← Gand Games The Wheel of the Year · Entry № I
Leaf I · The Cover

Gand Games presents · a reading in twenty-four trials

ALDITH

A Year of Divinations

Read for the Lords. Turn the year.

Eight Lords broke the Reader's deck, so their seasons would never end. Aldith walks the year from Yule to Samhain, reads for the road, and reads for each Lord on his own terms. Tell him true, and his relic comes back to her hand.

Eight halls. Eight relics. One deck to make whole — and at Samhain she lays one more spread, and it is not for the Lord.

A single-player tarot roguelike, engraved in gold and midnight. Coming soon from Gand Games.

GenreTAROT ROGUELIKE
PlatformWINDOWS · LINUX
Trials24 — TWO ON THE ROAD, THEN THE HALL
Deck40 PIPS · 22 TRUMPS
StatusComing soon — no date yet
Made byGAND GAMES
Key art: Aldith, an old woman with a long grey braid, lays five cards by candlelight — wand, cup, star, coin and sword — a black cat watching from the dark window.
Plate I — The Reader at her table
Leaf II · The Story So Far

II — The year that will not turn

Aldith was the Reader of the Wheel. In the old custom a Lord's season ended when she laid the cards before him and told him so: he stepped down, the next Lord rose, and the year turned. One winter the Lords agreed among themselves that no ending would be read again. They broke her deck across the eight halls, kept one trump each as a relic of the house, and put her out of the gate with forty pips.

She comes back old. Bad knee, good eyes, the patience of stone. She walks the year from Yule to Samhain, one hall a season, and reads first for a Lord's people at the roadside, whose coin buys her way to his table. Each Lord hears her only on his own terms. The Frozen Lord turns every Cup. The Widow keeps every blade outside her door. The Child hears nothing above five. Each wants one thing told true.

Tell it, and the relic comes back to her hand. Eight halls, eight relics, and at Samhain the deck is whole.

The Eight Lords, and what they ask

Yule
The Frozen Lord
“Will the sun return if I do not call it?”
Imbolc
The Widow
“Does he still walk, somewhere?”
Ostara
The Child
“Must I grow old?”
Beltane
The Lovers
“Which of us will keep the seat?”
Litha
The Sun King
“Is there an hour I do not rule?”
Lughnasadh
The Reaper
“What have I cut that will not grow back?”
Mabon
The Judge
“Have I weighed true?”
Samhain
The Veiled Lord
“And what waits for you?”
Leaf III · Plates

III — From the book of the year

The Telling: in a candlelit hall above a snowy valley, the young Reader lays cards for a crowned king while his court watches.
Plate II — The Telling: the old custom
The reading table: the Line of three laid for the Charcoal Burner — cups, a silent wand, and swords, five more cards in hand.
Plate III — The Line laid for the Charcoal Burner
The hall of Yule: the Frozen Lord enthroned in ice and candle-smoke, setting his terms for the audience.
Plate IV — The Frozen Lord's terms
The Night Market between the veils: trumps and rites on offer, where the road sells back what it took.
Plate V — The Night Market
At Samhain the deck is whole: one last spread laid by lamplight, and it is not for the Lord.
Plate VI — The last spread
Leaf IV · Her Craft

IV — How a reading is made

  1. Twenty-four trials. Eight seasons from Yule to Samhain: two readings on the road, then the hall.
  2. Three spreads. The Line of three, the Crossing of five, the Horseshoe of seven. Every position has a name and a hunger.
  3. Upright and reversed. A reversed card says nothing — unless the position wanted it that way, the whole spread is dark, or a trump says otherwise.
  4. Dignities and threads. Neighbouring cards agree or quarrel by their element, and a whole spread can speak at once: a Current, an Ascent, a Dark Mirror.
  5. Rites. A blessing keeps a card upright. A curse turns it. A burning is a card the deck no longer needs.
  6. The Night Market sells back what the road took: the twenty-two trumps, to lay in a spread — or to bind as Patrons that watch instead of speaking.
  7. An original soundtrack. The Velvet Hour on the road and at the market, the Lord's Hour in an audience — and engraved art throughout.
Leaf V · Notification

V — When the year turns

Aldith is on the road to Steam, for Windows and Linux. No storefront has opened its gate yet — to be told when the year turns, write to the studio, or call at the label's house.

Tell me when it turns ✉ The label · gand.games ↗

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