Gamehelptheshipwreckarcana

Overview

This is a cooperative game; the players win or lose together.

If the players reach 7 doom (as indicated by the red tracking token around The Hours), they lose.

If the players score 7 points (as indicated by the green tracking token), they win.

Rules summary

Each fate is a token numbered 1 through 7. There are three of each fate (so, 21 fate tokens total) in a bag that players drawn from. Discarded fates are returned to the bag.

Each player has a number-line of tokens numbered 1 through 7 in their color. Players cannot interact with their own number-lines; they're used by the rest of the group to help keep track of what the group knows. They have no direct effect on gameplay.

Four arcana cards are active (in play) at any given time. Fates played on the arcana cards are called visible fates. Whenever an arcana card is removed from play, any visible fates on it are discarded and returned to the bag, and it is replaced with the top card of the deck.

Each fate has a number of hours ("pips", or ♢) shown on its right side. (Fates numbered 1 through 3 have one pip; 4 through 6 have two pips; and 7 has three pips.). Each arcana card has a duration, indicated by the number of moons shown near its bottom edge. When the number of hours (pips) of visible fates on an arcana card is greater than or equal to its duration, that arcana card will fade at the end of the turn. Faded arcana cards become single-use faded powers that can help the group. See "Faded powers" for more information.

To the left of the active arcana cards is The Hours, which looks like an arcana card but is not considered one (per the official rules). Players may play a fate on The Hours only if they cannot play a fate anywhere else; those fates move to the leftmost arcana card (which may cause that card to fade). Tracking tokens around The Hours are used to indicate the group's current doom and score.

Turn

On each turn, one player (or, in the Two-player Challenge Variant, one hand) is the active player. The rest of the players are "the group". The active player may not communicate with the group in any way except by using faded powers and playing a fate.

Each turn is split into several phases.

- The active player draws new fates until they have two in their hand. These are secret from the other players.

- The active player plays one fate on an arcana card, obeying its text.

- The group is allowed to discuss openly and then may predict what the active player's remaining fate is (or may pass). Each player has a numberline in their color showing the fate numbers 1

Predict - The passive players MAY vote on what your remaining fate is. If a prediction is made, the next step is Resolve, if prediction is declined the next step is Fade

Resolve - If the prediction was true, the team gains 1 point. If the prediction was false, the team gains 1 doom. Either way, discard your fate.

Fade - Check the arcana cards to see if any fade

Fading

A card fades when the number of pips on the fates below it equal or exceed the quantity of moons it displays e.g. a card with 3 moons will fade when the pips equal 3+

First, discard all fates below it back to the bag

Flip it and drop it down to the lower row

Advance Doom by 2 UNLESS a correct prediction occurred this turn

Draw a new card for the empty space.

NOTE: Fates played to The Hours move to the card directly to the right of it, which MAY trigger its fading

In the normal game, discarded arcana cards are returned to the bottom of the deck. In the The Restless Hours variant, they are removed from the game.

Faded powers

- Most can be used in one of four 'windows'.

- Attachments

Interface notes

In your hand(s), just-drawn fates are shown with a blue border. Some arcana cards and faded powers (such as Shells (Old?)) behave differently if a fate has been drawn this turn or not.

The visible fate that was played most recently is shown with a blue border.

A fate that has been selected (for example, as the target of a faded power) is shown with a red border.

Variants

The Restless Hours

In this higher-difficulty variant, The Hours is replaced with The Restless Hours. Before the game starts, 15 cards will be chosen at random from the selected card set(s) to create the arcana deck, and discarded cards are not returned to the deck.

There is no doom tracker in this variant; instead, players lose if they need to draw an arcana card and the deck is empty.  An arcana card is removed from the bottom of the deck each time the players' doom would advance.

Both fading and things that would normally give doom bring the players closer to defeat; be careful!

The Restless Hours is an official promo card.

Two-player Challenge Mode

In this higher-difficulty variant, each player plays two hands (labeled "A" and "B"). They will alternate between those hands on each of their turns.  Hidden fates for each hand are kept separate.

The extra turns will put more pressure on arcana cards to fade. See the official rulebook for details.

As its name suggests, this option is only available when there are exactly two players at the table.

TODO

- Define "visible fate", "active arcana card" (which does not include The Hours), "faded power", etc.

- Show pictures of the above, plus "pips", the numberline, fate tokens, etc.

- Link to the official Meromorph FAQs, which are great.