Cónclave Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Objective
• Components
• Game Setup
• Structure of a Round
  • 1. Give Influence to Another Player (Optional)
  • 2. Send a Mage as an Emissary to the Conclave
  • 3. Gain Followers
  • 4. Draw a Card
  • 5. Refill the Conclave of Mages
• Magic Crisis
• End of the Game
• Scoring

Objective

During the game you will send Emissaries to the Conclave to gain control of at least one Magic, and try to convince the other Mages of your leadership skills. To do so, you will have to attract followers of each Magic type to your Influence Zone. But beware: at the end of the game the followers that belong to a Magic you do not control will be disappointed, and will work to your disadvantage. In Conclave, the player with the least Resentment Points at the end of the game is the winner.

Components

The game includes 72 cards that represent the Mages at the Conclave. Each Mage belongs to a Brotherhood (Crow, Gazelle, and Wild Boar) and masters one Magic (color) with a certain amount of Influence (1 to 5). Example: a Mage belonging to the Gazelle Brotherhood with 5 Influence over Mind Magic (purple).

There are 6 types of Magic, each of a different color:

• Beige: Earth Magic, linked to the energy that creates life.
• Blue: Wind Magic, which dictates the fortune of those who dominate it.
• Purple: Mind Magic, capable of forcing ideas on others or erasing memories.
• Orange: Wisdom Magic brings back memories or grants visions of the future.
• Red: Love & War Magic, capable of creating the strongest alliances or the worst conflicts.
• Green: Nature Magic is the magic of the natural world and all the entities that dwell in it.

No Magic is more important or powerful than the rest.

Game Setup

Follow these steps in order:

1. Shuffle the 72-card deck.
2. Remove cards from the deck at random, according to the number of players: for 4 players, remove 6 cards; for 3 players, remove 12 cards; for 2 players, remove 18 cards. Place all removed cards back in the game box, without looking at them. (Know that... you can increase play time by removing less cards during game setup. You can even play with all the cards.)
3. Deal 4 cards face down to each player to form their starting hands. Although these cards are secret, players will always see the back of the cards which shows their type of Magic.
4. Create the Conclave of Mages (1) by taking 12 cards from the deck and laying them out in a 4x4 grid of cards with four empty spaces in the center.
5. Separate the rest of the cards into two roughly equal decks which will be the Draw Decks. Place each deck on opposite sides of the Conclave of Mages (2). Spread out the cards so every player can see each card's Magic type in both decks.
6. Decide which corner of the Conclave of Mages will be the starting corner (3). This information will be very useful during the game.
7. Choose the first player at random.

Now you're ready and set to enjoy the game!

Structure of a Round

The game is played in rounds until the end of game conditions are met. During a round, each player completes a whole turn, followed by the player to their left. Each player's turn is divided into 5 phases, played in the following order:

1. Give influence to another player (optional).
2. Send a Mage as an Emissary to the Conclave.
3. Gain Followers.
4. Draw a card.
5. Refill the Conclave of Mages.

1. Give Influence to Another Player (Optional)

If you wish, choose one of the piles of followers in your Influence Zone and place it in the Influence Zone of a player of your choice with no such followers. You can only give away one pile of followers per turn. The player who is given the pile must accept it.

Example: at the beginning of their turn, Player 1 can give Player 3 the beige followers because there are no Beige Magic followers in Player 3's Influence Zone. Player 1 cannot give them to Player 2, since they already have beige followers.

2. Send a Mage as an Emissary to the Conclave

Send one of the Mages in your hand to the Conclave as an Emissary. The card must be placed face up in an empty space, adjacent to another card. Cards are considered adjacent when they are touching on one side. Cards can never be placed outside the 4x4 grid created during setup.

3. Gain Followers

Check whether your Emissary has succeeded in convincing the other Mages to join you.

First check adjacent mages on the same column as your Emissary. If they add up to 10 or more Influence Points, your Emissary's arguments have been effective. Take the Mages that share Magic type (color) or Brotherhood (species) with your Emissary. If they do not add up to 10 Influence Points you have failed in convincing other Mages to join you.

Repeat this process with the adjacent mages on the same row as your Emissary.

Your Emissary joins the Conclave and stays as another Mage.

All the Mages you convinced are now your followers. Arrange them in piles according to their Magic (color) and place the piles in your Influence Zone.

Keep in mind... After placing the card, the player checks the column. Only the purple 4 at the top of the column counts. As the sum total is 9, the player gets no followers so far. However, when checking the row, the total sum is 18, so the player gets all the followers of the matching Magic or Brotherhood: the green 4 and the red 4.

If you place an Emissary in the last space of the Conclave and don't get any followers, a Magic Crisis occurs (see Magic Crisis).

4. Draw a Card

Draw the top card from one of the Draw Decks and keep it in your hand.

Remember... If one deck runs out of cards, you must draw cards from the remaining deck. If the second Draw Deck also runs out of cards, it triggers the End of the Game (see End of the Game).

5. Refill the Conclave of Mages

At the end of your turn, count the empty spaces of the Conclave. If there are more than four, you must place new Mages. Draw cards from the same deck you drew your card from and refill the Conclave until there are only four spaces left.

Start from the starting corner as if it were the top left corner of the Conclave. Place the cards from left to right and top to bottom. If the deck runs out of cards, draw cards from the other deck. If both decks run out of cards during this phase, the End of the Game is triggered.

Example: During phase 4, the player drew one card from the deck on the left. Since there are more than 4 empty spaces in the Conclave, the player must refill the Conclave with two cards from that same deck. In phase 5 cards are placed in the empty space until four spaces are left. These cards are drawn from the same deck the player previously drew from. Starting from the top left corner, the cards are placed from left to right and top to bottom. In this example, only two cards are placed in the first two rows, leaving four empty spaces.

Magic Crisis

A Magic Crisis occurs after phase 3 (Gain followers) if the Conclave is full. This happens if you place an Emissary in the last available space and do not convince a single Mage to join you.

In this situation, take the Mages that belong to a different Brotherhood in the same column and row as your Emissary.

Example: Since the player has filled the Conclave, but failed to convince any Mages, there is a Magic Crisis. The player will take the mages that do NOT belong to the same Brotherhood as their Emissary (on the same column and row) and place them in their Influence Zone as usual.

(Note: the printed rulebook says the Crisis occurs "after phase 4 (Gain followers)" although Gain Followers is phase 3; transcribed here as phase 3 per the phase list.)

End of the Game

The End of the Game triggers when both Draw Decks run out of cards. Each player plays one last turn to send an Emissary to the Conclave. By the end of their last turn, players should only have three cards in hand, which they will place in their Influence Zone.

Scoring

Add the Influence Points of each pile in your Influence Zone separately. Then compare the total Influence of each pile of Magic, one by one, with the other players. Turn over each pile of Magic you own with more Influence than the other players. If there is a tie, all tied players turn over that pile of Magic. A turned over pile of Magic indicates that the player has gained control over that type of Magic.

If a player fails to gain control of at least one Magic, they are automatically eliminated and won't score any points.

Players add the Influence Points of each of their face up followers still in their Influence Zone. These followers are disappointed in you for not gaining control of their matching Magic. Their total Influence now works to your disadvantage and turns into Resentment Points. The player with the least Resentment Points wins the game. In the case of a tie, the tied player with the most followers wins the game.

Examples: Player 1 has followers of every magic, but hasn't gained control of any magic. Therefore Player 1 gets 27 Resentment Points. Player 2 did better during the game. They managed to score the highest amount of Influence Points in every magic, except for blue. Player 2 gets 7 Resentment Points. Player 3, with less cards, gets an even better score. They gain control of the orange magic, after resolving a tie with Player 2. Since Player 3 only scores a total of 5 Resentment Points, they are declared the winner.