Make battle costly
Opposing Tactics can be condemned to the Graveyard instead of recycling through the Discard Pile, turning normal battle spending into permanent loss.
Inquisition · faction overview
Turn every loss into judgment.
The Inquisition condemns opposing cards to the Graveyard, then purges and purifies without mercy—stripping the opponent's resources away until there is nothing left to draw.
- Victory
- Run the Gauntlet or achieve Purification
- System
- Conviction · Condemnation · Purge
- Leaders
- Grand Inquisitor · Witch Hunter
At the table
How the Inquisition plays.
The Inquisition wins through attrition and denial. Even an ordinary battle can permanently thin the opponent's options, creating pressure that grows whether or not the battlefield moves quickly.
Turn loss into authority
Those permanent losses build Conviction, which powers the faction's harsher effects. Attrition itself becomes a source of momentum.
Dismantle recovery
Purges turn Conviction into permanent removal from Assets, Hand, and other recoverable resources, making each later turn harder for the opponent to rebuild.
Signature system
What makes the faction different.
Conviction
Conviction is the authority the Inquisition gathers as opposing cards are permanently lost—and from certain acts it deems intolerable. It fuels the faction's harshest judgments.
Condemnation and Purge
Condemnation keeps battle cards from recycling; Purge spends Conviction to remove larger pieces of the opponent's engine. Together they make recovery progressively harder.
Purification
Purification is the end state of the Inquisition's campaign: strip away the opponent's recoverable deck until there is nothing left to draw.
Victory
How the Inquisition wins.
Run the Gauntlet
Permanent removal and retaliation can clear a direct path through the Territories while shrinking the opponent's ability to resist.
Purification
Purify the opponent until both their Draw Pile and Discard Pile are empty. If there is nothing left to draw, the Inquisition wins.
Faction Leaders
Two ways to lead.
Each Leader uses the same Conviction and Purge tools, but one turns victories into harsher judgment while the other weaponizes the opponent's failed attacks.
Judgment, Purge, and permanent removal
Grand Inquisitor
“We judge. We purge.”
The Grand Inquisitor turns battle victories into cheaper Purges, linking territorial success directly to permanent resource damage.
Why it matters
The Grand Inquisitor rewards choosing battles you can win, then using the victory to remove the opponent's most important recoverable resource.
Defense, retaliation, and pursuit
Witch Hunter
“You ran. I followed.”
The Witch Hunter can turn a failed enemy attack into an immediate pursuit, converting defense into counteroffense.
Why it matters
The Witch Hunter rewards holding enough Conviction in reserve to threaten pursuit. Opponents have to think twice before attacking a position he can defend.
Archetype and setting
An institution—and a method of power.
The Inquisition represents a rigorist religious-legal institution concerned with doctrine, spiritual danger, investigation, judgment, and suppression. Its authority is recognized differently from one jurisdiction to another, and its claims can conflict sharply with local civil authority and native sovereignty. The Grand Inquisitor embodies tribunal and institutional judgment; the Witch Hunter carries that mission into the field as investigator, pursuer, and enforcer.
Leader inspirations: Grand Inquisitor — Tomás de Torquemada, William Bradford, Cotton Mather, Girolamo Savonarola, and the broader archetype of the severe Puritan magistrate or doctrinal judge. Witch Hunter — Matthew Hopkins and Van Helsing: the itinerant hunter of hidden supernatural corruption.
Gauntlet takes place in an eighteenth-century powder-and-parchment world of competing provinces, chartered territories, autonomous cities, commercial possessions, and independent native nations. The six factions are institutional spheres that cross political and cultural borders: methods of exercising power rather than six countries or peoples.
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