A shop prints its prices. An event doesn't — but the price exists anyway, hardcoded in each option's code path. This is the ledger: what outcomes exist, what they cost, and which doors open only on higher ascension.
Outcome-type census
Every option outcome in the StS1 event index resolves to exactly one recorded outcome — 237 of them. The type census:
| Outcome type | Count |
|---|---|
| text_advance (story only) | 54 |
| deck_effect | 33 |
| gold | 27 |
| hp_loss | 22 |
| gain_card | 17 |
| hp_gain | 10 |
| gain_relic / gain_relic_random | 8 + 8 |
| gold_reward_post_combat | 7 |
| fight | 7 |
| gain_potion_random | 6 |
| max_hp_loss | 5 |
| special / rng_branch | 5 + 4 |
| lose_relic | 4 |
| max_hp_gain | 3 |
| card_reward | 3 |
Deck effects are the single largest mechanical outcome — more common than gold swings and HP losses combined would suggest events are about money. They aren't; they're about your deck.
HP-as-currency exchange rates no shop prints
Big Fish's first option heals a third of your maximum health — that much, for clicking a fish. The same event sells +5 max HP flat (option 1) or hands you Regret (option 2). That is the genre: events quote purchases in fractions of your body. The Cleric won't even open unless you carry 35 gold, the Beggar wants 75 — but the events that take HP ask no minimum at all. HP is the currency accepted everywhere, which is why spending it deliberately is a skill: the two economies frames the full exchange table.
Which events gate on ascension
One gate in the extraction keys directly on ascension level:
NoteForYourself disappears from the one-time-event list entirely when
ascensionLevel >= 15 (shrine_eligibility_gates, NoteForYourself
condition). Every other recorded gate checks act, gold, health or relics:
- Dead Adventurer, Mushrooms:
floorNum > 6— never an opener - The Moai Head: needs Golden Idol or ≤50% HP
- Knowing Skull: The City only and
currentHealth > 12 - N'loth: ≥2 relics (and the code checks The City twice)
- SecretPortal: 800+ seconds of playtime and The Beyond
Shrine vs story split per act
When a ? resolves as a real event, one more roll decides its nature: with
probability 0.25 it draws from the shrine list, else from the story list
(event_vs_shrine_selection, shrine_chance = 0.25). Both pools are
uniform picks, removed from their list once used — no repeats within a run.
Act 1 carries 11 story events against 6 shrines; The City runs 13 story
events; The Beyond thins to 7 (per_act_event_lists). The shrine list itself
is identical in all three acts: Match and Keep!, Golden Shrine,
Transmorgrifier, Purifier, Upgrade Shrine, Wheel of Change.
Removal priced in events vs the shop purge ramp
Card removal appears in this census as deck_effect rows (33), and several are removals-for-a-price — the Accursed Blacksmith pattern sits in the one-time list. What the extraction does not record is a per-event removal fee curve comparable to the shop's escalating price: outcomes are stored as formulas — a third of your maximum health, say — not as shop-side ramps. Where an event removes for free, the ledger shows it; where it charges, the charge lives in that option's own line, not in a shared table.
StS2 affliction outcomes
Spire 2 replaces curses-with-a-price-tag with a dedicated affliction layer — seven card-level states: Bound, Entangled, Galvanized, Hexed, Ringing, Smog, Tainted. Events hand them out the way StS1 handed out curses: 12 event options add a cursed card — Crystal Sphere's Debt, Grave of the Forgotten's Decay, Sunken Treasury's Greed, Trial's Regret among them. Two events go further than any StS1 curse event dared: Reflections can downgrade a card outright (TOUCH_A_MIRROR → downgradeCard), and Wongos haggles your upgrades down the same way. The full affliction roster and what each does to a card lives on the afflictions page. StS1 players know the pressure already: AscendersBane is the A10 curse that starts every high-ascension deck compromised — Spire 2 spreads that same pressure across event choices instead of one guaranteed opening card.