Cocklefighting

Past the sandbars the water goes black. Fathom, the wickwarden, keeps the Wickhouse at the sandbar’s end and lights the way down: every card on his board is a delve, priced in gold and in light, and the whole Shore shuts above you while you are down. Every stage of a delve is a real fight against a real creature, from a snapshot of your cockle as it went down, so your gear and stats drive the Deep exactly as they drive the Pit.

The board#

Fathom deals six cards, one a band from common to legendary, every 3 shore days, on your own dice. One card you have not finished can be swapped for a fresh one once a shore day. Finish all six before the block turns and Fathom pays a clear: 80 wins’ worth of gold and a Coldstar Shard. Past the six stand the SEVEN: the primordial cards, one for each of the great beasts of the lore, a week each, level-gated, never swapped and never finished for good.

A win’s worth is the plunder a rival of your level pays (see Progression), so a card costs the same number of fights at level ten as at level nine hundred.

Sealed a stage at a time#

Going down seals the first stage: the fight is decided the moment you press, and nothing of it shows until the stage’s light burns down. A stage is a terror of the Shore, a beast of the Deep, a treasure, still water (the shell fills) or a squall (the water takes 20% of it); the last stage of every card is its end beast. Between fights your wounds are carried: a survived fight recovers 35% of the whole shell before the next.

When the light is out the stage is revealed. A survived stage offers a pick of three: a purse, lights, tempers or essences, a magic item deep enough down, a second wind worth 50% of the shell, and on the last stage the card’s own bonus. Take one, then surface with everything you have banked, or press on, which seals the next stage at that press. Nothing is paid until you surface: the haul is banked, and a fall loses the lot.

The record holds you and the clock keeps rivals off, the ring’s own laws: while a delve is on your record the whole Shore is shut but the Wickhouse and the Tidewatch, and while a stage’s light burns nobody can touch you. Between the reveal and the choice you are adrift, and the Pit can reach you, which is what brings a player back. You may turn back while a light burns, keeping the haul and giving up the stage unfought.

The fall#

Lose a revealed fight and you fell. The Deep keeps the whole haul, every worn priced piece comes up at the bottom of the wear scale (see The Forge), and each worn piece may be KEPT: 5% for a common, scaled down by the band’s wear resistance (a primordial at 2%). A kept piece is a WRECK: it goes into the realm’s wreck pool with its cast and forge level still on it, and every shore day has a chance of being chalked up at Old Shuckster’s as the Salvage of the Day, 20% the first day and 10% more each day after, to a cap of 90%. It sells for 50% of the catalogue price to whoever reaches it first, the owner as readily as anyone, and a cockle already carrying one of that piece cannot buy it.

The lights#

A card burns its band’s light and the one below it. Lights cannot be bought: they wash up from won fights, a slain terror pays them 8× over, the Deep’s own treasures pay them back, and every new cockle starts with 2 tallow wicks.

The six lights, common first, with their holds and drop odds

Light	Band	Hold	Per win	For
Tallow Wick	common	20	12%	Lights the shortest delves; a common card burns two.
Glow-Jelly	uncommon	12	6%	Lights an uncommon card; burns cold for a couple of hours.
Whale-Oil Flask	rare	8	4%	Lights a rare card; a flask burns for a quarter of a day.
Drowned Lantern	epic	4	2%	Lights an epic card; burns half a day on whatever it burns.
Lanternfish Eye	mythic	2	1%	Lights a mythic card; sees a whole day into the black.
Coldstar Shard	legendary	1	0.4%	Lights the legendary and primordial cards; burns for days and never warms.

The beasts#

Two a band for the rotating cards, and the seven standing past them. A beast fights at its band’s terror factor and pays as a terror does; the seven fight a hair past the legendary’s.

Every beast of the Deep by band, and the level the seven rise for

Beast	Band	Rises for
The Lamprey Knot	common	any card
The Drift Hulk	common	any card
The Salt Wight	uncommon	any card
The Saltglass Crab	uncommon	any card
The Shelf Hag	rare	any card
The Ninefold Eel	rare	any card
The Drowned Harbourmaster	epic	any card
The Barnacle Cathedral	epic	any card
The Siren's Last Note	mythic	any card
The Trench Mother	mythic	any card
The Kraken's Reach	legendary	any card
The Tortoise's Shadow	legendary	any card
The Giant Oyster	primordial	level 60
The Last Great Tortoise of Kaltiden	primordial	level 100
The Siren Queen	primordial	level 150
The Kraken	primordial	level 200
The Leviathan	primordial	level 250
Neptune	primordial	level 300
Poseidon	primordial	level 400

19 beasts in all.

The Tidebound sets#

On the Standing Shore a primordial card’s final pays a piece of the deep gear, dark, into the hold. On a Great Tide it pays a piece of the beast’s own Tidebound set instead, the next you do not own, onto the hooks with its cast WRITTEN: every die authored, never turned, drawn, recast or lit, and grown by the forge alone. Tidebound is a place, not a power level: the seven sets sit beside the primordial sets, never past them, and come home with your cockle when the Tide turns.