Noches de Sangre Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Components
• Cards Description
  • Survivors
  • Objects
  • Events
  • Places
  • Characters
  • Missions
  • Vampires
• Set Up
• Game Development
• Searching Day
  • A. Rescue a survivor/Buy an object.
  • B. Explore a location.
  • C. Rest
  • End of Searching Day
• Fighting Day
  • 1. Flee (optional)
  • 2. Battle
  • 3. Outcome of the Battle
• Feeding
• Blood, Life and Death
• End of the Game and Punctuation
• Solitaire Mode
  • Preparation
  • Goal
  • Game Development
  • End of the Game
• Hardcore Mode
  • Preparation
  • Game Development
• Make It Harder!
• Symbology
• Ability Description

Introduction

Bloody Nights is a semi-cooperative game for 2-6 players in which each player becomes an inhabitant of a village that doesn't have any sunlight for 30 days. Each player must try to survive the vampires, rescue other survivors, arm themselves for self-defence and searching for the best hiding places…

But the vampires won't be the only threat: famine, freezing cold and even other players, so only the most prepared will get to see the much-awaited sunrise.

In the end only one player will be the hero of the story…will it be you?

Components

• 68 Village cards.
• 18 Vampire cards.
• 12 Counters.
• 1 Leader token.
• 1 Calendar token.
• 12 Mission cards.
• 6 Character cards.
• 1 Calendar board.
• 1 Dice.

Cards Description

Survivors

Card labels: Strength, Cost, Ability, Victory Points.

Objects

Card labels: Strength, Cost, Ability, Symbols, Victory Points.

Events

Card label: Events (card shown with its title and icons only).

Places

Card label: Places (card shown with its title and icons only).

Characters

Card labels: Strength, Flee, Ability, Life, Blood.

Missions

Card labels: Victory Points, Mission Target Symbol.

Vampires

Card labels: Strength, Flee, Location, Victory Points, Reward, Ability, Bite.

Set Up

1. Each player receives a random character card and two mission cards. Next, and without letting the other players know, the player must choose which mission he or she wants to accomplish to be the victor of the adventure. The back side of the other mission card will be used as Life and Blood scoreboard. Finally, each player reveals their character card and marks the amount of Life and Blood indicated on it.

2. Separate the Village cards (white back) according to the location icons, making separate piles with the cards of each location. Place the Church, Shop, Hospital and School piles face-down on one side of the table. All the other cards belong to the Street pile, which is the initial location.

3. Shuffle the Street cards and place them on the other end of the table, leaving space for the 5 Central Line cards. The discard pile, when there is one, will be placed face-up next to the Street pile.

4. Separate Vampire cards (black back) according to its location icon and add it to its respective pile. Shuffle the remaining Vampire cards and place them face down in a pile next to the Street deck.

5. Finally, give the leader token to the person who has donated blood most recently. This will be the first leader of the game.

Example of card layout.

Game Development

During the game you will play two-day turns. During each turn there will be a Searching Day, ideal to buy objects, rescue survivors and explore different locations, and a Fighting Day, in which you can replenish your blood reserves… or flee for your life.

Searching Day

On Searching Days reveal 5 cards from the Village Deck and place them side by side, forming the Central Line. If an Event card appears, resolve it immediately, apply the indicated effects and then remove the card from the game. Then reveal another card to take its place.

Starting with the Leader, in clockwise order, players can carry out one of the following actions:

A. Rescue a survivor/Buy an object. B. Explore a location C. Rest

A. Rescue a survivor/Buy an object.

The player pays the cost in Blood indicated on the card, removing the necessary units from his or her Blood meter. If you rescue a survivor, place it face up next to the your character card. If, instead, an object was bought, equip it on one of the characters in the buyer's team. The player's character can carry up to two objects (or one two-handed object), while rescued survivors can only carry one object. Objects can be redistributed at any time as long as that doesn't break any rule.

NOTE: If a player buys an object and doesn't have any free slots to equip it, that player can discard another object to make space. Objects can't be given to other players or not be equipped.

B. Explore a location.

If a Location card appears on the central line, the player can decide to spend the rest of the day exploring it. As the remaining objects on the Central line have been left behind, they are discarded and replaced by cards from the Location. To do so, shuffle the cards of the selected location, and reveal as many cards from the Central Line have been discarded on exploring the location. If there weren't enough cards in the explored Location pile, use as many cards from the Street deck as necessary to replace the discarded cards.

Finally, the player must Rescue/Buy or Rest, never explore another location.

NOTE: If an event appears during the exploring of a Location, it affects all the players, for the group doesn't split up.

NOTE: The first time you explore a Location shuffle the Vampire cards of this Location into the vampire pile.

C. Rest

If the player prefers to spend the day resting instead of buying objects or rescuing survivors from the Central line, that player will add two Blood units to his or her blood scoreboard. Resting also provides a +1 bonus on Fleeing this turn.

End of Searching Day

Once all the players have carried out their actions, the day ends, any remaining cards in the central line are discarded, advance the token on the calendar one day and begin a Fighting Day.

NOTE: If there has been exploring, the discarded cards go back into their Location pile, not the general discard pile.

Fighting Day

On Fighting Day reveal a vampire from the Vampire Deck, which the group of survivors will have to face. Next, carry out these actions in the order that follows:

1. Flee (optional)

The leader must always face the Vampire. The other players can choose to help the leader fight or, on the contrary, flee and stay safely hidden.

Starting with the player on the left of the Leader and moving clockwise, each player must decide whether he and his survivors help out in the fight or flee. If the player chooses to flee, he or she must take a Flee roll and the result is added to the Character's Flee bonus, to any other card's effect and to the Resting bonus, should there be one. If the overall result is higher than the vampire's Flee stat, the player and his team are out of the battle. If it's the same or lower, the player and his team must stay in battle.

The players that manage to flee won't be affected by the vampire's Bite, but can't claim Reward either if the humans are victorious.

2. Battle

Once all the players are ready to fight, starting with the Leader and continuing clockwise, the players that take part roll the die to attack the vampire. They'll count strength as follows:

• 1 or 2: Lousy attack! Only the base damage printed on the character card is taken into account.
• 3, 4, 5: Successful roll! Add up the printed damage, the effects of survivors in the player's team and any objects that have fighting bonuses.
• 6: Critical strike! Double the printed damage and add the effects of survivors and objects in the player's team.

3. Outcome of the Battle

The day on the calendar directly influences on the base strength of a vampire: the more days that have gone by, the better fed they'll be, and therefore the stronger too.

• On days 1 to 10 (both included), vampires count their printed strength.
• On days 11 to 20 (both included), vampires have a +1 bonus to their base strength.
• On days 21 to 30 (both included), vampires add +2 to their base strength.

To calculate the overall strength of a vampire, multiply their base strength by the number of players that are currently alive (minimum 2) in that exact moment, regardless of whether they're taking part in the fight or not, and then apply any other bonuses (Remember: the day bonuses are applied before multiplying).

• If the players' total Strength add up a higher number than the vampire's strength, each player that has taken part in the fight increases his or her blood scoreboard as much as the Reward stat on the vampire card indicates. The player who has inflicted most damage will keep the vampire card as trophy and add its Victory Points at the end of the game. If several players inflict the same amount of damage, the Leader or the closest to the Leader clockwise of the tied players keeps the vampire card.
• If the players don't overcome the vampire's strength, apply the effect of the Bite to all the players who took part in the battle and place the vampire card on the bottom of the Vampire Deck.

At the end of the Battle day, the Leader passes the Leader token on to the player on his left, advance one day on the calendar and start a new turn.

Feeding

When the Calendar token is advanced, if it goes through or finishes on a day marked, the players must immediately feed each human on their team.

To do so, players must pay 2 Blood units for their main character, and then 2 Blood units for each other Human survivor on their team, unless a card says otherwise.

Players can also use feeding cards to feed the group or reduce the feeding cost.

Players must feed themselves, but can choose whether to feed each of their survivors or not. If a survivor isn't fed, it is sacrificed and returned to the Location or Discard pile (according to where the survivor came from).

If a player can't pay his own feeding cost, he or she dies immediately from starvation.

Blood, Life and Death

If a player must pay more Blood than what he or she has at their disposal, they can reduce their life by 1 and obtain 10 Blood units, and therefore meet the payment. Therefore, if a player gets more than 10 Blood Units he or she can add 1 to his or her life.

Whenever a player must loose a life due to a card's effect, he or she can choose between:

• Remove 1 Life from their reserve.
• Sacrificing a survivor from his or her team. Any objects the survivor was carrying can be reassigned following the rules; if they can't be reassigned, they also become discarded and are placed in their respective pile.
• Discard a card equivalent to 1 Life, such as the plaster.

NOTE: A player without any lives left but that still has Blood, can play turns normally.

A player without any lives nor Blood is considered Dead. The player keeps all his or her trophy cards for the final recount but can't take part in any subsequent turns.

End of the Game and Punctuation

The game finishes at the end of the 30th day or when all the players die and then the vampires win the game.

If at least one player survives after the 30th day the humans win the game, proceed to count Victory Points:

Players that finish the game alive get 5 Victory Points.

For each 3 Blood Tokens 1 Victory Point is awarded, rounded down. For example, a player with 1 Life and 7 Blood Tokens (17 all in all) would get 5 Victory Points.

Rescued humans that are still alive and objects add their Victory Points. Likewise, Vampire Cards kept as trophies also add or subtract their Victory Points.

Finally, each player reveals the mission he or she chose and, according to the icon, adds Victory Points for:

• Each card with the same symbol as the mission card.
• Each survivor rescued.
• Each vampire as a trophy.
• Each dead player.

The player with most Victory Points wins the game. In the event of a draw, count the blood costs of each card, and the one with the highest total cost will be the winner.

Solitaire Mode

Preparation

Randomly pick a main character and the following cards:

[Illustrated cards: two survivor cards, a melee weapon object card and a food object card.]

Goal

Make sure that all three initial characters survive until the end of the game.

Game Development

The game develops following the normal rules with one exception: On Searching Days we can perform two actions (Buy/Rescue, Explore or Rest), in any order and being able to repeat the same action.

NOTE: Remember vampires multiply their strength by a minimum of two.

NOTE: You will be the Leader each turn, so you can't flee from any vampire.

End of the Game

If you reach the end of day 30 with the 3 survivors still alive, you win. If any of the three survivors die, the vampires win.

Hardcore Mode

Preparation

Add the "Revolt" card to the Central Line. It will always be available.

Game Development

The game develops as a normal game, adding the following rules:

• On Searching Days any player except for the Leader can give up his or her turn to gain the "Revolt" card. At the end of the day, that player can perform one of the following actions:
  • Discard a survivor without any objects from any player, except for the Kid or any human that has been rescued that turn.
  • Discard an object from any player.
  • Remove three Blood Tokens from any player, unless that would kill the player.

Once the player has performed the action, the game advances into a Fighting Day, and neither of the players involved in the Revolt can flee.

At the end of the turn return the Revolt card to the Central Line and start a new Searching Day.

Make It Harder!

If you like challenges, we suggest you start the game without any objects, just the humans.

Symbology

• Strength
• Blood
• Life
• Flee
• Main character
• Rescued survivor
• Event
• Victory Points

Ability Description

• Players can't flee this turn.
• Move the calendar 4 days forward.
• +1 Strength to all players.
• It costs 1 more Blood token to feed this survivor.
• Doesn't need to be fed.
• Reduce by 1 the cost of feeding every character in your team.
• This character can carry two objects or one two-handed object. This object requires both hands.
• This character can't carry objects. This object requires no hands.
• Pay 2 Blood points to get +2 Strength.
• The card with this symbol grants +2 Strength and +2 Victory Points.
• Each rescued survivor grants an additional Victory Point.
• Gains +1 Strength for each female main character card.
• Immune to objects with this symbol.
• Discard cards with this symbol.
• Rolling a 3: lousy roll.
• Rolling a 6: discard this card.
• All players lose one life.
• Discard this card to pay for 1 Life.
• If this character is carrying an object with this symbol, the character gains +1 Strength.
• This object can only be equipped to the main character.
• Discard: gain a +2 bonus to your flee roll.
• Discard: feed all the player's characters.