Terms of Service — Duelsmith

Last updated: 7 September 2026 (version 2 — public launch). Version 1 (12 July 2026) covered the private test period and is superseded.

1. What this is

Duelsmith ("the Game", "we", "us") is a browser-based tactical RPG at duelsmith.com, operated by Ramiro Joaquin Alves Pinto. By creating an account or playing, you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you don't agree, don't use the Game.

The Game is free to play. It opened to the public on 7 September 2026, and Season 1 of the rating ladder started the same day.

2. A live game — what can change, and what we won't touch

The Game is a live service, built in the open by one person. That means:

• Balance changes. Classes, skills, items, the forge, the cube, packs and the economy are tuned over time. A change can make a build weaker or stronger. Balance changes are announced in the release notes on the site (/releases) and the public roadmap (/roadmap).
• Seasons. The rating ladder runs in seasons. When a season ends, ratings reset toward the mean and season rewards are granted to those who earned them. Season dates are announced in-game and in our community channels before they happen.
• Your progress stays. Outside of a season reset of ratings, we do not wipe champions, levels, items or progress. Bugs and exploits may be corrected, including by removing what an exploit produced.
• Paid entitlements are never removed without compensation. If we ever retire something you paid for, we refund it or replace it with something of equal value (see clause 5 and the Purchase & Refund Policy).
• Shutting down. If we ever have to close the Game, we will say so in-game and in our community channels with reasonable notice, and paid timed entitlements still running at that date are refunded pro rata.

3. Your account

• You need an account (through our sign-in provider, Kinde — email or a supported social login) to play. Keep your credentials secure; you're responsible for activity on your account.
• You must be at least 13 years old (or the minimum age of digital consent in your country, if higher).
• One person, one account. You may run several champions on it. Accounts are personal: don't share, sell, trade or transfer them, and don't create extra accounts to trade with yourself, farm rating, or get around a suspension.
• Your public identity in the Game is your champion's name, not your real name. See clause 6 for what other players can see.

4. Fair play

You agree not to:

• Exploit bugs. If you find a way to get something without earning it, tell us privately (in-game report, or a direct message to the developer on our Discord). That is the only legitimate path. Using an exploit, or posting one in the open, leads to suspension, and anything an exploit produced may be removed.
• Automate play (bots, scripts, macros), or attack or overload our infrastructure.
• Multi-account (clause 3), collude to manipulate ratings, or use the black market to move items between accounts you control.
• Harass, threaten or abuse other players, in-game or in our community channels. Our Discord has its own rules; they apply there.
• Reverse-engineer the service beyond what applicable law allows, or scrape other players' data.

We may warn, suspend or delete accounts that break these rules, at our judgment, especially where the integrity of the async PvP ladder is at stake. A suspension blocks play; a purchase block (clause 5) blocks buying only.

5. Virtual items, currency and purchases

No real-world value. Battle Points (BP), items, packs, materials, gems, catalysts, relics, cantos, titles, medals, ratings and any other in-game things have no real-world value, aren't redeemable for money, and may be altered in balancing. They belong to the Game; what you hold is a personal licence to use them in the Game.

Trading between players. Items and gems can change hands between players only through the Game's own black market — a barter board with server escrow, no money and no prices. A settled trade is final for both sides. BP, catalysts, essence and points are never traded. Trading outside the Game (for money, for accounts, for anything) is against clause 4.

What money buys, and what it doesn't. The Game has a store. It may be closed at times; when it is open, it sells identity, time and Battle Points — and Battle Points buy packs, so money reaches items, materials and gems. What it does not reach: rank, season rewards, relics, cantos and titles. Those are earned or not owned. BP buys time, never the outcome. In particular:

• Battle Points can be purchased, up to a weekly cap of 1,400 BP per account (a rolling 7-day window) — roughly what a dedicated player earns by playing in a week. At the cap, checkout is unavailable until the window frees up.
• Packs have published odds. BP — earned or purchased — can open packs with randomised contents. The drop probabilities of every pack are published on the odds page (app.duelsmith.com/pack/odds), linked from every buy surface, and are identical for everyone. There are no hidden modifiers, pity timers or "premium" packs. If the odds change, the page's version and date change before the change takes effect.
• Never sold, alone or bundled: specific items, rating, rank, ladder position, season rewards, relics, cantos, titles or medals. No product sells a catalyst: they are earned by completing the story for the first time, and can rarely drop where materials drop — including in the material pack bought with BP. Some cosmetics (for example, the homeland backgrounds tied to your lineage) are earned only and are never sold.

What a purchase is. A purchase grants a personal, non-transferable licence to a digital entitlement inside the Game — not property, not currency, not redeemable or exchangeable for money. Timed entitlements (for example, stamina boosters) expire by design; the expiry is the product, not a defect.

Prices, taxes, delivery, refunds. Prices are shown at checkout and processed by our payment provider (Stripe); applicable taxes are shown or included at checkout. Purchases may be available only in certain countries. Delivery is immediate and automatic. Because of that, purchases are generally non-refundable once delivered, except where the consumer law of your country provides otherwise, and except as the Purchase & Refund Policy says (for example, a payment that completes when your weekly BP cap is already reached is not delivered and is refunded in full, automatically). If you are in the EU/EEA: by completing a purchase you expressly request immediate delivery and acknowledge that you thereby lose your 14-day right of withdrawal.

Chargebacks. If you dispute a charge with your bank, the goods from that purchase are revoked and buying is blocked on your account while the dispute runs; you keep playing. If the dispute is decided in your favour, what was taken is restored and buying is unblocked. If it is decided against you, the goods stay revoked.

If something goes wrong (you paid and received nothing), contact us: every purchase leaves a verifiable trail and we can restore or refund it.

Minors. You must be an adult in your jurisdiction, or have a parent's or guardian's permission, to make purchases. Because purchased BP can open randomised packs, we ask parents and guardians to treat purchase permission with the same care as any game with randomised paid content; the odds are public so anyone can evaluate exactly what a pack can contain.

The full details are in the Purchase & Refund Policy, which forms part of these terms.

6. Your content, and what other players can see

Names and text. Champion names and any text you enter must not be offensive, infringing or impersonating. We may rename or remove content that breaks this rule.

Public by design. Duelsmith is an async PvP game: your champion fights other players while you're away, and other players can see it. Specifically, and without any action on your part:

• Your champion page (/u/…) is public: champion names, class, lineage, level, rating, medals and cosmetics — never your email, real name or sign-in identity.
• Every duel has a public replay link. Anyone with the link can watch the fight and see both champions' builds. Your tactical plan is not shown to viewers who own neither champion.
• The leaderboard shows champion names and ratings.

You keep whatever rights you have in your content; you give us the licence needed to display it in the Game as described above.

Uploaded images (custom avatars). Uploading is optional. You must own the rights to the image (or have permission). Don't upload images of other people without their consent, and never anything offensive, sexual, violent, hateful or illegal. A moderator reviews every upload before any other player can see it, and we may reject, remove or revert an image at any time; repeated rejections disable uploading for your account. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, process (resize, re-encode) and display the approved image inside the Game wherever your account appears; the licence ends when the image is removed or your account is deleted, except as needed for moderation records. Takedown: if an avatar infringes your rights or shows you without consent, report it in-game ("Report avatar") or write to admin@duelsmith.com.

Reports. You can report a player, a name or an avatar in-game. Reports are moderation records; filing a false report to harm another player is itself a rule violation.

7. Community channels

Our Discord server is where the Game is discussed. It is run by us, under its own posted rules, and Discord's own terms apply to your use of Discord. Behaviour there can affect your Game account (clause 4), and Game-account sanctions can be mirrored there.

8. Our content

The Game — code, design, the name Duelsmith, the world and its names (Tharûm, Sylphar, Aeshtar, the Ironpaw Rebellion and the rest), art and text — is ours or licensed to us. Playing gives you a personal, non-transferable licence to play, nothing more. Duels (2008) is a different game by different people; Duelsmith is inspired by it and is not affiliated with it.

9. Ending things

You can delete your account at any time from Settings; the Privacy Policy says exactly what deletion removes and what survives it. We can suspend or terminate accounts for rule-breaking (clause 4), and we can close the Game as described in clause 2.

10. Warranties and liability

The Game is provided "as is", without warranties of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for lost progress, lost data, downtime or any indirect damages arising from your use of the Game. Where law grants you rights that can't be waived, those rights stand; nothing here limits our liability for what the law does not allow us to limit.

11. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. Material changes are announced in-game or in our community channels before they take effect, and the date at the top of this page changes. Continuing to play after a change takes effect means you accept it.

12. Contact and governing law

Contact: admin@duelsmith.com. These terms are governed by the laws of Mexico, and disputes go to the courts of Mexico City, Mexico, except that consumers keep any non-waivable protections of their own country (for example, PROFECO in Mexico or EU consumer law in the EU).