Reckoner Brass Engine

Numbers are the machine. Reckoner is an idle instrument built from a stack of odometer number-wheels, each a position in a base-N counting column. Your engines feed ticks into the bottom wheel; when a wheel fills to the working base it CARRIES one unit up to the wheel above — a visible brass flip — and every carry mints reckonings.

The trick is that higher wheels are worth exponentially more. A carry into the top place is worth base raised to that place, so a tall, well-fed stack pays enormous sums per turn. Managing your portfolio of columns and bases is the whole game: raise the base and each wheel takes longer to fill, but the per-carry payoff climbs even faster. Add columns to extend the register. Grind the governors — mainspring tension, escapement polish, the fly governor, ivory bearings — to drive the whole chain harder.

Every readout is live: per-column carry rates, tick rate, mint-per-carry, lifetime totals, and a scrolling carry tape logging each wheel that just turned. It reads like a scientific instrument because it is one.

When lifetime output is high enough, Recalibrate strips the engine to its frame, banks permanent BEARINGS — each lifts all output by 15% forever — and unlocks a higher working base to climb again. Every Recalibrate also mints a WARRANT for the Disciplines: three Halls of permanent specialization — Velocity, Magnitude, Providence — that you spend warrants down one rung at a time. Finish a Hall and you may swear its DOCTRINE, but only one Doctrine may be held at once, so the deepest choice in the machine is which engine you want to become.

It runs while you're away: the engine keeps carrying for an hour after you leave the bureau and pays you on return — and the Ledger of Record tracks twelve sealed commissions, from the parish accounts to the Treasury contract, that survive every Recalibrate. Each day the morning post brings a client's letter — a reckoning job sized to your engine; finish it, collect the fee, and your record of commissions served only ever grows. Optional one-time clerk upgrades extend the overnight ledger; the free game is complete and never gated.

Then bolt on the FITTINGS: each wheel takes one brass attachment — a Ratchet Pawl that mints more per carry, an Idler Gear that gears carries up the stack, a Feather Spring that fills the wheel faster, a Return Crank that feeds ticks back to the bottom. Placement is the puzzle: low sockets are cheap and compound through every wheel above, and a Recalibrate strips them all, so each rebuild is a fresh loadout. And your whole career hangs in the EXHIBITION — thirty-six medals struck in bronze, silver and gold from your lifetime record, never lost, with hard-won faceplate finishes to re-lacquer the engine to taste.

• A base-N carry-column economy — positional notation made into a game
• Odometer wheels flip and carry; higher places pay exponentially more
• Change the base to trade carry speed for a bigger per-carry payoff
• Dense live readouts: per-column rates, totals, and a scrolling carry tape
• Idle-friendly: the engine reckons offline and pays you on return
• A daily commission arrives by morning post — collect the fee, grow the record
• Recalibrate prestige banks permanent bearings and raises your base
• The Disciplines: three permanent specialization Halls and three exclusive Doctrines — commit to a build
• The Fittings: bolt one of four brass attachments onto each wheel — placement is the puzzle
• The Exhibition: 36 medals in bronze, silver and gold, plus unlockable faceplate finishes
• Fully offline, no account, nothing collected

Set the base. Turn the wheels.