v0.53 24 October 2026

A stone chessboard in the Sanctuary, and quieter fires

• The Sanctuary & its games

• Quieter fires:
  • Fire-walk trial: the jets' hiss is now -17 dB (was -6) and the roar -13 dB (was -1). At most two flame sounds can start in any 0.35 s, so a row of jets firing together no longer stacks into a wall of noise.
  • Ivory Pocket hearth: now -14 dB, heard only within 11 m (was 24 m). Campfires take a and a.
• The stone board: a chessboard in the Sanctuary courtyard, between the fire and the stash and clear of the archery lane.
  • A carved board of light and dark stone with a granite border (gilt line, files and ranks cut in on both sides), on an eight-sided gothic pedestal.
  • Two stone stools, and an iron brazier for light at night.
  • The pieces are limestone and polished basalt: a hooded pawn, a crenellated rook with arrow slits, a mitred bishop, a horse-head knight, a queen with eight spires and an orb, and a king with a cross.
• Playing:
  • Sit at either stool. Click one of your pieces and the squares it can move to light up: dots for moves, rings for captures, a gold square under the piece.
  • The last move and a king in check are marked on the board.
  • Pieces glide across (the knight hops), taken pieces are knocked aside to the slab's ledge, and the rook comes round on castling.
  • En passant and promotion work as they should; promotion asks which piece (Q, R, B, N).
  • Stone-on-stone sounds for a move and a capture, and a low knell for check.
• The rules: written from scratch and verified by perft against the standard positions (start, Kiwipete and others). Checkmate, stalemate, the fifty-move rule, threefold repetition and insufficient material are all judged.
• Skeletons to play, each with a rating (Elo):
  • The engine is alpha-beta with quiescence and piece-square tables. It runs on a worker thread, so the game never stutters.
  • The weaker skeletons are kept loose with bounded noise and the odd slip, and all of them play real openings from a small book.
  • The skeleton sits across from you and reaches out to move his pieces.
• Your rating: every character has their own chess rating, starting at 1000. It moves after each game by the standard Elo formula, faster over your first 20 games.
• Player v player: open the board for a stake. The first player to sit down across from you and match it takes you on. Draw offers, resigning and walking away are all handled.
• For gold: stakes run from friendly to 1,000 each, and the winner takes both. On a draw, both stakes go back.
• The screens: the same polish as the pool tables.
  • Setup: pick your opponent from cards (rating, skill, stake cap), then your colour and the stake. Shows your bank and rating, a line summing up the game, and Set up the board (Enter).
  • In play: a plate either side of the header with name, rating, colour, the pieces they've taken and the material lead, lit on their move and red in check. The moves so far run down the right, with a bar for draw and resign plus a line on what you're holding.
  • Game over: a result banner with the gold and your rating change.
  • Esc: a menu.
• Networking: host-authoritative like the pool tables. Every machine works out the legal moves itself so the board lights up instantly, and the host checks each move. PROTOCOL is now 20.

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