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Overview

Keep your warriors alive whilst collecting Spirits and Relics

Turn

The active player for the turn is shown by the symbol on the disc

The active player chooses a pair of tiles, one for each player

The player with the weaker strength in the pair decides who will play first, or the active player chooses if the Strength is equal

Each player places their tile and activates it as applicable

Every warrior who died that turn after both players place and activate their tile determine how far the Spirit Track moves, e.g. if there were 2 deaths for player A and 1 death for player B, the track would move 3 spaces total

Draw a new tile from each player's deck to form a new pair, then flip the disc to allocate the new active player for the next turn

Tile Placement

If you place your tile onto a tile with crystals (or empty) take all the crystals put them into your storage, which holds a maximum of 4 at the end of a turn

If you wish to place your tile onto a Relic space, you have to pay 4 crystals of which at least one must be a white Spirit crystal. This cost is reduced by 1 for each tile adjacent to the Shrine, yours or your opponent's. The cost is always a minimum of 1 Spirit Crystal, even if all four adjacent spaces are occupied. Place the Relic on your Acquired Relics track, and draw two blind crystals from the bag as a reward.

Regardless of what sort of space you placed on, after resolving it you can then rotate your tile to face any of the four directions you choose

After orientation is decided, check for 8-way adjacency of your own tiles and count their support arrows shown on the border. Each support arrow that directly points to the newest tile grants the new tile a purple Energy crystal from the supply. Note that Support does NOT work backwards, i.e. the new tile does NOT provide Energy for old tiles. Once this is resolved, the tile's natural Claw quantity plus its Support Crystal quantity show its strength, so if it had 2 Claws and 3 crystals were added during placement, it now has a strength of 5.

Each player has two special Warriors, the Elder and the Convert. These are special because their effects trigger all the time, NOT just on their placement turn. The Elder gains bonus strength equal to the quantity orthogonal adjacent allies, whilst the Convert gains strength equal to the quantity of diagonal adjacent enemies. Remember, the two Special tiles will still get the normal placement bonuses on initial placement.

Finally, the player can add extra crystals to the new tile directly from their crystal storage. As the storage can only contain 4 crystals at turn end, any extra must be placed, but it's the player's choice which ones count as the extra. Additionally, the player can also freely use any of the remaining 4 to enhance the placed tile, if they so choose. If white Spirit crystals are added to the tile, these will be worth 1VP at game's end if they remain, but do NOT contribute to the strength, only purple Energy increases strength.

As a side note, white Spirit crystals still in storage at game's end aren't worth anything, only ones that were placed and retained on the board.

Settling Life and Death

After all placement steps are completed, check to see if ANY tile is now fully surrounded on all orthogonal spaces (note that corner (2) and edge (3) spaces have fewer adjacent spaces than central (4) spaces do)

Note that a Shrine space with a Relic is NOT an occupied space for this purpose, it has to have a player tile on it to count as occupied

Regardless of the strength of the surrounding allies, only the strength of the surrounding enemy tiles are compared to the strength of the surrounded tile. If the targeted tile has the higher strength, it survives, if the enemies have the higher strength, the target dies.

If the target dies, transfer its Spirit crystals to the recently played tile regardless of where it is and flip the target tile facedown, whilst Energy Crystals are discarded to the supply.

If the recently played tile is the Target, Spirit Crystals are also discarded to the supply

If multiple tiles are Targeted, and one of them is the recently played tile, resolve the recently played tile LAST, whilst all others can be resolved in the current player's choice of order.

Note: The Elder and the Convert have bonus strength depending on what faceup tiles are adjacent, therefore if there are multiple targets adjacent to the Special tiles, the strength of those Special tiles may fluctuate as each targeting is resolved.

Once all targets, if any, are fully resolved it is either the second player's turn or the end of the round if it was player 2's turn.

Game End

The game ends at the end of a round when one of the following is true:

6 Deaths of any player

There are one or less Free spaces on the map (A Shrine is not Free, it costs 4 crystals, thus does not count) e.g. there could be 2 Shrines and 1 Free space, this triggers end game

All tiles have been played

Regardless of how game end is triggered, it is scored the same way

Each player checks their living warriors for the number of Gems in their Foreheads

Each player checks their living warriors for the number of Spirit crystals placed on them

Each player checks their acquired Relics and scores them as follows: the first is 1VP, the 2nd is additional 2VP, the 3rd is additional 3VP, the 4th is additional 4VP, the 5th is additional 5VP for a maximum total of 15VP

The player with the most points, wins!

If tied, the player with the most living warriors wins!

If still tied, the player who most recently acquired a relic wins!

Summarised by https://boardgamearena.com/player?id=90078516