Wick & Ember

A longest-night card game for the canal city of Vell. Two to six lamplighters sit the table. Each keeps one card hidden, plays the other face up into a lantern log, and races to be the last flame still burning — or the highest card left when the deck runs out. The first to bank enough embers wins the night.

This is an original Gameweave game. The companions, the city, and the wording below are its own.

Bank embers by winning rounds. The match ends the moment any seat reaches the ember target. If several seats reach it on the same round, they share the win.

The host chooses the match length before the first round:

Two decks. Five or six seats always use the expanded deck. Two seats always use the standard deck. At three or four seats the host chooses.

Standard (16 cards). Lamp Warden ×4, Lensmaker ×3, Gale ×2, Veilkeeper ×2, Sootsweep ×2, Ferrywoman ×1, Moth Duchess ×1, Hearthflame ×1.

Expanded (22 cards). Lamp Warden ×7, Lensmaker ×3, Gale ×3, Veilkeeper ×3, Sootsweep ×3, Ferrywoman ×1, Moth Duchess ×1, Hearthflame ×1. The extra cards are three Lamp Wardens, one Gale, one Veilkeeper, and one Sootsweep. The Lensmaker stays at three, and the Ferrywoman, Moth Duchess, and Hearthflame stay at one.

A card counter at the table shows how many copies of each rank are not yet face up. It counts the deck's composition minus the public copies in the ash, the face-up set-asides, and the lantern logs. Hands, the deck, the face-down set-aside, and any cards parked out of a standard deck are not in that count.

Each round:

Seats stay in a fixed order around the table for every viewer. Your own seat is highlighted. Play proceeds clockwise: the next higher seat, wrapping from the last seat back to the first.

The first round's opening seat is chosen at random. Later rounds open with the previous round's winner. If several seats won that round, the opener is the first of them found clockwise from the previous opener, starting with the previous opener themself.

At the start of your turn, any veil you played earlier drops, and you draw one card. You then hold two cards. Play one of them face up into your lantern log and resolve it. The other stays hidden.

You must choose a legal seat when the card asks for one. If every other flame is snuffed or veiled, the card is played and finds no one — it has no effect.

Then, if only one flame is still lit, that seat wins the round. Otherwise, if the deck is empty, the round ends in a dawn. Otherwise the next lit seat, clockwise, takes a turn. Veiled seats are skipped as targets, but they still take their own turns.

1 — Lamp Warden. Name any rank except Lamp Warden. The guess and the result are public. If you name the hidden card, that flame is snuffed.

2 — Lensmaker. Look at another seat's hidden card. Everyone sees that you looked. Only your screen keeps the note — "You saw Bryn's card: Gale" — and only until that exact card leaves the hand. A replacement of the same rank clears the old note. The public log never names the rank.

3 — Gale. Compare your remaining hidden card with another seat's hidden card. The lower flame is snuffed, and that card is revealed. On a tie, the log says "equal flames" and neither card is shown. The Gale you played is not part of the comparison. The higher card stays hidden.

4 — Veilkeeper. You are veiled until the start of your next turn. You cannot be chosen. The Ferrywoman passes over you.

5 — Sootsweep. Choose another lit, unveiled seat. They discard their hidden card face up, without resolving it, and draw a replacement.

6 — Ferrywoman. Every lit, unveiled seat — including you — passes their remaining hidden card one seat clockwise, all at once. Passing is not a discard, so the Hearthflame survives the pass. With fewer than two seats in the pass, including a table where everyone else is veiled, the Ferrywoman does nothing. At two seats the pass is a trade.

7 — Moth Duchess. No effect. If your other card is a Sootsweep or a Ferrywoman, you must play the Moth Duchess. Otherwise she is a bluff, and you may play the other card instead. She is not forced merely because the other card is the Hearthflame — the Hearthflame is never a voluntary play, so the Moth Duchess is the only card you can play beside it.

8 — Hearthflame. You are never offered the chance to play it. If it is discarded from a hand — a Sootsweep's discard — that flame is snuffed. A Ferrywoman's pass is not a discard. The two face-up cards set aside at the start of a two-seat round are not a discard either.

A snuffed flame turns its hidden card face up into the ash, takes no more turns, and cannot be chosen. Cards already in that seat's lantern log stay there. A Sootsweep discard and a snuff do not count as cards that seat chose to play.

The round ends in either of two ways, and a last lit flame is decided first:

Then the face-down set-aside is turned face up into the log. If a Sootsweep already dealt it, the log says so instead. The next round deals at once, unless the match is over.

As soon as any ember total reaches the target, the match ends. No further card is drawn. A shared dawn that pushes several seats over the target together is a shared win.

Played cards, chosen seats, Warden guesses and hits, Gale outcomes (a snuffed flame, or "equal flames"), snuffed hands, the two face-up set-asides at a two-seat table, the size of the deck, and the card counter.

Your own hidden card. The face-down set-aside, until the round ends or a Sootsweep deals it. A Lensmaker note, which appears only on the looker's screen.