RuleSage cited table rulings
← Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown

You asked

When does the game end?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknownbg-373600-en-1e

The game ends when the investigators either win or lose.[1]
Winning Conditions
* Players win the game when they kill the Elder One by defeating its Final Stage.[2][3]
Losing Conditions
* An investigator is killed or consumed by madness before the Elder One is summoned to the board (Stage I card).[2][3]
* All investigators are killed or consumed by madness after the Elder One is summoned (Stage II onward).[2]
* All investigators are eliminated.[3]
* The Progression token reaches the last (8th) space of the Summoning track.[2]
[1] RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook · p.18 · 3. CHECK THE MYTHOS DISCARD PILE · If there are 3 or more Elder One Summoning symbols: · The Elder One is summoned if: · 5. ELDER ONE END OF TURN EFFECTS
[2] RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook · p.20 · ENDING THE GAME
[3] RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook · p.28

That settles it — whose turn was it?

🔧 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 138 ms · ask 1907 ms · total 8541 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 6494 ms · generation 2047 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 20, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "Players win the game when they kill the Elder One by defeating its Final Stage. If multiple end-game triggers happen at the same time, winning conditions have precedence. EXAMPLE: The Elder One and the last investigator die at the same time. The players saved the world and win the game. Players lose", "headingPath": "ENDING THE GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 701}, {"page": 28, "score": 0.047883, "snippet": "• Once the current Elder One Stage loses all its health, move that card aside and resolve the Reveal effect of the next Stage. ENDING THE GAME Investigators all win if: • They defeat the Final Stage of the Elder One. Investigators all lose if: • An investigator is eliminated before the Elder One is ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 701}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.046176, "snippet": "A one-time effect that takes place when that card is revealed. An ongoing effect that remains in play until the end of the game. Health showing how many wounds that Stage can take. The number and type of dice that Stage adds to the Elder One's attacks. When a Stage has wounds equal to or greater tha", "headingPath": "Starting with Stage II, each card displays :", "sharpsignalDocId": 701}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.046032, "snippet": "When an investigator is killed or consumed by madness, the game is immediately lost if the Elder One is still on the Summoning track. If, however, the Elder One has already been summoned to the board, the other investigators may continue playing and trying to win the game. First, discard all Discove", "headingPath": "DEATH OF AN INVESTIGATOR · DISRUPTING THE RITUAL · FIGHTING THE ELDER ONE", "sharpsignalDocId": 701}, {"page": 18, "score": 0.04598, "snippet": "If there are 3 or more cards in the discard pile that have the Elder One Summoning symbol, the Elder One advances towards ultimate power! Advance the Elder One along the Summoning track. If the Elder One is already on the board, move the Progression token along the track instead. The revealed Elder ", "headingPath": "3. CHECK THE MYTHOS DISCARD PILE · If there are 3 or more Elder One Summoning symbols: · The Elder One is summoned if: · 5. ELDER ONE END OF TURN EFFECTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 701}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.045743, "snippet": "The Story board, used in every game, is the hub of information. The Summoning track shows the progression of the Elder One as it manifests into our world. The Elder One figure starts on the left part of the track and progresses to the right. When it enters a red space, it will be summoned (or earlie", "headingPath": "STORY BOARD · DISCOVERY CARDS", "sharpsignalDocId": 701}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "......................................................16 Defending Against Enemies ....................................................................17 4. RESOLVE END OF TURN ...................................................... 17 1. End of Turn Effects ..........................................", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 701}, {"page": 26, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "DEATH MAY DIE - RULES OF THE GAME Episode 4 – By Request of the Queen It’s no secret that stone bathed in blood retains the memories of those slain upon it. Such is the case with this castle, the semi-mythical home of Vlad the Impaler , lost in the mists of legends and even more terrible truths. Thi", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 701}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
[{"page": 18, "quote": null, "headingPath": "3. CHECK THE MYTHOS DISCARD PILE · If there are 3 or more Elder One Summoning symbols: · The Elder One is summoned if: · 5. ELDER ONE END OF TURN EFFECTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 701}, {"page": 20, "quote": null, "headingPath": "ENDING THE GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 701}, {"page": 28, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 701}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 701 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 701 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 0.88938 of 452 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded
Oct 24, 2026 21:44 UTC

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 rankdocumentheadingpage fused RRF scoresnippet chars
#1 RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) ENDING THE GAME p.20 0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1) 300
#2 RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) p.28 0.047883 (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 Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) Starting with Stage II, each card displays : p.19 0.046176 (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 Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) DEATH OF AN INVESTIGATOR · DISRUPTING THE RITUAL · FIGHTING THE ELDER ONE p.19 0.046032 (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 Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) 3. CHECK THE MYTHOS DISCARD PILE · If there are 3 or more Elder One Summoning symbols: · The Elder One is summoned if: · 5. ELDER ONE END OF TURN EFFECTS p.18 0.04598 (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 Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) STORY BOARD · DISCOVERY CARDS p.6 0.045743 (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 Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) p.2 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
#8 RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) p.26 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 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 55 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 atdocumentheadingpage fused rankfused RRF scorecarried byhow it got its slot
#1 RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) ENDING THE GAME p.20 #1 0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1) vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm the re-ranker chose it
#2 RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) Starting with Stage II, each card displays : p.19 #3 0.046176 (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
#3 RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) p.2 #7 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
#4 RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) 3. CHECK THE MYTHOS DISCARD PILE · If there are 3 or more Elder One Summoning symbols: · The Elder One is summoned if: · 5. ELDER ONE END OF TURN EFFECTS p.18 #5 0.04598 (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 Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) p.2 #44 0.009615 (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 Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) STORY BOARD · DISCOVERY CARDS p.6 #6 0.045743 (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
#7 RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) DEATH OF AN INVESTIGATOR · DISRUPTING THE RITUAL · FIGHTING THE ELDER ONE p.19 #4 0.046032 (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
#8 RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) p.28 #2 0.047883 (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

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.

#documentheadingpagequote chars
[1] RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) 3. CHECK THE MYTHOS DISCARD PILE · If there are 3 or more Elder One Summoning symbols: · The Elder One is summoned if: · 5. ELDER ONE END OF TURN EFFECTS p.18 no quote on the wire
[2] RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) ENDING THE GAME p.20 no quote on the wire
[3] RULEBOOK Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown — Rulebook (corpus doc 701) p.28 no quote on the wire
timing split
retrieval 138 ms · first delta 1329 ms · total 8541 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown
queued 6494 ms · retrieval 138 ms · ask 1907 ms · gateway work 2047 ms · total 8541 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
2304
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
132
tok/sec
203.7 tok/sec — 132 output tokens in 0.648 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 46s ago)
gateway schema (read from the running child)
schema head 0042_definer_search_path (live revision not readable by this principal)
answerer host (measured by rulesage)
reachable (for 5h, checked 9s 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.
outcome
ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered)
answered — no abstain rationale applies
decision
NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 634), 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.