Prophecy of the Listener · Relicsong Card Game

How to Play

By Adrian Blackshire

A short guide for your first game. You can learn it in five minutes.

Open the game

The goal

You are the Listener, singing against the Resonance Storm. It is a race.

You win when10 Resonance

Your song is strong enough to calm the sea.

You lose when10 Instability

Or when your Health drops to 0.

Your numbers

Resonance: Your progress. Get it to 10 to win.
Health: You start with 10. If it reaches 0, you lose.
Shield: Blocks damage before it hurts your Health. 1 Shield stops 1 damage.
Instability: How wild the Storm is. If it reaches 10, you lose.
Paradox: A bad thing. While it is above 0, matching your tone gives no bonus and you can't sing a Chorus. It drops by 1 at the end of each of your turns.
Intensity: How strong the Storm is. Once it is 2 or more, the Storm makes two moves each turn.

Your turn, step by step

Read the Storm's warning. The red strip near the top shows exactly what the Storm will do when your turn ends, and which tone answers each move. Plan around it.
Pick a tone. Tap one of the five tone buttons. Cards in your hand that match it will glow. Your first change each turn is free.
Play up to 3 cards. Tap a card to play it. The three dots show how many plays you have left. You don't have to use all three.
Hold a card if you like. Once a turn, press Hold a card (or H) and pick one to save for later. Holding doesn't use a play.
Press End Turn. Your hand fills back up to 5 cards and Paradox drops by 1.
The Storm makes its moves. It does what the warning said, minus anything you answered. Then it shows its next moves, and it's your turn again.

Tones: the one trick to learn

Every card has a tone. You have one active tone at a time.

CalmEmpatheticReflectiveCuriousVulnerable

Play a card that matches your tone, and any Resonance it gives you gets +1 extra. This only works when Paradox is 0.
Play a card that does not match, and you lose 1 Resonance.
Your first tone change each turn is free. Every extra change costs 1 Resonance. If you have no Resonance to pay, you take 1 Paradox instead.

Example. Your tone is Calm and you play Breath of Tide, which is a Calm card that gives 2 Resonance. It matches, so you get 3. If your tone had been Curious, you would get 2 and then lose 1, so only 1.

Simple habit: look at your hand, pick the tone that most of your best cards share, and stick with it for the turn. Switching back and forth will drain your Resonance.

Counter-song New

Each tone can answer one of the Storm's moves. When you play a card that matches your tone while that move is in the red strip, the move is softened. The chip turns green so you can see it worked.

Storm move	Answered by	What answering does
Strike	Empathetic	Only 1 damage instead of 2
Swell	Vulnerable	Only +1 Instability instead of +2
Fracture	Calm	Cancelled
Discord	Reflective	Cancelled
Drown	Curious	Cancelled

One card answers one move. Silence and Surge have no tone that answers them. A card in your hand that would answer a move shows an Answers tag.

Chorus New

Make all 3 of your plays in a turn match your tone while Paradox is 0, and you sing a Chorus. You then pick a reward: +1 Resonance or −1 Instability. The line next to your turn counter tracks how close you are.

Example. Your tone is Empathetic. You play Pulse of Crystal, Crystal Mask Fragment and Resonance Surge. All three match, so you get a Chorus. The first one also answered a warned Strike.

Attuned Relics New

After you play a Relic, the game asks if you want to attune it. An attuned Relic sits in your Relic slot instead of going to the discard, and its passive effect works every turn. You have one slot, so attuning a new Relic sends the old one to your discard.

A Fracture shatters your attuned Relic. Answer Fractures with a Calm card to protect it.

Relic	While attuned
Breath-Shell	Each Strike deals 1 less damage.
Crystal Mask Fragment	Gain 1 Shield at the start of each of your turns.
Drift-Spiral Charm	Your hand fills to 6 cards instead of 5.
Tide-Bloom Pendant	Your first off-tone play each turn costs no Resonance.
Listener’s Archive Shard	The rising tide only comes in every other turn.

Held breath New

Once per turn you can set one card aside in the held breath slot. Press Hold a card (or H), then tap the card. It stays there until you tap it to play it, on any later turn.

Drown can't take a held card.
A held card doesn't count toward your 5-card hand, so you still draw back up to 5.
Playing it uses one of your plays, and the usual tone rules apply.

What the Storm does

The Storm always warns you first. Its next moves appear in the red strip before you play, so nothing it does is a surprise. At Intensity 2 or more, it makes two moves.

Move	What happens	Answered by
Swell	Instability goes up by 2.	Vulnerable
Strike	2 damage to you. Shield blocks it first.	Empathetic
Fracture	Paradox goes up by 1, and your attuned Relic shatters.	Calm
Surge	Intensity goes up by 1.	None
Discord	Your tone is forced to a random different one. You'll likely spend next turn's free change fixing it.	Reflective
Drown	A random card is swept from your hand into the discard pile.	Curious
Silence	You get only 2 plays next turn instead of 3.	None

Rising tide. From turn 8 on, every Storm turn also adds 1 Instability, on top of its moves. The longer you play, the faster you lose. Push for the win before the tide comes in.

The cards

Your deck has 24 cards. There are four kinds:

Verse: Your everyday songs. Simple and safe. There are 5 of them, and you have 3 copies of each.
Relic: Treasures with a bit more power, often doing two things at once. You can attune them. One copy each.
Echo: Tricky cards that bend the rules, like changing your tone or setting off a random Verse. One copy each.
Event: Big, risky moves. Strong, but they come with a cost. One copy each.

Card	Tone	What it does
Breath of Tide	Calm	+2 Resonance
Pulse of Crystal	Empathetic	+2 Shield
Drift of Memory	Reflective	+1 Resonance, draw 1 card
Bloom of Light	Curious	Draw 2 cards
Listener’s Echo	Vulnerable	Instability −2
Breath-Shell	Calm	+1 Resonance, +1 Shield, Paradox −1
Crystal Mask Fragment	Empathetic	+2 Shield
Drift-Spiral Charm	Reflective	Draw 2 cards
Tide-Bloom Pendant	Curious	+1 Resonance, draw 1 card
Listener’s Archive Shard	Vulnerable	Instability −3
Echo Reversal	Reflective	Your tone changes to match the Storm’s Intensity (this doesn't use your free change), then draw 1 card
Glyph Cascade	Curious	A random Verse goes off for free, then Paradox +1
Resonance Surge	Empathetic	+3 Resonance, but you take 1 damage
Calm the Tempest	Calm	Instability −4, your turn ends, and the Storm skips its turn (its warned moves wait for the next one)

Voyage across Rahdaria New

Tap Mode at the top of the game to switch to a Voyage: three Storms in a row instead of one.

After you calm a Storm, pick 1 of 3 new cards to add to your deck for the rest of the Voyage.
Your Health carries over, plus 2 (never above your starting Health). Your held card comes with you. Resonance, Shield, Paradox and your Relic slot reset.
Each Storm starts wilder. Storm 2 begins with 1 extra Instability. Storm 3 begins with 2 extra and makes two moves from turn 1.

Reward card	Kind and tone	What it does
Whale-Song Verse	Verse · Vulnerable	Instability −1, +1 Resonance
Deepglass Verse	Verse · Reflective	+1 Shield, draw 1 card
Coral Lattice	Relic · Empathetic	+1 Resonance, +1 Shield. Attuned: each Chorus also gives 1 Shield.
Tidewright’s Bell	Relic · Calm	Instability −2. Attuned: each Swell adds 1 less Instability.
Lantern of Rahdaria	Relic · Curious	+1 Resonance, draw 1 card. Attuned: Silence has no effect on you.
Mirror Tide	Echo · Empathetic	Answers the next warned Storm move, whatever it is, then draw 1 card
Undertow Echo	Echo · Calm	Discard your hand, then draw that many cards plus 1
Tharen’s Hymn	Event · Reflective	+4 Resonance, but Instability +2

How to win, step by step

Build Resonance every turn. Breath of Tide, Drift of Memory, Tide-Bloom Pendant, Breath-Shell and Resonance Surge all add to it. Get to 10 and you win.
Pick one tone and commit. A matching card gives +1 extra Resonance, and three matching plays make a Chorus. A card that doesn’t match costs you 1, and so does every tone change after your first.
Answer the warning. If a Strike is coming, play Shield or an Empathetic card. If a Swell is coming and Instability is already high, lower it now or answer it with a Vulnerable card.
Keep the Storm in check. When Instability climbs past 5, spend a play lowering it with Listener’s Echo, the Archive Shard or Calm the Tempest.
Finish before turn 8. After that, the rising tide adds Instability every turn.

Difficulty levels

Tap the Difficulty button at the top of the game to pick a level. Picking one starts a new game, and the game remembers your choice. Everything in this guide describes Listener, the standard level.

Level	What changes	Score
Novice	12 Health. Two free tone changes a turn. The Storm never uses Drown or Silence. Rising tide from turn 10.	×0.5
Listener	The standard game. 10 Health, one free tone change, rising tide from turn 8.	×1
Abyss	8 Health. Instability starts at 2. The Storm makes two moves from turn 1. Rising tide from turn 7.	×1.5
Maelstrom	7 Health. Instability starts at 3. Two Storm moves from turn 1. No free tone change at all. Rising tide from turn 6.	×2

Scores and the leaderboard

When a game ends, you get a score and can save it under any name you choose. The leaderboard shows the top 10, and each player keeps only their best.

A win: 1000 points, plus 40 for every turn under 25, plus 25 for each Health and 10 for each Shield you have left.
A loss: 50 points for each Resonance you reached, plus 10 for each turn you survived.
A Voyage: Each calmed Storm is worth 800, plus 30 for every turn under 15 in that Storm. Finishing all three adds 25 for each Health and 10 for each Shield left. If you fall, you keep the points for Storms already calmed, plus 50 per Resonance and 10 per turn survived.

The total is then multiplied by your difficulty, so a Maelstrom win counts double. Fast wins with Health to spare on hard levels score the most. Saving needs you to be signed in to Claude with permission to save on this game.

Tips for your first game

Read the red strip before every turn. It is the most useful thing on the screen, and it tells you which tone answers each move.
Treat your free tone change as precious. Discord will try to steal it, unless you answer it with a Reflective card.
When Drown is coming, play your best cards first or hold the one you can't lose.
When Silence is coming, make this turn count. Next turn you'll only have 2 plays.
Save Calm the Tempest for a bad moment, like two big moves coming at once.
Try to keep Paradox at 0. Breath-Shell removes it; Glyph Cascade and Fracture add it. Paradox also blocks your Chorus.
Attune a Relic early. Its effect pays off every turn it survives.

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