diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 55164a3..5537ecc 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -54,6 +54,18 @@ about. Armies grinding into each other, guns at sea, a convoy escorting
 something across, a unit being built, a unit falling back -- each of those is
 a different noise, generated by the synth like everything else on this site.
 
+**The endings get their own.** This game does not end in a win or a loss, it
+ends in one of four things, and they do not sound alike:
+
+- **the solo** -- eighteen centres, and the only unambiguous victory there is;
+- **elimination** -- your last centre gone, which can happen in 1903 and
+  leaves you watching;
+- **the draw** -- nobody reaches eighteen and the survivors agree to stop.
+  This is what actually happens most of the time, and it is neither a win nor
+  a loss, so it cannot borrow either of their tunes;
+- **somebody else's solo** -- you are still on the board and it is over
+  anyway, which is the bleakest of the four and should sound like it.
+
 ## The board
 
 Seventy-five provinces, two adjacency graphs — an army walks the land, a