Skelm

• 44 cards — 26 Tokoloshes (the black cards, worth 2 to 14 — J, Q, K and A count as 11, 12, 13 and 14), 9 Bliksems and 9 Umqombothi (worth 2 to 10 each).
• The room — four cards face up. Face three of them, one at a time, in whatever order you like; the fourth carries into the next room.
• Duck a room if you want — the whole thing gets shuffled back into whatever's left of the deck (not just dumped at the bottom in the same order) and you're dealt a fresh one from what was already coming up next. You can't duck two rooms running.
• A Bliksem is equipped the moment you pick it up, replacing whatever you had — no bonus for holding onto an old one, no penalty either. Fight a Tokoloshe with it and you take the difference in damage, not the full hit: a Bliksem worth 5 against a Tokoloshe worth 9 costs you 9 − 5 = 4 health. But the fight blunts the Bliksem down to that Tokoloshe's value going forward — after that fight it's only good for 9 or weaker. Swing it at anything bigger and you're barehanded for that one (full damage, no discount), or go find a fresh Bliksem to replace it.
• Umqombothi heals its value, capped at 20. Skelm's own twist: draw more than one in a turn and every one heals — stock Scoundrel only lets you use the first.
• Health hits 0, you're out — that's the run, and it doesn't rank. Even if it happens on the very last card in the deck: the health check comes before the victory check, so dying to the final Tokoloshe is still a death, not a clear, no matter how close it was.
• Clear the deck and your finishing health is your score, your time goes on the board. Finish at a full 20 on Umqombothi and you get credit for the overheal too.
• Gooi weer undoes your last move — one step back, including a death or a clear you've just seen. Use it and that crawl still plays out and stays in your own history, it just won't land on the board — a speedrun time isn't honest if a bad room can be taken back.
• Reset crawl throws the whole run away and deals a fresh one, any time — no dying or clearing first. Unlike Gooi weer this isn't a move being taken back, so it doesn't cost you anything or touch your history: it's a walk-away, same as never having played that crawl at all.
• Every deal is checked before you see it. Skelm proves each new crawl has a genuine clear-able line through it before it's ever dealt to you — see the Dungeon Solver's Guide below for what that means and how to find that line yourself.
• Show me the way asks Skelm's own solver what it would do from exactly where you are, right now, and points straight at the card and move. Calling it marks the crawl practice-only, same treatment as Gooi weer: it still plays out and stays in your history, it just won't rank.

Everything above happens on the server — the deck order, every fight, the clock. This page just shows you what happened.

What the names mean

Bliksem

Afrikaans for lightning, and — used the way South Africans actually say it — a solid hit, or a mild curse roughly in the neighbourhood of "damn". As a verb, "to bliksem" someone is to strike them. Fitting, for the weapon.

Tokoloshe

A mischievous, dangerous spirit from Southern African (Nguni) folklore — small, hairy, and known for causing trouble after dark. Some households still raise their beds up on bricks, the old way of keeping one from reaching you while you sleep.

Umqombothi

The ultimate legendary drink of the Eastern Cape. This traditional Xhosa beer is made from a rich, fermented blend of maize meal, crushed corn, sorghum malt, water, and yeast. Thick, opaque, and low in alcohol, it takes up to five days to prepare over an open fire. It's essential for contacting the ancestors (izinyanya) and celebrating the homecoming of young men (abakwetha) after traditional initiation.

These aren't hunches — they fall straight out of the same solver that checks every deal before it's dealt to you (see "Every deal is checked before you see it" above) and that answers "Show me the way". Play them and you're playing the odds the way the math actually runs.

• Drink every Umqombothi, no exceptions. It always heals, it stacks if you face more than one in a turn, and it's capped at 20 rather than wasted outright. There's no version of "save it for later" that beats drinking it the moment you see it.
• Pick up every Bliksem — but choose your first kill with it carefully. Barehanded, a Tokoloshe costs you its full value. With any weapon, it only costs you the difference. So wielding even a middling Bliksem against a big Tokoloshe is almost always cheaper than facing it bare. The catch: whatever you first swing it at sets its new ceiling — it's only good for that value or lower afterward. Save it for the toughest Tokoloshe you can still legally reach, not the first one in the room.
• Order the room around your weapon's ceiling, not left-to-right. Since one kill can blunt a Bliksem past usefulness against everything harder, decide which Tokoloshe most needs the weapon before you touch anything — then take the rest barehanded or with whatever's left of it.
• Do the math before you duck, not after. Ducking isn't a preview — the whole room gets shuffled back into what's left of the deck and you're dealt a fresh one at random. Add up what the room actually in front of you would cost first (barehanded or with your current weapon, whichever you'd really use). If that total is one you can absorb, ducking usually trades a known, survivable cost for an unknown one — which is rarely the better trade.
• Track your cushion, not just your health number. Rough rule: your health plus every Umqombothi still left in the deck is the most healing you could ever still see. The moment a single remaining Tokoloshe could cost more than that whole cushion — even with a weapon in hand — no line through the rest of the deck is guaranteed anymore. That's the moment to slow down, or reach for Gooi weer or "Show me the way" rather than push on hoping.
• The fourth card is a choice, not a leftover. Only three of every four room cards get faced — whatever's left carries straight into the next room. That's you choosing what to walk into next, so leave whichever card sets up your next room best, not just whichever's least useful in this one.
• A death is (almost always) on the choices, not the deck. Every crawl Skelm deals you is proven to have a real, clear-able line through it before you ever see card one. So if a run goes bad, it's almost always a room played out of order, a weapon blunted too early, or a duck that came back worse — not the shuffle being unfair. "Show me the way" exists for exactly this: it'll show you the line, or tell you honestly if you've already played your way off one.