Edge of Humanity Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Overview
• Components
• Setup for Your First Game
• Important Rules
  • Losing Life
  • Game Terms
• Card Types
  • Action Card
  • Building Card
  • Supply Card
  • Survivor Card
  • Event Card
• Gameplay
  • 1. Event Phase
  • 2. Action Phase
  • 3. Trade Phase
  • 4. Recruit Phase
  • 5. Cleanup Phase
• Game End
• Your Second Game - Nuclear Aftermath
  • Weapons
• Your Third Game - Alien Invasion
  • New Bidding Mechanic
• Creating Your Own Story
• Variants
• Card Clarifications
• Credits

Game Overview

In Edge of Humanity, 2-5 players take on the roles of survivors thrown into a post-apocalyptic environment, trying to survive the harsh new conditions of the world as it is now. You must lead your group, gathering supplies, in order to construct new buildings, and create a better place for others to join you and make your group stronger.

The goal of the game is to get Survival Points (SP), which indicate your success as a Colony. As you construct Buildings and recruit Survivors, you will earn more SP. Your SP are tracked on the Map.

The winner of the game is the Colony with the most SP at the end of the game.

The game takes approximately 40 mins to play and introduces a new take on deck building, drafting, and hand management.

For each of your first 3 games, use the pre-constructed sets of cards called Scenario Packs. Important! Do not open these packs until instructed to do so.

Each of the Scenario Packs contains a unique narrative-driven Event deck, describing how the world came to be as it is now, and what encounters you will face in this scenario. The Scenario Packs also contain new Survivor cards, new Actions, and new Buildings.

Each game takes place in a specific location that will set the atmosphere and provide encounters for your group to deal with. At the end of this guide you will find rules on how to construct your own scenarios, combining a storyline with a location, and creating a customizable game for your enjoyment.

The first scenario is set in the devastated city of New York, where each group must survive the horrors of a deadly flu epidemic.

The second scenario takes place after a nuclear war that shocked the world, and ended civilization as we know it. The groups of survivors are trying to rebuild in the barren wasteland of New Mexico.

The third scenario takes place a few years after an alien invasion. These newcomers took over the known world, and you and your fellow survivors are trying to maintain a relatively normal way of life in the beautiful rural countryside of Nebraska.

Components

• This Survival Guide
• 1 Map
• 224 cards:
  • 39 Event cards
  • 49 Supply cards
  • 34 Survivor cards
  • 65 Action cards
  • 27 Building cards
  • 10 Colony cards
• 46 Life tokens (with 36 '1' and 10 '3' values)
• 25 Bullet tokens
• 1 Unlucky token
• 1 First player token
• 5 Player bases in 5 colors
• 6 Survivor figures

Setup for Your First Game

1. Place the Map on the table.

2. Each player chooses a player base and a Survivor figure, combining the two to form a Leader token and placing it on the X space of the Map. The Map acts as the scoring track. When SP are gained by a player, move their Leader token on this Map accordingly.

3. Open Scenario Pack 1, being careful not to look at the cards in detail. Take the top 10 cards (including the one saying "Scenario Pack 1" on it) and without changing the order of them, place them face down near the game Map. This is the Event deck.

4. Then, take the remaining 23 cards (Survivor cards), shuffle them and place them face down nearby to form the Survivor deck.

5. From the Survivor deck, turn over the top 5 cards and place them face up to the right of the Survivor deck to form the Survivor Row. Place the Unlucky token on top of the rightmost Survivor card.

6. Open the two largest unmarked packs of cards.* One will contain 5 sets of starting cards: 11 cards in each of the 5 player colors. Each player takes the set of their chosen player color. Any remaining starting cards are returned to the box.

   * The third unmarked pack of cards is smaller than the other two. It is recommended you open this pack after you have played your first 3 games.

7. Each player places their Colony card in front of them in an area known as their Colony.

Each Starting deck will contain:

• 1 Player's Colony card
• 2 'Supply Crate' Supply cards
• 2 'Supply Crates' Supply cards
• 1 'Safe House' Building card
• 1 'Looting' Action card
• 1 'Fire Camp' Action card
• 1 'First Aid Kit' Action card
• 1 'Scouting' Action card
• 1 'Adrenaline Shot' Action card

8. Each player then shuffles the rest of the cards from their set and places them face down near their play area to form their own Draw deck.

9. Each player then draws 5 cards from their own Draw deck, placing them in their hand.

10. The second unmarked pack contains 55 cards: Supplies, Action, and Building cards. Shuffle them and place them face down to form the Main deck. Place it next to the Event deck.

11. Create a number of Trade piles equal to one more than the number of players (e.g. 4 in a 3 player game). For each Trade pile, draw two cards from the Main deck and place them face up, overlapping each other so that both cards are visible.

12. Each player takes Life tokens with a total value of 7 to form their starting Life Pool. This represents the health of each player's entire group of survivors. Place the rest of the Life tokens in a reserve pile.

13. Randomly choose a starting player and give them the First Player token.

Important Rules

The effect of a card may break or change the basic rules of the game. Card effects always take precedence over this rulebook.

Losing Life

The effects of some Events and other actions may inflict wounds on your Colony and you will lose Life. For each Life you lose, remove 1 Life token from your Life Pool. If your Life Pool is depleted, you will take no further part in the game until the Cleanup Phase of that round. During the Cleanup Phase, you will refill your Life Pool back to 7 and can then continue to play as normal in the next round.

Game Terms

Draw: Unless otherwise specified, Draw means to take cards from your own deck and put them into your hand.

Discard: Unless otherwise specified, when a card is discarded it is taken from the player's hand and placed face up on their Discard pile. If several cards are discarded at the same time, the player may place them on their Discard pile in any order.

Discard pile: Each player has their own Discard pile, a face-up pile of cards that they have previously discarded. The cards in each player's Discard pile can be examined by any player.

Trash: When a card is trashed, it is placed on the Waste pile.

Waste pile: A pile of cards that have been trashed. When the Main deck runs out of cards, the Waste pile is shuffled and becomes the new Main deck.

Colony: The area in front of each player where building cards are played and survivors are recruited.

Life Pool: Tokens representing the total life of your entire Colony. Normally this starts the game at 7.

Survivor Row: A display of Survivor cards. You get to rescue one of these to your Discard pile when your Draw deck is empty.

Trade piles: Sets of cards that you may acquire during the game (mainly during the Trade phase in exchange for other cards).

Hand Size: Your Hand Size starts at 5 but can go up or down based on card effects. It indicates the number of cards you refill your hand to at the end of your Action phase. During the game, you may exceed your hand size if a card effect allows you to draw more cards. You never have to discard down to your hand size.

Card Types

There are 5 types of cards in Edge of Humanity:

Action Card

These are played in your Action phase. You normally only get 1 action per turn. You play them in front of you, resolve the effect of the card, and then at the end of your turn place the card into your Discard pile.

Each Action card shows an Action card symbol, a Trade value, a life loss/gain icon, the card effect, and (on starting cards) a player-color starting card identifier.

Building Card

To construct a building, you must use an action to play the card into your Colony, also trashing a number of supplies according to its construction cost. Each Building card shows a Building card symbol, Trade value, Construction cost, Survival points, and an Ability.

Supply Card

These are used for various things in the game, constructing buildings, rescuing survivors, etc. Any card with an image of a knife in the middle left and a green crate on it is a Supply card. Each Supply card shows a Supply card symbol, Trade value, and Supply value.

Note that Action, Building and Supply cards also have a Trade Value. This means that they can be used during the Trade Phase for bidding.

Survivor Card

These are rescued from the Survivor Row when your Draw deck is empty and then recruited from your hand into your Colony by spending Supplies (Trashing them). Recruiting Survivors is one way to score Survival Points in the game (the other is constructing buildings). Each Survivor card shows a Survivor card symbol, Recruit cost, Survival points, and an Ability.

Event Card

These cards will form the story of the game. Each round of the game will reveal a new Event in which each player needs to deal with the consequences. Each Event card has a Front and a Back.

Gameplay

Edge of Humanity is played over several rounds, each round consisting of 5 phases:

1. Event Phase — Reveal an Event card and apply its effect.
2. Action Phase — Each player may perform one action and then refills their hand.
3. Trade Phase — Players bid for trade piles of new cards.
4. Recruit Phase — Each player may recruit a new Survivor from their hand.
5. Cleanup Phase — Draw new Trade piles.

The game ends at the end of a round in which at least one player has scored 11 Survival Points (SP). If no player has scored 11 SP by the end of the game (9 rounds for your first three games), the game also ends. At the end of the game, the player with the most Survival Points wins the game.

The five phases are described below:

1. Event Phase

Events offer scoring opportunities, new abilities or general effects that will change the game for all players.

The First Player flips over the top card of the Event deck and places it to the left side. The story text now on the left side describes what has happened before the start of the game, or between the previous round and this one. On the right side is the Current Event which affects the state of the game for all players.

The First Player should read the story text aloud. Then, each player starting with the First player and continuing clockwise must carry out the instructions on the current Event.

If an Event offers you a choice of options, you must choose an option that you can fulfill entirely. The exception to this is an effect which causes the loss of Life, in which case you lose as many as you can.

If an Event says that you must choose more than one option, and the first option you choose causes your Life Pool to drop to 0, your round immediately ends and you do not have to choose another option.

For example: This Event card offers you three choices. If you only have 2 cards in hand, and neither of them are Supply cards, you cannot choose either of the first two options. Even if you only have 1 Life, you can still choose the third option, and you lose your remaining 1 Life.

Once the final card from the Event deck has been revealed, keep playing until the end of the round, and then the game is over.

2. Action Phase

Starting with the First player and proceeding clockwise, each player performs the following 3 steps:

A. Perform 1 Action B. Discard cards played C. Refill Hand

A. Perform 1 Action

On your turn, you may perform one of the following 3 actions:

• Play an Action card
• Construct a building
• Discard cards

Playing an Action card

Choose an Action card in your hand and play it on the table in front of you. Each Action card will have one or more effects. If a card has more than one effect, they are carried out in the order they appear on the card. All effects of a card must be carried out before the action is completed.

Each effect must be carried out in full. If this is not possible, it should be carried out as much as it is possible to do so.

Some card effects let you perform additional actions. For example, if you use your action to play the Action card 'Adrenaline Shot', you then have 2 more actions.

Some cards have a heart icon in the bottom left of the card. This causes you to Gain or Lose Life after all other effects of the card have been resolved. Add or remove X Life tokens to/from your Life Pool. Your Life Pool can go above 7. See the Losing Life section for more details on Life loss.

For example: As your action for the turn, you play a First Aid Kit. You then discard the card and Gain 2 Life.

Common effects on cards are:

• Draw X cards - Draw X cards from your deck into your hand.
• Gain X actions - You may take X additional actions this turn after you have finished resolving this card effect.
• Discard X cards - Place X cards from your hand onto your discard pile.

Remember the Golden Rule: A card effect takes precedence over the rules found in this rulebook.

Construct a Building

You can begin construction of a building by playing a Building card from your hand into your Colony. To do this, you must also play 1 or more Supply cards from your hand and place them under the building, offset to the left so that you can see how many supplies were used. If you play enough supplies to equal or exceed the construction cost of the building, then it is completed immediately. However, you are not required to complete the Building in a single action; a partially constructed building can have more supplies added to it as a later action. A partially constructed building with Supply cards under it cannot be discarded, and the Supply cards cannot be returned to your hand.

For example: Rachel wants to construct the 'Headquarters', which costs 5 supplies to build. She only has 3 supplies currently in hand (one card showing 2 supplies, and another card showing 1 supply). As her Action this turn, she plays the Headquarters into her Colony, and places the two Supply cards on the Headquarters to show that it is under construction.

In the next round, on her turn, she has only one Supply card in hand, showing 3 Supplies. As her Action, she chooses to continue construction of the Headquarters by placing the Supply card onto the building. Now that the Headquarters has 6 Supplies on it, the building is finished (5 would have been enough, but Rachel did not have any other Supply cards in hand).

When you complete the construction of a building, Trash any Supply cards used to build it. You then score Survival points, as shown on the building (advance your Leader token on the Map). Most buildings also grant you a permanent effect. Note that any SP gained from constructing a building are not lost if the Building card is removed from your Colony.

Passive Building effects: Once a building has been fully constructed, it provides a passive effect to your Colony. For example, once fully constructed in your Colony, the Safe House will increase your Hand Size by 1.

Discard Cards

As an action, you may voluntarily discard any number of cards from your hand to your Discard pile.

B. Discard cards played

Discard any Action cards that you played this turn into your Discard pile. If you played multiple cards, place them on your Discard pile in any order. Any cards in your hand remain, you may not discard them.

C. Refill Hand

At the end of your Action phase, you refill your hand by drawing cards from your Draw deck back up to your hand size (base hand size is 5). If you are already at your hand size (or over), you do not draw any cards. You do not discard cards if you are over the hand size.

Empty Draw deck

At any point in the game, if your Draw deck is empty AND you need to draw a card, you must follow these steps.

1. Rescue any one Survivor card from the Survivor Row and place it in your Discard pile. If you choose the Survivor with the Unlucky token on it, place that token aside for now. It will be needed again in the Cleanup phase.
2. Shuffle your Discard pile and place it face down to form your new Draw deck.
3. Draw a card.

3. Trade Phase

In this phase, players will try to bid for new cards from the Trade piles by Trashing cards from their hand.

Starting with the First player and proceeding clockwise, each player may make a bid by placing any number of cards from their hand face down in front of them. Bidding is optional, you may choose to play no cards. The number of cards you bid must be visible to all players.

After all players have made a bid or passed, all cards used for bidding are turned face up. The value of each player's bid is the sum of the Trade values on the cards they bid with.

For example: A Bid Value of '8'.

A valid bid must be at least 1. You are allowed to bid with cards with no Trade value but all cards used to bid are Trashed at the end of this phase, so it is generally unwise to do so. A card with no Trade value does not contribute to the bid and if you bid only with cards with no Trade value, this is counted as an invalid bid, the cards are Trashed and you will not take a Trade pile.

The player with the highest bid then chooses one of the Trade piles and adds all the cards from it to their Discard pile. In case of a tie, the current First player, and then other players in a clockwise order, break ties. Then, the player with the next highest bid takes a Trade pile, and so on, until all players with a valid bid have chosen to take a Trade Pile.

All cards used for bidding are then Trashed.

For example: The turn order is Rachel, Brian, Gemma, Yuri. After the cards have been revealed, Brian and Yuri bid 5, Rachel bids 3, and Gemma did not bid. From the highest bids, Brian is before Yuri in turn order, so he goes first. Then Yuri, and then Rachel. Gemma does not get to take a Trade pile.

Note that once a player has made a valid bid, they must take all of the cards from one of the Trade piles.

Note: It is possible that a player with a valid bid might not get to take any new cards due to depletion of the Trade piles in previous phases of the game. The cards they used to bid with are still Trashed, as normal.

Important! Players do not refill their hand with cards at the end of the Trade Phase.

4. Recruit Phase

Starting with the First player and proceeding clockwise, each player may choose to recruit a Survivor from their hand.

Note: In the first round of your first game with Scenario Pack 1, you can skip this phase because no player will have a Survivor card in their hand.

Choose one Survivor card from your hand and Trash a number of Supplies from your hand equal to or greater than the Recruit cost on the Survivor. Then place the Survivor card into your Colony and score Survival points as depicted on the card. Note that these points are not lost if the Survivor card is subsequently removed.

Survivor Ability: After you recruit a Survivor to your Colony, you can immediately use their new abilities to your advantage. Some Survivors give you additional Survival Points at the end of the game, some of them give you a permanent bonus, others provide a once per round ability, and others can give an extra action.

Note: Survivor cards that provide an ability which is used as an action can not be played from your hand as if they were an Action card. This action can only be used as an action once the Survivor has been recruited.

Some cards have abilities which are used once per round. When using one of these cards, rotate it 90 degrees. This indicates that the ability has been used and it cannot be used again that round. At the end of the round, rotate the card back to its original position.

After all players have played this phase, check to see if the game is over:

If at least one player has 11 SP, or the last card in the Event deck has been revealed, skip phase 5 and go straight to 'Game End'.

5. Cleanup Phase

Follow these steps:

1. Add 1 card from the Main deck to each Trade pile that was not taken during the Trade phase.
2. Form a new Trade pile for each one that was taken during the Trade phase. If needed, reshuffle the Waste pile to form a new deck and draw more cards.
3. Remove the Survivor marked with the Unlucky token from the Survivor Row.
4. Slide all remaining Survivor cards on Survivor Row to the right, closing any gaps.
5. Refill Survivor Row so that there are 5 cards in it by drawing new cards from the Survivor deck. Mark the new rightmost one with the Unlucky token.
6. Pass the First Player token to the next player to the left.
7. If a player's Life Pool is empty (and only if empty), refill it back to 7.

You are now ready to start a new round of play.

Game End

The game will end after Phase 4 of a round if at least one player has at least 11 SP, or the end of the round when the last Event card is revealed.

The player with the most Survival Points is declared the winner.

In case of a tie, the tied player with the most Survivors in their Colony is the winner. If still a tie, the tied player with the most total supplies in their deck (including cards in hand and Discard pile) wins. If still a tie, the tied players share the victory; together, they have formed the best chance for a new beginning…

Your Second Game - Nuclear Aftermath

Open the second Scenario Pack and create the Event deck with the top 10 cards included in the pack.

Carefully place this new Event deck face down without looking at it.

Each player takes the 'Firearm' Colony card corresponding to their chosen player color and places it in their Colony. This weapon will be very helpful during the upcoming encounters in the new Event deck.

Place the Bullet tokens in a pile nearby. Each player takes 1 Bullet token from this pile and places it on top of their Firearm. This indicates the weapon is loaded.

Forming Scenario 2 Survivor deck: Add the new Survivors to the existing Survivor cards and shuffle them to form a new Survivor deck.

Forming Scenario 2 Main deck: Add the new Supply, Action and Building cards to the Main deck and shuffle it.

Weapons

All cards in your Colony that have the keyword "WEAPON" printed on them mean that the card has a Weapon that can be used. When the card is played into your Colony, it is considered to be unloaded; there is no ammo in the weapon. It will need to be reloaded before it can be fired.

Reloading Weapons

During your Cleanup phase, you may discard any Supply card from your hand to reload all Weapon cards in your Colony; one card reloads all your Weapons. When you reload a Weapon, place a Bullet token on top of the card. It is now considered loaded and can be fired.

Note: Some cards allow you place more than one Bullet token on a Weapon card. The maximum number of Bullet tokens that can be on a Weapon card is indicated by the number of Bullet icons on the card.

For example: Ann has a Scout survivor which has the Weapon keyword. Her Firearm card had also been used in the previous round, so both cards are unloaded. In the Cleanup phase, she discards a Supply card from her hand to reload both weapon cards, placing one Bullet token on each.

Firing a Weapon

Whenever you are resolving a card that states "Fire a Weapon", you can use a loaded Weapon card from your Colony (one with a Bullet token on it). When you Fire a Weapon, return the Bullet token on it back to the reserve pile; the Weapon is now unloaded.

Bullet Action

Some Action cards have an ability that depicts a Bullet icon. In order to use this ability, you need to Fire a Weapon. Some Action cards require you to use an Action AND Fire a Weapon in order to activate the ability.

Example 1: Katrine plays 'Breaking and Entering'. This costs her 1 Action and she must also Fire a Weapon (removing a Bullet token from her Sheriff Survivor card). She takes 1 Supply card from a Trade pile and adds it to her hand.

Example 2: David plays 'First Strike'. He can play the card for just the top effect (spending 1 Action to Gain 2 Actions). In addition to this, he may also Fire a Weapon to use the second effect too.

Note that David could not just play the card for the second effect only.

Your Third Game - Alien Invasion

Open the third Scenario Pack and create the Event deck with the top 10 cards included in the pack.

Carefully place this new Event deck face down without looking at it.

Each player places their corresponding 'Firearm' card in their Colony and loads it with 1 Bullet.

Forming Scenario 3 Survivor deck: Randomly remove 3 Survivor cards from the current Survivor deck (Survivor cards from Scenarios 1 & 2) and place them back in the box. Then, shuffle in the Scenario 3 Survivors to form a new deck.

Forming Scenario 3 Main deck: Randomly remove 3 Action cards and 3 Building cards from the current Main deck (cards from Scenarios 1 & 2) and place them back in the box. Shuffle in the Scenario 3 Action, Supply, and Building cards.

New Bidding Mechanic

The Nebraska location Event deck used in this Scenario pack introduces a new bidding mechanism in the Event phase. Bidding uses various commodities, like Bullets or even Life. Whenever card text indicates that something is bid for, each player simultaneously takes the commodity being used and splits it into two hands secretly. Each player puts one of their closed hands forward to indicate which one they are bidding with. All players then reveal their bid and resolve the Event card as instructed. In the case of any tied bids, turn order is used to break ties, as per the normal bidding rules for the Trade Phase. All commodities used for bidding are returned to their reserve pile regardless of the result. Players return any commodities in their other hand (ones not used to bid with) back to their Colony.

Creating Your Own Story

In Edge of Humanity, you can create your own story and play through it with your fellow survivors.

First, you need to create the Event deck.

The base game box contains 3 Plot decks:

• Epidemic (1st Scenario Pack)
• Nuclear Aftermath (2nd Scenario Pack)
• Alien Invasion (3rd Scenario Pack)

And 3 Location decks:

• New York City (1st Scenario Pack)
• New Mexico (2nd Scenario Pack)
• Nebraska (3rd Scenario Pack)

Note: The 3rd unmarked pack of cards contains more Event, Supply, Action, Survivor, and Building cards. You should open this pack once you have completed the initial 3 Scenarios and use these additional cards in your game.

Choose one of the Location decks and one of the Plot decks. The Plot deck will portray how the world has ended and the Location deck will set the scene and provide environmental effects. Combining those decks will make your story a unique and rich experience.

From each of those decks, choose a card at random and return it to the game box without looking at it. Shuffle the 5 remaining Location cards and 5 Plot cards together and then remove a card randomly and return it to the game box. This final set of 9 cards form the unique Event deck for that game. Place it as instructed in the setup for your first game (see Setup for Your First Game, step 3).

Form a New Survivor deck

You can customize your own Survivor deck to your liking. We recommend that your Survivor deck contains between 20 and 35 cards. We also recommend that you do not randomize the entire deck, but rather swap out cards from your already built Survivor decks from previous scenarios.

Each Plot deck has corresponding Action, Building, and Survivor cards that match the style of that Scenario. Try to have at least two cards of that matching type while customizing the Survivor and Main decks.

Form a New Main deck

As with the Survivor deck, you can customize your Main deck to your liking. We also recommend to keep the number of cards in the deck between 55 and 70.

We recommend that the deck should be approximately half Supply cards. Reducing the number of Supply cards will increase the difficulty of survival.

Variants

Longer Game: Players may change the game length by adding more Event cards to the deck and setting a new endgame SP goal. We recommend that you play at least three full games before adjusting either of these.

Survival mode: Start the game with fewer Life points (<7) and with fewer Supply cards in the main deck. Test your mettle and see how difficult you can make it and still succeed.

No Events: It is possible to play the game without using the Event cards. If you wish to play without Events, just skip phase 1 of every round. You can still use the Event cards as a round counter.

Card Clarifications

Heroic Act: If you cannot pay the full Life cost, you cannot play this card. You do not need to pay any Supplies to recruit the Survivor.

Building Plans: For example, if a Building requires 5 supplies to construct, you can play this card if there are 3 or 4 supplies on it to finish the construction without spending any additional supplies.

Fresh Start: Place all of the cards from your deck face up in your Discard pile.

Armed Robbery: This card has two effects. First, you play it as an action to draw 1 card. Then, if you Fire a Weapon, you may exchange the card with one from another player's hand. You take a random card from their hand and place it on your Discard pile, and then you place the Armed Robbery into their hand.

First Strike: This card has two effects. First, you play it as an action to gain 2 more actions. Then, if you Fire a Weapon, you choose another player and take a random card from their discard pile into your hand.

Credits

• Game Design: Pini Shekhter
• Co-Game Design: Elad Goldsteen
• Rules and Editing: Paul Grogan
• Illustrations: Naomi Robinson, Álvaro Nebot, Víctor Pérez Corbella
• Graphic Design: Studio Deshe
• Narrative: Elad Goldsteen, Alvin Chen, Daniel Newman

I wish to thank to all of the play testers who helped make this game better.