A printable Res Arcana log lives or dies on the one record nobody keeps: what the endgame scoring actually added, and why, because Res Arcana does not end the moment somebody reaches ten points but at the victory check after every player has passed, and only then does the game end if any player holds ten or more. Nobody at the table argues about the game they played; they argue about whether the First Player token counted, whether a Place of Power's victory ability was scored or only its printed points, whether an artifact still in hand scored, and whether the tiebreak counted gold double or single. The only evidence is the log: a line for every point source, with the count and the rate written beside it, or a single victory-point total that was written at the end and can be defended by nobody.
Points come from four places only: placed artifacts, monuments, Places of Power, and the First Player token, which is worth one point. A player with three points on placed artifacts, four on monuments, three on a Place of Power, and the First Player token holds eleven, not ten and not twelve. Score the token at zero and a real point disappears, which is exactly the kind of quiet error that turns a win into a tie nobody can explain. A log that lists the token on its own line, with its one point written beside it, makes the token checkable; a bare points total does not, because the total alone cannot tell you whether the token was counted or forgotten.
Places of Power carry two kinds of points and both must be written down, because the printed victory points on the card and the card's victory ability are scored together, not instead of each other. A Place of Power worth three printed points whose victory ability grants two more is worth five, and a log that records only the printed three undercounts by two on that line alone. The same line must also record whether the Place's essences were drained, because taking all the essences from a Place of Power costs victory points, so a drained Place is not worth its full printed value. Score a drained Place at full value and phantom points appear; score only the printed points and skip the victory ability and real points disappear. The Place line needs three entries: printed points, victory-ability points, and drained or not, because any one of the three left blank makes the line unverifiable.
Two things never score, and both are traps for a log written from memory. Artifacts still in hand score nothing; only placed artifacts count, so an unplaced artifact worth two points in a player's hand adds zero to that player's total, not two. And the game does not end mid-round: the victory check happens only after all players have passed, so a monument claimed on the final turn of the round counts even if another player already held ten points before that turn. End the game the instant somebody reaches ten and the final turn's points vanish from the log; count a hand artifact and points appear that were never earned. A log that separates placed from unplaced artifacts, and marks the round complete before any victory check is written down, stops both errors before they reach the total.
The tiebreak is the fourth trap, because it is not a second count of points but a count of essences, and gold counts double. If two players tie on points, the tied player with the most essences remaining wins, with each gold essence counting as two, and if they are still tied they share the victory. A player holding one gold and one calm essence holds three on the tiebreak, not two, because the gold doubles. Count gold singly and a tied player holding gold loses a tiebreak they won. The tiebreak line must show each essence type separately, with the gold column doubled before the comparison, because a single combined essence count hides the doubling, and the doubling is the whole tiebreak.
Take a game that ends with A and B both past the threshold: A holds three points on placed artifacts, four on monuments, three on a Place of Power, and the First Player token, for a final total of eleven. B holds two points on placed artifacts, five on monuments, and three on a Place of Power, for a final total of ten. A wins by one. Forget the First Player token and A falls to ten, a tie, and the tiebreak decides it: A holds one gold and one calm essence, three with gold doubled, while B holds four life essences, so B wins the tiebreak, a false B win. Check victory the moment A reaches ten instead of after all players pass and B's final-turn monument worth two never counts, so B falls to eight and A wins by three, a margin nobody can defend because the round had not ended. Count B's unplaced artifact worth two in hand and B rises to twelve, a false B win by one. Three different single-line errors, three different wrong results, and only the line-by-line log shows which one happened.
A Res Arcana endgame log that a buyer prints, fills in, and trusts is not a sheet of blank lines but a checklist of the victory check in order: placed artifacts only, monuments, Places of Power with printed points and victory ability and drained-or-not marked, the First Player token at one, the victory check only after all players have passed, the ten-point threshold, and then the tiebreak line, most essences with gold doubled, then shared victory, written before any winner is declared. That is the download worth selling: not the arithmetic, which any player can do, but the structure that stops the arithmetic from drifting, one line at a time, until the winner changes.
Disclaimer: This log is a player aid for Res Arcana and is not affiliated with Sand Castle Games or Tom Lehmann. Endgame scoring uses the official victory check; check the rulebook for your edition before play.
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