Make battle costly
Condemnation sends opposing Tactics to the Graveyard instead of the Discard Pile.
✠ Inquisition · faction guide
Turn every loss into judgment.
The Inquisition sends opposing battle cards permanently to the Graveyard, gains Conviction from those losses, and spends it to suppress Assets, hands, and Discard Piles.
- Victory
- Run the Gauntlet or achieve Purification
- System
- Conviction · maximum 4
- Leaders
- Grand Inquisitor · Witch Hunter
At the table
How the Inquisition plays.
The Inquisition wins through attrition and denial. Even when it does not win a battle, opposing cards can become permanent losses that generate the Conviction needed for increasingly severe Purges.
Convert loss into authority
The first qualifying opposing Graveyard entry after a battle each turn generates Conviction, whether or not you won.
Dismantle recovery
Purges move cards, Assets, and chosen hand resources into the Graveyard, gradually exhausting the opponent’s options.
Signature system
The mechanics that define the faction.
Conviction
Gain Conviction from opposing post-battle Graveyard entries, up to 4. Opposing Arcane cards also trigger Blasphemy for additional Conviction.
Condemnation and Purge
Condemnation changes normal Tactic cleanup. Purge spends Conviction at an Action Opportunity for escalating forms of permanent removal. On your turn, using one Action Opportunity to Purge lets you use the other normal Action Opportunity as well; you may perform no more than one Purge through Action Opportunities that turn.
Purification
If the opponent’s normal Draw step draws nothing because both Draw Pile and Discard Pile are empty, the Inquisition wins immediately.
Victory
How the Inquisition wins.
Run the Gauntlet
Removal, retaliation, and forced retreat can clear a direct path through the Territory column.
Purification
Exhaust both the opponent’s Draw Pile and Discard Pile so their normal Draw step cannot produce a card. Cards elsewhere do not prevent the check.
Faction Leaders
Two ways to lead.
Each Leader uses the same faction card pool and core system, but pushes it toward a different tactical identity.
Judgment, Purge, and permanent removal
Grand Inquisitor
“We judge. We purge.”
The Grand Inquisitor converts a battle victory into an immediate discounted Purge.
Leader ability
Final Judgment: once per turn after winning a battle, Purge immediately without an Action Opportunity and reduce its Conviction cost by 1, to a minimum of 1. This Purge is separate from the Action-Opportunity Purge limit.
Defense, retaliation, and pursuit
Witch Hunter
“You ran. I followed.”
The Witch Hunter punishes failed attacks by ending the attacker’s turn and immediately pursuing them.
Leader ability
Relentless Pursuit: once per turn after an opponent loses a battle they initiated against you, spend 2 Conviction to end their turn, advance, and resolve any new battle immediately.
Archetype and setting
An institution—and a method of power.
The Inquisition is an institution of tribunal, doctrine, and field enforcement—deliberately not a direct depiction of any real-world church. Its exact religious, legal, and political place in the setting remains open. The Grand Inquisitor condemns; the Witch Hunter pursues.
Visual and archetypal influences: Tribunals, writs, ash, iron, candlelight, field pursuit, lanterns, doctrine, suppression, legal-religious authority, and severe early-modern institutional power.
Gauntlet’s setting is still being developed. The six factions are institutions within a broadly shared civilization, not fixed nations or isolated cultures.
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