Rules

You are an adventurer...

You will work your way through an encounter deck, fight some monsters, and draw a map to keep track of where you've been along the way.

Gather your materials

Print and cut the cards from a pack.
Gather at least 3 dice, and a pen.
Download and print a rules booklet that includes these rules and an adventure sheet.

Create your character

The top half of your adventure sheet includes information about your character. It helps you keep track of your skills, health, gems, inventory, and memories.

Skills: are you good at doing things? How good? How many dice to you get to roll for a skill check?
Health: how much life to you have left to make it through this adventure?
Gems: let you manipulate those dice rolls. Unlucky? Best to be prepared.
Inventory: items you gain from encounters.
Memories: things you remember from your journey.

Start by giving your character a name. Then we can fill out the skill and gem sections

Skills

Skills determine how likely you are to pass skill checks. Increase your skill level by gaining experience.

There are four different categories of skill:

ATK (Attack): how hard you hit those enemies.
DEF (Defense): how hard you can get hit before taking damage.
WIT (Wit): well, aren't you clever.
AGL (Agility): no good beating up those enemies if you just get stuck in their traps.

Each of those skills also has a level. You will always sum two dice for your skill checks, but your level will determine how many dice you roll:

Disadvantage: roll 3 dice, keep the lowest 2.
+0: Roll 2 dice, keep both.
Advantage: roll 3 dice, keep the highest 2.
+2: roll with advantage, add 2 to the result.

All of your skills start at a disadvantage, but you get two experience points now, one for your ATK/DEF, and one for your WIT/AGL.

Check all the boxes under D in the skills section.
Check 1 box under +0 for either ATK or DEF.
Check 1 box under +0 for either WIT or AGL.

Gems and health

Gems allow you to re-roll or add to the result of your dice roll when you complete a skill check.

Use 1 Ruby to to re-roll a skill check. You must re-roll all dice for that skill.
Use 1 Emerald to re-roll a single die, leaving the others locked.
Use 1 Sapphire increase or decrease the value of one die by 4.

You may use your gems more than once on a single check, so if you had two Sapphires you could use both of them to add 8 to a single skill check. Similarly, you can re-roll a single check multiple times using more than one Ruby, or a single die multiple times using more than one Emerald.

You track your gems and health by adding empty circles to the appropriate section. When you use a gem or lose health, fill in one of the circles to track that it's been spent.

You'll start with two Rubies, one Emerald, and ten health. To track them:

Draw 2 small circles in the Ruby section and 1 small circle in the Emerald section to represent your starting gems.
Draw 10 small circles in the Health section to represent your starting health.

Create your encounter decks

Separate the cards by level (1, 2, 3, and Boss)
Take 4 random level 1 cards, 3 level 2 cards, 2 level 3 cards, and 1 Boss card.
Turn the cards face down and shuffle each pile separately.
Build the future encounters deck by putting the level 3 cards on top of the boss card, and the level 2 cards on top of that.
Build the encounters deck by shuffling your level 1 cards.

Enter the dungeon

Roll 3 dice to determine the number of squares in your entrance.
Draw a box to represent your entrance somewhere on the map. Include 3 exits.

Explore

Draw a card from the encounters deck.
Add the room to your map.
Resolve the encounter and collect any On Clear rewards.

Resolving encounters

You will complete a series of skill checks in order to resolve encounters. For example, if your encounter asks you to test AGL5 and you have AGL+0, you would roll 2 dice. If the sum is less than 5, you fail. You succeed if there is a tie.

Combat

Most cards will have an enemy for you to defeat. Each enemy has a value for ATK, DEF, and HEALTH.

ATK: the value that you must defend against to avoid damage. An enemy with an attack value of 8 would require you to pass a DEF8 check to avoid damage.
DEF: the value you must beat to successfully attack this enemy. An enemy with 7 defense would require you to succeed on an ATK7 roll to do damage to that enemy.
HEALTH: the number of successful attacks an enemy can withstand before they are defeated.

Sometimes there will be more than 1 enemy in an encounter. Treat these enemies as you would a single enemy except multiply their health by the number of enemies. 4 bats each with a Health of 1 would require 4 successful attacks to resolve the encounter.

Add an empty circle to the room on your map for each Health point of your enemy. Fill a circle in each time you make a successful attack. When you have filled all of the circles, you have cleared that room.

Rounds

Each round of combat you will roll for both ATK and DEF. If you have enough dice you may choose to make these checks simultaneously using different colors to identify your ATK and DEF rolls. Some rounds of combat also allow you to roll AGL or WIT. You may choose to also roll these when you roll ATK and DEF if you have the dice. Note that if you do not roll these simultaneously, each roll still must occur. If you defeat an enemy in one round of combat, they still have an opportunity to make one last attack against you during that round, even if you made the attack roll first.

Evade

Each round of combat you can decide to try to evade your enemy. An evade attempt always allows you to escape an encounter, but the enemy might still do damage.

Roll AGL against the enemy’s ATK value. If you succeed, evade unscathed. If you fail, the enemy completes the round as normal, and then you move to another room. Number the room, and make a note of which encounter you evaded in your Memories section.

If you return to a room where you previously evaded an encounter, consult your memories and pick up where you left off.

On clear

This section of the card describes the rewards you get for successfully clearing the room. Some rewards are automatic, and you gain them instantly. Some will require a check to determine if you gain them.

When you gain health or a gem, draw another small circle on your character sheet to indicate that it is now available to use. When you use a gem or receive damage, fill in a circle to indicate that it has been used.

Items

Add items to the Inventory section of your character sheet. Most items have a limited number of uses indicated by a number after the name of the item like DAGGER(3). Draw empty circles after the name of the item on your adventure sheet and fill them in each time you use the item to track how many uses remain.

Your next encounter

If your encounter was a level 1 encounter, add it to your discard pile. Then draw a new card from the encounters deck and begin your next encounter.

After your first time through the encounter deck, select a card from the future encounters deck and shuffle it in with the level 1 encounters to create a new encounters deck.

Level 2, 3, and boss encounters are unique: you will only see them once in the dungeon. When you complete a unique encounter:

Add the unique encounter to your victory pile.
Collect your level 1 encounters and add the next unique encounter from the top of the future encounters deck.
Shuffle your encounters deck.
Draw the next encounter from the encounters deck.

Note that you might not see all of your level 1 encounters before completing a unique encounter and recreating your encounters deck.

Victory

If you lose all of your HEALTH during an encounter, you fail.

If you defeat the boss encounter, you are victorious.

Saving your progress

Use your completed encounters to separate your encounters from your future encounters. For example, store your future encounters face-down, then your victory pile face-up, then your encounters face-down, then any resolved level 1 encounter cards face-up.

Completionist play mode

Play the base game. Add your level 1 cards to the victory pile, collect the cards that you did not select at the beginning of the game (the remaining level 2, 3, and boss cards), and shuffle them together to create a new encounters deck. Complete all remaining encounters to be victorious.

A note on movement

Moving through rooms that you have already completed is free. If you evaded an encounter, you must pick up where you left off and complete it or evade it again.