Decoy

A FAIR DECOY

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01 Opening
Decoy beat 1 of 5

Decoy the raccoon has one great talent: sitting very, very still while looking extremely important. He can perch on a tree stump with a smooth grey pebble beside him for an entire afternoon, chin raised, eyes narrowed, as if that pebble were the most precious thing in Hollowmere Valley. It is not. It is a pebble. But nobody walking past can be sure of that, and that is exactly the point.

02 Decoy
Decoy beat 2 of 5

Before a twenty-piece game, Decoy helped Red plan its army. "Here is what every player looks for," he said, tapping the empty board. "One piece in the back row that never moves, with brambles right next to it. A Moonstone can't move, and it needs protecting, so that shape practically shouts treasure."

"So we hide our Moonstone somewhere else," said Draftsy.

"Yes," said Decoy, grinning. "And then, in the other corner, we build something that looks exactly like a Moonstone and isn't one."

03 Decoy
Decoy beat 3 of 5

They put an ordinary 4 in the back-left corner and two of Red's three brambles beside it. The real Moonstone went somewhere far more boring: on the side, behind a 6, with nothing special around it at all.

The game began. Decoy's 4 never moved. The two brambles never moved; brambles can't. To anyone watching, that corner was a perfect picture of a treasure.

Blue took the bait. They spent turn after turn walking a 3, one of their bramble-clearing badgers, all the way across the board. The badger cleared one bramble. Then a Blue 5 came up to strike the guarded piece.

04 Decoy
Decoy beat 4 of 5

The 5 met the 4 and won, which is what a 5 does. But it found nothing worth finding. Just a 4 that had been sitting still on purpose.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the board, Red had used every one of those turns to push forward. By the time Blue realised the corner was empty, Red's own badger was already clearing Blue's real brambles.

Decoy felt a quiet glow. Then, right behind it, a small question arrived. Was that sneaky? he wondered. He had made someone believe something that wasn't true. That is not usually a thing to feel proud of.

05 Closing
Decoy beat 5 of 5

Quillby, who keeps the Belief Ledger, sat down beside him and answered.

"Look at what actually happened. Both players know decoys are part of this game. The rules let every piece hide its face, and both of us agreed to those rules before we started. Blue built a decoy of their own last match. Nobody broke a rule, and nobody pretended about anything outside the game. A decoy is a puzzle you set for someone who agreed to solve puzzles."

Then Quillby turned the idea around. "And here is the other half. A still, guarded piece is evidence, not proof. It raises the chance that it's the Moonstone, but it doesn't settle it. The players who lose to decoys are the ones who treat a guess as a fact."

Decoy nodded slowly. That felt right on both sides.

That is Decoy's rule. When you set up, a fair decoy is allowed, because the rules both players accepted make hiding part of the game. When you play against one, treat every still, guarded piece as a question worth testing cheaply, not as an answer worth spending big on.

Hear it as an audio drama

A short play starring Decoy, from BluffForge. Different voices, same idea. Listen any time after you read.

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Read the drama script
  1. Narrator: From Spark and Anvil and BluffForge — this is Decoy, in chapter 1 of the BluffForge cast.
  2. Narrator: This drama uses an AI-generated voice. Voiced via Gemini 2.5.
  3. Narrator: This is the story of a 4. Not strong, not weak. And very, very good at sitting still.
  4. Four: My job tonight was to do absolutely nothing. For the whole game.
  5. Decoy: Everyone looks for a piece in the back row that never moves, with brambles beside it. That looks like the Moonstone.
  6. Decoy: So we build one that looks exactly like that, and isn't.
  7. Four: They put me in the back corner, with two brambles next to me. The real Moonstone was somewhere boring, behind a 6.
  8. Narrator: The game began. The four never moved. To anyone watching, that corner shouted: treasure here!
  9. Four: Blue sent a badger all the way across the board to clear a bramble. Then a 5 came for me.
  10. Narrator: The 5 met the 4 and won. But it found nothing worth finding.
  11. Four: I went home. But Blue had spent turn after turn on an empty corner.
  12. Narrator: Meanwhile, Red had pushed forward on the other side.
  13. Decoy: Was that sneaky?
  14. Quillby: Both players know decoys are part of this game. Blue built one last match. Nobody broke a rule.
  15. Quillby: A still, guarded piece is evidence, not proof. It's a question, not an answer.
  16. Four: Sitting still is a job too. Mine bought Red half a game.
  17. Narrator: Set fair decoys, and treat still pieces as questions. That's the four's story.
  18. Narrator: You've been listening to a Spark and Anvil chapter, written by the Spark and Anvil writing team for ages 9 to 14.
  19. Narrator: Apps stay free forever.
  20. Narrator: Curriculum aligned to Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.
  21. Narrator: Released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 for educational reuse. Visit Spark and Anvil for the full transcript.

The BluffForge ensemble

Decoy is one of the friends in BluffForge. Each friend shows you one idea by how they act; meet them all and you have the whole subject.