Drachenfels
Drachenfels Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1. Game Components
- 1 game board (Spielplan)
- 1 castle island (Burginsel)
- 1 castle (Burg)
- For each of the following, 4 pieces: rock castles (grey Felsenburgen), rainbow rocks (green Regenbogenfelsen), rainbows (Regenbögen), armours (Rüstungen), princesses (Prinzessinnen), shoe-pair markers (Schuhpaar-Markierungen), dragons (Drachen) and knights (Ritter)
- 2 bridges (Brücken)
- 36 playing cards (Spielkarten)
- 20 fastening rivets (Befestigungsnieten)
- 1 rulebook (Spielanleitung)
2. Setup
First, insert the rock castles and rainbow rocks into the punched holes of the game board and anchor them from below with the fastening rivets. (The double rivets are intended for the small rainbow rocks.)
The castle island is likewise fixed in the middle of the board, and the castle is placed on it and connected to it. Place the four armours in the castle towers; the knights need them for their own protection.
Under each princess, stick one of the four self-adhesive coloured shoe pairs. Then shuffle the four king's daughters so that no player can remember which princess belongs to which knight. Place the princesses into the recesses of the four rock castles and place one dragon beside each of them.
Each player chooses a knight and places it on the coloured space matching its colour (the large round dot) in the centre of the game board. The four rainbow strips are punched out of the die-cut sheet and placed next to the game board together with the two bridges. The knights can conjure the rainbows and bridges to various places using magical powers.
Finally, shuffle the playing cards and deal 7 cards face down to each player. Place the remaining cards, also face down, next to the game board as the draw pile (Aufnahmestapel).
Note: if fewer than 4 people are playing, one complete set of point cards (one each of the values 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) is removed from the game before play. The number of king's daughters in play, however, remains unchanged at 4!
3. Game Phases and Object of the Game
Of course, the rock castles can only be entered with the help of a special armour. Consequently, in the first phase of the game each knight must seek out the royal castle in order to receive its armour there. Since the dragons have destroyed the castle's drawbridge, the royal house can only be entered by means of a magical rainbow.
Once a knight has received its armour, it sets out in the second phase of the game to search for its beloved, whose shoe colour matches the player's own game piece. The first player to discover his princess in a rock castle, and thus free her, is the winner of this game.
4. The Turn
One player, for example the youngest, begins the game; all others follow in clockwise order. The player whose turn it is may take one turn (Spielzug). There are three different options available, and before each turn you decide anew which of these options you want to choose for your turn.
a) Playing Cards
With this option you actively intervene in the course of the game. There are basically two types of cards to distinguish:
- Point cards (values 1 to 5), which serve one's own movement, and
- Magic cards, with which magical effects can be triggered.
Playing these cards during a turn follows this order: first, you may play any number of your own magic cards one after another. Then one point card is additionally played, and the turn is over.
If you have a point card in your hand, you must also play one. If you wish, you may play only one point card and forgo playing magic cards in your turn. If you have only magic cards in your hand, you of course end your turn with a magic card. A turn also ends when you have no cards left in your hand.
Played cards are placed face up on the discard pile (Ablagestapel), which is located on the game board.
b) Refreshing One's Own Hand of Cards
If you have too few or too unfavourable cards, you do not intervene in the course of the game with this option. Instead, you shuffle your own cards together with the draw pile and then draw seven new ones. However, if your own cards and the draw pile together come to no more than seven cards, then you shuffle these cards together with all previously discarded cards and form a new draw pile before the seven new cards are drawn.
As an alternative to the described refreshing of the hand, you may instead keep your current cards and draw a maximum of three cards from one or several of the other players. These cards go into your own hand. After the card exchange, your turn is over.
c) Using Discarded Cards
You may also begin your turn by taking the top card of the discard pile for your knight. If it is a magic card, the corresponding magic effect is carried out immediately, and playing further cards (see a)) is permitted afterwards. If, however, it is a point card, you may move your knight by the corresponding number of spaces, but you may not play any further cards.
5. The Meaning of the Cards
a) Magic Cards
Rainbow (4 cards): With this card you may place one of the four rainbows on the game board, remove it from there, or move it to another position within the board. A rainbow is always built with one end on a rainbow rock. The other end reaches into the royal castle, which can only be entered by means of a rainbow (or a teleport).
After a rainbow has been crossed, you may, if you wish, move it to another position within the board. Crossing a rainbow costs one point (i.e. a move from a rainbow rock to the castle costs one movement point).
Bridge (3 cards): The bridges serve to connect broken route sections that otherwise cannot be crossed. These are the four large craters on the paths of the board and the four passages from a country road to a rock castle. By playing a bridge card you may either bring a bridge into play, take it out of the game again, or move it on the game board. A built bridge counts as a normal playing field. However, it cannot be taken out of the game or moved while a knight is standing on it.
Dragon (5 cards): You drive any dragon out of its current location and place it on an unoccupied land field with a green dot, or on an unoccupied dragon rock. Knights may not enter or cross fields occupied by dragons!
Teleport (1 card): You may immediately swap the position of your game piece with that of an opposing knight.
Great Cloud (1 card): You may immediately move the game piece of any other player onto one of the starting fields, provided that field is unoccupied.
b) Point Cards (5 each of the values 1, 2, 3 and 4, and 2 cards of the value 5)
The point card shows exactly how many points (steps) your own knight moves further on the board. Moving forward and backward within the same turn is of course not possible.
6. Armour and Duels
In the first phase of the game, each knight receives its armour at the castle. The castle counts as a single field and must be reached with an exact point count.
A knight may move past other knights without consequence. However, if its turn ends on a field occupied by an opposing knight, the arriving player successfully challenges the piece already present to a duel and may move that piece onto one of the unoccupied starting fields. Moreover, the successful attacker is free to draw up to two cards from the hand of the defeated player and add them to his own cards.
On rock castles and rainbow rocks, however, duels cannot take place. Only one piece may ever be present on such a field at a time. In the castle, on the other hand, any number of knights may stay at once; under the king's eyes, of course, they do not challenge one another to a duel.
7. Star Fields
There are four fields on the game board marked with a star. Whoever enters such a field may immediately fly to another unoccupied star field and continue moving from there. No movement point is lost in doing so.
8. Rock Castles and the Extended Use of Rainbows
If your knight finally reaches, with the matching point count and over a bridge, a rock castle that is not occupied by a dragon, you may look to see whether it holds your princess. Lift the game piece so that only you can see it, and check whether the shoe colour of the princess is identical with the colour of your own game piece. If it is, you have won. Otherwise, put the princess back on the rock. Now you must unfortunately keep searching, for a king's daughter does not fall into the arms of a false suitor ...
Every knight that has advanced to a rock castle, even if in vain at first, enjoys an advantage for the rest of the game: from then on, with each move it may choose to advance either the single or the double number of fields shown on the point card played (a played "3" = advance 3 or 6 fields).
After any knight has entered a rock castle for the first time (and did not find its princess there), the course of play becomes dramatically faster. From then on, rainbows may be set up not only to enter the castle, but also as a connection between a rainbow rock and a rock castle. As a consequence, it is now possible for a knight, for example, to reach a rock castle from the royal castle in just two steps.
9. End of the Game
The game ends when a knight has discovered and thus freed his princess. This player wins the game. And whoever does not agree that the winner is designated successor to the king should demand a new game (perhaps with a different outcome) ...