Build your kingdom. Command armies. Invoke the gods, survive their curses, and speak the words before anyone else does.
Learn the rulesTo claim the throne, your kingdom must hold all three of these at once. Not two. All three.
The whole engine of the game fits in one breath.
Take the top card of the deck, or the top card of the discard pile. If it is an Oracle, resolve it at once, then carry on.
Play one card from your hand, or discard one card. You must do one or the other.
Check for victory. Play passes clockwise to the demigod on your left.
No tokens. No counters. A blessed card is simply rotated ninety degrees in your kingdom. A sideways 500 is 1,000. A sideways 2,000 is 4,000. A card can only be blessed once, and if it ever leaves your kingdom the blessing is lost. The favour of the gods does not travel.
Every god demands to be named aloud: "I invoke Zeus." Forget, and the card is discarded and its power is lost. The gods are not patient.
Steal one Army card from every other player's kingdom. You choose which card you take from each.
Steal one Wealth card from every other player's kingdom. You choose which card you take from each.
Bless every unblessed Army card in your kingdom. Rotate them all. Your whole army doubles at once.
Bless every unblessed Wealth card in your kingdom. Rotate them all. Your whole wealth doubles at once.
Athena stays face up in front of you for the rest of the game. From this moment, every other player must address you with respect. Any time they speak, for any reason, they must begin with "Oh my goddess."
Catch a player speaking without it before the next turn begins, and you steal one Army or Wealth card of your choice from their kingdom.
A player under the Curse of Silence never speaks, and so can never offend the goddess.
Placed face up and left there. Blocks the curse the moment it is played on you, then both cards are discarded.
Placed face up and left there. Blocks the curse the moment it is played on you, then both cards are discarded.
Placed face up and left there. Blocks the curse the moment it is played on you, then both cards are discarded.
Placed face up and left there. Blocks the curse the moment it is played on you, then both cards are discarded.
The twins stand as one card. Placed face up and left there, they block the curse on arrival.
A Guardian cannot lift a curse that is already in front of you. It must be placed in advance, and it does nothing while it sits in your hand. Only a Cure removes a curse that has landed.
Play a curse and you must point at your victim and say "I curse you." Forget, and it is discarded and nothing happens. A curse stays in front of your victim until it is cured or blocked. You cannot curse yourself, and you cannot give a player a curse they already carry, though they may carry several different ones at once.
You may not play Army cards.
You may not play Wealth cards.
You may only play 500 cards. Nothing larger.
You may not speak. Every god, curse and cure needs a spoken phrase, so you may play none of them. Only Army and Wealth cards, or discard. You also cannot claim the throne.
You play blind. Shuffle your hand, hold it face down, and do not look at it. Reveal each card you draw so Oracles still fire, then shuffle it in untracked. Each turn, take one card at random from your own hand and play it if you legally can. If you cannot, discard it.
Removes the Curse of Siege.
Removes the Curse of Poverty.
Removes the Curse of Limitation.
Removes the Curse of Blindness.
Removes the Curse of Silence.
The Cure of Voice may be played in complete silence. Place it face up and point to your Curse of Silence. It is the only card in the game that may be played without speaking its phrase. Without it, a silenced player could never be freed.
Every other cure demands the words: "Because of the blessings of the gods, I am now cured." Forget them and the cure is discarded, wasted.
Draw an Oracle and you must read it aloud and resolve it immediately. It does not use your action. And because the discard pile is reshuffled, every Oracle comes back around.
Every player, including the one who drew it, halves their Wealth.
Every player, including the one who drew it, halves their Army.
The drawer chooses Army or Wealth, then blesses every unblessed card of that type in their own kingdom.
The drawer chooses Army or Wealth. Every other player halves it. The drawer walks away untouched.
Starting with the drawer and going clockwise, each player names an opponent and trades two cards blind, drawn face down from each other's shuffled hand.
Total the resource, counting blessed cards double. Halve it. That is your target. You choose which cards to discard, until your remaining total is as close to the target as possible without falling below it. Example: an army of 2,000 + 2,000 + 1,000 is 5,000, so your target is 2,500. Discard one 2,000 and you are left with 3,000. Discarding more would drop you under, so you stop.
Army and Wealth cards played into a kingdom stay there forever. They never reach the discard pile, so they never come back. Sixty of them can end up locked on the table in a five player game. Print too few and the late deck becomes nothing but curses, and nobody can finish. The specials never scale, because they recycle.
Resource breakdowns are the number of 500 / 1,000 / 2,000 cards. Specials are 5 Power Gods, 5 Guardians, 10 Cures and 5 Oracles. At two players, use only one copy of each curse: ten curses aimed at a single opponent stops being a game.
Build the deck for your player count and set the five Oracles aside. Shuffle everything else and deal six cards to each player. Shuffle the Oracles into the remaining deck, place it in the centre with room for a discard pile, and let the youngest player go first. Play passes clockwise.
Fail to speak the words and the card is immediately discarded, its effect lost.
No. Once an Army or Wealth card is in your kingdom, it stays there until it is stolen or discarded by a halving.
Never. Zeus, Hermes and Athena only take cards that are already face up in a kingdom. Hands are sacred.
No. Guardians prevent, they do not remove. Only a Cure removes a curse that has already landed.
No. Siege blocks Army cards only. Poverty blocks Wealth cards only. Everything else is still permitted.
No. You may discard instead. But you must do one or the other, and you cannot pass.
Only the top card, and only in place of your deck draw. The pile is face up, so everyone can see what is coming. Oracles cannot be taken from the discard.
Yes, there are two copies of each. But a single player can never hold two of the same curse.