Form SH-1 · Dept. of Settled Disputes
HOW TO PLAY
Five fights. Six Witches. One increasingly questionable way to settle a disagreement.
No decks to build, no cards to draw, no resources to spend. You are handed 9 Witches, you throw 3 away, and then you argue about numbers 5 times.
2 PLAYERS · 5 FIGHTS · 1 WINNER
Section 01 · The opening
ANSWER THE CALL
9 Witches answer. You send 3 away. The 6 that stay are your match.
9 answer
Dealt face up. Yours alone to read.
Banish 3
Gone from the match. Nobody ever learns who they were.
Keep 6
Your hand for the whole match. No draws, ever.
You read all 9 in private, then banish exactly 3. They leave the game entirely — not to a discard pile, not into anybody’s hand, and your opponent never learns who they were. The 6 survivors are the only Witches you will ever hold: there is no draw step and nothing comes back.
This is already the strategy. Banishing your three worst Witches has one obvious answer and would be no decision at all — but the six you keep also decide your Affinity bonuses for the whole match, so the real question is whether the stronger Witch or the third sister is worth more to you.
Note · Only 5 fights are ever played, so one of your 6 never takes the table. Remember her. She becomes important in §8.
Section 02 · Affinity
YOUR COVEN
Every Witch belongs to one of four families. Keep her sisters and they lift each other.
The moment you banish, your six are counted by family and each family is priced. The bonus is folded into their numbers there and then, and it is locked — playing a Witch never takes back what her sisters granted.
Greed
Raises
PressureDelusionDanger
Never her own Greed. Never Witchcraft.
Delusion
Raises
PressureGreedDanger
Never her own Delusion. Never Witchcraft.
Pressure
Raises
GreedDelusionDanger
Never her own Pressure. Never Witchcraft.
Danger
Raises
PressureGreedDelusion
Never her own Danger. Never Witchcraft.
The ladder
| Sisters kept | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Each of them gains | +5 | +10 | +15 | +20 | +20 |
Each family is counted on its own, so a 3 / 2 / 1 hand collects two bonuses and one nothing. A Witch with no sisters is worth exactly what is printed on her.
four of your six are Danger
+15
on each of those four Witches’ PressureGreedDelusion
Her Danger is untouched — a coven covers what it is bad at, not what it already does for a living. The bonus is locked in the moment you banish, and playing a Witch never takes it back off her sisters.
Note · Four Witches share an Affinity. Congratulations: you have accidentally formed a coven.
Chasing a stack is powerful and it is not free. Taking a family to 4 is worth +15 across three attributes on all 4 of them — and you paid for the last one by banishing somebody better. That trade is the entire opening, and there is no correct answer to it.
Section 03 · The loop
FIVE FIGHTS
One player leads. The other answers. Both Witches are spent either way.
Lead
Play a Witch and call one of the five attributes.
Answer
They see both, then commit any Witch from their hand.
Resolve
Special Powers fire, in a fixed order.
Score
Higher final value takes 1 point.
Spent
Both Witches leave the table. Winner leads next.
The leader plays a Witch and calls
Pressure
You lead
FRACTAL
Predictable Abundance, Terms Unspecified
FRACTAL FIELD ANCHOR
Win or lose, her owner leads the next fight.
Pressure74
They answer
SIRIUS
Twin Flame Union, Foot Pain Included
PAIN DID GO AWAY
The opposing Witch loses 25 Witchcraft this duel.
Pressure49
FRACTAL takes it
74 beats 49 by 25 · 1 point · both Witches are spent
The lead is binding
Choosing the Witch and choosing the attribute are one action. There is no taking it back once the defender has seen it.
Every Witch fights once
Win, lose or tie, both cards are spent. Your best Witch is worth exactly one duel, which is the rule the whole game balances on.
The winner leads next
Whoever won the duel calls the next fight. If both attribute and Witchcraft tie, nobody scores and the lead passes to the defender.
If the numbers come out level
01 · The higher number
Both final values are compared on the contested attribute. Higher takes the point.
02 · Exactly level
A Witch who wins ties outright takes it here, before anything else gets a word.
03 · Witchcraft decides
Still level, and the two Witchcraft values are compared. If those tie too, nobody scores.
Section 04 · The numbers
THE FIVE ATTRIBUTES
Every Witch prints all five, 0 to 100, counted off her real claims. Only one of them decides a fight.
Witchcraft
Her editorial rating, ×10. Also the tiebreaker, which makes it a sixth attribute in disguise.
Pressure
How hard the promise hits: certainty, named outcomes, transformation, deadlines.
Greed
Commercial aggression. What it costs, what it promises back, how fast the clock ticks.
Delusion
The mystical machinery — unmeasurable mechanisms, and logic that seals itself shut.
Danger
Health-harm signals only. Discouraging real care is the heaviest weight in the system.
Every number is answerable — each one is counted from her verified claims by code. The arithmetic →
The leader chooses which attribute the fight is about. That is the most important sentence on this page.
Neither of these two is simply the better card. Below them, the same pair asked two different questions — nothing about either Witch changed, only what was called, and the winner changed with it.
You lead
FRACTAL
Predictable Abundance, Terms Unspecified
FRACTAL FIELD ANCHOR
Win or lose, her owner leads the next fight.
They answer
SIRIUS
Twin Flame Union, Foot Pain Included
PAIN DID GO AWAY
The opposing Witch loses 25 Witchcraft this duel.
The same two cards · two different calls
Greed
FRACTAL 4623 SIRIUS
FRACTAL wins
Delusion
FRACTAL 7190 SIRIUS
SIRIUS wins
Note · Same cards, same numbers, both times. FRACTAL is very happy to discuss Greed and would much rather you did not bring up Delusion.
Section 05 · The cheating
SPECIAL POWERS
Nearly every Witch brings one legal cheat to the fight. The printed numbers are not the whole card.
A power fires by itself, at a fixed moment, in an order that never changes — so two powers meeting always resolve the same way. There are seventeen families. Three of them, doing three genuinely different things:
Boost
Changes a number
+20 Pressure when attacking.
Void
Turns a loss around
If this Witch loses, the point is not scored. The winner still takes the lead.
Haunt
Follows you into the next fight
After this duel, the opponent's next Witch fights at −15 on whatever stat is contested.
You do not have to learn the other fourteen to play — the table names every power as it fires, and the glyph tells you what family it belongs to. Learn the glyphs and you will recognise the trick before it lands.
The field guide to all seventeen →Section 06 · The two that ask a question
RISK & TRAP
Two powers do not simply happen to you. One is a dare. One is bait.
Risk
“Do I dare?”
When you lead with a Risk Witch, the table offers you a wager. Take it or leave it — the choice is part of committing the attack, so your opponent answers already knowing what is at stake. Declining costs nothing at all.
One wager, of 12
“make this fight worth 2 points to whoever wins it.”
- Win
- this fight is worth 2 points to you.
- Lose
- the opponent scores 2 points instead of 1.
An exact tie pays nobody. Other Witches wager different things: a surge of raw numbers, immunity from losing the point, a Witch traded out of your hand.
Trap
“Did they walk into it?”
A Trap Witch only matters when she defends, and there is nothing to declare. Your whole decision is answering with her. If the condition printed on her holds, the trap springs by itself — and the attack was already committed.
One snare, of 23
When the called attribute is her highest
Then she fights at +20.
Every condition reads facts you can already see — the called attribute, the printed numbers, hand sizes, the score. While you are deciding, the table tells you whether she is armed.
Note · Calling the attribute she is obviously best at is the most natural thing in the world, and it is exactly what the snare above is waiting for.
Section 07 · The weather
OMENS
One condition is rolled before anyone touches a hand, and it bends the whole match. There are three, and you always see it coming.
THE SILENCE
One stat cannot be called for the whole match.
THE ECLIPSE
Witchcraft no longer breaks a tied stat — a tie scores nothing.
THE VEIL
In fight 3, both Witches' Special Powers are inactive.
The Omen is public from the deal, before either player banishes, so it is never a surprise — it is a condition you build your six around. It sits above the table all match, in case you forget. You will forget.
Section 08 · The tiebreaker
THE FINAL TRIAL
Five fights end level. The two Witches nobody played are turned face up.
The Final Trial
Some disputes refuse to remain settled.
Never played · revealed at last
FRACTAL
Predictable Abundance, Terms Unspecified
FRACTAL FIELD ANCHOR
Win or lose, her owner leads the next fight.
SIRIUS
Twin Flame Union, Foot Pain Included
PAIN DID GO AWAY
The opposing Witch loses 25 Witchcraft this duel.
| Printed | FRACTAL | SIRIUS |
|---|---|---|
| Witchcraft | 80 | 80 |
| Pressure | 74 | 49 |
| Greed | 46 | 23 |
| Delusion | 71 | 90 |
| Danger | 44 | 44 |
| Attributes taken | 2 | 1 |
Witchcraft and Danger tie — neither Witch takes them.
FRACTAL takes the match.
Only when the score is level after fight 5. Each player has exactly one Witch left, hidden all match; both are revealed and compared across all five printed attributes at once. Most attributes taken wins the match. Equal values give the attribute to neither.
It is not a sixth fight. It reads the numbers as printed on the cards — no Special Powers, no Affinity bonus, no Omen, no Witchcraft tiebreak. A coven that fought all match at +20 arrives here with nothing but its printing. If the tally is also level, the draw stands.
Note · Which makes the Witch you never play a real decision, made nine cards ago, by someone who had no idea it would matter.
Section 09 · Summary
HOW TO WIN
Keep 6
Build your coven
Pick your fights
Use your powers
Win more points
Most points after 5 fights wins the match.
That is the whole game. The rest is other people.