Overview
A quick guide / short manual to the DLC.
Introduction
Welcome to my quick guide! Please feel free to leave any kind of comment as I’ll read them all!
Please note this is not a replacement to the official guide[drive.google.com]!
I’m merely trying to make it shorter, simpler and faster, specially for consulting during the game.
I highly recommend reading the complete official guide before your first play, and will assume you did.
Setting Up The Game
- Shuffle All Decks – It is unclear to me if the game does that automatically at the start of each game. I usually suffle them just in case. Please let me know if you can confirm this.
- Choose Heroes – : The game is always played with 4 heroes, chosen among all 9-13 available (9 from base game and 4 others if you include the expansion). If there are fewer than 4 players, divide the remaining heroes among yourselves. For each hero, do the following steps:
- Take the Hero Token and place it on the Monastery.
- Take the Hero Sheet and set it near the corresponding player.
- Make sure the Grace and Secrecy trackers are on their default positions.
- Choose 3 out of the 4 starting power cards for your hero. Set them face-up near the Hero Sheet.
- Set the remaining 7 power cards (including the unchosen starting power) face-down near the Hero Sheet
- Set a Player Aid near each Hero Sheet for consulting during the game.
- Set the Blights – Draw the top card from the Map Deck. For each location except the Monastery, place the indicated blight on the corresponding location on the board. Dicard the card.
Sequence of Play
The game consists of a series of rounds. During each round, each hero will take a turn, and then the Necromancer will also take a turn.
Heroes can take a turn in any order they like and can change every round.
Hero Turn:
- Start: Follow any special start-of-turn instructions
- Resolve any power effects that take place “at the start of your turn”.
- If at the same location as the Necromancer, lose 1 Secrecy.
- If carrying a Holy Relic, lose 1 Secrecy.
- Event: Draw an event card. (skip if in the Monastery)
- If you have 0 Secrecy and are at the same location as the Necromancer, it initiates combat.
- Otherwise, draw an event card.
- Action: Choose something to do.
- Travel – Move to an adjacent location and gain 1 Secrecy (up to 5).
- Hide – Refresh your powers and gain 1 Secrecy (up to 5).
- Attack – Choose a blight (or the necromancer) in your location and fight according to the combat rules. If you win, destroy the blight. Otherwise, suffer it’s defense. Lose 1 Secrecy for revealing yourself, regardless of victory or defeat.
- Search – Roll a die and compare to the search difficulty listed on the board for your location. If you succees, draw a map card and take the search result for your location. If you roll multiple die, draw one card for each success and chose one to resolve, ignoring the others. (The Monastery cannot be searched)
- Pray – Roll 2 die. Gain 1 Grace for each die that rolls 3 or more (up to default). Also refresh your powers.
- Retrieve a Holy Relic – Discard 3 keys to claim an undiscovered holy relic at your location. It is now treated as an item.
- Power – Use the “action” effect from one of your power cards.
- End: Defend against blights. You may chose the order to resolve them.
- If you spend your entire turn in the Monastery, gain 1 Secrecy (up to default).
Necromancer Turn:
- Darkness: Advance the darkness track (in 1 + number of active Desecrations on the board). For every point above 30 the Darkness would reach, place a blight on the Monastery instead.
- Movement: Roll a die. The Necromancer will detect any hero that has less secrecy than the number on the die (but not equal).
- If the Necromancer detects any hero, move it to the closest one through the shortest path. Resolve any ties randomly (throw a die).
- If the Necromancer dectects no hero, throw a die and move it following the arrow on his location that matches the number he rolled.
- The Necromancer may never enter the Monastery for any reason.
- Create a Blight at the Necromancer’s new location. (Draw a map card and place the corresponding blight). Some effects may cause multiple blights to be created at this time.
Combat
Quick Rules
- Only one tactic may be used in each combat.
- Failing an attack against a blight will cause you to suffer it’s defense.
- Holy relics add 1 to your highest die in fights.
- The Necromancer cannot die if a relic is not used in the fight.
- The Necromancer has 7 Strength and 6 Awareness.
Destroying Blights
Blights can only be destroyed by performing an attack action during your turn. Never when defending against it’s effect.
When failing the attack against a monster blight, suffer the defense effect in the bottom-right corner.
When failing to defend against a monster’s attack, suffer the fail effect listed on the monster (in black in the center).
Losing a Turn
Some combats cause a hero to “lose a turn” if he fails. When this happens, tip the hero’s character token on its side, but finish the current turn as normal. On that hero’s next turn, stand his token back up, and then end the turn. Nothing else (good or bad) happens that turn. If a hero “loses a turn” while his token is already on its side, there is no further effect.
Playing with 5 or 6 players
When playing with a player-controlled Necromancer, the game receives the following changes:
- The Necromancer draws 4 map cards to from his initial hand. Whenever a blight is supposed to be created, the Necromancer will chose one of his cards to use. He will only draw new cards when his hand is empty, taking 4 new cards at that point.
- If no cards are placeable because all the corresponding blight tokens are taken, the Necromancer must show his cards to the players, throw them away and take 4 new cards. If that happens twice, the heroes choose the type of blight.
- The Necromancer sees the heroes the same way as he normally would, but he can choose which to follow when it would normally be random.
- In case the Necromancer sees no heroes, he must move to an adjacent location that is empty of heroes. Only if that’s impossible may (and must) he remain stationary.
When playing with 5 Heroes instead of 4, the game receives the following changes:
- The first holy relic to be retreived requires 5 keys (all others still require only 3)
- Create an extra blight according to the darkness level.
- Darkness level 0-14: create if you roll 1.
- Darkness level 15-24: create if you roll 1 or 2.
- Darkness level 25-29: create if you roll 1, 2 or 3.
- Darkness level 30: create if you roll a 1, 2, 3 or 4.