Gameplay

On your turn, you must do these actions in order:

Plot at Court (Optional)

• At the beginning of your turn, you may choose to pay one Pearl to add a Lord to the furthest empty space away from the Lord deck in the Court.
• You may perform this action as many times as you want (as long as you can pay and there are empty spaces).
• If there are no empty spaces at Court or if the Lord deck is empty, you may not Plot at Court.

Take an Action

You must perform one of the three actions below:

Explore the Depths

• Reveal cards of the Exploration deck one by one and place them on the Exploration Track, starting with the space next to the deck and to the right.
• If the revealed card is an Ally, offer the other players the opportunity to buy this Ally.
• Ask each player in turn, going clockwise. Each player can either pass or purchase the Ally.
• The first player who purchases the card pays its cost to you and adds the Ally card to their hand.
• The cost to purchase an Ally increases during your turn. The first purchased costs 1 Pearl, the second costs 2 Pearls, and so on.
• It doesn’t matter which player purchases the Allies, but each opponent can only purchase an Ally during your turn.
• If nobody wants to buy an Ally, you either add it to your hand and end your turn, or reveal the next card and sell it, and so on.
• If all the spaces on the Exploration Track are filled with Allies, and none of your opponents wants to buy the last Ally you revealed, you must add that Ally to your hand and gain a Pearl.
• If the revealed card is a Monster, you must either fight or keep exploring.
• If you decide to fight, discard the Monster and gain the reward shown on the Threat Track.
• After defeating the monster, return the Threat token to the first space of the Threat Track and end your turn.
• If you decide to keep exploring, move the Threat token one space up the track and continue revealing cards.
• When a Monster is revealed on the last space of the Exploration Track, you must fight it and receive one extra Pearl.
• After you Explore the Depths, put all remaining Allies to the Council and discard any Monsters.

Request Support from the Council

Take all of the cards from one stack in the Council without looking at them beforehand and add them to your hand.

Recruit a Lord

• Choose a Lord available at Court and play the exact number of Allies from your hand needed to buy it.
• The total value of the Allies you play may be more than what is required, but the extra Ally points are lost.
• If the sum of the card values is not high enough, you can spend one Pearl for each missing point.
• After recruiting a Lord, affiliate the lowest value Ally from those used to recruit the Lord by placing the Ally in front of you and discard the rest. If two or more Allies used in recruiting the Lord have the same lowest value, you may choose which one to affiliate.

• Refill the Court and take pearls, if applicable:

After you recruit a Lord, the remaining Lords in the Court slide to the right, until there are no empty spaces between them. If there are at least three Lords left in Court, the recruited Lord is not immediately replaced. But, if there are only two Lords left, you gain two Pearls (as shown on the board), and all empty spaces in the Court are filled by Lord cards from the top of the deck.

Control Locations

• If you have 3 or more keys, you must immediately take an available Location or draw 1-4 Locations, choose one and put the rest face up.
• Any Lords used to control that Location lose all their Powers for the rest of the game, but still have their influence points.
• Any Keys used are discarded.

If you wish to keep more than 12 Allies in hand at the end of your turn, you must pay one Pearl for each extra Ally. Otherwise, you must discard each extra ally for which you decide not to pay a Pearl.

After these actions are taken, your turn is over. The player to your left takes their turn.

End of Game

• The game ends when there are not enough Lords to refill the Court or a player recruits their seventh lord.
• In either case, the active player completes their turn and each opponent gets a final turn.
• Finally, each player affiliates the lowest value Ally of each race from those still in their hand, placing them down in front of the player, and discards the rest.
• Each player adds up their influence points from: Locations controlled, Lords recruited, the highest value affiliated Ally of each race, and Monster tokens collected.
• The player with the highest influence wins. In case of a tie, the player with the most Pearls wins. If they are still tied, the player with the highest-value Lord wins.