the wind drops

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on the table tonight

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anywhere to close

resume

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keep climbing forfeit the climb

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STAR SHARD · THE APP

the deep readings live here.

a nightly reading cast from your chart, not your sign four skies on every degree of the sky, their disagreements shown bought once, yours forever. no subscription.

under construction · the door opens soon

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more is coming here: most-used card, and how you win.

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the pleiades. the one cluster every sky names the same, and every sky counts differently.

in india the house is kṛttikā, the cutters, and it belongs to agni. six nurses raised the war-god there, each keeping one fire.

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in greece, seven sisters, and one always missing. no one agrees which. the road keeps her place empty.

in china, 昴 mǎo, whose animal is the cock. it calls the dawn the sisters set before it.

alcyone at the centre. one place kept.

saʿd al-suʿūd, the luck of lucks: one star, sadalsuud, in a bare stretch of sky.

in china the house is 虛 xū, emptiness, whose animal is the rat. in india it is śatabhiṣā, the hundred physicians, and its symbol is an empty circle.

before the room was built, the house wore a different sign: the largest hollow thing the sky is known to hold.

the void

ton 618 · 12h 28m 24.9s +31° 28' 38"

its light left before the ground here was ground. the drawing came down. the room stayed empty, which was the point.

al-ṭarf, the glance: two stars for the lion's look, and the old lists advised against travelling under it. of the twenty-eight, it is the one house with a warning attached.

in china the house is 柳 liǔ, the willow, the bird's beak, whose animal is the deer: the one that sees you before you see it. in india it is āśleṣā, the embrace, the coiled serpent, and its planet is mercury.

the glance

alterf · λ leonis · 09h 31m 43s +22° 58' 05"

every other house on the ring has a law of its own. the glance has none. its board was measured and found to be the one where careful play is worth the most, before anything is added to it; two laws were drawn for it and both were put down. so nothing was added. the road is the game as it was printed, and the deer at the end of it has been watching since your first step.

two other roads were drawn and kept: one through grass taller than the board, closing in, with something long moving through it that turned out to be the deer's own path; and one past a roadside shrine strung with a hundred paper warnings, the last of them in the deer's mouth.

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the table

how the road is laid. a road is the locked game; the rest are research previews

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the rules sheet → a user's manual →

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a level is waiting. tap the card to open its doors.

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click to sit down

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the board is the moon road: the nine mansions ahead of her, the houses she crosses one a night. you and the sky, the hand that deals the planets, take turns setting cards on them. where cards touch, the bigger number claims the smaller. own most of the nine when the road is full. first to three boards takes the night.
a card's two numbers are its two sides: left fights left, right fights right. equal numbers claim too: a tie takes the card, and stops there. your ground is parchment; the sky's is amber. her hand is open: tonight's planets, five lights you can tell apart. the lead alternates each round.
a card's numbers change only when you choose them: at level two, +2 to one face, your pick which, or its quarter of the sky's grant. at level three, +1 to a face or the card's own move. at level four, +1 to a face on top of the art. four points across two faces, spread however you like. the level also wears away the labels: a new card says everything, level 2 drops the name, level 3 drops the move, level 4 is nearly all art. hold any card to read it in full. the throne is two-faced; choose on lodge.
dominion: a card lodged on its own mansion glows and counts as two at the count. the ground keeps it, whoever claims the card. her planets hold dominion where they truly stand tonight.
your cards: all twenty-eight are yours from the first night. what your chart decides is how far along a few of them start: your sun's mansion at level three, its four companions at two, the rest at one. seven are dealt from the twenty-eight at the start of every board. don't like them? shuffle again and take six, once more and take five. only a level-four card can be locked into every hand, two at most, and each one spends a slot of the seven.
the climb: a mansion's night is a road of nine steps: eight matches against other players' hands, best of three each, reading deeper as you climb, then the mansion itself at the top, playing her planets and its own cards, three boards of five. a card gains a level only on the night the moon stands in its own house, so nobody rushes it. at level four the mansion is claimed for good. fall off and the ladder waits where you left it. after the claim: the mansion is yours and its nights go back to the walkers, best of five. the sky herself stands above all twenty-eight and comes only when the moon crosses one of your chart's own mansions, and then she stays for a whole match.

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before the road: one walked board

the {{ menuTitleBare }} lends you seven cards at level three, moves awake: the same seven it lends everyone who walks here. every move is called. the lit card goes to the lit ground, and the words say why.

the basics: left number fights left, right fights right, bigger claims smaller, and a tie takes the card. seven are dealt and only five fit the road, so two stay in your hand. own most of the nine grounds when the road fills. the rest, the walk shows you.

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am pm

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five cards are read from where your five planets stood. computed and kept on this device.

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star shard

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the sky wrote something

the minute you arrived.

most people never read it.

star shard

welcome back

the road remembers you.

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your star shard · one of seven hundred eighty-four

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you are not alone under this sky

along the moon road you will meet fellow travelers, each collecting the shards of their own sky. they will want to play their shards against yours in the arena.

tonight the moon stands in the {{ tonightName }}. climb far enough and you face the mansion's own avatar: pass its test, and its piece of your shard comes home, waking a new ability for its card.

your five, cast

born {{ revealDate }}: one card for where each planet stood

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the whole road is yours

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the practiced hand goes back to the {{ menuTitleBare }}. all twenty-eight mansions are yours from tonight: your birth sky's five stand further along, and these start at level one, two faces and nothing else. every mansion is a level, and walking a card's own level opens a door on it: the second door is its quarter's grant or two points on a face, the third its own move. nothing here is bought.

tonight's climb has nine steps: eight walkers, other players' hands walked before you, then the empty district itself, playing the sky's planets and its own cards. beat it and the district's card gains a level, and the door that level opens is yours to choose. the district plays its own card at whatever level yours stands at, so the last step never softens as you climb.

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find a match

✦the sky looks for a free hand…

pass and play, same device ›

same device, two hands

pass and play. the twenty-eight are split: your side deals at its true levels, the far hand borrows seven of the same cards asleep, level one, numbers only. best of five boards, the lead alternates, both hands face up. nothing is staked.

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