Silk Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setting Up the Game
  • Phase 1
  • Phase 2
• How to Play
  • A Player Turn
  • Modifying the Results of the Roll
  • The Ookami Den
  • Improvements
• Movement Rules
  • Bumping
• The Actions
  • Raise a Silkworm
  • Move Shepherd or Mastiff
  • Build a Wall
  • Construct a Silkworm Nursery
  • Regenerate a Barren Tile
  • Grazing
  • Moving the Ookami
• End of the Game
  • Final Scoring of Silk Points
• Summary of the Rules
• Credits

Components

• 15 silkworms of each color
• 1 shepherd of each color
• 1 mastiff of each color
• 4 silkworm nurseries of each color
• 1 Silk Point counter of each color
• 1 ookami
• 2 dice
• 20 walls
• 9 dry pasture tiles
• 13 normal pasture tiles
• 7 leafy pasture tiles — the back of the pasture tiles shows a barren tile
• 1 normal pasture tile with the ookami's den
• 1 action board, with the ookami's den
• 1 Silk Point scoreboard
• 4 Improvement markers

Setting Up the Game

• Each player takes the pieces of his color (1 shepherd, 1 mastiff, 15 silkworms, and 4 nurseries).
• Separate the tile with the ookami's den from the others.
• Shuffle the other 29 tiles face down on the table.
• Based on the number of players, prepare the rest of the pieces as follows:

2-player games:

• Prepare a reserve with 10 walls (put the rest of the walls back in the box).
• Take 19 of the face-down tiles and add the tile with the ookami's den (put the rest of the tiles back in the box). Mix the 20 tiles and use them to make a rectangular game area of 4 by 5 tiles. When you are finished, turn the tiles over.
• Completing the game by Silk Points requires 30 points.

3-player games:

• Prepare a reserve with 15 walls (put the rest of the walls back in the box).
• Take 24 of the face-down tiles and add the tile with the ookami's den (put the rest of the tiles back in the box). Mix the 25 tiles and use them to make a square game area of 5 by 5 tiles. When you are finished, turn the tiles over.
• Completing the game by Silk Points requires 40 points.

4-player games:

• Prepare a reserve with 20 walls.

• Take all 29 face-down tiles and add the tile with the ookami's den. Mix the 30 tiles and use them to make a rectangular game area of 6 by 5 tiles. When you are finished, turn the tiles over.

• Completing the game by Silk Points requires 50 points.

• To make it easier to complete the various actions, place the tiles in the game area with some space between them, so that walls and nurseries can be placed without problems.

• Place the Silk Points scoreboard, the action board, and the four Improvement markers near the game area.

• Each player places his Silk Points Counter (so the side without a number is up) on the "5" space of the Silk Points scoreboard.

• Place the ookami on the tile with her den.

Once the game area is ready, each player takes the following pieces of their color: 1 nursery, 7 silkworms, 1 shepherd, and 1 mastiff. Then, as explained in the two phases below, they place these pieces in the game area (the rest of their pieces remain in front of them to make up their personal reserves).

Phase 1

Each player rolls two dice. Whoever gets the highest result goes first, placing either two silkworms together on a single dry pasture tile or one silkworm on each of two different dry pasture tiles. The players continue to take turns, going clockwise around the table, with each player performing one of the two options.

There can be silkworms of different colors on the same tile. The only restriction is that there can never be more than three silkworms on each tile at any given moment of the game.

Once all of the dry pasture tiles are each occupied by three silkworms, the players then begin placing silkworms on the normal pasture tiles, following the same procedure, until all players have placed their starting seven silkworms in the game area.

Phase 2

The last player to place a silkworm during Phase 1 now places one of the following pieces: one nursery, shepherd, or mastiff. The other players, taking turns counterclockwise around the table, also place one of these three pieces. This continues until all players have placed their starting nursery, shepherd, and mastiff (in the order they prefer) in the game area. Shepherds and mastiffs must be placed on tiles adjacent to at least one silkworm of their color. Nurseries must be placed in intersections of tiles with at least one silkworm of their color.

The player that placed the last piece in the game area during Phase 2 then begins the game.

Placement Rules: When placing pieces in this phase, the following rules must be kept in mind in order to place them correctly:

• A tile that is occupied by the ookami, a shepherd, or a mastiff cannot contain any other piece.
• Both the shepherd and the mastiff must be placed on a tile (of any type) that is empty and adjacent (see note 1) to a tile that has at least one silkworm of the same color.
• Nurseries must be placed in the intersections between tiles (meaning, in the spaces indicated by the corners of two or four tiles) where at least one of those tiles has at least one silkworm of the same color and such that there is at least two sides of a tile distance (see note 2) from every other nursery.

Note 1: Two tiles are adjacent when one of the sides of a tile touches one of the sides of the other. This is important when moving pieces, since they can only move from one tile to an adjacent tile, horizontally or vertically, but never diagonally.

Note 2: Each tile has four sides and four corners. Nurseries are placed in the intersections between the corners of tiles, including intersections with just two tiles at the edges of the game area, but always so that there is a distance of at least two tile sides between every pair of nurseries. Later, when placing walls, they will be placed between the sides of two adjacent tiles to separate them from each other.

How to Play

A game of Silk is played in turns. The players carry out their personal turns, one after the other, going clockwise around the table, until one of the three end-game conditions are met.

A Player Turn

During his turn, a player must do the following in order:

• Place 1 silkworm in the game area (see "Raise Silkworm" for details) if there are any silkworms in his reserve and there is a space to place them; then
• Roll two dice to determine which actions he must take that turn. The player places one of the dice on the space of the action board that matches the result rolled on that die, then carries out the action shown. The player may spend Silk Points in order to modify the result and choose a different action (see below).

Once the first action has been carried out, the player places the second die on the matching space (according to the result rolled, possibly modified with Silk Points) and carries out that action. After the player has completed both actions, the dice are passed to the player on his left.

Modifying the Results of the Roll

The player can spend one Silk Point for each single point he wishes to increase or decrease the result on either of the dice. As long as he has enough silk, the player can increase or decrease the results on either or both of the dice as much as he wants, by subtracting the number of Silk Points from the scoreboard equal to the amount that he wishes to change the dice results.

For example: A player who wants to change a result of 1 to a 4 would have to spend 3 Silk Points and subtract those points on the scoreboard.

Important: The dice values "wrap" around, so the 6 and the 1 are only 1 point away from each other (in either direction). So, a player who got a 1 on a die who wants to use the Move the Ookami action would only have to spend 1 Silk Point to do so.

The Ookami Den

The ookami den is depicted on the action board. This is where the fierce beast keeps the silkworms she captures so that she can feed on them in the winter. At the end of the game, each player loses a number of Silk Points equal to the number of silkworms of his color that are in the ookami's den.

Improvements

Silkworm shepherds are always looking for ways to improve their lot in life, and the first shepherd to discover a better way to do things always earns the respect (and envy) of the other shepherds. There are four of these "Improvements" that players can earn during the game, by completing certain tasks (as described in the next section).

As soon as a player completes an Improvement, they immediately earn the Silk Points that Improvement awards. Then, they must flip over the matching Improvement marker to show that it has been awarded. No other player can earn those Silk Points!

Movement Rules

Many of the actions involve moving pieces on the tiles. These movements are governed by the following rules:

• The ookami, the shepherds, and the mastiffs cannot share a tile with any other pieces (e.g., there cannot be any other shepherds, any mastiff, the ookami, or any silkworms belonging to any player on a tile where there is a shepherd).
• There can be at most three silkworms (they can be from different players though) or one piece of any other type on a given tile at the same time. Note that the nurseries and walls do not occupy tiles, since they are placed between them.
• All movement is done horizontally (side to side) or vertically (up and down), with the piece moving from one tile to an adjacent tile (meaning one that has at least one side in contact with the first tile). No piece can ever move diagonally.
• Each movement action is limited to moving pieces to an adjacent tile. No piece in the game can move two or more tiles as part of the same action.
• Walls block the movement of all pieces except for shepherds.
• All pieces except silkworms can wrap around the board. In other words, when a piece is on a tile that is on the edge of the game area, it can leave the game area and re-enter onto the tile located on the opposite edge of the game area in the same row or column. Note: Do not forget that a wall on the edge of a tile on the opposite side of the game area would block the movement of both the mastiff and ookami.

Bumping

Some pieces can move onto a tile occupied by certain other pieces, forcing those pieces off of the tile. This is called "bumping." But, each type of piece can only bump certain other pieces, as described below:

• Silkworms cannot bump anyone off a tile and cannot enter any tiles occupied by any other type of piece. However, they are able to share a tile with other silkworms of the same or different colors, up to a maximum of three silkworms on the same tile.
• A shepherd can bump mastiffs and silkworms, but cannot enter a tile occupied by another shepherd or the ookami.
• A mastiff can bump the ookami and silkworms from a tile, but cannot enter a tile occupied by another mastiff or a shepherd.
• The ookami can bump a shepherd from a tile, and if the ookami is ever on the same tile as any silkworms, the silkworms are immediately placed on the ookami den (on the action board). These poor silkworms will be consumed by the beast later. It does not matter if the ookami moved onto the silkworm's tile or if they got bumped onto the ookami's tile. The ookami cannot enter a tile occupied by a mastiff.

When a player moves his piece and bumps another piece from a tile, he decides where the bumped pieces move to (whether those pieces belong to him or not).

Example: The purple player executes the Move the Ookami action, and moves her one tile to the left. This bumps the green shepherd onto the tile in the row above it, and this subsequently bumps the purple mastiff to the right, which in turn bumps the purple silkworms out of the barren tile and into the leafy pasture tile.

The Actions

There are six possible actions shown on the action board, where they are numbered from 1 to 6. The actions a player can perform during his turn are determined by the dice roll (and any modification by spending Silk Points, if necessary). Whenever it is possible, the player MUST perform two actions, one for each die. If the player is unable to perform the action indicated by a die, he must spend Silk Points to modify the result of that die to another action that is possible. If he has no Silk Points left, he loses the action.

It is possible to perform the same action twice in a turn, once for each of the two dice.

Let's examine how the different actions work:

Raise a Silkworm

As long as a player has at least one silkworm in his reserve (and there is a space to place it), he must carry out this action at the beginning of his turn, in addition to his two dice actions. If the player still has silkworms in his reserve, he can also carry out the Raise a Silkworm action for each die that he places on this space of the action board.

The player places 1 silkworm from his reserve on any tile (including a barren tile) that has less than three silkworms on it and that is either next to one of his nurseries or that already has at least one silkworm on it that belongs to that player.

If the player has run out of silkworms in his reserve, he may rescue one of his silkworms from the ookami's den and put it back in his reserve with this action. If the player does not have any silkworms in the ookami's den either, he cannot take this action and is forced to spend Silk Points to modify the die result and perform a different action.

For example: a purple silkworm can be placed on either of the indicated tiles.

The Silkworm Improvement: The first player to empty his silkworm reserve immediately receives 10 Silk Points. Flip over the Silkworm improvement marker.

Move Shepherd or Mastiff

A player can move his shepherd or mastiff from one tile to another (following the movement guidelines above). When one of these two pieces moves, it can bump other pieces, whether they belong to the same player or a different one. When pieces are bumped from a tile, the player who bumped them can then move those pieces also. Remember:

• The shepherd bumps the mastiffs and silkworms, but cannot enter tiles occupied by another shepherd or the ookami.
• The mastiff bumps the ookami and silkworms, but cannot enter tiles occupied by another mastiff or any shepherd.
• Both of them can move to the opposite side of the game area with a wrap-around move.
• A shepherd can move over a wall between two tiles, but a mastiff cannot.

When a player moves his shepherd or mastiff onto a tile where there are silkworms, he bumps all the silkworms and distributes them as he likes (together or separately) to one or more adjacent tiles of his choosing, following the normal movement rules. If the silkworms are on a tile that is at the edge of the game area, do not forget that silkworms cannot perform a wrap-around move. In this case, they are kicked out of the game area, and they are lost in the mountains (for the purposes of the game, they are returned to their owners' reserves).

If a player bumps silkworms and moves them to a tile occupied by the ookami, the beast immediately captures them and places them in her den.

The player can also bump a mastiff onto a tile occupied by the ookami. This creates a chain reaction as the ookami is then bumped onto another tile (in accordance with the rules for moving the ookami).

Build a Wall

The players can build walls in the game area in order to limit the movement of certain pieces, protect their silkworms, and keep the ookami at bay.

When this action is carried out, the player takes a wall piece from the supply and places it between two tiles or between a tile and the edge of the game area, in a place where there is not already a wall. The new wall must also be placed so that it connects to one of that player's nurseries or another wall that was placed previously which is connected to one of his nurseries.

Wall Segment: A wall segment is made up of two or more wall pieces placed adjacent to each other which starts at a nursery. A wall segment is considered completed when it starts and finishes at a nursery. When a player builds a wall that completes a wall segment so that both ends are connected to a nursery (either the same nursery or another nursery, even if it is a different color), that player immediately receives 1 Silk Point for each wall piece that makes up the wall segment he just completed. When a player completes a segment that connects to more than two different nurseries, that player will receive Silk Points for the shortest of those segments. Placing a nursery on a spot over an existing wall segment would effectively divide that segment.

Enclosures: An enclosure is a set of two or more tiles completely surrounded by one or more wall segments. At the end of the game, the players get Silk Points for every enclosure they control with their silkworm nurseries. A player controls an enclosure (and thereby gets the corresponding points) if he is the player who has the most nurseries in contact with the walls that surround the enclosure. If there is a tie, no one controls the enclosure and no Silk Points are awarded for it. The number of Silk Points awarded for an enclosure is determined by multiplying the number of tiles in the enclosure by the number of nurseries that player controls.

In this example, the purple player controls an enclosure of three tiles. At the end of the game, this enclosure would be worth: 3 tiles x 2 nurseries = 6 Silk Points. We can also see four wall segments, three of which are completed (on the left) and form the enclosure and another that is not complete (on the right).

The Wall Improvements:

• The first player to build a wall segment that is at least five wall pieces long starting from any nursery (but not necessarily completed) immediately receives 5 Silk Points. Flip over the Long Wall Improvement marker.
• The first player to make an enclosure that includes at least three tiles immediately receives 10 Silk Points. Flip over the Enclosure Improvement marker.

Construct a Silkworm Nursery

Silkworm nurseries allow players to place silkworms on the neighboring tiles, start or complete wall segments, score enclosures at the end of the game, and regenerate barren tiles.

To construct a nursery, the player must place it at an intersection made up of at least two tiles and that is next to a tile where that player's shepherd is located. Also, the nursery cannot be built within two tile sides of any other nursery.

In this example, the brown player can only place his nursery in one of the two indicated locations.

The Nursery Improvement: The first player that is able to construct all four of his silkworm nurseries in the game area immediately receives 5 Silk Points. Flip over the Nursery Improvement marker.

Regenerate a Barren Tile

Once a player has constructed all four of his nurseries (and never before that!), he can use this action to regenerate an empty barren pasture tile that is next to any of his nurseries instead of constructing a new nursery. Simply flip the pasture tile back over to the non-barren side. From that point on, silkworms can once again feed there normally. It is not possible to regenerate any pasture tile that is occupied by any piece (shepherd, mastiff, ookami, or silkworms).

Grazing

This action allows a player to earn Silk Points. Depending on the number of silkworms and the tile on which they are feeding, the player will earn points and update the scoreboard accordingly.

A player can carry out the Grazing action on any tile where he has at least one silkworm. To do so he must follow these steps:

• Bump all the silkworms that are on that tile, distributing them (together or separately) to one or more adjacent tiles (following the normal movement rules). If it is not possible to bump all of the silkworms, this action cannot be performed on that tile. Remember: if the tile being grazed on is at the edge of the game area, the player can bump the silkworms out of the area, which means they are lost in the mountains (and returned to their owner's reserve). Any silkworms bumped onto a tile occupied by the ookami are immediately captured and are placed in the ookami's den.
• Turn over the tile that was grazed, turning it into a barren tile (valued 0 silk points).
• The number of Silk Points the player receives is found by multiplying the number of silkworms he has on that tile by the value of the tile on which they are feeding. If there are also silkworms of another color on the tile, their owners do not get any points. Note: It is possible to graze on a barren tile, but in that case the silkworms are just bumped around and no one obtains any points as a result of the action.

Tile values: dry pasture tiles are worth 1 point, normal pasture tiles are worth 2 points, leafy pasture tiles are worth 3 points, and barren tiles are worth 0 points.

Moving the Ookami

This beast is the apex predator of the Akaishi Mountains. All of the shepherds flee from her and try to keep their flocks out of the grasp of her razor sharp claws. Remember:

• The ookami bumps shepherds and sends any silkworms on the same tile to her den (whether they are on the tile she moves to, or because the silkworms are bumped onto the ookami's tile for any reason). These poor silkworms will be consumed by the beast later.
• The ookami can use a wrap-around move.
• The ookami cannot enter tiles occupied by any mastiff.

End of the Game

There are three conditions that can trigger the end of the game:

• Any player achieves a score of:
  • 30 Silk Points in a 2-player game
  • 40 Silk Points in a 3-player game
  • 50 Silk Points in a 4-player game; or
• A player builds the last wall; or
• After a "Grazing" action, all of the tiles have become barren.

As soon as one of the players accomplishes one of the conditions above, and after their turn has been completed as normal, the final game round begins. Each of the other players gets to take one final turn. The game ends when the turn of the player who triggered the final round comes up again. That player doesn't get a final turn.

At that time, the final scoring of Silk Points is done in order to determine who has won the game.

Note: If a player gets more than 50 Silk Points at any time, turn over their Silk Point counter so that it shows the "+50" side.

Final Scoring of Silk Points

• Enclosures: The players add up the Silk Points they get for the enclosures that they control. A player controls an enclosure (and gets the points) if he is the player who has the most nurseries in contact with the walls that surround the enclosure. If there is a tie, no one controls the enclosure and no Silk Points are awarded for it. The number of Silk Points awarded is determined by multiplying the number of tiles that make up the enclosure by the number of nurseries owned by the controlling player.
• Final Grazing: The players also score Silk Points for every tile (that is not barren) where they have at least one silkworm. Each player multiplies the number of silkworms he has on each tile by the value of that tile's pasture. Important: do not flip over the tiles you have scored, since the other players may also score the same tile if they have at least one silkworm on it.
• The Ookami Feasts: Finally, each player loses Silk Points equal to the number of silkworms he has in the ookami's den.

The player who has the highest Silk Point total after all points are awarded wins the game!

Summary of the Rules

Actions

• Raise a silkworm
• Move the shepherd or mastiff
• Build a wall
• Construct a silkworm nursery / Regenerate a barren tile
• Grazing
• Move the ookami

Value of each tile: dry pasture 1, normal pasture 2, leafy pasture 3, barren 0.

Movement of the pieces

• The shepherd bumps the mastiffs and silkworms, but cannot enter tiles occupied by another shepherd or the ookami.
• The mastiff bumps the ookami and silkworms, but cannot enter tiles occupied by another mastiff or any shepherd.
• The ookami bumps the shepherds and sends the silkworms on the tile to his den, but it cannot enter the tiles occupied by any mastiff.

Actions that award points during the game

• Complete wall segment: 1 silk point for each wall that makes up the just completed wall segment.
• Grazing: Silk Points equal to the number of your silkworms multiplied by the value of the tile on which they are feeding.

Credits

A game created by Luís Ranedo Torres. This game is dedicated to all the people who helped create it. Ander, Nagore… your help was invaluable!

• Illustrated by Roc Espinet
• Proofreading: Marc Figueras and Marià Pitarque
• English texts: Andrew Campbell
• English Proofreading: William Niebling
• Graphic Design: Bascu
• Editing: David Esbrí