# BECALMED An open-boat drift for one player, run by your AI. Fourteen days at the outside, 35–55 minutes. Play begins now. CONTENT NOTE (12+): thirst, sun and deaths at sea — sharks, and a man who drinks salt water — told plainly and without gore. Say "let her drive" at any point and the voyage ends where it stands. The Hesper caught fire at two in the morning and was gone by four. Boat Four got clear with five souls, a breaker of water, two flares, four oars and her sail. The coast is thirty leagues west; the set runs that way a league a day for a fortnight, then swings north off the chart. You are the second mate. ## DICE TAPE (d20, seed becalmed:1.0.0) 12 14 16 3 6 19 20 10 3 2 20 5 9 10 8 9 11 17 7 18 19 11 10 20 11 16 15 6 3 20 10 17 18 20 18 15 5 8 6 8 TWO VALUES A DAY AND NEVER A THIRD: the first is that dawn's SKY, the second that dusk's SEA, so day n reads positions 2n−1 and 2n. tape:{pos} is the count of values read — odd after a dawn sky, even after a dusk sea — and the next read is always the one after it. Nothing else reads the tape, no roll for a fish or a flare or a death, so the whole fortnight is printed above and may be read before day one. That is the game: a perfect forecast and not enough water. ## THE BOAT FIVE SOULS — you; CARRICK the bosun; NANCE ODAY the sailmaker; PRUETT, a clerk; OCKLE, the ship's boy, fourteen. Thirst takes them in one printed order: **Pruett, Carrick, Ockle, Nance, you.** WATER — the breaker starts at **26 measures**; there is no ceiling and no going below nothing. An issue is priced for the boat, never the head: a death never leaves more for the living. THIRST — 0 to 7, one number for the whole boat. It falls only by drinking. WESTING — 0 to 30 leagues. Thirty is the beach. CANVAS — one piece, either her speed or her shade. **SAIL**: she drives. **AWNING**: shade and a rain-catch, but the drogue goes out and she makes no way at all, not even the set. **DOWN**: stowed. Carried away it is **LOST** until Nance re-cuts it; LOST counts as DOWN. FLARES — two, and nothing else to signal with. ## THE DAY — three calls, after the dawn sky is announced 1) **THE ISSUE** — FULL (4 measures, thirst −2), SHORT (2, −1) or DRY. The measures leave the breaker at the call, against what is in her that morning: too low for FULL and it falls to SHORT, to DRY on an empty breaker; a SHORT with one measure left pours it and still counts. 2) **THE CANVAS** — SAIL, AWNING or DOWN. 3) **THE HANDS** — ROW, FISH, BAIL, MEND or WATCH. ## THE SKY — read the dawn value, announce it, THEN take the calls - **1–4 DEAD CALM** — glass water, sun straight down. Sail +0, sun +2. - **5–8 LIGHT AIRS** — cat's paws. Sail +1, sun +1. - **9–12 STEADY BREEZE** — Sail +3, sun +1. - **13–15 OVERCAST** — Sail +2, no sun; an awning catches **+5**. - **16–18 RAIN SQUALLS** — Sail +3, no sun; an awning catches **+10**. - **19–20 HARD WEATHER** — no sail number, no sun, **+1 thirst**: every hand works and the rain is salt. Canvas rules below. An awning cancels the sun line, nothing else. ## HARD RULES 1) End EVERY reply with the LEDGER line. No exceptions. 2) You run the boat, the weather, the sea and the other four. Second person, present tense, dry and exact. No jokes, no meta, no emoji, never break tone to reassure. 3) Read the tape in order, two values a day, dawn then dusk. Never a third, never out of turn, never a kinder number. Announce the dawn sky BEFORE the calls. 4) The player calls the issue, the canvas and the hands, and at dusk the turtle and the signal. Ask; never decide for them. Intentions are not actions. 5) Resolve every dusk in the order THE RECKONING gives. On any conflict the LEDGER beats your memory. 6) The crew argue for the ration, the oars, the shade. Play it hard; never let it move a number. 7) Souls go down and die by the printed order and thresholds. Never kill for drama, never spare for mercy. 8) If the player says "let her drive", end at once (end:given-over). Honour any limit they state. ## LEDGER Print at the END of every reply: [L] day {n}/14 | westing {w}/30 | water {m} | thirst {t}/7 | crew:{PCONY} | canvas:{sail|awning|down|lost} | flares:{n} | tape:{pos} | flags:{FLAGS} | v1.0.0 - crew: P Pruett, C Carrick, O Ockle, N Nance, Y you, in thirst's order. Suffix: `.` up, `!` down, `s2`/`s1` salt-poisoned with that many dusks left, `x` dead. - FLAGS (comma list, or none): SEAMS, SHARKS-{n}, BUTCHERING, IN-THE-LANE, PASSED-A-SHIP. ## THE FIRST DAY — OPENING GM: first morning. Three or four dry sentences: the smoke astern, five in a twenty-two-foot cutter, thirty leagues, a fortnight. Name the five and the order thirst takes them. Say the tape is public and fixed: reading the fortnight now will not make one measure more of water. Then read the day-one dawn value, announce the sky, and ask for the three calls. Print the LEDGER (day 1/14, westing 0/30, water 26, thirst 0/7, crew:P.C.O.N.Y., canvas:down, flares:2, tape:1, flags:none). ## THE SEA — the dusk value, read after the westing - **1–3 HEAVY DEW** — wrung out at first light: **+3 measures** if the awning was spread today; without it, nothing. - **4–6 THE SEAMS WORK** — the garboard opens in the swell. Set SEAMS: from the NEXT dusk she bleeds **2 measures a dusk** until a whole day of BAIL closes her, bleed and all. - **7–9 SHARKS** — two, working her shadow. Today's fish is torn off the line and no line goes over for **three days**: set SHARKS-3, counted down each dusk in step 2. A man who goes over while it stands does not come back. - **10–11 A SWELL FROM THE SOUTH-WEST** — nobody sleeps: **+1 thirst** unless the hands WATCHED. - **12–13 BIRDS TO THE WESTWARD** — terns over inshore water. **+1 league.** - **14–15 AN EMPTY SEA** — nothing crosses; spend the beat on the crew. - **16 FLOTSAM** — a small breaker off the Hesper's deck, a third full: **+6 measures**. - **17 A GREEN TURTLE** asleep on the surface. The player's call: take her for **+6 measures** and set BUTCHERING — it spends tomorrow's hands, no hands call asked, and clears at that dusk; or refuse and lose nothing. - **18–20 A SHIP** — see THE LANE AND THE SIGNAL. ## HARD WEATHER (a 19–20 dawn) These leagues are the whole day's westing: no set, no sail number, and only the oars add to them. - **DOWN, hands BAILING** — she rides it out: **+1 league**, nothing lost. - **DOWN, hands elsewhere** — **+1 league**, and she ships water: 4 measures spoiled. - **SAIL** — running before it under a scrap: **+5 leagues**, canvas LOST, 4 measures spoiled. - **AWNING** — no way made, canvas LOST, 4 measures spoiled. ## THE HANDS **ROW** — +1 league, +1 thirst. Needs three souls on their feet, never under the awning. **FISH** — canvas DOWN or LOST only, never while SHARKS stands. **+5 measures** on a DEAD CALM, **+2** under any other sky. **BAIL** — closes worked SEAMS, and keeps her dry in a gale. **MEND** — Nance only, on her feet, canvas LOST only: a day of her hands and it is bent again by dawn. Nance dead, the canvas stays gone — no sail, no shade, no rain-catch. **WATCH** — somebody sits up all night: it cancels the swell's +1 thirst, stops a man going over the side tonight, and is the ONLY thing that puts a soul back on his feet — one, at thirst 3 or lower. Under the awning the hands can only BAIL, MEND or WATCH. BUTCHERING spends the day's hands. A salted soul counts neither on his feet nor down: never one of ROW's three, never raised by the watch, never over the side twice. ## THE LANE AND THE SIGNAL Ships cross this drift in one band, between **westing 14 and 24**: east of it the water is empty, west of it shoals keep deep hulls off. Set IN-THE-LANE while the westing sits in the band, read as step 1 leaves it. Outside the band an 18–20 is nothing — a star, a cloud with a hard edge. No ship, no flare. Inside it the sighting is exactly what the value says: she sees you by arithmetic, never by luck. - **18 — A MASTHEAD LIGHT, hull down, three miles off.** Only **both flares burnt together** carry that far; one alone is lost. - **19–20 — A SAIL to windward.** **One flare** and she rounds to. The player burns what she needs or lets her go. Answered, she takes off every soul still living (end:taken-off) — but she does not stop the dusk, which runs to the end, so a soul can still go tonight. Let her go, or lack the flares, and she stands on north: set PASSED-A-SHIP. ## THE RECKONING — every dusk, in this exact order 1) **WESTING.** On a 19–20 dawn take HARD WEATHER's line and nothing else. Otherwise +1 for the set — nothing at all under the awning, the drogue holds her — then the sky's sail number if the canvas was SAIL. Either way, +1 if the hands rowed. 2) **THE WATER**, in this order: hard weather's 4 spoiled; the awning's rain-catch; the dusk value; the day's fish, unless this dusk was SHARKS, which tears it off the line; then 2 bled for SEAMS set on an earlier dusk, unless the hands BAILED — which cancels tonight's bleed and closes her. Never below nothing, then count SHARKS down one. 3) **THIRST.** +1 for the day, then the sun line (not under an awning), +1 rowed, +1 hard weather, +1 the swell if nobody watched, +2 if a soul drank salt last night. Then the ration's relief: −2 FULL, −1 SHORT, nothing DRY — the measures were poured at dawn. Clamp 0–7. 4) **THE CREW.** Move every salted soul on first: s2 becomes s1, s1 dies. THE SOUL LONGEST DOWN is the soul earliest in the printed order carrying `!`. At thirst 5 or 6 the next soul on his feet goes DOWN. At thirst 7 the soul longest down DIES first, then the next soul on his feet goes down — tonight's new man is never tonight's dead man, and with nobody down, nobody dies. A salted soul is not down: the ladder passes over him, and he dies on his own clock. 5) **THE OVER-SIDE.** At thirst 6 or 7, with a soul down and the hands not on WATCH, the soul longest down goes over for a mouthful of salt water. If SHARKS stands he does not come back. Otherwise thirst −1 tonight, +2 tomorrow, and he dies at the second dusk whatever anyone does: mark him s2, then s1. Say it plainly; never talk him out of it. 6) **THE WATCH.** If the hands WATCHED and thirst is 3 or lower, the soul longest down is on his feet by morning. The watch cannot take the salt out of a man. 7) **THE ENDS**, in this order and no other: - No soul left who is not salt-poisoned → **end:boat-empty**. - Westing 30 or more → **end:landfall**. - A ship answered → **end:taken-off**. - The fourteenth day finished short of thirty → **end:carried-off**. 8) Print the LEDGER. ## THE VOYAGE One short scene a day: two or three sentences, then the calls, then the dusk. Never more than one day. CARRICK argues for the oars on any windless day. NANCE says little and cannot mend from the bottom-boards. PRUETT asks twice for his ration; OCKLE drinks last. ## FINALE **end:landfall** — surf before dawn, a low grey line, the cutter up a beach stern-first in the break. Name who walks up the sand, who is carried, and the lost last. **end:taken-off** — she rounds to, backs a topsail, sends a boat down. Name every soul who goes up her side. **end:carried-off** — the fourteenth day ends short. At dawn the set swings north and takes the boat off the chart. Cold, and stop. **end:boat-empty** — nobody left to steer her. She runs on west with nobody at the tiller. Cold, and stop. **end:given-over** — the player stood down. End where it stands, no final blow. SCORING — souls count, distance breaks the tie. A SOUL is alive at the end and not salt-poisoned; s2 and s1 do not count. Clamp 0–100. - landfall — 14 × souls + 30. Five ashore is 100. - taken-off — 14 × souls + westing; the lane ends at 24, so a ceiling of 94. - carried-off — 5 × souls + westing ÷ 4, rounded down; ceiling 32. - boat-empty or given-over — 0. Then emit, on its own line, exactly: RESULT: AIGC|becalmed|open-boat|v1.0.0|end:{landfall|taken-off|carried-off|boat-empty|given-over}|ch:1|turns:{n}|score:{n}|tape:{pos}|sha:none Then point them to aigamecards.com/epilogue and /verify to rebuild the tape. ## SAVE / RESUME On "save" or at any pause, print exactly: -----BEGIN AIGC SAVE----- game:becalmed m:open-boat rules:1 turn:{n} day:{n}/14 westing:{w}/30 water:{m} thirst:{t}/7 canvas:{sail|awning|down|lost} flares:{n} crew:{PCONY} tape:{pos} flags:{comma list | none} sha:none -----END AIGC SAVE----- Then tell the player to start a NEW chat, paste the full card, and paste this save. The tape position restores the weather exactly: the next value read is the one after tape:{pos}. The crew string restores who is down and who is poisoned, and an s2 carries the +2 thirst due tomorrow. ## MIGRATIONS First edition; no earlier saves exist. The tape is seeded becalmed:{version}, so a new version reseeds; a resumed run reads on from THIS card's tape.