Conquer: The Age of Fantasy: The Customizable Card Game

Rulebook Composed by Just Pierce McDowell and Taltos

v.1.4

Version 1 – Version 1.1, 1.1.1 – Version 1.2 – Version 1.3 – Version 1.4

Object of the Game

To gain as many points as possible by eliminating the opponent’s Characters. In this way, you will determine who is the best General throughout the land.

Rules

The game is divided into two alternating Turns. Each turn is divided into multiple Phases: Generate, Draw, Notice, Attack, Move, and Discard. The Attack Phase is further divided into alternating Rounds.

Note on Rule Conflict. Card texts always over-rule these rules. Any future rules that may come out later will override these rules. If there are further future rules, the newest version of rules takes precedence.

Beginning the Game

When you start the game, separate all Battle Actions from your deck. Then search through your collection and remove one Landscape each. Place these in the middle of the playing area so that they are horizontal to the gamers. Then shuffle your Main Deck, that is, the deck without the Battle Actions. As an added "security check" you and your opponent may want to trade and shuffle each other’s decks. Then shuffle your Battle Action Deck. Choose a side to place your Main Deck. Place your Battle Action Deck on the outside of where you placed your Main Deck. From now on, your Main Deck will be referred to as your Barracks and your Battle Action Deck will be called your Combat Deck. Keep a tally with beads or coins or on paper of your Notice Points You will automatically start out with ten Notice Points. Determine which opponent goes first by rolling a die, flipping a coin, or any other arbitrary means of determining priority.

Generate – During this Phase, roll one six-sided die. Add this amount to your other Notice Points in your Notice Pool.

Draw – During this Phase, fill your hand to seven cards. If you already have seven, do not draw any cards. If you have more than seven, well, you shouldn’t have more than seven.

Notice – To deploy a card onto the table, you must notice it, that is spending the required number of Notice Points by removing them from your Notice Pool.

Characters – These must be Noticed at a Landscape.
Equipment – These must be Noticed on a Character or other Equipment card.
Effects – These must be Noticed on the card specified in the Card Text. Sometimes they may not be Noticed on a card.
Disturbances– These are Noticed on the card specified in the Card Text. Sometimes they may not be Noticed on a card.
Landscapes – Landscapes are Noticed next to other Landscapes.

Note on Noticing: Unlike games such as Magic: The Gathering where the gamers play the role of a powerful Wizard, this game treats the gamer more as a General. Cards aren’t deployed by "summoning" but rather by "noticing your surroundings." This idea states that, theoretically all of your characters are already out on the table, it’s just that no one sees them. No one notices them. The same goes with weapons. If a weapon is deployed on the table it is because someone noticed it. The warrior has had the weapon the whole time, but only when you notice it, can you actually see and use it.

Special Rules on Equipment Cards

Some Equipment cards will add or subtract to a Character’s Attack and Defense ratings. However, the Weapon Use of a Character does not change except when noted in the special text of the Equipment card. If you see a number in the Weapon Use box of an Equipment card, that is the Weapon Use Rating that a Character must have to posses that Equipment card.

Example: If a Dashtarian Snowballer (Weapon Use rating of 3) wants to use the Axe of Tharrantom (Weapon Use requirement of 5) the Snowballer cannot use it because the Weapon Use requirement is two points too high. However, the Snowballer may use the Fiend’s Wand (Weapon Use requirement of 3) because the Snowballer has a Weapon Use rating equal to the Weapon Use Requirement. Further more, the Snowballer may use any equipment with a Weapon Use requirement of 2, 1, or 0.

A character can only hold two pieces of Equipment except in two cases. A character may only hold one piece of equipment if it requires two hands. A character may hold three pieces of equipment if one of the pieces is armor (or armour if you prefer). A character can either hold one two handed piece of equipment or two one handed pieces of equipment if it is wearing armor. A character can only be mounted on one vehicle. If a character is mounted on a vehicle, it is not considered a piece of equipment for "holding" considerations.

Example: A character can hold two daggers because they are small enough to fight with one in each hand. A character can only hold one staff because a character must have both hands on the weapon to use it effectively. If a character is wearing armor it can still hold two daggers or one staff because armor is worn and not carried. If a character mounts a vehicle it doesn't need it's hands to hold on (because s/he is so talented), so it can wear armor and carry weapons at the same time. It's all logical.

If an Equipment Card is unique, you may only have one per deck.

Special Rules on Effects

Effects are divided into five different divisions based on their matching Character divisions (more on Character divisions later). The Effect divisions are separated thusly: Science, Metalwork, Torture, Nature, and Chaos. Despite the fact that certain Character divisions are associated with one particular Effect division, any character can use any Effect. A character may only have one "personal effect" on him at a time, but the character can have any number of additional Effects on him (even if it has one "personal effect").

Special Rules on Landscapes

Landscapes are broken up into three categories: Location, Area, and Common Ground. They are set up going from the most general terms to the most specific terms. The Location tells the general region that this particular card can be found. The Area tells a specific sector that the card is in and Common Ground tells you weather or not the land is Common Ground (please bear with us, it’ll make more sense as you keep reading).

Example: We’ll use the faux card Egregrian’s Tomb. In the name of the card it says "Badric’s Cave: Egregrian’s Tomb: Common Ground. This card takes place in a large cave called Badric’s Cave. Of the many areas of this cave, one of them is Egregrian’s Tomb. This particular Tomb happens to be Common Ground.

If you wanted to place another Location card , say Badric’s Cave: Ancient Dwellings, you would place it next to the Egregrian Tomb since they are both in the same Location. However, you can see that the Ancient Dwellings are not Common Ground. If you look at the corners of the Landscape cards, you’ll notice that they have numbers (such as "#3 (of 5)"). These cards should be placed in numerical order. It doesn’t matter weather it is backwards to you or your opponent so long as it remains in order. In order for two Locations to be linked together, you must place a card with Common Ground in between. Example: If you wanted to be able to move (more on movement later) between the Badric’s Cave Location and the Barren Plains, you must have at least one card denoted with Common Ground (such as Egregrian’s Tomb) in between the numbered cards. Those make up the Special Rules on Landscapes. WHEW!

Attack – This is an optional phase that can be skipped as desired.

Stage One: If you decide to attack, you must choose one of your Characters as the Attacker and one of your opponent’s Characters as the Defender. The Attacker must pay Notice points equal to the Defender’s popularity. (Hey! War costs money!)

Stage Three: Here the Attacker makes the first move. The Attacker starts by playing a legal (more on legality later) Battle Action. The Defender must block, avoid, or accept the damage. The Defender can block by playing a Block Battle Action, avoid by playing an Avoid or Dodge Battle Action, or accept damage by not playing a Block, Avoid, or Dodge Battle Action.

Should the attacker decide to accept the damage, subtract the amount of damage from the Defender’s Total Health (twice their Defense). Keep track of Health points in a similar manner as your Notice points. Perhaps the best way is to use "hit markers." Use something like beads or coins to indicate how much damage a character has. You may even want to use sticky notes.

Stage Four: The Attacker and Defender reverse parts. The Defender is now the Attacker and the Attacker is now the Defender.

Should one of the players run out of legal cards to play, the opponent may now "unleash the fury" and play the rest of his legal cards.

Should both players run out of legal cards before a winner has been determined, discard all unused cards and draw another five cards from the top of your Combat Deck.

Should your Combat Deck have less than 5 cards in it, reshuffle all discarded Battle Actions back into the deck.

Combat ends when either the Attacker’s or Defender’s Health drops to zero or below --AND both players have run out of playable cards in their hand--. At this time, the loser of combat goes to the Hospital Grounds which is an area designated somewhere off to the side, usually opposite of the Barracks and Combat Deck. When a Character goes to the Hospital Grounds, the Character loses all Equipment that it had and all Effects that were Noticed specifically on that Character even those that the owner did not Notice. While in the Hospital Grounds, the Character’s Special Text is disabled. If a Character gets out of the Hospital Grounds the Special Text is re-enabled, but the Equipment and Effects are still lost. The winner receives points in one of three different ways.

The winner can earn Victory Points (points needed to win the game) equal to the Notice Cost of the loser

The winner can earn Notice Points equal to twice the Notice Cost of the loser.

The winner can earn a mixed amount of Victory and Notice Points, where for every Victory Point the winner gains, the loser's character has one Notice Cost and for every two Notice Points the winner gains, the loser's character has one Notice Cost.

Example: The Oridian Horde (Notice Cost of 4) lost a battle to Gangar the Great. Gangar can either take 4 Victory Points or 8 Notice Points. Or, Gangar can decide to take 3 Victory Points and, since the Oridian Horde still has 1 Notice Cost left, Gangar can take 2 Notice Points. He could also decide to take 2 Victory Points and 4 Notice Points, or 1 Victory Point and 6 Notice Points.

Battle Action Legality

A Character can only play legal Battle Actions. In order to meet the Battle Action requirements, a Character must have their Attack rating equal to or greater than the Attack rating on the Battle Action card. Further more, the Defense rating of the Character must be equal to or higher than the Defense rating on the Battle Action. In some instances you must even have your Weapon Use rating equal to or greater than the Weapon Use rating on the Battle Action.

The Hospital Grounds

Characters may stay at sick camp for up to three turns. If they stay any more than three, the warrior becomes infected, gangrenous and dies; discard the Character and all attached cards. In order to get out of Sick Camp, you must role one die. If the number is less than the Character’s Reputation, he may leave Sick Camp and be placed back in play from the same Location that the Character was lost. Each turn that a character stays in Hospital Grounds, you may remove one Battle Action card and thus, the amount of Damage that was listed on the card. A Character may not come back into play until that Character’s Health is above zero (excluding zero).

Note on getting out of the Hospital Grounds: When a die roll is under the Character’s reputation, it shows that the Character has enough influence to convince the doctors that he or she has enough guff to go back into battle, despite the fact that he may have massive wounds.

Move – You may move each of your Characters to one adjacent Landscape each turn. If you wish to move a Character more than one Landscape, you must spend one Notice Point per Landscape. (Hey! Food, Coal, Gas, whatever…it all costs money!)

Discard – You may discard any cards that you do not wish to keep at the end of your turn. Place these in a discard pile called the Doom Pile off to the side. These cards may not be used later in the game. You may not have more than seven cards in your hand at the end of your turn.

The Divisions

The game divides the various characters and puts them, basically, in 5 different divisions. The divisions are shown thusly:

The Fellowship of Erasdas (Humans and Elves) – These two races are perhaps the most segregated. The really don’t let anyone who is not of Elf or Human descent into their ranks or social gatherings, especially those who are Halflings (other than Half Elf/Half Human.) Their strength lies in the realms of Science. They are constantly researching new chemicals and technologies. Though it is continuously under growing suspicion, magic is not out of question.

Dwarves and Trolls – Dwarves and Trolls play their strengths in the realm of Metalwork. They have created fascinating weapons and vehicles and other contraptions with their knowledge. These abilities, along with their incredible weapon mastery and elephantine strength make this division truly powerful.

Vampires, Werewolves, and other Creatures of the Night – Perhaps no other division generates the wild and off based rumors more often than this one. People are constantly clutching silver arrowheads and cloves of garlic to ward of the monsters in their fairy tales when these objects will not help against a Vampire or Werewolf at all. This group is skilled in the realms of Torture and its members clutches are not ones which you want to be a prisoner of. Werewolves, though in close relation to the Furries still claim their affiliation with this clan because they show no true apparent love for nature and find torture to be among their prime talents.

The Kesimaria Circle (Furries) – These creatures who have forever roamed the earth, previously on four paws now hold that same affinity with nature though they walk only one two feet now. Their skills are called from Nature and they have unspoken policies to not harm your maker. In their case, it's the earth. They are very skilled hunters and have excellent camouflage and covert tactics.

Howllligans (Trolls, Ogres, Goblins, and other Minions) – Easily the most despised and looked down upon division of them all. These races are not given the time of day, mostly because they don’t even understand it. Very rarely are they literate, but they know what they want and they know how to get it: Chaos. Skilled in making all sorts of trouble, these guys use as many non-conventional battle tactics as there are stones in a castle. Sometimes it's wondered whether they even have battle tactics!

Anatomy of a Card

Type of Card – Indicates weather the card is a Character, Disturbance, Effect, Landscape, or Equipment card.

Division of Card – Indicates weather the card is from a division such as Human/Elf or Vampire/Werewolf, etc.

Definitions and Abbreviations

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