Last Rites

How to Play

• You are the night intake clerk at the Ashgate mortuary, working an original twenty-night posting. Each night brings eight to eighteen cases. Read the papers, look at the body, and stamp a disposition.
• At the end of every night comes the ledger: what you earned, and what rent, heat, food and medicine take back. Fall short and the household at home starts to suffer. Progress saves after every case, so you can close the tab and come back.
• Use a mouse or other pointer to drag documents around the desk. Click a document without dragging to enlarge it; click again to put it back.
• ARTICLES — the tray button, or the red book on the desk — opens the rulebook. Articles are applied in order — the first one that matches decides the case. New articles are pinned up as the night goes on, so read every memo.
• TOOLS gives you the lantern, the hand mirror, the soil vial and the curse needle. Pick one, then click the part of the body it should be used on. The needle produces a written assay you can keep.
• INSPECT lets you pick two things that ought to agree — a line on one document and a line on another, or a document line and a part of the body. A real contradiction is worth points and tells you what is wrong.
• STAMPS raises the tray: Burial, Cremation, Exorcism, Reject, Hold, Detain and Vault (seven dispositions).
• A wrong disposition earns a citation from the Ministry. Four citations in one night ends the shift.
• LONG NIGHT — DAILY BOARD unlocks after Night 18. It is one daily deck with every final law in force: no household, marks or campaign choices. Cases cleared come first, then accuracy, then evidence found; four citations ends the run.
• Long Night evidence is a low-stakes, client-reported tiebreak: each authored tool sign, discrepancy or assay counts once per case, up to four.
• Click the coffin to open and close the lid. Hold the lantern first and the inside of the lid is worth a look.
• Fullscreen puts the desk on the whole display, which makes the small print much easier to read.
• Keyboard shortcuts: R rulebook, T tools, I inspect, S stamps, Enter to move on, 1–4 to choose a tool, 1–7 to choose a stamp, Escape to close a panel. Use the Text controls button for a complete keyboard-accessible desk.