TheDrowned Ledger

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The Drowned Ledger

The sea is full of drowned machines, and the law is ten words long: no machine anyone aboard cannot open, trace, and account for. Opened machines feed everyone’s knowledge. Sealed machines fetch a quiet price — and every quiet sale closes the sea a little more.

Your turn — do exactly one

Dive. Cards come off the wreck deck one at a time. Machines join your haul. A hazard is live if its number is at or under the sea; anything higher is a near-miss and simply goes to the discard. After each card you choose: flip again or surface. Surfacing puts the haul into your hand, sealed and hidden. Your hold takes four machines a dive; at four you surface automatically.

Open. Tap sealed cards in your hand to select them, then Open. They go face up in your yard for the rest of the game and score at the end. The gift: for each card you open, every other player who already has at least one open machine of that suit takes a coin from the bank. Receiving is flat — one of the suit or five, the gift is the same. Yards give and receive; hands and hauls never do.

Sell sealed. Select one sealed card and sell it. You take coins equal to that suit’s market price, never the card’s printed value. That suit’s price then drops by one (never below 3), and the sea rises. Nobody asks where it went.

With an empty hand, you dive. Office duties can change how a dive is made, but no office removes the turn entirely.

Being caught — the Reckoning

If a live hazard turns up, your dive is caught. The Reckoning deck lights up; draw one card and do what it says. Most Reckonings raise the sea one step; The Sea Rises Twice raises it two, while The Water Holds does not raise it at all.

• The Sea Takes It All ×4 — lose the haul
• Cut the Line ×2 — lose half, rounded up
• One for the Water ×1 — lose one
• The Sea Blinks ×1 — keep the haul and keep diving
• Salvage Rights ×1 — lose the haul; take one coin for each machine the sea took
• Forced to Account ×1 — keep the haul, open it all now, gifts and all; you may not sell it
• The Sea Rises Twice ×1 — lose the haul; the sea rises a second step
• The Water Holds ×1 — lose the haul; the sea does not rise

Your hand, your yard and your coins are never at risk. Only the dive drowns.

The sea

The sea rises at most once per round, however many people bust or sell. If nobody busts and nobody sells, the water does not move at all. When the wreck deck runs out, the discards are shuffled back and the water is worked again.

Ending and scoring

When the sea reaches 10 — The Sea Claims — the round is finished so everyone has had equal turns, then everything is counted.

• coins — 1 point each
• each open machine — its printed value
• +4 for each suit with three or more open machines in your yard (copies count)
• +5 to whoever has the most open machines — a clean ledger (ties: all of them)
• sealed machines still in hand — nothing

On a tie, more open machines wins. The record outlasts the coin.

At this table

Set the number of players and how many seats are people at this device; the rest are AI. With two or more humans the table hides between turns and asks you to pass the device. The AI opponents play visibly — you see their cards drawn and their Reckonings turned. Their names show how each one thinks: balanced mixes opening and selling, seller ships sealed cards for coin, opener publishes everything, greedy dives deep before surfacing.

The Offices

Each player is dealt one office, face up, from a deck of twelve. An office is one duty and one privilege, both public. A turn that could satisfy the duty must. If the table catches a broken duty, the action is undone as far as the cards allow and that player forfeits their privilege for one full round. No other penalty — being seen to bend your office is the penalty.

Setup also carries the playtest levers — mode, hold limit, sea track — which change the rules above.

“Rule the first. No machine anyone aboard cannot open, trace, and account for.”