How to play
Setup, how a turn works and how the game ends, summarised from the rulebook by Eko, Meepzy's rules assistant.
Here is how to play the game, based on the rules provided:
Setup
- Arrange the 4 landscape tiles into a circular path in the middle of the table (p. 3). Place Ravenskeep centered on its starting space, which features crumbling black walls (p. 3).
- Going clockwise along the track from Ravenskeep, place a tower centered on each of the next 9 spaces, starting with a raven tower and then alternating normal and raven towers (p. 3).
- Set up the magic spells by placing your chosen spells face up near the circular path (p. 3). For your first game, use the Advance a Wizard and Advance a Tower spells and return the rest to the box (p. 3).
- Shuffle the 90 movement cards and deal 3 cards to each player to form their hand (p. 10). Place the rest of the deck in the infield of the circular path next to a discard pile, and place the die nearby (p. 10).
- Choose a starting player to receive the starting player token, and turn order will proceed clockwise from them (p. 10).
- Each player chooses a color and takes the appropriate number of wizards and magic potion bottles for the player count (p. 10). Place potions in front of you with the empty side up, put your wizards into your hand, and place your wizards onto the towers based on the blue ghost lights depicted on the tower spaces (p. 10, 11).
How a Turn Works
Play goes clockwise starting with the starting player (p. 4). On your turn, you must perform the following actions:
- Play 2 cards from your hand face up onto the discard pile, one at a time, and perform the move for each card if at all possible (p. 4). Alternatively, you may forgo both actions to discard your entire hand and advance any 1 tower 1 space clockwise (p. 4).
- Movement cards can move either a wizard, a tower, or give you a choice between the two (p. 4). When moving a tower, you move it along with everything stacked on top of it (p. 4).
- At any time during your turn, you may spend full potion bottles to cast one magic spell (p. 4).
- Finally, draw from the deck to refill your hand back to 3 cards (p. 4). Each time the deck is depleted, shuffle the discards to form a new deck (p. 4).
How the Game Ends
The game ends when a player has no more empty potion bottles and all of their wizards are in Ravenskeep (p. 6).
- When this happens, finish the current round so everyone gets the same number of turns (p. 6).
- If only one player has achieved both goals, they win the game (p. 6). If several players achieve both, the player with the most full, unspent potion bottles remaining wins (p. 6).
This summary was written by Eko from the game's own rulebook. It covers the essentials, not every edge case. For a specific rule, ask Eko and get the page it came from, or open the manual in the Archive.