AxianQuest Infinite Dungeon Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Abbreviations
• Setting Up a Quest
  • 1 Separate the Cards
  • 2 Determine the Quest and Side Quest
  • 3 Create the Dungeon Deck and Set the Board
• Tip for Solo/GMless Play
• Playing Without a Zorgan Player
• Playing a Full Campaign
  • The Evil Mastermind and His Plan!
  • Number of Quests
  • Fame and Campaign Rewards
  • Hunt Down the Evil Mastermind!
  • Increased Difficulty
  • Retirement

Abbreviations

• Mv: Move, or movement
• AD: Dice rolled to Attack
• DD: Dice used to Defend
• BP: Body or bodily Points
• MP: Mind or mental Points
• 1d6, 2d6, etc: One die, two dice, etc.
• +: Extra/additional
• -: Minus/less
• Zorgan: The player controlling the monsters

Examples: "+2 AD" means "gain 2 extra dice to attack". "-1 DD" means "roll 1 less die to defend".

Setting Up a Quest

Follow these easy steps to play a simple dungeon quest.

1 Separate the Cards

Separate the Quest cards, Side Quest cards, Evil Mastermind cards, and Dungeon cards.

2 Determine the Quest and Side Quest

Draw one Quest card, and one Side Quest card and read them. Note that side quests are often based on legends and rumors and may sometimes prove false!

3 Create the Dungeon Deck and Set the Board

Create the Dungeon Deck: Separate the four Clue cards from the rest of the Dungeon cards, shuffle the remaining Dungeon cards and form the Dungeon deck with the number of cards listed in the table below, based on the number of heroes playing the quest. Shuffle the deck.

Number of heroes	Dungeon Deck	Cards per room
1	8 Dungeon Cards +1d6 more +4 Clue Cards	2
2	11 Dungeon Cards +1d6 more +4 Clue Cards	3
3	12 Dungeon Cards +1d6 more +4 Clue Cards	2
4	13 Dungeon Cards +1d6 more +4 Clue Cards	3
5	14 Dungeon Cards +1d6 more +4 Clue Cards	2
6*	15 Dungeon Cards +1d6 more +4 Clue Cards	3

*: the 6 heroes line is provided for reference only, and to be used with increased difficulty rules (see next page). Playing with 6 heroes is possible but the game may slow down significantly.

Set the Board: The oldest player does the following:

1. Roll a die. If the result is a skull, place 1 card per hero, face-down, on the central room, from the Dungeon deck.
2. Roll a die for each of the two smaller rooms. If the result is a skull, place 1 card, face down, on each room, from the Dungeon deck.
3. Place all the remaining cards from the Dungeon deck, face-down, on the rooms they prefer, except the large central room and the two smaller rooms. The number of cards placed per room depends on the number of heroes, as listed in the table above.
4. Choose a room with no cards as the starting room, and place the heroes and stairs in it.
5. Place 2 closed doors in the starting room, each leading to an adjacent room with face-down cards, or to an adjacent corridor.

Rooms that don't receive dungeon cards are not used and are not part of the dungeon: they are solid stone.

Tip for Solo/GMless Play

When playing without a Zorgan player, if there are no monsters on the board, instead of rolling your movement dice, simply assume each die has rolled a 4. This will ensure smoother, faster play.

Playing Without a Zorgan Player

Chose which player goes first and then play normally, with the following extra rules:

When a hero opens a door to a room, that player does the following:

1. Take and read all the cards inside the new room, and place the listed monsters and furniture wherever they want inside the room, except in front of the hero. If the room is too small, place the furniture piece(s) into another room with face-down cards, and/or place the monsters in the starting room (their choice).
2. Place into the newly explored room a closed door leading to an adjacent room with face-down cards, or to an adjacent corridor, if any. If all rooms with cards are already reachable, placing doors is optional.
3. Resolve any Trap card found. Follow the instructions on the card.
4. Place the revealed cards into a discard pile at the side of the board. You may want to keep at hand the Clue Cards, so that you'll know how many clues you've found so far.
5. Resume play normally.

When a hero opens a door to a corridor, that player does the following:

1. Chooses to place 1 or 2 closed doors anywhere along the corridor, leading to rooms with face-down cards. They don't need to be in the hero's line of sight. If all rooms with cards are already reachable, placing doors is optional. For each door placed, place a block tile in the corridor wherever they want. They cannot block the path from the hero to the door(s). They don't need to be in the hero's line of sight.
2. Roll a die for each closed door they've just placed. If the result is a skull, place a wandering monster (see Wandering Monsters below) in the corridor, as close as possible to the door. It doesn't need to be in the hero's line of sight.
3. Resume play normally.

Sometimes you'll find doors or blocks appearing where there were none a moment ago. It's ok: the dungeon is a dangerous, magical place.

Searching for Secret Doors: A hero who searches for secret doors always and only finds one if there is no other way to reach unexplored rooms, or to return to the starting room. The hero who searched places the secret door where he wants. Opening a secret door works the same as a regular door.

Secret doors work as a "debug" system for the dungeon, in case the heroes get stuck with no way to proceed.

Searching for Traps: It is not allowed, as traps work differently.

Trap Cards: Traps are resolved as described on Trap cards.

• Disarming Traps: The hero who has opened the door and found a trap can attempt to disarm it as explained on the card.
• Known Traps: If, thanks to Clues or other means, the presence of a trap is already known, a hero standing next to the door may attempt to disarm it before opening the door, following the instructions on the card. If the attempt fails, the trap activates as described on the card and the door opens, otherwise the trap is removed and discarded.

Monsters: Monsters play after the oldest player, who moves them one by one, in the order he prefers, and must act as follows.

• Monsters with Melee Attacks: Move to approach and (if possible) attack the nearest hero with a free adjacent square. If 2 or more heroes qualify, the youngest player chooses their target. Monsters with the ability to move through heroes and/or walls go for the most distant hero instead.
• Monsters with Ranged Attacks: If they can, they attack the nearest hero, and then move as far away as they can. Otherwise, they move as far as they can while maintaining line of sight to one hero, and then attack. If 2 or more heroes are equally distant, the youngest player chooses their target.
• Monsters with Spells: Use a random spell until they've used all spells. When using a spell, they act like monsters with ranged attacks. When all their spells are used, or if they cannot use the spell (due to line of sight, for example), they behave like monsters with melee attacks.

Wandering Monsters: When a wandering monster appears, draw from the discard pile until you find a monster card. The monster listed in the card name is the wandering monster. If there are no monsters in the discard pile, the heroes are lucky and no monster appears for the moment!

Playing a Full Campaign

You can easily set up a campaign with the following instructions. These rules (especially Fame and Increased Difficulty, below) assume that you start with new heroes with only their starting equipment!

The Evil Mastermind and His Plan!

Draw a random Evil Mastermind card to determine the identity of the main bad guy in the campaign, and note it in the Campaign Chart on the right, then roll 2 dice and cross-check the results on the Evil Mastermind's Plan table, on the right. These are story elements with no effect on the game, but will help you shape a backstory for the campaign.

The Evil Mastermind's Plan

1st die	2nd die: 1 or 2	2nd die: 3 or 4	2nd die: 5 or 6
1	Petrify the elven queen!	Raise an army of monsters!	Kill the tree of life!
2	Sacrifice the princess of the kingdom!	Summon a demon lord from the abyss!	Spread a dreadful plague of madness!
3	Assassinate the king's heir!	Steal the king's soul!	Flood the dwarves' mines!
4	Curse the kingdom with a plague of poisonous toads!	Cause a devastating earthquake!	Transform the population of the realm into goblins!
5	Destroy the mind of the dwarf king!	Cause a rain of fire on the realm!	Awake a dread dragon!
6	Cause a devastating flood!

Campaign Chart: a record sheet with lines for the Evil Mastermind and His Evil Plan, and the quests numbered 1 to 9 to be marked off as they are completed.

Number of Quests

Roll a die, divide the result by 2 (round up), and add 6: this is the number of quests the heroes will have to complete. Circle that number on the Campaign Chart, thus marking the final quest of the campaign. As the heroes successfully complete each quest, mark off the corresponding number, until the heroes complete the final quest.

• What if the heroes fail a quest? There is no second try! In order to advance they must face a new, randomly determined, quest.

Fame and Campaign Rewards

If the heroes complete all the quests, the evil mastermind's plans are foiled for now and the heroes have triumphed. Time to celebrate!

First of all, each hero must note on their character sheet, next to their name, a new statistic: Fame. Every time a hero completes a campaign, they receive 1 Fame point (see Increasing Difficulty below). Then, the oldest player rolls a die and checks the result on the Campaign Reward table. The same result applies to all heroes.

Campaign Reward

d6	Campaign Reward
1-3	Each hero can choose one item of their choice from Equipment deck, for free.
4	Each hero receives 300 coins, and also rolls a die: If the result is 6, permanently increase their maximum MP by 1.
5	Each hero receives 300 coins, and also rolls a die: If the result is 6, permanently increase their maximum BP by 1.
6	Each hero can choose to either learn one skill of their choice from the AXIANQUEST Heroic Skills deck for free, or to receive one random artifact from the AXIANQUEST Artifacts deck for free (reroll if not available).

Hunt Down the Evil Mastermind!

After the final quest, the heroes can choose to hunt down the Evil Mastermind. If they do, play one more quest using the Mysterious Overlord Quest card. When found, the Mysterious Overlord monster is replaced by the Evil Mastermind. Use the statistics and all the special rules from the Evil Mastermind card.

Slaying the Evil Mastermind: The hero who delivers the killing blow receives the title of "Slayer", and +1 Fame point. All heroes also receive a new reward from the Campaign Reward table.

Failure: There is no second try! If the heroes fail, they cannot try again.

Is the Evil Mastermind really dead? Evil Masterminds often find a way to cheat death and return with new evil plans. This means you keep him available and, if he returns in future campaigns, he gains +1 BP. This is cumulative in case he returns a second time, or even a third, etc.

Increased Difficulty

The printed rulesheet's Fame paragraph refers to this section as "Increasing Difficulty"; its heading is "Increased Difficulty", and it is transcribed under that heading.

Experienced heroes face harder tasks! Before each quest, calculate the average Fame: sum up the number of Fame points owned by the heroes, and divide it by the number of heroes (rounding up). Then check the table below. All effects are cumulative! If the average Fame is 3, for example, all monsters gain +1 DD and also +1 AD.

Increased Difficulty (Cumulative Effects)

Average Fame	Effect
1 or less	No effect
2	All monsters gain +1 DD
3	All monsters gain +1 AD
4	All traps that make an attack gain +1 AD
5	All monsters gain +1 BP
6	Consider the number of heroes increased by 1 when creating the dungeon deck, setting the board, and reading the number of monsters on Dungeon cards.
7 or more	When the heroes find the Evil Mastermind, he is accompanied by another, randomly drawn, Evil Mastermind, and both must be defeated.

Retirement

Upon achieving the 7th Fame point, the hero retires with full honors and can no longer play. They receive the title of Lord/Lady, and their artifacts and treasure are removed from play, to be displayed in their glorious halls.

The only exception: if the next quest is to hunt down the current campaign's Evil Mastermind, their evil must be stopped and the hero is allowed to play one last quest.