How Rules Work
The writ is the soul of the game, and it runs on one sentence:
Read top to bottom, the first rule with a valid target fires.
Everything else — conditions, operators, priorities — is refinement on that sentence. Master it and every battle becomes legible.
The shape of a rule
Every rule has the same grammar: If some conditions hold, Then use a skill, Aimed by preference at the right target.
On each of this soldier's turns, the writ is read from Rule I: is any ally below half health? If yes — Heal Light, done, next soldier. If no, Rule II: is anyone in reach? Heavy Slash. Only when no rule can fire — no valid target anywhere, or no AP left to pay — does the soldier hold.
Three quiet consequences of "first valid rule fires":
- Order is priority. The healing rule is above the fighting rule because mending matters more. Swap them and this soldier will swing a sword while the line bleeds — exactly as written.
- A rule you can't pay for is skipped. Rules whose skill costs more AP than remains are passed over as if unwritten; the read continues below.
- One rule fires per turn. Never two. The writ picks a single action.
Conditions decide whether; aim decides whom
A rule's conditions come in four kinds — Filter and Gate decide whether the rule fires at all, while Prefer and Prioritize sort who gets hit first. They are the subject of the next page.
When a rule fires and several targets remain, the tie is broken the same way every time: the rule's own preferences first, in the order you listed them, and beyond that the weakest target — lowest health — takes the hit. A writ with no aim written on it is still a writ that finishes wounded enemies first.
And / Or
Each rule combines its firing conditions one of two ways:
- And (the usual way): every condition must hold, each narrowing the targets the next one sees. Back rank AND wounded — only wounded back-rank targets qualify.
- Or: any one condition is enough, and the rule reaches everything that satisfies at least one. Back rank OR out of AP is one rule, not two copies of the same line.
Granted by gear
A soldier whose writ runs out of ink still swings what they hold. Gear with a teaching — a Bronze Sword teaches Heavy Slash, a Bronze Bow Sniper Shot, a Bronze Staff Heal Light — quietly adds a last rule to the writ: when nothing above applies, use the granted skill. An offensive teaching fires at anyone in reach; a mending one, only on a badly wounded ally. If you have already written the skill into the writ yourself, the quiet rule stays silent.
Whenever a soldier does something baffling, read their writ from the top and ask of each rule in turn: could this fire? at whom? The first "yes" is what they did. There is no second explanation — that is the comfort and the curse of doctrine.