The Deep

An expedition is a run of sealed fights under the Shore, paid for in gold and light, with a haul you only keep if you surface.

Fathom, the wickwarden, keeps the Wickhouse at the end of the sandbar. Every card on his board is one expedition. Every stage is a real fight against a real creature, using a snapshot of your cockle as it went down, so your gear and stats work exactly as they do in the Pit. The whole Shore shuts above you while you are down.

The board#

Fathom deals 6 cards every 3 days, one per rarity from common to legendary. You can swap one unfinished card, picked at random, for a fresh one of its rarity once a day.

Finish all 6 before the board resets and you get a clear bonus, priced off the dearest card: 80 wins’ worth of gold and the same again in XP, a coldstar shard and an Abyssal Ember, 2 pieces of legendary or better gear, and the best charm your level allows. The board shows all of it before you start. Past the 6 cards is the fortnight’s primordial beast (see the beasts below).

Every band of card, with its lock, its stages, what it costs and what finishing pays
Band	Holds you	Stages	Fathom’s fee	Burns	Finish bonus
common	10 minutes	3	2 wins’ gold	2 tallow wicks	6 wins’ gold, and the XP
uncommon	45 minutes	4	4 wins’ gold	1 glow-jelly and 1 tallow wick	10 wins’ gold, and the XP
rare	2 hours	5	7 wins’ gold	1 whale-oil flask and 1 glow-jelly	16 wins’ gold, and the XP
epic	5 hours	6	12 wins’ gold	1 drowned lantern and 1 whale-oil flask	26 wins’ gold, and the XP
mythic	12 hours	7	20 wins’ gold	1 lanternfish eye and 1 drowned lantern	32 wins’ gold, and the XP
legendary	24 hours	8	32 wins’ gold	1 coldstar shard and 1 lanternfish eye	50 wins’ gold, and the XP
primordial	3 days	10	80 wins’ gold	2 coldstar shards and 1 lanternfish eye	120 wins’ gold, and the XP

A win’s worth is the gold a rival of your level pays (see Progression), so a card costs the same number of fights at any level.

Sealed a stage at a time#

Going down seals the first stage. The fight is decided the moment you press, and you see nothing until the stage’s light burns out. A stage is a boss, a Deep beast, a treasure, still water (heals you to full) or a squall (takes 20% of your health). The last stage of every card is its end beast. Wounds carry between fights: after a win you recover 35% of your health.

When the light is out, the stage is revealed. After a win you pick 1 of 3 rewards. Each rolls its own rarity, from the card’s rarity up to 2 above it (a primordial card can reach primordial): gold, a light, a temper or an essence, a named charm, a second wind that heals a share of your health, or on the primordial rung a piece of deep gear. The last stage always offers the beast’s own hoard.

Take one, then surface with everything banked, or press on, which seals the next stage. Nothing is paid until you surface. A fall loses the lot.

While an expedition is on your record, the whole Shore is shut except the Wickhouse and the Tidewatch. While a light burns, nobody can attack you. Between the reveal and your choice you are adrift, and rivals can reach you. You can turn back while a light burns, keeping the haul and skipping the fight.

The fall#

Lose a revealed fight and you fall. The Deep keeps the whole haul, and every equipped gear piece comes up at the bottom of the wear scale (see The Forge). Each equipped piece may also be lost: 5% for a common, scaled down by the rarity’s wear resistance (a primordial at 2%).

A lost piece becomes a wreck. It goes into the wreck pool with its roll and forge level intact, and each day has a chance of showing up at Shuckster’s Stall as the Salvage of the Day: 20% the first day, 10% more each day after, capped at 90%. It sells for 50% of the catalogue price to whoever gets there first, including you. You can’t buy it if you already carry that piece.

The lights#

A card burns its rarity’s light and the one below it. Lights can’t be bought. They drop from won fights, a beaten boss pays them 8x over, Deep 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 common and uncommon cards.
Glow-Jelly	uncommon	12	6%	Lights uncommon and rare cards.
Whale-Oil Flask	rare	8	4%	Lights rare and epic cards.
Drowned Lantern	epic	4	2%	Lights epic and mythic cards.
Lanternfish Eye	mythic	2	1%	Lights mythic, legendary and primordial cards.
Coldstar Shard	legendary	2	0.4%	Lights legendary and primordial cards.
Abyssal Ember	primordial	1	0.1%	Swaps the primordial card for a different one.

The beasts#

Each rarity has 2 beasts for the rotating cards, plus 16 primordials past them. A beast fights at its rarity’s boss strength and pays like a boss. The 16 primordials fight a little above legendary.

One primordial rises for you at a time, dealt every fortnight from those your level has unlocked, with 3 days to beat it. An Abyssal Ember, the rarest thing the Deep pays, swaps it early for another. Each primordial has a gear set of its own, and beating one always pays the next piece of its set you lack.

Every card states its finish reward on its face: the beast’s gold and XP, and one named gear piece (2 on a legendary or primordial card), with a primordial’s own set piece first.

Every beast of the Deep by band, and the level the sixteen 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 First Hunger	primordial	level 80
The Last Great Tortoise of Kaltiden	primordial	level 100
The Keeper of the Trench	primordial	level 120
The Breathing Reef	primordial	level 140
The Siren Queen	primordial	level 150
The Breaker	primordial	level 170
The Riptide Shoal	primordial	level 190
The Kraken	primordial	level 200
The Salt Magistrate	primordial	level 220
The Leviathan	primordial	level 250
The Wrecklight Angler	primordial	level 270
Neptune	primordial	level 300
The Harbour Below	primordial	level 330
The Long-Fingered Dark	primordial	level 360
Poseidon	primordial	level 400

28 beasts in all.

What is told of them

28 beasts

The Lamprey Knot
A dozen lampreys that fastened onto one another in the dark and never let go. It moves like a rope thrown by somebody who hates you.
The Drift Hulk
The bow of something, walking. Whatever crewed it is still aboard in the sense that matters, and it has kept the anchor.
The Salt Wight
What the brine makes of a cockle that stayed down too long: the shell, the salt, and an opinion. It remembers the surface fondly and you not at all.
The Saltglass Crab
A crab grown its shell out of the drowned panes of some wreck's stern windows. You can see right into it. It does not care for that either.
The Shelf Hag
She lives on the black shelf where the cold pools thickest and she has been expecting you specifically. She keeps a list. You are on it.
The Ninefold Eel
One eel, nine times over, or nine eels agreeing on one idea. The count changes while you are looking. The idea is you.
The Drowned Harbourmaster
There was a harbour out past the sandbars once, and this kept it, and the harbour is gone and the keeping is not. It still asks for papers.
The Barnacle Cathedral
Something the size of a hall, so encrusted that the thing under the barnacles has not been seen in living memory. It sings on the low tide. Nobody has stayed for the second verse.
The Siren's Last Note
The Sirens are gone. The note they were holding is not. It is down here in the dark with nothing to sing it to, and it has found you.
The Trench Mother
What lives at the top of the trench and eats what the trench sends up. What the Trench Sent Up escaped her once. She has not forgotten it.
The Kraken's Reach
One arm. The rest of it is further down and has not troubled to follow. The arm is enough.
The Tortoise's Shadow
The Last Great Tortoise of Kaltiden could not be killed by anything on the Shore. This is the shadow it cast, still down here, still impervious, still moving.
The Giant Oyster
The Oyster that ruled the Shallows for a thousand tides did not die. It went deeper, and it took the Shallows' whole ambition with it. It has swallowed reckless cockles whole; it has never once bothered to spit one out.
The First Hunger
Before the Shallows had a name something was already eating in them, and the first blow ever struck on the Shore was struck at it and missed. It has been hungry since, and it took the hunger with it when it went down.
The Last Great Tortoise of Kaltiden
Impervious to every weapon on the Shore. Past tense, the lore says, and will not say why. The Tortoise is down here in the black water, and the past tense was somebody's hope.
The Keeper of the Trench
Whatever goes down the trench stays, and this is why. It has the seams of everything the trench ever swallowed grown into it, cold and salted, and it steadies itself on the lot.
The Breathing Reef
A reef the size of a harbour that draws breath twice an hour. Gills the length of a jetty, roe in every fold, and a second wind for every one you take from it.
The Siren Queen
The Sirens did not sing to thin the waters of the slow; their queen sings to end arguments. She left Shallowmere last, and she left the argument unfinished, and she is down here finishing it.
The Breaker
The wave that took the first harbour, still breaking, a mile down where no wave should be. It finds the seam in a shell the way water finds the seam in a hull.
The Riptide Shoal
A shoal that runs faster than the water it runs in, and drags the water after it. Ten thousand fish with one idea, and the idea is the far side of you.
The Kraken
Eyes the size of boulders, no fear at all, and a long memory for the pieces of itself that have gone missing. It has noticed you. It has been noticing you since the sandbars.
The Salt Magistrate
The Brine Court sat once, at the bottom, on the matter of the Shore, and this was the bench. It stings, it salts, and it has never once found for the defendant.
The Leviathan
Its lung capacity is measured in grottos and its biology has been studied entirely through the pieces of it that came up. This is the rest of it. The cold it carries is the cold the trench is famous for.
The Wrecklight Angler
An angler whose lure is the lamp of a sunken lighthouse, still lit. Everything that ever sank is drawn to it, charms and tempers and the deep gear, and most of it is still down there in its teeth.
Neptune
Older than Poseidon and less patient, with a trident that shattered at Brine's End and a temper that did not. He wants the shards back. He has decided you are carrying one whether or not you are.
The Harbour Below
Shallowmere was not the first town on this water. The first is down here, whole, with its works still running and its shelter still let, and something wearing it the way a hermit wears a shell.
The Long-Fingered Dark
Nobody has seen it. That is its whole method. Purses come up lighter from the Deep, charms come up missing, and the only thing anyone has ever brought back of it is the feeling of having been gone through.
Poseidon
The god of the sea, and the only god who has ever directly intervened in cockle affairs. He has not been seen since the Midnight Ebb. He is here, and he has been deliberating, and he is done.

The Tidebound sets#

On the Main Shore, a primordial card’s final stage pays a piece of deep gear, unrevealed, into your inventory. In a season it pays a piece of the beast’s own Tidebound set instead, the next one you don’t own, equipped with a fixed roll: never rerolled, recast or revealed, and grown by the Forge alone. That is on top of the beast’s own set piece.

Tidebound is a place, not a power level. The 7 sets sit beside the primordial sets, never above them, and come home with your cockle when the season ends.

The seven Tidebound sets and what each is for
Set	Theme
The Oyster’s Grip	the shell that closes, and keeps what it closes on
The Last Hide	impervious, and the Shore stopped asking why
The Queen’s Syllable	one word, and the argument is over
The Kraken’s Count	every arm it has, and it has been counting them
The Trench Cold	the cold the Leviathan carries up, worn
The Shattered Trident	three prongs of four, and the fourth still out there
The Whole Sea	the sea, let loose, after a long deliberation