Setup

One deck + one joker. Pull the four Aces as markers: ♥ food, ♦ medicine, ♣ firewood, ♠ the snow. The joker is the whiteout. Pips as shown; J/Q/K = 10.

Deal hands first, then set the Fate deck aside face-down and shuffle the whiteout into it. Hands are never drawn from Fate; leftovers sit out. The Road is 6 spaces; wagons and snow start at 0.

Each beat

1 · Flip a Fate card. ♥♦♣ → that wagon +1. ♠ → cold-snap, Snow +3 (unstoppable). Whiteout → the run ends (right).

2 · Everyone plays 1 card face-down → reveal together. You must play while you hold cards; empty hands sit out.

3 · The snow drifts +1 for every player who did not feed the fire.

Check for the night’s end after each step.

Your three plays

• Feed: any card to the fire, into your own watch-pile. ♠ = +3 wage, others +1. A King roars: Snow back 1 (after the drift). Always legal, always pays.
• Load: ♥♦♣ face-up by its wagon: your stores, riding openly. Full pips only on space 0–2. Through → ×3; turned back → −value. Heave: a laden wagon on 3–5 still catches a thrown sack at half pips (round down). Empty wagons catch nothing.
• Push: ♥♦♣ sideways: its own wagon +1, any space, any time; value ignored. Pays +2 per push if that wagon ends the night through. Break trail: a ♠ sideways shovels a laden wagon 3→4 or 4→5 only: never into Town, pays nothing, and the drift still counts you.

The night ends when…

• a laden wagon reaches Town (space 6) → through
• the Snow reaches its burial mark → the road is buried
• the whiteout flips → the furthest laden wagon that has moved is through. No wagon both laden and moved? The Gambit: everyone still holding cards commits 1 card. ♥♦♣ fling onto that wagon, ♠ = a +3 watch. Only the flung cards race: most stores flung wins ×3 for every stake on that wagon, other flung cards are lost. Tie → highest card, then Fate.
  An empty wagon that rolled doesn't stop the Gambit, and neither does a laden wagon still on 0. You may fling onto a wagon you already backed, adding to your stake there. Position is worth nothing: the trailhead can beat a wagon further along. Stores already aboard don't race, but they settle with the outcome.
• every hand empties → The Last Watch: stop flipping. Repeat: Snow +(3 + players), then every laden wagon on spaces 1–5 rolls +1, until a wagon crests or the road buries. Flood before roll.

Empty wagons never win. Wagon ties → furthest → most stores → highest card aboard → Fate flip.

Repayment, each night

• stores loaded on the through-wagon → ×3
• stores on every other wagon count against you (9 loaded there = −9)
• each push into the through-wagon → +2
• each ♠-watch → +3 · each other card fed → +1
• The Long Watch: biggest watch-pile → +5, every night; a tie pays each the full +5

Buried road: every loaded store washes to 0: no repayment, no penalty. Fire wages and the Long Watch still pay. You go negative only by backing a wagon a rival beats to Town.

The game

Three nights. Gather the cards and re-deal after each; gratitude carries. Most gratitude after night three wins. Tie → best single night; still tied → the win is shared.