Ruling — Escape the Dark Castle

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Escape the Dark Castlebg-227456-en-1e

The object of the game is to overcome every card in the castle deck while keeping everyone in your group alive.[1] You win by defeating the Boss, but you lose if any character is killed.[2][1]

Setup

1. Shuffle the chapter cards and deal 15 face-down to form the castle deck.[3]

2. Shuffle the boss cards and place 1 face-down underneath the castle deck.[3]

3. Place the Start Card on top of the castle deck, with the image of the castle face-up.[3]

4. Shuffle the item card deck and place it face down to the right of the castle deck.[3]

5. Place the chapter dice in a pool above the castle deck.[3]

6. Lay out the character cards and corresponding character dice.[3]

7. Each player chooses a character, places the card face-up, and takes the corresponding character die.[3]

8. Set starting health points (hp) based on the number of players: 1 or 2 players (18hp each), 3 players (14hp each), or 4 players (12hp each).[3]

Gameplay

1. As a group, decide which player will turn the first chapter card.[2]

2. Turn the chapter card face-up to the left of the castle deck.[2]

3. Read the italic text aloud to set the scene and follow the instructions on the card to complete the chapter (such as making choices, rolling dice, or using items).[2]

4. Continue turning and completing chapter cards one by one.[2]

5. When instructed to draw item cards, draw them face-up, then decide as a group how they are distributed.[4]

6. After completing a chapter, choose which player will turn the next chapter card.[5]

Combat

1. When instructed to begin combat, set up by placing chapter dice beneath the chapter card to match the symbols shown at the bottom of the card.[6]

2. If the symbol indicates, roll a chapter die for each player in the game and add those to the dice beneath the chapter card.[6]

3. Before each round, decide if any player is going to rest.[6][5]

4. Each participating player simultaneously rolls their die to make an attack.[6]

5. Resolve attacks one at a time in any order the players choose.[6]

6. If a player's roll matches any chapter die, they remove a corresponding chapter die to score a hit; doubles count as two hits and also count as a block.[6]

7. If any chapter dice remain after all attacks are resolved, the enemy attacks back; every character who did not block takes damage equal to the enemy's attack value.[5]

8. A round ends, and players begin the next round by deciding who will fight and who will rest.[5]

9. Continue rounds until the enemy is defeated (all chapter dice removed) or a player is killed.[5]

10. If the enemy is defeated, draw one item card.[5]

Resting

1. At the beginning of a combat round, one player can choose to rest.[5]

2. A resting player does not roll to attack, does not take damage, and cannot use items.[5]

3. The resting player gains 1hp for each round they rest.[5]

4. The resting player can rejoin combat at the beginning of any round they choose.[5]

[1] RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook · p.3 · Welcome, prisoner... · The Object of the Game

[2] RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook · p.6 · 3) Set Health Points · Turn Order · Turning Chapter Cards · Completing Chapters & winning the game · Tip: You'll find an FAQ on how specific chapter cards work at themeborne.com/faq

[3] RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook · p.5 · 1) Create the Castle · 2) Choose characters · 3) Set Health Points

[4] RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook · p.7 · Drawing Items · Carrying Items · Trading Items · Using Items

[5] RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook · p.9 · 2) Defend · Defeating an Enemy · After Combat · Combat Specials · Resting

[6] RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook · p.8 · Using Items · Combat Rounds · 1) Attack

The sage rests. The game continues.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 93 ms · ask 5163 ms · total 43416 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 38157 ms · generation 5259 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 10, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "Escape the Dark Castle is designed to be as good with 1 player as it is with 4. To play a solo game, simply choose any two characters and begin the game as normal. You will make all the decisions and dice rolls yourself. There are just two things to note: You must decide which of your two characters", "headingPath": "Resting", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.047379, "snippet": "Shuffle the chapter cards and deal 15 face-down to form the castle deck. Shuffle the boss cards and place 1 face-down underneath the castle deck. Place the Start Card on top of the castle deck, with the image of the castle face-up. Shuffle the item card deck and place it face down to the right of th", "headingPath": "1) Create the Castle · 2) Choose characters · 3) Set Health Points", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.046244, "snippet": "Solo Play.............................................................................. 10 Escape the Dark Castle is a simple, fantasy adventure game for 1-4 players, with a focus on atmosphere, storytelling, and fun - perfect for newcomers to tabletop gaming. It takes 2 minutes to set up, lasts aro", "headingPath": "Welcome, prisoner... · The Object of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Whenever you are told to begin combat , this instruction applies to all players. First set up combat by placing chapter dice beneath the chapter card, matching the symbols shown at the bottom of the chapter card. This row of dice represents what it will take to defeat the enemy. This symbol means yo", "headingPath": "Using Items · Combat Rounds · 1) Attack", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Gameplay involves turning over the chapter cards one by one, and completing the challenges revealed. There is no turn order. Instead, you must decide as a group which player will turn each chapter card. But be warned, chapters sometimes contain grisly consequences which only apply to the player that", "headingPath": "3) Set Health Points · Turn Order · Turning Chapter Cards · Completing Chapters & winning the game · Tip: You'll find an FAQ on how specific chapter cards work at themeborne.com/faq", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "If any chapter dice remain after each character's attack has been fully resolved, the enemy is still alive and attacks back! Every character who did not block takes damage simultaneously, losing hp equal to the attack value of the enemy (found at the bottom right of the chapter card): Characters who", "headingPath": "2) Defend · Defeating an Enemy · After Combat · Combat Specials · Resting", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Item cards are drawn when the text of a chapter card says so, and also after combat (see pg.9). When instructed to draw a number of item cards, first draw and place them face-up where all players can see, then decide as a group how the items will be distributed. Each character can carry a maximum of", "headingPath": "Drawing Items · Carrying Items · Trading Items · Using Items", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "Track your prisoner's stats in style with the Escape the Dark Castle Companion App , featuring atmospheric sound and animation to enhance the tabletop experience. Track prisoner HP and PLAGUE Manage Companion characters FREE integrated Death Book Access digital rules and FAQ Solo or local network mu", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Welcome, prisoner... · The Object of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "3) Set Health Points · Turn Order · Turning Chapter Cards · Completing Chapters & winning the game · Tip: You'll find an FAQ on how specific chapter cards work at themeborne.com/faq", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1) Create the Castle · 2) Choose characters · 3) Set Health Points", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Drawing Items · Carrying Items · Trading Items · Using Items", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "2) Defend · Defeating an Enemy · After Combat · Combat Specials · Resting", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Using Items · Combat Rounds · 1) Attack", "sharpsignalDocId": 1260}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1260 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1260 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)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.89281 of 2407 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 7, 2026 03:12 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

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 Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	Resting	p.10	0.04866 (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 Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	1) Create the Castle · 2) Choose characters · 3) Set Health Points	p.5	0.047379 (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 Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	Welcome, prisoner... · The Object of the Game	p.3	0.046244 (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 Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	Using Items · Combat Rounds · 1) Attack	p.8	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
#5	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	3) Set Health Points · Turn Order · Turning Chapter Cards · Completing Chapters & winning the game · Tip: You'll find an FAQ on how specific chapter cards work at themeborne.com/faq	p.6	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
#6	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	2) Defend · Defeating an Enemy · After Combat · Combat Specials · Resting	p.9	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
#7	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	Drawing Items · Carrying Items · Trading Items · Using Items	p.7	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
#8	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)		p.2	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

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 12 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	Resting	p.10	#1	0.04866 (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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	Using Items · Combat Rounds · 1) Attack	p.8	#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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	3) Set Health Points · Turn Order · Turning Chapter Cards · Completing Chapters & winning the game · Tip: You'll find an FAQ on how specific chapter cards work at themeborne.com/faq	p.6	#5	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	Welcome, prisoner... · The Object of the Game	p.3	#3	0.046244 (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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)		p.4	#9	0.014493 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	2) Defend · Defeating an Enemy · After Combat · Combat Specials · Resting	p.9	#6	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	Drawing Items · Carrying Items · Trading Items · Using Items	p.7	#7	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	1) Create the Castle · 2) Choose characters · 3) Set Health Points	p.5	#2	0.047379 (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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	Welcome, prisoner... · The Object of the Game	p.3	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	3) Set Health Points · Turn Order · Turning Chapter Cards · Completing Chapters & winning the game · Tip: You'll find an FAQ on how specific chapter cards work at themeborne.com/faq	p.6	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	1) Create the Castle · 2) Choose characters · 3) Set Health Points	p.5	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	Drawing Items · Carrying Items · Trading Items · Using Items	p.7	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	2) Defend · Defeating an Enemy · After Combat · Combat Specials · Resting	p.9	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Escape the Dark Castle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1260)	Using Items · Combat Rounds · 1) Attack	p.8	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 93 ms · first delta 1417 ms · total 43416 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 38157 ms · retrieval 93 ms · ask 5163 ms · gateway work 5259 ms · total 43416 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2804
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 750
tok/sec: 201.1 tok/sec — 750 output tokens in 3.730 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 11s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 1s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
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 1190), 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.