SeaFall
SeaFall Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
- The Campaign
- Starting Contents
- Reading This Rulebook
- Component Overview
- Setting Up SeaFall
- Cards in the Game
- What's on the Map?
- Icons
- Province Boards
- Ships and Sailing
- Endeavors and Damage
- Tokens and Enmity
- Years and Rounds
- Taking Your Turn
- Merchants Guild and Their Actions
- Builders Guild and Their Actions
- Explorers Guild and Their Actions
- What's on the Islands?
- Soldiers Guild and Their Actions
- Plunder
- Colonies
- End of Game
- Game Carryover
- Changing the Number of Players in Your Campaign
- Important Terminology
- Credits
The Campaign
STOP! Before reading these rules, read the Welcome to SeaFall insert.
Glory & Victory
The main ways to gain glory are:
- Complete an Endeavor (like exploring or raiding)
- Buy an upgrade for your ship or a structure
- Buy a treasure
- Complete a milestone
- Hire a notable advisor
More ways will emerge as you progress through the campaign.
The Crowning of an Emperor
Your SeaFall campaign (composed of around 15 individual games) ends when a player discovers the island at the end of the world. The player with the most campaign glory will ascend to greatness and become the Emperor of all the lands. In the unlikely event of a tie, the player with the most glory from milestones (kept in the Historical Record) becomes the Emperor. If there is still a tie, the player who had the least prominent title during the final game is the winner.
The Historical Record
The Historical Record on the back of this rulebook is used to record milestones and the glory each player gains. Each line on the record records one game.
Starting Contents
- Gameboard
- Sideboard
- 10 ships (2 each of 5 colors)
- 15 custom dice
- 40 goods (10 each of 4 colors)
- Captain's Booke
- Astrolabe
- 40 enmity tokens/province markers (double-sided) (8 each of 5 colors)
- 5 province boards (1 per color)
- 62 coins (1, 5, 10)
- 36 reputation tokens
- 30 fortune tokens
- 9 structure tokens
- 12 upgrade tokens
- 8 treasure cards
- 5 player reference cards
- 20 damage cards
- 9 milestone cards
- 20 advisor cards
- 6 event cards
- 5 title cards
- 10 leader cards
- 8 retired advisor stickers
- 1 upgrade sticker sheet
- 1 exploration sticker sheet
- 1 permanent enmity sticker sheet
- 6 locked chests (sealed cardboard boxes)
- 5 province chests (empty cardboard boxes)
- 1 storage chest (empty cardboard box)
- 1 glory target marker
- 5 glory markers (1 per player)
You will need a pen. It is not included.
Reading This Rulebook
SeaFall is a medium to heavy game. While the structure of a turn is fairly straightforward, there are a lot of terms and components to get your head around before starting. The rulebook is organized as follows:
Page 3.................. An overview of components in the game. Use this as reference while reading.
Pages 4-5............ Setting up the game.
Pages 6-7............ Cards, map, and terms. A look at the cards and how they are used and an overview of the map and key icons.
Pages 8-9............ A look at what players control (provinces and ships).
Pages 10-11.......... Two big concepts: endeavors (rolling dice pools) and tokens (reputation, fortune, enmity). Enmity is a little tricky.
Pages 12-13.......... Putting it all together. Years, rounds, and turns. How SeaFall is structured and what you do on a turn.
Pages 14-19.......... You hire one guild on your turn. All four are discussed here and what actions they let you take.
Pages 20-21.......... A short bit on colonies (all these rules come later) and what you do at the end of the game.
Pages 22-23.......... Odds and ends, such as changing players in your campaign, a glossary of terms, and credits.
Component Overview
Astrolabe — Keeps track of which round it is within a year.
Ships — Each province has two to explore the world and transport goods.
Dice — Custom dice with four different faces: blank, standard success, weak success, and strong success (Strong, Standard, Weak, Blank).
Goods — There are four kinds of goods found on the seas: wood, linen, spice, and iron. The colors of these goods match the colors of some cards and tokens and provide a price discount when buying them.
Enmity Tokens/Province Markers — Placed on sites to show a province has created enmity. The back of these are used later in the campaign.
Gold — Used to hire advisors and buy treasures and goods. Gold is unlimited in the game. If you run out, use a replacement from another game.
Reputation Tokens — Spent to hire an advisor without paying gold or to use the ability of another province for a turn.
Fortune Tokens — Spent to avoid bad luck.
Structure Tokens — Built on build sites to give a power for that game.
Upgrade Tokens — Put on a ship to boost that ship for that game.
Treasure Cards — Bought by provinces to gain glory.
Damage Cards — Put on a ship when things go wrong.
Milestone Cards — Moments in the campaign that give a lot of glory and change the course of history.
Advisor Cards — Hired by players to make actions better and give special powers.
Event Cards — Every round something in the world will affect the provinces.
Leader Cards — A representation of you, leader of a province. Leaders have fortune, reputation, and (often) an appellation.
Title Cards — Shows how close each player is to ascending to be emperor or empress.
Retired Advisor — Stickers used at the end of games to make advisors' expertise better.
Upgrade Sheet — Used to upgrade province boards and leader cards.
Permanent Enmity Sheet — To track enmity that sticks around between games.
Exploration Sheet — Things you find when you explore the world.
Locked Chests — Boxes of new materials that are opened when some milestones are reached.
Province Chests — Boxes where players store province holdings that carry over from game to game.
Storage Box — Some components stay here until needed, such as retired advisors during a game.
Target Marker — Shows how much glory is needed to win that game.
Glory Markers (1 per player) — Current game glory for each player.
Sideboard — For organizing structures, upgrades, the advisor forum, and goods supply.
Province Boards — A summary of each player's stats and holdings. A living history of each province.
Player Reference Cards — Reminders of turn steps and guild actions.
Setting Up SeaFall
Note: Some of the set up takes place during the first winter of the game so don't worry if some of the set up seems incomplete.
Place the Captain's Booke (1), Storage Chest (2), dice (3), and the supply of gold (4) within reach of players.
Give each player their province board (5) and province chest (6). Have players sit around the table in the order dictated by their title cards. Players should remove all tokens and cards (7) from their province chest.
Have each player place their ships in their home harbors (marked with their province symbol and color) (8), their eight enmity tokens in the home enmity section of their province board (9), and any other cards or tokens in the appropriate locations. They should also take reputation and fortune tokens equal to the value shown on their leader cards and place them on their leader card (10).
Place the deck of advisors, face down, next to the sideboard, near the forum (advisors are added to the forum during the first winter) (11). Place ship upgrades and structures face up into their locations on the sideboard (12). Stack duplicate copies of upgrades and structures on top of each other. This is the supply of upgrades and structures. Place goods into the goods supply on the sideboard (13).
Place milestones (14) and treasures (15) face up onto their locations. You can have more milestones than slots for them (a rare occurrence), in which case place them near the board. Face up card decks can be looked through at any time.
Place the target glory marker on the glory track (16). In your first game (after the prologue), the target is 11 glory. The target increases by one glory each game, to a maximum of 24 glory. If your campaign continues beyond this point, the target stays at 24 glory each game thereafter. Reference the Historical Record to see how many games you've played.
Have each player place their glory marker on the glory track (17). Your glory total resets to zero each game, though in later games it is possible to start a game with a small amount of glory from items that will carry over from game to game.
Place shuffled damage cards (18) (and other types of cards, once found) face-down in the appropriate section of the game board.
Beginning with the player with the least-prominent title and continuing in turn order (clockwise), have each player follow the instructions on their Title card and gain bonuses if applicable (there are no bonuses on the title cards you have at the start of the campaign).
Cards in the Game
Note: If it is easier for you to learn rules by knowing the round/turn structure first, jump to pages 12-13 first and then come back here.
Milestones
Milestones are historical moments in your world's history, and often progress the campaign to its conclusion. They also provide glory and other rewards. There are usually a few milestones available to pursue each game.
Milestones have a requirement to claim (1), and the player who first meets that requirement may claim that milestone at the end of their turn. When you claim a milestone, immediately read the corresponding entry in the Captain's Booke (2). For example, the milestone Darkness Stirs requires you to "Raid a site with a defense of 6 without sinking," and once completed, tells you to turn to entry 270.
Milestones always bring a new event card into the game. Milestones with a purple "Unlock" banner (as shown on this card) will also open a locked chest when completed. In the prologue, there are special milestones used only in that game that do not bring in new event cards or unlocked chests.
Advisors
Advisors are interesting citizens of the provinces who help provinces one turn a year. Players hire advisors from the forum and can have one active advisor per turn. Advisors have a cost in gold (1) OR reputation (2) to hire them, have a power that is in effect while they're the active advisor (3), and also have expertise (4) to make a player's actions better. At the end of a turn being active, advisors become exhausted (turned face down) and are not available for the rest of the year.
Titles
There are five title cards that show how prominent the players are in the campaign, and thus where they stand in their pursuit of the title of Emperor. The titles, in order of prominence, are:
1st in line (most prominent): Prince/Princess
2nd in line: Duke/Duchess
3rd in line: Count/Countess
4th in line (4-5 players only): Baron/Baroness
5th in line (least prominent, 5 players only): Lord/Lady
Title cards determine the seating order in each of your games. The player with the least prominent title will be the first player at the start of a game, with play progressing clockwise to the most prominent player.
In the event of any tie for any reason, unless otherwise stated, the tie is broken in the favor of the player with the less-prominent title. This means that good events favor the less-prominent title and bad events happen to the more-prominent title.
Leader Cards
Each player is the leader of a province, represented by a card that shows what they look like, their name (1), and some other information about them:
Appellation (2): Some leaders have an appellation (such as "the Wise") that provides a bonus during games. When you get an appellation, place it in this space, covering the existing appellation, if any.
Reputation (3): Your reputation level. You'll take this many reputation tokens at the beginning of each game.
Fortune (4): Your fortune level. You'll take this many fortune tokens at the beginning of each game.
Event Cards
The game starts with 10 event cards, 6 that are revealed and 4 that are each in their own sealed bag. Bagged event cards live in the storage chest until a milestone activates them. When this happens, find the event card in the storage chest, remove it from its bag, and add the card to the event draw pile. More event cards, both bagged and revealed, will enter the game. When discovered, new revealed event cards are immediately shuffled into the event deck. New bagged event cards go into the storage chest until their milestone is completed.
Reference Cards
These reference cards can be used by players to remember turn order and guild actions. One side has the steps to a turn and a winter turn (1). The other side has a list of the guilds and what actions you can take (2).
On Your Turn: 1. Hire advisor or buy treasure. 2. Choose active advisor. 3. Choose guild.
In Winter: 1. Reassign astrolabe & event deck. 2. Replace advisors. 3. Harvest.
Names
In SeaFall many game elements are unnamed until players interact with them. You'll have many opportunities to name your various cards and locations. Coming up with names can be difficult, especially before any history has been recorded. You may name your province (on the gameboard and province board) and ships (on your province board) when you are ready. You may name unnamed advisors when you hire them, or at any time as long as you have control of them. Do not name islands unless instructed to do so.
What's on the Map?
The Basics
The world is divided into different sections. Anywhere your ship can go is referred to as a space. The provinces are on the eastern side of the board and the ocean stretches out to the west.
Home Harbor (1): Each province has a home harbor off its coast and is said to control this space.
Coastal Waters (2): The space between home harbors and the open sea.
Open Sea space (3): The part of the ocean marked as hexes on the board. These spaces are organized into columns. Each column can have one island in it.
Empty Sea space (4): If the open sea space has nothing in it, it is an Empty Sea space.
Islands (5): Found in open sea spaces. There is an inset of each island at the end of its column (6). Ships in an island space can interact with the island inset region and all the sites on the island. For example, a ship can buy goods, explore, or raid sites on that island.
Stone archway (7): There is an ancient stone archway in the deep ocean, large enough to sail a ship through. No one knows its exact purpose.
Regions
Regions are spaces on the game board that contain land. Many regions contain sites that can be explored or raided. Your home harbor is a region, as are islands.
Sites are individual locations within regions that can be raided, explored, or otherwise interacted with.
The number in the shield near a site (8) is its defense.
Sites that are unexplored have a symbol in a box (9).
Sites that have been explored have printing or (more often) a sticker on them (10), showing what is at that site.
Some islands have a special power or effect (11).
Icons
Dock — Ships in a space/region with this icon may take the upgrade ship action. Home harbors have this symbol and more may be found on islands. Some docks let you upgrade with any color token (as shown here) while others only allow one color.
Market — Goods in a region with this icon may be sold using the sell goods action. Some markets let you sell goods of all colors (as shown here) while others only allow you to sell one color of good.
Repair — Ships in a space/region with this icon may take the repair action.
Defense — Each site on an island and each province has a defense. This is the number of successes needed to explore and/or raid the site without taking damage. (See endeavors, on page 10 for more information.)
Garrison — Each region (island and province) has a garrison, which is the number of dice removed from a raid endeavor. (See endeavors, page 10, and raids, page 19 for more information.)
Province Boards
Each province is a region and has its own board.
Province Sites
Many sites on your province board can be improved, and all sites may be raided.
Fields (2x) — Harvested during winter for gold.
Building Sites — Structures can be built here.
Warehouse — Stores your goods. There is a market in the warehouse that lets you sell all colors of goods stored here using the sell goods action.
Other Province Information (not sites)
Ships — Details on your ships. Ships are explained on the next page.
Home enmity — Where you store your enmity.
At War With — Where enmity from other players goes to show you are at war with them.
Active Advisor — Your current advisor for the turn.
Ships and Sailing
Ships
Each province has two ships, represented by the two plastic ships. They have slightly different abilities at the start of the campaign. Details of these ships are shown on the province boards. Ships will slowly improve as your campaign progresses and can be upgraded within a game (although these upgrades go away at the end of each game).
Ships have four values:
1. Sail — A ship can move a number of spaces up to its sail value.
2. Raid — A ship gains dice equal to its raid value when raiding.
3. Explore — A ship gains dice equal to its explore value when exploring.
4. Hold — The hold is for holding goods. A ship may have a number of items in its hold equal to its hold value. In later games, the hold also shows how hard it is to sink when attacked.
Each of your ships may be upgraded to gain bonuses to values, special powers, or other benefits. Each ship may have a maximum of two upgrades at any time. These upgrades are represented with flags (5) and go away at the end of the game (or earlier if the ship is sunk).
At the end of each game, players will get to permanently improve one of their ships by filling in one of the boxes (see end of game).
Sailing
Each turn you have the option to move each of your ships up to its sail value. If ships are in the same space, you may choose to move them together. If you have two ships with different sail values that move together, you may continue moving the faster ship after the slower ship moves its sail value. A ship with a zero sail value may still move up to one space.
There is no limit to the number of ships that may occupy a space, and multiple players may have their ships in the same space.
Before and/or after you sail, if both your ships are together at any region (that is, at land), you may rearrange goods between their holds. You may also load or unload goods from your ships' holds into or out of warehouses you control in that region.
Example: Blue has a ship with a sail of four and another with a sail of three. She moves both ships together for three spaces (1). At this point, the slower ship has reached its sail value and cannot move farther that turn. She moves the faster ship one more space to an island (2).
Endeavors and Damage
Endeavors
Some actions in the game are uncertain and risky, and you will roll dice to determine success. These dice rolls are called endeavors. For example, exploring a site on an island is an endeavor. Raiding a province is an endeavor. An endeavor is successful if you roll at least one success and your flagship doesn't sink. To attempt an endeavor, you build a dice pool and roll it, trying to roll at least as many successes as the defense of the site where the endeavor takes place.
Dice
SeaFall dice have four different faces: blank, standard success, weak success, and strong success. Standard successes always count as one success. Strong and weak successes also each count as one success unless there is a power that says otherwise.
Starting an Endeavor
Choose a site in a region that has at least one of your ships. Depending on which guild action you have chosen (see guild actions, page 14), you may be conducting a raid or exploring the unknown. Note the defense of the site, which is the number near it.
Dangerous Sites
You cannot spend fortune tokens during an endeavor at a dangerous site. (See fortune on the facing page.)
Creating a Dice Pool
Choose a ship in the region to be your flagship. Use this ship's values during the endeavor, and any damage you take will be assigned to this ship. Take dice equal to the ship's value in the appropriate category. If upgrades or damage cards increase or decrease the appropriate value, adjust accordingly. This is your dice pool. Various other effects may add or subtract dice from your dice pool.
Example: Gray wants to explore a site on an island, which is an explore endeavor. She has two ships at the region, both with an explore of three. She names one as the flagship and takes three dice to start her explore dice pool.
Bonuses
If your other ship is in the region, you may use it as a support ship as long as that ship doesn't have a value of zero for the stat being used.
Example: Since gray has another ship in the region, she adds another die to the pool. If the explore of the support ship was zero, she wouldn't add a die.
If your active advisor has expertise in the value you are using, add dice to your dice pool in the amount shown on the advisor card.
Example: Gray's active advisor is the Madman, who has an expertise of Explore +1. She adds another die for her advisor's expertise.
If you are exploring, you may choose to play research cards (see Explorers Guild, Research, page 16) to modify your dice pool. Dismiss all played research cards after the endeavor.
Example: Gray has no research cards so skips this step. Her explore pool is five dice.
When performing a raid; garrisons, enmity tokens, and enmity stickers may reduce your dice pool. (See "Raiding" on page 18.)
Example: Blue wants to raid a site with a defense of four. He has both ships there, each of which has a raid value of 2. He names one as the flagship and takes two dice, equal to its raid value. He adds one die for having a support ship. Finally, he looks at his active advisor, who has Raid +2 as an expertise. He adds two more dice for the expertise, bringing his total to five dice. The garrison of the region is one, which means he loses a die from the pool, lowering it to four.
Completing an Endeavor & Fortune
Roll all the dice in your dice pool and count your successes. If the site is not dangerous, you may spend fortune tokens to change blank dice into a standard success, one die per token spent.
If the number of successes is less than the site's defense, take damage equal to the difference (see Damage, below).
Example: Blue rolls his dice, getting two successes. He spends one fortune token to turn the blank into a standard success, bringing his total to 3 successes against the defense of 4. He takes 1 damage (the difference between number of successes and the defense of the site).
If you did not roll a single success, or if your ship sank as a result of taking damage, the endeavor is a failure and your turn ends immediately (even if you took damage). Otherwise, you succeed (even if you took damage).
Gain 1 glory for a successful endeavor, and your turn continues.
Damage
Damage is always applied to the flagship in an endeavor.
For each damage your flagship takes, you may:
- exhaust (turn face down) a ship upgrade and lose its power until repaired, or
- draw a damage card and tuck it under the province board, as shown here.
Ships may have no more than two damage cards. If it would take a third damage card, it instead sinks. Damage takes effect immediately. If your hold is damaged, immediately return any goods in excess of your adjusted hold value to the supply. You may choose which goods to return.
Sinking
If your ship sinks, remove its upgrades and return them to the upgrades supply, exhausted. Lose 1 glory for each upgrade returned to the supply. Return any goods in the hold to the supply. Place the ship on your province board until you rebuild it with a repair action.
Tokens and Enmity
There are three types of tokens in SeaFall: Fortune, Reputation, and Enmity. Fortune and Reputation tokens are acquired from the supply at the beginning of the game, and returned to the supply when spent. There is no limit to the number you may have. Enmity tokens are limited to exactly 8 per player, and players begin each game with all of them in the home enmity section of their province board.
Fortune Tokens
Fortune tokens represent luck that goes your way during endeavors. During an endeavor, after rolling, you may spend fortune tokens to change blank dice into standard successes, one per token spent.
Note: Fortune tokens may not normally be used at dangerous sites, where luck has no sway!
Reputation Tokens
Reputation tokens represent your leader's ability to get things done through back channels. When hiring an advisor, you may spend reputation tokens instead of gold if that advisor has a reputation cost. During your turn, you may give a reputation token to another player in order to gain all the benefits and powers present in one region they control until the end of your turn. The receiving player must accept or refuse, and no other tokens, goods, currency, or cards may be exchanged.
Example: Yellow has a port in her home harbor. Red offers to give her a reputation token to have his ships repair all damage in yellow's home harbor that turn. Yellow accepts the token and red repairs his ships without having to spend a repair order (due to the Port). Yellow could have refused the token but can't 'sweeten the deal' by asking for some gold in addition.
Enmity Tokens
Enmity represents hostility between provinces, or between an island and a province. Enmity tokens represent the state of affairs in the current game. At the end of the game, some may turn into permanent enmity stickers which last from game to game until removed.
Placing and Moving Enmity Tokens
Enmity tokens are placed on a site when that site is successfully raided (or otherwise mistreated), indicating that the site may not be raided by any player until the next year. Each winter, and at the end of the game, enmity tokens on island sites are moved to cover the garrison of that island. The garrison of the island is still in effect but the tokens on top remind you to factor in that enmity during a raid or when paying the island. Enmity tokens on province boards are moved to that player's At War With section. The island/province still has enmity toward the province whose enmity tokens they have but the site where it was located can be raided again.
What Does Enmity Do?
Enmity has different functions depending on where it is on the board. Most of the time it is a form of defense protecting against future raids.
Using Enmity On Defense
When raiding, the raiding party removes one die from their raid dice pool for each enmity of theirs in the region they are raiding.
Blue is considering raiding green's province. Blue has one permanent enmity sticker on green's province from an earlier game, one token in the At War With space, and one on green's field from a raid earlier in the year. Blue would remove three dice from his raid dice pool, one for each enmity. Blue decides to take a different action. Note: if red raided green, he would not remove any dice due to enmity as there is no red enmity in green's province.
Enmity and Costs on an Island
Price at islands: When paying an island (for example, to buy goods), add one gold to the price for each enmity of yours on the island.
Enmity and Being at War
Note: You cannot be At War With a Province during the prologue so you may skip this section before that game.
You are at war with another province if you have at least one of their enmity tokens in your At War With space on your province board. This allows you to use enmity on offense as well as defense. Each enmity token in your at war with section adds one die to your dice pool when raiding that province.
Green decides to get revenge on blue and raid his province. When building his raid dice pool, he adds one die for the enmity in his At War With section but does NOT add dice for the enmity on the field or the permanent enmity.
Giving Enmity Tokens
Whenever you are required to put enmity tokens on an island site, give enmity tokens from your home enmity section of your province board.
Whenever you put enmity tokens on a site controlled by a province you are at war with, return any of theirs in your At War With space before giving your own. Enmity tokens returned to a player are immediately placed in their home enmity section, not on the raided site.
Green raids one of blue's fields and owes two enmity. He first returns the blue enmity in his At War With section, which goes back into blue's home enmity section. He owes one more and places one green token on the raided field.
Running out of Enmity
If an action would require more enmity tokens than you have available to spend, you may not take that action. If, through an unplanned course of events, you are required to spend an enmity token you do not have, instead lose 1 glory per enmity token you cannot spend.
Permanent Enmity
These may accumulate between games and are marked on the six boxes near an island or province. Permanent enmity stickers provide the same defensive bonuses and price penalties as enmity tokens, but do not add dice to your dice pool when attacking a province you are at war with.
Province Markers
The backs of enmity tokens are province markers, which are used later in the campaign.
Years and Rounds
These two pages outline the turn/round/year structure of SeaFall. The pages that follow go into more detail about the components and rules.
A Year in SeaFall (Winter + Six Rounds)
A game of SeaFall is divided into game years, each composed of a winter and then six rounds of play. At the end of the year, a new year begins with a winter phase.
The game ends at the end of the round in which at least one player has reached or exceeded the glory target for that game. Most of the time, a game of SeaFall will end in the middle of a year.
Winter Phase
During winter, follow each of these steps in order:
1. Reassign Astrolabe & Event Deck
Give the astrolabe and event deck to the player with the least glory in the current game. If there is a tie, it is the player with the least prominent title. That player will take the first turn each round that year. Set the astrolabe to "1". Shuffle the event deck, including any cards revealed during the previous round.
2. Replace Advisors
Dismiss all advisors from the forum (dismiss means to put on the bottom of the card deck), then deal five cards from the advisor deck face up into the forum. There will be no advisors to dismiss for the first winter of the game.
3. Harvest
Players place gold from every field they control (equal to the gold shown) into their vault. Fields with enmity tokens cannot be harvested.
4. Move enmity tokens (skip during the first winter of each game)
Move all enmity tokens on province board sites to the At War With section of that province board. Move enmity on islands to cover the garrison of the island.
5. Islands Produce
Take goods from the supply and place them on each site that produces them. If there is already a good on a site, do not add another. The goods supply is limited. If there aren't enough goods in the supply, place all that are available, starting with sites on the westernmost island and continuing east, and in order of highest defense to lowest on each island.
6. Refresh Advisors, Structures, and Upgrades
Refresh all advisors in council rooms (refresh means to turn face up). Refresh all structures and upgrades in the supply. Damaged upgrades on ships are NOT refreshed during this phase.
Non-Winter Rounds
1. Reveal an Event Card
The player who holds the astrolabe turns over the top card of the event deck so that people can see the event for that round. This event will be resolved during or at the end of the round.
2. Players Take A Turn
Beginning with the player who holds the astrolabe and proceeding clockwise, each player takes a full turn. What you do on a turn is on the next page.
3. Resolve the Event Card
After all players have taken a turn, resolve the Event Card (if necessary) and dismiss it to the bottom of the event deck.
4. Check Glory Track for End of Game
Check to see if any player's game glory equals or exceeds the glory target for this game. If so, this game is over. Proceed to "End of Game" on page 20.
5. Advance the Astrolabe
Advance the astrolabe one spot. If the astrolabe moves to winter, the year is over. Begin a new year, starting with a new winter phase. Otherwise, play another round, starting with step 1 of this list.
Taking Your Turn
During each of the six rounds, each player takes a single turn.
Each turn has the following steps:
1. Hire Advisors OR Buy Treasure
You may either hire one advisor from the forum or buy one treasure card.
Hire an Advisor (Costs gold or reputation)
Select an advisor card in the forum and pay its cost in gold or reputation to hire. If the advisor doesn't have a name, you may name them. Put it face-up in your council room. Gain the printed glory amount of that advisor, if any (most don't give glory). There is no limit to the number of advisors you can have in your council room.
After you have finished hiring, refill the forum from the top of the advisor deck.
Buy Treasure (Costs gold, discounted with a good)
Buy any one treasure from the treasure deck by paying its printed gold cost. You may spend exactly one good of the same color as the treasure to reduce its cost by 8 gold. A treasure can never have its cost lowered below 0 gold - you can still buy it for 0 but there are no rebates. This good must be in your province warehouse. Put the Treasure card in your treasure room face up. Gain the printed amount of glory (shown in the top left corner of the treasure).
Remember that players can always look through the treasure deck and at treasures in other province's treasure rooms.
2. Activate an Advisor
You may choose a face-up advisor from your council room and place it in your active advisor space on your province board. As long as this advisor is active, you may use all of its abilities and gain all of its bonuses and expertise.
3. Hire a Guild
Merchants Guild, Builders Guild, Explorers Guild, Soldiers Guild
SeaFall has four guilds - (Merchants, Builders, Explorers, Soldiers) and you will hire one each turn and use two of its three actions. These can be done in either order but you cannot take the same action twice. You do not have to take both actions if you do not want to or can't.
Each guild has a Sail action, which will let you move your ships, one action that requires a ship to be present at the location, and one action that does not require a ship to be present.
The guilds and their actions are shown on the player reference cards. These actions are discussed in detail starting on page 14.
4. Claim a Milestone
If, after an action, you met the requirements for one of the available milestones, claim that milestone and follow the instructions on the milestone card. You may only claim one milestone per turn. If you met the criteria for more than one milestone in a turn, you must choose which to claim. Sometimes claiming a milestone after your first action will end your turn.
5. Exhaust your Active Advisor
If you have an active advisor, exhaust it by placing it face down in your Council Room. It may not be activated again this year. Exhausted advisors are refreshed each winter.
Merchants Guild and Their Actions
1. Sail
Move each of your ships up to their sail value. A ship with a sail value of 0 still moves up to 1 space.
2. Buy goods
(Cost 3 gold each, enmity increases price. Ship must be present.)
Buy up to two goods cubes available on island sites and place them on your ship or ships at those islands. The cost is three gold per good plus one gold per good for each enmity of yours at the island.
Place bought goods in the hold of any ship of yours at the island. Ships may not carry more items than their hold value allows. You may return goods to the supply (gaining nothing for them) in order to store different goods.
Advisors with "Buy Goods +X" allow you to buy additional goods during this action. You must pay for them as normal.
Example: Blue has ships at two different islands, each of which has goods on it. He picks the buy goods action and has his first ship buy the iron available on that island (1), paying three gold. He puts the iron cube in the hold of the ship there (2). He wants a linen but the island doesn't have any for sale. It produces it but there isn't a cube there now (3). He buys the linen from the other island (4), using the ship he has there. Because blue has two permanent enmity with the island (5), the linen costs five gold instead of three (one gold more for each enmity), putting the linen cube in the hold of the ship there (6). He would like to buy more goods but the action only allows two goods to be bought and he didn't activate an advisor with this expertise.
3. Sell Goods
(Goods sell for 6 gold each.)
Sell up to two goods for 6 gold each. Goods must be at a region with a market symbol in order to be sold. Some markets (like in your province warehouse) allow you to sell any type of goods while others only allow you to sell one type. Advisors with "Sell Goods +X" allow you to sell additional goods during this action for 6 gold each. Return sold goods cubes to the supply.
Example: Red selects the Sell Goods action and has an active advisor that has Sell Goods +2 (1). Red sells all four goods in his warehouse (2). He may sell two for the action and two more because of the advisor. Because the market symbol in the warehouse is all four goods colors (3), he may sell goods of any type there. He sells each for 6 gold and gets 24 gold (4).
Builders Guild and Their Actions
Gain one glory for every upgrade bought. Gain one glory for every structure built.
1. Sail
Move each of your ships up to their sail value. A ship with a sail value of 0 still moves up to 1 space.
2. Repair OR Upgrade
(Upgrades costs gold and can be discounted with a good, ship must be present)
You may either repair both your ships or upgrade one of your ships.
Repair
Repair any of your ships at a location with the repair symbol. To repair, refresh all exhausted upgrade tokens and dismiss all damage cards. Repairing costs nothing unless a damage card says otherwise. If you repair, you may also rebuild any sunken ships of yours and place them in your home harbor.
Upgrade
Buy one upgrade for one of your ships at a region with a dock symbol by paying its printed gold cost, less any discounts. Upgrades last until the end of the game or until your ship is sunk.
Some docks let you buy any upgrade while others only let you buy an upgrade of one color.
An active advisor with upgrade expertise lowers the cost of the upgrade.
You may spend one good of the same color as the upgrade to reduce the cost by 8 gold. This good must be in the same region as the ship to be upgraded, either in a warehouse or on a ship.
If you are using a dock on an island, add one gold for each enmity you have at the island.
Exhausted (face down) upgrades are not available for purchase.
You may return and exhaust an upgrade to the board to make room on a ship for a different one.
An upgrade can never have its cost lowered below 0 gold.
Gain one glory. If the upgrade is returned to the board, lose that glory.
Example: Yellow has both ships in her home harbor, which has a four-color dock symbol. She chooses the SWIFT upgrade, which discounts with linen. The cost is usually 10 but she has a linen in her province warehouse, which discounts the cost to two gold. Furthermore, her advisor has Upgrade -2, which lowers the price to free. She takes the upgrade and places it on a ship. She has gold to buy another upgrade but cannot since the action only allows for one per turn.
3. Build
(Costs gold, no ship needed)
Build one available structure on any build site you control by paying its printed gold cost, less any discounts. Take the structure token from the board and place it face-up on a build site you control. Structures last until the end of the game or until they are raided. Structures give their power only to the owner of the structure, unless another player pays the owner a reputation token to use that power during their turn.
An active advisor with build structure expertise lowers the cost of the structure.
You may spend one good of the same color as the structure to reduce the cost by 8 gold. This good must be in the same region as the build site, either in a warehouse or on a ship.
Exhausted (face-down) structures are not available for purchase.
You may return structures to the board exhausted (face down) to make room for new ones.
A structure can never have its cost lowered below 0 gold.
Gain one glory. If the structure is returned to the board, lose that glory.
Explorers Guild and Their Actions
Gain 1 glory for every successful endeavor.
1. Sail
Move each of your ships up to their sail value. A ship with a sail value of 0 still moves up to 1 space.
2. Explore (Ship must be present)
You may explore one unexplored site at an island where at least one of your ships is present. An unexplored site has a symbol (such as a sun or anchor) in the box above the defense value of the site.
Perform an explore endeavor (see page 10 for endeavor rules). Remember that explore endeavors do not normally lose dice due to the garrison.
If you succeed in your endeavor, then you have explored the site. Go to the Explorers' Map at the front of the Captain's Booke and pick a symbol that matches the site just explored. Cross off that entry on the map. It can't be picked again. Note the number next to the symbol you picked, and read the corresponding entry in the Captain's Booke.
Each time you successfully explore a land site, you'll be instructed to mark that site with a sticker from the exploration sticker sheet. Take the appropriate sticker from the sticker sheet and place it on the site's location, directly over the symbol of the site you explored. See "What's on the Islands" on page 17 for examples of what you might find while exploring.
Example: Blue has a ship at an island with an unexplored anchor site with a defense of five. It's a dangerous site. She takes the Explore action and builds her dice pool. Her explore value for the ship is two and she has the Intrepid upgrade, which adds two to a ship's explore value, bringing it to four. Her active advisor is the woodsman, who normally adds one die but, because it's an anchor symbol, his power adds an additional die. She has six dice. She rolls four successes, one short of the defense. Because it's a dangerous site she can't spend fortune so she takes one damage. She chooses to exhaust the Intrepid upgrade rather than draw a damage card. The endeavor is a success and she gains one glory. Looking at the explorer's map at the front of the Captain's Booke, she finds an anchor symbol, crosses it out and turns to the entry matching the number near that anchor. She reads aloud....
Exploring the Sea
None dare sail into the uncharted waters. But courage is growing....
3. Research
Note: You cannot research at the start of SeaFall. There are no maps or charts at the start of the campaign as you have not begun to explore the world.
Pay three gold to draw one research card. Advisors with Research +X allow you to draw X additional cards at no extra cost. Choose one drawn research card to keep and place it face up in your treasure room. Dismiss the other cards.
Research cards are kept from game to game, and are only dismissed after you use them.
What's on the Islands?
These are the things you may discover when you explore island sites:
Goods
These sites produce goods in winter. You may buy from these sites if there is a good cube present. (Produces Wood, Produces Linen, Produces Spice, Produces Iron)
Mine
Mines may be raided to gain the amount of gold printed on it. The only way to get gold from a mine is to raid it (see Soldiers Guild on page 18).
Docks
You may buy a ship upgrade matching the color of the docks symbol. For example, a yellow docks site, as shown here, allows you to buy a yellow upgrade (which discounts with spice). This upgrade must be placed on a ship in the same region.
Market
You may sell goods at an island that has a market if the goods match the color of the market. For example, you may sell iron at an island that has an iron market.
Tombs?
It is rumored that the ancient empire of the seas buried their leaders in tombs on the isles.
Ancient Statues?
The purpose of these is unknown and they may not exist at all.
Strange Temples?
Little more than legends from sailors gone mad. You hope.
Soldiers Guild and Their Actions
Gain 1 glory for every successful endeavor.
1. Sail
Move each of your ships up to their sail value. A ship with a sail value of 0 still moves up to 1 space.
2. Raid (ship must be present)
Raid a previously explored site in a region to take something by force or to return a built structure to the supply. A site cannot be raided if it already has an enmity token on it. Unlike buying goods, you may raid a site that produces a good but does not currently have one. You are allowed to look at all cards in province treasure rooms and council rooms at any time, especially before a raid.
A raid endeavor works as follows:
- Determine your raid dice
- Remove some dice (unlike exploring, see below)
- Roll and determine damage based on the defense of the site
- Gather plunder based on your rolled successes (unlike exploring)
- Give enmity (usually on the raided site)
Unlike exploring, when raiding, you will lose dice from your pool before you roll. Remove dice for:
- The garrison value of the region/island (printed on the board).
- Structures that have a garrison symbol in that region (like Gun Towers).
- Each of your enmity tokens and stickers the island has. If raiding a province, remove a die for each enmity of yours they have, anywhere in their region.
- Defending ships in the region. Each ship is considered a support ship and usually removes one die unless it has an upgrade or ability that allows it to remove more.
If you don't sink after you roll, you gain plunder from the site (see Plunder, opposite page).
Example: Yellow decides to raid a site that produces spice. Although there is no spice cube currently there, he can still raid it as it doesn't have an enmity token on it. It is a dangerous site with defense 5.
He has both ships at the island, one with Raid 4 and one with Raid 2. The ship with Raid 2 also has the Nimble upgrade. His active advisor is the Advanced Scout. He declares his ship with Raid 4 to be his flagship and takes four dice. His support ship would normally provide one additional die but the nimble upgrade allows it to donate an extra, so he adds two more dice. The Advanced Scout has Raid +2 so he takes two more dice for a total of 8 dice.
Looking at the garrison of 1, he removes one die and rolls 7 dice. The roll is 3 blanks, 2 weak successes, 1 success, and 1 strong success. The island's power says to re-roll weak successes so he does and gets one blank and one success. He has a total of three successes. The Advanced Scout is his active advisor and lets him use fortune at dangerous sites so he uses two fortune tokens to turn two blanks into two standard successes, bringing his total to 5, the defense of the island. He takes no damage, gains a glory, and takes a spice from the supply.
Raiding a Ship
Although the peace of the previous generations has largely ended, provinces are still forbidden to raid each other's ships at this point.
3. Collect Taxes
Add 3 gold to your vault. An active advisor with Taxes +X increases the amount of gold you collect with this action.
Plunder
What you collect depends on the type of site you raid and how many successes you rolled. In all cases, you will place one or more enmity tokens on the raided site. Sites with enmity tokens cannot be raided again this year. Plunder can be put on any ship of yours in the region. Gold goes directly to your vault.
Island Sites
On islands, the number of successes you rolled does not matter. In all cases, at least 1 success results in plundering the site and placing 1 enmity token on the site after a successful raid.
Good — Take the good on the site and add it to a ship in this region. If there isn't one, take one good of the matching type from the supply. If aren't any of the matching good in the supply, the site cannot be raided.
Mine — Take gold from the supply equal to the value of the mine.
Docks — Take a ship upgrade worth 10 gold that matches the color of the dock and add it to any ship in the region. Gain glory as usual.
Market — Take up to two matching goods and add them to ship(s) of yours in this region. If there aren't any of the matching good in the supply, the site cannot be raided.
Province Sites
(Provinces cannot be raided in the prologue so you may skip these rules when playing that game.)
After a successful raid against a province, you may plunder one site on the province board but you may only plunder a site whose plunder value is less than or equal to the number of successes you rolled. Place enmity tokens equal to the plunder value on the site. If you do not have enough enmity tokens, you may not plunder that site.
Gray raids yellow's province and ends up with three successes. The defense of the province is five so gray takes two damage. After taking damage, gray may plunder a field, the warehouse, or council room since all the plunder values are three or less. Gray does not have enough successes to plunder the vault or treasure room. Gray decides to plunder a field with a plunder value of two. She places two enmity tokens on the field.
Field — Take gold from the supply equal to the gold value of the field and add it to your vault. This field will not produce gold during the next winter's harvest.
Structure — Return the structure to the sideboard, exhausted (face down). The owner immediately loses its glory. Take a good from the supply matching the color of the structure, or take gold equal to half its cost and add it to your vault. The site cannot be built on this year.
Vault — Take half the gold from the defending player's vault, rounded up.
Council Room — Take any advisor from the defending player's council room and place it in your council room, refreshed. You may choose to dismiss the advisor instead. If the advisor provided glory, its owner loses that glory and, if you placed it in your council room, you gain it.
Warehouse — Take half the goods of your choice from the defending player's warehouse, rounded up.
Treasure Room — Take one card from the defending player's treasure room and add it to your treasure room, refreshed. Adjust glory accordingly.
Colonies
The provinces aren't ready to found colonies now... but some day you hope to.
(This rulebook is distributed before the campaign is played. Rules for colonies are unlocked through play and are not printed here; the corresponding pages of the printed rulebook hold sealed placeholder boxes labeled Rule 18 through Rule 23 that are filled in, by hand, only once unlocked in a campaign.)
End of Game
The game ends when, at the end of the round, at least one player has reached or exceeded the target glory for the game. The province with the most glory wins. If there is a tie, the player with the least prominent title among tied parties wins the game.
After the game ends, follow these steps in order (within each step, the order is from the lowest game glory to the highest game glory):
1. Improve province (game winner only)
The player that won THIS GAME gets to take the Improvement Sheet and choose one reward on it.
Improve Field — Choose a field on any region you control and replace it with the next higher numbered gold value available by placing its sticker over the current field.
Improve Garrison — Choose a garrison on any region you control and replace it with the next higher number available by placing its sticker over the current garrison.
Improve Reputation — Improve your leader's reputation to the next higher number available by placing its sticker over the current reputation.
Improve Fortune — Improve your leader's fortune to the next higher number available by placing its sticker over the current fortune.
Take Appellation — Take any appellation available on the sheet and place it on your leader. If you already have an appellation, the new one replaces it (sticker over it).
2. Train Advisors (all players)
Each player chooses a Retired Advisor to train one advisor they control with a new or better expertise. Each province must choose a different retired advisor. You must train an advisor if you can. If you do not have any advisors with empty slots, do not select a retired advisor and skip this step.
An advisor with two of the same expertise combines the values when its expertise is used. For example, an advisor with Raid +1 expertise and a Raid +2 expertise has a Raid expertise of +3.
When the last sticker is removed from a Retired Advisor, it is destroyed and removed from the game.
3. Keep Advisor (all players)
Each player chooses one advisor that player controls and sets it aside to keep to the next game. The player who won this game may only keep an advisor if its gold value cost is lower than that of any other advisor kept by a player. This may mean the winner cannot keep an advisor.
Example: Green won the game and has advisors with gold costs of two, three, and four. Red and blue keep an advisor worth three and yellow keeps one worth four. Green may only keep the advisor worth two gold since it is lower than all other advisors kept.
4. Improve Ships (all players)
Each player permanently improves one value on one of their ships by filling in the next empty box corresponding to that value with a pen or marker.
5. Determine Enmity (all players)
Each player rolls as many dice as they have fortune and reputation tokens remaining.
You may apply one success to take back one of your enmity tokens from any region. You may apply two successes to cross out (with a pen) one of your permanent enmity stickers on any region. Crossed out enmity counts as a blank space and new enmity can be placed on it.
After you've finished taking back enmity tokens and crossing out enmity stickers, replace each of your remaining enmity tokens on any region with a permanent enmity sticker in that region and then take back those tokens.
Example: Green has three enmity tokens out at the end of the game. She also has three fortune and one reputation token left and rolls four dice, getting three successes. She applies two of those successes to cross out a permanent enmity with the Gray province and the remaining success to take back one enmity token. The remaining two tokens are replaced with permanent enmity stickers in the region they are in and then she takes back her tokens.
When placing a permanent enmity sticker on a region, first fill in one of the available empty slots (or crossed out enmity). If all six slots are filled, cover over any sticker that is not yours. If all six enmity stickers in a region are yours and you need to add more, instead lose 1 glory for each enmity sticker you can't place (even if provinces drop below the glory target for the game, the game is still over).
6. Record Glory (all players)
Record each player's game glory in the historical record (on the back of this rulebook), adding the current game's glory to the campaign glory to establish a new campaign glory total.
7. Assign Titles (all players)
Re-assign titles to players based on their campaign glory total. If there is a tie in campaign glory, the player with the least prominent rank in this game chooses which title they want, then the next least prominent title, etc.
Example: The current Lord, Baron, and Duke all end the game with the same campaign glory in second place. The current Princess has the most campaign glory and the current Count has the least campaign glory. The Princess keeps her current title. The Count, now in last, takes the Lord title. The current Lord has the lowest ranked title amongst tied players and gets first choice of titles. He picks Baron. The former Baron chooses Duke. Finally, the current Duke takes the remaining title -- Count.
Game Carryover
Some elements of one game carry over into future games. Although mentioned in various parts of the rulebook, here are the starting game parts that continue from game to game.
Islands — The explored sites on an island are permanent.
Permanent Enmity Stickers — Remain on islands and provinces.
Ship Values — One is improved at the end of each game.
Advisors — Each province keeps up to one.
Research Cards — Each province keeps unused research cards.
Title Cards — Players always have exactly one title.
Players should store their title card, enmity tokens, glory marker, kept advisor, research cards, and any other kept cards in their province chest before returning it to the game box. Return all other cards, tokens, and pieces to the game box.
Changing the Number of Players in Your Campaign
SeaFall is meant to be played as a campaign, with the same players playing the same provinces every game. Sometimes people will miss a game, drop out entirely, or want to join in after the campaign has started. Here are rules for accommodating this. You may not want to allow new provinces to enter the game after you've opened this box, but this is your call.
Joining the campaign
Take an available unused province board. Improve your ships until you have the same number of improvements as the other players (equal to the number of total games played in the campaign -- do not count the prologue).
Take one improvement for every three non-prologue games that have been played in the campaign, rounded down. Before setting up the game, look through the advisor deck and take any advisor worth one reputation.
Your campaign glory is equal to the last-place player's current campaign glory value minus the number of games that have been played in the campaign so far. Write your total in the historical record in the column that matches your province. Take the appropriate title card.
Example: After five games, a new player takes on the role of the gray province. He improves his ships five times, one for each non-prologue game played. He also gets one improvement as five games divided by three (rounded down) is one. He chooses to improve a field. He looks through the advisor deck and takes one advisor worth one reputation. The last place player's campaign glory is 27. Gray records his score as 22, which is five lower than 27 (one glory lower for each game missed).
Permanently removing a player
Take all cards the player kept from the previous game and return them to their original locations. Make a note on the historical record that the province has left the game. Their permanent enmity will eventually be stickered over.
Missing a game
If a player misses a game (or more) without withdrawing from the campaign, do the following:
- During setup, place any cards that the absent province has in their usual spots (treasure room and/or council room). Place their ships in their home harbor. Do not place gold or goods in their province. If the province is entitled to an enmity token due to being of lesser prominence, they still get the token(s).
- This province may be raided as normal. Any ships and enmity they have adds to the garrison.
- When recording glory totals at game's end, the missing province receives one less glory than the lowest-scoring player.
- When the player returns to the campaign, they improve their ships once for every game missed and gain one improvement for every three games missed, rounded down.
Important Terminology
Coastal Waters: The long space between the home harbors and the open sea.
Control: If you have a card in your possession, you control it, whether it is refreshed or exhausted. You may also control different spaces on the board, such as your home harbor.
Dangerous Site: A site whose defense is in red. Here fortune holds no sway...
Destroy: Remove the part from the game permanently (this and all future games). Rip it, burn it, shred it, or just set it aside.
Dismiss: Return a card to the bottom of its card deck. If more than one card is dismissed at once, the player dismissing them chooses the order. This is largely an irrelevant choice but it is written here because it will be very important to a few people and I'll hear about it if I don't.
Dock: A region with a dock allows a ship to be upgraded while it is in that region. Some docks may provide upgrades of any color, while others may only provide one color of upgrade.
Empty Sea: An open sea space with no sticker or island in it. At the start of the campaign, all but four open sea spaces are empty sea spaces.
Exhaust: To turn a card or token face down. When exhausted, it can not use its power or ability.
Home Harbors: The space on the board in front of each province. Each province controls the home harbor in front of their province.
Improve: Take a sticker from the province improvement sheet and permanently change a statistic, site, or action on your province board. Ships are also improved with a pen at the end of each non-prologue game.
Market: Regions with a market may sell goods. Some markets sell all goods while others only sell one type of good.
Open Sea: The hex-shaped spaces beyond the coastal waters.
Refresh: To turn an exhausted card or token face up.
Region: An area of land. A province is a region. An island is a region.
Site: A location within a region that can be raided or explored. A province has many sites, including fields, and building sites. Islands have unexplored and explored sites.
Space: Any spot on the board where your ships may be. Open sea, coastal waters, and home harbors are different types of spaces.
Storage Chest: A card box that stores parts of the game that have been discovered but are not in current use. For example, any title cards not being used by players.
Success: When rolling dice, some faces have successes on them. Each die has two standard successes, a weak success, and a strong success. Unless there is a power or effect, weak and strong successes count as a standard success.
Credits
Game Designer: Rob Daviau
Producer: Colby Dauch
Illustrators: Jared Blando; Gunship Revolution's Brian Valeza, EJ Dela Cruz, and Jen Santos
Graphic Designers: David Richards, Phillipe Guérin
Development: J.R. Honeycutt
Initial Development: Kevin Wilson
Copy Editors: Jonathan Liu and Ian Zang
Plaid Hat Games — www.plaidhatgames.com
© 2016 Plaid Hat Games. No part of this product may be reproduced without specific permission. SeaFall, Plaid Hat, Plaid Hat Games, Plaid Hat Games & Design are trademarks of F2Z Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved. F2Z Entertainment Inc., 31 rue de la Coopérative, Rigaud QC J0P1P0, Canada. Retain this information for your records. Made in China.