aetherbound
a real-time card battler inside VRChat, styled as a haunted natural-history museum. every card is a creature pressed and bound into a page from another realm. knowledge itself is the rarest card.
before the realms, there was the Aether — not empty, but unwritten. given shape, it became worlds. and between the worlds stands the Bestiary: a museum built from the driftwood of finished worlds, where creatures are pressed flat and bound into pages, and made to live again, briefly, when a summoner spends Aether. claim a table by taking its staff. stamp creatures onto the board. keep three Altars lit — against the endless tide of the Unbound, or against a rival Wanderer across the table. 2D pixel art, dark-fairytale tone.
current phase and upcoming milestones
staff in hand, card held up to inspect, stamped down onto the board. the physical ritual is the game.
most cards have one ability. a few have none. some rare ones have several. stats tune; abilities define.
a dead unit returns to its page — you keep the card. what you lose is the board.
no ability text anywhere on cards. the community is the glossary.
launch is two wings. more appear overnight.
every faction carries a Rite — a set buff that touches only its own cards, in any deck, always. mix freely. the numbers are never printed anywhere. you will learn them the way everyone does.
the wildwood · launch
pressed from carved trophies. momentum aggro — prey-marking, fast cheap vanguards, kill rewards.
rite — pack instinct
the greenhouse · launch
pressed from pressed blooms. slow compounding control — seeds, spread, harvest, thorns.
rite — verdure
more wings appear overnight: the choir · the pact · the restless · the fey · the forge · the veil · the surge · the reign. each new faction is a new wing, a new content drop. and below the factions sit the basic cards — factionless, permanently, playable in any deck.
your own alcove, your own tide. the Unbound surge from the far end and the tide has no bottom. between waves: rebuild, re-summon, and the Curator may offer a Binding. every fifth wave is an Eclipse. the ledger remembers your deepest tide.
take a table's staff to claim it — everyone can see who's playing. settle it across the table: keep your Altars lit while your rival keeps theirs. no matchmaking, no ranks. reputation is word of mouth.
the museum is the menu. the full catalog sits on plinths down the wings — unowned cards as silhouettes, owned cards glowing. walking the halls is browsing the collection. lighting it up is visible progress. packs come from the Broker for Motes; duplicates are kept; and the museum keeps a few cards that are never sold, only found.
the memory rule
the Curator teaches the basics, then goes quiet. nothing in the world prints an ability — no tooltips, no glossary, no card text. sigils appear with their meanings unstated. effects are visible when they fire. players learn from the benches, from experiments, from each other. being the one who knows is a status the game cannot hand out any other way.
once in a great while, a crypt run ends and the next wave never comes. the lanterns burn quiet, the door stands open, and nothing arrives. the Curator calls this a Quiet Night and will not discuss it. and rarely — rarely — a woman in gray watches one duel from the benches, completely, and is gone before it ends.