Lemuria Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Objective
• Components
• Setup
• Append Rules (Lemuria Impact setup)
• Game Flow
  • 1. Turn Start
  • 2. Altar Phase
  • 3. Main Phase
    • Material Operation
    • Build
    • Hand
  • 4. End of Turn
• Game End and Victory
• Lemuria Impact (Append Rules)
• Translation Notes

Game Objective

Lemuria is a city of ancient times. Use the power of time to turn material into resources. You are a developer: build facilities, bring people into the city, and develop it. The period is one year, set by the stars. Compete with the other players in how far each has developed the city.

Components

• Game board (1): Represents the ancient city of Lemuria. It is divided into five areas: the Star-Carved Altar (lower centre), which manages the flow of time; the Star-Carved Calendar (upper centre), which shows the year; the city area, where you build by placing chits; the Trend row of five building cards; and the Score track around the outer edge of the board. The four corners of the board hold the turn-order pedestals, which show play order.
  • The calendar is divided into 12 memories, one per month, with three festivals at months 4, 8 and 12.
  • The city area has 20 building slots in four districts: Rural district (6 slots), Commerce district (5 slots), Administrative district (5 slots) and Church district (4 slots). Each district gives a bonus (see Turn Start).
  • Translation note: the rule text names the gold district 商業区 (Commerce district). The board's printed label for that district reads 倉庫区 (Warehouse district). The rule text is followed here; see Translation Notes.
• Resource chits (105): Each chit corresponds to one resource, and its number shows the amount. There are three values: 1, 2 and 5. Each chit is two-sided, and each side shows a different resource.
• Building chits (32): Placed in the city area's building slots. Eight per player, colour-coded by player.
• Materials (4 per player, 20 shared): Each player has two Plant Materials (wood cubes) and two Mineral Materials (rock-crystal cubes). Plant and Mineral materials produce different resources when harvested from the altar. There are also 20 shared black wood cubes (black cubes).

Setup

1. Place the altar card face up on the Star-Carved Altar. Place one marker on the "1" of the Star-Carved Calendar. When you place the altar card, line up the start position: the ▼ on the game board must face the ▲ on the altar card.
2. Shuffle the building cards well into one deck. Draw the top five and place them face up in the Trend row, in order from the right. The Trend row shows which facilities the citizens of Lemuria most want. The leftmost facilities are the most needed.
   • The three leftmost cards are the Upper Trend. The two rightmost cards are the Lower Trend.
   • An Upper Trend building gives a trend bonus of VP when built. A Lower Trend building gives no trend bonus, but when built it lets you reduce one of its required resources.
3. Each player chooses a colour. Take that colour's player pawn, eight building chits, two Plant materials and two Mineral materials of that colour. From the resource supply, take 3 Gold and 3 Food.
   • In a 3-player game, the unused colour's building chits, materials, score marker and player pawns are returned to the box.
4. Shuffle the character cards well into a deck. Each player draws three cards as their starting hand. The hand is kept secret.
5. Each player chooses the least useful card in their hand and passes it to the player on their left. The remaining two cards, plus the card received from the player on their right, form the starting hand.

Append Rules (Lemuria Impact setup)

If you use the append rules, place the Lemuria Impact cards face up beside the game board as well.

• The Lemuria Impact cards are numbered 1 to 8. Mix all eight cards, shuffle them well, and draw one per player. Place the drawn cards face up in ascending number order.

Game Flow

One turn represents one month. The game ends at the end of turn 12. Follow the steps below each turn.

1. Turn Start
2. Altar Phase
3. Main Phase
4. End of Turn

1. Turn Start

Turn bonuses. Look at each district of the city area. In each district, the single player with the most building chits placed there (and at least one) may take the bonus for that district. If two or more players are tied for most, no one in that district takes the bonus.

• Rural district: take 1 Food.
• Commerce district: take 1 Gold.
• Administrative district: reduce one required resource of one card in the Upper Trend by one.
• Church district: take 3 VP.

On festival turns (turns 4, 8 and 12), every player with at least one building chit in the city area receives the same bonus for each district, regardless of how many chits they have there.

Turn order. Next, determine the turn order for this turn.

• On turn 1, decide the dealer (親) by rock-paper-scissors or any agreed method. Starting from the dealer and moving clockwise, each player places their pawn on a turn-order pedestal in the corner of the board, in the order of the numbers on the pedestals.
• From turn 2 onward, starting with the player with the lowest VP, each player places their pawn on a turn-order pedestal in numerical order. The player whose pawn is on pedestal 1 is the dealer for this turn.
  • If VP is tied, the player who is closer clockwise from the dealer goes first. If several players share the lowest VP, measure from the previous turn's dealer.
  • If all players are tied, the player to the left of the previous turn's dealer becomes the dealer.
• At this step, if any player placed a material on a turn-order pedestal during the previous turn's Main Phase, that player places their pawn on that pedestal regardless of VP, and returns the placed material to their area in front of them.
• The remaining players then take the empty turn-order pedestals, from the lowest number upward, following the normal process.

2. Altar Phase

From the first festival turn onward, the dealer performs the following steps on the Star-Carved Altar. On turns 1 to 3, skip this phase.

1. The altar rotates automatically one memory clockwise. This step is mandatory.
2. Then pay 1 Gold to move the altar one memory clockwise, or move it back one memory. Only one memory's worth of movement is allowed. You may skip this step if you do not need it.

3. Main Phase

Players take their turns in the turn order set at the start of the turn. On your turn, first remove your pawn from its turn-order pedestal and return it to your area in front of you.

When you take resource chits, return the materials you removed to their owners' areas in front of them, and return black cubes to the material supply.

• If the resource chits run out, no further resources can be gained.
• If several players gain resource chits at once, process them starting from the harvesting player and moving clockwise.

On your turn, you choose one of three actions: Material Operation, Build, or Hand. You may use these at any time during your turn. Material Operation is mandatory. The other actions may be passed if you do not need them. When you are done, pass the turn to the next player.

Material Operation

Place a material you have in front of you, or harvest one of your own materials on the altar.

• In one turn you may do only one of these: place or harvest. If you have no materials left in front of you, you must harvest. If you cannot harvest either, pass the Material Operation.

Placement. Choose one memory on the altar and place one of your materials on an empty block in that memory.

• If any player's material (yours or another's) is already in that memory, you may place only the same type of material there. For example, a Mineral Material cannot be placed in a memory where a Plant Material is already placed.
• Instead of placing on a memory, you may place a material on an empty turn-order pedestal to choose your turn order for the next turn. In that case, place one material, either Plant or Mineral, on any empty pedestal. You may not place materials on more than one pedestal.
• You may place as many materials as you have, in as many turns as you wish.

Harvest. Harvest one of your materials from the altar. Normally you harvest once, but for each 1 Gold you pay, you may harvest one additional time.

1. Choose one memory where you have at least one material and every block is filled.
2. Remove all materials placed in that memory, and all black cubes there.
3. You receive resource chits equal to the number of your own materials removed plus the number of black cubes removed, for the resources the altar card's memory shows for the Plant or Mineral materials placed there.
4. If any other player's material was removed, that player also receives resource chits in the same way: equal to the number of their own materials removed plus half the number of black cubes removed, rounded down.

The rulebook's example shows a blue player harvesting one memory. The resource received is determined by the altar disc. Since this memory is a Mineral memory, the printed result is Gold.

Build

Use resources to construct a facility.

• No matter how many resources you have, you may build only one facility per turn. Special effects may allow extra building.
• Choose any card from the Trend row. Pay the required resources and place the card in front of you as your facility. You gain the VP printed on the card plus the trend bonus.
  • The trend bonus, from left to right, is 6 → 3 → 1 → 0 → 0 VP. Normally, a Lower Trend card gives no trend bonus (except in special situations such as Lemuria Impact).
  • When you build from the Lower Trend (the two rightmost cards), you may reduce one of the card's required resources by one. If you have a bonus from the Administrative district, you may also reduce one required resource of an Upper Trend card by one.
• You may build no more than eight facilities in total, the same number as the building chits you were dealt at the start of the game.
• Trend special effects also apply to extra building and to remodeling (see below).

After these steps, place one of your building chits on any empty building slot in the city area. You may choose any district. Which district you built in is not tracked during the game, so you do not need to remember it.

• If every building slot is full, you cannot place a building chit. Skip this step. You may still build, and still gain VP, even when all slots are full.

Remodeling. From the second festival turn onward (turn 8), you may remodel instead of building. Remodeling replaces a build action; you may not remodel twice, or remodel once and build once in the same turn.

1. Choose one of your own facilities and discard it to the bottom of the building card deck. If a character lives in that facility, discard that character card too, returning it to the bottom of the character deck.
2. Next, choose one card from the Trend row that you want to build. You may reduce one of its required resources by one. If the facility you discarded and the new card are the same colour, you may reduce one more required resource.
   • This applies only to "the next building card you build this turn." It does not carry over to later turns, and even if a skill lets you build two facilities, it applies only to the first one.
3. Then, as in a normal build, gain the VP printed on the card and (if any) the trend bonus.

Remodeling does not place a new building chit in a building slot. You gain VP from the build, but the number of facilities does not increase. Note this carefully.

The resource reductions from remodeling stack with the Lower Trend and Administrative district bonuses.

Hand

You may use or buy hand cards at any time during your turn.

• You may not interrupt another action to do this. For example, during a harvest you may use a character card to rotate the altar with a magician skill and then pay 1 Gold to harvest again.

Playing a character card. Pay the Food shown at the top right of the card, then play one card from your hand and apply its skill effect immediately.

• There is no limit to the number of hand cards you may play in one turn, as long as you have Food.
• After applying the skill, the played card returns to the bottom of the character deck. At that moment, if you have a facility with no resident yet, you may instead keep the card there as a resident (this is optional). To do so, lay the played character card on its side, place the facility card on top of its left-hand side, and gain the character's VP.
  • Normally you gain the VP on the left side of the character card. If the facility's colour matches the character's colour, you gain the higher VP on the right side instead. So matching colours is usually better, but during festival turns, facilities with residents give bonuses by number, so placing a character in a facility can be worthwhile even if the colours differ.
  • A character who lives in a facility occupies it. No other character may move into that facility. If a character card is returned to the deck by a skill or remodeling, the facility is free again.

Buying a character card. Pay Gold equal to the number of cards in your hand, and draw one card from the character deck into your hand. If your hand is empty, you may draw one card without paying.

Exchanging a character card. Pay 2 Gold to draw one card from the character deck, then return one card from your hand to the bottom of the deck.

4. End of Turn

When all players have finished their turns, the turn ends. Use the following order. Turns that are festival turns differ in some steps.

1. Materials to black cubes. Look at the altar. For each memory where a player has material and there is an empty block, place one black cube on one empty block in that memory. If you run out of black cubes, use some other chips or counters as substitutes. This applies on normal and festival turns alike. This step is not performed on the final turn.
2. Trend refill. If the rightmost card of the Trend row (the fifth card) remains, return it to the bottom of the building deck. Then slide the remaining building cards to the right and refill one card at a time, from the right, so that the Trend row holds five cards again. If the deck runs out, you cannot refill further. This step is also not performed on the final turn.
3. Festival scoring (festival turns only). On a festival turn, after steps 1 and 2, each player receives a bonus according to the number of facilities that have a character living in them. Look at each player's facilities with residents, colour by colour:
   • In each colour, the player with the most such facilities (1st place) gains VP equal to the number of facilities ×3.
   • Players in 2nd place and below gain VP equal to the number of facilities.
   • If two or more players are tied for 1st place in a colour, all of them gain VP equal to the number of facilities, and no one gains the ×3 bonus.

When these steps are done, the turn ends. Advance the calendar marker one memory and start a new turn. If this was turn 12, the game ends.

Game End and Victory

Repeat the turns until the game ends at the end of turn 12. The player with the most VP at the end of the game wins.

• If two or more players are tied, the player who went earlier in the final turn wins.
• Resources and hand cards left over at the end of the game are worth no VP. Use everything up before the end!

Lemuria Impact (Append Rules)

These rules are used only with the append rules.

• Each player may declare the use of a Lemuria Impact once per game, during their own turn.
• When you declare, take the lowest-numbered Lemuria Impact still available and place it in front of you. Apply its special effect immediately, during your own turn only, for the rest of that turn.
• After that, you may not declare another Lemuria Impact for the rest of the game.
• If you never declare a Lemuria Impact, there is no bonus or penalty at the end of the game.
• Lemuria Impact 8 (万民熱狂) reads, in its Japanese text: "All trends (upper and lower): the trend bonus becomes 6 points." The small English line printed on the card reads: "All buildings in the trend change their bonus into 6VP." The rule text above does not give the effects of Lemuria Impact cards 1 to 7. Their effects are printed on the cards themselves, and they are not included here.

Translation Notes

• This English text is the transcriber's translation of the official Japanese rulebook. Terms such as "Star-Carved Altar", "Star-Carved Calendar", "character card", and "Lemuria Impact" are literal English renderings of the Japanese terms used in the manual.
• The Japanese rule text names the gold-producing district 商業区 (Commerce district). The board's printed label for that district reads 倉庫区 (Warehouse district). The rule text is followed here.
• The rulebook's diagrams are not reproduced. Their captions are kept where they state a rule.
• The Japanese rule text uses 買う ("buy") for choosing the next turn order by placing a material on a pedestal. It is rendered here as "choose", the sense of the sentence. In the Hand section it also writes マテリア操作 (material operation) as a shorthand, and it is read as the same action.
• Only the effect of Lemuria Impact 8 is printed in this rulebook. The effects of cards 1 to 7 are not included.
• The publisher's errata for the English edition (on ash.jp) refer to English-manual items that do not appear in this Japanese text, so they are not applied here.