Ruling — Argent: The Consortium

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Argent: The Consortiumbg-144797-en-1e

To play Argent, follow these setup and gameplay steps:

**Setup**

1. **Set up Player Offices**: The First Player is the one who most recently attended a university class and receives the Key Token.[1][2] In player order, each player chooses or is dealt a candidate sheet, takes all Marks and Loyalty Badges associated with their color, chooses a candidate side, and claims their Starter Spell.[1][2] Players also take 2 Mages from their department, 6 Gold Tokens, 2 Mana Tokens, 2 Intelligence Tokens, and 2 Wisdom Tokens.[1][2] (Candidates from the Department of Students also begin with an extra Merit Badge).[1][2]

2. **Set up the Consortium Board**: Stack markers on the 5 Influence spot on the IP track in reverse clockwise turn order, with the First Player’s Marker on top.[1][2] Place the two white-bordered Voters on the board and shuffle the Consortium Deck, dealing 10 additional Voter cards face-down onto the board.[1][2]

3. **Prepare the University**: Include the white-bordered University Central tiles (Infirmary, Council Chambers, and Library) in the University Board, adding other rooms randomly based on player count.[1][2]

4. **Place Mage Power Cards**: Place Mage Power reference cards to the side of the board and put reserves of Gold, Tokens, Merits, and Mana near the board.[1][2]

5. **Set up the Bell Tower**: Set up Bell Tower Cards in a row below the Consortium Board based on the number of players.[3]

6. **Set up Round Cards**: Order the five Round Cards from '1' (top) to '5' (bottom) near the Consortium Board.[3]

7. **Create Decks and Tableaus**: Shuffle and place the Spells, Vaults, and Supporters decks face-down, each with a revealed face-up Tableau (3 cards for Spells and Vaults; 5 cards for Supporters).[3]

8. **Draft Mages**: Place all remaining Mages in the center of the table. Starting with the last player and moving counter-clockwise, each player drafts one Mage, then clockwise from the Start Player, then once more counter-clockwise, until each player has 5 Mages.[3] Attach a colored Loyalty Badge to each Mage's base.[3]

9. **Place Starting Marks**: In turn order, each player chooses and places a Mark on one face-down Consortium Voter; no two players may mark the same Voter during this step.[4]

**Gameplay and Ending**

* **Gameplay**: Players use Spells, Vaults, and Supporters to manage resources and Mages.[3] Mages can be moved between slots on the University Board if the room is not full.[5]

* **Game End**: The game ends at the end of the 5th round.[6] Reveal all remaining Consortium voter cards one by one to determine winners for each voter.[6] The player with the most votes wins; if tied, the player with the most Influence wins.[6]

[1] RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook · p.8

[2] RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook · p.8 · Game Setup · 1. Set up Player Offices · 2. Set up the Consortium Board · 3. Prepare the University · 4. Place Mage Power Cards

[3] RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook · p.9 · 4. Place Mage Power Cards · 5. Set up the Bell T ower · 6. Set up Round Cards · 7, 8, 9. Create Decks and T ableaus · 10. Draft Mages

[4] RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook · p.9 · 11. Place Starting Marks

[5] RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook · p.18 · Q: What happens if I cannot fulfill all requirements of a card's effect? · Q: What happens if I lose a Merit Badge? · Q: Can I get more than two Mages of a single type if I gain them through special rooms? Can I have more than 7 Mages? · Q: Can I place Mages from anywhere? · Q: Does the 'Power' Bell Tower card reduce the costs of rooms and Vaults Cards that require mana to activate? · Q: Can I take 1 IP instead of using an immediate errand slot when I place there? · …

[6] RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook · p.15 · Game End · Most of a Resource · Most of a Card Type · Common Effects · Moving

🔧 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 127 ms · ask 7256 ms · total 7392 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 7392 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 18, "score": 0.047163, "snippet": "There's more than one way to become the Chancellor of the world's most prestigious magical university! Here are some alternate game options that you can use once you are familiar with how to play! Each variant will require new strategies and styles of play to become victorious! For players wanting a", "headingPath": "Options and Extras · Epic Variant · B-Side Rooms · Build the University · Alternate Mage Powers · Diversity Requirement · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.046452, "snippet": "Gameplay proceeds over a series of 5 rounds leading up to the election of the new Chancellor. At the end of the fifth round, all of the Consortium Voters are revealed and whoever has earned the most votes will win the game. Remember that whatever else happens, votes are the only thing that matter at", "headingPath": "Gameplay · 1 - Setup Phase · 2 - Errands Phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Follow these steps to set up your game of Argent... The First Player is the one who most recently attended a university class. Give this player the Key Token to show that he will go first. In player order, each player chooses one of the available candidate sheets, or is dealt one randomly. Each play", "headingPath": "Game Setup · 1. Set up Player Offices · 2. Set up the Consortium Board · 3. Prepare the University · 4. Place Mage Power Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "8 88 Game Setup Follow these steps to set up your game of Argent... 3. Prepare the University In every game, the white-bordered University Central tiles (Infirmary, Council Chambers, and Library) will be included somewhere in the University Board. The other rooms will be added randomly, depending on", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "In turn order, each player should choose and place a Mark on one of the face-down Consortium Voters. N o two players may mark the same Voter in this way during this Setup step. After you Mark a Voter, you are allowed to look at it. Now you have some idea of where to start on your conspiracy to contr", "headingPath": "11. Place Starting Marks", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "The game ends at the end of the 5th round. At this point, reveal all of the remaining Consortium voter cards one by one. Determine who receives the vote from each Consortium member. When determining the winner of a particular voter, the player with a mark on that voter breaks ties. If multiple playe", "headingPath": "Game End · Most of a Resource · Most of a Card Type · Common Effects · Moving", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "10 1010 Recommended First-Game University Setups 3 Players - 8 Rooms 4 Players - 10 Rooms 5 Players - 12 Rooms Note: All first-game setups use the A sides of each room. A 3- or 4-Player game is recommended for your first game. In later games, you can use these basic University layouts, or create mor", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.029644, "snippet": "Note: All first-game setups use the A sides of each room. A 3- or 4-Player game is recommended for your first game. Training Fields Courtyard Chapel Catacombs Guilds Vault Student Stores Council Chamber Library Infirmary The setup for two players can be found in the Options and Extras section on pag", "headingPath": "Recommended First-Game University Setups · 3 Players - 8 Rooms · 4 Players - 10 Rooms 5 Players - 12 Rooms · Player Office Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Game Setup · 1. Set up Player Offices · 2. Set up the Consortium Board · 3. Prepare the University · 4. Place Mage Power Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "4. Place Mage Power Cards · 5. Set up the Bell T ower · 6. Set up Round Cards · 7, 8, 9. Create Decks and T ableaus · 10. Draft Mages", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "11. Place Starting Marks", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}, {"page": 18, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Q: What happens if I cannot fulfill all requirements of a card's effect? · Q: What happens if I lose a Merit Badge? · Q: Can I get more than two Mages of a single type if I gain them through special rooms? Can I have more than 7 Mages? · Q: Can I place Mages from anywhere? · Q: Does the 'Power' Bell Tower card reduce the costs of rooms and Vaults Cards that require mana to activate? · Q: Can I take 1 IP instead of using an immediate errand slot when I place there? · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}, {"page": 15, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Game End · Most of a Resource · Most of a Card Type · Common Effects · Moving", "sharpsignalDocId": 635}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 635 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 635 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 0.88751 of 2258 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 14, 2026 15:33

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 Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	Options and Extras · Epic Variant · B-Side Rooms · Build the University · Alternate Mage Powers · Diversity Requirement · …	p.18	0.047163 (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 Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	Gameplay · 1 - Setup Phase · 2 - Errands Phase	p.11	0.046452 (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 Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	Game Setup · 1. Set up Player Offices · 2. Set up the Consortium Board · 3. Prepare the University · 4. Place Mage Power Cards	p.8	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
#4	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)		p.8	0.032258 (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 Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	11. Place Starting Marks	p.9	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
#6	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	Game End · Most of a Resource · Most of a Card Type · Common Effects · Moving	p.15	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 Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)		p.10	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 Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	Recommended First-Game University Setups · 3 Players - 8 Rooms · 4 Players - 10 Rooms 5 Players - 12 Rooms · Player Office Setup	p.10	0.029644 (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 49 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 — not 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 Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	Options and Extras · Epic Variant · B-Side Rooms · Build the University · Alternate Mage Powers · Diversity Requirement · …	p.18	#1	0.047163 (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 doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)		p.8	#4	0.032258 (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
#3	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	Q: What happens if I cannot fulfill all requirements of a card's effect? · Q: What happens if I lose a Merit Badge? · Q: Can I get more than two Mages of a single type if I gain them through special rooms? Can I have more than 7 Mages? · Q: Can I place Mages from anywhere? · Q: Does the 'Power' Bell Tower card reduce the costs of rooms and Vaults Cards that require mana to activate? · Q: Can I take 1 IP instead of using an immediate errand slot when I place there? · …	p.18	#16	0.025744 (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
#4	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	4. Place Mage Power Cards · 5. Set up the Bell T ower · 6. Set up Round Cards · 7, 8, 9. Create Decks and T ableaus · 10. Draft Mages	p.9	#24	0.014286 (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 Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	Game End · Most of a Resource · Most of a Card Type · Common Effects · Moving	p.15	#6	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)		p.10	#7	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	11. Place Starting Marks	p.9	#5	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	Game Setup · 1. Set up Player Offices · 2. Set up the Consortium Board · 3. Prepare the University · 4. Place Mage Power Cards	p.8	#3	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 + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)		p.8	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	Game Setup · 1. Set up Player Offices · 2. Set up the Consortium Board · 3. Prepare the University · 4. Place Mage Power Cards	p.8	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	4. Place Mage Power Cards · 5. Set up the Bell T ower · 6. Set up Round Cards · 7, 8, 9. Create Decks and T ableaus · 10. Draft Mages	p.9	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	11. Place Starting Marks	p.9	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	Q: What happens if I cannot fulfill all requirements of a card's effect? · Q: What happens if I lose a Merit Badge? · Q: Can I get more than two Mages of a single type if I gain them through special rooms? Can I have more than 7 Mages? · Q: Can I place Mages from anywhere? · Q: Does the 'Power' Bell Tower card reduce the costs of rooms and Vaults Cards that require mana to activate? · Q: Can I take 1 IP instead of using an immediate errand slot when I place there? · …	p.18	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Argent: The Consortium — Rulebook (corpus doc 635)	Game End · Most of a Resource · Most of a Card Type · Common Effects · Moving	p.15	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 127 ms · first delta 3935 ms · total 7392 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 127 ms · ask 7256 ms · gateway work 7392 ms · total 7392 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4395
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 663
tok/sec: 197.6 tok/sec — 663 output tokens in 3.356 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 15s 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 568), 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.