Watchfires & Wagons

The Backstory

The Bitter Pass

On a clear night you can see the far town from the head of your valley: a scatter of lights, one thin road between. Every winter the snow takes the road. The town grows nothing that keeps. What crosses, they live on; what doesn't, they do without. Come spring, some of those lights stay dark.

Your valley runs the relief: three wagons over the saddle, ahead of the drifts.

Four forces rule the mountain, and the deck deals all four.

Milled grain, hard cheese, the seed corn that must see spring.

Fever-bark and bottles worth their weight in anything.

The difference between waking warm and not waking.

Patient and mindless. Some days it drifts three deep in an hour.

The joker plays this part: the storm all at once, the road gone. Nobody plans around it.

The aces stay on the table to mark where each wagon and the snow stand. Everything else is stores, pips as shown; a court card is worth ten, a family's whole fortune.

You don't stand and watch. Grain goes onto the wagon that's moving, a shoulder goes behind the one that isn't, and somebody takes a turn at the fire. Nothing up here crosses on luck. When the snow stacks too deep, somebody walks out with a spade and breaks trail: no pay, no glory, but the road opens a length.

Back a wagon that makes it, and the town pays you threefold. Come spring, your name is spoken in every house whose lights stayed lit. Back one that doesn't, and it's gone under the drift.

But nothing moves unless the watchfires stay lit, and a fire holds only while someone stands in the cold and feeds it. It's thankless work the town remembers anyway, the longest watch most of all. On the worst nights someone feeds a king straight into the coals, and the blaze roars up and shoves the snow back down the mountain. It costs a fortune and buys the road a minute.

And some crossings come down to one still hour: the last store spent, no hand left for fire or wheel. The Last Watch. The fires sink to embers, the snow floods in, and any wagon still rolling races it to the gates.

Every winter asks the same question: who rides, and who keeps the fire?

How It Plays

A Night, Beat by Beat

A night is three steps on repeat; after each, check whether it has ended. Play three nights. The most gratitude wins.
Rather see it than read it? Walk through a real first night.

Flip a Fate card
1 of 3
- → that wagon rolls +1 space.
- → a cold-snap: the Snow jumps +3 (unstoppable).
- The whiteout → the run ends.
Everyone plays one card
2 of 3

Face-down, together, then the reveal. While you hold a card, you play a card.
The snow drifts
3 of 3

Move the Snow +1 for every player who did not feed the fire this beat.

Your three plays

Every card in your hand can do any of the three. The whole game is in which one you pick, beat after beat.

Feed the fire

K♠ · fed

Play any card to stand the watch. A ♠ earns the +3 wage, anything else +1; a King makes the fire roar, shoving the Snow back 1. Always legal. Never costs you. It always pays.

Load stores

9♦ · loaded

Load a ♥♦♣ onto its own wagon: your winter, riding on its wheels. Full pips only on space 0–2. Through → repaid ×3; turned back → lost.

The heave: a laden wagon on 3–5 can still catch a thrown sack at half pips.

Push the way

2♣ · sideways

A ♥♦♣ rolls its own wagon +1, any position, any time, value ignored. If that wagon reaches Town, every push pays +2. Nothing gets home on Fate alone.

Break trail: a ♠ shovels a laden wagon 3→4 or 4→5, for nothing, and the drift still counts you.

The night ends when…

four ways

a laden wagon reaches Town, space 6: through (two cross at once: more stores wins)
the Snow fills its track: the road is buried
a whiteout is flipped: the furthest laden wagon that has moved is through (level: more stores wins)
every hand empties: The Last Watch

The Last WatchAll hands empty, the fires gutter: stop flipping Fate. Each round the Snow floods +(3 + players), then every laden wagon already on the road (spaces 1–5) coasts +1, until one crests home or the road buries.

The Whiteout GambitIf the storm breaks before any wagon is both laden and moved, the night ends in one blind card each, thrown at once. Only the cards flung in that beat race, so the heaviest fling takes the crossing even from the trailhead, and the stores loaded earlier ride along to be paid or lost with it. You can fling onto a wagon you already backed. The full ruling is on the printed rules card.

Repayment

at the settlement

stores loaded on the through-wagon → ×3
stores on other wagons count against you: 9 loaded on a losing wagon = −9
each push into it → +2 · each ♠-watch → +3 · each other card fed → +1
The Long Watch: biggest watch-pile (most cards fed) → +5 every night; a tie pays each the full +5
Buried road: loaded stores wash to 0, but fire wages & the Long Watch still pay

For the Table

Quick Reference

Setup by player count

3 · 4 · 5 · 6

Players	3	4	5	6
Cards dealt to each player	9	8	6	6
Fate deck (the whiteout shuffles in after)	18	16	14	12
Snow buried at space	22	21	27	27

Two players? THE LAST VALLEY rebuilds the game for two on gin rummy's bones: the mountain offers two Fate cards each beat, whoever holds the watch takes one, and the fire's seat alone may Call the Run. Hands of 8, Fate 26, Snow 13; its own rulebook rides with the game.

The Road is 6 spaces; the Fate deck deals no hands. Load in full on 0–2, heave at half to a laden wagon on 3–5. A card pushes its own wagon, any position, any time; a ♠ shovels a laden wagon 3→4 or 4→5, never into Town.

The game

three nights

Three nights, a fresh deal each; gratitude carries. Most gratitude wins (tie → best single night; still tied → the win is shared).

You only go negative by backing a wagon a rival beats to Town; a buried road is a wash.

Around a real table

No screens in it anywhere: the whole game is one ordinary deck, a joker, and a pencil. The kit is the one-page rules card, a mat for the road and the snow, and a three-night scorepad.

Print the table kit

Three sheets, black ink. A coin stands in for the creeping snow; the aces do the rest.