Arena — the ladder
Real fights, in real time. One click on a foe starts the fight. Your party fights itself; your hands hold the nerve: surge, hold, eat, focus, or run. Win, and the room gives up its wardrobe. Dress below to hit harder.
Dressing Room
You start in full plate. The island's best loot trusts the runes: lighter weave, brighter light, more power. Wear it here; it fights in the Arena and the depths exactly as worn.
Bodies by Meshy, faces by portrait — drag the turntable to look.
Model
Runes — the armour itself
Dye:
The wardrobe — strongest at the top
Shop
Era packs add looks, colours, frames, room dressing, and music. They add no power, no story, and no Orange loot. Orange is only ever found in a delve. Era pieces can also be found in play for free; a pack is the fast, certain way to get the set.
Places
Twenty rooms and counting. The town wears them for looking; the depths wear them for fighting.
The world — town and delves
The town is completely cosmetic — visit it, look at it, nothing there can hurt you. The five depths are the game: 6–9 doors, fast and hard. Direct the party — Advance · Hold · Feast · Focus · Flee — or ⚡ Push (Space) to repeat your last verb. Food is health; hunger is the timer. Loot is looks, and the best loot leans on rune-light. 🟧 Orange loot is the island's rarest rune-work — and almost never drops. Keys: A · H · E · F · R · Space = Push
Guest Passport (no accounts — this code IS your backup):
The Island Dreams Back — LIVE AI (demo mode)
Checking whether the island is dreaming…
Live AI generation runs wide open through Sunday Nov 8, then the kill switch seals it — cached dreams keep serving, nothing new generates, and the baked island carries on. (OPUS_LIVE_AI=off or node tools/demo-server.mjs --kill seals it sooner.)
Give the island three things. It will invent the thing that is waiting for you — and paint it.
Inspect
Progression is worn: runes extend, trophies accumulate, bearing sharpens. Fight pivotal battles and inspect your roster — the record changes on the person, not just the sheet.
Battle gallery
Pivotal battles unlock AI-generated group portraits of the roster who stood in them. Portraits generate in Wave 3; captions and unlocks are live now.
Nemesis — the foe remembers you
Fail to finish something and it continues without you: scars shaped by what hurt it, titles from how the fight went, a fixation on who hurt it most. Kill your guest and your next guest inherits it.
More systems
Your nemeses duel off-screen for stolen titles. The Showrunner watches how you play and re-arranges the night. Your island is seeded from your name and Telling. Your dead are on staff.
Quests
Bounties (today, seeded)
Bestiary
Creation tools
Desktop · The Creator
Pick your character. The big picture is that person — dress them, dye the look, and set the runes on them below.
Mobile · The Delve
The Drowned Stair — something applauds, once. Food 6 · Runes ▰▰▰▱
The Place
Mood board
Candidate plates appear here as batches are approved. Empty frames are briefs, not bugs — see docs/MOODBOARD.md.
The Party (opening four)
The Wide Bench — recruitable adventurers
The Capybara
Patrons & Rivals
Starting shores
Pick an identity and you pick where you begin (WoW law). The capitals keep a quarter for your line — and it fills with your honours as you progress.
Creation
Deep Creation
Nine layers (docs/CREATION.md), the last being the Spoken Bio — speak it, earn the First-Night Silks, hear it for hundreds of hours. Three doors in, so depth never means lost:
Eras
Fictions
Assemble six slots, then write it in your own words (docs/FICTIONS.md). Your Library, illustrated with your portraits:
Progress
Show up for one Muse. Settle them and the night is safe — 10h in which the Warden does not paint. Only counted absence after that moves her, capped at 72h, and a broken clock counts as zero. Finished means the portrait hangs until you steal it back. Never for sale (docs/RETENTION.md, after once.seanwylie.ca).
Game systems
Audio board
One motif, under pressure. Tracks light up when baked & approved (docs/MUSIC.md).