Braided Skies Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview and Goal
• Components
• Setup
• Gameplay Overview
• Deploying Drop Ships
  • Deploy Onto the Collection Ports
  • Deploy to Wonder Ports
  • Deploy to the Tomtom Festival
  • Deploy to the Underground Market
  • Deploy to the Free Flyer's Guild
  • Deploy to Thunder's Workshop
  • Deploy to the Cracked Flagon
• Recalling Drop Ships to Activate Outfittings
• Using Crewmates
• The Wonder Tracks and Objectives
• Encounter Cards
• Harvest Die Rolls
• End of Game
• Final Scoring
• Outfitting Card Reference

Overview and Goal

In Braided Skies, you take on the role of an airship captain in the Shallows, seeking to build the greatest magical travel company in the Northlands. Your mission involves exploring land and sky for new wonders, maintaining and upgrading your travel company operations, and picking up tourists—all while maintaining a steady supply of tapstones, the magical gems that fuel the Northlands. Gather the most fame to be the next successful Commodore of the Clouds.

Components

Shared components

• 1 game board with 2 cloud overlay boards (a blue cloud board and a white cloud board) and 2 cloud trays
• 27 wonder cards (9 for each wonder type: culture, scenic, and adventure)
• 10 large cloud tiles
• 7 small cloud tiles
• 7 starting wonder cards
• 12 outpost tiles
• 60 tapstone tokens (20 each of yellow, blue, and red)
• 20 tourist tokens
• 25 encounter cards
• 2 harvest dice (D8)
• 36 outfitting cards
• 1 starting player token
• 15 fame tokens

Player components (5 sets, 1 per player)

• 5 player mats
• 15 wonder track tokens (3 per player)
• 5 fame track tokens (1 per player)
• 15 drop ships (3 per player)
• 15 crewmates (3 per player)
• 15 harvesters (3 per player)
• 30 outpost tokens (6 per player)
• 5 grit track tokens (1 per player)
• 5 captain mats (1 per player)
• 5 captain pawns (1 per player)
• 10 player reference cards (2 per player)

Each player mat shows a Drop Ship Bay, three drop ship rows (Cargo Holds), a row of Bold Outfittings, an Outpost Expansion track, an Itinerary area for wonder cards, and Wind Engines: when processing, you may pay grit to transfer a tapstone/tourist to another row. Extra tapstones/tourists that cannot be placed return to the port of origin.

For colorblind friendliness, stickers are provided to mark all tokens of a chosen color to differentiate it from others.

The solo mode components are listed in the Automa rulebook.

Setup

Shared components

1. Place the main board and cloud trays in the center of the table. Put the blue cloud board on the main board. Then place the white cloud board on top.
2. Shuffle the small cloud tiles. Place 1 face down over each of the 3 bottom collection ports, then return the rest unseen to the box. (Small cloud tiles cover the lowest collection ports.)
3. Shuffle the large cloud tiles. Place 1 face down over each of the 3 small cloud tiles and the 3 middle collection ports, then return the rest unseen to the box. (Large cloud tiles cover the middle collection ports and the small cloud tiles.)
4. Keeping the starting wonder cards separate, sort the wonder cards into 3 decks according to their backs. Shuffle each of the 3 wonder decks separately and place them face up at their respective wonder port next to the corresponding wonder track.
5. Shuffle the encounter deck and place it face down on the board on the space with the encounter card icon.
6. Shuffle the outpost tiles and return them to the cloud tray. Draw 3 tiles and add 1 face up to each of the top-level collection ports.
7. Shuffle the outfitting cards and place the deck face down in the cloud tray next to the harvest dice. Then reveal 4 cards face up at the Free Flyer's Guild.
8. Fill the fame token supply area with fame tokens.
9. Fill the tapstone token supply area with tapstones (yellow, blue, and red).
10. Fill the tourist supply area with tourists.
11. Randomly select a starting player. Give this player the starting player token.

Player components

Each player selects a captain and gains all tokens in their color. Return any unused captain mats and their tokens to the box.

1. Shuffle the player mats and give one to each player. Return any unused player mats to the box.
2. Shuffle the starting wonder cards and give one to each player. Return the rest to the box.
3. Place your player mat and captain mat in front of you.
4. Place the rest of your components as follows.

On (or next to) your captain mat and player mat:

• A. Place your captain pawn token on your captain mat.
• B. Place each of your 3 drop ships on their corresponding space (distinguishable by the flags).
• C. Place your 6 outpost tokens above your captain mat.
• D. Place your grit token on space 2 of the grit track.
• E. Gain 1 tapstone of each color (yellow, blue, and red) and place them on the corresponding slots on your outfittings.
• F. Draw 1 encounter card and place it face up to the left of your captain mat.
• G. Place your starting wonder card at the topmost location of your itinerary.

On the main board:

• H. Place 1 of your wonder track tokens at the bottom of each wonder track.
• I. Place your fame track token on the 0 space of the fame track.
• J. Place your 3 harvesters in Thunder's Workshop.
• K. Place your 3 crewmates in the Cracked Flagon.

Gameplay Overview

Throughout the game, you'll strategically deploy your 3 drop ships onto the main board to harvest resources, then recall them to your player mat to activate outfittings. Upgrade your player mat to expand tapstone storage and enhance your company's operations. Add harvesters and crewmates to your drop ships to gain placement bonuses. Collect tapstones at collection ports and keep them on your player mat (to potentially gain fame whenever you recall your drop ships) until you then spend them to perform actions, gain wonders, and advance along the wonder tracks (all benefits that can also gain fame).

Whenever you gain fame, advance along the fame track at the top of the board.

How to Play

• Take turns in clockwise order, beginning with the starting player.
• On your turn, you may either deploy 1 drop ship on the main board or recall all deployed drop ships. If you cannot deploy a drop ship, you must recall.

Deploying Drop Ships

Select a drop ship from your player mat and deploy it to a port. Collection ports (Zephyr's Cinders, Rainbow Geyser, and Magnus Carousel, as well as ports to be explored) allow you to harvest tapstones and pick up tourists, while wonder ports let you discover culture, scenic, and adventure wonders. Specialized ports (Thunder's Workshop, the Cracked Flagon, the Tomtom Festival, the Underground Market, and the Free Flyer's Guild) provide additional ways to enhance your operations and expand your strategy.

All ports contain tapstones and/or tourists. If you have a crewmate or harvester on the deployed drop ship, you may gain the corresponding bonus as noted on the port. (All your drop ships start without upgrades.)

When deploying a drop ship, consider the following:

• If a printed drop ship shape is shown, you may only use the matching drop ship.
• If an infinity symbol is shown, an unlimited number of drop ships from any player can be deployed to that location (even multiples of your own drop ships on "any ship" locations).
• If the port frame does not show an infinity symbol, exactly one drop ship of any player can be deployed there. Afterward, the spot is blocked for all players until the drop ship is recalled.

Deploy Onto the Collection Ports

1. PLACE: Place a drop ship onto a collection port. It must match the ship type printed on the collection port. You may deploy the drop ship to a port on a lower layer if the port is already revealed. There is no cost to place a drop ship on a collection port.

2. EXPLORE: If your drop ship contains a harvester, a crewmate, or both (you won't have either on your first turn of the game) AND there is a cloud tile vertically adjacent to the collection port, remove the cloud tile and read its event text (hidden on the back of the tile) out loud. Resolve all benefits from the event, then discard the cloud tile to the box.

   If the exploration reveals a new outpost space, add a random outpost tile (from the tray) face up on the corresponding space in the newly discovered collection port.

3. GAIN BENEFITS: Resolve the following steps in order. Place all tapstones and tourists gained during these steps into the cargo hold of the deployed drop ship on your player mat.

   • A. Core Benefits: Gain the core benefits of the port. These may include grit, specific tapstones, tourists, harvest die rolls (see Harvest Die Rolls), and leftover tapstones and tourists from previous visits by any player. If the core benefit shows a "/" you have to choose which benefit you gain.
   • B. Harvester: If the drop ship has a harvester, gain the benefit shown (see Harvest Die Rolls).
   • C. Outpost: If you have an outpost token at the collection port, gain the outpost benefit shown (see Outposts, below).

4. PROCESS: Now that your cargo hold is filled with tapstones and tourists, you transfer them onto open spaces on outfittings in your player mat (at this time you may not discard any tokens already there). The following rules apply:

Outposts

Building an outpost: When you activate a specific outfitting in your player mat (see Recalling Drop Ships to Activate Outfittings) or gain the outpost bonus on a wonder track (see The Wonder Tracks and Objectives), you may place an outpost token from your supply to a collection port where you don't already have an outpost (even if other players have outposts there).

From now on, whenever you deploy a drop ship to the corresponding collection port, you may gain the outpost bonus. There are 2 types of outpost bonuses:

• Score 1 fame for a specific wonder symbol in your itinerary.
• Gain the shown benefit (an encounter card, a tourist, or a specific tapstone).

Deploy to Wonder Ports

Deploying ships to wonder ports enables you to gain access to new wonders and rise higher on the wonder tracks. You must have the required resources to deploy to a wonder port.

1. Place a drop ship on a wonder port (culture, scenic, or adventure wonders).
2. Pay the required combination of tapstones and tourists shown on the left side of the topmost wonder card by discarding them from anywhere on your player mat.
3. If the drop ship has a crewmate, gain the benefit shown on the right side of the port.
4. If the wonder port contains fame tokens (placed there by an event), return the fame tokens to the token supply and gain that many fame.
5. Gain the wonder card, and place it into your itinerary on the right side of your player mat. Place it so that it covers any previous wonder cards except for the symbols on the top row. These symbols can score you fame during the game and at game end.
6. Gain the instant benefits as shown in the lower center of the wonder card. This typically involves advancing on the wonder tracks (see The Wonder Tracks and Objectives) and/or gaining fame.
7. The newly gained wonder card is now active. As long as its benefit remains exposed, it provides either an ongoing benefit or a possible captain token benefit during recall turns, as depicted on the bottom of the card (see Recalling Drop Ships to Activate Outfittings). The benefit on your starting wonder card is positioned so it is always exposed.

Your itinerary consists of your collected wonder cards. The top-most (starting wonder card) and the bottom-most card are the active cards. They each provide unique benefits. You will want to strategically collect wonder symbols.

Deploy to the Tomtom Festival

1. Place a drop ship at the Tomtom Festival.
2. Pay 4 tourists to gain 9 fame and advance once on each wonder track.
3. If the drop ship has a harvester and/or crewmate, gain the matching bonus benefit(s).

Deploy to the Underground Market

1. Place a drop ship at the Underground Market.
2. Choose 1 of the 3 options, pay the tapstones and/or tourists by discarding them from anywhere on your player mat, and gain the corresponding fame. The middle row requires a matched pair of tapstones or 2 tourists to gain 3 fame.
3. If the drop ship has a harvester and/or crewmate, gain the matching bonus benefit(s).

Deploy to the Free Flyer's Guild

1. Place a drop ship at Free Flyer's Guild port and pay the cost (1 grit and 1 yellow tapstone).

   Optional: Before you select a card, you may discard the bottom left card in the market, slide the remaining cards (from the top left, following the arrows), and add a new card to the top left.

2. Gain 1 face-up outfitting card from the market and place the card on the leftmost empty space in any drop ship's row on your player mat. Gain the benefit it covers. Immediately refill the market, sliding the cards as indicated by the arrows on the board. If you have no empty space left on your player mat, you cannot deploy a ship to this port.

3. If the drop ship has a crewmate, gain an encounter card.

Note: Placing a drop ship at the Free Flyer's Guild port is the only way to gain a face-up outfitting card. If you gain an outfitting card in any other way, draw it from the top of the deck. If the deck is ever empty, shuffle the discard pile to form a new deck.

Deploy to Thunder's Workshop

1. Place a drop ship at Thunder's Workshop port and pay the cost (1 grit and 1 blue tapstone).
2. Gain 1 of your harvesters and install it on any of your drop ships without a harvester. It does not matter whether the drop ship is on your player mat or deployed to a port. If the drop ship is deployed, it does not gain any bonus benefit. Each drop ship may have only 1 harvester.
3. If the deployed drop ship has a crewmate, advance 1 on any wonder track.

Deploy to the Cracked Flagon

1. Place a drop ship at the Cracked Flagon port and pay the cost (1 grit and 1 red tapstone).
2. Gain 1 of your crewmates and install it on any of your drop ships without a crewmate. It does not matter whether the drop ship is on your player mat or deployed to a port. If the drop ship is deployed, it does not gain any bonus benefit. Each drop ship may have only 1 crewmate.
3. If the deployed drop ship has a harvester, gain 2 grit.

Recalling Drop Ships to Activate Outfittings

On your turn, you may recall all your deployed drop ships back to your player mat (you may do this even if you have not deployed all 3 drop ships—in fact, doing so can give you a competitive advantage when trying to access specific locations on the board). If all drop ships are deployed, then you must take a recall turn. Players' sequential recall turns can be taken simultaneously.

Tip for faster play: As you become more familiar with the game, the next player may begin their turn while you take your recall turn.

Anytime during a recall, you may use crewmates and your captain to help with your strategy (see Using Crewmates).

To recall, do the following in order:

1. Select any one of your drop ships on the main board. Move the drop ship from the main board back to its corresponding row on your player mat.
2. In any order, activate outfittings in the row of the recalled drop ship. Before you gain the benefit of an outfitting, all slots on it must be filled with tapstones, tourists, crewmates, or your captain pawn; some outfittings may also have grit costs.
3. Once you activated all available outfittings in the drop ship's row, repeat steps 1 and 2 with your other deployed drop ships on the main board until all drop ships have returned. Then proceed to step 4.
4. After you recall all your drop ships, return your captain pawn back to the captain mat and all crewmates back to their respective drop ships.

If an outfitting shows specific tapstones, you must have those stones in place to take the action. However, crewmates and the captain pawn may be used in place of a tapstone or tourist.

If an outfitting shows a crewmate, that row's drop ship must have a crewmate installed to take the action, and it must not have been used for another outfitting this turn. However, the captain pawn may be used in place of a crewmate.

Note the following rules when activating outfittings:

• Do not discard any tapstones, tourists, or crewmates when activating an outfitting card.
• If a slot contains a crewmate icon, it can only be activated by the crewmate from that row's drop ship or by your captain pawn (see Using Crewmates). Place the crewmate/captain pawn on the slot.
• You can place your captain pawn exactly once during a recall turn.
• You may use the crewmate of the ship or the captain pawn in place of a tapstone or a tourist.
• If you gain tapstones or tourists while recalling, you must place them on an open space in any drop ship row (you do not have to pay grit). If you cannot place it, you don't gain it. If these tokens result in an outfitting being filled in the current row or a row that hasn't yet been activated this recall turn, that outfitting is eligible to be activated.

Tip: Carefully plan the order by which you recall your drop ships as they may be able to chain actions between different drop ship rows. Some outfittings allow you to generate tapstones or gain tourists. You can then place those tapstones and tourists onto another drop ship row, which you can use to activate outfittings in another row when you return the corresponding drop ship to the player mat. You do not need to pay grit to place tapstones and tourists you gain during recall in another drop ship row.

Using Crewmates

Any time during a recall, you may use your captain pawn and each crewmate once.

1. Your captain pawn starts the game on your captain mat. The captain pawn can be assigned to any open space on the player mat, including exposed abilities on wonder cards in your itinerary. It will return to your captain mat at the end of your recall turn, and can then be assigned to any action.
2. If you have crewmates, they are each assigned to a specific drop ship. They can only be placed on crewmate, tapstone, or tourist slots of the outfittings in that drop ship's row.

An action space that is not fully filled with stones or crewmates cannot be taken. Empty spaces have no effect during recall turns. If no captain pawn symbol is shown, the wonder card action is always in effect.

These are the possible ways to use your crewmates during a recall:

• A. Place a crewmate or your captain pawn on any empty tapstone or tourist slot on an outfitting in the crewmate's row. The captain pawn can be placed in any row. The placed crewmate takes the place of a tapstone or tourist.
• B. Place a crewmate or your captain pawn on any empty crewmate slot on an outfitting in the crewmate's row. The captain pawn can be placed in any row.
• C. Place your captain pawn on the action slot of your active wonder card or starting wonder card.

Tactics Tip: One key aspect of the game is the decision you make between offloading tapstones from your player mat to fulfill wonder cards and recalling your drop ships to activate outfittings. Since the player mat requires the power of the stones to activate outfittings, you will want to balance the race to gain wonder cards against the "engine building" bonuses of running your player mat.

The Wonder Tracks and Objectives

Throughout the game you will try to increase your influence and renown in the Northlands by racing up the wonder tracks.

• When you reach or pass a bonus shown on a wonder track, gain it immediately. These bonuses can be grit, outpost tokens, crewmates, harvesters, or encounter cards.
• When you reach or pass a scoring benefit, gain fame (some are conditional).
• When you reach the top of a wonder track, advancing up that track provides no further benefits.
• At the end of the game, you will gain additional fame depending on your progress on each wonder track and the number of specific symbols in your itinerary.

You can move up the tracks in the following ways:

• a. Visiting a wonder port and gaining a wonder card by paying its cost.
• b. Visiting the Tomtom Festival and paying its cost.
• c. Delivering tapstones or tourists to the Underground Market.
• d. Activating an outpost ability when collecting tapstones at a collection port.
• e. Activating outfittings on your player mat during a recall.
• f. Taking the captain pawn action of the active or starting wonder card in your itinerary during a recall.
• g. Visiting Thunder's Workshop with a crewmate.

Encounter Cards

Encounter cards provide support to a player by providing an option to gain 2 grit, a tapstone, a tourist, or an immediate one-time ability.

When you draw an encounter card, place it face up to the left of your captain mat. There is no limit to the number of cards you may have. Play an encounter card at any time on your turn (even the same turn you gained the card) by discarding it to gain one of its benefits. You may play a maximum of 2 encounter cards during a single turn.

Each encounter offers two options: choose one (some have a grit cost) and gain the benefit. If you gain a tapstone or tourist, either use it immediately to cover a payment or place it on an empty space of an outfitting on your player mat.

If the encounter deck is ever empty, shuffle all discarded encounter cards to form a new deck.

Encounter cards can be gained by advancing up the culture wonder track, gaining wonders, activating outfittings, or gaining the benefit of an outpost.

Example use of encounter cards

Scenario A: You play encounter card #25 and choose option B to gain the tourist. You use this tourist together with 3 other tourists from your player mat to deploy a drop ship to the Tomtom Festival touring port and pay its costs. You then receive its benefits (9 fame and 1 advance on each wonder track).

Scenario B: You deploy a drop ship to the culture wonder port. You play encounter card #13 and choose option B (pay 1 grit to gain 3 fame).

Harvest Die Rolls

Harvesting can be unpredictable, and the skies can be turbulent. As you explore deeper into the mainland, you will roll dice to determine which tapstones and tourists you gain. Usually you gain harvest die rolls when deploying to a collection port. When you encounter the harvest die icon (typically when deploying to a collection port), roll the die and gain the benefit indicated.

The faces of the eight-sided harvest die include 2 yellow tapstones, 2 blue tapstones, 2 red tapstones, 1 tourist, and 1 encounter card.

End of Game

The end of the game is triggered when any of the following conditions are met:

• All final scoring thresholds on the wonder tracks are passed by any player.
• 1 player has a total of 7 wonder cards in their itinerary.
• 1 player reaches or passes 60 fame on the fame track.
  • When you reach 60 fame, flip your fame track token to its 60 side, move it to the 0 space of the track, and continue to score.

When one of those conditions is met, finish the round so that each player has had an equal number of turns, then play another round (each player gets 1 more turn). Then proceed to the final scoring. Add the fame from final scoring to the fame you already scored during the game. The player with the most total fame is the winner.

Final Scoring

1. Score the heritage sites in your itinerary. Players compete to visit the most heritage sites. Compare with all other players who have heritage symbols in their itinerary and award 16 fame for the most, 10 fame for 2nd most, and 6 fame for 3rd most. If there is a tie, add the relevant award levels together and divide by the number of tied players (round down). If a player has no heritage symbols, they do not gain fame.

2. Score each wonder track. Depending on your position on a wonder track, score each track's bonus based on the number of matching symbols in your itinerary (score only the highest achieved bonus you reached on each track).

Scoring example

The green player has moved up on all 3 wonder tracks. The bonus level reached on each track is multiplied by the number of icons in the green player's itinerary.

• The green player moved up the culture wonder track in range of the symbol for 2 fame for each icon. They have collected 2 symbols in their itinerary: 2 × 2 = 4 fame.
• The green player moved up the scenic wonder track in range of the symbol for 3 fame for each icon. They have collected 5 symbols in their itinerary: 3 × 5 = 15 fame.
• The green player moved up the adventure wonder track in range of the symbol for 2 fame for each icon. They have collected 1 symbol in their itinerary: 2 × 1 = 2 fame.
• The green player also collected 1 heritage icon, which is third most among all players, scoring 6 fame.

6 + 4 + 15 + 2 = 27 fame. Add these fame to those already on the main score track (35 for the green player) to determine the winner.

Tiebreakers

1. The tied player with the greatest number of tapstones remaining on their player mat.
2. If still tied, the tied player with the most wonder cards in their itinerary.
3. If still tied, the tied player with the most grit.

If players remain tied after all 3 tiebreakers, they share the victory.

Outfitting Card Reference

• Wind Engines: Pay 2 grit to move up the corresponding wonder track. You may only do this once per recall turn.
• Crew Story Hour: Gain 2 grit.
• Refill Station: Gain a tapstone of any color OR a tourist. You must place the tapstone on an open space in any drop ship row. If you cannot place it, you don't gain the tapstone.
• Outpost Expansion: Place an outpost token on an open outpost location OR move up 1 space on any wonder track.
• Hero's Gauntlet: Pay 1 grit to gain 1 fame. You may do this as many times as you like.
• Legend Lamplight: Gain a tapstone of any color. You must place the tapstone on an open space in any drop ship row. If you cannot place it, you don't gain the tapstone.

Reminder: When you gain tapstones from an outfitting you don't have to pay grit to place them in a different drop ship row.