NecronomiCORP Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Building Set-Up
• To Start the Game
• The Turn
• Room Types
• Fighting a Monster
• Monsters Anatomy
• Responding to a Monster's Attack
• Abandoned Monsters
• The Bosses
• Plots
• Abilities
• The Board (map)
• Competitive Teams (variant)
• Office Rules
• FAQ
• Aliens & Spirits (expansion)
  • Curses
  • Contagion
  • Example of play

Components

CORE set:

• 72 Plot cards
• 100 Room cards
• 6 Final Boss cards
• 6 Characters
• A cardboard building
• A board
• 6 Character tokens
• 5 Dice
• 6 Life counters
• 50 Tokens

Expansion ALIENS & SPIRITS:

• 20 Plot cards
• 20 Monsters (Room cards)
• 2 Final Boss cards
• 4 Special Characters
• 13 Curses

Building Set-Up

On each level a number of specific cards must be placed:

Level	Cards
Top	1 boss
5th	10
4th	15
3rd	20
2nd	25
1st	30

To do this, do the following:

1. Separate the monsters by level, making five stacks. Make a sixth stack with Empty Rooms and Loot cards.
2. Prepare the first level, shuffling all Empty Room cards and Loot cards with all the Level 1 monsters. Pull 29 random cards and the Exit 1 card for a total of 30, shuffle these and place them on the bottom level of the building. This will be the first level: place this stack of 30 cards face down on the building in the bottom space. You will have cards left.
3. To prepare the second level, take the remaining cards and shuffle them with the Level 2 monsters, pull 24 cards and the Exit 2 card and shuffle them. Place these cards face down on the second space. You will have cards left again.
4. Repeat this process to prepare levels 3, 4 and 5. Note: you will always shuffle the leftover cards and monsters of the previous level with the new level and the Exit card to create each level. This will mean you occasionally find lower level monsters on higher levels, but you'll never run into a tough monster on the lower levels.

In the end you should not have any remaining cards unless you have additional cards such as promotional or expansions. In that case we recommend removing the Loot Cards.

TIP 1 (Variant): You can modify, create and design your own adventure as long as everyone agrees. So put the exit where you want, or place the cards wherever, put things in a specific order if you want, even choose the final boss.

TIP 2: A good building has at least 13 Empty rooms. But if you want all the variety and intrigue, you can shuffle each Room you have, but keep in mind that you shouldn't have more than 100 cards at the end. Keep the leftovers secret.

To Start the Game

Each player begins with a character in the hallway on the first level and has the life points allotted to their character. Characters with no special skills will start the game with weapons or items based on the number of players.

Players	Start with
1	Two random weapons and two first-aid kits. Remove all undesirable Plot cards from the deck.
2	Two +1D random weapons.
3-4	One +1D random weapon.
5-6	Nothing.

It's recommended that you use the special characters if you have three or less players, are playing with Curse Cards, or are including anything else that makes the game more difficult. If you still want to use basic characters, we suggest adding an extra random item.

Since this is a cooperative game it doesn't matter who starts and you can decide based on whatever you want. Once decided, each player takes turns clockwise.

The Turn

The turn is divided into 3 basic steps:

• Beginning of turn
• Exploration
• End of turn

During the Beginning and End of the turn you can perform the following actions as many times as you like:

• Pick up any weapon on the floor in your area.
• Trade items and weapons with any player in the same area.
• If you are in the hallway you can go up or down to another available level. (Level 2 is not available until the exit in level 1 is found, and so on.)

During the exploration you can:

• Flip your character card once, either to enter or leave a room.

To enter a new room, the player must turn his character from hallway to room and draw the next Room Card of the level. You can also pass from the hallway to any revealed room in which there is another player, weapon or monster abandoned. Players can't go to discarded rooms. Remember you can only flip your card once each turn, so you'll need to wait for the next turn to get back to the hallway.

Each card inside the building is considered a separate room. When a weapon is thrown to the floor or a vending machine appears, they are in that room. This means a player might need several turns to go through each room and collect dropped weapons or other useful items. Each room and each hallway are different areas.

Room Types

• Exit: The player who reveals it goes to the hallway of the next level. This card allows all players to move up or down from level to level.
• Empty Rooms: They have no effect on their own (but can interact with other cards). Discard immediately.
• Loot Cards: When you draw this card, discard it and draw a Plot card from the Plot deck.
• Monsters: The player must fight it.

Fighting a Monster

When revealing a monster it will try to attack first. The player must fight it following these steps:

1. The abilities of the revealed monster are triggered and automatically take effect.
2. If the player has ranged weapons, s/he can attack using them.
3. The monster will attack the player.
4. The player must respond. When the player responds, he can only perform one of the following actions: attack, escape, ask for help.

Afterwards, if a player is still in combat, the monster will attack again and all players that continue in the match must respond again, following the first three steps above, until the monster is killed or there are no living players in the room.

Monsters Anatomy

• A Loot: Killing this monster allows that player to draw this many Plot cards.
• B Menace: How many dice the monster rolls when attacking.
• C Life points.
• D The lowest level where this monster may appear.
• E Type.
• F Abilities.
• G Flavor Text.

Responding to a Monster's Attack

Each time a monster attacks, each player in the fight must choose one action:

Try to escape: Roll a die. If the result is 4-6, go to the hallway and the monster is "abandoned" in the room. If you fail, the monster attacks again.

Attack the monster: For this you can use one or both hands, either with bare fists or using weapons. To attack you have the following options:

• Use one or two bare fists (each punch is an individual attack roll).
• A one-handed weapon
• A one-handed weapon and a bare fist
• Two one-handed weapons
• Only with a two-handed weapon

Each time you attack, you can use your weapons only once.

Each player's attack, either with fists or weapons, always has a base die, and the weapons will indicate how many additional dice are added to your attack roll.

When rolling the dice, each one resulting 4-6 will do one point of damage. This means if you decide to attack with the Fire Axe, you will throw the base die plus the two dice indicated by the Fire Axe, and for each die that comes up with a 4, 5 or 6 you will do one point of damage to the monster.

If attacking with a weapon and all dice show a skull, that weapon is discarded. If you attack with a bare fist and the die shows a skull, deal two points of damage to yourself. (Remember, if you decide to attack with both bare fists, it is one die at a time.)

Ask for help: If you decide to ask for help, only other players in the same level's hallway can enter that room at a time and attack the monster, but they can do this in the order they want.

The monster will always attack the last player who injured it or, if not injured, attack the last player who entered the room. Once the monster has attacked again, all players in the room take actions individually once again, repeating this until the fight ends.

When a monster dies, discard it and then solve all triggered effects if there are any. Place the monster card in the discard pile marked on the map on the level it appeared. Finally, the player who dealt the killing blow will draw the amount of Plot cards shown on the monster's indicator. If multiple Plots are revealed, these should be solved one at a time.

Abandoned Monsters

If all the players in the fight escape from the monster, it is considered abandoned. Place the revealed monster on one side of the map next to the level where the monster was found. Abandoned monsters will retain their damage dealt. If a player enters a room to fight an abandoned monster, the player can attack first with melee.

The Bosses

Fighting against a Boss follows the same monster's rules, except players can't escape the Boss, and killing the Boss ends the game.

Players randomly choose the final boss according to the number of surviving players when they discover the last exit:

• PLAYERS 1-3 and 4-6: the printed diagram shows two arrows, one labelled 1-3 and one labelled 4-6, pointing to the final boss stack. The stack assignment is shown only graphically on the page.

The example boss card shown is W. Whateley. Ability: "Each time W. Whateley attacks, it heals one damage for each skull on the result." Flavor text: "We always suspected that the one in top of this couldn't be entirely human."

If a player dies, their items and weapons drop to the floor and other players can pick them up; it will retain its traumas. If the character dies during a fight and there is a living monster in that area, the monster must be destroyed before taking the character's dropped cards.

TIP 3: There is a card that revives a fallen player.

Plots

The Plot deck is located on the side of the building and contains four types of cards:

• Event: When an event is drawn, play it immediately, then discard it (vending machines are discarded when they no longer have life tokens).
• Item: When a player draws an item, they acquire it immediately. Players may carry all the items they want. Some items have continuous effects and others have to be discarded to do their effect. If the item does not specifically say when it needs to be discarded, you can discard it whenever you want.
• Trauma: When a player draws a Trauma, they acquire it and its effects start immediately. Traumas can't be traded or passed to another player.
• Weapons: When a player draws a weapon, it appears on the floor of that area. Remember, at the end of the turn any player in that area can pick it up (players have priority according to the order of turns, starting with the player who found the weapon). A player can carry only two weapons with them. If they want to collect a new weapon and already have two, they must leave another on the floor.

Example weapon card: Barra de Fierro (Crowbar). The card's printed ability and flavor text are in Spanish on the example; they are translated here:

• Ability: "You can use this weapon as if it were a one-handed weapon with a -1 drawback."
• Flavor text: "This is all I need."

Weapon card anatomy:

• A Number of dice used to the attack.
• B One-handed or two-handed.
• C Number of times you can use the weapon to attack. Those with a number use charge tokens for this. When a weapon runs out of charge tokens, it's not discarded; you can use it as if it were a +0D melee weapon (like pistol whipping someone).
• D Ranged or melee. Remember: bare fists are considered melee attacks.
• E Abilities.
• F Flavor text.

Abilities

• +1D -1D: Indicates that you must add or subtract additional dice in each roll.
• Bonus and drawback: These modify the visible results of all dice rolled. For example: with Bonus +1, rolling two dice resulting in a 5 and a 3, they become 6 and 4. If you roll with drawback and your result becomes 1, this does not count as a skull.
• Rolling the dice and landing on a skull, it can't be modified with either a bonus or drawback.
• Hardness: The damage done to this card is reduced by 1, i.e. if a player deals 3 damage, you prevent 1 of them and this becomes 2. (Obviously a monster with hardness can't be damaged with bare fists.)
• VS: Indicates what this skill specifically works against.

The Board (map)

The map serves as discard piles for each level and to locate each player on which level they are. Place the rooms and abandoned cards outside the map next to the level they were found, in order to maintain a visible and clear order. If you play with Curses (Aliens & Spirits expansion cards), place the curses on a separate side of the map pointing towards the level they affect.

Competitive Teams (variant)

Arrange equal teams of two or three people and sit alternately around the table, so two members of the same team can't sit next to each other.

The rules of the game are exactly the same, except when a player kills a monster the team gains points equal to their level. You choose how many points are needed to win and end the game. We suggest 40 points for two teams and 25 for three teams. The final boss is worth equal points marked to his difficulty (3 or 6). If a team kills the boss, the game ends and points are counted even if the other goals were not reached.

Using the same basic rules from co-op play, players can ask a member of another team for help, but they risk point theft if the other player kills the monster.

Remember, when taking weapons, helping players and other situations that require order discussion, players take priority in the same way as in a co-op game.

Office Rules

Handwritten note box printed on the rulebook page:

• If a strong monster appears in a lower level than it should, just assume it's your destiny and the fates hate you.
• If a player draws the last room card on one level and the exit did not appear (for whatever reason), consider that card to be the exit.
• If there is a complicated action that will take you several turns to accomplish, you can "take turns" to do it quickly and speed up the game, but only if everyone agrees.
• If there's a rule which players disagree on, skip it for now, as it's supposed to be a cooperative game. Make the rule one you all agree on for now or flip a coin, while another player checks the rule book. Don't slow the game down.

FAQ

Can I or a monster heal more than the card says? No. Unless the card says otherwhise.

When I have to attack another player, do I have to do it with a weapon or can I do it with my fists? You can do it any way you want. Just remember that your fists hurt you if you roll a skull.

Can you explain the Thanophobia? First the monster's effects trigger, if there are any. Then the player can perform ranged attacks. Then the monster attacks. At this point, the player can only try to escape. If the player fails to escape, the monster will attack again, but this time the player is free to respond however they want.

And Pony Bovarsim? Monsters are no longer zombies or vampires or anything. Now they are ponies.

What happens if I have to draw two Plot Cards and the first one sends me to the hallway and the second is...

• A weapon: it's dropped in the hallway.
• Boom!: You're already out, you get it.
• It's still alive!: The fight will happen in the hallway, and if you ask for help, no player in the hallway will need to go to the room or flip cards to help (because the fight is already in the hallway... duh).

If I have the Wooden Stake or the Broom, how many dice do I roll? Five dice with the stake and four with the broom. Just don't forget that you make this decision before declaring the attack.

When fighting Abhoth, if I do more damage than the top zombie can handle, is the remaining damage dealt to the next zombie? No.

If a monster that has taken damage is shuffled back into the deck, when it appears again, does it retain its previous damage? No.

When a player opens the door to face the final boss, are the other players obliged to come in and help? No. They can let a teammate die if they want to, go check the rooms for equipment, weapons, etc., then go back to fight the boss. But it's not a very good strategy.

I have Obsessive Precaution and I check the final boss door but we decided not to enter yet and check more rooms instead, but during the process characters died or were revived, meaning the amount of characters facing the final boss changed. Does the final boss change? Yes. You need to pick a new boss card.

Sometimes I feel like we're manipulating the rules of the game and it seems we're cheating. That's how NecronomiCORP needs to be played; it's a game to manipulate everything you can in your favor.

Aliens & Spirits (expansion)

"Aliens & Spirits" is an expansion pack for the core game which includes additional room cards with monsters, additional Plots, Curses and special characters.

Curses

These are only for levels One thru Five individually. At the start of the game the starting player is considered cursed and reveals a random Curse card that will impact that level. The player who finds an exit card will also be cursed and reveal a new Curse card that will impact the new level. When a cursed character dies, discard all curses related to that character. A player can be under more than one curse.

Contagion

When a monster with contagion kills a character, at the end of that player's turn they roll two dice and return to the game with life points equal to that result. That player is now considered a monster of the same monster type that killed them from that point on and gains contagion. The newly created monster keeps its previous traumas. From then on, that player plays by the same rules as a normal character, except that it can only help from other infected players.

An infected player may move between rooms and floors in a normal manner, but when entering an area with another non-infected player, a fight immediately occurs.

Infected players have priority to attack before ranged weapons, regardless of whether they have weapons or not.

An infected character, just like a normal player, can escape combat. Additionally, any player can escape from infected players while in a hallway; if they do, they may go to a room with an abandoned weapon or monster of that level, or open a new door. Similarly, a character who escapes from one hallway may go to another hallway of another available level.

Infected players can help other infected players regardless of whether they are in a hallway or room.

Monsters with 0 resistance? These appear to trigger their abilities and later die by themselves.

The monster disappeared after attacking me, do I still respond? No.

Infected players can't be attacked by other monsters or vice versa.

If for some reason at the end of the turn there is an infected player and a non-infected player in the same area, they must immediately start a battle.

When two or more monsters appear in the same area, the rules are the same. Just remember that ranged weapons attack first, then monsters attack, and they will do so at the same time: each monster attacks the player who did last damage or the last one who entered the room. When a monster dies, the Plot cards are not drawn until the battle ends, i.e. there is no other monster alive in the area.

Example of play

"This is how a game might look after 30 minutes with 3 players." The curses affecting levels, some monsters and a pair of abandoned weapons. One player has separated from the party to go through the Vending Machine, and each player has two weapons.

Captions on the printed example:

• "This indicates which level a player is on. And here you discard explored rooms and killed monsters."
• "The five abandoned cards are in separate rooms and the vampire has taken damage. If the blue player, on his turn, opens a room and wants to ask for help, no one could do it because the yellow player is in a room and the white player is on another level."