Reading a field key

Every game page on Carthoryn has a field key: the rules in numbered steps and a table of returns. The table is printed from the same file the game reads, so what you see is exactly what the game uses.

Multiples of the stake

Returns are written as multiples. On Landfall, a forest region of 8 to 9 tiles returns 3× your stake: stake 50 ink and that region brings back 150. On Compass Rose, a call on the four cardinals returns 8× when it lands. Our result line always shows what came back next to what you staked, such as "Stake 50 ink → 150 back (+100)", so you never have to work it out.

Line stakes and trail stakes

The two reel games spread your stake across their ways to pay. Lodestar has ten lines, so each line carries a tenth of your stake, and a line of five astrolabes returns its value times that tenth. Ridgeline divides your stake by 25 for each trail, because its trails can branch and several often pay at once.

Chances printed in full

Waypoints prints the chance of each route length under its key, worked out from two million simulated rounds for each number of throws. Compass Rose needs no table of chances at all: each of its 33 pockets is equally likely, so a call covering eight pockets lands 8 times in 33 over the long run.

What the key does not tell you

A key tells you what a result returns, not when it will come. No pattern on the screen and no run of rounds changes the chances printed. If a key ever seems to promise more than a round can give, read it again slowly, or ask us at hello@carthoryn.co.uk.

18+ only. For entertainment only. Ink has no cash value.