Kess

What this is

You are a dragon. Dragons do not fight each other — there is nothing in another dragon worth taking by force. They out-think each other, and what they take is a piece of what the other one is.

A dragon is its name. Your name is three words in the old tongue, and you keep it face down, because a name known is a name that can be taken.

Beasts are another matter. Dragons hunt, and what they are really hunting is words.

The objective

Build a three-word name whose numbers add up to the number of this Age.

Every word carries a number. Add your three, fold the total to one digit, and that is your name's number.

One Fate card is turned face up at the start and left there all game. Its number is the number of this Age. The dragon whose finished name lands on it wins.

You start with one word. You take the other two from beasts you outwit and dragons you beat.

The numbers

Every word has a number from 1 to 9, printed on the card. You never work it out at the table.

It comes from the letters: each of the twenty-two written glyphs is worth 1 to 8 depending on how hard the sound is, the vowels lowest and the growled sounds at the back of the throat highest.

Folding a number means adding its digits until one is left. 23 becomes 5. You never track a running total, because folded numbers add cleanly: one digit in, one digit out, forever.

Riddle answers are always a whole number from 2 to 8.

Working out what a dragon still needs

Picture 1 to 9 in a ring, like a clock with nine hours. Put your finger on a dragon's dial and count forward to the Age. The steps are the word it needs.

The dial

A dragon cannot lie. Not a rule of the game — a fact about dragons. Every dial on the table is true.

What a dial need not be is forthcoming. It shows a number and an evidential, and the evidential is how much of yourself you put behind the number.

The old tongue has one inflection and this is it. Every statement carries exactly one, and leaving it off is not merely rude but ungrammatical: a dragon cannot assert a thing without saying how it knows.

A dragon witnesses its own condition firsthand, so the honest evidential for your own name is always -ak. Choosing another is a deliberate mismatch — not a lie, and the only deception the language permits. To speak of a thing you plainly know in -ith is a studied insult, and used about yourself it is an insult to the table.

While your name is one word the dial reads hlas — silence, no evidential. One word is not yet a name, so there is nothing to stake. You leave hlas on taking a second word, and return to it if you are ever cut back to one.

What hiding costs

So you may conceal yourself all game, and you cannot win while concealed. The only road to 8 is coming to -ak — and the instant you do, you have sworn in front of everyone how close you are.

Choosing when to stake your witness is the endgame of Kess.

Setup

1. The Age. Shuffle the dornel deck and count out 34 cards — the same 34 however many of you are playing. Put the rest back in the box. Turn the top card face up beside the deck: its number is the number of this Age, and it stays there all game.
   why 34 never changes

   The deck is the clock, and it ticks once per beast killed — not once per round. Eight dragons kill beasts about twice as fast as three do, so the same 34 cards run out after about the same number of turns either way, and the game lands near 75 minutes whoever is at the table.

   Scale the deck with the player count instead, as most games would, and eight dragons end up playing for three hours.

2. Your silver. Everyone rolls a d20 and folds it — a 17 becomes 8, a 20 becomes 2. Take that many dil.
3. Your birth name. Deal 3 word cards, keep one face down, discard the rest. Your dial starts on hlas.
4. Your hand. Deal 3 kess cards to each player. Read your own; the answer is on the back.
5. The beast row. Slots and tiers never change, but how many depends on the table — and each is filled from its own tier deck, so there is always soft prey and always something that will hurt you.

   Dragons	Slots
   3 to 5	I I II III IV
   6 to 8	I I II II III III IV

6. The word row. Six cards face up at three to five dragons, eight at six to eight. A row may never hold more than two of any number — set extras aside and deal again, or it fills with words nobody can use.
7. Youngest dragon goes first, then to the left.

A turn

Take 2 dil, or draw one kess card from whichever tier deck you like, free.

Then do one thing:

• Hunt a beast from the row
• Challenge another dragon
• Is'hlas — force a dragon off -un or -ith
• Rest, and take 1 more dil

Whenever your name changes, set your dial again.

Hunting

Point at a beast. The dragon on your left reads the riddle aloud and turns the timer — you cannot be asked something you can read the answer to. You may buy the hint for 1 dil, paid to whoever read it to you.

Outwit it

Say the answer before the sand runs out. Take any word from the word row, place it face down in your name, and the beast leaves.

Or it opens to the table

If you cannot, say so or let the sand run out, and any other dragon may call the answer — first one right takes the word. You get nothing.

This is why everyone listens to every riddle. Your turn is when you get first crack, not the only crack, so there is no dead time at a big table, and a hunt you fluff feeds a rival rather than merely costing you a turn.

Or run it down

Instead of opening it up, refuse the riddle outright and go at the beast with claws — declare this before anyone else answers. Roll your d20 against its difficulty.

Beat it and you take 3 dil of meat and no word. Fail and it mauls you for 2 dil and stays standing.

A beast you outthink gives you a word. A beast you merely kill gives you only meat.

Words numbered 1 and 9 almost never reach the word row. They arrive through Fate instead, because a name and a true worth are not things a dragon can go out and hunt.

The duel

Pick any other dragon. Play a kess from your hand face down, read it aloud, turn the timer. They may buy the hint for 1 dil, paid to you — which is why challenging a dragon you expect to beat you is still worth doing.

They answer correctly

They take a trophy token, worth 1 point, the card goes to its tier discard, and they may challenge you straight back. A solved riddle is never ammunition — everyone heard the answer — so challenging the sharpest dragon feeds them. Pick on someone who will fold.

They concede, or they refuse and fail

Refusing is a flat d20 against the tier difficulty. Then they pay, with the best thing they have:

1. A word, if their name is more than one word long
2. 3 dil, if they have three
3. They skip their next turn

Reaching for a word

Their words are face down, so you must reach blind.

Beating a dragon is not enough. You have to know what it is.

Their dial is your only evidence — and they may have declined to explain it.

Taking a word into your name

A name holds three words at most. Take a fourth and discard one of the three to the word row. That discard is the game: it is how you move your sum toward the Age.

Nothing forbids holding two words of the same number. With three slots and a target to hit, a doubled number is simply a worse name.

Is'hlas, the held breath

is'hlas is breath-silence, and in the old tongue it means a threat.

Instead of hunting or duelling, point at a dragon declaring -un or -ith and demand it speak plainly. It chooses at once:

• Stake its witness — move the dial to -ak, truthfully, for the rest of the round. The fog lifts, and so does its scoring cap.
• Hold its breath — say nothing, and hand you one word, face down, its choice.

A dragon already on -ak cannot be squeezed; nothing is left to withhold. Nor can one on hlas, which quietly shelters whoever is furthest behind.

The tolun — what is laid down

tolun means a wager and a stake, and also the risk, the thing laid down.

Before any d20, the roller may call a tolun. Then every dragon, the roller included, lays coins on one of two sides:

Up to 1 dil on a I, 2 on a II, 3 on a III, 4 on a IV, each. Nobody is obliged, and nobody competes for a share — your coins are your own.

Reveal, then roll. The winning side splits the losing side's coins, evenly, odd coin to the roller, and keeps what it laid.

The roller is almost always on ak, betting on itself. Taking nu is saying out loud that you expect a dragon to fail, with money behind it.

Fate, and the end

A dornel card comes off the top every time a beast leaves the row. Fate pays out dil and moves things about; it never takes a word off anybody, because only a riddle can do that.

The deck is never reshuffled, and anyone may count what is left. Everybody can see how much night remains.

Scoring

Score your name by distance from the Age, then cap it by what you staked.

A broken oath — an -ak number that is not your name's — scores that name nothing.

Steps run round the ring of nine, so 9 and 1 are one step apart.