The night, the defense, the Gate, building sites, and why you go out.

1. 1
   A few minutes a day

   Each day is a turn. Make your moves, then come back tomorrow.
2. 2
   Your defense, every night

   On the left, your defense. On the right, the midnight assault: “???” until there is a Watchtower. Green: it holds. Red: people will die.
3. 3
   The Gate, closed at midnight

   Gate open at midnight = zero defense. More on that later.
4. 4
   Building sites

   Building raises the defense and unlocks new buildings. It takes resources and chakra.
5. 5
   Chakra is your time

   Your chakra shows here, at the top, on every screen. Every move costs ◈. Only 4 ◈ last the night: spend the rest.
6. 6
   Drink

   🥵 Thirsty? Drink at the Well, it gives chakra back. 🏜 Dehydrated at midnight = death.
7. 7
   Your day in one list

   Lost? Follow this list.
8. 8
   Resources are outside

   Go to the Great Gate. I'll come with you.

Passing the Great Gate.

1. 1
   Go out

   The button at the bottom of the screen takes you out. Outside, each step costs 1 ◈. Keep enough to come back.

Steps, the return margin, searching.

1. 1
   Each step costs chakra

   1 ◈ per tile, going out and coming back.
2. 2
   ⚠ Your way-back margin

   Cyan: fine. Orange: head back soon. Red: you can no longer get back.
3. 3
   Stuck outside = a night outside

   Outside at midnight with no camp: you die 85% of the time.
4. 4
   Your turn: leave the village

   Tap a direction. Stay on your guard.

Bringing back what the village builds with.

1. 1
   Search here

   This button shows up at the bottom of the screen whenever you can search. Searching brings back wood, stone, metal and herbs; further out is richer and more dangerous. Try it!

Jutsu, with the Kirin lent for the occasion.

1. 1
   Your first fight

   We lend you a jutsu. Tap Jutsu.
2. 2
   Raiton · Kirin, just for this fight

   Free this time, and it leaves afterwards. Your own are learned at the Academy. Tap it.
3. 3
   Tap the enemy

   First the action, then the target. Tap the enemy.

A move takes two steps: choose the action, then tap the target.

1. 1
   1 · Pick your action

   Tap ⚔ Attack, Jutsu or Items. Your allies see your choice.
2. 2
   2 · Tap your target

   An enemy to attack, a teammate to heal or protect. The cross cancels.
3. 3
   3 · The enemy strikes back

   Alone: after each of your hits. In a group: once everyone has played.
4. 4
   Flee, call for help

   Flee (the chance is on the button), or Call reinforcements on Discord.

Back towards the village tile after the fight.

1. 1
   Fight won! Now head back

   Tap the arrow toward the village, in the middle of the map.

On the village tile, go in.

1. 1
   You're at the Gate

   Tap “Enter the village”, at the bottom of the screen. Your loot stays in your bag for now.

Close before midnight, but not on those outside.

1. 1
   Close here before midnight

   The gate button is in the banner, at the top. Gate open at midnight = zero defense. One ninja is enough to close it.
2. 2
   But check who's outside

   Gate closed, those outside can't get back in. Check first.

Empty your bag at the Warehouse, for the whole village.

1. 1
   Now, your loot

   In your bag, it helps no one. In the Warehouse, it helps the whole village. Tap “Drop all”.
2. 2
   Expedition done

   Go out, search, fight, come back, drop off: that's your day. Get back before midnight.

3 first steps without thirst, then 🥵 Thirsty, then 10 steps and 🏜 Dehydrated.

1. 1
   Walking makes you thirsty

   This counter is your steps today. 3 safe steps, then each step can make you 🥵 Thirsty. By the 10th, it's certain.
2. 2
   Then 🏜 Dehydrated

   After 🥵 Thirsty, 10 more steps and you are 🏜 Dehydrated. It goes no further.
3. 3
   What kills is midnight

   🏜 Dehydrated at midnight without drinking = death. Drink before midnight. Dehydrated, you must drink twice.

What 🥵 Thirsty means, and where to see it.

1. 1
   🥵 You are thirsty

   Your state shows here. 🥵 Thirsty is no big deal: no effect for now.
2. 2
   Drink when you can

   One gulp at the Well (or from your flask) removes it and gives you chakra. Without drinking, walking or the night make you 🏜 Dehydrated.

The only thirst state that kills: drink before midnight.

1. 1
   🏜 You are dehydrated

   Now it is serious. If you haven't drunk by midnight, you die.
2. 2
   Drink before midnight

   One gulp is enough: at the Well, or from your flask if you are outside. Walking won't make it worse: no rush, but don't let midnight pass.

Sites, Projects, and what each building is for.

1. 1
   Two steps, never one

   A site opens with materials from the Warehouse, then the village pours its chakra into it until completion. Nobody builds alone — and every ◈ put into a wall is a ◈ you won't spend outside.
2. 2
   What remains to decide

   Ramparts count toward the defense every night. Workshops and care don't defend: they make you more effective. A village that only builds walls starves; a village that builds none dies at midnight.
3. 3
   Open sites

   What is waiting for chakra, right now. It's the most useful move of your day if you don't know what to do with your ◈ — and any you keep beyond 4 will be lost anyway.
4. 4
   Projects: level 2

   A standing building can go up a floor, and that changes its rules — the Workshop stops costing chakra, the Hospital heals twice a day. It takes a majority of votes to launch a Project, and only one at a time for the whole village.

Where the number comes from.

1. 1
   Where your defense comes from

   Tap the number to see every point. It comes from buildings, jutsu barriers raised in the evening (they cost chakra), and the clans present: being inside already defends.

The shared stock: depositing, taking, the ledger.

1. 1
   Everything here belongs to everyone

   The Warehouse is the village's shared stock. Building sites and workshops draw from it. What you bring back is useless in your bag: drop it here("Deposit all" does it in one go).
2. 2
   Taking is seen

   You can take what you need to head out, but every take is public: the ledger at the bottom says who dropped what, who took what, and what the sites used up. The village reads it.
3. 3
   What the sites are waiting for

   This list says which materials the open sites are missing. It's the best shopping list when you go out searching.
4. 4
   The Kage's reservations

   The Kage can reserve the last copy of an item for one ninja: it only leaves with them. Three reservations at most, all public, and they lapse at dawn.

The shelter, the chest and the bag, the night watch, prowling.

1. 1
   Your shelter for the night

   When an assault breaches the walls, people die. Fortifying your house lowers your risk of being one of them. It only protects you: for the village, the same materials are worth far more in a rampart.
2. 2
   The chest stays, the bag goes

   Your chest never leaves the village, and the village can't take from it. But while you are outside, a prowler can open it: a lock stored inside drops their odds to 25%. Your bag goes with you, and if you fall outside, it stays on that tile.
3. 3
   Sleep, or stand watch

   Each night you sleep at home or take a post: ramparts (+2 defence, but that's where the dead fall), gate (a chance to close it if it was forgotten) or supplies (a chance to find poison in the well). A guard sleeps outside: their fortified house doesn't protect them that night.
4. 4
   Prowling other houses

   A house opens when its owner is outside or dead. You can take one item per visit, for free, but you have a 70% chance of being recognised, and your name goes to the log.

Workshop, Forge, Hospital, Greenhouse, Ramen shop, Dojo, Onsen: what each one does.

1. 1
   They work with the Warehouse

   Workshops take their materials from the Warehouse and put what they make back there. What you need to head out, you then take from the Warehouse. Every action shows its price first.
2. 2
   Healing

   The Hospital restores all your HP, once a day, but only inside the walls. For the outside it prepares herbs: the only healing that follows you on an expedition. The Greenhouse grows them on its own, every dawn.
3. 3
   Gearing up

   The Workshop refines raw materials, the Forge hammers weapons and vests. A weapon wears down with every taijutsu hit: when it breaks, it gets repaired at the Forge, or ends up in the Debris pit.
4. 4
   What produces on its own

   The Greenhouse (herbs) and the Ramen shop (meals that restore chakra) produce every dawn, without anyone lifting a finger. Build them early: they work for the village every day.
5. 5
   Getting better for good

   The Dojo (taijutsu damage) and the Onsen (chakra every dawn) take one session a day, and what they give is permanent. The earlier you start, the more it pays.
6. 6
   Level 2

   Each workshop can go up a level through a Project voted at the Building sites: the Workshop stops costing chakra, the Hospital heals twice a day, the Greenhouse doubles its harvest…

Natures and ranks, studying, scrolls, the night barriers.

1. 1
   One tree per nature

   Each nature (Katon, Raiton, Suiton, Taijutsu…) climbs from Genin to Kage. A jutsu only opens once the ones that lead to it are mastered: tap a nature to see its tree, then a jutsu to see what it does.
2. 2
   Studying takes days

   You study one technique at a time, and a given jutsu only moves forward by one lesson a day. When the bar is full, the jutsu is mastered at dawn. A Genin takes one day, a Kage six: start early.
3. 3
   Scrolls

   A scroll found outside fills the study at once: mastered at the next dawn. It still can't skip a step. ⛓ Forbidden techniques aren't discovered yet: find their scroll outside, open it in the village, and the whole village can study them.
4. 4
   Strike, or protect the night

   Offensive jutsu are cast in combat and cost chakra. Defensive jutsu are barriers: you raise them in the evening from the "My jutsu" tab. A barrier only counts if you are inside the walls at midnight, and it falls at dawn.
5. 5
   Taijutsu costs no chakra

   Its techniques add to your punch. Two families: strikes and supports. After a technique, its whole family recharges: you can't chain two strikes.
6. 6
   Reading a jutsu twice

   A mastered jutsu can be studied a second time: it then costs you 1 ◈ less every time you use it. Once per jutsu.

Strikes, supports, and their shared cooldown.

1. 1
   Strikes

   On the left, strikes: the big damage. The technique goes out with your punch, no chakra needed.
2. 2
   Supports

   On the right, supports: less damage, but they boost your blow and add an effect — stunning the enemy, striking so it can't dodge.
3. 3
   One cooldown per family

   When you use a technique, its whole family goes on cooldown: after a strike, no other strike until it recharges. Supports stay free: alternate the two.

The register, complaints and banishment, electing the Kage and their power.

1. 1
   Who does what

   Here, every ninja's state: fit, wounded, outside or in the village. The village register says who did what, day by day. That's where you check before accusing.
2. 2
   Complaints are public

   You can file a complaint against a ninja. The whole village sees who accuses whom. Past a certain number of complaints, they are banished: the Ramen shop, Hospital and Workshop close their doors to them (the Well stays open). Withdrawing complaints lifts the ban.
3. 3
   The Scaffold

   If the village builds the Scaffold, enough complaints sentence someone to death. Once carried out, it can't be undone: use it only with proof.
4. 4
   The Kage

   Anyone can run and say why they should be followed. At dawn, a single candidate is elected outright; several open a one-day vote. The Kage weighs half the village in Projects, can reserve Warehouse items, cut a building's upkeep and give an order every day.
5. 5
   Removing them

   If the Kage disappoints, a no-confidence motion signed by half the living removes them on the spot, and a new election opens.

Going down floor by floor, the loot, climbing back up.

1. 1
   A guarded place, floor by floor

   You are underground. Each floor is guarded: you must beat its guardians to go down to the next. The deeper you go, the stronger they are.
2. 2
   Loot stays on its floor

   A cleared floor leaves its loot on the ground, on that floor. Pick it up before you leave. The last floor of every place always gives an Architect's plan.
3. 3
   Fleeing means climbing

   Underground there are no directions: fleeing takes you up one floor. Keep enough to get back to the village before midnight: a night underground is a night outside.
4. 4
   Go together

   Guardians hit hard: go down as a group and call for reinforcements. The Tomb, the deepest, is meant for three.

You're hooked on the pill. Your two options.

1. 1
   You're hooked

   One soldier pill too many. From now on you need one every day: one night without, you lose HP; two nights, double; three nights, you don't wake up. Nobody knows — it shows nowhere, neither in the Gazette nor on your profile.
2. 2
   Speak up

   You can step up in front of everyone. The village votes that same night: treat you — the Hospital site then opens without a vote, and it will be able to wean you — or banish you, and every building will be closed to you. It's a gamble, and it is never mandatory.
3. 3
   Or keep quiet

   The other way: cook your dose yourself, at the Workshop. It gives no chakra, costs HP and drains the Warehouse — but nothing is written… as long as nobody sees you. The more the village is awake, the greater the risk. Seen, your name enters the register.
4. 4
   And if you get out

   A level 2 Hospital can wean you: 8 ◈ and your whole day of care. But nobody comes out unscathed — every weaning costs you 20 max HP, for the rest of the game. Relapsing then getting treated again means finishing the game fighting at half strength. The way out exists; it is paid with your body.

What a banished ninja can still do, what is refused, and how to get out.

1. 1
   You are not out of the game

   The ban closes doors, it does not throw you out. You are still a member of the village, you still count towards its defence, and you can still be more useful than half the others. Nobody can drive you out: only the Scaffold can, and that is another threshold.
2. 2
   What you keep

   The Well — nobody is left to thirst, not even under the ban. Going out, searching, fighting, camping. And above all DEPOSITING at the Warehouse: what you bring back serves the whole village.
3. 3
   What is refused

   The Ramenya, the Hospital, the Workshop, the Dojo, the Onsen, the Altar, the merchant — and withdrawals from the Warehouse. The rule fits in one sentence: you can still give, you can no longer take. No ramen, no treatment, no crafting.
4. 4
   The real danger is not the ban

   It is hunger and wounds. Without the Ramenya you lose three chakra a day, and without the Hospital a wound never closes. A banished ninja holds on, but not as long — do not let it drag.
5. 5
   How to get out

   The ban falls on its own as soon as the charges drop back below the threshold — you do not need zero complaints, just one fewer than the threshold. Talk to those accusing you: only they can withdraw their complaint. Bringing back building material is the best argument you have.
6. 6
   Unless you were seen to kill

   A witnessed murder weighs a quarter of the village on its own, and it is not a complaint: it cannot be withdrawn. In that case no withdrawal will free you — all that is left is to serve the village outside, and hope the Scaffold stays away.

You serve the Root: the daily missive, refusing, the risk, the goal, and how to get out.

1. 1
   You're not from this village

   The Root recruited you. This panel exists only for you: to the others, this page is that of an ordinary ninja.
2. 2
   The daily missive

   Every day at 8 am, a crow brings you a missive: a single order (empty the Storehouse or the well, sabotage a building site, open the Great Gate, spread a rumour, poison, kill…). You carry it out from here, and what it pays is written on it. Nobody else can read it. If there are two agents, you know each other, and the missive goes to only one of you.
3. 3
   Refusing has a price

   A missive left undone at midnight is a refusal. 1st refusal: a warning. 2nd refusal: you are burned — a half-burned scroll is found in the morning, and it tells whether you slept inside or outside. 3rd refusal: the Root kills you. Refusals add up over the whole game: obeying in between erases nothing. An order that became impossible doesn't count. Burned, you still get your missives, but you have lost the final reward.
4. 4
   Killing, with or without an order

   A Root contract pays well. But from day 6, you can also kill without an order, once a day (−4 ◈, +10), from the Citizens page. Inside the walls, at the target's home: its lock, its fortified house, its defences or a Yamanaka can save it. Outside: only on its tile, and a single witness burns you.
5. 5
   The risk of being seen

   Every move can be caught: the odds are shown here, and they rise when the village is awake. Caught, your name lands in the journal. The village can then file an « Infiltrator » complaint — banished for infiltration, the Root drops you — or send you to the Scaffold. A Yamanaka can read what you are, and the ANBU Quarter sometimes foils a mission (it is lost, without counting as a refusal). Act while the village sleeps.
6. 6
   The final goal

   The Root wants the village to fall before its 15th night. If it gets it and you were never burned, you are crowned: 150 renown and the legendary title Gravedigger of villages. And if the village had elected you Kage, you become The Kage of the shadow (+200 more).
7. 7
   Or stop everything

   You can turn yourself in, if you don't want to do harm, or not anymore. It is irreversible and public: no more missives, and the village votes until midnight.
8. 8
   What the vote decides

   Covered (it takes a majority): you become an ordinary ninja again and earn The Repentant (+75). But the Root takes revenge on the village, in a way nobody knows in advance — it may even come for you. Handed over (a tie or too few votes): you are banished, you earn nothing, and the Root may still kill you at dawn.

Killing on contract or without an order: where, when, and what it risks.

1. 1
   Your blade is here

   This is the page where you strike. The 根 buttons only appear for you: on the line of a ninja inside the walls (the dagger, at their home) when you are inside too, or of a ninja on your tile when you are both outside.
2. 2
   Contract or no order

   A contract of the day pays its bounty. Without a contract, from day 6, you have one kill per day: the blood price (+10), nothing more. The attempt counts even if it fails.
3. 3
   Before striking, read the window

   Inside the walls, the window gives two numbers for THAT target: the odds that the assassination fails (lock, fortified house, defences stored there) and your odds of being caught — higher at a defended house, lower while the village sleeps. Outside there is no chance involved: one witness on the tile and you are burned, your name falls. One on one, nobody sees you.

An infiltrator may be hiding among you.

1. 1
   Maybe a traitor

   An infiltrator from the Root may be hiding among you. Stay alert.