Owner's guide

1The device

Aether Archive is a round-screen life counter with a knob. The glass is a touch screen; the knob turns (on this board it does not press). Everything is reached three ways: a turn of the knob, a tap on the glass, or a swipe from an edge.

The knob. On a life total it adds or takes one a click. On a list it moves the highlight. On a wheel it goes round. On a page of steps it turns the page.

The gestures.

• Swipe DOWN from the top edge — the options wheel comes down like a blind. Tap the middle of the wheel, or swipe up, to close it.
• Swipe RIGHT from the left edge of the face — the quick pane: the screen's brightness, the volume, UPDATE, and three shortcuts of your own.
• Swipe LEFT from the right edge of the face — opens whatever SETUP > SWIPE LEFT is set to (the dice, unless you change it).
• Tap a thing to open it or change it. Hold a thing for more: the life total opens the game menu, the TURN chip lets the knob set the turn number.
• The (<) disc at the foot of a page goes back; the X closes; a filled chip is the thing you came to press.

The ring of LEDs behind the glass breathes in your seat colour, flashes on damage and, at a table, is bright on your turn and dim on everyone else's. DISPLAY > RING sets it: EFFECT (solid, breathe, pulse, rainbow), RING (its brightness), LIGHTS (on or off) and HUE (a colour wheel; drag on it, or the knob a degree a click).

The vibration motor. A short buzz tells you something happened without looking: the options wheel opening, a critical hit, your turn coming round, your time running out, damage taken, words from a seat, a draft pick running out, and a light tick on the ✓ and on a wedge you open. SETUP > Haptics turns each on or off, sets the strength, or stops them all (see 15).

Power. The screen dims after the time set under DISPLAY > SCREEN (DIM: 15 s to 5 min, or never) and switches off after OFF (1 to 60 min, or never); a touch or the knob wakes it. Screensaver (the SCREENSAVER pill on DISPLAY > SCREEN, on to start): instead of switching off, the screen shows the card art (when it is on), the Aether Archive emblem and the time in large numbers, dimmed; a tap or a turn of the knob brings back the screen you left, and that tap presses nothing. With the battery saver on, the screen switches off as before. SETUP > BATTERY SAVER caps the brightness and the clock speed, turns the ring and Bluetooth off and lets WiFi go (a table you are playing at keeps its radio).

The battery gauge. The battery shows in the same place on every screen that has it: top centre. There is no fuel-gauge chip in this board, so the percentage comes from the cell's voltage. The cell's voltage dips while the backlight, the speaker or WiFi draws on it, so the gauge reads when the radio is quiet, averages about a minute, and on battery it only ever goes down, a step at a time. It goes up on the charger, or when the reading has stayed well above it for five minutes. On the cable the reading is the charger's, not the cell's: unplug for a true one, and give a just-charged cell half an hour to settle.

SETUP > Battery checks it against a meter. It shows the voltage the gauge uses, the last raw reading and the calibration. With the device on battery, measure the cell with a multimeter at its connector, set YOUR METER READS with the knob (0.01 V a click) and press SAVE: the device keeps the ratio between the two (the divider's resistors and the ADC's error together). RESET takes it off. LOG TO CARD writes a line every 30 s to /logs/battery.csv (minutes, raw and filtered millivolts, the percentages, the backlight, WiFi, charging). Leave it on from full to flat at one brightness and that file is your cell's real curve.

The battery chip shows the charge. A gold bolt across it means the device is charging: it appears within about a minute of plugging in, as the battery's voltage starts to climb. Just after unplugging a full battery the bolt can stay a few minutes, because the board has no wire that says "a cable is in" — the device reads it from the voltage.

2First boot

The first time it starts, the device plays a short tour: the knob, the options wheel, the quick pane and your name. A tap or a turn of the knob goes on, the (<) goes back, SKIP leaves at any card and DONE ends the last. On the last card, tap your name to type it. The tour shows once (a device updated from an older firmware sees it once too).

Then it asks What game? — the wheel of games — and lands on the home screen. It asks again once each time it is switched on; tap the game you are playing, or tap the middle to keep it.

Set up WiFi once under SYSTEM > WIFI if you want updates, the clock set from the internet, card art or network printing. Everything else works with no network at all.

3Home

Three bubbles and a gear.

• START GAME — a game on this device: you, or a few players sharing the glass, or a game to resume.
• HOST GAME — open a table that other Aether Archives can join over the air (no WiFi needed).
• JOIN GAME — sit at a table someone else opened, or watch one.
• The gear opens the options wheel; the chip under the bubbles names the game in play (Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, Lorcana...) and a tap on it opens the What game? wheel.

The battery is at the top centre and the time, when the clock knows it, just under it. The knob walks START, HOST, JOIN and the gear. The Aether Archive emblem sits large and dim behind the bubbles (SETUP > Home logo moves it above them, or takes it away).

When the game in play is D&D, the three bubbles are the character's: START opens your character's face, HOST is Host as the DM, and JOIN asks for a party's code (see 17).

4Starting a game

START GAME opens three choices.

• SINGLE PLAYER — the Quick Start: your name (tap the box to type it, or LIST for the names the device knows), add a partner for a team (NEW NAME or LIST; hold the partner's row to remove them), the starting life — three presets for the game, or ... and the knob for any number — the face, FULL or BASIC, and your DECK (tap to pick one: type a name, or KEY CARD to find the deck's key card on Scryfall — its art goes behind the face and the deck takes its name). The (<) goes back; START begins.
• MULTIPLAYER — everyone on this one device: SINGLE (one person a seat) or TEAMS (two people share a seat), how many (2 to 4), the life, the seats in their colours, then the VIEW (SINGLE, the seats round one face, or SHARED, the glass split so each player's number faces them) and who goes first: tap a name, or ROLL and let the device choose. On these steps a double tap on a choice goes on, as NEXT does.
• RESUME — back to the game that was going (shown only when there is one).

Each game has its own presets and direction: Magic counts down from 20 (or 30, or 40 for Commander); Yu-Gi-Oh runs 8000 in steps of 50; Pokemon counts prizes from 6; Flesh and Blood 40; Lorcana counts up to 20 lore; Riftbound up to 8 points; Altered up to 7.

Games that count up show "first to 20 lore" under the number and go gold at the target ("20 lore — that wins"). Games that count down end at zero, or at ten poison counters in Magic.

5The face

The big number is your life. The dim - and + either side change it by one (they light while you hold them); the knob does too. A change shows as a small +N / -N for a moment.

The ring of counters. Up to twelve badges round the rim: poison, energy, experience, commander damage from each opponent, the monarch and the initiative, day and night, a dungeon, and anything else the (+) at the lower right adds from the list. Tap a badge to select it, then the knob sets its count; drag a badge into the bin to remove it (UNDO brings it back for a moment). Ten poison ends the game.

Your upkeep. When your turn starts and your ring carries day or night, the initiative or a dungeon, the face asks what the upkeep wants: whether last turn's player cast no spells, one, or two or more (day and night turn on it), "Venture into Undercity" for the initiative, or the dungeon's cards.

The turn. At the foot: START TURN begins your turn and its clock; END TURN passes it. The small TURN chip on top shows the turn number; hold it and the knob sets the number. Your clock totals across the game. SETUP > Turn chime rings a bell when the turn comes to you at a table and when your turn's time runs out.

The (?) at the top opens HOW TO PLAY for the game you are playing (see 9).

Hold the number for the game menu: SET LIFE (turn the dial past 9999 and it reads infinite: the face shows the infinity sign, damage and life gain leave it alone, and turning down from it gives 9999), START AT 20, 30 or 40 (on one device), RESET GAME (tap twice), END GAME (it asks who won, or WIN or LOSS when you play alone) and, at a table, UNDO END TURN, CLOSE TABLE or LEAVE TABLE.

BASIC face. The number, bigger, the steppers and the counters along the foot, and the wall clock. Everything else waits in the wheel. Choose it at the Quick Start, or for a table in its lobby.

6Playing with others

One device, several players. Add seats under MULTIPLAYER and the glass shows them all: the other seats round the rim of your face, or the glass split into panes (the SHARED view). DAMAGE deals from one seat to another. On the SHARED view the knob starts on whoever goes first; tap a pane to move it. Tap the hub in the middle to pass the turn; hold it for SET LIFE (everyone, or one player), RESET GAME (back to who goes first, same names) and END GAME (home). When everyone but one is at 0 it asks "Did <name> win?": YES shows the winner with the fanfare, RESTART goes back to who goes first, END goes home.

A table of Aether Archives. One player taps HOST GAME, picks the life, says who is playing (and the decks), and opens the table: the lobby shows a four-digit JOIN CODE. The others tap JOIN GAME, type the code and SIT DOWN. Up to six seats fill in as they arrive, each in its own colour (tap your row, or the host its dot, to change it).

In the lobby the host sets:

• The mode (the chip on the left): FREE FOR ALL, EMPEROR (six players in two teams of three; an emperor in the middle of each; pawns must hit the pawn beside them first, then the emperor; the team whose emperor falls loses) or TEAMS (pairs; both players of a team see the same face, and either can pass the team's turn). In TEAMS, SHUFFLE deals the seats into new teams, or tap a name and turn the knob to move it into the next team. A team shares one life total — 30 in Magic (Two-Headed Giant) — and both devices of a pair show it, named for both ("Alex & Chris"): a change on either device lands on the other and on every opponent's panel within a second.
• The turn order: tap the names in the order they play; they take numbers. Tap a name and turn the knob to move it.
• FULL or BASIC (the chip on the right) — each player's own face for this table. BASIC is the number, big, with your name (smaller) over it and your clock under it — the "+5" takes the clock's place while it shows — the opponents round the top, the counters down the sides, the TURN chip and the turn button at the foot. On both faces the opponents' panels reach up to the edge of the glass, and the ring that lights on your turn runs round the very edge.

START opens who goes first; then Game on! on every device.

At a table every face shows the other seats round the rim: name, life, colour, clock, who is active (their square lights; your own turn lights the rim). Names that don't fit are shortened readably: a pair becomes "Tom&Chris", then "Troy&Kurt", then initials; a single name ends in "...". Attack: drag your number (or the sword at the lower left) onto an opponent's panel, tap the sword, or tap your own number to pick who. Tap an opponent's panel to open their sheet: their life and each of their counters as a big tile (the badge, the count large beside it, the name under it). Commander damage is one tile per commander, labelled with whose it is ("from Kurt"). Tap a tile and the knob counts it (the old CMD DMG rows are gone). The damage page picks the kind — DAMAGE, COMMANDER (counts toward 21), INFECT (poison) — and LIFELINK, BURN (non-combat damage), or LIFE GAIN; the amount by knob or taps; ALL PLAYERS or OPPONENTS for a spread; then the button, which says what it will do — HIT 5, BURN 5 or GAIN 5, and with LIFELINK on what you gain too (BURN 3 +3 for a Lightning Helix: tick BURN and LIFELINK together). Combat damage to the monarch or the player with the initiative takes it; a burn does not. Commander damage is always combat damage, so BURN greys out with COMMANDER. In GAME > HISTORY a burn's line shows a small flame in the striker's colour instead of the dot.

INFECT or TOXIC? They both give poison, but not the same way. INFECT is a kind of damage: a creature with infect deals its damage to a player as poison counters instead of life (3 infect damage = 3 poison, no life lost). TOXIC is not a kind — it rides on a combat hit. A creature with toxic N deals its damage as usual (life, or commander damage) and the player gets N poison counters as well; N comes from the card (Toxic 1, Toxic 2 …), not from the damage. So a 4/4 with toxic 1 is DAMAGE 4 with TOXIC 1: four life and one poison. Light TOXIC (beside BURN — a hit is one or the other, because toxic only counts combat damage and a burn isn't combat) and the amount row becomes two dials: the hit on the left, the poison on the right. The knob turns whichever you touched last (a bar sits under it). The button reads HIT 4 TOXIC 1. TOXIC works with DAMAGE, COMMANDER (an Ixhel hit: commander damage and toxic 2) and INFECT (the toxic poison adds to the infect poison), and with LIFELINK, ALL PLAYERS and OPPONENTS. It greys out with LIFE GAIN. A toxic hit still takes the monarch and the initiative (it's combat damage), UNDO takes the poison back with the life, and in GAME > HISTORY its line shows a drop in the striker's colour with a green centre.

The retro RPG window. SETUP > Sword changes what the sword does (on any face with other seats round it, one device or a table):

• Classic — "Attack who?" and the damage page, as above.
• RPG menu — a 16-bit style command window opens first: ATTACK (combat damage), MAGIC (burn spells), SPECIAL and HEAL, with the LIFELINK box under them. SPECIAL opens a second window of special damage: COMMANDER, INFECT, TOXIC, POISONOUS and LIFELINK. Turn the knob to move the glove; tap the glove's row (or the tick) to choose; a tap on another row moves the glove there first. Then the usual pages, already set to that kind (HEAL starts as your own life gain; tap TARGET to aim it at someone else).
• RPG battle — the whole hit in retro windows: the command, then who (HP beside each name, ALL FOES for everyone you may hit; HEAL lists you first), then how much (knob or the arrows), then the hit plays out: the target's number with a pixel effect for the command — slashes for ATTACK, flames for MAGIC, a gold cross for COMMANDER, bubbles for INFECT, sparkles for HEAL — the damage number bouncing in as it lands and the number ticking down (or up), then the line the game says ("SAM IS BURNED FOR 5!"). A tap skips to the end; the next goes back to the face. Back or a swipe down goes one window back. The hit's UNDO toast is waiting on the face afterwards.

Your hero. SETUP > RPG hero picks one of six pixel heroes (Swordsman, Archer, Warrior, Hooded mage, Wizard, Sage) or NONE: tap one, or turn the knob; tap the chosen one again to see it swing. In RPG battle the hit then plays side-on, as in the old 16-bit RPGs: the target's number on the left, your hero on the right facing it. ATTACK steps in and lunges, MAGIC and HEAL cast with a ring of sparks, INFECT throws a green orb, COMMANDER jumps off the top of the screen and comes down on the target; the effect and the damage number land with the blow, and LIFELINK's sparks fly back into your hero. At a table every Aether Archive's hero travels with its seat: when the player you hit has picked one, their hero stands on the left facing yours, their number over its head; it blinks and steps back as the blow lands, glows green when healed, and fades away in red when the hit puts them out.

LIFELINK is the box under the commands (and on the HOW MUCH window): tick it with any hit, MAGIC included (a Lightning Helix is MAGIC with LIFELINK), and you gain what you dealt — "KURTIS DRAINS 3 HP!". In RPG menu it carries into the damage page.

TOXIC and POISONOUS are under SPECIAL: both are combat damage plus N poison, so the HOW MUCH window opens with that row ticked and named for the one chosen. The HOW MUCH window also offers TOXIC on COMMANDER and INFECT hits, never on MAGIC or HEAL. LIFELINK under SPECIAL is combat damage with LIFELINK ticked; the box under ATTACK still works for any hit. On the HOW MUCH window it has its own arrows for N (the knob stays on HOW MUCH). In battle, poison bubbles follow the blow and "+2 POISON" rises under the number: "SAM TAKES 4 DAMAGE AND 2 POISON!". In RPG menu it carries into the damage page at 1. A long line scrolls up in its window instead of covering the battle.

Dropping the sword on a seat opens the window already aimed at it. SETUP > RPG window switches the window between Blue and Black.

A player at zero life, ten poison or 21 commander damage is asked "Did you get KO'd?" — YES takes them out (OUT on everyone's face). When one side is left, RESULTS asks who won and RECORD keeps the round; the host takes everyone back to the lobby. The sounds (put them in /sfx, see 13): mortal.wav for a knockout, poison.wav for infect or toxic, crit.wav for a hit over ten, fanfare.wav on the winner's device.

UNDO END TURN (the game menu) takes back a pass made by mistake, within two minutes.

Words to a seat. The smiley at the lower left of your face at a table: SAY IT TO everyone, or one opponent, THE WORD — Hurry up!, GG, Nice!, Does it resolve?? It rises on their face in its colour, the ring pulses, and the EMOTE sound plays if you gave it one.

Phone seats. A player without an Aether Archive can sit with a phone. In the host's lobby tap the phone disc (lower right): the host opens a WiFi network called Aether Archive NNNN (the table's code). On the phone, join that network; the table's page opens (or browse to 192.168.4.1), type a name, TAKE A SEAT. The phone has the life, counters, attacks, the words and END TURN; its row says PHONE. Its attack has the device's options: DAMAGE, COMMANDER or INFECT, then LIFELINK, BURN and TOXIC (BURN and TOXIC one or the other; BURN not with COMMANDER; TOXIC shows its own poison count), and the button says what it will do ("BURN 3", "HIT 4 TOXIC 1"). Tap the phone disc again to close the phone seats (their seats go with them).

Watching. On another Aether Archive, JOIN GAME, type the code and tap WATCH: a tile for each seat, the active one in gold with its clock. Words to everyone reach a watcher too. X leaves.

The night. GAME > LEADER BOARD keeps the evening: every round, who won, how long it took. START NIGHT (on the Tonight page before anything is recorded; on the Rounds page, two taps, once rounds exist) wipes the last evening and opens a file on the card, /leaderboards/<date>.csv, where each result lands as it is recorded (one line a round: the time, the minutes, the winner, every team); without a card the night is tallies only. The header names the file. GAME > TEAMS rolls pairings for the next round: PLAYERS ticks who is here tonight from the name book (nobody ticked is everyone), TEAMS is how many to roll (AUTO is pairs of everyone, or 1 to 6: pairs when there are two a team, singles otherwise, and whoever is left over sits out, a different person each round), ROLL rolls again; tap your team, then the tick. GAME > DECKS keeps each deck's wins and losses across nights. GAME > HISTORY graphs every life total this game.

7The options wheel

Swipe down (or the gear). Wedges round a hub; turn the knob to the one you want and tap it (SETUP > MENU TAPS can make the first tap only light the wedge). The hub says where you are; tap it to go back up, or to close at the top. A dim wedge is one this build does not have yet: the hub says why. The wheel can be a list instead (SETUP > OPTIONS MENU), with the same contents, and it can slide or fade in (SETUP > SHUTTER).

GAME — HOME, NEW, TEAMS, LEADER BOARD, DECKS, HISTORY, HOW TO PLAY, JUDGE.

ADD-ONS — the things that ride along with a game: PLANECHASE, GIANT, ATTRACTIONS, MANA, MOMIR, CHALLENGE, DICE, TOKEN MATH (see 10).

PRINT — the card libraries and the printer: TOKENS, EMBLEMS, COUNTERS (the counters, MULTI, GIANT), COPIES (GARTH ONE-EYE, ERSTA, INTERROG. ROBOT, ALL COPIES, ANY CARD), UNFINITY (ATTRACTIONS, STICKERS), PLANES (PLANES, DUNGEONS), STATES, CHALLENGE (CHALLENGE, HEROES), PRINTER.

EXTRAS — ARCADE, GOLF, GAME BOY, DRAFT, AUDIO, SFX, VIDEO.

DISPLAY — RING, SCREEN, ART, GUILD, FONT, SKIN.

SYSTEM — GAME, SETUP, QUICK, CLOCK, WIFI, UPDATE, INFO.

When the clock is set, the hub shows the time above its title.

When the game is D&D the wheel is D&D's own: ATTACK, CHARACTER, EXTRAS, PRINT (the D&D cards), DISPLAY and SYSTEM (see 17).

Many wedges show their current value under the icon (GUILD its colours, FONT its family, PRINTER the printer in use) and a lit wedge is a thing that is on (LIGHTS, ART, a WiFi that is joined, music that is playing).

8The quick pane and the left swipe

Swipe right from the left edge of the face. The pane follows your finger; let go past halfway and it stays.

• VOLUME and BRIGHT — the knob, or a tap on the bar, sets them (the knob starts on BRIGHT).
• UPDATE — straight to SYSTEM > UPDATE.
• Three shortcuts of your own — dice, tokens, the music player, a printer, the draft clock... Choose them under SETUP > QUICK 1, 2 and 3: tap the row, then the action.

A tap outside the pane, or a swipe left, closes it. SETUP > SWIPE LEFT chooses what a swipe in from the right edge of the face opens (the dice to begin with).

9HOW TO PLAY

The (?) at the top of the face, or GAME > HOW TO PLAY. The steps of a turn of the game you are playing run down the right rim — tap one, or turn the knob, or swipe — and the step is explained on the left in plain words. The (<) closes it.

Every game has its chapter of eight steps:

• Magic — untap, upkeep, draw, the two main phases, combat, the end step and cleanup.
• Yu-Gi-Oh — the draw and standby phases, the two main phases, battle and damage, the end phase, winning.
• Lorcana — ready, set, draw, inking a card, playing, questing, challenging, 20 lore.
• Pokemon TCG — setting up, the draw, the bench and evolving, energy, trainers and retreat, attacking, knockouts and prizes, winning.
• Flesh and Blood — the start of the turn, pitching for resources, the action point, attack, defend, reactions, damage, the end of the turn.
• Riftbound and Altered — the shape of a turn and how the game is won. These two are written at a general level, and say so on their last step: check them against the current rulebook.
• D&D — the combat round: initiative, movement, the action, the bonus action and the reaction, attack rolls, hit points and death saves.

ADVANCED RULES, the pill under Magic's text, is a second chapter: the stack, priority, state-based actions, layers, making tokens, combat in full, the mulligan and Commander. Tap the right half of the page for the next topic, the left half for the one before, or turn the knob; THE TURN goes back.

ASK A JUDGE (GAME > JUDGE, or a quick slot) — a rules question answered by an AI, for the game you are playing. SPEAK opens the keyboard with the microphone already listening: it keeps listening through any pause until you tap the red STOP in the middle (up to 45 seconds, the last ten counted down; a tap elsewhere on the glass does not end it); TYPE opens the keyboard alone. The question goes over WiFi and the ruling comes back in a few seconds: a short answer, the ruling first, scrolled with the knob or a drag. Tap the question over the ruling (it ends in a small arrow when it is cut short) to see it whole (a long one scrolls with the knob); tap again to put it away. The mic and the keyboard at its foot ask the next one; reopening JUDGE shows the last answer. It is an AI's reading of the rules, not a judge's: when it matters, check the rules or ask a real judge.

It needs a key from a service you pay for (or a model running on your own PC), found in this order:

• judge.txt at the top of the card — url=, model=, key=. A key starting sk-ant- asks Claude; any other url is taken to speak OpenAI's chat format (OpenAI itself, or LM Studio, Ollama or llama.cpp's server on a PC: url=http://<pc-ip>:<port>/v1/chat/completions and model= the model's name).
• anthropic.key at the top of the card (the key alone), or a line anthropic=... in keys.txt — Claude.
• The voice key (SETUP > Voice key, openai.key, or openai= in keys.txt) — OpenAI. One OpenAI key turns on both the microphone and the judge.

With phones on the hotspot (phone seats, or the D&D sheet): the judge needs your home WiFi, and the device has one radio. The hotspot stays on while it asks, but it follows the router's channel for those few seconds, so phones may drop for a moment and then rejoin it by themselves (if one does not, pick the Aether Archive network in its WiFi again; its seat is kept). The first ask says so and waits for ASK ANYWAY. Other Aether Archives at the table pause for those seconds too, as during an update check.

Each question costs a fraction of a cent on OpenAI's or Anthropic's small models. "the key was refused" is the key; "rate limit or no credit" is the account's balance.

10Add-ons

PLANECHASE — the planar deck from the PLANES library on the card: the plane in play with its picture, PLANESWALK to the next, the planar die with its chaos and planeswalk faces.

ATTRACTIONS — the Unfinity side deck: open attractions, the visit die, the lights.

MANA — floating mana and the storm count: tap a colour to add, hold to clear; the pool empties with the step.

MOMIR — a random creature of the mana value you choose, from the ANY CARD library (make it with the card maker). PRINT it.

CHALLENGE — Face the Hydra, Battle the Horde, Defeat a God: the challenge deck plays itself against the table.

TOKEN MATH — how many tokens you make: MAKING (what the spell creates), DOUBLERS (Doubling Season, Parallel Lives, Anointed Procession, Mondrak...), TRIPLERS (Ojer Taq), and SQUIRRELS TOO for Chatterfang. Each doubler doubles the whole pile again.

GIANT — Crystalline Giant's counters (also under PRINT > COUNTERS). COMBAT gives it a random one it lacks, with a light run round the pills; tap a pill to set one by hand; hold the power to start a new giant. Up to four giants (the + tab), and ALL to roll them together. PRINT prints the counter that just landed, or all of them on one strip.

DICE — d4 to d20, d100 and a coin, solid and rolled in 3D; several at once. At a table the roll goes to everyone.

11The draft clock

EXTRAS > DRAFT. A pick timer for a booster draft round one table.

• Setup: the PACK SIZE (8 to 20), TOURNAMENT or FIXED timing, the PICK TIME for FIXED (10 to 90 seconds) and the number of PACKS. Tap a row, then the knob sets it. START.
• Picking: "PACK 2 - PICK 7", the seconds left, a ring draining round the rim (and the LED ring with it), and PASS LEFT or PASS RIGHT (packs alternate). NEXT starts the next pick; the round button pauses. TOURNAMENT time runs 40 seconds for the first picks down to 5 for the last.
• At zero the glass and the ring flash until NEXT is tapped.
• Between packs a 60-second review (TOURNAMENT), then the next pack. DRAFT COMPLETE at the end.
• Hold anywhere for a second, twice, to go back to setup. Leaving pauses it.

12Printing cards

The PRINT wedge opens the libraries the card maker writes to the SD card. Each is a finder: a search box (tap it for the keyboard; hold it to clear), colour chips W U B R G C for tokens and ANY CARD, and the rows, the ones printed lately first. Type a name, a set code, a type, a power/toughness like "2/2". Libraries with more than 300 names grow a letter rail down the right rim. Counters and states show as tiles, a page at a time.

Tap a row for the card page: the picture, the set, and when a card has several printings the knob turns through them ("3/14"); tap the card to choose one. The knob then counts copies; a long press on + or - moves by five. PRINT sends it.

• Counters and stickers go onto a strip: the + on the left of a card page adds it; PRINT STRIP at the foot of the finder prints them all on one strip (up to ten); hold it to clear.
• MULTI (PRINT > COUNTERS) lights the counters you want and prints them together on one strip, in the shape you pick (disc, chevron or strip).
• COPIES and ATTRACTIONS have DRAW: a random card not yet drawn. Hold to start again.
• REAL / COPY appears on a card from ANY CARD when the card maker fetched the real card too: the preview and PRINT follow whichever is lit.
• A big library that will not fit in memory loads lean (no rules text) and says so.
• Opening fast. The card maker writes an index.bin beside each library's index.tsv: the library already sorted and built, so the device opens it in a moment instead of working through every line. After changing a library by hand, run python libindex.py E:\ on the computer, E: being the SD card.

The printer. PRINT > PRINTER:

• USE — WiFi or Bluetooth.
• FIND (WIFI) — finds IPP printers on your WiFi (an Epson ET-8500 prints nine cards a sheet); or ADDRESS to type its IP.
• BLUETOOTH — scans for the label and receipt printers (Phomemo M110 and T02, the PD01 cat printers). Tap one to choose it. SWITCH walks the four the device remembers, each with its own settings.
• LABELS, DARKNESS (1 is lightest), SPEAKS (how fast it is fed; try the "slow" kinds if a print stalls), PULL BACK and FEED AFTER (blank paper at the ends), WIDTH — per printer.
• TEST PAGE prints a strip with a ruler, the greys and the settings. FORGET lets the printer go.

While it prints, the screen shows each step and a bar. Hold the glass to stop. A print that fails says "Not printed" and why, and the PRINTER page keeps the reason.

13Extras

ARCADE — Furious, Stars, Orbit, Serpent, Rocks, Dash, Golf and Bricks, on the knob; the best score is kept beside each.

GOLF — a round of mini golf for the knob.

GAME BOY — plays the ROMs under /gb on the card (yours to supply; .gb and .gbc). Touch: the left half is the D-pad, the right half A (upper) and B (lower), SELECT at the top edge, START at the foot; the knob is left and right. Drag in from the left edge for the pause wheel: RESUME, SAVE and LOAD (a saved state), PICTURE (fill, fit, smooth — and each again with 30: every other frame drawn, evenly, for smoother motion when the game can't keep up), SOUND (at off the sound chip isn't emulated at all, which frees time for the picture), OVERLAY, QUIT. The game's own save is written when you leave. Original Game Boy games run at full speed, though a busy scene can reach the glass as fewer pictures than the game makes (try PICTURE's 30 steps, or SOUND off); Game Boy Color games that use double speed are too much for the chip and run slow. The pause wheel's middle shows how it is going: "60 fps, 20 shown" is the game's speed and the pictures that reach the glass, and under it what a frame of the game costs — one that makes a picture, then one that does not — and where it runs ("22 | 12 ms int"; "PSRAM" there means the game did not get the fast memory and will be slow — please report it). With the painted wheel skins on the card (DISPLAY > SKIN) the pause wheel wears the eight-wedge painting too. A paired Bluetooth controller connects once the game has loaded.

AUDIO — the music player for /music (MP3 or WAV): play, pause, previous, next, the cover turning as it plays, a scrub bar (drag it, or set the knob to SEEK), shuffle and repeat, a three-band EQ, the battery over the cover. TRACKS lists them. Hold play to stop. The player keeps playing under the other screens. Once a song has played, a music note sits at the foot of the game screen and on the home screen (bright while it plays, dim when paused or stopped) until the device restarts; tap it to come back to the player.

SFX — the soundboard for /sfx: every WAV on the card, a tap to play. Hold a sound to give it a job: CRITICAL HIT, POISON, KNOCKOUT, FANFARE or EMOTE (tap the job again to take it back). AMP: ALWAYS ON keeps the speaker awake. SETUP > SPEAKER TEST plays a tone.

VIDEO — the clips under /mjpeg (.mjpeg). The knob skips; a tap stops. To make one on a PC: ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "fps=25,scale=360:360:force_original_aspect_ratio=increase,crop=360:360" -c:v mjpeg -q:v 5 -an clip.mjpeg

14Display

RING — the LED ring: EFFECT (solid, breathe, pulse, rainbow), RING (its brightness), LIGHTS (on or off) and HUE, on the colour wheel at the top. Tap a tile, then turn the knob; the ✓ keeps it.

SCREEN — "Brightness & sleep": SCREEN (the brightness), DIM (after 15 s to 5 min, or never), OFF (after 1 to 60 min, or never), SAVER (the battery saver) and the SCREENSAVER pill under them (see 1).

ART — a wheel of its own for the picture behind the face. The numbers sit on a dark plate over it.

• SCRYFALL — type a card's name and the device fetches its art over WiFi. A name that fits several cards asks Which card? Once the art is on the face, POSITION opens so you can zoom and move it; keep it (or swipe away) and you are back at the wheel. The artist's credit shows under the rows.
• OTHER ART — the card's other printings, the next one each tap.
• SAVE — keeps the full picture in /faceart on the SD card, with how you have it set (position, zoom, brightness) in a small .view file beside it. Changing POSITION or BRIGHTNESS later updates that file. On a picture that already came from FACE ART, SAVE just keeps how it looks now ("On the card - view kept").
• FACE ART — your own pictures from /faceart (JPEG or PNG, up to 4096 pixels a side; big photos are opened at a reduced size). Pick one, then pick it again to position it. A picture saved with SAVE comes back as you left it.
• POSITION — the picture full screen: ZOOM (the knob, 50 to 250 %), SLIDE (a finger, or the knob), SHOW to see it with nothing over it. OK keeps it; back puts it as it was. The position is remembered after a restart.
• BRIGHTNESS — how bright the picture sits behind your number. It opens the picture with a sample 20 on it: turn the knob or tap (-) and (+) (hold to keep going), and an arc round the edge shows the %. The tick at the bottom keeps it; a swipe puts back what was there.
• SHOW — the picture on or off behind the face (lit while it is on).

Card art belongs to its artist and to Wizards of the Coast. The device fetches it only when you ask, keeps one copy for your own table, and never ships with any.

GUILD — the colour theme: the ten guilds and Colorless, on a wheel; the wheel, the chips and the ring follow it. Hold a guild to swap its two colours.

FONT — the display family for the numbers and titles: Beleren, Lemon Milk, Arena, Norway. A tap steps to the next.

SKIN — painted wheels from /skins on the card (made with tools/make_skin.py); a tap steps through the sets, or back to the drawn wheel.

LOOK (SETUP) — Glass, the domed plates, or Flat.

MENU COLOUR (SETUP) — how much of the guild colour is in the wheel's glass: Clear (frosted, the screen beneath shows through), Medium (smoky glass with a cast of the colour and bright edges, as 2.9 had it; the default) or Dark (the guild colour itself).

15System

GAME — the What game? wheel: Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, Lorcana, Riftbound, Pokemon, Flesh and Blood, Altered and D&D. Picking another game starts a fresh game with that game's life (D&D and Pokemon have faces of their own: see 16 and 17).

SETUP — the device's rows, a list: Name, Device, Game, Font, Look, Menu colour, Icons, Home logo, Options menu, Menu taps, Shutter, Screens, Help on face, Sword, RPG window, RPG hero, Quick 1 to 3, Swipe left, Seat, Format, Screen, Ring, Lights, Auto dim, Battery, Battery saver, Turn chime, Haptics, Wireless, Knob test, Touch, Speaker test, Voice key, About, USB flash mode, Factory reset. Tap a row to change it; the last two run on a hold of the row.

• Home logo: where the Aether Archive emblem sits on the home screen — Behind the buttons, large and dim (the default); Above them, with the buttons moved down; or Off. A painted home skin keeps its own layout (Above shows no emblem there).
• Icons: Picture shows the icon set on every wheel, the quick pane and the quick list; Drawn goes back to the line icons.
• Turn chime: at a linked table, a short bell when the turn comes to you and when your turn's time runs out. The sound is /sfx/chime.wav on the card, made the first time it's needed; put any WAV of that name there to change it. Turning the row on plays it once.
• Haptics: the board's vibration motor. A unit without the haptic driver shows None found. On the page:
  • Haptics — the master switch: Off stops every vibration.
  • Strength — Strong, Medium or Light; each change plays one to feel.
  • One switch for each thing that vibrates: Menu opens, Critical hits (more than 10 in one hit, a KO, a D&D natural 20), Your turn (at a linked table), Time up (your turn's time runs out), Damage taken (any other hit on you), Emotes, Draft pass (the draft timer runs out, again every 4 seconds until NEXT), Confirm taps (a light tick when the foot's ✓ is pressed or a wedge is opened on the options wheel). Turning one on plays it once.

Voice key (SETUP) — the keyboard's microphone. Speech becomes text through OpenAI's Whisper, with a key of your own: type it on this row ("Voice key saved"; an empty key removes it), or put it on the card (voice.txt with key=, or openai.key). With a key, the keyboard has a sixth key, the mic: tap it, say the words ("Lightning Bolt"), and they are filled in as if typed — a finder then searches them. It listens for up to six seconds and stops when you stop; it needs WiFi, and music pauses while it listens. The recording leaves the device only when you tap the mic and is dropped after the answer. The key is kept on the device as plain text; FACTORY RESET forgets it.

CLOCK — its own wheel: TIME (set by hand), SYNC (from the internet, over WiFi), CITY or ZONE, DAYLIGHT, FORMAT (12 or 24 hours), ON FACE (the time on the home and the face) and AUTO SYNC (at power-on, when WiFi is set).

WIFI — its own wheel: TABLE (the radio that links devices at a table, on or off; it shows how many are here), NETWORK (pick one and type its password), TEST, FORGET, or open the HOTSPOT ("Aether Archive Setup") so a phone can set it up at 192.168.4.1. FILES joins the saved WiFi and shows an address (http://192.168.x.x/): open it on a phone or computer on the same WiFi to browse the SD card, upload files or whole folders (drop them on the page), download, delete and make folders. The device shows each file as it arrives. Leaving the page stops it; the music list, the libraries and the art list read the card again.

UPDATE — checks for a new firmware over WiFi and installs it (see 19).

QUICK — its own wheel: QUICK 1, QUICK 2 and QUICK 3 (the quick pane's three lower rows) and SWIPE LEFT (what a swipe in from the right edge does). Each shows what it runs; tap one to pick another. SETUP has the same four rows.

INFO — the firmware, the memory, the SD card (STORAGE: how full, and each folder; tap the gauge to count again), the radio, the battery — its charge, On battery (how long since it came off the charger) and Est. left (the hours left at the rate it is going, "measuring" for the first twenty minutes) — and the last restart. The STORAGE quick action opens it at the SD card.

ABOUT (this version and its notes) and USB FLASH MODE (hold the row, see 19) are SETUP rows.

16The other games

Yu-Gi-Oh counts 8000 down by 50. Flesh and Blood counts 40 down. Lorcana, Riftbound and Altered count up to their targets and go gold when they reach them. Each has its HOW TO PLAY chapter behind the (?). D&D has a chapter of its own (17).

Pokemon — the face is the board.

• The prizes along the top: tap one to take it ("Prize taken, 4 left"); hold to put one back. All six taken wins. They count as your life, so a table, the phone page and HISTORY follow them.
• The active Pokemon in the middle: its picture (from the deck's folder or the Pokemon library on the card), its name and the HP left, "20 damage - of 60 HP". HIT 10 and HEAL 10, or the knob, 10 a click.
• The bench along the foot, up to five: tap one to pick it, tap again to make it active. A knocked-out Pokemon shows KO.
• (+) adds one: from the DECK in use (hold it for Which deck?), from the LIBRARY (the letter rail; USE puts the card on the bench), or TYPE A NAME and its HP.
• Hold a Pokemon (or the middle) for THIS POKEMON: NAME, HP, EVOLVE — what evolves from it, the deck's first, then the library's; the damage stays — and KNOCKED OUT.

The board is kept through a restart; a new game clears it. The cards and decks on the card are made on a computer by the card maker (tools/cardmaker/make_pokemon.py) for your own table; the device itself never goes online for them.

17D&D

Pick D&D on the What game? wheel and the device becomes your character.

The character's face. The name at the top, then class, level and race; the hit points big in the middle with "of 44" under them (rust when bloodied); the armour class on the shield at the left and temporary HP at the right; conditions as short tags. At the foot, the weapon lens shows the weapon in hand and its numbers ("+6 1d8+3 slashing"); the sword beside it is ATTACK and the (?) opens D&D's HOW TO PLAY.

• Tap the HP for the Heal / Damage pad (temporary HP go first). Tap AC or TEMP to set them.
• Tap the lens for the weapon wheel: up to six weapons from the sheet; a tap takes one in hand.
• At 0 HP the number goes rust and DEATH SAVES appear, three and three: tap the HP to roll one. A natural 20 brings 1 HP back; three successes is stable.

The sheet, from a phone. CHARACTER > SHEET (or a tap on the face when there is no character yet): the device opens a WiFi network called Aether Archive D&D. Join it on a phone; the sheet opens by itself, or browse to 192.168.4.1. Fill in the name, class, race, level, scores, HP, AC, weapons, spells and items — the spells can be picked from a list when the D&D Maker's files are on the card — and tap Save to the Aether Archive. The device says "Saved". The sheet is kept on the device, and on the card as /dnd/<name>.txt when there is one; a /dnd/<name>.txt put on the card is read too.

The D&D wheel (swipe down):

• ATTACK — ADV or DIS, then the d20 rolls: "11 +6 = 17 to hit". A 20 is a CRITICAL HIT (the damage dice are doubled), a 1 a NATURAL 1. DAMAGE rolls the weapon's dice; the knob walks the weapons.
• CHARACTER — SPELLS (the slots of each level as pips, then the spells: tap a level to spend a slot, hold to give it back), ITEMS (tap uses one, hold adds one), REST (SHORT: the knob picks how many hit dice to spend; LONG: HP, slots and dice back), STATUS (the conditions, inspiration, and what you are concentrating on), DICE, SHEET, PARTY.
• PRINT — the D&D Maker's cards: SPELLS, MONSTERS, FOES, CONDITIONS, Magic's COUNTERS, and the PRINTER.
• EXTRAS, DISPLAY and SYSTEM as for every game.

A party. One device is the DM: HOME > HOST (Host as the DM) shows a four-digit code. The players: HOME > JOIN, type the code — "Seat 3 in the party". Each player's HP travels with their seat.

• The DM's face lists every player with an HP bar. Tap a player to damage them, hold to heal. AREA DAMAGE deals one amount to everyone, FULL, HALF (saved) or NONE for each, then APPLY.
• A player's face shows the friends' HP along the top; a tap on a friend heals them. A hit or a heal from the DM lands on the sheet ("Hit for 5").
• CHARACTER > PARTY shows the party; Leave the party, or for the DM Close the party (hold).

18Files on the card

Plug the device into a computer with a USB cable and the SD card shows as a drive ("USB drive: N GB"). While the computer holds it, the device does not read the card ("Unplug the USB cable to see new files"); eject it, or unplug, and the device mounts the card again.

Folders the device looks for (it makes the main ones itself):

• /music MP3 or WAV for the player — /sfx WAVs for the soundboard — /mjpeg video clips
• /faceart and /images pictures — /skins painted wheels — /decks deck lines from the card maker
• /tokens /emblems /counters /copies /attractions /stickers /planes /dungeons /states /cards /challenge /heroes the print libraries
• /pokemon the Pokemon cards, /pokemon/decks the decks — /dnd the D&D cards and characters (/dnd/<name>.txt), /dnd/srd the D&D Maker's spell list for the phone's sheet
• /gb Game Boy ROMs, with their .sav saves and .st1 states
• /leaderboards the nights, one CSV each (2026-10-18.csv, or night-001.csv when the clock is not set)
• voice.txt or openai.key, at the top of the card, for the microphone (see 15)
• judge.txt, anthropic.key or keys.txt, at the top of the card, for ASK A JUDGE (see 9)

19Updating

Over the air — SYSTEM > UPDATE (or UPDATE in the quick pane), with WiFi set up. The device joins the network and checks the release: UPDATE AVAILABLE shows the new version, the one you have, and the notes as a list (turn the knob for the rest); UPDATE NOW installs it, the ring and the percentage count up, and it restarts. DO NOT POWER OFF while it writes. UP TO DATE says what the server has; CHECK AGAIN asks once more. The game in progress is saved first.

On a phone hotspot: an iPhone shares on 2.4 GHz only with Maximize Compatibility on (the device cannot see 5 GHz, and says "wifi network not found"); Android hotspots have a band setting too. If the phone will not look names up, the device asks public name servers instead; if the download drops, it reconnects and carries on from where it got to — "reconnected x2, carrying on" — up to four times.

Over USB — SETUP > USB FLASH MODE (hold the row) puts the device into download mode; the screen goes dark until it is flashed and power-cycled. The lifelink-X.Y.Z-flash.bin image is written at address 0 with the Espressif flash tool. Writing it clears the device's settings store; the settings (WiFi password included), the printer setup and the voice key are also kept on the device's file system and come back on the first boot after the flash.

20When something is off

• No sound — EXTRAS > AUDIO says "Speaker is off": tap play to wake it. The soundboard needs WAV files under /sfx.
• "No cards yet" / out of memory — the library is too big for memory with its rules text: it loads lean (name, type and set only). Opening another library lets the last one go.
• WiFi will not join — the device tries for a few seconds and says why: "wifi network not found" (out of range, or a 5 GHz network) or "wifi join failed" (the password). Set it again under SYSTEM > WIFI.
• An update fails — the page says which step: "dns failed" (names), "no route" (the connection), "tls: ..." (the secure handshake), "manifest HTTP N" (the server), "download kept dropping" (the link). Tap RETRY; on a hotspot, stay close to the phone.
• Face art will not load — the page says why: a progressive JPEG over 2.6 megapixels, an arithmetic-coded JPEG or an interlaced PNG wants re-saving as a plain (baseline) JPEG or PNG; SCRYFALL needs WiFi.
• The mic says "No voice key" — set one under SETUP > Voice key, or put voice.txt on the card. "the key was refused" is the key itself; "rate limit / no credit" is the account.
• The printer is not found — IPP printers need the same WiFi; Bluetooth printers must be on and not connected to a phone. The PRINTER page keeps the last reason a print failed.
• The charging bolt does not show — it waits for the battery to start climbing, about a minute; a nearly empty battery shows it once it passes 3.85 V.
• A screen is stuck — swipe down and tap GAME > HOME. A hold on the SETUP > FACTORY RESET row wipes everything.

21Version

Firmware 3.0.65 — Aether Archive Pro, Guition JC3636K718C (ESP32-S3, 8 MB PSRAM, 16 MB flash, 1.85 in 360 x 360 round touch display, rotary knob, microSD, speaker and microphone, 13-LED ring, DRV2605L vibration motor driver, rechargeable battery, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB).

AM Labs.