Rules
How to play a Season
Ten minutes, five ideas, and no rules lawyering. Read this once and you will never need it again.
What is on the table
Two Keepers, thirty cards each, and three Glades laid face up between them. That is everything.
- Keeper
- You.
- Troupe
- Your thirty cards. At most two copies of any one.
- Glade
- A place worth restoring. Three of them, shared.
A Moon, step by step
- Both Keepers draw one card.
- Both Keepers gather Dew equal to the Moon number. Moon three gives three.
- Take turns, one action each, in either order, for as long as you both want to.
- When both Keepers rest in a row, the Moon ends.
- Every Glade is counted. Any that can Restore, does. Then the next Moon rises.
- Season
- One match. Up to eight Moons.
- Moon
- One round.
- Dew
- What you spend. It refills to the Moon number and does not carry over.
The four things you can do on a turn
- Settle a Fabling
- Pay its Dew and place it at one of the three Glades. Its Bloom counts there from that moment.
- Play a Trick
- Pay its Dew, take its effect once, and it rests in the Burrow.
- Use a Knack
- Some Fablings have an ability you can call on while they stand at a Glade.
- Rest this Moon
- Pass. You can still act later this Moon if the rival acts first.
- Fabling
- A creature you settle at a Glade. Carries Bloom and Vigor.
- Trick
- Plays once for its effect, then rests in the Burrow.
- Blessing
- Stays on a Glade or a Fabling and helps all Season.
- Burrow
- Where tired Fablings rest. Pond can rouse them back.
- Tuckered Out
- At no Vigor left, a Fabling heads to the Burrow. It is fine.
How a Glade Restores
At the end of a Moon, look at each Glade that is still open. If one Keeper's total Bloom there meets the Glade's threshold and is greater than the rival's total there, that Keeper Restores it. It locks in their favor and takes no further part. The Fablings standing there become tenders and stay put.
Restore two Glades and the Season ends at once, in your favor. If Moon eight passes and neither Keeper has two, the most Restored Glades wins, and then the highest total Bloom. A full tie is a Shared Garden.
- Bloom
- How much a Fabling adds toward restoring its Glade.
- Vigor
- How much tiring a Fabling can take before it needs a rest.
- Restored
- A Glade won, locked in your favor for the rest of the Season.
Three ways to be clever
- Commit last
- Bloom placed on the final turn of a Moon counts exactly as much as Bloom placed first, and it tells the rival far less.
- Read the threshold
- A Glade needing fourteen Bloom is a late-Season promise. A Glade needing eight is a race that starts now.
- Two is enough
- You never need all three Glades. Giving one away cheaply, on purpose, is often the strongest move on the board.
It also works on a table
Every rule here is playable with printed cards and a handful of counters. No hidden information a paper player could not hold in hand, no timers inside the rules, and no randomness beyond shuffling and drawing. The app just does the counting for you.