Ruling — Feed the Kraken

You asked

What is the correct arrangement of components at the very beginning of a game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Feed the Krakenbg-271601-en-1e

1. Place the ship on the starting area in the south [1]. 2. Place the map action tokens/miniatures on the corresponding areas on the map: 3x Cabin Search, 2x Feed the Kraken [1]. 3. Shuffle the 5 cult ritual cards and place them face down and spread out on the edge of the game board [1]. 4. Set aside the appropriate number of off-duty signs next to the map depending on the number of players [1]. 5. Remove 1x Cult Uprising (yellow), 1x Drunk (blue), and 2x Armed (red) from the navigation deck (note: these 4 cards are not used on the quick journey map) [1]. 6. Shuffle only the following 19 navigation cards and place them face down as the draw pile on the map archive [1]. 7. Each player receives 3 guns [1]. 8. Set aside the 'Captain' card, then shuffle all other character cards and set aside one card less than your number of players [2]. 9. Add the 'Captain' card to those cards and shuffle them face down [2]. 10. Deal one card to each player face down; players look at their own card without revealing it [2]. 11. The player with the 'Captain' card reveals it immediately, becomes the first captain, and receives a random new character card [2]. 12. The captain places the captain's logbook, the lieutenant badge, and the navigator badge in front of them [2]. 13. Before the game begins, Pirates secretly and silently find out who their Pirate teammates are by following a specific sequence of instructions where players close their eyes, Pirates open them to memorize members, and then everyone opens their eyes [2].

[1] RULEBOOK Feed the Kraken — Rulebook · p.4 · Contents · PREPARING THE MAP

[2] RULEBOOK Feed the Kraken — Rulebook · p.8 · Victory Conditions · Sailors · Pirates · Cult Leader & Cultists · The Secret Gathering of the Pirates · After that the players receive their character cards:

🔧 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 304 ms · ask 9138 ms · total 9452 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 9452 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 11, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "The current captain starts the next round by ' Appointing the navigation team' . In the next and all further rounds, all phases are carried out again: Appointing the navigation team A question of loyalty 2.1. Resolving a mutiny The Navigation 3.1. Executing the Navigation Card Off-duty 4.1. The next", "headingPath": "THE NEXT GAME ROUND BEGINS · RESHUFFLE", "sharpsignalDocId": 512}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "7 Depending on the number of players, place the corresponding The Crew card next to the map. Find the right number of Sailor, Pirate and Cult Leader chips and put each one in a separate bag. 8 Shuffle the bags and distribute one to each player. Each player secretly checks their seabag . Their chip d", "headingPath": "Setting up the game - Quick Journey · DISTRIBUTION OF THE SECRET TEAMS · TEAM COMPOSITIONS OVERVIEW · 5 PLAYER RULES", "sharpsignalDocId": 512}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Use the quick journey map for 5, 6 and 7 player games. Regardless of player count, you should play your first game on this map, just to get a feeling for the game. Once you feel familiar with the game, you may switch to the long journey map with all the components for games with 7+ players. Place th", "headingPath": "Contents · PREPARING THE MAP", "sharpsignalDocId": 512}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Depending on the number of players, place the corresponding The Crew card next to the map. 8 Find the right number of Sailor, Pirate and Cult Leader chips and put each one in a separate bag. 9 Shuffle the bags and distribute one to each player. Each player secretly checks their seabag . Their chip d", "headingPath": "DISTRIBUTION OF THE SECRET TEAMS · TEAM COMPOSITIONS OVERVIEW", "sharpsignalDocId": 512}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Choosing the captain or players chosen by the 'Minstrel' has no effect because they do not participate in a mutiny. The new captain appoints a new navigation team. You can not choose the captain , but you can choose a player chosen by the 'Minstrel'. Turning the 'Instigator' facedown means that it c", "headingPath": "Agitator · Chief Cook · Instigator · Character Cards · HOW TO ACTIVATE YOUR CHARACTER CARD", "sharpsignalDocId": 512}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "The game is divided into the following recurring phases: Appointing the navigation team A question of loyalty The navigation Off-duty The captain cannot navigate the ship alone. He needs the support of two crew members. After potentially discussing with the crew whom to appoint: \u0004 The captain choose", "headingPath": "After that the players receive their character cards: · 1. Appointing the Navigation Team · The following exceptions must be noted: · 2. A Question of Loyalty · Then following steps are carried out:", "sharpsignalDocId": 512}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "3 Contents These rules reference the deluxe components. If you have the basic version, take the same actions with the respective basic components. For example, when you are instructed to do something with the faction chips in bags take the action with the faction cards instead. 3 Kraken Miniatures 1", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 512}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "The navigation rounds are repeated until one of the victory conditions is met, see chapter 'Victory conditions' . Players reveal their faction at the end of the game by showing each other the faction chips from their sea bags. Every time the ship reaches a new space, check whether it shows one of th", "headingPath": "The End of the Game · MAP ACTIONS · Cabin Search · Off with the Tongue · Flogging", "sharpsignalDocId": 512}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Contents · PREPARING THE MAP", "sharpsignalDocId": 512}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Victory Conditions · Sailors · Pirates · Cult Leader & Cultists · The Secret Gathering of the Pirates · After that the players receive their character cards:", "sharpsignalDocId": 512}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 512 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 512 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 06:10

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 Feed the Kraken — Rulebook (corpus doc 512)	THE NEXT GAME ROUND BEGINS · RESHUFFLE	p.11	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 Feed the Kraken — Rulebook (corpus doc 512)	Setting up the game - Quick Journey · DISTRIBUTION OF THE SECRET TEAMS · TEAM COMPOSITIONS OVERVIEW · 5 PLAYER RULES	p.5	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 Feed the Kraken — Rulebook (corpus doc 512)	Contents · PREPARING THE MAP	p.4	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 Feed the Kraken — Rulebook (corpus doc 512)	DISTRIBUTION OF THE SECRET TEAMS · TEAM COMPOSITIONS OVERVIEW	p.7	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 Feed the Kraken — Rulebook (corpus doc 512)	Agitator · Chief Cook · Instigator · Character Cards · HOW TO ACTIVATE YOUR CHARACTER CARD	p.16	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 Feed the Kraken — Rulebook (corpus doc 512)	After that the players receive their character cards: · 1. Appointing the Navigation Team · The following exceptions must be noted: · 2. A Question of Loyalty · Then following steps are carried out:	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 Feed the Kraken — Rulebook (corpus doc 512)		p.3	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 Feed the Kraken — Rulebook (corpus doc 512)	The End of the Game · MAP ACTIONS · Cabin Search · Off with the Tongue · Flogging	p.13	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 Feed the Kraken — Rulebook (corpus doc 512)	Contents · PREPARING THE MAP	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Feed the Kraken — Rulebook (corpus doc 512)	Victory Conditions · Sailors · Pirates · Cult Leader & Cultists · The Secret Gathering of the Pirates · After that the players receive their character cards:	p.8	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 304 ms · first delta 6627 ms · total 9452 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 304 ms · ask 9138 ms · gateway work 9452 ms · total 9452 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3644
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 381
tok/sec: 137.3 tok/sec — 381 output tokens in 2.775 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 38s 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: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: BEGIN — "begin" / "beginning"
matched words (in the normalized question): beginning

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 443), 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.