journal · 2 min read

The rail and the glass

Verbs in the hand. A rail that will not offer a turn that is not theirs. If a chip is dead, it says so.

The action rail shows exactly what a turn can spend: Attack, Cast, Move, a camera compass, an overflow sheet for longer lists, and End Turn. Every chip reflects 5.1 as written — Attack is one swing until Extra Attack makes it two, Second Wind and Action Surge appear only once a fighter has actually earned them, and a chip goes dead the instant its action is spent, with a reason attached rather than a silent grey-out.

Movement only lights hexes a figure can legally reach — trees and camp kit block a path exactly like a body would. When a hero is down, the rail shows no turn coming rather than a hopeful, unusable set of verbs; when it isn’t a seat’s turn, the same rule applies. The log records what happened in plain sentences: a hit, a miss, a walk, a cast, no invented flavor standing in for a number.

A guest sitting hides the glass a longer campaign would show — gold, a streak, other pinned contracts — because this isn’t a shop, just a line held and a slot spent. The player controls the warrior directly; the cleric and wizard act on their own unless a player takes the reins.