CindermoleEmber · Burrower of warm ash
A Bestiary of Impossible Beasts
Fabulary
The storm knocks, and the Roost fills with creatures no book has named. Lift them, bond them in threes, and ink them into the book.
A calm, clever tile puzzle in ink navy and old gold. Every beast waits on its chapter page as a silhouette until you bond it, and every night you keep is written down beside your best score.
Coming to iOSTHE EMBER CHAPTERNight III
0BEST 640
THE BOOKCBM
Uncovered beasts fly to the rail. Three alike bond away, and the book inks them in.
I
Lift what nothing rests on
Every night the beasts arrive as stacks of round medallions, layered two, three and four deep. Only a beast with nothing on top of it can be lifted, and each one you lift lands on a rail of seven perches at the foot of the Roost.
Three of the same beast on the rail bond and fly off into the storm. If all seven perches fill without a trio, the page tears. The skill is choosing which stack to open next, before you know what is hiding inside it.
II
Four strains, one Attunement
Every beast belongs to a strain. Bond the same strain back to back and Attunement climbs, up to five. At five the sky answers, and a bolt of lightning lifts a whole trio off the stacks on your behalf.
EmberHearth, kiln and cinder: moles, finches, little wyrms.
TideBrine, mist and moon-pull: sprites, jelly hounds, otters.
HollowRoot, moss and quiet rot: toads, bramble cats, elk.
GildedChime, hoard and starlight: fox kits, griffins, a dragon.
III
Read the portents
As the chapters turn, nights arrive carrying omens that bend the rules a little.
☾
Gloaming VeilBuried beasts hide their faces until they are uncovered.
✧
HoarfrostFrozen beasts thaw only when you bond their own strain.
z
Drowsing BeastsSleepers wake after you complete a few bonds.
⇥
Narrow RailOnly six perches tonight, so plan every lift.
IV
A book in four chapters
The home of the game is the bestiary itself. Turn its leaves from the cover past the preface into the Ember, Tide, Hollow and Gilded chapters. Each chapter keeps ten beasts as ink silhouettes and fifteen nights stitched along the foot of the page, and a silk bookmark hangs in the chapter tonight belongs to.
Every Roost can be kept. Each night is built backwards from a solution known to work, so a torn page always means there was a better lift. Each night also brings one featured beast that scores double, and when the Roost is kept the night is written in as a fresh entry: who you bonded, your score, and whether it beat the best on that page.
THE CHAPTERSNights I to XVNights I to X each bring the next beast of the strain, later nights call favourites back, and Night XV is an Elder Night that writes a legend at the foot of the chapter.
THE APPENDIXThe Long NightNew beasts drift down whenever the stacks run low. How long can your rail hold?
THE BACK POCKETThe SatchelThaums from kept nights buy talismans: Hush, Whistle, Lantern, Stir and the Eighth Perch.
V
From silhouette to field note
Your first bond of a beast fills in its silhouette with colour, its haunt and its lore. Keep bonding it to raise its rank and unlock the Warden's private field notes, written in the margin of its plate.
C
J
JellihoundTide · The floating hound
F
FernstagHollow · Antlers of new growth
D
DialowlGilded · Owl of the turning stars