Gamehelptekhenuobeliskofthesun

Overview

A dice-drafting game for 2–4 players, or solo against Botankhamun (below), over exactly 16 rounds. The Time of Seth expansion and the 2-player Vizier's Challenge are table options (below). Each round you take one die from around the Obelisk and either perform the God action of the section it came from, or Produce resources of the die's colour. Points come from statues, pillars, buildings, happiness, production and secret Decrees. Most VP wins.

Two things are worth understanding before your first game:

• Every die you take stays on your scales until the next Maat phase. Pure dice weigh on the left, Tainted dice on the right. Every 4 rounds the scales are judged: the closer to balanced, the earlier you go next, and a clearly negative balance costs VP.
• Over-producing hurts you. Anything you produce above your production marker is excess: you can never spend it, and it weighs on the Tainted side of your scales.

Before round 1

The board is set up for you. You then:

1. Keep 1 of 2 Decrees dealt to you. Decrees are secret end-game scoring cards.
2. Draft 2 Starting cards (snake draft). Their initiative numbers, added together, set the first turn order — highest first.
3. Pick a Destiny card in turn order, and receive the rewards of both Starting cards and the Destiny card.

Table options: the Horus Bonus tiles can be random or the pre-printed first-game layout, and the Obelisk wheel can start at a random or fixed position.

The Obelisk and the dice

The wheel around the Obelisk has six sections, one per god. Its shadow makes each section Sunny, Shaded or Dark, and that decides how each die colour counts there:

Light	White	Yellow	Black	Brown	Gray
Sunny	Pure	Tainted	Forbidden	Forbidden	Tainted
Shaded	Tainted	Pure	Tainted	Pure	Tainted
Dark	Forbidden	Forbidden	Pure	Tainted	Tainted

Gray is always Tainted and nothing is Forbidden in the shade. The wheel turns one section clockwise after every second round, and new dice are rolled into the two Shaded sections.

Your turn

1. Take a die that is Pure or Tainted — never Forbidden. Before taking it you may spend Scribes:
   • 1 Scribe: change the die's value by 1 or 2 (1–6, no wrap). Scribes stack.
   • 2 Scribes: Anubis. Take any die, even a Forbidden one, and use it for any action. It goes below your scales and does not count toward balance.
2. The die goes onto your scales: Pure left, Tainted right, at its new value.
3. Perform one action: the God action of the die's section, or Produce with the die's colour.

The die's value matters for almost every action. If you cannot pay an action's cost, you cannot take it. Gold stands in for any resource (Papyrus, Bread, Limestone, Granite); Scribes and Faith are not resources.

Cards. Blessings are one-shot; Technologies are permanent. When one of your cards applies to what you are doing, the game offers it. Every card's full text is in its tooltip.

Restart turn undoes your whole turn, until something hidden is revealed (a card or a pillar tile is drawn). The Pillar tile that refills the Ra row after your Ra action stays face down until your turn ends, so a Ra action can still be undone; click it to turn it up sooner, and the game warns you that the turn can then no longer be restarted. When a cost can be paid more than one way, or only by spending Gold, the game asks how you want to pay before the action goes through. A Confirm step ends each turn; the Confirm end of turn preference changes that.

Actions

Horus — build a Statue

Pay the Granite under your leftmost unbuilt statue (4 / 3 / 2 / 2 / 3 / 4). Then either:

• For a god: the die value picks a Horus slot, and the god tile on that slot says which section the statue goes in. From then on, whenever another player performs that god's action, you get the bonus printed on that slot. (See the player-count table for extra triggers.) A second statue to the same god gives no extra bonus.
• For the people: ignore the die. Build on one of the four Gold spaces (two by the Temple, two above the Osiris districts) and take the Gold. At the Temple, also score 3 VP per own Pillar in that line.

Ra — raise a Pillar

The die picks the tile: 5–6 left (3 VP), 3–4 middle (2 VP), 1–2 right (1 VP). Pay its Limestone / Granite and place it on any empty Temple space, in any rotation. Score:

• 1 VP per Building (anyone's) in its row and column;
• 1 VP per edge matching the neighbouring tile or the Temple border (2 VP per match in a corner);
• the reward on the covered space, and the slot's 1–3 VP.

If the tile's light symbol matches the light over Ra's section right now, its ability triggers too.

Hathor — build around the Temple

Build on any empty building space beside the Temple (the die does not restrict it) and pay its Bread (2–4). For each space in that row or column: your own Pillar scores 3 VP; an empty space gives 1 of the resource or Faith shown; another player's Pillar gives nothing. Then raise Population by the die value.

Bastet — festival

Pay 2 Papyrus. Raise Happiness by the die value (never above your Population). Die 1–2 also gives 2 Scribes, 3–4 gives 1. The first time your Happiness reaches 16 gain 1 Gold, 19 1 Scribe, 21 an extra action with any die value.

Thoth — take cards

Die 1–2: 1 card free. 3–4: pay 2 Papyrus for 2 cards. 5–6: pay 3 Papyrus for 3 cards. All from one Market section, and you must take the full number. Your Happiness opens the sections: 1+ section 1, 5+ section 2, 9+ section 3, 13+ section 4. Sections 3 and 4 are empty until someone's Population first reaches 9 and 13. Before choosing, you may pay 1 Papyrus to discard and refill a section.

Osiris — workshop or quarry

Lose 1 Happiness (you need at least 1). Build in the row equal to the die value, in any of the four districts:

Row	Production	Gain
1	+1 on that resource	1 of it
2	+1	1 of it, plus 1 Gold for the first builder in row 2
3	+1 on both resources of the pair	1
4	+1 on both	1, plus 1 Gold
5	+2	2
6	+2, and +1 on any track	2

Papyrus + Bread and Limestone + Granite are the pairs. Production markers stop at 6.

Produce

Any non-gray die, in any section. Gain resources of the die's colour equal to its value: yellow Papyrus, brown Bread, white Limestone, black Granite. Everything above that resource's production marker is excess.

Maat phase — after rounds 4, 8, 12 and 16

1. Balance = total of your Pure dice − total of your Tainted dice − 1 per excess resource. Anubis dice do not count.
2. Everyone holding Faith may add it to either side, ±1 each. Unused Faith is lost.
3. Penalty: balance −3 to −5 costs 1 VP, −6 to −8 costs 2 VP, −9 or worse 3 VP.
4. New turn order: closest to zero first (+1 and −1 tie). Ties go to the higher Ankh on your Destiny card.
5. After rounds 8 and 16, Scoring (below).
6. Dice, excess and Faith leave your board, and everyone picks a new Destiny card in the new turn order.

Scoring — after rounds 8 and 16

What	VP
Osiris districts	3 VP to the majority in each (Buildings and Statues; a statue counts in both districts it sits over). Tie: highest piece
Temple	1 VP per own Building and Statue around it; each own Pillar 1 VP per own Building and Statue in its row and column
Statues built	1 / 3 / 6 / 10 / 15 / 21 for 1–6
Happiness	3 / 6 / 9 / 12 / 15 for reaching 9 / 13 / 16 / 19 / 21
Production	2 VP per marker on 6
Building row	the VP uncovered on your player board
Bread upkeep	pay the Bread uncovered on your player board, or lose 3 VP per Bread short

Bread is paid automatically. You are only asked if paying would need Gold.

Game end

After the second Scoring:

1. Anyone holding Decree D23 may play it first, for a free action.
2. Decrees: score up to 3, at most one per symbol. The Best button picks the highest-scoring set for you.
3. Turn order: 1st gets 3 VP; with 3–4 players 2nd gets 2 VP.

Most VP wins. Ties: most Scribes, then earlier in turn order. Scores never drop below 0.

Player-count differences

	2p	3p	4p
Statue spaces per god	1	2	3
Temple building spaces	10	14	18
Horus bonus also when you take that god's action	yes	—	—
Horus bonus immediately when you build	—	yes	—
Cards removed	T16, D20	—	—
Turn-order VP at the end	1st 3	1st 3, 2nd 2	1st 3, 2nd 2

Solo — Botankhamun

Play alone against Botankhamun, an automated opponent that sits in the second seat of a 2-player game. Every player-count rule is the 2p one. Botankhamun uses a player colour and real Statues, Buildings and Pillars, so it competes with you for the same spaces. Its turns play themselves.

It works to three blanket rules:

• It never pays for anything it does.
• It never Produces, and gains no Resources or Faith, only VP and Scribes.
• It ignores every card effect, Populace track reward, reward under a Pillar tile and Pillar ability.

Setup changes

• Botankhamun has no player board and no Decree. It starts with 4 Happiness, 7 Population and 10 VP.
• 3 Starting cards are revealed and you keep 2. Botankhamun takes none.
• Botankhamun is always first in the first turn order. It takes the Gold or Scribe Destiny card at random, without its reward.
• It starts with one Statue, in the section whose Horus Bonus tile is on slot 1.
• Its 10 Action tiles are shuffled into a pyramid (4, 3, 2, 1 from the base), with the Progress marker left of the base.

Table options:

Option	Choices
Difficulty	Easy: just the Statue above. Medium: also Buildings on the row-5 Bread and Granite spaces in Osiris, and a Pillar on the Temple's centre space. Hard: Medium plus a second Statue, in the section on Horus slot 4
Starting cards	Choose 2 of 3 (standard), or take 2 dealt at random
Botankhamun's Decrees	4 VP each (standard) or 8 VP each

Botankhamun's turn

1. Move the Progress marker. On its first turn of round 1, and on its first turn after each Maat phase, the marker steps onto the bottom-left tile. After that the Deben is flipped like a coin:
   • Pharaoh: the marker moves up-right, to the row above.
   • Snake: the marker moves right, along its row.
2. Take a die, as the tile says. It is always Pure or Tainted, never Forbidden.
   • God tile: the highest die in that god's section, ties to a Pure die. If that section has nothing it can take, it tries the next section counter-clockwise, and so on.
   • Resource tile: the highest die of the first colour printed on the tile, then the next colour if there is none, and a gray die only if no coloured die is left. Ties go to a section where it has a Statue, then to the higher-numbered Horus slot.
3. Perform the God action of the section the die came from. This need not be the god on the tile. Its dice never go on scales; they sit beside the pyramid until the Maat phase.

The log records each step: which face the Deben showed, and which sections a god tile found empty before the one it drew from. Hover over a tile or the Deben to see what it does.

How Botankhamun performs each action

God	What it does
Horus	Statue in honour of the die's god. If that space is taken, a Statue for the people where it most changes district control. Failing that, a Temple Statue space lined up with more of its Pillars. With no space at all, it scores 3 VP instead
Ra	Takes the die's Pillar tile and places it, unrotated, where it scores most: 1 VP per Building in its row and column (anyone's), 1 VP per touching tile edge (any colour), plus the slot's 1 / 2 / 3 VP
Hathor	Builds where its own Pillars score it the most; Population goes up by the die value
Bastet	Happiness goes up by the die value, one step at a time; a step that would pass Population raises Population instead. Scribes on a 1–4 as normal
Thoth	1–3 cards from the highest segment its Happiness allows: Decrees first, then Technologies, then Blessings. They go face down in a pile and have no effect
Osiris	The row of the die value, no Happiness cost. District by die colour (gray: the district with fewest Buildings). If that space is taken it moves right, then up a row

If an action has nowhere to go, it does nothing; the die is still taken.

Horus bonuses pay as in a 2-player game: either player's Horus action pays every Statue in that section. Botankhamun's Statues ignore the printed bonus and pay from its own chart (hover over one of its Statues to see it):

Horus slot	Botankhamun receives
1–2	1 Scribe
3–4	1 VP
5–6	1 Scribe and 1 VP

Maat phase

Botankhamun has no scales. Its balance is fixed, and its Ankh is always 4:

Maat phase	1	2	3	4
Botankhamun's balance	+3	+2	+1	+1

Turn order is decided as normal, so you must balance closer to zero than that to go first. Botankhamun takes no penalty. If it is first, it takes the Gold or Scribe Destiny card at random, without its reward. After each Maat phase except the last, its pyramid is reshuffled and the marker goes back to the start.

Scoring

At both Scorings Botankhamun scores as normal for Osiris districts, the Temple, Statues built and Happiness. It does not score Production or its building row, and pays no Bread. Its cards score flat: 2 VP per Blessing (then discarded) and 2 VP per Technology (kept, so it scores again).

At the end it also scores the turn-order bonus, 4 VP per Decree (8 with the option, with no symbol limit and no limit of 3), and 1 VP per 2 Scribes. Your own score is worked out exactly as usual.

Time of Seth expansion

A table option for 1–4 players. Everything above holds unless changed here.

What it adds

• The Seth board, beside the main board: six regions to build in, Statue spaces, and two tracks, Soldiers (red) and Priests (blue), each 0–10. Anything gained above 10 is lost. Soldiers and Priests are not Resources.
• Gray dice on the Seth board: 2 / 3 / 4 at 2 / 3 / 4 players. They are taken for the new Seth action.
• Five new dice on the wheel, with faces 2–5 only (no Scribe takes them to 1 or 6). None of them can Produce.
  • Red and blue are always Tainted. Taking one gains Soldiers (red) or Priests (blue) equal to its value.
  • Green is always Pure and gains nothing. It can never be taken with Anubis.
• Blood tokens, Conquest tiles, Cultist Powers, Artifacts, new Blessings, Technologies and Decrees, and 12 new Starting cards that replace the base ones.

Setup changes

• You are dealt 3 Decrees and keep 1 at the very end of setup.
• The Starting card draft has three passes (in turn order, back, then in turn order again) and also offers Cultist Powers. You end with exactly 2 Starting cards and 1 Cultist Power.
• 5 / 6 / 7 Artifacts at 2 / 3 / 4 players sit beside the Destiny cards of the same Ankh.

Seth — a new action

Instead of a die from the wheel, take a gray die from the Seth board. Scribes work as usual, and the die goes on the Tainted side. Then:

1. The die value picks the region (table below).
2. Place your leftmost Building there. The region's first Building costs 4 Soldiers, the second 3 (5 at 1–2 players). Never two of yours in one region.
3. Gain the region's reward. Its VP are scored at each Scoring.
4. If a Statue for the people stands under that region's column, anyone's, score 3 VP.
5. Put a Blood token on the Tainted side of your scales. It counts −1 at every Maat phase and never leaves.
6. Place the face-up Conquest tile on any empty Temple space.

Die	Region	Column	Reward	VP, 1st / 2nd Building
1	Kush	left	2 Happiness / Population, any mix	5 / 3
2	Punt	left	1 Gold	4 / 2
3	Sumer	left	2 Papyrus / Bread, any mix	3 / 1
4	Assyria	right	2 Limestone / Granite, any mix	3 / 1
5	Canaan	right	2 Scribes	2 / 1
6	Hittites	right	Draw 2 Technologies, keep 1	2 / 1

Refill. At each Rotation, if the Seth board is short of dice, one gray die drawn for the first Shaded section is rolled onto the Seth board instead.

Changes to the actions

• Horus has two new places, paying Granite as usual:
  • For the people, on the Seth board, with any die: one free Thoth action of value 1 for each region in that column holding a Building, anyone's.
  • In honour of Seth, with any die and 2 Priests more: whenever another player performs Seth, you gain 1 Resource of your choice (not Gold). The player-count extras apply as for the other gods.
• Ra. A Conquest tile's space counts as empty. A Pillar raised on one gains the tile's reward instead of the printed one.
• Hathor. Each Conquest tile in the new Building's row or column gives you 1 of each different thing it shows (a card: the top card of that deck). A tile that shows an action gives nothing.
• Anubis. A God action taken with Anubis counts as red or blue, your choice: gain Soldiers or Priests equal to its value. Anubis can take a Seth-board die, for any action, and can perform Seth.

Once per turn. Any bonus tied to a player performing an action (statue bonuses, per-action Technologies, Cultist Powers) pays at most once in that player's turn, even when the action happens twice.

Cultist Powers and Artifacts

• Cultist Power. Whenever you meet its condition you gain its reward, and every other player gains the reward printed at the bottom. It stays all game.
• Artifacts. Whenever you pick a Destiny card, you may instead pay an available Artifact's Priests. You also take the Destiny card of the same Ankh, for its Ankh only. Use the Artifact once, at any point of your own turn between actions; then it leaves the game.

Every card's full text is in its tooltip.

Maat phase and Scoring

• Each Blood token counts −1 toward your balance, at every Maat phase.
• Each Scoring adds the printed VP of your Buildings on the Seth board.

	2p	3p	4p
Dice on the Seth board, at most	2	3	4
Statues in honour of Seth	1	2	3
Second Building in a region	5 Soldiers	3 Soldiers	3 Soldiers

Vizier's Challenge — 2 players

A separate table option for 2 players, with or without Time of Seth.

• At every Destiny pick, setup included, the first player takes a card (or an Artifact) and discards another, which the second player cannot take this time.
• The first player then moves the Vizier to a God action area (the Seth board too, with the expansion); after a Maat phase, a different one from where it was.
• Whenever the second player takes a die from the Vizier's area, for any purpose, the first player scores 2 VP.

Solo with Time of Seth

Everything in Solo and above holds, on the 1–2 player side of the Seth board. The Vizier is not used.

• Botankhamun never gains or spends Soldiers or Priests, and never takes Blood.
• Its pyramid loses one random god tile and one random resource tile, and gains the Seth and Priests and Soldiers tiles. The same 10 are reshuffled after each Maat phase.
• Choosing a die: a red or blue die ranks one value above its face (it is still Tainted), and the green die beats any other Pure die of the same value.
• Seth tile: the highest die on the Seth board. It builds in that region, or the next value up if it already has one there (6 wraps to 1). It scores 2 VP instead of the reward, 3 VP more if a Statue for the people stands under that column, and places the Conquest tile where a Ra action would score most. With no dice on the Seth board it takes a Horus action instead; with no Building left it scores 3 VP.
• Priests and Soldiers tile: the highest red or blue die anywhere (with none, the highest Pure die), then that section's God action.
• Horus: first a Statue for the people on the Seth board, if it would give 2 or 3 Thoth actions (each takes the rightmost card it can reach). Otherwise as before, with the Statue to Seth tried before the other fallbacks. Its Statue to Seth pays it 1 VP on either player's Seth action.
• Ra scores 2 VP more on a Conquest tile, and ignores the tile's reward. Hathor gets nothing from Conquest tiles.
• Destiny: when it is first in turn order (always, at setup), it takes the lowest-Ankh Destiny card whose Artifact is still available, so you cannot take that Artifact.
• From your Cultist Power it gains only Cult02's 1 Population.
• Its Seth Buildings score their VP at both Scorings, like yours.

Table options:

Option	Choices
Difficulty	Medium also gives Botankhamun a Building in a random Seth region; Hard, a second one
Starting cards and Cultist Powers	Draw 3 and 1 (standard), 2 and 2, or 3 and 2 (easier); keep 2 Starting cards and 1 Cultist Power
Artifacts	3 (standard), 2 (harder) or 4 (easier)
Botankhamun's Buildings	10 (standard) or 20

Implementation notes

• Publisher errata are applied: Decree D03 is removed from the game, and D07 scores at most 21 VP.
• Horus slot 1 ("2 Population / 3 Faith") is a choice, like every other "/" on the board.
• Happiness 16 / 19 / 21 bonuses trigger however your Happiness gets there, not only from Bastet.
• Population stops at 21, like Happiness.
• An empty Pillar stack leaves its Ra slot empty; a die pointing at it cannot take Ra.
• Discarded cards are reshuffled into their deck when it runs out.