Tang Garden: Seasons Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Before You Play
  • Colored Bases
  • Clear Flying Lantern Bases
• Summer Scenario
  • Overview
  • Components
  • Setup
  • Gameplay
    • Building the Garden & Supervisors
  • New Optional Actions
    • Quadrant Conditions
    • Landscape Conditions
  • Decorating the Garden
  • Influencing Characters
    • Emperor and Lady
  • Winning and Losing
• Autumn Multiplayer Scenario
  • Overview
  • Components
  • Setup
  • Gameplay
    • Gaining Leaf Tokens
    • Endgame Leaf Scoring
• Autumn Solo Scenario
  • Overview
  • Components
  • Setup
  • Gameplay
    • Build the Garden Action & Leaf Tokens
    • Refreshing Garden Tiles Change
    • Placing Pavilion Decorations
    • Place a Decoration Action Change
    • Influence a Character Change
    • Merchant Character Change
  • Endgame Trigger & Scoring
• Winter Scenario
  • Overview
  • Components
  • Setup
  • Reserving a Decoration with a Dragon
  • Gameplay
    • Placing Roof Garden Tiles
    • Roof Decorations
  • Endgame Scoring
• Spring Scenario
  • Overview
  • Components
  • Setup
  • Gameplay
    • Lantern Decorations
    • Lantern Auction
    • Auction Rewards
    • Endgame Scoring
• Equinox Scenario
  • Overview
  • Components
  • Setup
  • Gameplay
    • Gathering Resources Action
    • Returning Workers
    • Construct Pagoda Action
    • Corner Tile Benefits
    • Pagoda Level Rewards
    • Pagoda Construction Cards
  • Endgame Scoring
• Solstice Scenario
  • Overview
  • Components
  • Setup
  • Gameplay
    • Decoration Action Modification
    • Solstice Player Board
    • Gaining Pagoda Tokens
    • Objectives Scoring Board
  • Endgame Scoring
• Garden Promenade Scenario
  • Overview
  • Components
  • Setup
  • Gameplay
    • Expanding the Wall
    • Build the Garden
    • Lanterns
  • Endgame Scoring
• Market Scenario
  • Overview
  • Components
  • Setup
  • Gameplay
    • Build the Garden Action
    • Refilling Market Tiles
  • Endgame Scoring
• Glossary
  • Autumn Player Boards
  • Bamboo & Kingfisher
  • Characters: New
  • Characters: Expert
  • Decoration Sets
  • Dragons
  • Flying Lanterns
  • Garden Tiles
  • Lantern Tokens
  • Leaves
  • Objective Scoring Boards
  • Nocturnal Landscape Tiles

Before You Play

Colored Bases

It is recommended that all colored bases be removed from the miniatures at the start of the game and each player should take a set of bases in their color during setup. Each time a player gains a miniature, they should snap their color base to the bottom. The colored bases show an arrow that is used to help show the direction that miniature is facing once they are place into the garden.

Clear Flying Lantern Bases

Attach one transparent base to the bottom of each Flying Lantern token before playing with them for the first time.

Summer Scenario

Fully Cooperative or Solo

Overview

The Emperor and Lady have strong opinions about how this garden area should be created and have instructed all the architects to work together to realize their vision entirely. When playing this scenario, all players must work as a team because they will collectively win or lose the game together. The Emperor and Lady have two Supervisors who must oversee all terrain additions to the garden, so players must plan ahead to coax the Supervisors in the best directions to complete the Emperor and Lady's many specific requests. They will be keeping a close eye on the progress, and if they disapprove of the architect's decisions too many times, the architects will all be replaced in their duty and lose the game!

This scenario can also be played solo, and the changes needed for this will be highlighted in this color.

Components

• 12 Request Tiles
• 1 Summer Central Tile
• 1 Actress Character Miniature
• 1 Actress Character Card
• 2 Supervisor Tokens
• 8 Request Markers
• 4 Lantern Tokens: Combo action (one per player)
• 1 Lantern Token: Neglect Character spot
• 6 Viewpoint Decoration Tokens
• 9 Viewpoint Decoration Cards
• 4 Approval Tokens
• 4 Scenario Player Aids

Setup

Proceed with the setup steps for the base game, adding to specific steps as explained below:

1. Place the Summer Central tile at the center of the board, the base game Central tile will not be used. The Summer Central tile may be oriented in any direction. 1.1 Place the Supervisor tokens on the starting tile, one on each of the available Character spots.
2. Remove all base game Pavilion miniatures and cards to the box. Then, add the 6 Viewpoint Decoration tokens to the other decorations and add the 9 Viewpoint Decoration cards to the Decorations deck. No other Decoration cards of any type may be added to the Decorations deck.
3. All players will replace the Move a Character (02) Lantern token with the Combo action (07) Lantern token. 6.1 Give each player a Scenario Player Aid. Solo: Only set up one player's board and area. All other player components are returned to the box. Remove the following 2 Lantern tokens from the player board: Double Decoration (01) and Double Tile Placement (03).
4. Search for the Emperor and Lady Character cards and place them face-up on the table. Shuffle the Actress Character along with the rest of the Characters into the deck and place the corresponding Lantern token (Neglect Character spot (06)) near the Character display. 7.1 Place the two drawn Character cards face-up next to the Emperor and Lady so that there are four cards shown.
5. Always place the Landscape tokens on the board using the 3 & 4 player layout.
6. Place the Request markers so that there is one on each square touching the corners of the garden area. 11.1 Shuffle the Request tiles and flip the top 3 face-up next to the stack to create the Requests display. 11.2 Players will draw an additional Request tile and decide together where to place it by replacing one of the Request markers with the recently drawn tile. Place the Request marker near the Request display.
7. Choose one of the following difficulty levels and place the indicated number of Approval tokens nearby with their eye symbol facing up.
   • Easy - 4 Approval tokens
   • Normal - 3 Approval tokens
   • Hard - 2 Approval tokens

Gameplay

Each player will perform their turns in clockwise order just like the base game, but the key difference is they may all discuss and work together on these turns because everyone wins or loses together. There are new restrictions that limit where garden tiles can be placed, but there are also new optional actions that can be used to help achieve the Emperor and Lady's wishes.

While the players must discuss and work together, the final decision for each turn is made by the active player, and all spent coins must come only from the active player's supply.

Building the Garden & Supervisors

Each time any player adds a new Garden tile to the board, it must be placed orthogonally or diagonally adjacent to at least one Supervisor.

Garden tiles can never be placed onto Request tiles or Request markers.

For tile placement purposes, Request tiles have walls on all sides.

New Optional Actions

There are six new optional actions players may use during their turns. Several of these cause disapproval, which exhausts one Approval token. This is done by selecting any Approval token showing the eye symbol and flipping it over. Use these disapproval actions carefully since they go against the Emperor and Lady's wishes, and too much disapproval will cause all the players to lose the game.

• Move Supervisor: Exhaust one Approval token to move a Supervisor token to any unoccupied Character spot in the garden (on tiles, bridges, viewpoints, or pavilions).
• Ignore Supervisors: Exhaust one Approval token when placing a Garden tile in order to ignore the Supervisor's restriction. The Garden tile may be placed orthogonally adjacent to the Central tile or any other Garden tile in the garden.
• Swap Request Tiles: Exhaust one Approval token to swap a Request tile that is not completed from the board with one from the Request display.
• Place a Request tile: The active player may spend 10 of their own coins to take any face-up Request tile from the display and place it onto a board location where a Request token is present. Remove the Request token and place it near the Request display. Then refill the Request display with a new tile so that there are 3 face-up tiles. Solo: This action costs 15 coins instead of 10.
• Refresh Approval Token: The active player may spend 10 of their own coins to refresh an Approval token that has been exhausted. Flip the token so that the eye symbol is face-up. Solo: This action costs 15 coins instead of 10.
• Complete a Request tile: The active player may complete any Request tile that is currently on the Garden board and that does not have a Request marker on top of it. In order to complete the Request tile, the condition printed on the tile must be met. There are two different types of conditions: quadrant and landscape.

When a Request tile's conditions are met, place a Request marker on top of the tile to show that it is complete. Each Request tile can have at most 1 Request marker which means they can be completed exactly once. Finally, refresh 1 Approval token if possible.

Quadrant Conditions

Each quadrant condition shows one or more icons that must be present (the indicated amount or more) within the same quadrant of the Garden board as that Request tile.

• 3 greenery, 3 rocks, and 3 water appearing on Garden tiles.
• 5 greenery appearing on Garden tiles, 1 fish decoration, and 1 bird decoration.
• 5 water appearing on Garden tiles, 1 peonies decoration, and 1 lotus decoration.
• 4 rocks appearing on Garden tiles in a connected group where each is adjacent to at least one other. These rocks do not need to be within an enclosed area.
• 3 placed Characters.
• 4 different decorations.
• 3 pavilion decorations.
• 4 trees of any type.
• 6 tiles with walls. Request tiles found on the quadrant are also considered to be walls for this requirement.

Landscape Conditions

Each landscape condition shows one or more icons that must be present (the indicated amount or more) on Landscape tokens within the closest Landscape area to the Request tile.

• 7 or more icons, any type.
• 2 or more identical icons and 3 or more different icons.
• 4 or more identical icons.

Decorating the Garden

In this scenario, players will gain Decoration cards and place Decoration tokens according to the base game rules, but their purpose has changed. Instead of gaining coins, players will only use placed Decoration tokens for fulfilling Request tile conditions, advancing on tracks, and adding new Character spot options to the garden. This means that once a player has used a Decoration card to place a new Decoration token into the garden, they may discard the card since it no longer has any effect. Decoration cards provide no coins to players.

When performing a "Place a Decoration" action, if none of the drawn Decoration cards allow for a Decoration token to be legally placed on the board, then discard all drawn Decoration cards and exhaust 1 Approval token.

Solo: If the player's advancement token is on the farthest right location, then they gain 1 coin for each additional advancement on this track for the rest of the game.

Influencing Characters

In this scenario, players will influence Characters according to the base game rules, but the timing of how they score is different. Once a Character miniature is placed into the garden, the active player immediately gains coins based on that Character's scoring condition on the card. That Character card may now be discarded since it no longer has any effect.

Emperor and Lady

The Emperor and Lady begin the game watching the garden's construction from afar but may decide to take on a more active role as the game proceeds. The Character cards for each start the game face-up in the display, and players may influence them like any other character, with one key exception. The Emperor and Lady miniatures must replace Supervisor tokens in the garden, even if the tile is occupied or there is no Character spot on that tile. The Supervisor token is removed from play, and the Character immediately scores coins for the active player, but players will now have one less Supervisor to place Garden tiles next to. If the Emperor and Lady have both been placed, then there will be no more Supervisors, and all further Garden tile placements are only possible by using the Ignore Supervisors free action.

Winning and Losing

The game will end immediately once one of several conditions has been met.

All players win

• Immediately, once 8 Request tiles on the garden board have been completed.

All players lose

• Immediately, if an Approval token must be exhausted, but none shows the eye icon.
• If the Decorations card draw deck is empty at the end of any player's turn.

Autumn Multiplayer Scenario

Variable Set Collection

Overview

Autumn has arrived, and the beautiful multi-colored leaves of the surrounding trees have begun to fall. As the architects work on the garden, they will sweep these leaves up and try to keep the most beautiful ones for themselves. In this scenario, players will collect fallen leaves and make difficult decisions about where to place them. Every leaf will increase their endgame value by donating them. This makes the matching leaves they already have worth more coins, but it also increases the value of opponents' matching leaves, so they must pay close attention!

Components

• 5 Bags
• 1 Painter Character Miniature
• 1 Painter Character Card
• 8 Decoration Cards (4 kingfisher, and 4 bamboo)
• 4 Lantern Tokens: Draw 3 additional decoration cards (one per player)
• 4 Scenario Player Aids
• 32 Leaf Tokens (8 yellow, 8 red, 8 blue, & 8 green)
• 4 Red Cubes
• 4 Autumn Player Boards
• 6 Kingfisher/Bamboo Decoration Tokens

Setup

Proceed with the setup steps for the base game, adding to specific steps as explained below:

4. Shuffle the 4 Kingfisher and 4 Bamboo Decoration cards in with the rest.
5. Add the 6 Kingfisher/Bamboo Decoration tokens to the supply along with the other Decoration tokens.
6. Each player places their Move a Character (02) Lantern token back in the box and replaces it with a Draw 3 additional Decoration cards (05) Lantern token. 6.1 Each player places a Autumn Player Board directly above their Player board. Each Autumn Player Board has identical and asymmetric sides. All players must choose the same side type and place that chosen side face-up in front of them. They then place a red cube onto the location which shows a number of dots equal to the number of players. Players do not gain any benefits listed above where the red cube was placed.
7. Shuffle the Painter Character along with the rest of the Characters into the deck.
8. Place two of each Leaf token color near the Garden board. Place the rest of the Leaf tokens into a bag, this will be referred to as the Donation bag from now on. 11.1 Randomly remove Leaf tokens from the Donation bag and place them on the Garden board by following the image below for their positions. The Donation bag should be empty after this step.
   • 2 Player Leaf Positions
   • 3 & 4 Player Leaf Positions 11.2 From the pile of set aside Leaf tokens, place 1 Leaf token of each color (4 total) into the Donation bag. From the remaining four Leaf tokens, place one each into different empty bags. These will be referred to as Scoring bags from now on. 11.3 Each player takes one random Scoring bag and places it in front of them. Players may always look inside their Scoring bag, but may not look inside any other bag. Any unpicked Scoring bags should be placed into the box with their Leaf tokens remaining hidden inside.

Gameplay

Gaining Leaf Tokens

Whenever a player places a Garden tile onto a location with a Leaf token, they should remove it and then immediately choose to either donate or score it.

Donate the Leaf: Place the Leaf token into the Donation bag without looking at any Leaf tokens already within the bag. Leaf tokens within the Donation bag will affect how many coins each player's scored Leaf tokens are worth once the game is over. The player immediately moves their red cube one space to the right on their Autumn Player Board and gains the benefit above the new location. If the red cube is already on the right-most location, the player may still donate a leaf but will gain no further benefits.

Score the Leaf: Place the Leaf token into the active player's Scoring bag. All Leaf tokens within the Scoring bags will be worth a variable number of coins at the end of the game, depending on which Leaf tokens are within the Donation bag.

Endgame Leaf Scoring

In addition to all base game scoring, players will gain coins for the Leaf tokens they have within their Scoring bag. Each player must reveal and remove all Leaf tokens from their Scoring bags and then do the same for the Donation bag. Each Leaf token players have will gain them coins equal to the number of color-matching Leaf tokens that were in the Donation bag.

Worked example printed beside this section:

• Red 2 x 4 = 8
• Green 1 x 3 = 3
• Yellow 2 x 1 = 2
• Blue 0 x 1 = 0
• Total = 13

Autumn Solo Scenario

Set Collection Puzzle

Overview

Autumn has arrived, and the beautiful multi-colored leaves of the surrounding trees have begun to fall. One architect has been tasked with working on the garden, and they will sweep these leaves up and save the most beautiful ones to be admired later. The architect is racing against time because they must complete the Garden before their resources are depleted.

Components

• 32 Leaf Tokens (8 yellow, 8 red, 8 blue, & 8 green)
• 28 Drop Tokens
• 6 Sunset Cards (3 light & 3 dark)

Setup

Proceed with the setup steps for the base game, adding to specific steps as explained below:

2. Place the 28 Drop tokens, one per space, onto each of the perimeter spots on the Garden board. Then place random pairs of Leaf tokens onto the indicated locations of the Garden board.
3. Before shuffling the Decorations deck, remove all nine Pavilion decoration cards and return them to the box. No other Decoration cards of any type may be added to the Decorations deck.
4. Only use the following 2 Lantern tokens: Double Tile placement (03) and Select character/Landscape (04) from the base game.
5. No landscape tokens will be used, place all of them back into the box.
6. Separate the Sunset cards into Light (A) and Dark (B) decks and shuffle each separately. Place these two decks face-up near the Garden board.

Gameplay

This scenario challenges one player to build the Garden quickly while adding a new puzzle to consider. In this, they must remove specific Leaf tokens in order to gain the best rewards. Decoration cards are removed from the deck after doing several actions, and the player loses if they ever run out of Decoration cards or if any Garden tile stack is depleted.

Build the Garden Action & Leaf Tokens

Whenever the player builds a Garden tile, they must take and activate both Leaf tokens that were on that spot. Each taken Leaf token is placed onto a face-up Sunset card, one token on the Light card and the other on the Dark card. Leaf tokens are placed onto the colored circles, and the colors do not have to match. Each colored circle can hold one Leaf token.

• The first Leaf token placed on a Sunset card must go onto a colored circle with a small white dot in the center.
• All subsequent Leaf tokens must be placed onto colored circles that are connected to occupied colored circles with a line.
• If a Leaf token is placed onto a colored circle with a bonus icon, the player only gains that bonus if the Leaf token and the colored circle are the same color or if the colored circle shows all four colors.
• If there is a bonus icon surrounded by multiple colored circles, the player only gains that bonus once all surrounding circles are occupied and if they all match their Leaf tokens.
• Draw decoration cards based on the indicated number, take 1 and discard the rest.
• Place the indicated number of Landscape tiles of the indicated type.
• Once all five colored circles are occupied, the player gains the completion bonus only if all five placed Leaf tokens match their colored circles. After potentially gaining the completion bonus, all five Leaf tokens are removed from the game along with the Sunset card they were on. In the rare case that a player takes Leaf tokens but has no remaining Sunset cards to place them on, the Leaf tokens are removed from the game with no effect.

Refreshing Garden Tiles Change

After refreshing the Garden tiles stacks, draw a number of Decoration cards equal to the number of Garden tiles that were flipped over and remove these cards from the game.

Placing Pavilion Decorations

Each time a Garden tile is placed that shows a Pavilion icon, immediately put a Pavilion Decoration token on top of this icon.

Place a Decoration Action Change

After completing a Place a Decoration action, remove from the game all face-up Garden tiles on the corners of the Garden board. Then refresh the corners so that 4 new Garden tiles are face-up. Do not remove any Decoration cards as a result of flipping these Garden tiles.

Influence a Character Change

After selecting a Character card during an Influence a Character action, the player must do one of the following:

• If a Lantern token was used to pick a Character from the deck, then there are no additional steps to perform.
• If a face-up Character was taken, then remove the other face-up character from the game and then draw 2 Character cards from the deck and place them face-up near the Garden board.
• If the influenced Character was taken from the top of the deck, then draw the top Character card from the deck and remove it from the game without looking at it.

Merchant Character Change

When playing this scenario, there will not be a Decoration card discard pile. This means the Merchant Character's effect of spending a coin to draw from the top of the discard pile is ignored.

Endgame Trigger & Scoring

Once any of the endgame triggers have been met, the game will end immediately. Depending on how the game ends, the player may score endgame coins as normal or instantly lose.

Instant Loss Conditions

• One of the four piles of Garden tiles is depleted.
• The Decoration cards deck is depleted.

Scoring Conditions

As long as at least one of the following conditions is met, the player may proceed with gaining endgame coins:

• All spaces on the Garden board are occupied with Garden tiles or Drop tokens.
• All six Sunset cards have been completed.
• If the cube on at least one element track on the Player board has reached the right-most spot.

Scoring Evaluation

After scoring all endgame coins, the player will either lose the game or win and gain the appropriate title:

• Less than 85: Lose the game
• 85: Royal Architect
• 100: Grand Architect
• 120: Imperial Architect

Winter Scenario

Create Dragon Sculptures & Construct the Central Palace

Overview

Winter has arrived, and with it, players will be focusing on expanding the garden around the palace to protect them from the cold. The palace is large, and this leaves less area in the garden for outside features and decorations. Fortunately, players are also interested in improving the palace itself by expanding the roof to gain powerful bonuses as well as laying claim to the best corner with their dragon statue.

Components

• 16 Roof Garden Tiles
• 4 L-shaped Roof Tiles
• 1 Central Roof Tile
• 4 Dragon Wooden Tokens (one per player)
• 1 Counselor Character Miniature
• 1 Counselor Character Card
• 4 Lantern Tokens: Neglect Character spot (one per player)
• 4 Lantern Tokens: Draw 3 additional decoration cards (one per player)
• 4 Dragon Discs (1 yellow, 1 green, 1 blue, and 1 gray)
• 16 Roof Decoration Cards
• 4 Scenario Player Aids

Setup

Proceed with the setup steps for the base game, adding to specific steps as explained below:

2. Place the Central Roof tile in the center of the garden board with the Winter Scenario side facing up. It can be oriented in any direction. You will not use the starting tile from the base game. 2.1 Place the 4 L-shaped Roof tiles around the Central Roof tile so that the 5 tiles create a 4 x 4 grid which is now called the Roof Area. The L-shaped Roof tiles can be placed in any order around the Central Roof tile. 2.2 Place the matching Dragon discs onto each colored circle icon on the corners of the 4 L-shaped Roof tiles.
3. After separating the four types of base game Garden tiles, randomly remove 4 tiles from each stack and place them back in the box without revealing them. Then sort the Roof Garden tiles into 4 sets based on the icons on their backs. Shuffle each set of Roof Garden tiles into the matching set of Garden tiles.
4. Shuffle the 16 Roof Decoration cards into the Decoration cards deck.
5. Each player places their Double Decoration (01) Lantern token and Move a Character (02) Lantern token back in the box and replaces them with a Draw 3 additional Decoration cards (05) Lantern token and a Neglect Character Spot (06) Lantern token. 6.1 Give each player 1 Dragon token and 1 Winter Scenario Player Aid. In games with 2 players, give each player 2 Dragon tokens.
6. Shuffle the Counselor Character card into the deck of Character cards after players have gained their starting Character card. Add the Counselor Character miniature to the rest of the Character miniatures.
7. Place the landscape tokens in the following pattern on the board regardless of player count.

Reserving a Decoration with a Dragon

Due to the garden area being smaller, it can be more challenging to place Decoration tokens into the garden surrounding the large central palace. Because of this, players may utilize their unplaced Dragon tokens to reserve one Decoration card each, which they may activate later in the game at a more opportune moment.

Each time a player gains a Decoration card, they may choose to place it under one of their unplaced Dragon tokens as long as there was no Decoration card already under that token.

Decoration cards under the Dragon token are considered to be reserved, and they are not activated until the player chooses to activate it as an optional action on a future turn. When a reserved Decoration card is activated, the player places it with their other Decoration cards and places a Decoration token into the garden following the restrictions on the card.

Players are allowed to discard a reserved Decoration card without performing its effect in order to make space for a new reserved Decoration card.

It is not possible to reserve a Roof Decoration card.

Gameplay

In addition to expanding the garden features, players will also be constructing roof sections onto the palace. Each player has one or two Dragon tokens that they may use to reserve Decoration cards as well as to claim corners of the palace for endgame coin scoring. Roof Decoration cards can be gained, and they are used to place Dragon tokens onto the Roof Area.

Placing Roof Garden Tiles

Each stack of Garden tiles has 4 Roof tiles shuffled within it. Whenever a Roof tile is at the top of a stack, players can select it when performing a Build the Garden main action and place that Roof tile onto the palace.

Roof tiles must be placed in empty locations on the 4x4 Roof Area in the middle of the Garden board. If there are any open Roof tile spots on the perimeter, then the Roof tile must be placed into an open spot on the perimeter (A).

Once 8 Roof tiles have been placed, the perimeter will be full, and all future Roof tiles must be placed onto any open spot in the central locations of the Roof Area (B).

After placing a Roof tile, the player gains all rewards that were covered by the tile. If multiple reward icons are present, then all rewards are gained by the player. These rewards include gaining coins, advancing on terrain tracks, and refreshing Lantern tokens.

Note: The orientation of Roof tiles has no impact on gameplay.

Roof Decorations

There are 16 Roof Decoration cards shuffled into the Decorations deck, and players will have the opportunity to take them when performing Place a Decoration main actions.

Unlike other Decorations, Roof Decorations do not immediately add Decoration tokens to the Garden board. They immediately gain the player one coin as well as a track advancement or landscape token, according to the icons in the top right of the card. After this, the player places the Roof Decoration card with their other Decoration cards, where they will either be worth 1 coin at the end of the game or be discarded with other Roof Decoration cards to place a Dragon token on the roof.

Each time a player collects a pair of identical roof Decoration cards or a triplet of all different Roof Decoration cards, they must attempt to place a Dragon token if they have one available. Dragon tokens are placed onto the corners of the Roof Area, but only if there is a colored disc on that corner.

• When the player has a pair of identical Roof Decoration cards, the color of the disc must match that color.
• When the player has 3 different colored Roof Decoration cards, the disc color only has to match one of the Roof Decoration card colors.

If there is a colored disc on the roof that matches the player's Roof Decoration cards, and the player has an unplaced Dragon token, they must discard the set of Roof Decoration cards. Then the player removes the colored disc and places their Dragon token onto that corner. They keep the colored disc in their area as a reminder for endgame scoring.

If the player's Dragon token was reserving a Decoration card when it was placed, the player must immediately activate that Decoration card by placing the correct Decoration token onto the board or discard the card.

Endgame Scoring

Follow the base game scoring rules, with the following additions:

• Each player who has placed one or more Dragon tokens onto the Roof Area will now score each of them. They can use the colored disc they took to remember which corner their Dragon token is in. For each Dragon token, players will count the number of circle icons in the same row, column, and diagonal as that placed Dragon token. Then they count the number of diamond icons in the same pattern. Players then take the number which is greater between the seen diamonds and circles and multiply that by 2. They then take that number of coins from the supply.
• Each Roof Decoration card players have at the end of the game is worth 1 coin from the supply, as indicated by the icon at the bottom of the card.
• For endgame Character scoring purposes, each Dragon token in their line of sight is worth 1 coin, just like any other Decoration.

Spring Scenario

Auction for Lanterns & bonuses

Overview

The Lantern Festival has arrived, and the architects may now add these wonderful glowing decorations to the garden. Each lantern provides them with a chance to buy powerful rewards if they choose to pay the most for them. Everyone loves to gaze at lanterns while admiring the garden, and each architect will strive to place them in the best locations for their influenced visitors.

Components

• 1 Vanquisher of Ghosts Character Miniature
• 1 Vanquisher of Ghosts Character Card
• 1 Bidding Pad
• 36 Bidding Tokens
• 2 Lantern Tokens: Combo Action
• 2 Lantern Tokens: Neglect Character Spot
• 11 Lantern Decoration Cards
• 6 Lantern Decoration Tokens
• 8 Nocturnal Large Landscape Tiles
• 12 Nocturnal Small Landscape Tiles
• 1 Hong Bao Envelope

Setup

Proceed with the setup steps for the base game, adding to specific steps as explained below:

4. Randomly place 1 of the 11 Lantern Decoration cards into the Hong Bao envelope without revealing it to any players. Then shuffle the remaining 10 Lantern Decoration cards into the Decoration deck.
5. Place the Lantern Decoration tokens with the rest of the Decoration tokens.
6. Shuffle the Vanquisher of Ghosts Character into the Character deck.
7. Place the 8 Large Landscape tiles and 12 Small Landscape tiles back in the box (they are not used in this scenario) and use the Nocturnal Landscape tiles instead.
8. Place the Hong Bao envelope and Bidding pad near the Garden board. Place 2 Neglect Character Spot (06) Lantern tokens and 2 Combo Action (07) Lantern tokens near the Bidding pad. If there are markings on the top page of the Bidding pad, then remove the page so that an unmarked page is on top. Place one marking implement (pencil, pen, etc.) nearby, this is not provided with the game.
9. Each player gains 5 coins from the supply.

Gameplay

Players will be able to add lanterns as a new type of decoration to the garden. Each of these may be placed onto any type of decoration area icon, and all characters are interested in seeing as many of them as possible. Once per turn, when a new lantern is added to the garden, the Lantern Decoration card will be added to the Hong Bao envelope. Once the game is over, the player whose characters see the most different lanterns will gain all of the coins depicted on the Lantern Cards within the envelope! In addition to this, once per turn, when a lantern is added to the garden, all players will participate in a simultaneous auction to gain powerful rewards.

Lantern Decorations

Within the Decoration deck, there are 10 Lantern Decoration cards. The bottom area of each Lantern card must always be kept secret, so all drawn Decoration cards must stay hidden from opponents in case any are Lantern cards. The Decoration discard pile remains public knowledge, so any discarded Lantern cards will be seen by all players.

Whenever a player chooses a Lantern Decoration card, they must first reveal the top half to their opponents while hiding the bottom half in their hand. That player then gains the shown advancement for one of their tracks as well as 1 coin. They then place a Lantern Decoration token, if one is available, onto any open Rock, Greenery, or Water area on a Garden tile that does not already have any Decorations. After this, the player must place the Lantern Decoration card into the Hong Bao envelope.

The details of cards within the envelope must stay hidden, so the card must be added carefully so that no players can see inside of it.

Lantern Auction

There will always be an auction immediately after any player's turn where either of these conditions happened:

• At least one Lantern Decoration card was added to the Hong Bao envelope.
• A Nocturnal Landscape tile with a lantern icon was placed on the Garden board.

The player who just finished their turn will begin the auction by taking the Bidding Pad and secretly marking what the auction reward will be. They must select any reward that has an empty square box next to it and fill in that box with a pen. After this, the pad should be placed facedown in front of that player so that no one can see which reward was selected.

After this, each player must announce the total number of coins they have in their supply. Then they must simultaneously and secretly place any number of Bidding tokens into one hand as their auction bid. Players must keep their coins hidden from their opponents at all times. Players are allowed to place zero Bidding tokens in their hand but should still pretend to place tokens in order to deceive their opponents.

Once all players are ready, they must all simultaneously reveal the number of Bidding tokens in their hands. Then, all players who revealed a number of Bidding tokens that match any other player's revealed amount immediately lose the bid and return their Bidding tokens back to the supply.

The remaining player with the highest number of Bidding tokens wins the auction. If, at this point, no players have any revealed Bidding tokens left in their hands, then the player with the Bidding Pad wins the auction (even when bidding 0 tokens). The auction winner must pay coins equal to their revealed Bidding tokens into the supply.

The Bidding Pad is now flipped face-up, and the auction winner will gain the rewards associated with the icon with a marked square box and empty circle. After taking the reward, mark the empty circle next to the marked box so that this reward cannot be chosen for the rest of the game.

Auction Rewards

There are several types of rewards that may be selected on the Bidding pad. Each of these is explained below:

• Gain the indicated number of track advancements.
• Gain 1 Special Lantern token of either type. The player places this token faceup near their other Lantern tokens, and it follows the base game rules.
• Choose 2 cards from the Decoration discard pile. Place both of these cards face-up in front of you without gaining any bonuses or placing a Decoration token onto the Garden board.
• Refresh up to 2 facedown Lantern tokens.

Endgame Scoring

In addition to the base game scoring options, the Hong Bao envelope will also be scored. To do this, each player must count the number of lanterns within all of their Character's line of sight. This includes any Lantern icons on the Nocturnal Landscape tiles that Characters are facing. Each Lantern token and icon is counted once per player, no matter how many of that player's Characters can see it. In order to better visualize which Lanterns are seen, players may place Bidding tokens next to the Lanterns within their line of sight and then remove them before the next player counts theirs.

After this, open the Hong Bao envelope and reveal all Lantern cards from within. The player whose characters saw the most different Lanterns will gain coins from the supply equal to the sum of all coins on the bottom of the revealed Lantern cards. If multiple players are tied for seeing the most Lanterns, then divide the total number of coins from the Hong Bao envelope by the number of tied players (rounding down), and each tied player gains that number of coins.

Equinox Scenario

Worker Placement & Pagoda Construction

Overview

The Emperor has recently decided that this area of the garden should have four beautifully constructed pagodas built into the corners. Each pagoda requires time and resources to be completed, and the architects have hired workers to gather these resources from nearby areas of the garden. Constructing pagodas is a prestigious task, and each architect must try to construct as many as they can, as high as possible, before the season ends.

Components

• 28 Tracking Tokens
• 4 Corner Tiles
• 4 Lantern Tokens: Move Worker (one per player)
• 4 Worker Tokens (1 in each player color)
• 4 Worker Boards
• 8 Decoration Cards (4 kingfisher, and 4 bamboo)
• 10 Pagoda Construction Cards
• 16 Pagoda Tokens (4 in each player color)
• 6 Kingfisher/Bamboo Decoration Tokens
• 4 Scenario Player Aids

Setup

Proceed with the setup steps for the base game, adding to specific steps as explained below:

2. Place 1 Corner tile onto each corner of the board in a random order. The Central tile will not be used, and can be placed back into the box.
3. Shuffle the Pagoda Construction, Kingfisher, and Bamboo Decoration cards into the rest of the Decoration deck.
4. Add the 6 Kingfisher/Bamboo Decoration tokens to the supply along with the other Decoration tokens.
5. Each player replaces the Move a Character (02) Lantern token with the Move Worker (10) Lantern token on their player board. 6.1 Each player places one Worker board directly above or below their player board, then places the worker in their color onto their Worker board on the right-most icon. The player places one Tracking token onto the 7 indicated icons on their Worker board. 6.2 Each player takes the 4 Pagoda tokens of their color and places them near their board. 6.3 If playing with fewer than 4 players, place all Pagoda tokens for unused colors near the Decoration tokens in a stack. If there are 2 colors in the decoration area, place them in a stack of alternating colors. These will be referred to as the neutral stack from now on. 6.4 Each player takes one Equinox Player Aid and places it near their board.
6. Place the Landscape tokens in the following pattern on the Garden board.

Gameplay

This scenario provides players with two new main action options, bringing the total number of options to 4. These new options let them either gather resources with their worker or spend resources they have gained to construct pagodas in the corners of the garden. At the beginning of the game, the only tiles on the board are in the corners, so the garden will expand inwards, unlike the base game, where it expands out from the center.

Gathering Resources Action

On a player's turn, they may select the Gathering Resources new main action option. In order to perform this action, the player's Worker must be on their Worker board at the beginning of their turn.

The player selects and places any Garden tile just like the Build the Garden main action, but they do not gain any track advancements or coins from it. Instead, they must take their Worker from their Worker board and put it onto the tile that was just placed. The Worker must be positioned so that it does not cover any area or character icons on the tile.

After this, the player will gain resources from the tile the Worker was placed on as well as each orthogonally adjacent tile to where the Worker was placed. For each tile, they will gain 1 wood if there is greenery terrain, 1 sand if there is water terrain, and 1 stone if there is rock terrain. Players track their gained resources by sliding the matching Tracking token over on the Worker board. There are only 4 spaces on these resource tracks, so players may never have more than 4 of each resource.

Footpaths on these tiles have no impact on the Gather action.

In this example, the player placed the bottom left tile and gains 1 wood and 1 sand from that tile. They also gain 2 wood and 1 stone from the orthogonally adjacent tiles next to the placed tile.

Returning Workers

Workers will remain on the Garden board until they are returned in one of two ways:

• If the active player places a Decoration token anywhere on the Garden board, then they may return their Worker back to their Worker board.
• If any player places a Decoration token or Character figure onto the same tile as a Worker, return the Worker to the matching player's Worker board.

Construct Pagoda Action

The other new main action option is Construct a Pagoda. Players may perform this action to place one of their Pagoda tokens onto any corner tile by paying a number of resources depending on where this new token is placed in the stack:

• 1st Pagoda token - 1 of each resource.
• 2nd Pagoda token - 2 of each resource.
• 3rd Pagoda token - 3 of each resource.
• 4th Pagoda token - 4 of each resource.

Pagoda tokens of different colors may be present within the same stack.

In this example, the Red player uses a Construct Pagoda Action to place their Pagoda token onto the stack in this corner. Since this is the 3rd Pagoda token in the stack, they must pay 3 of each resource.

Corner Tile Benefits

Each time a player constructs their first Pagoda token onto a corner tile, they will unlock an ongoing benefit that is shown on the tile. They show this by sliding the Tracking token covering the associated benefit over to the left.

• During each Decoration action, draw 1 additional card.
• Spend 1 less Landscape token when refreshing a Lantern.
• Each time coins are gained from the Player board's advancement tracks, gain 3 more. This does not apply to any Character effects.
• While Gathering Resources, a player may swap the gained resources of one terrain type into any other type.

In this example, the player gains 2 + 3 = 5 coins after moving their water element tracker.

In this example, the player uses this benefit to change all of the wood they gathered with this action into sand.

Pagoda Level Rewards

After each Pagoda token is constructed, the player will potentially gain level rewards. The reward gained depends on what position the new pagoda token is in, within the stack, and increases as the Pagoda becomes higher:

• 1st Pagoda token - no reward
• 2nd Pagoda token - 2 coins or 1 advancement on any track.
• 3rd Pagoda token - 4 coins or 2 advancements on any one track.
• 4th Pagoda token - 6 coins or 3 advancements on any one track.

Pagoda Construction Cards

Within the Decoration deck, there are 10 new Pagoda Construction cards that may be found. Each time a Pagoda Construction card is drawn during any player's Decoration actions, they should immediately place it face-up on the table and draw a new Decoration card to replace it. If multiple Pagoda Construction cards are drawn, continue to place them on the table and draw until only non-Pagoda Construction cards are in hand.

For each revealed Pagoda Construction card, if there are fewer than 4 players in the game, take the topmost Pagoda token from the neutral stack and place it onto the lowest Pagoda stack on the Garden board. If there are multiple Pagoda stacks of the same height, then place them on top of the tied stack that is closest in clockwise order to the corner with Tao tiles. If all Neutral Pagoda tokens have been placed, then ignore any placements from future Pagoda Construction cards.

Next, for each revealed Pagoda Construction card, every player may gain 1 resource of their choice. These gained resources may each be the same or different type, depending on what the players want. Players gain this benefit even if no Pagoda tokens were placed due to the Neutral stack being exhausted.

Endgame Scoring

In addition to the base game scoring, players will also score each Pagoda stack on the Garden board. Each Pagoda stack's value is equal to the number of Pagoda tokens times 5. Each player should count the number of their Pagoda tokens in the stack, and then players are ranked from most tokens to least. Ties are broken by the tied player who has the highest Pagoda token in the stack.

If there are one or more non-player color Pagoda tokens, count the number of those color tokens and rank the non-player color accordingly. This means there may be multiple non-players who are ranked within a single Pagoda stack.

Each player gains coins:

• 1st place - Coins equal to the stack's total value.
• 2nd place - Coins equal to half the stack's value, rounded down.
• 3rd place - Coins equal to a quarter of the stack's value, rounded down.
• No coins are awarded to the 4th player.
• If non-player tokens gain a ranking, those coins are not awarded, and the next player in rank order will gain coins according to their rank.

In this example, the Pagoda stack is worth a total of 20 points. Both Green and Blue are tied for the majority, but Green wins the tie-breaker as they have a higher Pagoda token in the stack than Blue. Green gains 20 coins, and Blue gains 10.

Solstice Scenario

Expert Mid-game Goals

Overview

The architects have mastered the art of creating beautiful gardens and now seek a new challenge. Their expertise gives them access to a broad range of powerful tools, and they must use all of their skills as they compete to craft the best garden the Emperor has ever seen!

Components

• 4 Red Cubes
• 20 Lantern Tokens
• 16 Pagoda Tokens (4 in each player color)
• 4 Pagoda Storage Tiles
• 4 Solstice Player Boards
• 4 Objective Scoring Boards
• 36 Tracking Tokens
• 4 Scenario Player Aids

Setup

Proceed with the setup steps for the base game, adding to specific steps as explained below:

4. After shuffling and placing the Decoration deck, reveal two rows of cards face-up. The first row will have 4 face-up cards. The second row will have 3 face-up cards.
5. For each player in the game, place all 4 matching Pagoda tokens near the Decoration tokens.
6. Ignore all base game rules for this step and replace them with the following: 6.1 Each player will take 1 Solstice Player board and place it in front of them. The base game Player boards will not be used. After this, they must place 1 Pagoda Storage tile next to the top-left corner of their Player board. Then they will place a red, blue, green, and yellow cube onto the leftmost locations of the matching tracks on their Solstice Player board. 6.2 Each player will place 1 Objectives Scoring board directly under their Solstice Player board. Below this, they will place 9 Tracking tokens, each associated with one column of the Objective Scoring board. 6.3 Perform the following steps in order:
   • Each player places a Draw 3 additional Decoration cards (05) and Double Tile placement (03) Lantern token on their Solstice Player board.
   • One player randomly selects 3 different Lantern tokens from all of the Lantern token options within this expansion and the base game (excluding the Move Worker (10) Lantern).
   • All players take Lantern tokens that match the 3 randomly taken and place them onto their Solstice Player board.

Gameplay

This scenario provides players with extra flexibility when choosing decorations, as well as numerous new ways to score coins once the game has ended.

Decoration Action Modification

Each time a player performs a Decoration action, they might be able to choose a face-up Decoration card instead of drawing randomly from the deck:

• If the player is able to draw 2 cards, then the player must draw 2 random cards from the deck.
• If the player is able to draw 3 cards, then they may choose 1 card from the row of 3 Decoration cards, or they may draw 3 random cards from the deck.
• If the player is able to draw 4 or more cards, then they may choose 1 card from either the row of 3 or 4 Decoration cards, or they may draw 4 random cards from the deck.

After drawing a face-up card, draw a new card from the top of the deck and place it face-up where the previous card was taken.

Solstice Player Board

The Solstice Player boards provide more bonuses and challenges to the players than the base game boards. Players have more Lantern tokens to utilize and an additional advancement track with powerful effects.

Advancement Tracks: There is a new red track at the top of the Solstice Player boards. Each time a player encloses any type of terrain on the Garden board, they may choose to advance on the matching terrain track or the red track.

Red Track Bonuses

• Gain any non-red advancement.
• Influence another character on this turn or a future turn.
• Refresh one Lantern token. This bonus must be used immediately, it cannot be saved for later in the game.
• Gain 1 Pagoda token matching the player's color.
• Gain the indicated number of coins (2, 3, or 6).

Green, Blue, and Yellow Track Bonuses

These bonuses follow the base game rules with the following additions:

• Each time any tracker reaches or exceeds this column, the player gains one non-red advancement.
• Once all 3 non-red trackers have reached or exceeded this column, the player immediately performs a bonus Decoration action. The value of this Decoration action is assigned as normal by checking the number of flipped tiles on the Garden board.
• Once all 3 non-red trackers have reached or exceeded this column, the player advances their red tracker once to the right and gains the associated bonus.

Gaining Pagoda Tokens

Players will have up to 4 opportunities to gain Pagoda tokens, all of which come from bonuses on their advancement tracks. Each time they gain this bonus, they will take one Pagoda token of their color from the supply and place it onto their Pagoda Storage tile next to their board for endgame scoring. This symbol is only found on the Solstice Player boards.

• Once their red tracker reaches the 6th spot, they gain a Pagoda token.
• Each time a player has their non-red trackers all on the same matching color spots (brown, gray, or blue) on the tracks, they will gain 1 Pagoda token from the supply. Any tracker that is to the right of a color spot does not count as being on the color spot.

Objectives Scoring Board

Below each player's board, there is a Scoring board that has 9 conditions listed along the top, along with 9 matching endgame scoring bonuses listed along the bottom.

Each time a player meets any condition that has a Tracker token under it, they slide that token up to the top of the column. After this, every other player must remove their Tracker token that is associated with the same column on their Scoring board. This means each column can only be scored by a single player.

1. Condition: Have placed 2 Characters in the garden. Endgame Scoring: Gain 3 coins for each Character miniature within the line of sight of your Characters.
2. Condition: Have 3 or more Peony/Lotus Decoration cards. Endgame Scoring: Gain 3 coins for each flower token within the line of sight of your Characters.
3. Condition: Have 3 or more Fish/Bird Decoration cards. Endgame Scoring: Gain 3 coins for each animal token within the line of sight of your Characters.
4. Condition: Have 4 or more Tree Decoration cards. Endgame Scoring: Gain 2 coins for each tree token within the line of sight of your Characters.
5. Condition: Have 2 or more Bridge Decoration cards. Endgame Scoring: Gain 4 coins for each bridge token within the line of sight of your Characters.
6. Condition: Gain 2 or more Pagoda tokens. Endgame Scoring: Gain 3 coins for each pagoda near your player board.
7. Condition: Currently possess 5 or more Landscape tokens. They can be a mixture of both types. Endgame Scoring: Gain 2 coins for every Landscape token the player still has.
8. Condition: Have reached or exceeded this column on the player board with at least 1 non-red cube tracker. Gain 1 coin for each advancement made by the player's leftmost non-red cube tracker.

Endgame Scoring

In addition to the base game scoring, players will gain coins for the following:

• Each player gains 2, 5, 10, or 20 coins if they have gained 1, 2, 3, or 4 Pagoda tokens.
• Each player scores coins for every column on their Scoring board with a Tracking token in the top location. The bottom scoring icons are explained above in the Objectives Scoring board section.

Garden Promenade Scenario

Construct Perimeter Wall

Overview

The Emperor has decreed that this garden must be protected by a magnificent wall along all of its sides. As the architects expand the perimeter wall, they will gain rewards straight from the Emperor as thanks for ensuring this precious garden's protection.

Components

• 16 Wall Tiles
• 4 Wall Corner Tiles
• 4 Lantern Tokens: Neglect Character Spot
• 4 Scenario Player Aids
• 6 Kingfisher/Bamboo Decoration Tokens
• 8 Decoration Cards (4 kingfisher, and 4 bamboo)

Setup

Proceed with the setup steps for the base game, adding to specific steps as explained below:

2. Place 1 Wall Corner tile onto each corner of the board in a random order.
3. Shuffle the Wall tiles, Landscape icon face-up, and place them as a stack near the board. Take the top two Wall tiles from the stack and place them next to the stack so that there are three Wall tiles, with their Landscape icon face-up, visible to all players.
4. Shuffle the Kingfisher and Bamboo Decoration cards into the rest of the Decoration deck.
5. Add the 6 Kingfisher/Bamboo Decoration tokens to the supply along with the other Decoration tokens.
6. Each player places their Move a Character (02) token back in the box and replaces them with a Neglect Character Spot (06) Lantern token.
7. Place the Landscape tokens in the following pattern on the Garden board.

Gameplay

This scenario has the players collectively building a wall around the perimeter of the Garden board. This wall will be expanded each time a player takes any Landscape token. Use all of the base game rules, along with the following additions:

Expanding the Wall

Immediately after taking any Landscape token, the active player must take any of the three available Wall tiles next to the board and place it onto an empty space along the perimeter of the garden. The new Wall tile must be placed adjacent to a previously placed Wall tile or one of the Wall Corner tiles that were placed during setup. After placing a tile, make sure there are once again three Wall tiles available by potentially taking one from the top of the stack and placing it next to the others.

As the new Wall tile is added to the garden it can be placed with either the Landscape icon face-up or facedown. This will affect what the player will do next:

• Landscape Icon Face-up: Nothing happens.
• Landscape Icon Facedown: For each edge of the newly placed tile, check to see if the icon on the newly placed tile matches the icon on the previously placed Wall tile. If one is a wild icon and the other isn't, then this is considered to be a matching set of the non-wild icon. If both show wild icons, then this is considered to be a matching set of any one element type of the player's choice. For each matching icon set, the player immediately gains the benefit of those icons once. This will allow them to advance the indicated element cube on their Player board.

In this example, the middle tile has just been placed. The player gains 1 water element advancement from the matching blue icons on the left. They also gain 1 greenery element advancement from the green and wild icons on the right.

In this example, the middle tile has just been placed. The player does not gain any benefit from the icons on the left because they do not match. They do gain 1 water element advancement for the blue icon next to a wild icon on the right.

Build the Garden

There is a new restriction when building tiles into the garden. Players are not allowed to place garden tiles onto any empty spaces along the perimeter of the garden. These spaces are reserved for Wall tile placement.

The rules for placing two or more matching path edges have changed. When playing with this scenario, the player will either gain two coins or may place a single Wall tile by following the corresponding wall placement rules.

Lanterns

When using Neglect Character Spot (06) Lantern token, a player may place a Character onto a Wall tile as long as it is empty and there is no Landscape symbol showing on that tile.

Endgame Scoring

If the wall is ever completed, forming a full loop around the perimeter of the garden board, then this will trigger the end of the game. All base game endgame triggers are also in effect, and play will continue after the endgame has been triggered until all players have taken the same number of turns.

Placed Characters will potentially score for face-up Landscape icons on Wall tiles that are within their line of sight. All Landscape icons on Wall tiles are considered to be part of the landscape on this edge of the board and are seen by all Characters looking in this direction. The Characters do not need to be in that Wall tile's row/column.

Market Scenario

Enhanced Tile & Card Acquisition

Overview

The traveling merchant has just arrived in town, and they've offered their services to the Emperor. With the Merchant's help, the architects will have more construction options than ever before!

Components

• 4 Market Tiles
• 8 Decoration Cards (4 kingfisher, and 4 bamboo)
• 4 Lantern Tokens: Combo Action (one per player)
• 6 Kingfisher/Bamboo Decoration Tokens

Setup

Proceed with the setup steps for the base game, adding to specific steps as explained below:

2. Place 1 Market tile next to each corner of the board so that the element closest to the center of the board on the Market tile matches the back of the Garden tiles in that corner. Ensure the side showing a die icon is facedown. The Central tile will not be used, and can be placed back into the box.
3. Place two face-up tiles from each corner stack onto the Market tile closest to them. Do not flip the top Garden tile of each stack face-up.
4. Shuffle the Kingfisher and Bamboo Decoration cards into the rest of the Decoration deck. Then, draw and place one Decoration card face-up onto each of the four Market tiles on the card spot.
5. Add the 6 Kingfisher/Bamboo Decoration tokens to the supply along with the other Decoration tokens.
6. Each player places their Double Decoration (01) token back in the box and replaces them with a Combo Action (07) Lantern token.
7. Before dealing starting character cards, remove the Merchant card from the game. Then place the Merchant miniature on the Character spot of the Market tile next to the Tao Garden tiles corner.
8. Place the Landscape tokens in the following pattern on the Garden board.

Gameplay

In this scenario, the players have more Garden Tile and Decoration card options to choose from. It also adds a traveling Merchant who will help the players with refilling these tiles and cards.

Build the Garden Action

Instead of taking a Garden tile from a corner stack, players must take a face-up Garden tile from a Market tile. Garden tiles are placed adjacent to previous Garden tiles or any Market tile in the corners.

Refilling Market Tiles

The base game rules for flipping Garden tiles are not used in this scenario. As a free action, the active player may choose one of the following three ways to refill Garden tiles and Decoration cards:

• Pay 0 Coins: Discard the Decoration card on the Market tile with the Merchant miniature. Draw one Decoration card from the deck and place it face-up on that Market tile. Refill any empty Garden tile spots on that Market tile with new face-up Garden tiles from the closest corner stack. Then move the Merchant miniature to the next Market tile character spot in the clockwise direction.
• Pay 1 Coin: Discard the Decoration card on any Market tile without the Merchant miniature. Draw one Decoration card from the deck and place it face-up on that Market tile. Refill any empty Garden tile spots on that Market tile with new face-up Garden tiles from the closest corner stack.
• Pay 2 Coins: Discard the Decoration cards on all Market tiles. Draw four Decoration cards from the deck and place one of them face-up onto each Market tile. No Garden tiles are refreshed with this option.

Endgame Scoring

This module does not change the end-game triggers or final scoring.

Glossary

This section details the wide variety of options that can be added to Tang Garden without following specific scenarios.

Editor's note: the printed glossary refers to rulebook pages (for example "on page 7"). Those references have been replaced with the name of the section they point to.

Autumn Player Boards

The Autumn player boards are used primarily in the Autumn Multiplayer scenario. They may be used outside the Autumn scenario by giving each player one Autumn board which is placed above the standard player board during setup. The Autumn player boards have an identical side and an asymmetric side. All players must choose the same side. Players then place 1 Red tracker cube onto the starting position on the Autumn board depending on player count. Each time a player encloses a region they may either take the enclosure bonus as normal or they may advance their Red element tracker once and gain the benefit shown above. More information can be found in the Autumn Multiplayer Scenario section.

Bamboo & Kingfisher

The Bamboo and Kingfisher Decorations may be used with or without any scenario, except for Summer and Autumn Solo. They may be added to the game by shuffling their cards into the Decoration deck and adding their Decoration tokens to the others. Bamboo & Kingfisher must always be added together and not split apart.

The Bamboo and Kingfisher Decorations can be placed on either water or greenery area icons. The Decoration tokens for these are double-sided, so they can be flipped to the correct side before being placed onto a Garden tile.

Each Bamboo card counts as peonies or lotus icon for endgame scoring. Each Kingfisher card counts as a fish or bird icon for endgame scoring. This means that a pair of Kingfishers/Bamboo tokens can score 6 points, with each token counting as the opposite type.

Characters: New

The following Characters may have restrictions to be used only in certain scenarios.

Vanquisher of Ghosts

• Character Skill: Gain a coin every time any player (including the player with this card) places a Nocturnal Landscape tile with a Lantern icon or places a Lantern Decoration on the board.
• Sight Preference: 3 coins for each Lantern icon found on each of the 4 Landscape sections, to a maximum of 12 coins.
• Restriction: This Character may only be used in the Spring scenario.

Painter

• Character Skill: Gain one coin every time the controlling player removes a Leaf token for a donation or personal scoring.
• Sight Preference: During final scoring, before resolving Leaf scoring, the controlling player may remove up to 2 Leaf tokens, if any, from the Garden board and immediately add them to their Scoring bag.
• Restriction: The Painter Character may only be used when playing either of the Autumn scenarios, or when playing with the Leaf tokens as a separate module (explained in the Leaves entry of this Glossary).

Counselor

• Character Skill: Gain 1 coin each time the controlling player places a Roof tile onto the Roof Area's perimeter, and 2 coins each time they place a Roof tile onto the Roof Area's central spots.
• Sight Preference: During endgame scoring, gain 3 coins, plus 2 more for each Roof tile in their line of sight. The corners of the Roof Area do not count for the Counselor's endgame scoring.
• Restriction: This Character can only be used when playing the Winter scenario.

The following Characters may be freely added into any play of the game.

Actress

• Character Skill: Along with the Actress card and miniature, the player must also take the Neglect Character spot (06) Lantern token into their area. This Lantern token is placed next to their other Lantern tokens.
  • This token may be refreshed in the same way as other Lantern tokens.
  • The player loses this Lantern token the moment the Actress miniature is placed into the garden, even if the token has not been used yet.
  • The player may use this Lantern token to place the Actress miniature in any empty tile before discarding the Lantern token.
• Sight Preference: Gain 5 coins, plus 2 coins for each other Character that has line of sight towards the Actress.

Astronomer

• Character Skill: Each time any player places a Character spot either by placing a tile, a pavilion/viewpoint, or a bridge, the Astronomer's controlling player gains 1 coin.
• Sight Preference: Gain 9 coins if there is a Moon Landscape icon within their line of sight. Lose 1 coin for each tile with a wall within their line of sight.

Diplomat

• Character Skill: Place 2 tokens next to the Diplomat. Each time any other player places a Garden tile, the controlling player may discard one of these tokens to also gain all tile placement bonuses from the recently placed tile (element track advancements, coins, etc).
• Sight Preference: Gain 6 coins if the Diplomat is in the garden. Lose 4 coins if the Diplomat is not in the garden.

Warrior

• Character Skill: Gain 1 coin every time the controlling player places a tile that touches two or more different tiles.
• Sight Preference: Gain 7 coins + 2 coins for each empty tile spot on the Garden board.

Cowherder

• Character Skill: Each time the controlling player gains a Landscape token, they may pay 1 coin to the bank in order to search through the Landscape tile stack and take any of their choice.
• Sight Preference: Gain 4 coins for each pair of animal and waterfall icons they see within their line of sight.

General

• Character Skill: The outer edge of the Garden board acts as a wall for the purpose of tile placement bonuses for the controlling player.
• Sight Preference: Gain 2 coins for each tile without Decorations on them within the line of sight.

Viola & Michele

• Character Skill: Each time the controlling player gains a Decoration card they already have, they gain 2 coins.
• Sight Preference: This Character has a line of sight in three different directions of the controlling player's choice. They also gain 6 coins.

Weaver

• Character Skill: Gain 2 coins every time that player takes a Decoration card with at least one element advancement bonus.
• Sight Preference: Gain 2 coins for each Decoration on the 8 tiles surrounding the Weaver (10 coins maximum).

Characters: Expert

The Expert Characters are upgraded versions of the starting Characters from the base game. All of the base game Character cards will be used alongside the Expert Character cards. Expert Characters may be used with any scenarios, except for Summer and Autumn Solo.

Setup

In order to use them, perform the following modification during the base game setup procedure:

7. All 12 of the base game Character cards are considered to be Starting Character cards. Shuffle all the Starting Character cards and deal 2 to each player. Players simultaneously choose 1 of these Character cards and place it face-up in front of them, and then shuffle the unchosen Character cards back into the deck. Players do not gain any elemental advancements from the icon that might be in the top right corner of their Starting Character card. Each player must now find the Expert Character card which matches their chosen Starting Character card and set it aside, near their Player board.

Gameplay

When a player gains a new Character card, instead of gaining one from the market they may upgrade their Starting Character card to its Expert version. To do this they remove that Starting Character card from the game and replace it with the matching Expert Character card and then gain access to their listed effects.

Expert Architect

• Character Skill: Gain 2 coins each time their controlling player places a Construction icon on a Landscape tile or places a Bridge or Pavilion Decoration into the Garden.
• Sight Preference: Gain 1 coin for each Bridge or decoration on Garden tiles within the Architect's line of sight. Gain 3 coins for each Construction icon on Landscape tiles within the Architect's line of sight.

Expert Child

• Character Skill: Gain 2 coins each time their controlling player places an Animal Decoration into the Garden and/or for each Animal symbol on any Landscape tiles placed.
• Sight Preference: Gain 1 coin for each Animal Decoration on Garden tiles within the Child's line of sight. Gain 3 coins for each Animal icon on Landscape tiles within the Child's line of sight.

Expert Sword Dancer

• Character Skill: Gain 2 coins each time their controlling player takes a Landscape token from the garden board.
• Sight Preference: Gain 5 coins for each Waterfall icon within the Character's line of sight.

Expert Officer

• Character Skill: At the start of each turn, their controlling player may perform one of the following two options once for free:
  • Reveal any face-down Garden tile on any corner stack of the Garden board.
  • Hide any face-up Garden tile on any corner stack of the Garden board by flipping it over and leaving it on top of the stack.
• Sight Preference: Gain 1 coin for each Landscape icon within the Officer's line of sight. Gain 3 additional coins for each unique Landscape icon within the Officer's line of sight.

Expert Emperor

• Character Skill: The player controlling the Emperor gains 1 Supervisor token. At any time, the player may place the Supervisor onto any empty Character spot on a placed Garden tile. Each time any Garden tile or Decoration is placed by any player onto a surrounding location (8 possible spaces) to the Supervisor, the player controlling the Emperor gains 2 coins. Once the Emperor miniature is placed onto the Garden board, the Supervisor must be removed. The Emperor may be placed on the Character spot where the Supervisor token was.
• Sight Preference: Gain 6 coins for each Dragon Landscape symbol within the Emperor's line of sight. Gain an additional 8 coins if the Lady is within the Emperor's line of sight.

Expert Empress

• Character Skill: Their controlling player gains 3 coins each time they place a lotus or a peony flower decoration.
• Sight Preference: Gain 15 coins. Gain 3 more coins for each Emperor or Lady Character miniatures within the Empress' line of sight.

Expert Merchant

• Character Skill: Each time any player discards Decoration cards, they instead give those cards to the player controlling the Expert Merchant who puts them aside into a stack. Each time the Expert Merchant controlling player gains Decoration cards, they may place one from their stack instead of taking from the main supply. If this option is performed, then all remaining Decoration cards in the Expert Merchant's stack must be discarded.
• Sight Preference: For each Village icon the Expert Merchant sees, their controlling player may gain and place 1 Decoration card of their choice from the decoration deck or discard pile.

Expert Monk

• Character Skill: Their controlling player gains 2 coins each time they advance their left-most element tracker (gain coins even if element trackers are tied for the left-most position).
• Sight Preference: Gain 5 coins for each side of the board with at least one Temple icon on a Landscape tile.

Expert Hermit, Expert Poet, & Expert Student

• Each of these cards have the same effect, relating to different elements which are shown on the cards.
• Character Skill: Gain 2 coins each time their controlling player advances one or more spaces on the indicated track. Advancing two spaces with the same tile will still give two coins.
• Sight Preference: Gain 3 coins (no maximum) for each Garden tile in the Character's line of sight with the indicated area (Hermit: Rocks, Poet: Water, Student: Greenery).

Expert Lady

• Character Skill: The controlling player may place Decorations onto tiles that have no Decorations or Characters, even if the tile does not have the matching placement symbol.
• Sight Preference: Gain 7 coins for each Moon or Sun icon within the Lady's line of sight. Gain an additional 6 coins if the Emperor is within the Lady's line of sight.

Decoration Sets

Each of the following sets of Decorations may be added to any game of Tang Garden, except when playing the Summer or Autumn Solo scenarios. Shuffle the indicated Decoration cards into the Decoration deck and place the indicated Decorations into the Decorations supply. Adding more than one Decoration Set is not recommended. It is strongly recommended that the Bamboo and Kingfisher be added when playing with any Decoration Sets.

Nature

• 3 x Ginko Tree cards & 2 x tokens
• 3 x Water Lilly cards & 2 x tokens
• 3 x Squirrel cards & 2 x tokens

Bush

• 3 x Hortensia cards & 2 x tokens
• 3 x Myrthe cards & 2 x tokens
• 3 x Osmanthus cards & 2 x tokens
• 3 x Photinia cards & 2 x tokens

Hortensia: Gain 2 coins at the end of the game. The other three are bound to how much you have advanced in the different tracks on your player board corresponding to the other cubes on your board. Either 2 coins or 5 coins if you meet the requirements.

• Osmanthus: Gain 5 coins if the player's water tracker is equal to or farther than their other trackers, otherwise gain 2 coins.
• Myrthe: Gain 5 coins if the player's greenery tracker is equal to or farther than their other trackers, otherwise gain 2 coins.
• Photinia: Gain 5 coins if the player's rock tracker is equal to or farther than their other trackers, otherwise gain 2 coins.

Insects

• 3 x Dragonfly cards & 2 x tokens

• 3 x Planthopper cards & 2 x tokens

• 3 x Ladybug cards & 2 x tokens

• 3 x Caterpillar cards & 2 x tokens

• Dragonfly: Gain 1 coin for each card placed in water in your collection, including this one (6 coins maximum).

• Ladybug: Gain 1 coin for each card placed in greenery in your collection, including this one (6 coins maximum).

• Planthopper: Gain 1 coin for each card placed in rock in your collection, including this one (6 coins maximum).

• Caterpillar: Gain 1 coin for each card with an advancement symbol in your collection, including this one (6 coins maximum).

Ginkgo Tree: Gain 1 coin for each pair of tree decorations in the garden during final scoring. The trees do not have to be the same type to make a scoring pair.

Water Lilly: Gain 1 coin for each flower in the garden not including this one (6 coins maximum).

Squirrel: Gain 1 coin for each animal in the garden not including this one (6 coins maximum).

Pagodas

• 9 x Pagoda cards & 16 Tokens (4 in each player color)

The Pagoda tokens are used primarily in the Equinox and Solstice scenarios. They may be used without these scenarios by shuffling the 9 Pagoda cards into the Decoration deck and giving each player the 4 Pagoda tokens in their color during setup. When a player selects a Pagoda Decoration card, they must place one of their Pagoda tokens onto any open rock icon or any stack of 1 to 3 Pagoda tokens already on the board. During final scoring, each Pagoda token stack will be scored. Players will gain coins equal to the number of their Pagoda tokens within the stack times the number of all Pagoda tokens within the stack. Example: If a player has 2 of their Pagoda tokens in a stack that is 4 Pagoda tokens high, they will gain 2 x 4 = 8 coins.

Dragons

The Dragon tokens are primarily used in the Winter scenario. They may be used without the Winter scenario by placing one into each player's area during setup.

Dragon tokens may be used to reserve Decorations following the Reserving a Decoration with a Dragon rules in the Winter Scenario section. When using Dragon tokens without the Winter scenario, each Dragon may only reserve a Decoration card once per game.

Flying Lanterns

The Lantern cards and Decorations are used primarily with the Spring scenario. They may be used with any scenario, except for Summer and Autumn Solo. To use the Flying Lanterns, shuffle the 11 Lantern Decoration cards into the Decorations deck, add the 6 Flying Lantern tokens to the Decorations supply, and place the Hong Bao envelope nearby. Each time a player chooses a Lantern card, they place it within the Hong Bao envelope, without looking at any other Lantern cards within the envelope. They then place one Lantern Decoration onto any empty Rock, Greenery, or Water area on any Garden tile. They will then gain 1 coin, and 1 advancement on the track indicated on the card. During final scoring, the player whose Characters see the most unique Lantern Decorations will gain coins equal to the bottom value of all Lantern cards within the Hong Bao envelope. If there is a tie, then divide the Hong Bao coins by the number of tied players, rounding down, and each tied player gains that number of coins.

Garden Tiles

The following tiles may be freely added to the Garden tile stacks as long as there are never more than 16 tiles in each stack at the start of the game. The tiles do not need to be added as sets, they may be individually added from multiple categories.

Fountains

These tiles either provide an immediate element advancement of the indicated type for the player who places them, or they provide two spots for Character placement.

Golden Walls

Whenever a Golden Wall tile is placed, the player gains 1 coin per Golden Wall edge that is next to another tile. Whenever a Garden tile is placed adjacent to the Golden Wall edge of these tiles, that player gains 1 coin.

Silver Walls

These tiles have no extra effects when placed. During final scoring, each player will lose 1 coin for every Silver Wall each of their Characters see.

Tao Fountains

These tiles immediately provide 1 element advancement of the player's choice to the player who places them.

Observation Point

When placed, put 1 coin on every empty Landscape tile spot along the side of the board that the telescope is pointing towards. Each time a player places a Landscape tile on a spot with a coin, they gain that coin.

Theatre

This tile has no extra effect when placed. During final scoring, each Character that sees the Theatre tile will give their player 2 coins.

Lion Statue

Players will gain 1 coin each time they place a Garden tile that extends a greenery area that connects back to the Lion Statue tile. Players potentially gain coins according to the base game rules if the Lion Statue is placed adjacent to footpaths.

Koi Fountain

Players will gain 1 coin each time they place a Garden tile that extends a footpath that connects back to the Koi Fountain tile. Players potentially gain coins according to the base game rules if the Koi Fountain is placed adjacent to footpaths.

Lantern Tokens

The following Lantern tokens are used in multiple Seasons scenarios but may also be used with the base game by themselves. The players may choose different types of Lantern tokens from the 4 base game tokens and the following 5 expansion tokens. Ensure that all players use the same set of Lantern tokens and that the number picked matches the number of Lantern spots on the player boards.

Editor's note: the printed text says "5 expansion tokens", but six expansion tokens are printed and numbered 05 to 10 below. All six are transcribed.

• 05 Draw 3 additional Decoration cards: Use this Lantern token to draw 3 additional cards during your Place a Decoration action.
• 06 Neglect Character Spot: Use this Lantern token while placing a Character onto the Garden board in order to place that Character onto any empty tile (without Decorations or Characters on it). The chosen tile does not need to have any symbols on it.
  • Garden Promenade Scenario: When using this Lantern token, a player may place a Character onto a Wall tile as long as it is empty and there is no Landscape symbol showing on that tile.
• 07 Combo Action: Use this Lantern token to perform Build the Garden and Place a Decoration main actions on the same turn (in any order).
• 08 Reserve Tile: Use this Lantern token to reserve a face-up Garden tile. The tile is placed near the player board and may be used by the player for a future Build the Garden main action.
• 09 Copy a Lantern Token: Use this Lantern token to copy the effects of any other active Lantern token on the player's board.
• 10 Move Worker: CAN ONLY USED IN EQUINOX SCENARIO. After placing their worker onto a tile during a Gather action, the player may flip this Lantern token over to move that worker to any orthogonally or diagonally adjacent tiles before gathering any resources. The worker may not be moved onto a tile that has any Decoration tokens on it but may be moved to a tile with another worker (which would return that worker back to the matching player).

Base Game Lantern Tokens

• 01 Double Decoration
• 02 Move a Character
• 03 Double Tile placement
• 04 Select Character/Landscape

Leaves

Leaves are primarily used in the Autumn scenarios. They may be used without an Autumn scenario by following Step 11 of the Autumn Multiplayer scenario setup procedure. Each player gains 1 Scoring bag for storing their Leaf tokens. Players will gain all leaves they cover with Garden tiles. During final scoring, the player with the most of each Leaf color will gain coins equal to the number of Leaf tokens they have of that color. If players tie for the most, then all tied players gain the full amount of coins for that majority.

Note: It's strongly recommended that the Painter Character card be shuffled into the Character deck when playing with Leaves.

Objective Scoring Boards

The Scoring boards are primarily used in the Solstice scenario. They may be used without the Solstice scenario as long as the 6th and 8th objectives are ignored (don't place a Tracking token under either of them).

Nocturnal Landscape Tiles

Seasons brings 21 new Landscape tiles along with new symbols. These Nocturnal Landscape tiles replace the base game Landscape tiles and must all be used together as a group. Golden Age and Ghost Stories Landscape tiles may be added to the Nocturnal Landscape tiles. Lantern icons on Landscape tiles are ignored unless the Flying Lantern Decoration cards are also incorporated into the game.

Fireflies

• Give 3 coins for each Character 3 or fewer spaces away from it.

Fireworks

• Give 3 coins for each Character 6 or more spaces away from it.

Phoenix

• Acts as any other Landscape icon symbol of your choice.

Summer Central Tile

The Summer Central tile is primarily used in the Summer scenario. It may be used without the Summer scenario by replacing the base game Central tile with the Summer Central tile.

Viewpoints

Viewpoint Decorations may be used with or without any scenario, except Autumn Solo. Viewpoint Decorations replace all Pavilion Decorations. When using Viewpoints, return all Pavilion cards and decorations to the box and add the Viewpoint cards and decorations to the game. During final scoring, each player gains coins depending on the number of Viewpoint Decoration cards they have:

• One card: 4 coins
• Two cards: 7 coins
• Three cards: 9 coins
• Four cards: 10 coins

The Viewpoints count as Pavilions for the Architect character skill and sight preference.