«MORTAROT — a card roguelike where Death deals the cards, and the price is the same for all.»

A GAME WITH DEATH

Death waits at the table and deals from her own deck. You decide which card to turn and when to stand up.

• Draw from the spread one card at a time. Every card is fortune or a curse, and some cards are Death herself.

• Bank what you've won and go one circle deeper, or tempt fate for more.

• Pass twelve circles and walk away alive. Lose, and start again: a run takes five to fifteen minutes.

KNOWLEDGE BEATS LUCK

• You never draw blind. The scales show your odds before every card, a peek reveals what lies ahead, amulets bend the deck — and once the circle's cards are drawn, you decide: bank your gold or tempt fate.

• Divine: glimpse a face-down card without turning it. How often you may depends on your fate and your amulets.

• Your lives are candles. Every second circle one of Death's envoys sits down at the table and takes a toll: your gold, a candle or an amulet.

• Amulets and relics found along the way bend the odds: an extra glimpse, a second chance, a coin for every bone.

• Every advantage has a price, and Death names it out loud.

THE MAJOR ARCANA

The deck is built on the twenty-two Major Arcana. While one lies on the table, it rewrites the rules of the run: the Wheel doubles the Deaths or removes them, the Lovers make you choose one of two cards and burn the other, the Star snuffs out one Death if you can reach it.

• Seven Fates change a run before it begins.

• Three difficulties — Standard, Hard and Challenge — and a custom table for your own rules.

• No two runs are alike.

DEATH IS NOT SILENT

• She talks to you: comments on your greed, your caution, your luck. She remembers you across bodies.

• Engraving-style art: candles for lives, Death's scales, her ledger.

• Ash is what you carry out of every run. It opens the Codex and new ways to play, never extra power.

• A twist you'll only understand at the very end.

«Cheat fate. She will be waiting for you again.»