Call of Katulhu
Call of Katulhu Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The Goal of the Game
The goal of the game is to have the most victory points, earned by attracting the available cats on the table. In order to attract cats, a player must match each of the toys in the designated slots according to the cat card. Cats award victory points for each one achieved, but increase in value as you collect more of the same colored cats. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game wins!
Components
- (2) Decks of 6 toy cards each
- (1) Deck of 32 cat cards
- (2) Reference cards indicating which toys beat each other and end-game scoring tables.
Setup
- Players will place their reference cards near them if needed.
- One player takes the blue deck and the other player takes the red deck. These will be each players' hand cards.
- Players shuffle the deck of tarot sized cat cards, draw 5 cards and place them face up in the middle of the table in a manner that is easily accessible to both players. You are now ready to begin the game!
Gameplay
- Players simultaneously review the available cats and place their 4 selected toys, face down from left to right. Be sure that you properly match the toys shown on the cat card in the right order!
- Once both players have each of their 4 slots filled with face-down cards, both players reveal the card in slot #1. If either card is countered by the other, remove that card and proceed to slot #2. Do the same thing for the cards in slot #2, slot #3, and slot #4. (When removing cards, leave that slot empty. Do not consolidate/reorder your remaining cards.)
- Once all toys that were countered have been removed from both players' play area. Each player compares their remaining toys to the 5 cat cards.
- If you exactly match all of the toys in their specific slots to any of the cats, you attract that cat. Take it and keep it near your play area for end-game scoring. (you must match ALL toys in the proper slots to attract a cat. Multiple cats may be won in a single round.) Cats that you have won must be visible to the other player.
- If both players attract the same cat, the cat is discarded beside the cat card deck.
- Once all attracted cats have been claimed/discarded, refill the available cats until there are a total of 5 and begin the next round. (if you need to draw more cats and there are none left in the deck, reshuffle the discard pile into the deck. If there is no discard pile left, the game ends and players count their points to see who wins.)
- If 2 rounds go by without any cats being removed from the board (either discarded or won), then players get to select 1 cat each from the board to discard. The two cats that are removed are replaced by new cards drawn from the deck as usual.
- In a standard game, the first player to collect 7 cats ends the game immediately. Each player tallies their points from their attracted cats and whoever has the most points wins!
Optional Advanced Game Rule
Each player has 6 toys, but will only be playing 4 per turn, setting the other 2 aside. The 2 toys set aside this round MUST be played next round.
If players agree to using this rule and 1 of the players is caught breaking it, the non-offending player gets to eliminate any single toy from the offending player's board BEFORE toys are compared this turn (if toys were compared before the violation was realized, the non-offending player may reclaim any one of their countered toys and place it back into the slot it was originally in).
Cat Cards
There are 5 different colors of cat cards representing the different groups of cats.
Blue, Red and Yellow are the basic cats. While white and black are advanced cats. At the end of the game, each player will count up all of the cats they have successfully attracted throughout the game and compare their score to their opponent. Ties are won by the player with the largest set of either black or white cats. The second tiebreaker is the player with the largest set of either red/blue/yellow cats. If players are still tied, the player with the most black/white cats combined wins. If players are still tied after that, congrats, both players win (This would be EXTREMELY rare)!
Scoring
Blue, Red and Yellow cards are worth 2 points each. However, bonus points are awarded for each card of the same color beyond the first of the set. Each cat attracted beyond the first will award 1 bonus point for each card of the same color in the set before it.
I.e. A single blue card is worth 2 points. The 2nd blue card is worth 2 + 1 bonus points. The third blue card is worth 2 + 2 bonus points. The fourth blue card is worth 2 + 3 bonus points, and so forth.
There are fewer black and white cards in the deck and they are harder to attract, so naturally, they are worth more points. Black and white cards are worth 4 points each. Bonus points are determined by factoring the amount of matching black or white cards you've earned at the game's end.
I.e. a single black card would be worth 4 points. A set of 2 black cards would be worth 12 points (2 cards worth 4 points each + 4 bonus points [2×2]). A set of 3 black cards would be worth 21 points (3 cards worth 4 points each + 9 bonus points [3×3]). A set of 4 black cards would be worth 32 points (4 cards worth 4 points each + 16 bonus points [4×4]).
Credits
The cats pictured on the cat cards are dedicated to real pets, submitted by their owners:
| Cat | Dedicated to |
|---|---|
| Ash | Bastille Family, Fairbanks, Alaska |
| Blacky | Stavros, Tia, & Reagan, Maine & Sparta Greece |
| Blaze | Dania & Daniel, California |
| Boots & Rocket | Sarah & Tim, Portland, Maine |
| Bud & Bandit | Denise & Noah, Waterville, Maine |
| Butterscotch | Kevin, Kentucky |
| Captian, Chester, Tesla | Jon & Katie, Lewiston, Maine |
| Chloe | Pete & Elissa, Lewiston, Maine |
| Ellie, Mr. Gus | Derek & Emily, Lewiston, Maine |
| Goblin | Joshua, White Bear Lake, Minnesota |
| Jegda | Tessa & Collin, Washington D.C. |
| Koko | Jacob & Erica, Santa Monica, California |
| Lostara | Obi Rose, Bristol, United Kingdom |
| Luke & Leia | Joe & Zeus, Tewksbury, Massachusetts |
| Malcolm | Susan, New York, New York |
| Marshall "King of the Shadowlands" | Rebecca & Mark, Indianapolis |
| Marty | Stephanie, Fredericksburg, Virginia |
| Miss Ivy Paws | Tim Hughes, South Dakota |
| Mous, Soks, Louie | Kevin the Elder |
| Orville, Pepper | Jacob & Lindsey, Monmouth, Maine |
| Rakanishu | Andrew, Seattle, Washington |
| Spot | Miles Grant, New Mexico |
| Tnor | Jason & Elizabeth Behnke |
| Toby | Roland & Arlene, Lewiston, Maine |