Monster A game for 2 to 6 players Introduction Monsters are attacking and your team of heroes is the village’s only hope! Every day the monsters will attack the village and new monster will arrive. Your team must destroy all of the monsters and their lairs before all the villagers are killed. Although Monster is a cooperative game, the characters you play are proud and individualistic heroes who would never divulge their secrets or take orders from one another. This means that you are not allowed to reveal your cards or verbally tell each other what to do. Instead, you must find ways to coordinate and plan your strategy only through the actions you take while playing the game. Components • 200 weapon cards (40 of each type): • 125 monster chips: – 25 red Goblin chips – 25 green Troll chips – 25 black Vampire chips – 25 blue Werewolf chips – 25 white Zombie chips • 29 lair cards • 30 crisis cards: – 15 Level 1 crisis cards – 15 Level 2 crisis cards • 23 loot cards • 10 character cards 1 • 30 power cubes (5 of each color) • Team leader token • Villager counter None of the game elements are limited, even if you run out of pieces or cards. If you run out of weapons cards, lair cards, or loot cards, just reshuffle discard pile. If you run out of any other type of game piece, track how many you have on paper. Setup 1. Set aside 10 of each weapon card and place them face up. This is the weapons bank. Shuffle the remaining weapon cards. 2. Shuffle the character cards. Do the same with the lair, loot, and crisis cards. Do not mix the Level 1 and Level 2 crisis cards. 3. Sort the monster chips by color. This is the monster bank. 4. Set the villager counter to 20. 5. Deal each player a character card face-up. 6. Give each player a bag of colored power cubes. 7. Choose a player to be the first team leader, and give them the team leader token. 8. Spawn 4 monster lairs as follows: 2 (a) Draw a lair card and place it face up on the table. (b) Stack the colored monster chips shown on the lair card. (c) Draw a loot card and place it face up below the lair card. Winning and Losing Players win or lose as a team. The players win if they destroy all of the monster lairs. The monsters win if the villager counter ever falls to zero or below. Phases The game is divided into days (rounds), and each day is divided into the fol- lowing phases: 0.1 Provisioning • Each player takes a power cube from their bag. • Starting with the team leader and proceeding clockwise, deal out weapon cards from the weapons deck, one weapon card for each monster. Example: In the setup image above, there are 6 players and a total of 20 monsters in the 4 lairs. Deal out 20 weapon cards, so that each player will end up with 3 cards, except for the team leader and the player to their left, who will each get 4 cards. Note: Players may never reveal the weapon cards in their hands to other players, unless a card contains a special exception (for example, the Scribe character card). 3 0.2 Crisis Draw a card from the crisis deck and follow its instructions. Every crisis card makes the team’s job harder in some way, such as by adding extra monsters or taking away weapons. We recommend using the Level 1 crisis deck for your first game. There are three types of Crisis cards: • Immediate: Causes a one-time effect, such as making each player discard a weapon. Discard the crisis card after resolving this effect. • Day: Changes the rules temporarily, such as making monsters more diffi- cult to kill. Discard at the end of the day. • Lair: Creates a new lair of monsters, and may also change the rules. Do not discard until the lair has been destroyed. If there is a rule change, that change remains in effect until the lair is destroyed, even across multiple days. Tip: Beware, some crisis cards immediately kill villagers, which can result in the players immediately losing! Avoid this danger by not letting your villager count drop too low. 0.3 The Hunt Play begins with the team captain and proceeds clockwise. Each time it is your turn, you can either: • Kill a monster by playing a weapon card of the same color. • Take one of the special actions described below. • Pass. You cannot skip your turn. You must either take exactly one action or pass. When you pass, you discard any weapon cards still in your hand, and you flip your character card face down to indicate that you cannot take any further actions during this hunt. Killing monsters You can kill a monster by playing a weapon of the same color. Put the weapon card in a discard pile common to all players. Then move the monster chip from the lair’s stack of chips to a stack of killed monsters below the loot card. Only the monster on top of the lair stack can be killed in this manner. Until the top monster is killed, the other monsters cannot be reached. The following images show a typical sequence of plays. In the first image, a player has just played a Stake card to kill a black Vampire monster. The Stake is placed in the weapons discard pile and the Vampire token is moved to a new stack below the loot card: 4 The next player kills a white Zombie with a Holy Water. Note that this Zombie could not have been killed while the Vampire was still alive, since only the monster on top of the stack is vulnerable. Also note that the second player could have played a Net to kill a Goblin in the first or third lairs instead, since players can move back and forth between lairs at will. Finally, the third player plays a stake card to kill the last Vampire: 5 Destroying Lairs Now that there are no living monsters left in the lair, the lair is destroyed. Discard the lair card and return the three killed monster chips to the monster bank. The player who killed the last monster then loots the lair. Looting There are three types of loot card: • Items become the permanent property of the player who destroyed the lair. Items may be used once per day as a special action, and cannot be given to another player. • Spells produce an immediate beneficial effect for the player who destroyed the lair, and are then discarded. • Bounties remain in play (even across multiple days) until any player 6 satisfies the criteria, at which point that player gets the beneficial effect and the bounty is discarded. In this case, the loot item is a spell, Wizard’s Pack, which gives two power cubes to the player who destroyed the lair. Alternatively, that player can choose to discard the Wizard’s Pack and instead increase the villager counter by 3 (the amount printed in the upper right corner), buying the team a little more time before the monsters completely destroy the village. As usual, the player must make this decision on their own, without consulting other players. 0.4 Monster Attack Once the day’s hunt is over, the surviving monsters attack the village. Each sur- viving monster kills one villager. Indicate this by reducing the villager counter. If this counter reaches zero, the village is destroyed and the players lose. In lairs in which one or more monsters were killed are considered to be “dis- turbed.” The surviving monsters in those lairs each kill two villagers instead of one. However, the dead monsters in those lairs do not kill any villagers. Continuing the example above, suppose that the players destroy the second and fourth lairs and three monsters from the fourth lair. Then all players pass and the hunt phase ends: During the monster attack phase, the four monsters from the first lair kill one villager each. The four surviving monsters in the other lair kill two villagers 7 each because their lair was disturbed. In total, 12 villagers are killed, so the villager counter is reduced from 20 to 8. Tip: It’s usually a mistake to disturb a lair unless you’re confident that the team can completely destroy it. In this example, the players would actually have saved more villagers if they had left the lair alone. The 7 surviving monsters would have killed 7 villagers, instead of the 4 surviving monsters killing 8. 0.5 Recovery Finally, the players rest and recover. Restore all character cards and loot items so that their abilities (described below) can be used again. Meanwhile, the monsters rest and recover as well. In every lair that was not fully destroyed, the killed monsters resurrect Move the killed monster chips back to the lair card in the reverse order that they were killed, so that the monsters’ order within the lair is restored: Note: The order of the monster stack will not necessarily match the lair card at this point. There are many cards that move or transform monsters, and those effects are permanent. Always resurrect monsters one by one in reverse order, rather than just replicating the stack as printed on the lair card. 0.6 Infestation Finally, three additional lairs are spawned (yes, three!). Deal out new lair and loot cards, and create the monster chip stacks shown on the lair cards. 8 Special Actions Instead of killing a monster by playing a weapon card of the same color, a player may take one of the following special actions. There are “cheatsheet” cards to remind you of these actions during gameplay. Again, (1) a player must take one and only one action on their turn, (2) no skipping is allowed, and (3) players must choose their actions without asking the other players for advice. The following special actions are allowed: • Kill a monster using three weapons Instead of using a single weapon to kill a monster of the same color, you may use any three weapons to kill a monster of any color. As before, the monster must be on the top of the lair’s stack. • Use a character or item ability As an action, you can use the “T:” ability on your character card or any loot item you own. Each card can be used in this way only once per day. Turn the card sideways to indicate that it has already been used (as described above, it is turned back upright during the recovery phase). • Place a power cube As an action, you can place one of the power cubes in your play area (not those in your bag) on any of the five weapon card stacks in the weapons bank. A single cube has no immediate effect, but once a second cube is placed (1) both cubes are returned to their bags and (2) the first player to place a cube gains a weapon of the appropriate color into their hand. It does not matter whether the same player places both cubes or whether two different players place them. Once there are two cubes on a single weapon, the player who placed the first cube gets the weapon and both cubes are returned to their owners’ bags (or owner’s bag, if the same player placed both cubes). Power cubes persist between days. Any cubes left in the weapons bank will remain there for the next day, and you can stockpile cubes in front of you. Once placed, power cubes cannot be taken back, except through the Sorcerer’s character ability. • Store a weapon As an action, you can discard one weapon to store a second weapon. Place the stored weapon card face down in front of you without revealing it to the other players, though it may be an armed weapon (see next section) that other players have seen. The stored weapon will be added to your hand in the next round. • Discard a weapon 9 If you can’t do anything useful, but don’t yet want to pass, you can discard a weapon as a delaying action. Arming Weapons After any action, you may optionally “arm” a weapon card from your hand by placing it face up in front of you. On a subsequent turn, you may use this weapon exactly as if it was in your hand: to kill a monster, to store a weapon, to discard, etc. The only difference between an armed weapon and one in your hand is that the rest of the team gets to see what it is. A player who has a weapon armed is not required to use it on their subsequent turn. They can leave it in front of them as long as they want, playing other weapons from hand or taking other actions. However, they cannot arm a second weapon or replace the armed weapon until they use it. Armed weapons are discarded when you pass. Definitions • Armed weapon: The face up weapon in front of a player. It may be used exactly as if it were in the player’s hand. • Discard a weapon/item/cube: Put a weapon card into the players’ common weapons discard pile, or put a loot card into the loot discard pile, or return a power cube to its owner’s bag. • Disturbed lair: A lair is disturbed when one of its monsters has been killed during this day’s hunt. During the monster attack phase, each of its surviving monsters kills one additional villager. Using a character or loot card to move or discard a monster does not disturb the lair. • Kill: Move a monster from its lair to the stack of dead monsters below the loot card. • Restore: Rotate a character or loot item card back upright. It can now be used again. • Store a weapon: Place a weapon card face down in front of you. T • Exhaust: Rotate a character or loot item card 90 degree. It cannot be used again until it is restored, either during the recovery phase or by the Motivator character. • Reveal: Expose a card to all players. • Stack: The chips representing the monsters in a lair. • Use a weapon: Discard the weapon card to kill a monster of the same color. 10 FAQs What happens when a card breaks the base rules? Some crisis, character, and loot cards contradict the base rules. The text on the card takes precedence. What happens if a lair is emptied without killing the last monster? A lair is destroyed as soon as there are no more living monsters inside. Some character and item abilities, like the Herder character, can remove the last monster from a lair without killing the monster. In that case, the Herder has destroyed the lair. Discard the lair card, return its killed monster chips to the bank, and the Herder loots the lair as usual. If the crisis adds lairs or monsters, do the players get extra weapons? No. The number of weapons is based on the number of monsters in play before the crisis. Of course, if some of those new monsters are still around on the next day, then they will contribute to the total number of weapons the team gets on that day. If a monster was killed during the last day’s hunt, is its lair still “disturbed?” No, a lair is only considered disturbed (and its monsters only kill two villagers each) if there is a dead monster chip below the loot card during the Monster Attack phase. If a monster was killed and resurrected on a previous day, or if a monster chip was removed from the lair without being killed (by the Herder or Assassin characters, say), then the lair is not disturbed. During the recovery phase, is a lair’s original monster stack restored exactly? No. Certain cards can add or remove monsters from a lair without killing them, and those changes are permanent. Just move the killed monsters back to the lair stack in reverse order (last killed = first returned). The resulting stack will not necessarily be what was printed on the lair card. What happens if the weapons bank is exhausted? 10 of each weapon type will be enough for most games, but if you run out, take another weapon of the exhausted type from the discard pile. Just don’t change the top two discarded weapons, since there are card abilities that can recover 11 them. Similarly, if the weapons deck is emptied, reshuffle all but the top two weapons from the discard pile. What happens if a player accumulates more power cubes than they have in their bag? There is no limit to how much power our heroes can accumulate. Improvise some other tokens or write down how many cubes the overly-powerful player has. If a player discards multiple weapons at once, what order do they go into the discard? The player decides. This can matter because of the Scavenger character’s ability to recover the top weapon from the discard pile. Can you look through the discard piles? Yes, you may look at the discards at any time. For example, you may wish to remind yourself who played or discarded what weapons. However, you cannot explicitly ask a player what cards they played or discarded. For the Crisis 2 card “For the Greater Good”, can you gain back villagers if X is greater than 10? Kudos for being opportunistic, but the answer is no. If you discard loot item worths more than 10 villagers, you still only save 10 of them. Beginner Tips: • Killing the first monster in a lair is usually a bad move unless the team can finish off the whole lair. This means you should think hard before killing that first monster, but it also means that doing so is a useful way to communicate with the other players. You’re effectively saying, “Hey folks, I’m confident we can take down this lair. Follow my lead.” • Arming weapons and placing power cubes are simple and effective ways to tell other players what weapons you have and what you’re missing. Pay attention to what other players are telling you about their hands, and try to tell them what they need to know about yours. • Because of the crises, you’ll never have quite enough weapons to kill all the monsters on the table. To win, you’ll have to accumulate power cubes, loot items, and stored weapons between days. When you destroy a lair and get to choose the loot or the extra villagers, it’s usually best to take 12 the loot unless your villager count is dangerously low. But also don’t forget that some crises can instantly kill villagers! • Trust your team! You can only win by working together, so when another player seems to be indicating what you should do, it’s usually best to follow their lead. Rule Variants: More verbal communication While the game is designed to be played with no verbal coordination at all, most groups find it fun to allow some general strategy discussion, especially when introducing new players to the game. We suggest you experiment and discover for yourselves what level of communication is the most fun. Similarly, it is sometimes hard to contain one’s reactions (whether of joy or sorrow), and we’ve found it best to let minor slippages slide. Character selection Instead of dealing each player a single character card, deal each player 2 or more characters and let them choose which one to play. Unreliable weaponry Instead of the normal weapons bank, randomly deal 10 weapon cards for each of the five bank stacks (only the top card is revealed). This increases the challenge because an urgently-needed weapon type may not be available. The elite challenge For veteran players who want a really serious challenge, try playing with both crisis decks. During the crisis phase, resolve two crisis cards, first one from the Level 1 deck and then one from the Level 2 deck. 13