Scepter of the eternal flame

## Introduction

### Classification

Action Drafting, Once-Per-Game Abilities, Push Your Luck, Resource To Move, Track Movement

### Components used

20 tiles, 36 cards, 22 cubes (20 black, 1 white, 1 yellow)

### Designer(s)

Richard Lenherr

You are a lonely adventurer in search of the “Scepter of the eternal flame”, the most valuable object of your journeys of discovery. Standing in the long-awaited entrance to the Cave of Ignis, you realize that this adventure will be more dangerous than all previous ones. The cave is about to explode and it is only a matter of time before the lava flows scorch everything inside it forever. Your decisions define your destiny!

In each round, you must decide to either use the card's abilities to equip yourself for the adventure or head out before the cavern explodes and burns you in the cave of flames.

You win if you reach the starting field again with the scepter before the time runs out. If you are locked in, you lose. If the cavern explodes on your last turn to reach the starting field, the game ends in a tie because you saved your life with a jump out but lost the scepter.

## Setup

1. Put aside 6 different tiles.
2. Lay down the 14 tiles (the symbols on the green fields have no meaning) to create your way through the cave. The first square is the entrance and exit square, the last square is the "Flame Throne of the Scepter” you have to reach and from there it goes back again.
3. Put 1 white cube as your figure on the starting field and 1 yellow cube as the scepter on the flame throne at the end.
4. Set ready all 20 black cubes.
5. Use the cards with the values 1 to 3 and shuffle them to a face down pile.
6. Set ready the bonus table in this game rule (so that you can refer to them when needed).

When you finished setup, it should look like this:

## Gameplay

### Overview

At the beginning of each round, you reveal at least 4 and at maximum 6 cards form the pile. Depending on the result you have to choose one of two possible turns: **USE CARDS** (equip yourself) OR **MOVE** (with or without scepter). If the card pile is used up, shuffle the discarded cards and form a new pile.

### Play turn "Use Cards"

The goal of this turn is to equip your abilities move, strength and skill and the bonus. Each card represents an individual function. You stack cards of the same colors.

**IMPORTANT: You may never collect more cards of one color than their sum in the following table.** *For example for white: If you already have three cards with the values 1, 1 and 2 (currently total 4), you may not collect a card with the value 3, but only a maximum with the value 2.*

The only exception to this rule is when the personal hero skill is activated, and thus the value of the bonus cards is increased. *For example: You have three yellow cards with the value 1, 2 and 2 (total 5) and you activate the hero skill with the white cards (6 achieved) and add 2 points of them to the yellow cards, which now makes a total of 7 for the yellow cards.*

An activated hero skill increases the bonus by 2 points (shift a white card - or blue joker used as white - with a value up to 2 to the yellow cards).

***NOTE for yellow and white**: If you have activated and used the bonus or hero skill and there are still drawn unused cards of these colors, you can directly start building up these abilities again.*

***NOTE for blue**: you must already have at least 1 card of a color to add a joker to it.*

### Play turn "Move":

The goal of this turn is to move with your figure to and back with the scepter. For that, you didn't use any of the drawn cards expect the black ones. But you need the collected green and on your way back also the collected red cards.

*Note: Each tile in the cave is a step. The flame throne field at the end, as well as the exit field on your return, does not have to be reached with exact value.*

 Red
 Black

***NOTE for red:** You need 4 strength per turn on the way back to carry the scepter without getting a penalty on your move distance. If you have less than 4 strength, your move distance (green) will be reduced by this gap. Moving without scepter needs no strength (on the way to the scepter).*

### Bonus:

As you activated the bonus, you can choose one of the six bonuses (take the tile).

If you have used the bonus, discard the tile (flip it to back side). ***NOTE**: Bonus can only use once, but you can use it any time during your turn.*

## Award ceremony by winning the game

If you win, look at the following lineup, what kind of winner you are. How many black cubes do you have left after leaving the cave successfully?

 8 to 11
 5 to 7
 2 to 4
 1

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