seasonsleaguestrophies
Trophies in Orion come from rated play and from nowhere else. Everyone starts at zero and climbs ten leagues, from Driftwood at the bottom to Orion at the top, through seasons that run quarterly. Nothing you can buy adds a trophy, skips a league, or makes the dice kinder.
That is the whole system in three sentences. What follows is the reasoning, because a ladder is a promise about what a number means, and promises are worth spelling out.
How do you earn trophies?
You win rated matches. Rated play runs on our servers, where every move is validated at source and every roll is committed before the game begins, so a result is a fact before it becomes a number. When the match ends, the ladder moves. There is no other door into the count: not a purchase, not a pack, not a promotion. If a profile shows a thousand trophies, a thousand trophies' worth of backgammon happened.
Not every game is rated, and that is deliberate. Play for the joy of it and the ladder holds still. Rated matches are the ones where both players sat down to be counted.
What are the ten leagues?
The climb passes through ten leagues. It begins in Driftwood, the shore where everyone washes up, and it ends at Orion, the celestial table the game is named for. We named leagues like places instead of ranks because the whole game is built that way: twelve destinations, one voyage, and progress that reads as distance travelled rather than a spreadsheet row. A league tells you where you are on the crossing. You are not assigned to one. You arrive.
Why does everyone start at zero?
Because a number you were handed is not a record. Many games seed a new profile partway up the ladder so the first session feels generous. We understand the instinct and we refused it. If the count opens at three hundred, then three hundred means nothing, and every number above it inherits the doubt. Zero is the only honest starting line. Your first trophy is the first true sentence on your profile, and you are the one who wrote it.
Zero also settles an old argument before it starts. Nobody can ask which part of your standing was a gift, because none of it was. The record is the seasons you played. Nothing more, and nothing less, which is exactly what makes it worth reading.
How long do seasons last?
A season runs a quarter of the year. The first is called The First Crossing, and the name is literal: nobody has crossed from Driftwood toward Orion before, and once this season closes, nobody will ever be first again. A season is a chapter with a closing date, and the date gives the climb its shape: enough weeks to matter, a horizon near enough to see. Quarterly is a deliberate tempo. Fast enough that a season never goes stale, slow enough that a climb is a story rather than a sprint.
What resets when a season ends, and what stays?
The rule is short. The season resets. You do not.
- Resets: the climb. Standings close, the chapter is archived, and the next season opens a fresh ladder for everyone.
- Stays: your name, your history, and everything you earned along the way. Earned things remain yours. That is what earned means.
- Permanent: founder identity. The first thousand players, the Founding 1000, carry that mark through every season that will ever run.
So the ladder is seasonal and the record is cumulative. Years from now, the interesting thing on a profile will not be a trophy count from week two of some quarter. It will be the shelf of seasons behind it: which crossings you made, and how far each one carried you.
Can you pay to climb faster?
No, and we mean the strong version of no. Coins and gems are virtual, they have no real-world value, and there is no cash-out. Nothing in the shop touches the ladder. Card packs are not even for sale: they are earned by playing, only by playing. And the dice cannot be bribed at any price. Every rated roll traces back to a SHA-256 commitment published before the game starts, each roll is drawn by HMAC-SHA256, and the seed is revealed when the game ends. You can recompute any finished rated game in your browser at orion.arthea.ai/verify, without an account. Kinder dice are not on the menu, because nobody can reach into the rolls. Including us.
A ladder you can buy is a receipt. A ladder you climbed is a record.
The door at orion.arthea.ai/go carries the App Store and Google Play links and always shows what is available right now. Behind it, The First Crossing begins the way every season after it will: all of us at zero, ten leagues ahead, and dice anyone can check.