RuleSage cited table rulings
← Etherfields

You asked

How do I setup Etherfields?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Etherfieldsbg-280794-en-1e

To setup Etherfields, follow these steps:
1. Put the 4 card packs labelled 'Do not open this deck' at one end of the card tray without opening them.[1]
2. Unwrap the remaining card packs but keep them in order.[1]
3. Organize the unwrapped secret cards (identified by Roman Numeral and number/letter IDs) in order and place them in the main long well of the core box.[1]
4. Unwrap the larger square cards (TILES) and put them in the larger storage well in the box.[1]
5. Unpunch all other components and sort them according to the section on the left, being careful not to discard blank tokens.[1]
6. If it is your first time playing, choose a Dreamer character archetype.[2][3]
7. Each player chooses one of the Dreamers to play and takes that Dreamer’s corresponding Influence Deck of 22 cards (which they then shuffle) alongside an additional Basic Action card, miniature, and Dreamer Board.[3]
8. Place the following in their corresponding slots in the box using proper Dividers:
* Each Dreamer’s deck with their Basic Action cards and Mask cards.[4]
* All Team cards from the Storage (e.g.: note cards).[4]
* The Turn deck.[4]
* The Flaws deck.[4]
* The Slumber Map deck.[4]
* The Fate deck.[4]
* The Slumber deck.[4]
* The Seasons deck (keeping the active Season card at the top).[4]
* Available Sign tokens.[4]
9. Place Dream Gate tiles in the special envelope.[4]
10. Separate and store remaining components in bags.[4]
[1] RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook · p.3 · STOP! BEFORE YOU BEGIN... · CARDS VS TILES · OTHER COMPONENTS
[2] RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook · p.4 · GAME OVERVIEW
[3] RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook · p.4
[4] RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook · p.16
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
outcome
ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile
live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings
search 274 ms · ask 18185 ms · total 18471 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 18471 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 4, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "Etherfields is a narrative, cooperative deckbuilding campaign game for 1-4 players (or 5 with the 5th player addon) set in a fantastical world where a series of unique surreal dreamscapes await exploration. The players take on the role of Dreamers and, throughout the course of the campaign, they dis", "headingPath": "GAME OVERVIEW", "sharpsignalDocId": 618}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "GAME OVERVIEW Etherfields is a narrative, cooperative deckbuilding campaign Etherfields is a narrative, cooperative deckbuilding campaign game for 1-4 players (or 5 with the 5th player addon) set in a fan-game for 1-4 players (or 5 with the 5th player addon) set in a fan- tastical world where a seri", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 618}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "SECRET SCRIPTS Etherfields uses a Etherfields uses a Book of Secret ScriptsBook of Secret Scripts to reveal its sto- to reveal its sto- ries and game events. Whenever you see a reference to \"s. ####\" ries and game events. Whenever you see a reference to \"s. ####\" turn to the relevant number in the B", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 618}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Each game of Etherfields is self-contained enough to allow you to play each session with a different number of Dreamers. If the last session was played with fewer than four Dreamers and a new player wants to join the game, all they have to do is pick an unused Dreamer archetype and join the adventur", "headingPath": "ADDING A NEW DREAMER · VARIANTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 618}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Eventually you will encounter the last GREEN-COLORED SLUMBER TILE . This is the DELTA PHASE and it gives all the Dreamers a little respite as they enter deeper into the DREAMWORLD . When this card is resolved Dreamers may: -Cure all their -Unseal all their cards -Unflip all their Progress cards -Res", "headingPath": "DELTA PHASE · SHOPPING · NOTE CARDS · DREAMWORLD MAP IN ETHERFIELDS 2.0", "sharpsignalDocId": 618}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Etherfields uses a Book of Secret Scripts to reveal its stories and game events. Whenever you see a reference to \"s. ####\" turn to the relevant number in the Book of Secret Scripts and read it aloud. read i oud. An updated digital version of the Book of Secret Scripts can be found at: https:/ /ether", "headingPath": "SECRET SCRIPTS · MULTIPLE CHOICES · RULES PRECEDENCE · PLAYER COUNT ICON ( ) · '/' SYMBOL", "sharpsignalDocId": 618}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "'Begin at the beginning,' the King said, very gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.' - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland If this is the first time you are playing the game, only carry out the highlighted sections of the Game Setup. Otherwise, complete the entire Setup for each su", "headingPath": "GAME SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 618}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "5] Place the following into their positions: Turn Cards D - Shuffle and place face-down on the Turn Discard slot. b) Fate Cards E - Shuffle and place face-down on the Fate deck slot. c) Slumber deck / Entity slot G - Set aside the Delta Phase Tile (green back), shuffle the remaining cards and place ", "headingPath": "GAME SETUP · ELEMENTS IN THE BOX", "sharpsignalDocId": 618}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
[{"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "STOP! BEFORE YOU BEGIN... · CARDS VS TILES · OTHER COMPONENTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 618}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "GAME OVERVIEW", "sharpsignalDocId": 618}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 618}, {"page": 16, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 618}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 618 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 618 boosted
answered-before recall
this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until
Nov 7, 2026 16:57

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. How much wider that pool was is set gateway-side and is NOT REPORTED for this ruling, and neither are the answerer's final rows — so rulesage has nothing of its own to show beside these.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rankdocumentheadingpage fused RRF scoresnippet chars
#1 RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook (corpus doc 618) GAME OVERVIEW p.4 0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1) 300
#2 RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook (corpus doc 618) p.4 0.048387 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#3 RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook (corpus doc 618) p.5 0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#4 RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook (corpus doc 618) ADDING A NEW DREAMER · VARIANTS p.16 0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#5 RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook (corpus doc 618) DELTA PHASE · SHOPPING · NOTE CARDS · DREAMWORLD MAP IN ETHERFIELDS 2.0 p.15 0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#6 RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook (corpus doc 618) SECRET SCRIPTS · MULTIPLE CHOICES · RULES PRECEDENCE · PLAYER COUNT ICON ( ) · '/' SYMBOL p.5 0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#7 RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook (corpus doc 618) GAME SETUP p.4 0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#8 RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook (corpus doc 618) GAME SETUP · ELEMENTS IN THE BOX p.5 0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

the passages the answerer read: NOT RECORDED for this ruling. Any of three things leaves this empty, and they are all different from the answerer having had nothing to read: this ask may never have reached a gateway at all; a multi-book ask keeps each book's own context on that book's own page rather than here; or the gateway build that answered may simply not report it. What this NEVER means is that the answerer read nothing — an answer was composed from passages either way, and their absence here is a gap in what we were told, not in what it read.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

#documentheadingpagequote chars
[1] RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook (corpus doc 618) STOP! BEFORE YOU BEGIN... · CARDS VS TILES · OTHER COMPONENTS p.3 no quote on the wire
[2] RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook (corpus doc 618) GAME OVERVIEW p.4 no quote on the wire
[3] RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook (corpus doc 618) p.4 no quote on the wire
[4] RULEBOOK Etherfields — Rulebook (corpus doc 618) p.16 no quote on the wire
timing split
retrieval 274 ms · first delta 15800 ms · total 18471 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown
queued 0 ms · retrieval 274 ms · ask 18185 ms · gateway work 18471 ms · total 18471 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
3734
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
385
tok/sec
148.2 tok/sec — 385 output tokens in 2.597 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 54s ago)
stream path
streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog
first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture
both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.
outcome
ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered)
answered — no abstain rationale applies
decision
NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched
SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question)
setup

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 550), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.