You asked
When do I recruit a guild companion?
Answered counted as answeredAsked with: Return to Dark Towerbg-256680-en-1e · Return to Dark Tower: Alliancesbg-298565-en-1e
You recruit a guild companion when you increase a guild's rank, provided there is a companion in the card slot below the new rank.[1] Only one companion can be recruited at each of the following ranks: rank 2, rank 3, and rank 4.[1] If a guild's rank is decreased and then later increased again to a rank that has an empty card slot, no companion is recruited.[1] Additionally, some quests may let you recruit other companions who provide their abilities to the hero they accompany.[2]
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
- outcome
- ANSWERED — Answered
- corpus profile
- live,vps
- answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
- gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
- timings
- search 84 ms · ask 2923 ms · total 3009 ms
- single-flight (PR-5)
- queued 0 ms · generation 3009 ms
- retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
- [{"page": 4, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Each guild has three guild companions that the heroes can recruit. At the start of the game, each guild's companions are assigned randomly to the card slots below the guild board. RANK 4 RANK 4 When you increase a guild's rank, if there is a companion in the card slot below the new rank, you immedia", "headingPath": " GUILD COMPANIONS · GUILD QUESTS ", "sharpsignalDocId": 905}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.031545, "snippet": "There are six types of Advantages, which are linked to the six traits found on foes and dungeons. Wild Advantages can count as any of these six traits. You calculate Advantages before you battle foes or explore dungeons with the matching trait, then use them to improve the results of battle cards or", "headingPath": " ADVANTAGES · ITEMS · COMPANIONS ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 18, "score": 0.030835, "snippet": "Take the Quest action to complete a quest (including the main goal) or explore a dungeon on your space. You can only take the Quest action if you can legally perform one of these two options. Quests will require you to be in a certain location, spend certain resources, use certain Advantages, defeat", "headingPath": "C) QUEST · COMPLETE A QUEST · COMPLETING THE MAIN GOAL ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.030366, "snippet": "The game is played in a series of months . If the heroes do not complete the main goal and then defeat the adversary before the end of the sixth month, they lose the game. In the first month, the first turn is taken by the start player. Then play continues in clockwise order. Each player takes exact", "headingPath": "Sequence of Play · INDIVIDUAL TURNS · MONTHLY QUESTS · Taking Your Turn", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 22, "score": 0.029911, "snippet": "3. End of Turn (cont.) Events happen at the end of most player turns. The app will alert you. Read the event aloud and follow its instructions, with the player who dropped the skull into the Tower making any choices required. Once the event is resolved, press 'confirm.' Repeat as needed for each eve", "headingPath": " PLACING SKULLS · EVENTS ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.029469, "snippet": "Decide which player will play as which hero or assign them randomly. Choose who will be the start player. Each player then carries out their own setup. 1 Place your hero board in front of you. 1 2 Place the 3 hero virtue tiles for your hero in empty slots on your hero board, inactive side up. 2 3 Pl", "headingPath": "Hero Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.02885, "snippet": "Once per turn, you may Reinforce while on a space with a building. Each building has something you can gain for free and an enhanced option that costs spirit. You choose one. | Building | | Free Effect | Enhanced Effect | | CITADEL | Gain 1 potion for free. Draw the top card of the potion deck. | Sp", "headingPath": " REINFORCE ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}, {"page": 26, "score": 0.028439, "snippet": "Foe tokens show the locations of foes on the game board. You must take the Battle action to battle them. Each foe token shows the level and traits of that foe. Foe tokens are removed when you defeat them in battle or use an effect to remove them. Note: The foe tokens are double sided. The two sides ", "headingPath": "Token Appendix · Dungeon Tokens · Caravan Tokens · Siege Tree Tokens · Spore Tokens · River of Fire Tokens ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}]
- citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
- [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": " GUILD COMPANIONS · GUILD QUESTS ", "sharpsignalDocId": 905}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": " ADVANTAGES · ITEMS · COMPANIONS ", "sharpsignalDocId": 379}]
- boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
-
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 379 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 379 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)
- answer fence
- passed — letter density 0.93267 of 401 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
- debug row retained until
- Nov 12, 2026 23:27
retrieval — what the passage search returned
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. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.
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 rank | document | heading | page | fused RRF score | snippet chars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower: Alliances — Rulebook (corpus doc 905) | GUILD COMPANIONS · GUILD QUESTS | p.4 | 0.032787 (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 |
| #2 | RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379) | ADVANTAGES · ITEMS · COMPANIONS | p.8 | 0.031545 (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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379) | C) QUEST · COMPLETE A QUEST · COMPLETING THE MAIN GOAL | p.18 | 0.030835 (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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379) | Sequence of Play · INDIVIDUAL TURNS · MONTHLY QUESTS · Taking Your Turn | p.12 | 0.030366 (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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379) | PLACING SKULLS · EVENTS | p.22 | 0.029911 (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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379) | Hero Setup | p.6 | 0.029469 (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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379) | REINFORCE | p.20 | 0.02885 (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 Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379) | Token Appendix · Dungeon Tokens · Caravan Tokens · Siege Tree Tokens · Spore Tokens · River of Fire Tokens | p.26 | 0.028439 (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 the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it
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.
candidate pool: the answering read scored 36 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.
floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.
arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.
| read at | document | heading | page | fused rank | fused RRF score | carried by | how it got its slot |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower: Alliances — Rulebook (corpus doc 905) | GUILD COMPANIONS · GUILD QUESTS | p.4 | #1 | 0.032787 (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)) | vector + full-text | the re-ranker chose it |
| #2 | RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower: Alliances — Rulebook (corpus doc 905) | GUILD RANKS · GUILD EFFECTS | p.4 | #11 | 0.015873 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) | vector | the re-ranker chose it |
| #3 | RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower: Alliances — Rulebook (corpus doc 905) | p.2 | #13 | 0.015385 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) | vector | the re-ranker chose it | |
| #4 | RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379) | Overview | p.2 | #25 | 0.011765 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) | vector | the re-ranker chose it |
| #5 | RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower: Alliances — Rulebook (corpus doc 905) | Overview · Heroes · Treasures · Influence · INFLUENCE ACTION | p.3 | #15 | 0.013889 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) | vector | the re-ranker chose it |
| #6 | RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower: Alliances — Rulebook (corpus doc 905) | Components · 32 power skulls · Game Setup | p.2 | #12 | 0.015625 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) | vector | the re-ranker chose it |
| #7 | RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower: Alliances — Rulebook (corpus doc 905) | p.2 | #10 | 0.016129 (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)) | vector | the re-ranker chose it | |
| #8 | RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379) | ADVANTAGES · ITEMS · COMPANIONS | p.8 | #2 | 0.031545 (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)) | vector + the doc-priority boost arm | the re-ranker chose it |
chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited
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.
| # | document | heading | page | quote chars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower: Alliances — Rulebook (corpus doc 905) | GUILD COMPANIONS · GUILD QUESTS | p.4 | no quote on the wire |
| [2] | RULEBOOK Return to Dark Tower — Rulebook (corpus doc 379) | ADVANTAGES · ITEMS · COMPANIONS | p.8 | no quote on the wire |
generation — timing and the path taken
- timing split
- retrieval 84 ms · first delta 2137 ms · total 3009 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 84 ms · ask 2923 ms · gateway work 3009 ms · total 3009 ms
- tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
- 3876
- tokens out (what the answerer generated)
- 111
- tok/sec
- 138.8 tok/sec — 111 output tokens in 0.800 s of generation
- live seat (read from the running child)
- answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 11s 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.
disposition
- outcome
- ANSWERED — Answered
- abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered)
- answered — no abstain rationale applies
setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render
- decision
- NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question
errata registry — what the gate above had to match against
this game registers NO errata cards (edition 308), 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.