URATH — a city that can be starved by its own citizens
A walled city on a qanat: a granary, a roster of names, six offices, a tin road, and a kiln. The engine is the CADENCE engine, unchanged. The theme pack renames the nouns, sets the yields, and adds one signature mechanic no other theme can have: every citizen draws from the same pool, and the pool is published.
01The pitch
You are a name in the Roster. You have a ration, a trade, and a share of the wall. The city is not a backdrop: it is a ledger of grain, water, and names the engine updates every tick, and the ledger can fail.
The fantasy is standing in a city that needs you — a porter who keeps the qanat running, a potter whose kiln is a district, a herder on the tin road. The late game is an office: Ration Master, Qanat Warden, Roster Keeper. The endgame is owning the granary, and answering for it in front of the Roster when it runs short.
Why this theme first: it is the most legible setting for a playtest. A ration, a wall, and a name are things a twelve-person family test can see. If the queue design is fun, it shows here in two weeks; if it is not, it shows here too.
02The theme pack — the engine's nouns, in theme words
Four bars, four stats, six jobs, twelve acts, six offices, twelve commodities. The numbers are the prototype's starting values, sized so a season in any theme is comparable to a season in another. This is the theme file, printed.
The bars (renamed, same shape)
| Engine bar | Theme name | Spent on | Recovery rule the theme supplies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vigour | Sinew | hauling, digging, the qanat, the kiln shift | the ration — Sinew refills from your ration, so a short granary caps your bar |
| Nerve | Grit | the border market, night hauls, salvage in the old city | rest, and the wall watch (the Wall Marshal sets the rota) |
| Focus | Hand | casting, weaving, potting, tallying, teaching | a workshop: a facility raises your Hand cap |
| Standing | Name | contracts, office, teaching, garrison command | the Roster: an office can restore a Name, a court can lower it |
The jobs (6)
| Job | Wage / day | Stat gain | Requires | Daily points, spent on promotions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Field hand | 180 | Body +1 | none | Field points |
| Herder | 220 | Body +1, Grit +1 | a beast share | Herder points |
| Porter | 260 | Body +2 | Sinew ≥ 40 | Porter points |
| Potter | 340 | Hand +1 | kiln access | Potter points |
| Bronze smith | 420 | Hand +1, Body +1 | a tin share | Smith points |
| Scribe | 500 | Hand +1, Insight +1 | Name ≥ 30 | Scribe points |
The acts (12) — a theme names the verbs, and only names them
| Theme name | Engine act | Cost | Ticks | Published risk | Published reward |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a haul | freight | Sinew 10 | 2 | 2 % loss | 90–200 |
| irrigate the qanat | upkeep | Sinew 15 | 3 | 4 % silt | district yield +4 % |
| herd to the camp | freight | Sinew 12, Grit 4 | 4 | 6 % stray | 150–320 |
| kiln run | craft | Hand 8, Sinew 6 | 3 | 8 % crack | 240–500 |
| cast bronze | craft | Hand 12, tin 1 | 4 | 10 % flaw | 300–620 |
| border market | trade | Grit 10, Sinew 6 | 2 | 12 % seizure | 120–560 |
| salvage the old city | risk | Grit 18, Sinew 12 | 5 | 22 % loss | 400–1,100 |
| collect the tithe | office | Name 8 | 1 | 0 % | district tax |
| teach an apprentice | teach | Hand 6, Name 4 | 2 | 0 % | apprentice gain +1 |
| garrison a district | defence | Sinew 8, Name 5 | 1 / tick | 0 % | defence + garrison value |
| survey the tin road | survey | Grit 8, Insight 4 | 3 | 10 % false lead | opens a tier-5 site |
| weave | craft | Hand 5 | 2 | 5 % snag | 180–360 |
The map — the prototype's six districts, tiered
| Tier | Position | Yield / day | Garrison required | Upkeep / day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | field plots | 20 | 2 | 5 |
| 2 | the qanat head | 60 | 6 | 14 |
| 3 | the kiln quarter | 110 | 10 | 25 |
| 4 | the shepherd camp | 180 | 12 | 35 |
| 5 | the tin road station | 320 | 18 | 60 |
| 6 | the granary | 600 | 26 | 120 |
Offices, commodities, currency
03The signature mechanic: The Granary
One mechanic per theme, and one only — the rule that keeps five themes on one engine. The formula below is what the engine computes every tick, printed in the rules page in the game.
Why it is a mechanic, not a flavour
The state is visible
The forecast is printed. A player who takes an extra ration sees, on their own page, the city fourteen ticks closer to empty. Over-extraction is an informed choice, not a hidden externality — which is the honest version of a commons.
It turns a resource into an office
Rationing is power. The Ration Master is an elected office with a real lever, and the season's politics are the granary. The engine enforces the floor; the court hears the grievance. That is the player-governed layer, with something to govern.
The city can fail, in the log
The starvation rule fires, the caps drop, and the season's ledger carries the date. A loss the players made, recorded and readable. Nobody blames an admin: the log says who drew what.
Beat 1
the Roster is founded (40 names)
Beat 2
the first granary audit
Beat 3
the tin road opens, tier 5
Beat 4
the qanat silts — irrigation decay fires
Beat 5
a ration riot: the starvation rule fires for the first time
Beat 6
the kiln guild charters
Beat 7
the old city opens for salvage
Beat 8
the Roster Keeper election
Beat 9
a tithe law, written by players
Beat 10
the granary district is contested (tier 6)
Beat 11
ration reform: the floor is set by office, not by default
Beat 12
the season ledger is published, with every ration draw in it
04Art direction, and the feel
Text-first: no images, no animation, no sound. The theme supplies words, a palette, and a shape, and every object carries its numbers in text.
05What breaks this theme
The risks, named before anyone builds it. Each one has a test attached, so the honest list is a plan, not a mood.
A commons is a slow mechanic Undecided
A starving granary is a statistic, not a moment. People react to a loss that happens to them, not to a pool. If nobody cares when the granary falls, the signature mechanic is a spreadsheet with a flag on it.
Test: In the paper season, count how many players change their ration after the forecast moves. Fewer than 4 of 12 means the mechanic is not felt.
Grain is monotone Undecided
A city that only grows has no drama. The theme needs a loss curve — salvage, the old city, the ration riot — and those are the only acts in the table above with real risk. If the risk acts are too weak, the season is a ledger that goes up.
Test: Watch the share of acts played that carry a risk above 10 %.
Bronze reads as dry on a phone Undecided
The genre's players want neon, not clay. This theme wins a playtest on legibility and loses a market on glamour. That is a fair trade for season 1 and a bad trade for a public launch.
Test: Ask the playtest group which theme they would play, blind, from the pack table alone.
Roster Keeper is moderation in a player's hands Undecided
An office that admits citizens is a gate, and a gate a player controls will be used badly at least once. The engine must cap it: Roster Keeper can admit, cannot expel, and the Roster is audited in the season ledger.
Test: Count every admission appeal in the season ledger.
A ration is a number a child understands Undecided
This is listed as a risk because it is a limitation: the theme is legible partly because it is simple. A simple theme tests the engine well and entertains a seasoned player for less time than a layered one.
Test: Measure how long the 12-player cohort stays after week 6.
It is the theme where the engine's central promise is legible: a shared, published state the players govern. If the queue is fun, we see it here. If the position war is cold, we see it here. If the economy runs away, the granary shows it first. A theme that reports the truth of the design is worth more than a theme that looks good.