The house always wins. Good thing I’m not playing the house.
Wagers their own Wind, Guard, even Vitals for outsized payoff — bigger pools, guaranteed crits, at real self-risk.
Design Pillars
- Risk/reward as core identity, not a rider
- Vitals as a spendable currency is genuinely transgressive design
- Sibling to Hexbinder — two honest answers to ‘the dice are the class’
First-Pass Kit (draft — numbers unvalidated)
- Signature — All In (free, before your attack roll): wager up to 3 Wind: +1 Boon per point. On a miss the wager is gone and you’re Winded — no refill next activation. The house edge is real; so is the payout.
- Blood Stakes (once per run, before rolling): wager 1 Vital: your attack counts one extra natural 20. The Vital is spent win or lose. Yes, really. That’s what makes it a wager.
- Passive — House Rules (once per encounter): after rolling a pool, keep any die you like instead of the one the rules require. Cheating? In this economy?