Ruling — Vindication

You asked

How should we prepare everything before the first turn?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Vindicationbg-224783-en-1e

To prepare everything before the first turn, follow these steps: 1. Read the setup instructions for any expansions or modules you wish to include [1]. 2. For optimal balance, remove all cards with an icon in the upper left corner before players place starting companions [1]. 3. Place the main game board in the center of the table [1]. 4. Sort all cards into stacks by color [1]. 5. Each player takes a game tray with components and their corresponding power board [1]. 6. Each player places their character tile from their tray next to their power board, guiltridden scumbag side up [1]. 7. Each player places a speed '2' tile next to their character tile [1]. 8. Randomly deal one journey card to each player [1]. 9. Following their journey card instructions, players must: * Place their metal player medallion on the designated map triangle [1]. * Place their wooden scoring disc on space 15 of the scoring track [1]. * On their power board, place 8 wooden blocks into potential, 8 into influence, and 2 into conviction [1]. * Place 1 wooden block onto the main board in each of the attribute circles for inspiration, knowledge, and strength [1]. * Draw the top face-down companion card of the color shown on their journey card, gain its honor, and place it next to their power board [1]. 10. Place all journey cards back into the box [1]. 11. Shuffle and stack Companion, Relic, Trait, and Monster cards face-down on the main board to the left of the matching color's attribute sphere, then flip the top cards face up to the right of each sphere [1]. 12. Shuffle secret quest cards and deal 2 to each player; players keep 1 face-down and return the other to the stack [1]. 13. Place the 19 hexagonal core region tiles into the cloth pouch and set it beside the main board [1]. 14. Arrange the 6 large mastery tiles into the lid of the community game tray [1]. 15. If using building sites, select expansion tiles you wish to make available and place them face-up next to the game board, then use the guide to remove an equal number of core tiles from the bag and replace them with building site tiles [2]. 16. After the game is set up, players place their tokens on the starting locations indicated on their journey card [3]. 17. Reveal the regions adjacent to the players by drawing from the pouch [3].

[1] RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook · p.4 · Before you Begin... · IMPORTANT · Main Board · Power Boards & Trayz · Player Tiles · Speed Tiles · …

[2] RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook · p.27 · Adjustable Tile Set · Setting Up · Example: · Using Building Sites · Using Building Sites with the Villages & Hamlets Module · Visiting the Chronogate · …

[3] RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook · p.6 · Initial Placement · Starting the Game · Turn Summary

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 223 ms · ask 19356 ms · total 19589 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 19589 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 6, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "After the game is set up and players have placed their tokens on the starting locations indicated on their journey card, reveal the regions adjacent to the players by drawing from the pouch. The player on the lowest-numbered space gets the starting player miniature (Sestra, Lorekeeper) and goes firs", "headingPath": "Initial Placement · Starting the Game · Turn Summary", "sharpsignalDocId": 450}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Be sure to first read the setup instructions for any expansions or modules you wish to include, as they may slightly alter these setup instructions (expanded content instructions begin on p.24). For optimal balance, companions with this icon in the upper left corner cannot be used as starting compan", "headingPath": "Before you Begin... · IMPORTANT · Main Board · Power Boards & Trayz · Player Tiles · Speed Tiles · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 450}, {"page": 42, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Event cards Our world is wondrous and filled with opportunity. At times, it is also dark and full of pain, sadness, and injustice. You know this firsthand, due to your history of scars and shadows — but those are, of course, in your past. The event card timeline reflects a constant stream of 2-3 opp", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 450}, {"page": 33, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Flip loot cards face up - two more than the number of players. Players now take turns selecting loot from this market. In 4-player and 5-player games, the player who selected the 'pick first loot' sphere picks first. The player with the highest initiative companion picks next, then the next highest,", "headingPath": "Dispersing Loot", "sharpsignalDocId": 450}, {"page": 42, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "There is much to celebrate in this epoch of awakening, like discovering new places when you awaken the next day. As a free action, a player adjacent to an inn may join Miara’s troupe in KHU\u0003JUDQG\u0003ƋQDOH\u000f\u0003 closing out her tour with a bang! -2 REW ARDHEROIC DEED ARCANE TOWER 2 ˎ\u0015 → 47 Locate the Arcane", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 450}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Some regions offer cards (traits, relics, monsters, companions, etc). Normally, when you acquire a card type, you may choose from the face-up card or draw blind from the face-down stack. If there are no face-up cards in a stack, simply flip the top face-down card to reveal it. If an effect would cau", "headingPath": "Acquiring Cards · Empowered Draw · Card Honor · IMPORTANT · Area Control Overview", "sharpsignalDocId": 450}, {"page": 55, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Mastery Tiles Once you have unlocked the proficiency, immediately place the mastery tile along the edge of the scoring track (alongside one of the numbered spaces between your scoring marker and the end-game marker). For example, if your scoring disc is at 63, and the end-game marker is at 75, you m", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 450}, {"page": 42, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "Our world is wondrous and filled with opportunity. At times, it is also dark and full of pain, sadness, and injustice. You know this firsthand, due to your history of scars and shadows - but those are, of course, in your past. The event card timeline reflects a constant stream of 2-3 opportunities t", "headingPath": "Event cards · Advancing Event Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 450}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Before you Begin... · IMPORTANT · Main Board · Power Boards & Trayz · Player Tiles · Speed Tiles · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 450}, {"page": 27, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Adjustable Tile Set · Setting Up · Example: · Using Building Sites · Using Building Sites with the Villages & Hamlets Module · Visiting the Chronogate · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 450}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Initial Placement · Starting the Game · Turn Summary", "sharpsignalDocId": 450}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 450 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 450 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until: Nov 7, 2026 05:04

retrieval — what the search arm returned

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook (corpus doc 450)	Initial Placement · Starting the Game · Turn Summary	p.6	0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook (corpus doc 450)	Before you Begin... · IMPORTANT · Main Board · Power Boards & Trayz · Player Tiles · Speed Tiles · …	p.4	0.032258 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook (corpus doc 450)		p.42	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook (corpus doc 450)	Dispersing Loot	p.33	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook (corpus doc 450)		p.42	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook (corpus doc 450)	Acquiring Cards · Empowered Draw · Card Honor · IMPORTANT · Area Control Overview	p.9	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook (corpus doc 450)		p.55	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook (corpus doc 450)	Event cards · Advancing Event Cards	p.42	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook (corpus doc 450)	Before you Begin... · IMPORTANT · Main Board · Power Boards & Trayz · Player Tiles · Speed Tiles · …	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook (corpus doc 450)	Adjustable Tile Set · Setting Up · Example: · Using Building Sites · Using Building Sites with the Villages & Hamlets Module · Visiting the Chronogate · …	p.27	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Vindication — Rulebook (corpus doc 450)	Initial Placement · Starting the Game · Turn Summary	p.6	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 223 ms · first delta 12842 ms · total 19589 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 223 ms · ask 19356 ms · gateway work 19589 ms · total 19589 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4225
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 562
tok/sec: 84.1 tok/sec — 562 output tokens in 6.686 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 4s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 381), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.