Jewels for the Emperor Penguin Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setting Up to Play
• Gems
• Taking Turns
• Spending Dice & Moving Penguins
• Teamwork! (Bumping Penguins)
• Slides
• Abilities
  • Active Ability
  • Everyone Ability
• Ability Example
• Guide to Abilities
  • Exchanges
  • Acquires
  • Special Abilities
• Returning to the Valley
  • Valley Market Exchanges
• Buying Objective Cards
• Re-rolling Your Dice
• Final Score Summary
• The End of the Game

Components

• 25 penguins, in five teams of five penguins each
• 15 dice, in five groups of three that match the penguin team colors
• 1 valley floor tile (in two jigsaw pieces)
• 23 regular tiles
• 1 trophy tile
• 1 Emperor Penguin's Grateful Thanks card
• 45 objective cards
• 6 Penguin Guild & unspent dice clearings
• 5 reference cards
• 45 Rubies
• 25 Emeralds
• 15 Sapphires
• 10 Diamonds

These quantities are not limits. If you run out while playing, use convenient replacements.

Setting Up to Play

1. Build the Valley

   • Separate the TILES by TIER (A–E). Each tile's tier is labeled on the back.
   • Shuffle each group. Then build the map randomly by tier as shown.
   • However, if this is someone's first game of Jewels for the Emperor Penguin, we recommend using the STARTER TILES (1) instead of choosing randomly. The starter tiles all have a crown on their tier letter. Once you have the starter tiles separated from the others, put them randomly in the right places by letter, as shown.
   • Once the tiles have all been placed in appropriate positions on the board, turn them all face-up.

2. Assemble Your Guild

   • Each player takes five PENGUINS and three DICE with the same color.
   • Everyone puts all their penguins on the VALLEY FLOOR tile.
   • Secretly assign each player a Penguin Guild. Shuffle the six circular Penguin Guild clearing tiles and deal one to each player with the Guild symbol face-down and the three dice outlines face-up. You can look at your own Guild assignment, but the other players' assignments stay secret until the end of the game.
   • Any player who wants one takes a reference card.
   • Everyone rolls all three of their dice and puts them on their dice clearing. Then, if a player did not roll at least one wild, they can change one of their dice to the wild (snowflake) face.

3. The Emperor's Desires (…For Now)

   • Shuffle the deck of OBJECTIVE CARDS.
   • Deal five cards face-up near the top of the map where everyone can see them.

Gems

Gems are listed from least valuable to most valuable: Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire, Diamond.

The Emperor Penguin loves Diamonds best! His next favorite is Sapphires, then Emeralds, then Rubies.

Taking Turns

Starting with the first player and going clockwise around the table, take TURNS until the game ends.

On your turn you'll…

1. SPEND a die to MOVE a penguin (or several penguins, by bumping).
2. Activate two tile ABILITIES.
3. Next, if you can afford it, you can buy an objective card.
4. Finally, you'll re-roll any dice you spent.

When you re-roll, your turn ends and the next player's turn begins.

Spending Dice & Moving Penguins

Each of your dice can move your penguin with the same number. So if one of your dice shows a 5, you can spend it to move your #5 penguin.

A die showing 0, which also has a snowflake symbol, is wild. It can move any of your five penguins.

When you spend a die to move a penguin, take it off your dice clearing so you remember which one you spent when it's time to re-roll.

When you move a penguin, you can move it from where it is to any adjacent tile, with one exception: you can never move a penguin straight up the ice wall — it's too steep!

You can move from the valley floor tile to three different tiles. But you still can't go straight up the ice wall.

Teamwork! (Bumping Penguins)

If you move a penguin to a tile that already has another one of your penguins on it, and if the newly arriving penguin's number is larger, the larger penguin can BUMP the smaller penguin. A bumped penguin can move to any tile it could move to from the tile it's being bumped from. (That is, it can move in any direction except straight up.)

Some additional notes about bumping:

• Penguins can bump in chains! The only restriction is the obvious one: each penguin has to bump a penguin smaller than itself.
• Only one penguin can be bumped by a single arriving penguin. An arriving penguin does not bump all smaller penguins at its destination.
• Penguins can be bumped from the valley floor tile as from any other tile.

Slides

Sliding down the valley walls is fun... and valuable! Any time a penguin moves down one of the slides at the bottom of a tile, they immediately collect the bonus gems shown.

Your penguin team can even collect more than one bonus if you combine bumping and sliding to send several penguins down more than one slide on the same turn.

(In the slide diagram, the penguin slides down a slide whose bonus gems are one Emerald and one Ruby.)

Abilities

Each tile has two abilities:

• Active Ability: The ACTIVE ABILITY is the ability on the left.
• Everyone Ability: The EVERYONE ABILITY is the one on the right.

After your penguin is done moving — and after any bumped penguins are also done moving — activate the abilities on the last tile that one of your penguins moved to.

(That is, don't activate abilities on tiles a penguin was bumped from. Only activate abilities in the very last tile you moved a penguin to. If this seems confusing, imagine that bumping penguins is exhausting, so a penguin that bumps is too tired to activate an ability.)

All abilities are optional. Players can always decline to use them.

Active Ability

A tile's active ability is carried out one time only, and only for the penguin that just arrived there. Do it as soon as you're sure that you're done moving. (That is, as soon as you're sure you're not going to do any more bumping.)

Everyone Ability

After you do a tile's active ability, every penguin on that tile gets to do that tile's everyone ability. (Even the penguin that just got there!)

If a player has more than one penguin on the tile, they get to do the everyone ability once per penguin they have there.

Ability Example

The pink player ends their movement here. The active ability is to exchange one Sapphire for one Diamond, so the pink player does that once. Then, everyone gets to use the "acquire one Ruby" ability for every penguin they have on this tile. So the pink player takes two, the blue player takes two, and the yellow player takes one.

Guide to Abilities

There are two main kinds of abilities: EXCHANGES and ACQUIRES. There are also a few SPECIAL ABILITIES.

A few tiles have two options separated by a slash. That means the player can choose between two different options each time they do that ability.

Exchanges

Any ability with an arrow lets you trade whatever's on the top of the arrow for whatever's on the bottom of the arrow, one time per eligible penguin.

For example, this exchange lets you trade one Emerald for three Rubies.

Return whatever you're trading in to the supply, and take whatever you're getting from the supply.

If you don't have everything shown on the top of the arrow you can't do the trade — that ability has no effect for you.

Acquires

An ability showing gems that doesn't have an arrow lets you take the gems shown from the supply, with no additional cost.

For example, this acquire ability lets you take one Emerald and one Sapphire from the supply.

Special Abilities

Each special ability below has unique rules.

• Adjust: Add or subtract one from the value of one of the unspent dice on your clearing. You can subtract one from 1 to get 0 (a wild die), but you can't subtract from 0 or add to 5 to "wrap around."

• Wild!: Turn one of your unspent dice to the 0 (snowflake / wild) side.

• Get Over Here!: Move one of your other penguins to this tile.

• Scatter Gems: Take three of your gems and put them on three different tiles. The first penguin who activates an active ability on a tile with a scattered gem takes it, in addition to the other abilities on that tile. (Scatter Gems never stands alone. It's always part of the cost of an exchange.)

• Swap Positions: Swap the locations of two of your penguins. (The penguin who triggered this ability can be one of them but doesn't have to be.)

• Play Again: Spend one of the unspent dice on your dice clearing to move another penguin — or the same penguin, again — normally. This penguin can bump, slide, and do anything else penguins are allowed to do when moving. Unlike other abilities and to avoid confusion, Play Again is resolved after the everyone ability on its tile. This is an exception to the normal order of play.

  The Play Again ability does not mean "take another turn," so you can't purchase a second objective card with Play Again.

• Swap Objectives: Swap an objective card you have already bought with an unclaimed objective from the top of the map, as long as the two objectives have the same point value or the two are only one point apart.

The Valley Market: If the valley floor is the last tile one of your penguins moved to, you can visit the Valley Market — see below.

Returning to the Valley

If the valley floor is the last tile one of your penguins moved to, you can visit the Valley Market. This lets you make two exchanges from the options shown. (You can make the same exchange twice if you want.)

Valley Market Exchanges

The six Valley Market exchanges are:

1. One Ruby for one Emerald.
2. One Emerald for three Rubies.
3. Two Emeralds for one Sapphire.
4. One Sapphire for three Emeralds.
5. One Emerald and one Sapphire for one Diamond.
6. One Ruby and one Diamond for two Sapphires.

Buying Objective Cards

After all players have done their everyone abilities, the player whose turn it is can buy one objective card from the top of the board if they wish.

To buy a card, pay its cost to the supply (A), take the card, and deal a face-up replacement from the deck. Players keep their purchased objectives face-down.

Every objective card is particularly valuable to two of the six Penguin Guilds (B). If you have one of those Guilds' symbols on the bottom of the circular Guild assignment token you received at the beginning of the game, you'll earn two extra points for that objective at the end of the game.

Each objective is worth a number of points (C) at the end of the game.

If you just took your fifth objective card, also take the Emperor Penguin's Grateful Thanks card. The game is about to end!

(In the objective card example, the card costs one Ruby and four Emeralds, and is worth 5 points.)

Re-rolling Your Dice

Once you've bought a card or decided not to, re-roll any dice you spent to move penguins this turn and return them to your dice clearing. (Don't re-roll the dice that are still on your clearing that you didn't use this turn. They stay on the same faces until you use them.)

Re-rolling shows that your turn is done and the next player can go ahead.

Final Score Summary

• The sum of your objective card values
• 2 extra points for each of your objective cards that matches your Guild
• 4 extra points if you collected the Emperor Penguin's Grateful Thanks

The End of the Game

When a player buys their fifth objective and claims the Emperor Penguin's Grateful Thanks, every other player gets to take one more turn. After those turns are done the game ends.

Every player adds their points from objective cards, and from the Emperor Penguin's Grateful Thanks.

Each player also gets two bonus points for each objective they have that matches the Penguin Guild they were dealt at the beginning of the game.

The highest score wins! Gather your guild on the trophy tile and take a selfie!

If there's a tie, the tied player with the most Diamonds wins. If there's still a tie, break ties by most Sapphires, then most Emeralds, then most Rubies, then in favor of the player with the Emperor Penguin's Grateful Thanks. In the vanishingly small chance that there's still a tie, the Emperor Penguin is exhausted and those players share the victory.