Cocklefighting

What a cast is#

Every table in this wiki prints an item’s MIDPOINT. The copy you own is CAST against it, the way an affix rolls in the dungeon crawlers: each of its numbers lands somewhere in a band around the printed figure, and rare and better shapes roll extra knacks of their own on top of the craft trait they were made with. THE ROLL IS THE PRESS: a piece of gear is cast the moment you buy it at the Stall, and a charm the moment Mother Murk sets it in the light. Until then the card’s eye shows the range each figure will roll in, beside the figure. A charm plundered off a rival keeps the cast it came with, and a trophy’s charm is cast as it is handed over. The cast is the copy’s for good: it follows a charm to a thief, it is what the forge sharpens and the brine dulls, and it is what the printed win odds price. The bare starters and every rival bot wear the plain midpoint.

What the roll ADDED wears the dice and the cast’s gold: a rolled knack in a piece’s knack line and a rolled grain stat, on the card and in your sheet’s knacks. A base figure that landed in its band is still the piece’s own figure and wears no mark; the Lustre line on every card, and the ranges behind its eye, tell that story. A charm in the hold shows nothing of its roll until Mother Murk sets it in the light.

The bands, by rarity#

A piece’s main stat rolls on one fraction and its channels (bites, wards, a shell’s vitality, a pearl’s grants, a fin’s afflict rating) on a second, so a keen edge can sit on a dull channel. A charm rolls every number it carries on one fraction. The band is the rarity’s: a common swings 6% either way of the midpoint, a legendary 18%. The knack slots say how many barbs the band rolls, up to three; every band above rare can roll more than one.

The knacks and their ranges#

Seven knacks can roll, each from a pool that suits the slot: a weapon rolls the striking knacks, a shell the standing ones, a charm any of the seven. A rolled knack lands somewhere in its base range, then the band’s strength scales it, so a legendary’s crit chance can roll to 6% where a rare’s tops out at 4%. Rolled knacks fold into your kit’s knacks under exactly the same caps as crafted ones (see craft traits), and every upgrade grows the whole of a cast: a forge level grows a piece’s numbers, its rolled knacks and its grains together, and a wakening grows a charm’s the same way (see the Forge and Wakening).

The same ranges after the band’s strength, which is what a rolled knack can actually read on a piece of each rarity:

The grains: rolled stats#

Rare and better bands also roll GRAINS, the Shore’s word for a rolled stat (a knack that rolls in is a BARB): flat points on one of the five base stats (Attack, Defence, Speed, Health or Elemental), each on a different stat, each landing between half and the whole of the band’s share. The band’s slots say how many, up to 3; the knacks are the barbs, up to 3 as well, so a piece carries at most 6 rolls. On gear each share is of the piece’s own main rating, so a deeper tier rolls a bigger grain; on a charm it is flat points by band that waken with the charm. A grain is the piece’s own gear on your sheet: it sits inside that piece’s chip on the stat it landed on, and the card lists each with its own die. The name says both halves.

How a cast is named#

A cast piece is named for what it rolled, strongest first. The barbs name the front of a piece: one lends its front word; two take their combo word when the pair has one, else the strongest’s front word and the second’s end word. A grain names the end, and when the cast has one it takes the end over a barb’s word. So one Tidebreaker is a Keen Tidebreaker, another an Executioner’s Tidebreaker of Vigour, and the two are never the same piece. The name travels with a charm when it is stolen.

Lustre#

Every card says how good its copy is as one figure, its LUSTRE: the mean of every fraction that was rolled (the numbers, each barb, each grain), with the barb and grain slots read against the most the band allows. 50% is the printed midpoint; 100% tops every range with every slot filled. The figure wears the rarity band the percent falls in, in that band’s own colour, so a legendary that rolled like a rare reads rare at a glance, and a copy at 97% or better on every range with every slot filled is a perfect cast, which the Tidemark carves.

Reading a roll#

Open the eye on any item card and every figure on it shows, beside itself, the range it rolled in, the rolled knacks and grains included; on a copy not yet cast, the range it will roll in and how many barbs and grains it may draw. Your sheet says the same thing in total: the gold roll chip under a stat is what your copies rolled above or below the midpoint on that row, beside the gear chip and the magic chip, so the chips still add up to the figure above them.

Duds go back#

Old Shuckster buys any piece you are not wearing for 35% of its chalked price; Anvilback salvages it for less gold and a roll on its band’s tempers; Mother Murk disenchants a charm for a bounty, once, and a roll on its essences (see the Forge and Magic items). The cast goes with it, and the shelf or the sea will hand you the same shape again, cast afresh.