Ruling — Stonespine Architects

← Stonespine Architects

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Stonespine Architectsbg-387514-en-1e

1. Place the tracking board in the center of the table with the (2-5) player side of the board face up.[1]

2. Have each player choose a color and collect the two matching tracking markers.[1]

3. Return all unused tracking markers to the game box.[1]

4. Randomly place one of each player's tracking markers on the priority track from left to right.[1]

5. Place each player's other marker on the gold track according to their priority: Priority Track 1 2-3 4-5 Gold 0 1 2 5.[1]

6. Shuffle the goal cards, reveal one, and place it on the tracking board.[1]

7. Return all unused goal cards to the game box.[1]

8. Shuffle the challenge cards and reveal cards based on the number of players: 3 cards for 1-2 players, 4 cards for 3 players, 5 cards for 4 players, and 6 cards for 5 players.[1]

9. Shuffle the market cards and reveal cards based on the number of players: 2 cards for 1-3 players, 3 cards for 4 players, and 4 cards for 5 players.[1]

10. Sort the market tokens face down into piles by shape (circle, oval, and square) and shuffle each pile separately.[1]

11. Place the three piles next to the tracking board.[1]

12. Reveal market tokens for each space on the market cards and place them face up on the matching spaces.[1]

13. Assemble the dungeon frames and place one in front of each player with either side face up.[2]

14. Return all unused dungeon frame pieces to the game box.[2]

15. Shuffle the blueprint cards and deal one face up to each player.[2]

16. Return all unused blueprint cards to the game box.[2]

17. Give each player the two doorway markers matching their player color.[2]

18. Place one doorway marker on each player's dungeon entrance, as specified at the top of their blueprint card.[2]

19. Give each player two reference cards (one of each).[2]

20. Shuffle the chamber cards and deal each player a hand of five cards.[2]

[1] RULEBOOK Stonespine Architects — Rulebook · p.4 · Game Setup v

[2] RULEBOOK Stonespine Architects — Rulebook · p.5 · Game Setup v

That settles it — whose turn was it?

🔧 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 193 ms · ask 3403 ms · total 3599 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 3599 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 4, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "1 Place the tracking board in the center of the table with the (2-5) player side of the board face up. 2 Have each player choose a color and collect the two matching tracking markers . Return all unused tracking markers to the game box. 3 Randomly place one of each player's tracking markers on the p", "headingPath": "Game Setup v", "sharpsignalDocId": 1053}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.048652, "snippet": "10 Assemble the dungeon frames and place one in front of each player with either side face up. Return all unused dungeon frame pieces to the game box. 11 Shuffle the blueprint cards and deal one face up to each player. Return all unused blueprint cards to the game box. 12 Give each player the two do", "headingPath": "Game Setup v", "sharpsignalDocId": 1053}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.047619, "snippet": "Queen Amalia has sent her most trusted advisor, Jael (JAY-el), to test Hortgully's students, as she is looking for talent to help design reinforcements for the defense of Sabek, the capital city. In solo play, you compete against Jael to prove your talent to the queen's advisor! Jael collects chambe", "headingPath": "Solo Play v · SOLO - SETUP CHANGES", "sharpsignalDocId": 1053}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Stonespine Architects is played over four rounds - called years. During a year, each player will place a single row of four chamber cards. At the end of the game, each player will have created a dungeon of 16 chambers in a 4x4 grid. Each year is divided into three phases: Construction, Improvement, ", "headingPath": "How to Play v · I. CONSTRUCTION PHASE · Placing Chamber Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 1053}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Reveal the top card of the Jael deck and place it on the designated space of the tracking board or on top of any previously revealed Jael cards. Place a chamber card from your hand into your dungeon. Choose one card in your hand to keep for the next turn. Of the remaining chamber cards in your hand,", "headingPath": "I. Construction", "sharpsignalDocId": 1053}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "The Improvement Phase is divided into two steps. Count Gold and Visit the Market . Players simultaneously total their gold for the current year. Add the gold values on all chamber cards placed in the current row of the player's dungeon. Add one gold for each treasure chest icon in any chamber of the", "headingPath": "II. IMPROVEMENT PHASE · STEP 1: COUNT GOLD · Breaking Ties · STEP 2: VISIT THE MARKET", "sharpsignalDocId": 1053}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Total your gold as in the multiplayer game, placing your tracking marker on the gold track. Compare your current gold value to the gold value on the revealed Jael card. Visit the market to buy tokens or pass. If you buy tokens , adjust your marker on the gold track and place the tokens in your dunge", "headingPath": "II. Improvement · COMPARE GOLD · IF YOU HAVE MORE GOLD: · IF YOU HAVE EQUAL OR LESS GOLD: · YEARS 1-3 · YEAR 4 · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1053}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "Each player examines the paths in their dungeon and gains reputation for paths that connect to either their dungeon entrance or exit. To connect to an entrance or exit, there must be a door on the chamber card (or secret passage token) adjacent to the doorway marker. Gain 1 reputation for each chamb", "headingPath": "DUNGEON PATHS", "sharpsignalDocId": 1053}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Game Setup v", "sharpsignalDocId": 1053}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Game Setup v", "sharpsignalDocId": 1053}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1053 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1053 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 0.87813 of 1518 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Oct 7, 2026 03:36 UTC

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 Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	Game Setup v	p.4	0.048916 (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 Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	Game Setup v	p.5	0.048652 (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 Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	Solo Play v · SOLO - SETUP CHANGES	p.12	0.047619 (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 Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	How to Play v · I. CONSTRUCTION PHASE · Placing Chamber Cards	p.7	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 Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	I. Construction	p.13	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 Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	II. IMPROVEMENT PHASE · STEP 1: COUNT GOLD · Breaking Ties · STEP 2: VISIT THE MARKET	p.8	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 Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	II. Improvement · COMPARE GOLD · IF YOU HAVE MORE GOLD: · IF YOU HAVE EQUAL OR LESS GOLD: · YEARS 1-3 · YEAR 4 · …	p.14	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 Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	DUNGEON PATHS	p.11	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 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 17 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 Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	Game Setup v	p.4	#1	0.048916 (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 Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	II. IMPROVEMENT PHASE · STEP 1: COUNT GOLD · Breaking Ties · STEP 2: VISIT THE MARKET	p.8	#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
#3	RULEBOOK Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	I. Construction	p.13	#5	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	STEP 2: VISIT THE MARKET · ELEMENTS · SECRET PASSAGE TOKENS · III. CLEANUP	p.9	#10	0.014493 (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 Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	II. Improvement · COMPARE GOLD · IF YOU HAVE MORE GOLD: · IF YOU HAVE EQUAL OR LESS GOLD: · YEARS 1-3 · YEAR 4 · …	p.14	#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
#6	RULEBOOK Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	How to Play v · I. CONSTRUCTION PHASE · Placing Chamber Cards	p.7	#4	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
#7	RULEBOOK Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	Solo Play v · SOLO - SETUP CHANGES	p.12	#3	0.047619 (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
#8	RULEBOOK Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	Game Setup v	p.5	#2	0.048652 (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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	Game Setup v	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Stonespine Architects — Rulebook (corpus doc 1053)	Game Setup v	p.5	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 193 ms · first delta 1060 ms · total 3599 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 193 ms · ask 3403 ms · gateway work 3599 ms · total 3599 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3058
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 500
tok/sec: 202.2 tok/sec — 500 output tokens in 2.473 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 44s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 2h, checked 8s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
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: 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

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 983), 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.