A first age, step by step.
The charter sheet opens first. You have thirteen picks. Books buy access to a realm's spells — one book opens the first tier, three the second, five the third, seven the fourth — and retorts cost between one and three picks each.
If you would rather begin than deliberate, press Draw me a charter; it spends the whole budget on something coherent. Choose a weave (Fair is a good first one), a kindred, and how skilled the rivals are, then Take up the shuttle.
The right-hand ledger opens on the Loom. This is the game's one central decision. All the power your realm draws crosses one beam and is divided by three shuttles:
| Mana | spent on castings, summonings and battle magic. |
| Lore | learned toward the next spell in your book. |
| Reach | the ceiling on how much of either you may pour into any one season. A great working with a short reach takes many seasons. |
The left-hand column is everything that is true: the season's figures, the hold or company under the cursor, the standing of every rival, and the chronicle. Nothing there is a control. Everything you can do is on the right.
Click a hex and the map scrolls it to the middle of the glass. The arrow keys walk the cursor without the mouse. f fits the whole weave to the glass, h goes home to your seat, and p turns the weave over to the other plane.
Choose one of your companies and press m to set a march, or click set a march in the Host pane. W E A D Z X march one hex in each of the six directions.
For anywhere further, right-click the destination (or press o with the cursor on it). That is a standing order: the company walks there over as many seasons as it takes, and its road is drawn on the cloth.
Your wayfarers can found a hold. Take them four hexes clear of any other hold and press Found a hold.
Nodes are the wellsprings. A rosette on the cloth marks one; the colour is its realm. Most are guarded, so send enough. Once the guardians are gone, stand a company with a Loom Warden on the node and it is bound at the start of the next season, and its power joins your beam.
Enter, or End season. Your holds work, your companies eat, your loom turns, and the rival wizards take their seasons. Last season's report is at the top of the left column.
The Court pane is where you treat with rivals. A truce is twenty seasons of hands off. A pact does not run out. A gift of gold buys warmth, not promises. A demand for tribute is only paid by the frightened — and the asking is remembered either way.
You may break your word. It puts the two of you at war, and every other wizard hears of it and thinks less of you for it. They can break theirs, too.
| Conquest | every rival unwoven. |
| The Great Weaving | the ritual completed — four anchors of four realms first, then a very long casting. |
| The ledger | the best realm when the horizon arrives, counted in holds, souls and bound nodes. |
Losing your seat is not the end. The loom is carried to your largest surviving hold, at the cost of most of your mana. Only a wizard with nothing left is cast out.