Both games open every run with a choice made before the first fight — and both opening screens are fully enumerated in the clients, down to the dice that roll them.
StS1: one whale, one dice roll
Neow's blessing menu is fully enumerated: 19 reward types across 4 offer categories, 5 drawbacks (activation bodies captured verbatim), and per-reward exclusion lists so mutually exclusive blessings never co-offer. Rarity inside a category is one coin-flip: a one-in-three roll lands Uncommon, else Common. The whole screen runs on its own freshly-seeded dice, separate from every run stream — Neow doesn't touch anything else.
StS2: the whale became a pantheon
One NPC became eight Ancients, one per act slot: NEOW, DARV, OROBAS, PAEL, TANX, TEZCATARA, NONUPEIPE, VAKUU — each bound to an act slot by hard edges (Glory → NONUPEIPE). Each Ancient offers from its own relic pool (102 edges total), and the pools are uneven by design: NEOW's offers 28 relics while most others offer 10–11 — the sequel kept its whale as the widest gate.
The ascension ladder reaches into this screen too: A2 turns the Ancient heal from full into 80% of missing HP, and the epoch/timeline plane grants the Silent's unlock through Neow's reveal.
The structural comparison
| StS1 Neow | StS2 Ancients | |
|---|---|---|
| Givers | 1 | 8 (per act slot) |
| Reward space | 19 typed rewards + 5 drawbacks | per-Ancient relic pools (10–28 each) |
| Rarity | single 33% uncommon flip | pool membership IS the rarity |
| RNG | its own fresh stream | run registry (per-act/act-map streams) |
| Ascension hook | none at A1–A20 except general guards | A2 changes the heal formula |
StS1 prices blessings in drawbacks; StS2 prices them in pool breadth — which Ancient you meet decides how wide your opening was.