Thank you again everyone who had played and commented so far! I am incorporating all your corrections and feedback. You will see them reflected in the next content update.
I am, as of the morning, less than a hundred words away from 32k into chapter 4. Part A of chapter 4 (the anniversary of the MC’s parents’ deaths) will likely be between 35-40k long. Part A is a more emotional section of the story, and I’m looking forward to sharing it.
To the prior sections, in addition to fixing up errors and addressing the issues already discussed in this thread, I have added some clarification on naming, incorporated declaration jewelry as something all adults wear, and added some early references to beliefs around making babies.
Finally, if you’ve read, you may have encountered the bard deck. The bard deck is the standard playing card deck in this culture. People use it both for games and for fortune-telling.
In lieu of a content update, I wanted to share the rules for Maze (placeholder name), which is a solitaire game that involves both luck and a little strategy. I enjoy playing this, and I hope you do as well.
Please let me know if anything is unclear or if you have questions.
Creating a Bard Deck
A bard deck has three families (Birds, Snakes, Fish) with 8 cards each (Elder, Head of Hearth, Head of Thresholds, Head of Roads, Heir, The Lost, The Forgotten, and The Innocent) as well as 10 bards. Few games involve all 10 bards. Most use only a small selection.
To create a deck, select the Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 8, 7, 5, and 3 of three suits, discarding the rest. For a game like Maze, which uses 2 bards, add both Jokers. If a game requires more bards, use Ace through 10 of the unused suit.
The Ace is the Elder. The Heads are the King, Queen, and Jack. The Heir is the 8. The Lost is the 7, the Forgotten is the 5, and the Innocent is the 3.
Playing Maze
Requirements: A bard deck with 2 bards, 1 marker (e.g., a penny, a stone)
Set up: Shuffle your deck and lay out a 3 x 3 grid of cards face up. Place your marker on the central card. Do not look at the remaining cards. They are your deck.
Goal: The goal of the game is to end with only one card, whichever one is beneath your marker, left.
To Play:
Step 1: Move your marker to a new, adjacent card that satisfies the rules for movement. Adjacent means the cardinal directions only and does not include diagonals.
Step 2: Remove the card left behind. This will leave an empty space in your grid.
Step 3: Fill the empty space by doing one of the following:
- Fill the space with the top card from your deck.
- Shift one adjacent and unoccupied card into the empty space. Then, fill the newly emptied space with the top card from your deck.
The purpose of shifting is to allow you to make minor, strategic changes to your grid.
Step 4: Repeat steps 1 through 3 until you have no legal moves. If your deck is empty, but the game is not yet over, you can still shift one card into the space you empty each turn.
When You Have No Legal Moves: If you still have cards in your deck, you may stack on adjacent cards until you can move. Once movement is possible, you must move, but otherwise stacks have no height limits. (Note: Since Bards can bridge any two cards, they are always a legal move, and so would never be stacked upon.)
If your deck is empty, the game is over.
On Stacking: When you create a stack, only the top card is in play.
Stacks do not operate as a unit. When moving off a stack, you only remove the top card. When shifting from a stack, you only shift the top card.
Once a card lower in the stack is revealed, either by the top card being removed or shifted, it becomes in play.
Rules for Movement: Cards may only to a card of a different family that is of the same value, a step higher, or a step lower. The values loop, so a marker can move from an Innocent to an Elder and vice versa. Since the Head cards all have the same value, players can move their marker from Head to Head as well.
With the playing card deck, the order is this:
Ace ↔ (King, Queen, Jack) ↔ 8 ↔ 7 ↔ 5 ↔ 3 ↔ Ace
This means a marker could move from an Ace to a Jack to a King to an 8 to a Queen to an Ace to a 3 without issue as long as each movement involves two different suits. A marker can go from a King of Hearts to a Queen of Diamonds, but cannot move from a King of Hearts to a Queen of Hearts. A marker can move Hearts to Diamonds to Hearts, however.
Rules for Bards: Bards are wild cards and can bridge any two cards. A marker could pass from a Bird of Thresholds (e.g., a Queen of Spades) to a Bard to a Lost Bird (e.g., 7 of Spades) without issue.
Game Over: The game ends when you have no legal moves left and your deck is empty. If your only remaining card is beneath your marker, you have won. The fewer cards remaining, the better you have done.
), after luno leaves you two alone, you can ask about it again. i don’t think you’re supposed to suddenly remember apias letters twice.
the one that’s kind of super important to u, i want to use that one xx’