The Cursed Castle Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Playtime
• Winning and Losing
• Components
• Setup
• Overview of Play
  • 1. Draw and Place Dungeon Cards
  • 2. Roll Enemy Dice and Place Them on Enemy Cards
  • 3. Roll Hero Dice
  • 4. Use Dice and Cubes to Activate Cards
    • Ability Cards
    • Equipment Cards
    • Hero Cards
    • Example Turn
  • 5. Assess Results
    • Hero Results
    • Dungeon Results
    • Red Border Cards
  • 6. Cleanup
• Captives, Chests, Shrines, and the Merchant
• Boss Fights
  • Boss Modifiers
• Advanced Modes
  • Wandering Monsters
  • Two Bosses
  • The Gauntlet
  • Full Party
• Dungeon Card Effects
• Hero Card Effects
  • Attack Bonuses
• Ability Card Effects
  • Bottom Actions
  • Top Actions
• Equipment Reference
• Item Reference

Overview

The Cursed Castle is a solo, rogue-like dice-rolling adventure. Lead your heroes as they descend deeper into the abandoned halls, using dice manipulation and clever resource management. Discover powerful artifacts, fight through legions of vile creatures, and most importantly – survive to the end of the dungeon!

Playtime

The game includes four dungeons that each take about 45 minutes to play through.

Winning and Losing

You win if you defeat the final boss at the bottom of the dungeon deck.

You lose if:

• All your heroes die, get corrupted, or go insane.
• All 3 of your Hero dice are locked on Enemy cards.

Components

• 4 Dungeon decks (21 cards each)
• 9 Wandering Monster cards
• 6 Hero cards
• 1 Merchant card (used in all dungeons)
• 6 Ability cards
• 7 Boss cards
• 15 Equipment cards
• 20 cubes & 11 dice
• 9 Modifier cards
• 22 tokens & 6 discs

Setup

1. Prepare the Dungeon Deck:
   • A: Select the dungeon you want to face. (Dungeon cards are numbered 1 to 4 in their bottom right corners.)
   • B: Remove the dungeon's mini-boss (the card with a blue border).
   • C: Shuffle dungeon cards to form the dungeon deck.
   • E: Place your dungeon's mini-boss on top of the merchant card (the only dungeon card without a dungeon number), and insert these two cards somewhere in the middle of the dungeon deck.
   • F: Select or randomly choose a boss card and place it at the bottom of the deck. Put the remaining boss cards back in the box.
2. Place the 6 ability cards with their white-border side up.
3. Select or randomly choose 3 hero cards, and place them in front of you with their white border side up. (If this is your first game we suggest starting with the Magus, Champion, and Ranger.) Place the remaining heroes in easy reach.
4. Find each hero's starting Equipment card, and place them above the hero cards (each hero's picture is on the back of their specific equipment card). Note that the Artist gets 2 Equipment cards.
5. Shuffle all other Equipment cards together, and place them in a face down stack near the ability cards.
6. If using a Boss Modifier deck (labeled Hard, Nightmare, and Torment), shuffle the cards for your chosen difficulty together and place them near the ability cards.
7. Place the 3 Hero (white) dice and 3 Enemy (black) dice in front of you, leaving space above them for a row of 4 dungeon cards.
8. Place the remaining dice, Bleed and Stun tokens, Poison and Corruption discs, and all cubes in nearby piles.
9. Mix the Item tokens face down, and place them within easy reach.

Overview of Play

Cursed Castle is played over a series of rounds, and ends when you reach the final boss at the bottom of the dungeon deck. Each round consists of the following phases:

1. Draw and place dungeon cards
2. Roll enemy dice and place them on enemy cards
3. Roll hero dice
4. Use dice and cubes to activate ability and equipment cards
5. Assess results
6. Cleanup

1. Draw and Place Dungeon Cards

• The dungeon has four spaces for cards. The first three spaces are for enemies, and the fourth space is for traps, chests, special enemies, etc. (red-border cards)
• At the beginning of a round, draw cards from the dungeon deck until the first three spaces have an enemy.
• Whenever a red-bordered card is drawn, place it in the fourth space. If multiple red-border cards are drawn, place them on top of each other - only one red-border card can be active at a time.
• When a Barricade card is drawn, immediately draw another card and place it on top of the Barricade so that only the bottom section of it is showing. This adds one more cube you must use to defeat that enemy.

2. Roll Enemy Dice and Place Them on Enemy Cards

• Roll the three black dice. These dice have six sides but only three numbers: 1, 2, 3.
• Place ones on top of the enemy card in the first dungeon space, twos on top of the enemy card in the second space, and threes on top of the enemy card in the third space.
• A card may have more than one die on it, and all cards with a die are considered "primed," explained in phase 5.

3. Roll Hero Dice

• Roll the three white Hero dice and place them in front of you. You'll use the numbers rolled to activate cards.

4. Use Dice and Cubes to Activate Cards

Ability Cards

• Ability cards have two actions on them that may be activated.
• The Top action is unique to each ability card, and is always activated when a die of any value is placed on the card.
• The Bottom action grants you an attack cube when a die with the specified number(s) is placed on the card. For example, when a die showing two pips is placed on a card, you gain a red cube in addition to its top action (a die that activates the Bottom action activates both actions, which can then be done in any order).
• Activating shrines and defeating enemies with the star icon allows you to level up an ability card by flipping it to its upgraded (yellow) side. This may give you an additional Top action, or allow multiple die values to activate the Bottom action.
• An ability card may only be activated once per round.

Equipment Cards

• Equipment cards can be activated to gain various benefits. These cards are activated in 3 different ways:
  • Place a cube to activate (color may be specified).
  • Place a Hero die to activate (number may be specified).
  • Gain a Corruption token in order to activate.
• You may have any number of Equipment Cards.

Hero Cards

• Hero Cards have several different features:
  • Skill Bonus: This value is added to Hero dice to pass Skill Checks.
  • Hero Name
  • Attack Box: Where Attack Cubes are placed to deal damage to enemies.
  • Attack Bonus: An additional benefit gained when committing to an attack with a given Hero.
• Each of your 3 Hero Cards may be used once each round, for either a Skill Check or an Attack.
• Attacking: Attack Cubes that have been gained on a given round can be placed on a Hero's Attack boxes to be transferred over to enemies as damage during the Assess Results phase. Each enemy requires specific cube colors to take damage, and you must place those colors of cubes in your attack boxes in order to damage them.
• Attack Bonuses: Many heroes gain an immediate bonus when you place a cube in any one of their Attack Boxes. An Attack Bonus may only be activated once per round.
• Passing Skill Checks: Some dungeon cards require Skill Checks in order to deal damage or gain other benefits. To pass a Skill Check, at least one Hero die (or dice) must be placed on a Hero, next to their Skill Bonus. The combined value of the dice placed here, plus the Hero's Skill Bonus, must meet or exceed the Skill Check value you want to satisfy. Skill Checks are then resolved during the Assess Results phase.

Example Turn

Steve rolls a 1, 3, and 6 on his Hero Dice. He places the 1 on the Riposte ability, which gains him an orange cube, and he uses its Top action to flip his 6 over to become another 1. Then he places the 3 on the Polymorph ability to gain a blue cube (skipping its Top action). After that, he places his other 1 on the Duplicate ability, gaining a red cube, and activating the ability to duplicate the blue cube.

After using his three dice, he has 1 orange, 1 red, and 2 blue cubes. Steve has an equipment card that lets him turn 1 blue cube into 2 orange cubes, so he places a blue cube on the card and gains 2 orange cubes. He now has 3 orange, 1 red, and 1 blue cube.

He places an orange cube on the Artist, which allows him to take one corruption and activate the Assassin equipment card and gain the red die. He rolls it and gets a 5. He then places the 5 on Magus' Skill Bonus, which provides a +3 modifier, and will be able to pass any Skill Check of 8 or less.

Next, he places one red, one yellow, and one blue cube on the Ranger to do three attacks. The orange cube on the Artist will also be used to attack.

5. Assess Results

• From left to right, assess attacks, skill checks, and damage (starting with the Hero cards and moving on to the enemy cards afterwards).

Hero Results

• Move Attack Cubes from the Hero cards to the Enemy cards, following the Attacking rules. Any cubes that can't be moved from Heroes to Enemies are lost.
• If you are able to satisfy any skill checks, place a black cube on the passed Skill Check's space to mark its completion.
• As soon as all the attack and skill cube requirements on an Enemy card are satisfied, it is considered defeated and will not attack. If a card is not defeated, the cubes remain on it for future rounds.
• After placing attack/skill cubes, all Enemies that haven't been defeated attack the heroes.

Dungeon Results

• At the top of each Enemy card, there are two attack zones:
  • Primary Attack: Occurs once for each Enemy die on the card (may be activated multiple times).
  • Secondary Attack: Occurs only if the Enemy is not activated by an Enemy die, and only activates once.
• Each Enemy card is resolved based on what is shown in these two zones, and on whether or not there are Enemy dice on the card. For example, if this Ruffian had 3 Enemy dice on it, it would deal 3 damage, and if it had no dice on it, it would deal 2 damage.
• All enemy effects are applied in this same basic way, regardless of their type.

Red Border Cards

• These are special cards that can be traps, chests, enemies, etc. They can be either good or bad, and they resolve in one of two ways, depending on which of these two icons they bear:
  • Persistent (link icon): Effects listed next to this icon continue to trigger during the Assess Results phase of each round until the Skill Check needed to clear the card is successfully passed. Do not trigger the card's effects on the round its Skill Check is passed!
  • Fleeting (hourglass icon): Any effects listed next to this icon on Red Border cards will trigger only if the card's Skill Check is not passed during the current Assess Results phase, and trigger during that phase. Bonus effects on the Skill Check space at the bottom of the card will trigger only if the Skill Check IS passed during the current round, and trigger during cleanup. Either way, Hourglass cards are only in play for one round, and are discarded during the cleanup phase.

6. Cleanup

• Remove cubes from defeated enemies, and place those cards in the discard pile.
• All unused cubes go back to the supply.
• Move remaining enemy cards to the left if spaces one and/or two are open.
• If the Red Border card in space four has an hourglass icon, move it to the discard pile. If it has a link icon, and hasn't been cleared, leave it in space four.
• If any of the first 3 spaces in the dungeon row are empty, draw cards until those are full, and begin a new round.

Captives, Chests, Shrines, and the Merchant

During your dungeon run, you will encounter cards with a timer signified by the hourglass icon. These cards will be available for one round while they are the top card in the 4th space and disappear during the cleanup phase. The player may choose whether to engage or ignore these cards, but passing their required Skill Check grants a benefit.

Captive cards allow the player to draw an extra Hero at random during cleanup, who will take the place of a defeated Hero. If you rescue a captive when all three of your Heroes are still in play, place the new Hero off to the side. When a Hero is defeated, replace it with the new one. Defeated Heroes cannot be recovered this way.

Chest cards require a Skill Check to open the chest. During cleanup, if a chest has been opened, the player draws an item from the pile of face down Item tokens. Place the token face up in front of you to be used at any time. Mimic enemies also give you the option of defeating them with a Skill Check that grants an Item token.

Shrine cards allow you to level up. During cleanup, if the skill check for a Shrine has been passed, select one of your Ability cards and flip it to its yellow, upgraded side.

The Merchant shows up around halfway through a dungeon. During cleanup, if the skill check for the merchant has been passed, draw 2 equipment cards. Keep 1 and discard the other.

Boss Fights

The boss is the final card in the dungeon deck. Once it's drawn, you must defeat it to overcome the dungeon and win the game. You will keep playing rounds until either you or the final boss is defeated.

If other enemies are in the dungeon row, they are also part of the final battle, but they do not need to be defeated in order to win.

The boss's placement in the dungeon row does not matter. All black dice will be used to activate the abilities across the top of the boss's card. Ones activate the first ability; twos the second; threes the third. However, other enemies in the dungeon row are activated like normal, so if an enemy is in the first space and the boss is in the second space, and you roll three ones, you would activate the enemy three times and the boss's first ability three times.

To defeat the boss, you must fulfill all the cube and skill check requirements on its card.

Boss Modifiers

For a more challenging game, boss modifiers can be used to add further requirements to the final boss (not used for mini-bosses). Choose a difficulty at the beginning of the game (hard, nightmare, or torment), and shuffle the modifier cards of that type together, placing them near the Equipment cards. Then, when the final boss shows up, immediately reveal the top boss modifier card and place it below the boss card. Its requirements count as being on the final boss card.

Advanced Modes

These are alternate game modes intended for players who have gone through the Cursed Castle a few times and want more of a challenge.

Wandering Monsters

During setup, add a deck of extra enemies to the dungeon. These decks of wandering monsters are labeled A, B, and C and provide extra challenge and variety to a dungeon. For a more challenging game that still takes around the same amount of time, replace some of the easier enemies in a dungeon with a group of Wandering Monsters.

Two Bosses

During setup, split the dungeon deck into thirds instead of halves. At the bottom of the first third, place the dungeon's mini boss and the merchant. At the bottom of the second third, place a boss card. And at the bottom of the final third, place another boss card. Boss fights play out as normal – now there's just two of them!

The Gauntlet

For a longer and more challenging game, see if you can complete multiple dungeons in a row with at least one hero left standing.

Full Party

To make the game easier, remove the captive card from the dungeon, and begin the game with one or more heroes in reserve. When a hero dies, immediately replace it.

Dungeon Card Effects

Unless otherwise stated, each of the following effects occur once for each time the relevant icon is triggered.

Damage: For each damage you take, you'll flip a hero card over to their red, damaged side, or remove an already damaged Hero from the game (they have been killed). You may always choose which Hero takes each point of damage.

Poison: When you take poison, place a poison token in front of you. During future cleanup phases, take one damage for each poison token you have. However, you never take damage for poison until the end of the following round. For example, if you have one poison token in front of you from the previous round and receive another token in the current round, you would only take one damage during cleanup. At the end of the next round, if both tokens are still in front of you, you would take two damage. You may not have more than three poison tokens in front of you.

Corruption: Corruption builds up when facing certain enemies and using certain equipment. When you receive corruption, place a corruption token in front of you for each icon being triggered. If you ever receive a fourth corruption, one of your Heroes dies, and all of your corruption tokens go back to the supply. You may either select the hero to discard or roll a die to randomly determine it.

Bleed: When an enemy inflicts a bleed effect, place a bleed token on one of your heroes. A Hero with a bleed token may not activate its Attack Bonus when an Attack Cube is placed on its card.

Stun: Weakens one of your Abilities. Roll a d6 to randomly determine which Ability card is affected (each ability card has a number in its bottom left corner). If the number rolled affects a card that already has a stun token, roll again. An ability card with a stun token on it can only be used to activate its Bottom action, not its Top action. You can still gain a cube from it, but you can't use it for anything else.

Madness: Replace a white die with a purple die for each madness you receive on a given round (max 3). At the beginning of the Dungeon Results phase, if all three of your dice are purple, one of your heroes goes insane and is removed from the game. You may either select which Hero or randomly determine it. After a Hero goes insane, replace all three purple dice with white dice. Madness cannot be healed.

Dice Lock: Place one of your Hero Dice on the card with this icon. This Hero Die will not be available to you next round. If you lose all three of your dice, you lose the game.

+1 Enemy Die: When resolving Dungeon Results, if any enemy bears this icon, place the extra black die next to the Dungeon Row. During the next round, 4 Enemy Dice will be rolled instead of 3.

Steal: Each time this icon triggers, you lose a random equipment card. Shuffle them without looking, remove one from play, and return the others to your play area.

Incite: Activate the Primary Attack of the enemy cards to the left and right of this card, once each. This may not include Red Border cards.

Raise Dead: Randomly draw an enemy from the discard pile and add them to the dungeon row. If the row is full, place the card on top of the deck.

Rejuvenate: Remove one cube from the bottom of the enemy's card. You may choose which one.

Persistent: Cards with this icon remain on the fourth space until you defeat them. However, if a new Red Border card is drawn, it gets placed on top of the persisting card.

Fleeting: Cards with this icon get discarded during the cleanup phase.

Leveling Up: During cleanup, after you've activated a shrine or defeated an enemy with the level up icon, select one of your ability cards and flip it to its yellow, upgraded side.

Gain Hero (icon): During cleanup, if you've passed the Skill Check on a Captive card, draw 1 new Hero from the supply.

Search Chest (icon): During cleanup, if you've passed the Skill Check on a Chest card, gain 1 random Item token from the supply.

Hero Card Effects

Skill Bonus: Each Hero has a Skill Bonus value at the top of their card. When using the Hero to pass a Skill Check, this value is added to whatever Hero Dice you place on the Hero card.

Single Attack: Each single Attack Box may be used to deal 1 damage to 1 Enemy. An Attack Cube must be placed on the cube space during Phase 4, and will then be transferred to an enemy during the Assess Results phase, provided there is a valid target for the Attack Cube.

Attack Bonuses

You may trigger a Hero's Attack Bonus immediately after placing an Attack Cube on them, but each Hero's Attack Bonus may be triggered only once per round (i.e. when placing your first Attack Cube you may skip a Hero's bonus and take it when placing a second cube instead). Some Heroes do not possess an Attack Bonus.

Reroll: You may reroll 1 unused Hero Die.

Add the Red Die: You may roll the red die and treat it as a Hero Die for the round.

Taunt: You may move an Enemy Die from one Enemy to another.

Power Up: Gain 1 Attack Cube of any color (it does not need to be placed on this Hero).

Healing: Either flip a damaged Hero back to its undamaged side, or remove a status effect token (poison, corruption, stun, or bleed).

Remove Status Effect: Remove a status effect token (poison, corruption, stun, or bleed).

Block: Ignore 1 damage or 1 status effect when resolving Dungeon Results.

Conjure: Activate a card with the paint brush symbol.

Precision Shot: Place a cube on a card with a red border. (For a skill check, use a black cube.)

Versatile: Exchange any 1 Attack Cube you hold for an Attack Cube of another color (cannot be one that's already been placed).

Enraged: Attack Cubes on this Hero may deal damage to Enemies ignoring their cube color requirements.

Ability Card Effects

Bottom Actions

The Bottom action on each Ability card always does the same thing - it grants you 1 Attack Cube for placing a Hero Die of a specific number on the Ability. A Bottom action triggers only if you place a die of the required number, but triggering it is not required to use an Ability card's Top action.

Top Actions

These are unique to each Ability card, and trigger whenever you place any die on the card:

Duplicate: Turn any Attack Cube you hold into two cubes of that color (i.e. 1 red cube becomes 2 red cubes).

Arcane Eye: Add or subtract 1 from an unused Hero Die.

Heal Wounds: Spend a cube to Heal.

Riposte: Flip a Hero Die to its opposite side. (A 1 would become a 6; a 2 would become a 5; etc.)

Maul: Gain a yellow Attack Cube (if you also activate the Bottom action on this Ability card, you gain 2 yellow cubes in total).

Polymorph: Turn 1 blue Attack Cube into an Attack Cube of any color.

Whenever an Ability card is upgraded (to its yellow border side), this either allows you to activate its Bottom action with another Hero Die value or add a new option to the Ability's Top action. If a new Top action becomes available, the card will say "OR" followed by one of these two effects:

Healing: Works the same as the Healing Attack Bonus, allowing you to remove a status effect or heal one Hero.

Exchange: Turn one red Attack Cube into a blue one.

When activating a Top action that says "OR," you may choose to trigger the new action option or the Ability's original Top action, but may not use both.

Remember that an Ability card may only be used once per round!

Equipment Reference

Boots of Swiftness: Place a cube to add 2 to a skill check value.

Mystical Scroll: Place a die with a 6 to gain a red cube.

Spiked Pauldron: Place a die to block 1 damage or status effect.

Backpack: Store up to 1 cube from a previous round.

Seer Stone: Place a cube to change any die to a 1 or 6.

Pendant of Life: Place a die to heal.

Charlie: Once per round, you may reroll an enemy die.

Giant's Gladius: Place a cube to change the color of a cube in front of you.

Corrupted Pendant: Take 1 corruption to either add or subtract up to 2 from one of your dice.

Decaying Mask: Place a cube and take 1 corruption to change one of your dice to any side.

Pendant of Power: Place a die to either add or subtract 1 from an enemy die. The die cannot go below 1 or above 3.

Tome: Place a 5 to get a blue cube.

Prayer Scroll: Place a blue cube to get 2 yellow cubes.

Assassin: Take one corruption to roll the red die.

Mystic: Remove 1 status effect.

Item Reference

Red Potion: Flip a hero card face up.

Black Potion: Remove 1 status effect.

Shield: Block 1 damage or status effect.

Numbers: Change a hero die by +1/-1, +2, +3.