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ContentsChapter VIII

The Satchel

Every town keeps a shop, and the shelf tells you what each thing does before you pay for it.

Every town keeps a shop.

It is called the Boardwright, and it sells two things: chessboards to play on, and items to carry. There are nine items, and the shelf tells you what each one does, how to use it, and when it is worth buying —all of that before you pay for it.

You pay in Pawn Bucks, which you earn by winning games, finishing lessons and taking on stories.

Six charms you carry into a battle

Spent during a match, from the same bag you keep everything else in.

  • A round glass flask of green tonic, corked in brass, with a chequered paper tag.

    Focus Tonic350Pawn Bucks

    Doubles what every win pays, for fifteen real minutes.

    How
    Drink it from your bag. For the next fifteen minutes, every battle you win gives double experience. You can only drink one per in-game day.
    When
    Right before a Chess Club, or a long hard stretch of road.
  • A gold pendant of two facing knights around a pale blue eye with a chequered pupil.

    Insight Charm450Pawn Bucks

    Gives you one extra hint in this battle.

    How
    In battle, open your bag and pick it. You get one more hint to use.
    When
    When the opponent is a higher level than you. In that situation you earn no hints of your own, so this is the only way to have one.

    Up to 3 per match

  • A gold-edged blue shield pendant bearing a rook, bordered with chequered inlay.

    Parry Charm600Pawn Bucks

    Stops them refusing your next move.

    How
    In battle, open your bag and pick it. The next time they try to refuse a move of yours, it fails and your move goes through.
    When
    Against Chess Club Masters who are above your level. Their first refusal is usually the one that hurts most.

    Up to 3 per match

  • A short red firecracker with a chequered band and a lit fuse.

    Firecracker950Pawn Bucks

    A small blast. Clears up to two pieces beside it. Kings are safe.

    How
    In battle, open your bag and pick it. It picks the best square itself, blows up your own piece standing there, and takes up to two neighbouring pieces with it.
    When
    Any battle except a catch puzzle. Best when the middle of the board is crowded.

    Up to 1 per match

  • A banded wooden powder barrel with a brass ring at the top.

    Powder Keg1,800Pawn Bucks

    A big blast. Clears up to three nearby pieces. Kings are safe.

    How
    In battle, open your bag and pick it. Same as the Firecracker but bigger: it costs you one piece and takes up to three neighbouring pieces with it.
    When
    Any battle except a catch puzzle. Use it when their pieces are bunched together.

    Up to 1 per match

  • A white knight on a plinth, wrapped in a ring of pale green light.

    Second Wind2,200Pawn Bucks

    Brings your best captured piece back onto the board.

    How
    In battle, open your bag and pick it after losing a piece. Your most valuable lost piece comes back, on a free square near where it started.
    When
    Any battle except a catch puzzle. Best used the moment your queen is taken and the game is still winnable.

    Up to 2 per match

Three tools you use outside a game

Used from the pause menu or the map, never mid-game.

  • A round blue-green stone carved with glowing runes and a bright vertical crack.

    Waystone1,200Pawn Bucks

    Carries you to any town square you have already found. One trip per stone.

    How
    Open the world map, click a town you have already been to, and confirm. The stone crumbles and you step out in that town.
    When
    When the walk back is long and you just want to reach a shop, a Chess Club or a professor.
  • A worn teal chess workbook with a chequered cover and a ribbon marker.

    Dog-Eared Workbook1,500Pawn Bucks

    Doubles the experience of your next finished lesson.

    How
    Carried in your bag. It is used up by the first lesson you finish, and that lesson pays out twice.
    When
    Buy it before you sit your first lesson. Every town has a professor.
  • A rolled parchment map tied with cord, showing a compass rose and a chequered border.

    Route Map900Pawn Bucks

    Counts the pieces on a road for you — how many live there, how many you have caught, how many are left.

    How
    Carried in your bag. It does nothing until you finish a map-maker’s story in Verdant Vale; after that it reads any road you walk onto.
    When
    When you are trying to finish off a road’s collection and want to know exactly how many pieces you still have to find.

The bag itself

Everything you own lives in one satchel, and it sorts itself. Items file into five shelves by what they are — things you drink, battle charms, field tools, pieces owed to a story, and keepsakes — plus a favourites tab you pin things to yourself.

  • It shows you what you have not gotEach shelf lists the items you are missing as well as the ones you own, so the bag doubles as a checklist.
  • Search and sortType to find something, or reorder a shelf, once the bag starts filling up.
  • Every item explains itselfOpen one and it tells you its story, how to use it, and where it came from — the same three lines the shop showed you.
  • Some things cannot be thrown awayYou can discard a spare charm, but never a piece a story is waiting on, and never a keepsake. The game refuses.

Two of the nine are worth reading twice. The Insight Charm buys you a hint in a fight where you had not earned one, and the Parry Charm pushes a refused move through — the two sides of the level gate, on a shelf.

In the free demo, the Route Map is shown but locked. It only starts working after a story in Verdant Vale, which is past where the demo ends — so rather than sell you something that would never work, the shop says so and refuses the sale.

the one item you cannot buy

There is a tenth item, and no shop sells it.

A gilt-framed painting of a family at a kitchen table over a chessboard.

The Family Portrait

Nothing at all, and everything.

Brought down from the attic the day every catchable piece in Casteria stood together in your Codex.

No shop stocks it. No amount of money reaches it. It has no use in a battle and none on the road, and unlike everything else in the bag it cannot be thrown away — the game will not let you. It simply sits in your bag for the rest of the game: a trophy.

There is one other counter in Casteria, and it does not take Pawn Bucks. It is inside a volcano — see the prize counter.

The free demo is the first part of the game — two towns, Openfield and Frostford, and the road between them. Everything you catch there carries straight into the full game.

Demo coming soonFollow for updates