hold any number of them, and outcomes belong to an ability whatever class its keywords are. Most abilities hold one, and it simply performs; an ability holding several performs the ones its resolution selects. A selection is a set of outcomes together with a count: how many of the set the resolving player may perform. The count is an upper limit with a floor of zero, so choosing two licenses two, one, or none, and a count above the set is simply not reached. A selection of one outcome with a count of one is the plain case and needs no choice sentence. A selector's scope is the opposite of a choice bound: a scope written on a card or player selector is exact, taking that many or as many as match when fewer do. A bound licenses; a scope measures. Clauses stand in their written order, and the first clause whose condition is met decides the selection: first hit wins, whatever kind of clause hit, and the rest are passed over. Where no clause decides, the ability's own selection stands; where it holds none either, the ability performs every outcome it holds. An ability whose clauses decide states its own selection too, and every outcome an ability holds is named by some selection: an outcome nothing can select is text a card prints and a game never performs.
Ability traits
An ability's trait is a single mark shown in its icon gutter that signals a distinguishing characteristic. An enacted ability carries the enacted trait, a fixed mark setting it apart from the six other kinds and sparing the card's text. An ability whose kind carries a speed — activated or invoked — carries a speed trait when that speed departs from standard, interrupt or reserve. Every other ability carries no trait and shows an empty gutter. An ability carries at most one trait.
Consume
To consume a card is to remove one of your own cards from the board and place it in your discard pile as a payment: the consumed card is spent the way a resource is spent, as part of paying for something else. A consume price qualifies what must be consumed, most commonly by a minimum resource value, and may qualify by card type or other stated criteria; the paying player chooses which qualifying card to consume.
Manifest
Manifest is the first privilege: the right to place a card by right, a limited number of times per turn, each use accounting for the complexity the charter's grant states. A charter states its manifest grant in its format line. Using a manifest is playing the card — it enters the stack and resolves normally, and spending the manifest is part of the card's price; a manifest requirement and a resource price may be charged together, each accounting for part of the card's complexity.
Privileges
A privilege is an inherent ability granted to every player by the charter. Every privilege defines its effect, what it lets its player do; its eligibility, what it may act on; and its allowance, how often it may be used. A privilege that plays cards is also a shape of cost: spending a use of it is part of the card's price, most often in place of a resource price, though a design may charge both together.