Barbaria
Barbaria Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 12 Barbarians (reverse side: a defeated barbarian)
- 15 Items (reverse side: a treasure hoard)
- 6 dice (red, yellow, and blue, two of each color)
- 54 Quests (reverse sides: Pinups)
- 9 Bosses (reverse side: skulls)
How to Read Cards: Quests and Bosses
- Optional quest icon: you may reject this quest and reveal another.
- Mandatory quest icon: you must accept the challenge.
- Fight icon (skull): see the "Result of the Challenge" chapter, under Death.
- Two dice with a required minimum roll shown on determined dice colors: see the "Challenges" chapter.
- A reward icon: see the "Icon List" chapter.
Left card example: "If you want to face the giant boar, roll the two red dice. If the result is 5+ on both, you win and earn one glory point. Otherwise, your barbarian dies."
Right card example: "Brawling is mandatory, roll a red and a yellow die. If the result is 4+ on both, you get to steal a pinup. Otherwise, you failed the challenge."
Goal / End of the Game
Barbarians earn glory by completing suitable quests and defeating bosses. Those cards are marked with green runestones that we call glory points.
As a player earns his seventh glory point, he ends the game victoriously. Otherwise, the game ends when a barbarian dies and there are no cards left in the barbarian deck. In this case, the player with the most glory wins the game.
Setup
Shuffle the four decks (Barbarians, Items, Bosses and Quests) and place them in the middle, face down.
If a deck runs out of cards, shuffle its discard pile and build a new deck. Be careful to keep the four card types separated during play.
Now every player draws his first - hopefully his only - barbarian. Each player also receives two pinups. The quests on the other side of those do not matter, you may not turn them over.
You will collect a lot during the game, so it's best to sort your cards in piles next to your barbarian, i.e. glory points, items, consumables.
Place them in such a way that you can see the icons at the bottom.
Starting Player
Whoever is able to empty a horn in one draft without spilling a drop is going first. Or roll one dice each, and the player with the highest result starts the game.
Playing the Game
Turn order is clockwise in Barbaria. On your turn, you have two options, sometimes a third: Quest, Boss Fight, and Revenge.
A) Quest: You may reveal as many quest cards as you like, until you either find a challenge you like or turn over a mandatory quest.
You could dig for a very desirable quest card, but there's a drawback: After your dice roll, all the quests you declined are turned on their pinup side. Then those pinups are distributed in clockwise order, starting with the player on your left.
B) Boss Fight: If you feel strong enough, you may turn over a boss card instead of quests. All Boss cards are mandatory and fights, but sometimes you may have items or companions that let you ignore the mandatory icon or run away from a fight. In this case, undefeated bosses move to their discard pile.
C) Revenge: When a monster is guarding a barbarian's corpse (see "Result of the Challenge", under Death), players may target it instead of revealing quests or bosses.
If a player manages to win the fight, he first gets the reward on the monster's card. Then he may either plunder the corpse (take all items, discard the dead barbarian) or bury him (discard the items, earn one glory point).
Challenges
Each quest and boss card poses a challenge with two dice. The numbers on the dice (3 to 8) are the minimum roll required to win, feel free to roll higher numbers. The colors on the card tell you which dice to roll. On challenges with white dice, you may choose the two dice you want to roll.
Some examples:
- Roll one yellow and one blue die. Your barbarian overcomes the challenge when both dice show a 3 or higher.
- Roll two dice of your choice. The result has to be 7 and 8. Of course, this is impossible without additional help.
Skills
Barbarians get some help on their dice rolls. You find those skills on your barbarian card, items, pinups and quest rewards. Skills appear in the three dice colors and in white, the colored ones only help the matching dice, the white skills may be used on any dice roll.
Some examples:
- Reroll: You may reroll one of your dice (any color).
- +1 Bonus: You may add +1 to one (blue) die result.
- +2 Bonus: You may add +2 to one (red) die result.
You may only use each of your skills once per challenge, but in any order and without any announcement. If you have the cards to do so, you may reroll a die several times or add several boni to one result.
Consumable: Cards with this icon, e.g. pinups, may only be used once. They must be discarded after use.
Result of the Challenge
There are three possible outcomes of a challenge: Reward, Failure and Death.
A) Reward: If you roll high enough to beat the challenge, you get your reward. Check the icon list below to see what you get.
B) Failure: If one or both of your dice rolls are below the required roll, you fail. If the quest does not have the fight (skull) icon, this isn't a big deal: Turn the quest on its pinup side, and distribute it together with the rejected quests. Non-dangerous quests may be abandoned at any moment, you do not need to spend all your (consumable) skills.
C) Death: Fights (marked with the skull icon) may not be abandoned once accepted, and when you fail the challenge, your barbarian dies. Resolve the following:
- Turn your barbarian card on the defeated side. Place it under the monster, together with all your items. The monster stays and may be targeted with the revenge action by all subsequent players, including yourself.
- You get to keep all glory, any other card must be discarded.
- Draw a new barbarian and receive two pinups from the quest deck.
Icon List
Challenges:
- Optional: You may reject this quest and reveal another.
- Mandatory: You must accept the challenge and roll the dice.
- Fight: May not be abandoned. On failure, your barbarian dies.
- Immune to magic: You may not use any item in this fight.
Rewards, Items:
- Consumable: Add the card to your collection. Discard after use.
- Bonus +2: You may add +2 to one (blue) die roll.
- Glory point: Add this card to your collection. You get to keep the card until the end of the game, even on death you do not discard it.
- Item: Discard the quest. Draw one card of the item deck and add it to your collection next to your barbarian.
- Protection: You may abandon a fight, and keep your stuff on failure.
- Pinup: Turn over the quest and add it to your pile of pinups.
- Two Pinups: Turn over the quest and add it to your pile of pinups. Then draw another card from the quest deck, also add it to your pinups.
- Pathfinder: You may ignore a Mandatory icon and reveal another card. This also applies to bosses.
- Theft: Discard the quest. Choose one other player and steal one item.
- Brawl: Discard the quest. Choose one other player and steal one pinup.
Clarifications:
- Theft/Brawl: If no other player owns items or pinups, you may draw one item or pinup instead.
- The glorious belt is the only glory point in the game that may be stolen or lost on death.
- Odin's horn may be used at any moment, and gets discarded afterwards. Draw two pinups from the quest deck.