CLEAVE

cleave (v.): to split apart. cleave (v.): to cling to.

Five cards are dealt into one row. You and the end of the world draft from that same row.

Every card has two faces. Take THE LONG RAIN and it is a cistern that keeps your district from burning. Leave it and it is the flood that drowns three of them. The card does not change. Only whose hands it is in.

So every pick is two decisions at once: what you gain, and what you refuse to hand over. You will not get both.

The night is never a surprise

Before anything resolves, every district shows exactly what is coming, down to the number. Not because the game is being kind, but because you watched it get taken. This is not a fight you watch. It is a bill you agreed to.

What you are managing

• The row. Shared, alternating, five cards, one burns. Denial is the whole tension.
• The holdfast. Nine districts. Most wards protect their own district and the ones beside it, so where a ward stands is the second half of every pick.
• Omen. Every card you cede feeds it. Omen decides who drafts first, which tier the row offers, and whether the fifth card burns or is taken too. Past twelve it becomes DREAD, which adds damage to every strike for the rest of the run.
• Salvage. Repair, reinforce, raze, and sanctify to buy the omen back down.
• Relics. If the holdfast falls you do not start again.

A fall is a checkpoint, not a loss

You return to the dawn of the current act with your progress intact and carry back a relic chosen from the wards you raised. Your run is also saved as you play, so you can close the tab and come back to it.

Survive twelve nights

Free, no install, no account, nothing tracked. 24 cards, 48 hand-composed sigils and a typeface built for it, all generated by the game's own code at build time.

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Controls: mouse or touch for everything. 1-5 draft a card, 1-9 choose a district, SPACE advance, M mute, H the rules.

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