Merchants of Dunhuang Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal of the Game
• Contents
• Setting Up The Game
• Playing The Game
  • 1. Move the Camel
  • 2. Pick Up a Good
  • 3. Use a Bonus
  • 4. Check Victory Conditions
  • 5. Refill the Market
• End Of The Game
• Final Scoring
• Annex: Characters

Goal of the Game

Be the first player to collect 4 Majority Tokens in your Shop (in front of you) AND 4 different goods in your hand, or be the player with the most points at the end of the game.

Contents

• 8 Character Tiles (Double-Sided)
• 55 Goods Cards: 1×Gold, 2×Silver, 3×Lapis Lazuli, 4×Pottery, 5×Glass, 6×Bamboo, 7×Tea, 8×Paper, 9×Wool, 10×Silk
• 10 Majority Tokens (Double-Sided: Number/Chinese characters 商, Numbered #1 to #10)
• 44 Coin Tokens
• 28 Prestige Tokens
• 1 Camel Pawn
• 1 First Player Marker

Setting Up The Game

1. Shuffle the 8 Character Tiles and place them on the table to form a circle. Each Character Tile is double-sided: you may use characters of your choice or randomly place the tiles. There are almost 400,000 possible different setup combinations!

2. Prepare the Goods Cards and Majority Tokens.

   • 4 players: use all Goods Cards and Majority Tokens.
   • 3 players: discard the "1" and all "10" cards, and the matching Majority Tokens.
   • 2 players: discard the "1" and all "9" and "10" cards, and the matching Majority Tokens.

3. Shuffle all Goods Cards to form a drawing pile, face down. Place that pile in the middle of the circle of characters. Draw the first 8 cards and place 1 card next to each character, as shown on the illustration. These 8 cards form the Market.

4. Each player draws 3 cards and keeps 1 card in hand. The others are removed from the game, face down. Keep some room in front of you: the area in front of you is called your Shop, which is empty for the moment.

5. Each player receives the following amount of coins:

   • 4 players: 7 coins each
   • 3 players: 6 coins each
   • 2 players: 5 coins each

Place the remaining coins in the middle of the table. Place the Prestige Tokens and Majority Tokens with them.

6. Randomly choose the first player and give them the First Player marker. The last player places the Camel Pawn on the character of their choice.

You are now ready to play.

Playing The Game

The game plays in a succession of turns. The first player starts. Players play clockwise until the end game condition is met.

On your turn, you do the following steps in order:

1. Move the Camel
2. Pick up a Good
3. Use a Bonus
4. Check Victory Conditions
5. Refill the Market

Once you've refilled the Market, the player on your left takes their turn. The game ends when a player fulfills the victory conditions (see below).

1. Move the Camel

You must move the Camel Pawn at least one step: Take the Camel Pawn and move it clockwise to the next Character Tile. This first move is free; however, if you want to move the Camel further, you must spend one coin for each extra move.

Example: Antony moves the Camel Pawn to the Shepherd. Moving the Camel to the Soldier is free, but Antony must spend one coin for the extra move to the Shepherd.

2. Pick Up a Good

There is a Goods Card next to each Character. Once you moved the Camel, collect the Goods Card next to the Character Tile where the Camel stopped. You may either place that card in your Shop (in front of you) or in your hand.

Hand

Simply add the card to your hand. Cards from your hand do not count when calculating Majority Tokens.

Shop

If you add a card to your Shop, place that card in front of you, face up. If you already have one or several cards of the same type, place them so that they overlap each other (other players should be able to see how many cards of each type you have): this is called a collection.

Whenever you place a new card in your Shop, take the Majority Token of the matching number and place it on that card (number face up), except if the Majority Token already is in a Shop that has more cards of this type than yours. Note that in the case of a tie, you still get the Majority Token.

Example: Nicole collects the Tea (#7) from the Market and places it in her Shop, with another Tea (#7) from a previous turn. Now Nicole has two Tea (#7) in her Shop, and there is no other Shop with more cards of this type than hers, so she takes the Majority Token.

Example: Antony collects the Tea from the Market and places it in his Shop, with another Tea (#7) from a previous turn. Nicole already has two Tea (#7) in her Shop, and the Majority Token. Antony may take the Majority Token, as no other Shop has more cards of this type than his (both have two Tea (#7)).

3. Use a Bonus

After you collected your card, you may choose one of the following bonuses:

Either

Check the Character Tile where the Camel stopped, and use that Character's special action (see Annex: Characters at the end of this booklet);

Or

Take three coins.

4. Check Victory Conditions

If, at the end of your turn, you have 4 Majority Tokens in your Shop (or 5 in a 2-player game) and at least 4 different goods in your hand, then you immediately win the game. Otherwise, move to Step 5.

Example: Nicole has 4 Majority Tokens and 4 different goods in her hand. She instantly wins the game.

5. Refill the Market

Draw new goods from the pile to refill any empty space of the Market. If there are several empty spaces, start from the Camel's space, then proceed clockwise.

Then, the player on your left takes their turn.

End Of The Game

If no one manages to gather 4 Majority Tokens in their Shop and 4 different goods in their hand, the game ends when you run out of cards to refill the Market. In that case, play until the last player (the person that sits on the right of the First player) plays their turn, then proceed to final scoring.

It may happen, in the last turns, that some Market spaces remain empty. These spaces still count towards the Camel's move, which means that you have to spend one coin if you want to skip such a space; if the Camel stops on such a space, you do not collect any card.

Final Scoring

To tally your points, proceed as follows:

• Discard all your cards from your Shop, keeping only the Majority Tokens;
• Score 2 points for each Majority Token;
• Score 1 point for each Prestige Token;
• Reveal the cards from your hand. If you have more cards than anyone else in a given type, or if you're tied with the same number of cards in a given type, keep one card of that type (all other cards are discarded).

Each card that you have in hand after this step is worth its facial number of points. However you cannot score more cards than you have Majority Tokens. For instance if you have 3 cards in hand but only two Majority Tokens, then you must discard one card.

The player with the highest score wins the game!

In the case of a tie, the richest player (most coins) among the tied players wins.

Reminder: You don't have to score points if someone met the victory conditions of Step 4. That player wins the game, no matter what.

Scoring example:

Adrien has more Glass (#5) than Nicole, which means that he keeps one Glass (#5) to score. All others Glass (#5) are discarded. He also has more Tea (#7) and Silk (#10) than Nicole, so he keeps one card of each and discards the rest.

However, since he only has 2 Majority Tokens, he can only score two cards out of three. He chooses to discard the Glass (#5) which is less valuable.

• 2 Majority Tokens — 4 (2 VP each)
• 0 Prestige Tokens — -
• Glass (#5) — -
• Tea (#7) — 7
• Silk (#10) — 10
• Total — 21

Nicole discarded all of her Glass (#5) and Tea (#7) because of Adrien. She still keeps her Bamboo (#6) and one of her Wool (#9) (because she has more cards of these types than Adrien). She has 3 Majority Tokens, which is more than enough to score all of her cards.

• 3 Majority Tokens — 6 (2 VP each)
• 2 Prestige Tokens — 2 (1 VP each)
• Glass (#5) — -
• Bamboo (#6) — 6
• Tea (#7) — -
• Wool (#9) — 9
• Total — 23

Nicole wins.

Annex: Characters

Reminder: all Bonus actions are optional. You may decide to take 3 coins instead.

Painter Discard one good from your hand and take 3 Prestige Tokens.

Musician Discard one good from your Shop and take 3 Prestige Tokens.

Princess Collect as many Prestige Tokens as you have Majority Tokens, regardless on their status (Number or 商).

Dancer Collect 2 Prestige Tokens.

Interpreter Pick up from the drawing pile as many goods as steps taken by the Camel. Keep one in your hand and place the others at the bottom of the drawing pile in a random order.

Diplomat Pick up two goods from the drawing pile. Keep one in your hand and place the other at the bottom of the drawing pile.

Soldier Exchange one good from your Shop with one good from the Market.

General Exchange one good from your hand with one good from the Market.

Trader Choose an opponent and randomly take two goods from their hand. Then, give them two goods from your hand. You may give back the exact same goods if you want.

Merchant Choose an opponent. That opponent chooses two goods from their hand and gives them to you. Then, give them two goods from your hand. You may give back the exact same goods if you want. Take 1 Prestige Token.

Maid Exchange one good from your Shop with a different one from your hand.

Domestic Take one good from your Shop and add it to your hand, or the other way around.

Important:

• If you add a good to a collection thanks to the Soldier/Maid/Domestic, immediately check if you can get the Majority Token, as if it were a new card.
• If you remove a good from a collection thanks to the Soldier/Maid/Domestic or Musician, be careful! If any opponent has more goods of that type than you, you must immediately return the Majority Token to the middle.

Shepherd Collect a Goods Card from the next or previous Market space, and place it in your hand.

Farmer Collect the Goods Card from the next Market space (clockwise) and place it in your hand. If the Camel moved two (or more) steps, you may collect one Goods Card from any of the two (or more) Market spaces instead, and so on.

Example: Matthew spends one coin to move the Camel two steps instead of one. The Camel stops on the Farmer. Matthew collects the Farmer's Goods Card (the Tea (#7)) and decides to use the Farmer's bonus. Since the Camel moved two steps, Matthew can take a good from any of the next two spaces: either the Glass (#5), or the Paper (#8).

Manichean / Buddhist Both characters allow you to flip one of your Majority Tokens on its 商 side. The effect depends on the characters:

• If the Manichean is in the game: when another player should steal your 商 Majority Token, you flip the 商 Majority Token on it's number side to keep it;
• If the Buddhist is in the game: when another player should steal your 商 Majority Token, they must pay you 2 coins to steal it.

The 商 side of the Majority Token only prevents a player that has as many cards of that type as you from stealing the Token. If a player has more cards than you in a given type, then they steal the token, regardless of the 商 Character.

In any case, the stolen token must be flipped on its number side.

Example: Nicole adds a second Bamboo to her Shop. She has now as many Bamboo as Adrien in his Shop. If the Manichean is in the game, Adrien may decide to flip the 商 Majority Token on it's number side to prevent Nicole from stealing the 商 Majority Token – or he can decide to let her steal the token. If the Buddhist is in the game, Nicole must pay 2 coins to Adrien to steal the 商 Majority Token – she may also decide not to steal it and keep her coins.

Example: On the next turn, Adrien adds a third Bamboo to his Shop. He has more Bamboo in his Shop than Nicole and instantly takes the Majority Token, regardless of its side. The Manichean/Buddhist effect cannot be used here since Adrien has more Bamboo than Nicole.