Catharsis Rulebook

Table of Contents

Objective
Setup
Game Setup
Anatomy of Boss Deck Cards
Anatomy of Player Deck Cards
Player Decks
Morale
The Boss Deck
- Counters
Combat
Winning the Game
Variant—Duo Powers
Overview of Player Decks
Overview of Boss Decks
Overview of Boss Challenge Decks
Variant—Random Morale Tier Effects
Storing Your Game
Catharsis Quickplay Rules
- Setup
- Gameplay
- Damage
- Combat
Credits

Objective

You are a group of adventurers called together to hunt down and defeat a corrupted being before your party is killed or overwhelmed by despair.

Setup

Select a Boss to fight and set aside the Boss and any special Setup instruction cards. Instructions on the Setup cards may override normal deck preparation. Otherwise, place the Boss face down in the Boss Deck area. Shuffle the remaining Boss Deck cards and place them face down on top of the Boss. Set this deck in the center of the table.
Each player selects a player deck, sets their Role card to one side, shuffles their deck of powers, and then deals out 6 powers at random to themselves. The Role card and the 6 powers becomes their board. The remainder of their cards form a draw deck they keep face down next to their board.
Each player selects 6 dice. Follow any additional setup rules for your deck as described on your Role card. (For example, Hidorian adds his dice pool tracker to his board.)
Using the Morale tracker, set the Morale to its starting amount based on the challenge level:
- New questors: 22 Morale
- Adventurers: 21 Morale
- Veterans: 18 Morale
- Last ditch effort: 16 Morale*

*Note: This means all players suffer the effects of the Winded effect (everyone suffers 1 damage) before starting the game.

Game Setup

For 1, 3, or 4 players, add or remove player setups.

Each player's area consists of a Role Card, their Player Deck, their Player Counters, and their board of Powers, laid out in front of them. The shared Boss Deck and Boss Counters sit in the center of the table.

Anatomy of Boss Deck Cards

Boss Card — Title, flavor text, Boss health, damage from attack, special rules for this combat, and the effect when the Monster or Boss is defeated.

Event Card — Title, flavor text, and the Event effect.

Monster Card — Title, flavor text, Monster health, damage from attack, and other effects.

Trap Card — Title, flavor text, and the Trap effect.

Setup Card — Title and instructions for setup.

Special Card — Title, flavor text, the sacrifice required to acquire the card, damage from attack, activation effects, and special notes.

Anatomy of Player Deck Cards

Role Card — A keyword description, a Passive ability, the name of the character, and a Flip ability.

Power Card — An ability cost, an ability effect, flavor text, a title, and an indicator of choice of costs.

Aiden Power Card — An ability effect, an ability cost, flavor text, and a title.

Briggs and Liara Power Card — A cost for Liara, an ability effect for Liara, a title, a cost for Briggs, and an ability effect for Briggs, plus flavor text.

Fizzleboom and Burrr Power Card — A top ability cost and effect (Fizzleboom's power), a bottom ability cost and effect (Burrr's power), and flavor text.

Player Decks

Each player has a deck unique to them. Each deck has a total of 20 powers and a Role card. (Briggs and Liara have 2 Role cards as they are two players playing as one.)
Each Role card has a Passive ability and a Flip ability. So long as the Role card is face up, the player may use the Passive ability. The Flip ability requires flipping the Role card face down and is usually much stronger, but it prevents using the Passive ability until the Role card is unflipped. Some Passive and Flip abilities can only be used during combat; others can be used at any time.
Once a Role card is flipped facedown, the only way to unflip it is by spending Morale. (See "Morale" below.)
You can never have more than 6 cards on your board at any time. If you are ever given the opportunity to add a power to your board and you already have 6, you must discard a power to add the new card to your board or else discard your new power.
If you are ever told to replace a power, discard that power, then draw a new one and put it in the same spot on your board, unexhausted.
If a player's deck ever runs out of cards and they are instructed to draw, they do not draw any cards.
Abilities almost always require dice to activate them. The symbols on the cards tell you what dice to use:
- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 — Use a die with the indicated number.
- ? — Use a die of any value.
- AA, AAA, etc. — Dice of equal value (pair, 3-of-a-kind, etc.).
- BB — A pair with a different value than other dice used on this ability.
  - If 1s are used to fulfill the AA, you must use a number other than 1 for the BB.
- — [Dimirith's deck] A die with a value determined by the position of the power on the player's board.
As players use their abilities, they will exhaust (flip) the power to indicate that the power can no longer be used, unless the ability says "Does not exhaust." Exhausted powers can be refreshed (unflipped) in several ways:
- If an ability or encounter says "Heal #," one player can refresh a number of powers equal to the amount of healing.
- If the party defeats a monster, every player may refresh up to 2 powers.
- Spending 1 Morale at the end of a combat round or between Boss Deck cards will completely refresh all players' powers and Role cards.
The powers also represent the players' heath. If a player takes a point of damage, they have two options:
- Exhaust an unexhausted power; or
- Discard an exhausted power.
If all powers on a player's board are exhausted and they still have damage they must take, they must discard powers. Players may discard powers instead of exhausting other ones. Be warned—discarded powers are not replaced, so this means your health is permanently lowered. Discarding powers should be a last resort!
Once a player discards their last power, they are dead and cannot help fight battles or take damage for the party. They may still offer advice and provide encouragement to their comrades. Also, they still count for the purposes of determining the difficulty of Boss Deck encounters. So long as Morale isn't completely depleted, and at least one player is still alive, the players collectively can still win.

Morale

Morale starts out at Heroic but steadily gets worse as the hunt takes its toll and the players drain their resolve to continue forward.
As Morale reaches certain levels, it degrades, causing negative effects to the party.
Morale tiers and their corresponding Morale levels, in order:
- Heroic
- Winded — Reveal at 17 Morale
- Battered — Reveal at 13 Morale
- Exhausted — Reveal at 9 Morale
- Desperate — Reveal at 5 Morale
- Hopeless — Reveal at 1 Morale
- Defeated — Reveal at 0 or less Morale

Healing Morale: On rare occasions, Morale may be increased through encounters. Morale can never be increased to more than its starting value. In addition, Morale tiers can only get worse; even if the party raises their Morale enough to go back to a previous tier, the Morale tier stays the same. For example, if Morale is at 10 (Exhausted) and then heals up to 18 (Winded), the Morale tier stays at Exhausted. On the positive side, it won't degrade further until it gets down to 9.

Along the way, players will need to regain access to their powers and Role cards. In-between Boss Deck cards and at the end of each combat round, the players as a group may spend 1 Morale to completely refresh all of their powers and unflip their Role cards. This does not restore any discarded powers. Unexhausted cards are not affected. If spending Morale would cause the Morale tier to change, any effect happens after all powers and Role cards are refreshed.

The Boss Deck

The Boss Deck represents all the dangers, monsters, traps, and more that the party must fight through on their way to defeat the Boss. The Boss Deck is comprised of five different types of cards: Monsters, Traps, Events, Specials, and the Boss. Some Bosses may introduce other types of cards.
Some Boss Decks introduce different kinds of counters. For these, use the universal boss counter tokens.
All Monsters have health and deal damage, and many have special powers.
- A Monster's health is listed with four values. (ex. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4) The first number is the amount of Health the Monster has if the party has just one person. The next is for two players, then three, and finally four. This is determined by how many players started the game, so even if a player has died, the value used doesn't adjust.
- A Monster's damage is usually listed the same way and follows the same rules. However, some monsters do special damage (for example, damaging Morale directly or attacking each player for 2 damage). If only one value is listed for a Monster, that value applies to parties of all sizes.
- Many Monsters have special abilities. These will be listed at the bottom of the card. Be sure to read them before beginning the fight—some affect the setup of the monster or how the players fight. Others happen upon defeating the monster.
Traps and Events are things that happen to the party as they journey towards the main foe. Players may not use their powers when one of these cards is revealed. Traps are deadly challenges the players face, while Events tend to be beneficial or neutral, although some can be harmful. Sometimes Traps and Events offer the party a decision. If the party is tied or can't decide, players can roll off against each other or choose an option at random. Effects listed with slashes (ex. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4) are based on the number of starting players, like Monster health.
Specials offer a player the opportunity to gain a powerful ability at the expense of some of her current powers. Specials say how many powers a person must sacrifice to gain them. It's a delicate balance you are striking: you are trading powers and possibly overall health to gain great strength. Specials always exhaust after use unless they say otherwise. They are not subject to Briggs's requirement of handing used powers to Liara, Fizzleboom & Burrr's Passive ability, or Séalaithe's limitation on when he can use bottom abilities. They can be set aside by Artrial by paying their cost and gaining Preparation counters, but doing so has no effect unless the power has a Preparation effect. Liara may not gain Specials.
After resolving a Boss Deck card but before looking at the next card, players may decide to decrease Morale to heal. This is the party drawing on their fortitude and willpower to push forward through their exhaustion. After revealing the next Boss Deck card, it will be too late—the new encounter is upon you!—and players have missed the chance to recover. So think carefully before revealing the next card!

Counters

Some player's decks utilize counters for their abilities. When a player's Passive or Flip ability references counters, use Player Counters.
When a Boss Deck or a card references using counters or says to create copies of a monster, use Boss Counters.

Combat

During combat with a Monster or a Boss, players use their powers to attack, defend, help others get the dice values they need, and more. A combat round follows this order:

Step 1: Player Attack Phase
- All players roll dice and activate powers.
Step 2: Monster/Boss Attack Phase
- Follow the instructions on the card.
Step 3: Refresh Phase

Step 1: Player Attack Phase

Players attack using their dice to power unexhausted powers (cards) they have on their boards. Each power has multiple abilities on them. Dice represent the chaos of battle; they can represent anything from finding an opening in your opponent's defense, to preparing your defenses, to gathering the necessary magic into a powerful enough weave to activate.
Each player rolls all of their dice. They may reroll any number of dice up to 2 times; after that, none of their dice may be rerolled. Players may roll and reroll at any time this phase.
- Ex. Dave rolls 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, and 6. He's looking to get a 6-of-a-kind to use Unmei's Coup De Grace power to deal 15 damage. He rerolls the 3, 5, and 6 and gets 1, 2, and 4. He rerolls the 2 and 4 and gets 1 and 5. He now has 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5. He's stuck with these dice! Hopefully one of his partners can help him adjust his last die or he has other powers that need these values.
- Ex. Mary and Fred are playing as Leme and Maladaum. Both roll their dice up front. Mary has several abilities that can adjust dice, but she isn't sure which ones Fred might need, so she waits for Fred to complete his rerolling. After his first reroll, he realizes that he almost has enough to activate a power, but one die would need to be adjusted by 2. Mary can either use two powers that adjust by 1 or one power that adjusts by 2. She rerolls twice to see which she will activate.
Players activate abilties by placing their dice on the power. Once an ability has been activated, the dice are set aside (they have been used for the round) and the entire power is exhausted, flipping it face down unless the ability was activated by a role that doesn't exhaust powers or the ability says "Does not exhaust."
For cards with a top and bottom ability, a player may only activate one of those abilities—either they activate the top ability, or they activate the bottom ability. They cannot activate both. Using either exhausts the power.
If an ability has a cost with a line between some of the symbols (ex. 2 | 4), a player chooses one of the costs to fulfill.
Abilities only activate once unless the ability says it may be activated multiple times.
Players may use only their own dice to activate abilities. They cannot share dice unless an ability or encounter explicitly allows it.
Left over dice (those not used to activate abilties by the end of the combat round) are set aside with those that were used. At the start of the next combat round, all of the dice will be rolled again. Players may not "save" dice for future combat rounds.
Players may reroll their dice and activate abilities in any order they wish. Fully resolve each ability once it's activated.
- For example, Art is playing Leme the Druid and Jim is playing Unmei the Samurai. Jim has already used his two rerolls and almost has the dice to activate Assisted Strike's bottom power, which allows him to deal 1 damage and double the damage of another power that deals 3 or less damage, but he has a 5 instead of a 6. Fortunately, Art has just what Jim needs—Spiked Growth, a power that can adjust up to 3 dice by 1. Art just needs to roll a 6, and he still has his 2 rerolls left. The first reroll gets him 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, so he rerolls all of his dice once again. This time he gets 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6—just what he needed! Art activates the top ability of Spiked Growth first, spending 1, 3, and 6, exhausting the power and changing Jim's 5 to a 6. Jim now activates his ability, dealing 1 damage and exhausting his power. Art then uses his 2 and 2 to activate the bottom ability of Leaf Blades that deals 2 damage, which gets doubled thanks to Assisted Strike. By working strategically together, they deal 5 damage to the foe!
Powers can have a range of effects. Below are the most common:
- Deal # damage: Deal that much damage immediately to the Monster or Boss. If there are multiple foes, the player chooses which one each power targets. Players may not split one attack across multiple foes. Powers that have multiple attacks may target different foes with each attack. You can deal more damage than a Monster or Boss has health.
- Prevent # damage: This reduces the amount of damage dealt to a player or to the party this combat round, whether from player abilities or a foe. Unused prevention is lost at the end of the Round.
- Prevent decreasing Morale by #: This reduces the amount Morale is decreased this combat round by the Monster or Boss, but not loss due to refreshing.
- Heal #: A player immediately refreshes that many powers. Healing does not affect Role cards.
- Adjust die/dice by #: Select the listed number of dice and change them up or down by the given number. Dice do not cycle around (e.g., a 1 cannot become a 6). If you cannot make an adjustment in a certain direction, you must either choose a different die or choose a different direction to adjust that die. (For example, if you had to adjust a 2 by 2, you cannot go lower, so you must adjust it upwards to a 4, or you can choose a different die to adjust.) You cannot target already-used dice with this ability.
- Replace a power/Replace this power: Discard a power/Discard this power and draw a new power in its place. The new power is not exhausted.
- If a power says "up to," then you may use the full value listed, or you may use less than that. (For example, "adjust up to 2 dice by up to 2" means you can adjust 0, 1, or 2 dice by 0, 1, or 2 each.) If a power doesn't say "up to" next to a number, you must affect/do that much. (For example, "Heal 3," means you must refresh exactly three powers.)
If a power refers to "target," that means any elible target in play. For example, "target ability" means any other ability on any player's board. Some effects, like Heal or Prevent # damage, let you assign the effect to any player unless they say otherwise.
When you reduce a Monster or Boss to zero health, resolve any On Defeat abilties.
If all Monsters and/or Bosses in an encounter are defeated, the party has defeated their foes! Each player gets to refresh up to 2 powers. Players may not choose Role cards to refresh. Otherwise, proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Monster/Boss Attack Phase

Read the Damage line of the Monster or Boss card(s) and follow the instructions there.
- If an attack specifies a player (ex. "Deal 5 damage to a player."), all of the damage targets one player of the party's choice. If that player dies before taking the full amount of damage, the extra damage is dealt to another player. Continue this until all damage has been dealt.
- If an attack specifies "to the party," the players get to decide how to divide the damage among themselves. (Example: There are 3 players who encounter a monster with, "Deal 5 damage to the party." The players may assign all 5 damage to one player or split it between two or three players.) A player may not be assigned more damage than they have health.
If the players are all killed, the party has lost.
If Morale reaches 0 as a result of a Monster or Boss attack, the party has lost, no matter how healthy they may be.

Step 3: Refresh Phase

After the Monster or Boss has attacked and before players roll their dice starting a new round, the party may decrease Morale by 1 to fully refresh their powers and Role cards. This is the only way to refresh an exhausted Role card in combat. Be careful—trying to keep everyone in perfect shape can quickly drain Morale, but not refreshing often enough will result in the party being unable to fight effectively.
Return to the Player Attack Phase and continue fighting until the final Monster or Boss is defeated.

Winning the Game

Once the players have reduced the Boss to 0 health, have no other foes to fight, and have fully resolved any On Defeat Monster or Boss abilities without dropping Morale to 0 or killing all of the party members, they have won!

Variant—Duo Powers

Duo powers are powers shared by two players. This can lead to a greater level of strategy and interaction as each player can activate the power by themselves, but when both work together, they can unleash a powerful effect. But all power comes at a cost...
Players may choose to join with a duo power by doing the following:
- Two players must agree to use a duo power—duo powers cannot be given to just one player.
- When creating their boards, each player draws one fewer power for each duo power they are part of.
- Then find the duo power connecting the pair and set it between the two players.
Duo powers act as regular powers with the following rules:
- Duo powers cannot be replaced. For Briggs and Liara, they occupy a space on Briggs's board, and are not handed to Liara when used.
- Either player may flip the power face down or discard it when taking damage.
  - For example, Dawn, playing Maladaum, and Danielle, playing Leme each take a point of damage from a Trap. Either Dawn or Danielle can choose to exhaust their shared duo power to take the one point of damage. Alternatively, they can both choose to deal the damage to their duo power, discarding it.
  - Fizzleboom and Burrr cannot use their Passive ability on a duo power.
- Discarded duo powers can never be replaced. If an effect would let one or both players gain an extra power to replace a lost duo power, they instead draw a power from their deck and add it to their board as normal.
- Each player may only pay the cost of the relevant half of their shared duo power.
  - For example, on the duo power shared by Leme and Maladaum, the player playing Leme can only activate the top half while the player playing Maladaum can only activate the bottom half.
- Unlike normal powers where a player may only activate the top or the bottom, the two players can choose to activate both the top and bottom powers at the same time. If they do, they gain the bonus specified on the card.

Overview of Player Decks

Aiden Azazel, The Tainted Bard

Aiden is a bard, and like all bards, he uses songs to alter the world. As such, you don't have bottom powers—all of your cards have only one ability available, but the ability changes as you use the power. Your powers all start at Level I. As you use them, essentially singing the next verse, they will rotate to higher levels. Eventually, your powers will reach their peak at Level IV, which yields powerful and devastating effects. But once a song is complete, it loses all magical power, meaning you discard any Level IV power you use.
When you activate an ability, you then rotate the power to the next level by turning the power 90 degrees counterclockwise. You can only use the power that is currently at the top of your card.
When a power is exhausted (through damage, traps, or Monster or Boss abilities) and then refreshed, your power is refreshed at Level I. The same happens when a power is replaced or added to your board—it always begins at Level I. You can't start singing from the middle of the song!
Your Passive ability lets you power up your cards to the next higher level. Your Flip ability lets you advance one of your powers up two levels or adjust up to two powers down one level. Use these two abilities to help keep your powers at the most effective level.
You have the ability to use a single card more than once each turn, so long as the power has changed levels since it was last activated and you pay the new cost. Be careful, though—too many high level powers will mean you'll have to choose between discarding powers or doing nothing on your turn.

Artrial, Chef General of the Divine Army

All great chefs know that baking the perfect meal is all about timing, and your deck reflects that. You have the unique ability to set your powers aside after paying the top cost instead of triggering the power. This lets you "bake" the power, as at the start of each combat round, your Passive ability lets you add a Preparation counter to two set aside powers. Your powers gain extra effects that get stronger the longer they sit.
Also like baking, you can't pull out something underbaked. A set aside power needs at least two Preparation counters on it, although you can let it sit there longer to reach perfection. When you decide to activate a set aside power, you get to choose which ability you trigger.
This power and flexibility comes at a cost, though. Set aside powers don't count towards your health, so each one you set aside brings you closer to death. And once a power is set aside, it's stuck for at least 2 combat rounds. You can't add a Preparation counter the turn its set aside, and you can only add 1 counter each round. You have a safety valve—you can use your Flip power to add a Preparation counter to any number of set aside powers and then trigger them, no matter how many each power has.

Briggs and Liara, The Eternal Companions

Briggs loves Liara more than anything in the world, and Liara loves Briggs just as much. When Liara died, she could not bear to leave her beloved companion, and so she lingers, harnessing the essences of monsters to infuse Briggs with the strength to protect him. And he, ever loyal to Liara, now strives to protect what she holds dear. Briggs and Liara's deck is perhaps the most unique deck as it requires two people to play. They share one deck, and they are constantly passing powers back and forth.
Liara is the spirit. She isn't physically there and cannot take damage or be affected by Boss deck cards, but she has two very important abilities. The first is that she binds the essence of monsters, preparing them for Briggs to use. She does this by paying the top cost of the power, then placing it in an empty space on Briggs's board. Her second ability, her Passive, is to offer small boosts to Briggs (and sometimes other players). She has to balance Brigg's need for new powers with providing the boosts he needs to protect himself and defeat his foes. When using her Flip ability, she can trigger the boosts more easily and multiple times, either giving Briggs a big benefit or offering a wide variety of smaller ones.
The player controlling Briggs uses the essences Liara gives him to fight, but doing so uses up the power of the essence. Each time Briggs uses an ability, he gives it back to Liara to put on the bottom of her deck. Briggs's Passive lets him either prevent or heal one extra damage or deal one extra damage when using a power for the round. His Flip ability gives Liara a bit of a breather—he won't discard any powers for the round, giving Liara the ability to focus on her boosts or replenishing an exhausted board.
Be careful about how many abilities Briggs uses; if Liara can't replace them all in a round, Briggs will be missing health when the enemy attacks. And when Briggs discards a power due to damage or an effect, he removes one of his powers from the game and the space is permanently blank—Liara can't fill it with a power. If Briggs is instructed to discard powers from his deck, Liara will discard the powers instead. If Briggs is told to replace powers, Briggs returns a power to Liara, and Liara gets to hand Briggs a power without paying its cost. If Briggs ever has no powers, he dies, and Liara can't resurrect him.
Make sure to constantly communicate. Liara can supply Briggs with a range of abilities, but strategizing with Briggs about what will be useful to have is more effective than just handing powers over. You can also consider leaving a space on Briggs's board open so that Liara can hand Briggs a relevant power for the round. And don't be afraid to use your Flip powers; whether adventuring by themselves or as part of a team, when both players use their Flip abilities, they can swing the battle to the party's favor.

Dimirith Raizen, The Transmutor

Dimirith is a cave elf, although it grows harder to see this with each spell he casts. He sacrifices pieces of his body to power his spells. But what he gives up gets replaced, giving him access to new powers.
You are a "jack of all trades" with the power to master any of them… for an instant. Your deck has a lot of different abilities, and they will change often, so your role in the party will evolve over time.
When setting out your powers, assign the powers the numbers 1-6. (Only one power per number.) Your powers require you to spend # dice, where # = the number assigned to the power.
Your powers work differently in another way, too. On the top half of each power card is your base power. On the bottom half of each card are your "super" powers—they take the base ability and crank them up to 11!
Be warned that activating your bottom powers, while much more powerful than your base power, causes you to then replace that power. Such power is fleeting…
When a power is replaced, it requires the same number on the dice to activate as the card it replaces. For example, if you replace a power that requires 2s to activate, the new power also requires 2s to activate.
Your Passive ability grants you access to the bottom half of your cards. Your Flip ability allows you or one of your allies to replace one of their powers. Helping modify other players' boards is useful as new powers come into play ready to use—a quick way to help keep the party going a bit longer.

Fizzleboom the Gnome and Burrr the Ogre—The Dynamic Duo

After Fizzleboom's teleport spell landed him in the path of Burrr's swing, Burrr felt incredible guilt and promised to help Fizzleboom. Now they work together as one unit, each one stepping in to take advantage of the opennings the other creates.
Your cards don't exhaust when they are used. Rather, they have the unique ability to rotate (turn 180 degrees), giving you access to two new abilities. That means you can activate the same card multiple times each turn… if you can get the dice you need. Unlike other roles, all of your powers require specific dice, and none of them have multiple options. So strategizing which dice you want to reroll is import for you, and partnering with roles that can manipulate dice can help a lot.
While your Role card is face up, your Passive ability makes you replace a power for each point of damage you take. This is both a blessing and a curse. While it's active, you don't have to worry about taking damage—you'll always have six powers active. However, if your deck runs out of cards, you start discarding powers instead of replacing them, so balancing out when you have your Passive ability active or flipped is going to be important.
Your Flip ability on your Role card allows you to grab any discarded power and put it on the bottom of your deck. And after you flip your Role card, you no longer have to worry about replacing cards, so use this to help you manage your deck.
Another tool you have in preventing rampant power replacement is that some of your abilities give you the power to prevent damage to yourself (but not others). Activate enough of them, and you can help your team avoid damage. But doing so means you're not dealing damage.

Hidorian Aligana, The Fate Wizard

Hidorian is a nephilim, the offspring of an angel and a demon. He was gifted a deck that alters fate by his parents. But they gave it to him too young, and now he is a jaded young adult seeking adventure.
Your goal is to store up dice that you can use for devastating attacks later. Note that Hidorian uses his dice much differently than others. Hidorian has a pool for each value of die. At the start of the game, these begin with one die each. (So, one 1, one 2, one 3, one 4, one 5, and one 6.)
Your cards are split into a top that says "Store" and a bottom that says "Retrieve." Store powers trigger at the end of the Player Attack Phase. They allow you to put the dice on them into the reserve. (For example, if Mary has 2, 2, and 5 on Store abilities, she'll wait until all other powers have been activated and then put two counters in her 2 die and one in her 5 die pools.) Dice being stored cannot be retrieved that turn. Abilities that store only one die don't exhaust, allowing you to use them every turn. Just be warned: Using them to store dice prohibits you from using their bottom powers!
Retrieve powers can be activated normally during the players' turn. To power these, you must use dice from your pools. (For example, if a power says, "Retrieve 135," you need to have a 1, a 3, and a 5 in your pools and then retrieve counters from each of them.) Remember: You cannot retrieve dice you rolled this turn—they aren't stored yet!
Your Passive role power lets you store a die of your choice as each Boss deck card is revealed, slowly replenishing your pools. Your Flip ability lets you draw from your pools to help your friends activate their most powerful abilities. Just be warned: While your Role card is flipped, you do not gain the benefits of your Passive ability and you can't retrieve dice to activate your powers! (But you can still store dice.)

Jaden, The Unfortunate Farmer

Tragic as being infected by a poisonous fungus is, it's made Jaden a really effective fighter. He already has natural strength from all the farming he did, and the fungus has only strengthened his blows.
What's truly devastating, though, are the Spore counters you put on your foes. Spore counters deal 1 damage at the start of the combat round, so while you're pounding your foes into the ground, the fungus will be helping turn them into compost. Your Passive supports this: Whenever a Monster or Boss damages you, Spores get all over them, so you can act as a front-line fighter or as the party tank. And if things get really desperate (or it's going to be a long fight), you can trigger your Flip ability to deal yourself damage as you encourage the fungus to spray spores on your foe—but harming you as your body erupts from the force.
Some of your powers let you take on a Spore counter to boost their effects. And since Jaden has been living with the fungus so long, he's developed a natural immunity to it… to an extent. If you have too many, though, the fungus starts wreaking havoc with your body.
After the adrenaline of a battle leaves you, the fungus subsides a bit, reducing the number of Spore counters you have by 1. This gives you a bit of breathing room with powering up your attacks.

Leme Bal'Lura, The Ancient Druid

Leme is thousands of years old, one of the first elves to ever assume the mantle of a druid. She can manipulate the natural world as easily as breathing. And though she cares not at all for the humanoid races, she does care about the corruption threatening her forest.
One of your goals is to help others get the dice they need to activate their most powerful abilities. More than a few of your abilities help people adjust dice. This means it can be good to wait and see what other people need before determining if you need to reroll your dice. Using your abilities on yourself is a bit too costly to be effective, so don't try to go it alone unless you really like a challenge.
You also can deal some damage, prevent damage, and in general help others out. You're like a battle medic—someone who can help others easily, help themselves with more difficulty, and is able to support other needs as required.
Your Passive lets you extend your ability to adjust dice at a steep cost, but it's there and might be the difference between life or death. Helping a teammate to adjust one more die might be what lets you deal the final blow to a foe or trigger an ability to prevent damage. Your Active ability, though, everyone wants all the time. You transform one die of each player into a wild die. Just be aware that after using it, you lose access to your Passive. You're trading your ability to adjust dice as needed for flexibility in the moment.

Maladaum Bonum—The Fallen Paladin

Maladaum was and still is one of the most pious of his order. But the armor he found in the church's reliquary was not just decorative. Now he must fight against the armor. He fights to protect others; it fights to protect him.
Your goal is to give the other party members the breathing room they need to be as effective as possible. Some of your powers have no cost for the bottom half—they are activated simply by exhausting them. You can use these to help other players (or yourself) from taking damage during combat, but you also have the ability to prevent damage during Trap and Event encounters. That's really powerful—you're the only role that can act during those times.
Your Passive ability lets you reduce damage from a foe by 1 (to a minimum of 1) and store that energy up to be unleashed later when you really need it. Your Flip ability takes all that stored energy and blasts your foe with it. But doing so leaves you exhausted, and you can't store damage again until you refresh your Role card.
Your top powers are pretty strong damage dealers, so think carefully about whether you want to use your powers to help prevent damage or if you want to help defeat the foe faster.

Séalaithe, The Demon Hunter

Séalaithe swore to hunt down the demon who killed his teacher. Unfortunately his quest is doomed to fail. Séalaithe is a demon hunter who doesn't know he is possessed by the very demon he seeks. He is two souls in one body. This means you have a very interesting balance to strike. The demon comes out when you are near death, so you want to be injured. But being near death is just one step away from dead, so maybe you don't want that… The interesting thing is that you can use your bottom powers—and they're strong, so you'll want to use them!—when you have only one or two powers unexhausted.
To make things even more interesting for you, your Passive ability lets you choose to keep your powers flipped in order to gain Rage counters, which you can spend to power up your abilities when you use your Flip ability. So if you forego resting, your attacks can become even more devastating. But skipping healing means you need to refresh more often.
You may also want to consider sacrificing some of your powers so that you are that much closer to tapping into your demonic power, even if you decide to do a full refresh or benefit from some healing. It means fewer options and being closer to death, but being in a state of perpetual demonic power might help defeat your foes fast enough for that to not matter.

Tenzin Xilan, The Last of His Kind

As a monk who has honed his strikes for thousands of years, the one thing you can do really, really well is hit things. A lot. Your abilities are pretty powerful, and the Combo power means you can pay different costs for the same power, letting you trigger it multiple times before it becomes exhausted. Since you can use most or all of your dice to superpower one ability, you may not need to refresh as often, but only if you get the right dice.
Your goal is to hit hard and often, and your Passive and Flip abilities reflect that. Your Passive ability lets you build up Phantom Hit counters whenever you trigger a power, and you spend those counters to hit even more. Your Flip ability is an even better version of this, where every two attacks you make in a round lets you hit again. Given that some of your powers make multiple attacks and you have your Phantom Hit attacks, you can unleash a whirlwind of devastation.

Unmei Hanaka, The Gifted Samurai

Unmei lost her arm when she won a swordsmanship competition and the organizers found out she was a girl. Since then, she has trained even harder. She replaced her missing arm with a magical one, and now she is a whirlwind of death.
Your goal is to deal as much damage as you can each turn. Your Passive ability allows you to use her wakizashi to get in one extra attack, which is a great ability on its own, but you really will enjoy using your Flip ability—everyone's attacks get more powerful as Unmei moves like a blossom on the wind! Just be careful; using it when only a couple of attacks are activated doesn't help much, and you need to use it before players activate their abilities—activating it after attacks have already taken place doesn't retroactively help them out.
You have some of the greatest flexibility of all the roles because you have quite a few ? and ?? cost powers, allowing you to use any die value on them, but they also tend to be fairly weak abilities. To hit hard, you have to get some pretty big costs lined up. Working with others who can manipulate your dice can make getting damage out easier, but you may find that you need to refresh more often than others.
Be aware that you aren't a one-trick pony; you have some limited ability to adjust dice or prevent damage, so think of yourself as more of a skilled warrior than a berserker. Then again, a dead enemy can't strike back…

Overview of Boss Decks

Corrupted Horse

If you are introducing people to the game, this is a great deck to start with. The decisions are simpler, and the fights are tough but straightforward. The Shaman Spirit is no pushover, though, and there are more than a few potentially devastating cards in its deck, so be on your guard!

Demon-eyed Sniper

The sniper is all about guerrilla tactics. She attacks and then runs away, only to attack again, leading you deeper into her traps. Unlike other bosses, the Demon-eyed Sniper starts at the top of the Boss deck, and you'll have to chase her through the deck. When she has nowhere else to run, she will unleash her full arsenal on your team. Hopefully you'll be able to use what you've learned about her tactics to give you an advantage in the final fight!

Forest Elemental

You are in the midst of raging fires. The corruption has caused the Forest Elemental to turn her back on everything she was and fight without restriction, setting fire to everything she can, including herself. The magical flames will leave you with Burn counters, which damage you at the end of battle before you have a chance to refresh. And like an inferno, the elemental grows more resistant to damage and deals more damage the more things around her burn.

Godmind

The Godmind was once four separate explorers, but they ventured too close to Verity, the god imprisoned in the world, and they accidentally weakened one of the seven seals keeping him entombed. The unleashing of magic, combined with the god's nightmares, merged them into one being—a being seeking to cause all others to become one. The Godmind will cause you to exchange your powers with each other. By itself, that isn't too bad, until you realize that this boss is setting you up for failure—the more it you become like it, the harder it is to fight. Even worse, it has a henchman immune to its effect but supporting its efforts.

Holy Assassins

When you fight the holy assassins, be ready—they hit hard. They are a specially chosen elite force sent to destroy you, and they will. Their strikes are so precise and deadly that each person will be losing a power from their board. Fighting people who know your every weakness is demoralizing, and they do a devastating 3 Morale damage per attack.

Horrific Mass

When faced with a brutal pain or a lingering ache, which will you choose? What if you know that the ache will flare up later? The horrific mass is all about forcing you to make painful choices. Face the devastating traps head on, or avoid them by setting them aside, leaving them to haunt your footsteps. Set aside cards often have on-going effects. You also need to be careful about the Growth counters that increase the Horrific Mass's power. As it fights, the horrific mass continues to grow, healing and getting stronger each turn.

King's Guard

The king's guard is a symbol of the people's desire to protect their ruler. Unfortunately, no one believes that the king and his guard have been corrupted and are slowly infiltrating the castle, corrupting people in small groups. To maintain the charade of normalcy, not everything hurts you immediately. While hunting Ruby King Rizardo, the deck gives you the ability to set cards aside, often in exchange for making your life easier. But be careful—each card set aside adds to his guard's ability to regenerate. As you fight his guard, he loses these set aside cards, and eventually he can no longer regenerate, at which point he goes into a frenzy, devastating everything around him.

Verminologist

The verminologist's deck has Event and Trap cards that you just can't seem to get rid of, like a bug infestation. The Event cards offer beneficial effects, but their benefits are constantly in danger of disappearing. Trap cards, on the other hand, have debilitating effects that like to linger and can seriously hinder your party's chances of success. And the Verminologist itself can summon more and more of its pets to destroy the party each turn. You must balance attacking it and keeping its swarms at bay.

Overview of Boss Challenge Decks

Avatar

A deific being from another plane of existence has intruded upon your reality, and it threatens to destroy not only your world, but many others unless you stop it. Each choice you make will lead you to different realms. Some choices lead to an easier experience than others, but all have their own unique challenges as the longer it takes to track down the avatar, the more powerful it becomes.

Dragon & Lich

This challenge deck has your party trudging through the arctic cold to track a boss of deadly power. You may find allies and blessings to ease your way. You need help to make it to the final boss strong enough to be able to defeat it. But be warned—some boons come with a cost. And sometimes those costs are paid by people other than the one who gained the boon…

Priest of the Unknown

This challenge deck is not for the faint of heart! Your party will be racing against time to save villagers before the insidious chant that permeates the temple erases you from existence. Even worse, the priest is aided by a force from beyond, putting horrible challenges before you. Can you take time to search for things that will aid you? Can you stop the incantation in time? Do you have enough time to save the villagers?

Summoner

The Summoner is a "boss rush" challenge deck for up to 6 players, summoning lesser versions of each of the eight main bosses in sequence—and often several at once. The more summons in play, the more dangerous things get; each of them grants bonuses to other summons. Managing who you take down and when is important. But you need to prepare for the long haul as the Summoner himself waits for you once you defeat his minions.

Variant—Random Morale Tier Effects

If you want to increase the challenge in your games, you can use the random Morale Tier effects tables listed below. When the party first reaches 17, 13, 9, 5, and 1 Morale, roll on the relevant table. Be warned! This can greatly shift the difficulty of the game. Because you cannot prepare for the different effects, you may find that a given effect will hit at just the wrong time.

Optional Rule—New Horrors: Automatically reroll any result you previously rolled.
Optional Rule—Devil's Luck: The party may spend 1 Morale to reroll a result.

New Questor Difficulty

17 Morale: Roll on Table 1
13 Morale: Roll on Table 1
9 Morale: Roll on Table 1
5 Morale: Roll on Table 2
1 Morale: Roll on Table 2

Adventurer Difficulty

17 Morale: Roll on Table 1
13 Morale: Roll on Table 1
9 Morale: Roll on Table 2
5 Morale: Roll on Table 2
1 Morale: Roll on Table 3

Veteran Difficulty

17 Morale: Roll on Table 1
13 Morale: Roll on Table 1
9 Morale: Roll on Table 2
5 Morale: Roll on Table 3
1 Morale: Roll on Table 3

Last-Ditch Effort Difficulty

17 Morale: Roll on Table 1
13 Morale: Roll on Table 2
9 Morale: Roll on Table 2
5 Morale: Roll on Table 3
1 Morale: Roll on Table 3

Random Morale Effect Table 1

During the next combat round, players are unable to reroll any dice.
All players are dealt 1 damage.
All players are dealt 2 damage.
The party is dealt 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 damage.
Decrease Morale by 1.
The next combat round, all players roll 2 fewer dice.

Random Morale Effect Table 2

Permanent Effect: It now costs 2 Morale to refresh.
Each player discards a power.
Decrease Morale by 3.
All players are dealt 3 damage.
Permanent Effect: Choose a player. All damage dealt to that player from any source is increased by 1.
The next combat round, players roll 4 fewer dice.

Random Morale Effect Table 3

Permanent Effect: All players' attacks deal half damage, rounded down.
All players lose 1 die.
All players discard 2 unexhausted powers or 3 exhausted powers, whichever affects more powers.
All players are dealt 4 damage.
Permanent Effect: Choose a player. All numerical effects on that players' powers are reduced to 1.
The next combat round, the Monster or Boss attacks first.

Storing Your Game

The box divider organizes storage into sections for each Player Deck (Aiden, Artrial, Briggs & Liara, Dimirith, Fizzleboom & Burrr, Hidorian, Jaden, Leme, Maladaum, Séalaithe, Tenzin, Unmei), Player Dice and Tokens, the Boss Decks and Boss Dice/Tokens (Corrupted Horse, Demon-Eyed Sniper, Forrest Elemental, Godmind, Holy Assassins, Horrific Mass, King's Guard, Verminologist, Avatar, Dragon & Lich, Priest of the Unknown, Summoner), and an Extra Storage compartment for the Duo Powers.

Catharsis Quickplay Rules

Setup

Pick a Boss deck. Set aside and follow any Setup cards. Set the Boss aside, shuffle the remaining cards, and add the Boss to the bottom of the deck. Place the deck in the middle of the table.
Set the party's Morale to 21.
Each player chooses a Role. Set your Role card to the side. Shuffle the remaining cards, draw 6 powers at random, place them face up, and then set the rest of the deck to the side. Take 6 dice. Follow any other setup on your Role card.

Gameplay

Draw the top card of the Boss deck. a. Trap, Event, or Special: Read the card and follow any directions on it. Players can't use powers. b. Monster or Boss card: Set the Monster's health for 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 players. Fight (see Combat below).
After the card is resolved and before drawing a new Boss deck card, the party may spend 1 Morale to refresh (unflip) all powers and Role cards.

Damage

For each point of damage, choose 1: a. Exhaust (flip) a face up power. b. Discard an exhausted power. It is not replaced. c. If a player has discarded their last power, they are dead. d. Dead players still count for party size (like for Monster health and attacks). If all players are dead, the players lose.
Morale: When first hitting 17, 13, 9, 5, and 1 Morale, suffer the Morale effect listed on the Morale tracker. At 0, the players lose.

Combat

Player Attack Phase a. Each player rolls all their dice. You may reroll any number of dice 2 times. b. Assign dice to the abilitis on any number of your powers. You cannot use multiple abilities on one power. Vertical lines indicate a choice in costs. An ability must be paid in full, and dice cannot be saved for the next round. Activate abilties and Role powers in any order. c. Passive powers are only usable while the Role card is face up. Activate your Flip power by flipping your Role card face down. Role cards can only be unflipped by spending Morale, not by healing. d. Powers preventing damage can prevent damage from players' powers or the foe this turn only. e. After using an ability, exhaust (flip) the power. f. If at least one Monster/Boss is alive, go to Monster/Boss Attack Phase. g. If all Monsters and/or Bosses' health is reduced to 0, the combat is over and the party earns rewards based on the encounter type: i. Monsters: Each player heals 2. ii. Boss: You win the game!
Monster/Boss Attack Phase a. Each Monster and Boss attacks based on the party size. Dead party members count but can't be affected. i. Damage "to the party" is split among the players as they choose.
Refresh Phase a. The party may spend Morale to refresh. b. Return to Player Attack Phase.

Check out the Catharsis tutorial on Cyber Wizard Game's website.

Credits

Game Design & Development: Dave Tomczyk & Art Gregory

Art Direction: Ren Jie (Jane)

Art: Oui and Gillian Ivy

Box insert: Matt Healey

Playtesting: Mary & Fred Tomczyk, Jim Tomczyk, Terry Brandush, Chris Ruley, Alex Gerbium, and all the people we roped into playing!

God Tier Backers:

Briggs and Liara designed by the Bhajan family
Jaden designed by Danielle Giglione
Artrial designed by George Warren

Catharsis Rulebook

Table of Contents

Objective
Setup
Game Setup
Anatomy of Boss Deck Cards
Anatomy of Player Deck Cards
Player Decks
Morale
The Boss Deck
- Counters
Combat
Winning the Game
Variant—Duo Powers
Overview of Player Decks
Overview of Boss Decks
Overview of Boss Challenge Decks
Variant—Random Morale Tier Effects
Storing Your Game
Catharsis Quickplay Rules
- Setup
- Gameplay
- Damage
- Combat
Credits

Objective

You are a group of adventurers called together to hunt down and defeat a corrupted being before your party is killed or overwhelmed by despair.

Setup

Select a Boss to fight and set aside the Boss and any special Setup instruction cards. Instructions on the Setup cards may override normal deck preparation. Otherwise, place the Boss face down in the Boss Deck area. Shuffle the remaining Boss Deck cards and place them face down on top of the Boss. Set this deck in the center of the table.
Each player selects a player deck, sets their Role card to one side, shuffles their deck of powers, and then deals out 6 powers at random to themselves. The Role card and the 6 powers becomes their board. The remainder of their cards form a draw deck they keep face down next to their board.
Each player selects 6 dice. Follow any additional setup rules for your deck as described on your Role card. (For example, Hidorian adds his dice pool tracker to his board.)
Using the Morale tracker, set the Morale to its starting amount based on the challenge level:
- New questors: 22 Morale
- Adventurers: 21 Morale
- Veterans: 18 Morale
- Last ditch effort: 16 Morale*

*Note: This means all players suffer the effects of the Winded effect (everyone suffers 1 damage) before starting the game.

Game Setup

For 1, 3, or 4 players, add or remove player setups.

Anatomy of Boss Deck Cards

Boss Card — Title, flavor text, Boss health, damage from attack, special rules for this combat, and the effect when the Monster or Boss is defeated.

Event Card — Title, flavor text, and the Event effect.

Monster Card — Title, flavor text, Monster health, damage from attack, and other effects.

Trap Card — Title, flavor text, and the Trap effect.

Setup Card — Title and instructions for setup.

Special Card — Title, flavor text, the sacrifice required to acquire the card, damage from attack, activation effects, and special notes.

Anatomy of Player Deck Cards

Role Card — A keyword description, a Passive ability, the name of the character, and a Flip ability.

Power Card — An ability cost, an ability effect, flavor text, a title, and an indicator of choice of costs.

Aiden Power Card — An ability effect, an ability cost, flavor text, and a title.

Briggs and Liara Power Card — A cost for Liara, an ability effect for Liara, a title, a cost for Briggs, and an ability effect for Briggs, plus flavor text.

Fizzleboom and Burrr Power Card — A top ability cost and effect (Fizzleboom's power), a bottom ability cost and effect (Burrr's power), and flavor text.

Player Decks

Each player has a deck unique to them. Each deck has a total of 20 powers and a Role card. (Briggs and Liara have 2 Role cards as they are two players playing as one.)
Each Role card has a Passive ability and a Flip ability. So long as the Role card is face up, the player may use the Passive ability. The Flip ability requires flipping the Role card face down and is usually much stronger, but it prevents using the Passive ability until the Role card is unflipped. Some Passive and Flip abilities can only be used during combat; others can be used at any time.
Once a Role card is flipped facedown, the only way to unflip it is by spending Morale. (See "Morale" below.)
You can never have more than 6 cards on your board at any time. If you are ever given the opportunity to add a power to your board and you already have 6, you must discard a power to add the new card to your board or else discard your new power.
If you are ever told to replace a power, discard that power, then draw a new one and put it in the same spot on your board, unexhausted.
If a player's deck ever runs out of cards and they are instructed to draw, they do not draw any cards.
Abilities almost always require dice to activate them. The symbols on the cards tell you what dice to use:
- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 — Use a die with the indicated number.
- ? — Use a die of any value.
- AA, AAA, etc. — Dice of equal value (pair, 3-of-a-kind, etc.).
- BB — A pair with a different value than other dice used on this ability.
  - If 1s are used to fulfill the AA, you must use a number other than 1 for the BB.
- — [Dimirith's deck] A die with a value determined by the position of the power on the player's board.
As players use their abilities, they will exhaust (flip) the power to indicate that the power can no longer be used, unless the ability says "Does not exhaust." Exhausted powers can be refreshed (unflipped) in several ways:
- If an ability or encounter says "Heal #," one player can refresh a number of powers equal to the amount of healing.
- If the party defeats a monster, every player may refresh up to 2 powers.
- Spending 1 Morale at the end of a combat round or between Boss Deck cards will completely refresh all players' powers and Role cards.
The powers also represent the players' heath. If a player takes a point of damage, they have two options:
- Exhaust an unexhausted power; or
- Discard an exhausted power.
If all powers on a player's board are exhausted and they still have damage they must take, they must discard powers. Players may discard powers instead of exhausting other ones. Be warned—discarded powers are not replaced, so this means your health is permanently lowered. Discarding powers should be a last resort!
Once a player discards their last power, they are dead and cannot help fight battles or take damage for the party. They may still offer advice and provide encouragement to their comrades. Also, they still count for the purposes of determining the difficulty of Boss Deck encounters. So long as Morale isn't completely depleted, and at least one player is still alive, the players collectively can still win.

Morale

Morale starts out at Heroic but steadily gets worse as the hunt takes its toll and the players drain their resolve to continue forward.
As Morale reaches certain levels, it degrades, causing negative effects to the party.
Morale tiers and their corresponding Morale levels, in order:
- Heroic
- Winded — Reveal at 17 Morale
- Battered — Reveal at 13 Morale
- Exhausted — Reveal at 9 Morale
- Desperate — Reveal at 5 Morale
- Hopeless — Reveal at 1 Morale
- Defeated — Reveal at 0 or less Morale

Along the way, players will need to regain access to their powers and Role cards. In-between Boss Deck cards and at the end of each combat round, the players as a group may spend 1 Morale to completely refresh all of their powers and unflip their Role cards. This does not restore any discarded powers. Unexhausted cards are not affected. If spending Morale would cause the Morale tier to change, any effect happens after all powers and Role cards are refreshed.

The Boss Deck

The Boss Deck represents all the dangers, monsters, traps, and more that the party must fight through on their way to defeat the Boss. The Boss Deck is comprised of five different types of cards: Monsters, Traps, Events, Specials, and the Boss. Some Bosses may introduce other types of cards.
Some Boss Decks introduce different kinds of counters. For these, use the universal boss counter tokens.
All Monsters have health and deal damage, and many have special powers.
- A Monster's health is listed with four values. (ex. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4) The first number is the amount of Health the Monster has if the party has just one person. The next is for two players, then three, and finally four. This is determined by how many players started the game, so even if a player has died, the value used doesn't adjust.
- A Monster's damage is usually listed the same way and follows the same rules. However, some monsters do special damage (for example, damaging Morale directly or attacking each player for 2 damage). If only one value is listed for a Monster, that value applies to parties of all sizes.
- Many Monsters have special abilities. These will be listed at the bottom of the card. Be sure to read them before beginning the fight—some affect the setup of the monster or how the players fight. Others happen upon defeating the monster.
Traps and Events are things that happen to the party as they journey towards the main foe. Players may not use their powers when one of these cards is revealed. Traps are deadly challenges the players face, while Events tend to be beneficial or neutral, although some can be harmful. Sometimes Traps and Events offer the party a decision. If the party is tied or can't decide, players can roll off against each other or choose an option at random. Effects listed with slashes (ex. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4) are based on the number of starting players, like Monster health.
Specials offer a player the opportunity to gain a powerful ability at the expense of some of her current powers. Specials say how many powers a person must sacrifice to gain them. It's a delicate balance you are striking: you are trading powers and possibly overall health to gain great strength. Specials always exhaust after use unless they say otherwise. They are not subject to Briggs's requirement of handing used powers to Liara, Fizzleboom & Burrr's Passive ability, or Séalaithe's limitation on when he can use bottom abilities. They can be set aside by Artrial by paying their cost and gaining Preparation counters, but doing so has no effect unless the power has a Preparation effect. Liara may not gain Specials.
After resolving a Boss Deck card but before looking at the next card, players may decide to decrease Morale to heal. This is the party drawing on their fortitude and willpower to push forward through their exhaustion. After revealing the next Boss Deck card, it will be too late—the new encounter is upon you!—and players have missed the chance to recover. So think carefully before revealing the next card!

Counters

Some player's decks utilize counters for their abilities. When a player's Passive or Flip ability references counters, use Player Counters.
When a Boss Deck or a card references using counters or says to create copies of a monster, use Boss Counters.

Combat

During combat with a Monster or a Boss, players use their powers to attack, defend, help others get the dice values they need, and more. A combat round follows this order:

Step 1: Player Attack Phase
- All players roll dice and activate powers.
Step 2: Monster/Boss Attack Phase
- Follow the instructions on the card.
Step 3: Refresh Phase

Step 1: Player Attack Phase

Players attack using their dice to power unexhausted powers (cards) they have on their boards. Each power has multiple abilities on them. Dice represent the chaos of battle; they can represent anything from finding an opening in your opponent's defense, to preparing your defenses, to gathering the necessary magic into a powerful enough weave to activate.
Each player rolls all of their dice. They may reroll any number of dice up to 2 times; after that, none of their dice may be rerolled. Players may roll and reroll at any time this phase.
- Ex. Dave rolls 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, and 6. He's looking to get a 6-of-a-kind to use Unmei's Coup De Grace power to deal 15 damage. He rerolls the 3, 5, and 6 and gets 1, 2, and 4. He rerolls the 2 and 4 and gets 1 and 5. He now has 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5. He's stuck with these dice! Hopefully one of his partners can help him adjust his last die or he has other powers that need these values.
- Ex. Mary and Fred are playing as Leme and Maladaum. Both roll their dice up front. Mary has several abilities that can adjust dice, but she isn't sure which ones Fred might need, so she waits for Fred to complete his rerolling. After his first reroll, he realizes that he almost has enough to activate a power, but one die would need to be adjusted by 2. Mary can either use two powers that adjust by 1 or one power that adjusts by 2. She rerolls twice to see which she will activate.
Players activate abilties by placing their dice on the power. Once an ability has been activated, the dice are set aside (they have been used for the round) and the entire power is exhausted, flipping it face down unless the ability was activated by a role that doesn't exhaust powers or the ability says "Does not exhaust."
For cards with a top and bottom ability, a player may only activate one of those abilities—either they activate the top ability, or they activate the bottom ability. They cannot activate both. Using either exhausts the power.
If an ability has a cost with a line between some of the symbols (ex. 2 | 4), a player chooses one of the costs to fulfill.
Abilities only activate once unless the ability says it may be activated multiple times.
Players may use only their own dice to activate abilities. They cannot share dice unless an ability or encounter explicitly allows it.
Left over dice (those not used to activate abilties by the end of the combat round) are set aside with those that were used. At the start of the next combat round, all of the dice will be rolled again. Players may not "save" dice for future combat rounds.
Players may reroll their dice and activate abilities in any order they wish. Fully resolve each ability once it's activated.
- For example, Art is playing Leme the Druid and Jim is playing Unmei the Samurai. Jim has already used his two rerolls and almost has the dice to activate Assisted Strike's bottom power, which allows him to deal 1 damage and double the damage of another power that deals 3 or less damage, but he has a 5 instead of a 6. Fortunately, Art has just what Jim needs—Spiked Growth, a power that can adjust up to 3 dice by 1. Art just needs to roll a 6, and he still has his 2 rerolls left. The first reroll gets him 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, so he rerolls all of his dice once again. This time he gets 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6—just what he needed! Art activates the top ability of Spiked Growth first, spending 1, 3, and 6, exhausting the power and changing Jim's 5 to a 6. Jim now activates his ability, dealing 1 damage and exhausting his power. Art then uses his 2 and 2 to activate the bottom ability of Leaf Blades that deals 2 damage, which gets doubled thanks to Assisted Strike. By working strategically together, they deal 5 damage to the foe!
Powers can have a range of effects. Below are the most common:
- Deal # damage: Deal that much damage immediately to the Monster or Boss. If there are multiple foes, the player chooses which one each power targets. Players may not split one attack across multiple foes. Powers that have multiple attacks may target different foes with each attack. You can deal more damage than a Monster or Boss has health.
- Prevent # damage: This reduces the amount of damage dealt to a player or to the party this combat round, whether from player abilities or a foe. Unused prevention is lost at the end of the Round.
- Prevent decreasing Morale by #: This reduces the amount Morale is decreased this combat round by the Monster or Boss, but not loss due to refreshing.
- Heal #: A player immediately refreshes that many powers. Healing does not affect Role cards.
- Adjust die/dice by #: Select the listed number of dice and change them up or down by the given number. Dice do not cycle around (e.g., a 1 cannot become a 6). If you cannot make an adjustment in a certain direction, you must either choose a different die or choose a different direction to adjust that die. (For example, if you had to adjust a 2 by 2, you cannot go lower, so you must adjust it upwards to a 4, or you can choose a different die to adjust.) You cannot target already-used dice with this ability.
- Replace a power/Replace this power: Discard a power/Discard this power and draw a new power in its place. The new power is not exhausted.
- If a power says "up to," then you may use the full value listed, or you may use less than that. (For example, "adjust up to 2 dice by up to 2" means you can adjust 0, 1, or 2 dice by 0, 1, or 2 each.) If a power doesn't say "up to" next to a number, you must affect/do that much. (For example, "Heal 3," means you must refresh exactly three powers.)
If a power refers to "target," that means any elible target in play. For example, "target ability" means any other ability on any player's board. Some effects, like Heal or Prevent # damage, let you assign the effect to any player unless they say otherwise.
When you reduce a Monster or Boss to zero health, resolve any On Defeat abilties.
If all Monsters and/or Bosses in an encounter are defeated, the party has defeated their foes! Each player gets to refresh up to 2 powers. Players may not choose Role cards to refresh. Otherwise, proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Monster/Boss Attack Phase

Read the Damage line of the Monster or Boss card(s) and follow the instructions there.
- If an attack specifies a player (ex. "Deal 5 damage to a player."), all of the damage targets one player of the party's choice. If that player dies before taking the full amount of damage, the extra damage is dealt to another player. Continue this until all damage has been dealt.
- If an attack specifies "to the party," the players get to decide how to divide the damage among themselves. (Example: There are 3 players who encounter a monster with, "Deal 5 damage to the party." The players may assign all 5 damage to one player or split it between two or three players.) A player may not be assigned more damage than they have health.
If the players are all killed, the party has lost.
If Morale reaches 0 as a result of a Monster or Boss attack, the party has lost, no matter how healthy they may be.

Step 3: Refresh Phase

After the Monster or Boss has attacked and before players roll their dice starting a new round, the party may decrease Morale by 1 to fully refresh their powers and Role cards. This is the only way to refresh an exhausted Role card in combat. Be careful—trying to keep everyone in perfect shape can quickly drain Morale, but not refreshing often enough will result in the party being unable to fight effectively.
Return to the Player Attack Phase and continue fighting until the final Monster or Boss is defeated.

Winning the Game

Variant—Duo Powers

Duo powers are powers shared by two players. This can lead to a greater level of strategy and interaction as each player can activate the power by themselves, but when both work together, they can unleash a powerful effect. But all power comes at a cost...
Players may choose to join with a duo power by doing the following:
- Two players must agree to use a duo power—duo powers cannot be given to just one player.
- When creating their boards, each player draws one fewer power for each duo power they are part of.
- Then find the duo power connecting the pair and set it between the two players.
Duo powers act as regular powers with the following rules:
- Duo powers cannot be replaced. For Briggs and Liara, they occupy a space on Briggs's board, and are not handed to Liara when used.
- Either player may flip the power face down or discard it when taking damage.
  - For example, Dawn, playing Maladaum, and Danielle, playing Leme each take a point of damage from a Trap. Either Dawn or Danielle can choose to exhaust their shared duo power to take the one point of damage. Alternatively, they can both choose to deal the damage to their duo power, discarding it.
  - Fizzleboom and Burrr cannot use their Passive ability on a duo power.
- Discarded duo powers can never be replaced. If an effect would let one or both players gain an extra power to replace a lost duo power, they instead draw a power from their deck and add it to their board as normal.
- Each player may only pay the cost of the relevant half of their shared duo power.
  - For example, on the duo power shared by Leme and Maladaum, the player playing Leme can only activate the top half while the player playing Maladaum can only activate the bottom half.
- Unlike normal powers where a player may only activate the top or the bottom, the two players can choose to activate both the top and bottom powers at the same time. If they do, they gain the bonus specified on the card.

Overview of Player Decks

Aiden Azazel, The Tainted Bard

Aiden is a bard, and like all bards, he uses songs to alter the world. As such, you don't have bottom powers—all of your cards have only one ability available, but the ability changes as you use the power. Your powers all start at Level I. As you use them, essentially singing the next verse, they will rotate to higher levels. Eventually, your powers will reach their peak at Level IV, which yields powerful and devastating effects. But once a song is complete, it loses all magical power, meaning you discard any Level IV power you use.
When you activate an ability, you then rotate the power to the next level by turning the power 90 degrees counterclockwise. You can only use the power that is currently at the top of your card.
When a power is exhausted (through damage, traps, or Monster or Boss abilities) and then refreshed, your power is refreshed at Level I. The same happens when a power is replaced or added to your board—it always begins at Level I. You can't start singing from the middle of the song!
Your Passive ability lets you power up your cards to the next higher level. Your Flip ability lets you advance one of your powers up two levels or adjust up to two powers down one level. Use these two abilities to help keep your powers at the most effective level.
You have the ability to use a single card more than once each turn, so long as the power has changed levels since it was last activated and you pay the new cost. Be careful, though—too many high level powers will mean you'll have to choose between discarding powers or doing nothing on your turn.

Artrial, Chef General of the Divine Army

All great chefs know that baking the perfect meal is all about timing, and your deck reflects that. You have the unique ability to set your powers aside after paying the top cost instead of triggering the power. This lets you "bake" the power, as at the start of each combat round, your Passive ability lets you add a Preparation counter to two set aside powers. Your powers gain extra effects that get stronger the longer they sit.
Also like baking, you can't pull out something underbaked. A set aside power needs at least two Preparation counters on it, although you can let it sit there longer to reach perfection. When you decide to activate a set aside power, you get to choose which ability you trigger.
This power and flexibility comes at a cost, though. Set aside powers don't count towards your health, so each one you set aside brings you closer to death. And once a power is set aside, it's stuck for at least 2 combat rounds. You can't add a Preparation counter the turn its set aside, and you can only add 1 counter each round. You have a safety valve—you can use your Flip power to add a Preparation counter to any number of set aside powers and then trigger them, no matter how many each power has.

Briggs and Liara, The Eternal Companions

Briggs loves Liara more than anything in the world, and Liara loves Briggs just as much. When Liara died, she could not bear to leave her beloved companion, and so she lingers, harnessing the essences of monsters to infuse Briggs with the strength to protect him. And he, ever loyal to Liara, now strives to protect what she holds dear. Briggs and Liara's deck is perhaps the most unique deck as it requires two people to play. They share one deck, and they are constantly passing powers back and forth.
Liara is the spirit. She isn't physically there and cannot take damage or be affected by Boss deck cards, but she has two very important abilities. The first is that she binds the essence of monsters, preparing them for Briggs to use. She does this by paying the top cost of the power, then placing it in an empty space on Briggs's board. Her second ability, her Passive, is to offer small boosts to Briggs (and sometimes other players). She has to balance Brigg's need for new powers with providing the boosts he needs to protect himself and defeat his foes. When using her Flip ability, she can trigger the boosts more easily and multiple times, either giving Briggs a big benefit or offering a wide variety of smaller ones.
The player controlling Briggs uses the essences Liara gives him to fight, but doing so uses up the power of the essence. Each time Briggs uses an ability, he gives it back to Liara to put on the bottom of her deck. Briggs's Passive lets him either prevent or heal one extra damage or deal one extra damage when using a power for the round. His Flip ability gives Liara a bit of a breather—he won't discard any powers for the round, giving Liara the ability to focus on her boosts or replenishing an exhausted board.
Be careful about how many abilities Briggs uses; if Liara can't replace them all in a round, Briggs will be missing health when the enemy attacks. And when Briggs discards a power due to damage or an effect, he removes one of his powers from the game and the space is permanently blank—Liara can't fill it with a power. If Briggs is instructed to discard powers from his deck, Liara will discard the powers instead. If Briggs is told to replace powers, Briggs returns a power to Liara, and Liara gets to hand Briggs a power without paying its cost. If Briggs ever has no powers, he dies, and Liara can't resurrect him.
Make sure to constantly communicate. Liara can supply Briggs with a range of abilities, but strategizing with Briggs about what will be useful to have is more effective than just handing powers over. You can also consider leaving a space on Briggs's board open so that Liara can hand Briggs a relevant power for the round. And don't be afraid to use your Flip powers; whether adventuring by themselves or as part of a team, when both players use their Flip abilities, they can swing the battle to the party's favor.

Dimirith Raizen, The Transmutor

Dimirith is a cave elf, although it grows harder to see this with each spell he casts. He sacrifices pieces of his body to power his spells. But what he gives up gets replaced, giving him access to new powers.
You are a "jack of all trades" with the power to master any of them… for an instant. Your deck has a lot of different abilities, and they will change often, so your role in the party will evolve over time.
When setting out your powers, assign the powers the numbers 1-6. (Only one power per number.) Your powers require you to spend # dice, where # = the number assigned to the power.
Your powers work differently in another way, too. On the top half of each power card is your base power. On the bottom half of each card are your "super" powers—they take the base ability and crank them up to 11!
Be warned that activating your bottom powers, while much more powerful than your base power, causes you to then replace that power. Such power is fleeting…
When a power is replaced, it requires the same number on the dice to activate as the card it replaces. For example, if you replace a power that requires 2s to activate, the new power also requires 2s to activate.
Your Passive ability grants you access to the bottom half of your cards. Your Flip ability allows you or one of your allies to replace one of their powers. Helping modify other players' boards is useful as new powers come into play ready to use—a quick way to help keep the party going a bit longer.

Fizzleboom the Gnome and Burrr the Ogre—The Dynamic Duo

After Fizzleboom's teleport spell landed him in the path of Burrr's swing, Burrr felt incredible guilt and promised to help Fizzleboom. Now they work together as one unit, each one stepping in to take advantage of the opennings the other creates.
Your cards don't exhaust when they are used. Rather, they have the unique ability to rotate (turn 180 degrees), giving you access to two new abilities. That means you can activate the same card multiple times each turn… if you can get the dice you need. Unlike other roles, all of your powers require specific dice, and none of them have multiple options. So strategizing which dice you want to reroll is import for you, and partnering with roles that can manipulate dice can help a lot.
While your Role card is face up, your Passive ability makes you replace a power for each point of damage you take. This is both a blessing and a curse. While it's active, you don't have to worry about taking damage—you'll always have six powers active. However, if your deck runs out of cards, you start discarding powers instead of replacing them, so balancing out when you have your Passive ability active or flipped is going to be important.
Your Flip ability on your Role card allows you to grab any discarded power and put it on the bottom of your deck. And after you flip your Role card, you no longer have to worry about replacing cards, so use this to help you manage your deck.
Another tool you have in preventing rampant power replacement is that some of your abilities give you the power to prevent damage to yourself (but not others). Activate enough of them, and you can help your team avoid damage. But doing so means you're not dealing damage.

Hidorian Aligana, The Fate Wizard

Hidorian is a nephilim, the offspring of an angel and a demon. He was gifted a deck that alters fate by his parents. But they gave it to him too young, and now he is a jaded young adult seeking adventure.
Your goal is to store up dice that you can use for devastating attacks later. Note that Hidorian uses his dice much differently than others. Hidorian has a pool for each value of die. At the start of the game, these begin with one die each. (So, one 1, one 2, one 3, one 4, one 5, and one 6.)
Your cards are split into a top that says "Store" and a bottom that says "Retrieve." Store powers trigger at the end of the Player Attack Phase. They allow you to put the dice on them into the reserve. (For example, if Mary has 2, 2, and 5 on Store abilities, she'll wait until all other powers have been activated and then put two counters in her 2 die and one in her 5 die pools.) Dice being stored cannot be retrieved that turn. Abilities that store only one die don't exhaust, allowing you to use them every turn. Just be warned: Using them to store dice prohibits you from using their bottom powers!
Retrieve powers can be activated normally during the players' turn. To power these, you must use dice from your pools. (For example, if a power says, "Retrieve 135," you need to have a 1, a 3, and a 5 in your pools and then retrieve counters from each of them.) Remember: You cannot retrieve dice you rolled this turn—they aren't stored yet!
Your Passive role power lets you store a die of your choice as each Boss deck card is revealed, slowly replenishing your pools. Your Flip ability lets you draw from your pools to help your friends activate their most powerful abilities. Just be warned: While your Role card is flipped, you do not gain the benefits of your Passive ability and you can't retrieve dice to activate your powers! (But you can still store dice.)

Jaden, The Unfortunate Farmer

Tragic as being infected by a poisonous fungus is, it's made Jaden a really effective fighter. He already has natural strength from all the farming he did, and the fungus has only strengthened his blows.
What's truly devastating, though, are the Spore counters you put on your foes. Spore counters deal 1 damage at the start of the combat round, so while you're pounding your foes into the ground, the fungus will be helping turn them into compost. Your Passive supports this: Whenever a Monster or Boss damages you, Spores get all over them, so you can act as a front-line fighter or as the party tank. And if things get really desperate (or it's going to be a long fight), you can trigger your Flip ability to deal yourself damage as you encourage the fungus to spray spores on your foe—but harming you as your body erupts from the force.
Some of your powers let you take on a Spore counter to boost their effects. And since Jaden has been living with the fungus so long, he's developed a natural immunity to it… to an extent. If you have too many, though, the fungus starts wreaking havoc with your body.
After the adrenaline of a battle leaves you, the fungus subsides a bit, reducing the number of Spore counters you have by 1. This gives you a bit of breathing room with powering up your attacks.

Leme Bal'Lura, The Ancient Druid

Leme is thousands of years old, one of the first elves to ever assume the mantle of a druid. She can manipulate the natural world as easily as breathing. And though she cares not at all for the humanoid races, she does care about the corruption threatening her forest.
One of your goals is to help others get the dice they need to activate their most powerful abilities. More than a few of your abilities help people adjust dice. This means it can be good to wait and see what other people need before determining if you need to reroll your dice. Using your abilities on yourself is a bit too costly to be effective, so don't try to go it alone unless you really like a challenge.
You also can deal some damage, prevent damage, and in general help others out. You're like a battle medic—someone who can help others easily, help themselves with more difficulty, and is able to support other needs as required.
Your Passive lets you extend your ability to adjust dice at a steep cost, but it's there and might be the difference between life or death. Helping a teammate to adjust one more die might be what lets you deal the final blow to a foe or trigger an ability to prevent damage. Your Active ability, though, everyone wants all the time. You transform one die of each player into a wild die. Just be aware that after using it, you lose access to your Passive. You're trading your ability to adjust dice as needed for flexibility in the moment.

Maladaum Bonum—The Fallen Paladin

Maladaum was and still is one of the most pious of his order. But the armor he found in the church's reliquary was not just decorative. Now he must fight against the armor. He fights to protect others; it fights to protect him.
Your goal is to give the other party members the breathing room they need to be as effective as possible. Some of your powers have no cost for the bottom half—they are activated simply by exhausting them. You can use these to help other players (or yourself) from taking damage during combat, but you also have the ability to prevent damage during Trap and Event encounters. That's really powerful—you're the only role that can act during those times.
Your Passive ability lets you reduce damage from a foe by 1 (to a minimum of 1) and store that energy up to be unleashed later when you really need it. Your Flip ability takes all that stored energy and blasts your foe with it. But doing so leaves you exhausted, and you can't store damage again until you refresh your Role card.
Your top powers are pretty strong damage dealers, so think carefully about whether you want to use your powers to help prevent damage or if you want to help defeat the foe faster.

Séalaithe, The Demon Hunter

Séalaithe swore to hunt down the demon who killed his teacher. Unfortunately his quest is doomed to fail. Séalaithe is a demon hunter who doesn't know he is possessed by the very demon he seeks. He is two souls in one body. This means you have a very interesting balance to strike. The demon comes out when you are near death, so you want to be injured. But being near death is just one step away from dead, so maybe you don't want that… The interesting thing is that you can use your bottom powers—and they're strong, so you'll want to use them!—when you have only one or two powers unexhausted.
To make things even more interesting for you, your Passive ability lets you choose to keep your powers flipped in order to gain Rage counters, which you can spend to power up your abilities when you use your Flip ability. So if you forego resting, your attacks can become even more devastating. But skipping healing means you need to refresh more often.
You may also want to consider sacrificing some of your powers so that you are that much closer to tapping into your demonic power, even if you decide to do a full refresh or benefit from some healing. It means fewer options and being closer to death, but being in a state of perpetual demonic power might help defeat your foes fast enough for that to not matter.

Tenzin Xilan, The Last of His Kind

As a monk who has honed his strikes for thousands of years, the one thing you can do really, really well is hit things. A lot. Your abilities are pretty powerful, and the Combo power means you can pay different costs for the same power, letting you trigger it multiple times before it becomes exhausted. Since you can use most or all of your dice to superpower one ability, you may not need to refresh as often, but only if you get the right dice.
Your goal is to hit hard and often, and your Passive and Flip abilities reflect that. Your Passive ability lets you build up Phantom Hit counters whenever you trigger a power, and you spend those counters to hit even more. Your Flip ability is an even better version of this, where every two attacks you make in a round lets you hit again. Given that some of your powers make multiple attacks and you have your Phantom Hit attacks, you can unleash a whirlwind of devastation.

Unmei Hanaka, The Gifted Samurai

Unmei lost her arm when she won a swordsmanship competition and the organizers found out she was a girl. Since then, she has trained even harder. She replaced her missing arm with a magical one, and now she is a whirlwind of death.
Your goal is to deal as much damage as you can each turn. Your Passive ability allows you to use her wakizashi to get in one extra attack, which is a great ability on its own, but you really will enjoy using your Flip ability—everyone's attacks get more powerful as Unmei moves like a blossom on the wind! Just be careful; using it when only a couple of attacks are activated doesn't help much, and you need to use it before players activate their abilities—activating it after attacks have already taken place doesn't retroactively help them out.
You have some of the greatest flexibility of all the roles because you have quite a few ? and ?? cost powers, allowing you to use any die value on them, but they also tend to be fairly weak abilities. To hit hard, you have to get some pretty big costs lined up. Working with others who can manipulate your dice can make getting damage out easier, but you may find that you need to refresh more often than others.
Be aware that you aren't a one-trick pony; you have some limited ability to adjust dice or prevent damage, so think of yourself as more of a skilled warrior than a berserker. Then again, a dead enemy can't strike back…

Overview of Boss Decks

Corrupted Horse

Demon-eyed Sniper

Forest Elemental

Godmind

Holy Assassins

Horrific Mass

King's Guard

Verminologist

Overview of Boss Challenge Decks

Avatar

Dragon & Lich

Priest of the Unknown

Summoner

Variant—Random Morale Tier Effects

Optional Rule—New Horrors: Automatically reroll any result you previously rolled.
Optional Rule—Devil's Luck: The party may spend 1 Morale to reroll a result.

New Questor Difficulty

17 Morale: Roll on Table 1
13 Morale: Roll on Table 1
9 Morale: Roll on Table 1
5 Morale: Roll on Table 2
1 Morale: Roll on Table 2

Adventurer Difficulty

17 Morale: Roll on Table 1
13 Morale: Roll on Table 1
9 Morale: Roll on Table 2
5 Morale: Roll on Table 2
1 Morale: Roll on Table 3

Veteran Difficulty

17 Morale: Roll on Table 1
13 Morale: Roll on Table 1
9 Morale: Roll on Table 2
5 Morale: Roll on Table 3
1 Morale: Roll on Table 3

Last-Ditch Effort Difficulty

17 Morale: Roll on Table 1
13 Morale: Roll on Table 2
9 Morale: Roll on Table 2
5 Morale: Roll on Table 3
1 Morale: Roll on Table 3

Random Morale Effect Table 1

During the next combat round, players are unable to reroll any dice.
All players are dealt 1 damage.
All players are dealt 2 damage.
The party is dealt 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 damage.
Decrease Morale by 1.
The next combat round, all players roll 2 fewer dice.

Random Morale Effect Table 2

Permanent Effect: It now costs 2 Morale to refresh.
Each player discards a power.
Decrease Morale by 3.
All players are dealt 3 damage.
Permanent Effect: Choose a player. All damage dealt to that player from any source is increased by 1.
The next combat round, players roll 4 fewer dice.

Random Morale Effect Table 3

Permanent Effect: All players' attacks deal half damage, rounded down.
All players lose 1 die.
All players discard 2 unexhausted powers or 3 exhausted powers, whichever affects more powers.
All players are dealt 4 damage.
Permanent Effect: Choose a player. All numerical effects on that players' powers are reduced to 1.
The next combat round, the Monster or Boss attacks first.

Storing Your Game

Catharsis Quickplay Rules

Setup

Pick a Boss deck. Set aside and follow any Setup cards. Set the Boss aside, shuffle the remaining cards, and add the Boss to the bottom of the deck. Place the deck in the middle of the table.
Set the party's Morale to 21.
Each player chooses a Role. Set your Role card to the side. Shuffle the remaining cards, draw 6 powers at random, place them face up, and then set the rest of the deck to the side. Take 6 dice. Follow any other setup on your Role card.

Gameplay

Draw the top card of the Boss deck. a. Trap, Event, or Special: Read the card and follow any directions on it. Players can't use powers. b. Monster or Boss card: Set the Monster's health for 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 players. Fight (see Combat below).
After the card is resolved and before drawing a new Boss deck card, the party may spend 1 Morale to refresh (unflip) all powers and Role cards.

Damage

For each point of damage, choose 1: a. Exhaust (flip) a face up power. b. Discard an exhausted power. It is not replaced. c. If a player has discarded their last power, they are dead. d. Dead players still count for party size (like for Monster health and attacks). If all players are dead, the players lose.
Morale: When first hitting 17, 13, 9, 5, and 1 Morale, suffer the Morale effect listed on the Morale tracker. At 0, the players lose.

Combat

Player Attack Phase a. Each player rolls all their dice. You may reroll any number of dice 2 times. b. Assign dice to the abilitis on any number of your powers. You cannot use multiple abilities on one power. Vertical lines indicate a choice in costs. An ability must be paid in full, and dice cannot be saved for the next round. Activate abilties and Role powers in any order. c. Passive powers are only usable while the Role card is face up. Activate your Flip power by flipping your Role card face down. Role cards can only be unflipped by spending Morale, not by healing. d. Powers preventing damage can prevent damage from players' powers or the foe this turn only. e. After using an ability, exhaust (flip) the power. f. If at least one Monster/Boss is alive, go to Monster/Boss Attack Phase. g. If all Monsters and/or Bosses' health is reduced to 0, the combat is over and the party earns rewards based on the encounter type: i. Monsters: Each player heals 2. ii. Boss: You win the game!
Monster/Boss Attack Phase a. Each Monster and Boss attacks based on the party size. Dead party members count but can't be affected. i. Damage "to the party" is split among the players as they choose.
Refresh Phase a. The party may spend Morale to refresh. b. Return to Player Attack Phase.

Check out the Catharsis tutorial on Cyber Wizard Game's website.

Credits

Game Design & Development: Dave Tomczyk & Art Gregory

Art Direction: Ren Jie (Jane)

Art: Oui and Gillian Ivy

Box insert: Matt Healey

Playtesting: Mary & Fred Tomczyk, Jim Tomczyk, Terry Brandush, Chris Ruley, Alex Gerbium, and all the people we roped into playing!

God Tier Backers:

Briggs and Liara designed by the Bhajan family
Jaden designed by Danielle Giglione
Artrial designed by George Warren

Catharsis

Catharsis Rulebook

Table of Contents

Objective

Setup

Game Setup

Anatomy of Boss Deck Cards

Anatomy of Player Deck Cards

Player Decks

— [Dimirith's deck] A die with a value determined by the position of the power on the player's board.

Morale

The Boss Deck

Counters

Combat

Step 1: Player Attack Phase

Step 2: Monster/Boss Attack Phase

Step 3: Refresh Phase

Winning the Game

Variant—Duo Powers

Overview of Player Decks

Aiden Azazel, The Tainted Bard

Artrial, Chef General of the Divine Army

Briggs and Liara, The Eternal Companions

Dimirith Raizen, The Transmutor

Fizzleboom the Gnome and Burrr the Ogre—The Dynamic Duo

Hidorian Aligana, The Fate Wizard

Jaden, The Unfortunate Farmer

Leme Bal'Lura, The Ancient Druid

Maladaum Bonum—The Fallen Paladin

Séalaithe, The Demon Hunter

Tenzin Xilan, The Last of His Kind

Unmei Hanaka, The Gifted Samurai

Overview of Boss Decks

Corrupted Horse

Demon-eyed Sniper

Forest Elemental

Godmind

Holy Assassins

Horrific Mass

King's Guard

Verminologist

Overview of Boss Challenge Decks

Avatar

Dragon & Lich

Priest of the Unknown

Summoner

Variant—Random Morale Tier Effects

Storing Your Game

Catharsis Quickplay Rules

Setup

Gameplay

Damage

Combat

Credits

Catharsis

Catharsis Rulebook

Table of Contents

Objective

Setup

Game Setup

Anatomy of Boss Deck Cards

Anatomy of Player Deck Cards

Player Decks

— [Dimirith's deck] A die with a value determined by the position of the power on the player's board.

Morale

The Boss Deck

Counters

Combat

Step 1: Player Attack Phase

Step 2: Monster/Boss Attack Phase

Step 3: Refresh Phase

Winning the Game

Variant—Duo Powers

Overview of Player Decks

Aiden Azazel, The Tainted Bard

Artrial, Chef General of the Divine Army

Briggs and Liara, The Eternal Companions

Dimirith Raizen, The Transmutor

Fizzleboom the Gnome and Burrr the Ogre—The Dynamic Duo

Hidorian Aligana, The Fate Wizard