StS1 cards had one axis of change — the upgrade. StS2 adds a second (afflictions are the third): an enchantment is a model that attaches to a card at runtime and rewrites its behavior. Every enchantment carries its own acceptance test — which card types it will attach to — layered on the base rules that apply to all of them.
One slot per card (runtime attachment)
Each card carries at most one enchantment; the effect lives outside the card,
so it doesn't touch upgrade levels or card vars — it layers on top. The base
rule every enchantment inherits: Status, Curse, and Quest cards can never
be enchanted (baseExclusions: ["Status","Curse","Quest"], quoted from the
pair table). Everything else — Attack, Skill, Power — is fair game unless an
override narrows it. And no enchantment stacks: every one of the 23 pair
records carries "stackable": false.
Override census: who narrows, who allows all
All 23 rows counted straight from the jsonl:
| Allowed types | Enchantments |
|---|---|
| Attack + Skill + Power (no narrowing) | Adroit, Clone, Glam, Goopy, Inky, Nimble, Perfect Fit, Slither, Slumbering Essence, Soul's Power, Sown, Spiral, Steady, Swift, Tezcatara's Ember |
| Attack only | Corrupted, Instinct, Momentum, Sharp, Vigorous |
| Skill only | Imbued |
| Attack + Skill | Royally Approved |
Seven of the 22 live enchantments narrow; the other fifteen accept every non-excluded type. The narrowed ones split cleanly: the five damage-boosters (Sharp +damage, Corrupted +50% but −2 HP, Instinct double, Momentum per-combat ramp, Vigorous first-play bonus) refuse to sit on cards that can't attack. Imbued ("played automatically at the start of each combat") refuses anything that isn't a Skill — auto-playing a Power would be a free engine every fight. Royally Approved (Innate + Retain) takes Attack or Skill but not Power.
Enchantment-owned vars vs card vars
Enchantments that scale carry their own variables, printed blue in card text: Sharp's damage bonus, Slither's cost range 0–3, Sown's energy grant. These belong to the enchantment model, not to the host card — the same card enchanted by different models reads different numbers, and upgrading the card never touches them.
Clone and the rest-site duplication loop
Clone is the slot-model showcase: "This card can be duplicated at Rest Sites." The duplication happens at campfires — the same rest site that upgrades — which turns every rest-site visit into "upgrade something" versus "copy my best enchanted card". Paired with Tezcatara's Ember (costs 0, +damage, gains Eternal), the copy arrives pre-paid. The loop is bounded by nothing except rest sites reached — see how the underdocks map paces them against any other act.
Upgrade/enchant/affliction: three axes vs StS1's one
Upgrade changes the card permanently and was designed for. Enchantment layers behavior on top at runtime, acquired mid-run. Afflictions — StS2's curse-analog powers — do the same in reverse. A card can hold all three states at once: upgraded base, enchanted behavior, afflicted side effects. StS1 compressed all permanent modification into the upgrade plus events; StS2 splits the axes so they price separately. Which economy pays for which is the subject of two economies.
Acquisition sources
Exactly nine events have options that apply an enchantment:
| Event | Grants |
|---|---|
| Sapphire Seed | Sown |
| Self Help Book | Sharp, Nimble, or Swift — your pick of page, each +2 |
| Waterlogged Scriptorium | Steady, twice offered (55g / 99g) |
| Field of Man-Sized Holes | Perfect Fit |
| Grave of the Forgotten | Soul's Power |
| Spiraling Whirlpool | Spiral |
| Stone of All Time | Vigorous (Push option) |
| Symbiote | Corrupted |
| Wood Carvings | Slither |
That's nine of the roster reachable through events; the extraction records no shop or reward-pool source for enchantments beyond these. The remaining enchantments enter through systems the current parse doesn't scope — treat any claim about their drop rates as unverified.
One row in the jsonl is not a real enchantment: DEPRECATED_ENCHANTMENT, whose own text reads "This enchantment has been removed from the game." It keeps its pair record for completeness but is excluded from every count above — 23 rows, 22 live enchantments.