The Testimony of Jacob Hollow Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Object
• The Cards
• Setup
• Taking a Turn
• General Rules
  • Flipping & Horror Value
  • Encounters in the Dead of Night
  • Evading the Bad Guys
• Fighting the Evil
• Investigations
• Special Rules for the Cards
  • Running Out of Cards
  • Reacts
  • Characters
  • Locations
  • Encounters and Clues
  • Items
  • Actions
  • Card Traits
  • Targeting
• Glossary
• Example Cards
• Sample Game Layout for 4 Players (A-D)
• Game Contents

Overview

The Testimony of Jacob Hollow is an exciting game of horror and exploration. Six people have stumbled into the mysterious hamlet of Castle Bay. One will be the last alive. Will it be you?

For 2-6 players, ages 12 and up. Each player will need a token to represent his character (coin, pebble, miniature) as well as a pair of 6-sided dice to keep track of Life, Mind and pencil and paper to keep track of Investigation Points.

Object

To discover the evil that inflicts the hamlet of Castle Bay, a player must either:

• Be the only living character at the end of a turn;

Or

• Begin his turn with 10 or more Investigation Points.

The Cards

There are six different kinds of cards in the game:

Character cards represent the personalities and abilities of the players. Every character has:

• A Life value (from 1 to 6) that determines how much damage the character can take from Monsters before dying and being eliminated from the game.
• A Mind value (from 1 to 6) that represents how adept the character is at performing investigations to earn Investigation Points.
• All of the characters start the game with a combat skill of 2 (as noted on the character cards).

Location cards represent various places in and around Castle Bay that the characters will move to in order to perform investigations to earn Investigations Points to win the game. Most locations also have an Encounter that the characters must deal with as soon as they move to the Location.

Encounter cards represent monsters or other supernatural forces that a player can use to hinder opponents or overcome to gain Investigation Points.

Clue cards represent additional ways for players to gain Investigation Points with the possibility of not encountering a monster.

Item cards are various weapons, books, tools, or artifacts that can help a character during play. These are played directly onto a character.

Action cards do many things to help a player or distract or disable opponents. The text on these cards will clearly explain their functions and powers.

Setup

1. Shuffle the six character cards and randomly deal one to each player.
2. Each player places a 6-sided die on his character to note the value of his character's starting Life and Mind stats.
3. Shuffle the Encounter, Clue, Item, and Action cards together and then deal five cards to each player. The remaining cards form the terror deck for the game. Leave a space near the terror deck for a discard pile.
4. Shuffle the Location cards together to form a location deck. Leave a space near the location deck for a second discard pile.
5. Randomly determine who goes first.

Taking a Turn

Play then proceeds in clockwise order around the table. On each player's turn, he does the following in order:

1. Draw: Draw cards from the terror deck until you either have five cards (six if you have "Timothy" in play) or you have drawn three cards this turn.

2. Move: You may now move to a different location if you wish either by:

   • Moving to another Location card that is in play.
   • Turning the top card of the location deck face up and putting it into play, then moving your character to that location.

   If you move do the following:

   • Determine if the new Location has any Location Text that requires resolution now.
   • You may attempt to evade the encounter at this Location. This is optional and you may choose not to evade.
   • If you failed to evade (or chose not to try), you face the encounter at the Location.
   • If you survive or evade the encounter, you may now choose to perform an investigation at the Location if it has remaining investigation points.

3. Actions: You may now play cards from your hand, one at a time. You may play any number of cards on or targeting yourself (you or your character) or you may also play any other cards on opponents. Resolve any encounters, investigations, or other card text from cards played before playing another non-React card. Note: You may not play a card on an opponent until after that player has completed his first turn.

4. End Turn: You may discard up to three cards from your hand. Play then passes to the player to your left.

General Rules

Flipping & Horror Value

Every card in the terror deck has a number from 0 to 5 printed on the lower right of the card. This is the card's horror value. Horror values serve as a way to represent random chance in evasions, encounters, and investigations, as well as for some other actions in the game.

The action of using a card's horror value is called flipping. To flip, turn the top card of the terror deck face up and place it into the discard pile. That card's horror value will serve as a randomizer for whatever happens to be occurring at that time. Except for combat flips and investigation flips, a flip's value can never be less than 0 nor greater than 5.

Encounters in the Dead of Night

Whenever a character moves to a new location, that character will encounter a horrible creature or otherwise deranged being intent on bringing the character's life to a rapid (and bloody) end. Encounter and Clue cards can also cause encounters, as can some other cards in the game.

Encounters appear on cards with the word "Encounter monster (monster trait)", followed by a set of statistics which represent a monster's potential threat and reward: and three values—Com (the monster's combat value), Dam (how much/type damage the monster does to the character if the player loses a fight with it), and Rew (how many Investigation Points a player earns if the character defeats the monster in combat). Finally, the encounter has the word "Evade" followed by some numbers (see "Evading the Bad Guys" below).

Example: The Library, a Location, has the following encounter:

"Encounter Ghost (Spirit) Com: 1/ Dam: 1 Mind/ Rew: 0 Evade: 1, 2, 3"

Whenever a player faces an encounter, he does the following in order:

1. If the player wishes, he may attempt to evade the encounter (see "Evading the Bad Guys" below). Evading is optional and the player can skip this step if he wishes.
2. If the player fails to evade (or chooses not to), he must now face the encounter.
3. Fight the encounter (see "Fighting the Evil" below).

Evading the Bad Guys

Sometimes the best way to win is to hide (Preferably under a big rock). Whenever a player faces an encounter, he has a chance to evade the monster instead of fighting it.

The numbers following the word "Evade" on the encounter are the values needed to evade it. To evade, the player flips a card, and then compares its horror value (plus or minus any modifiers) to the numbers on the encounter. If the flip is equal to any of these numbers, the player evades the encounter and lives to fight (or run away) another day.

Example: Dusty Williams moves to the Library, which has the previous encounter with "Evade: 1, 2, 3". Dusty's player flips from the top of the Terror Deck and it is the card Dynamite, which has a horror value of 1. Since 1 is one of the numbers following the word "Evade," Dusty evades the Ghost.

Fighting the Evil

If the character can't run away (or is insane enough not to want to), he must now fight the monster in combat.

To fight, the player does the following:

1. Flip a card for the monster or player (whoever has the highest Combat score, or the monster if there is a tie).
2. Flip a card for the monster or player (whoever has the lowest Combat score, or the player if he is tied with the monster).
3. Repeat 1 and 2 until both monster and player have flipped a number of cards equal to their Combat value (for the monster, this is the number after the "Com" on the encounter. For players, it's 2 plus or minus any modifiers).
4. Add up all the horror values of the monster's flips (plus or minus any modifiers). This it his Final Combat Total.
5. Add up all the horror values of the player's flips (plus or minus any modifiers). This it his Final Combat Total.
6. If the player's total is greater than the monster's, the character slays the foul beast, and the player gains Investigation Points equal to the encounter's reward (the number after the "Rew" on the encounter).
7. If the monster's total is greater or equal to the character, the monster wins and the character suffers the encounter's damage (whatever is listed after the "Dam" on the encounter—usually this reduces the character's Life or Mind value).

Example: Ron Duschene moves to The Manor ("Encounter Demon (Spirit) Com: 3/ Dam: 2 Life/ Rew: 1, Evade: 0, 1, 5") and fails to evade the demon. She first flips for the Demon since its combat stat is 3 (higher than Ron Duschene's 2). First she flips Chainsaw (horror 2) for Demon; then she flips Giant Insect Larva (horror 0) for the Ron. She flips again for the Demon, getting Leather Jacket (horror 1). Ron now gets Sparky (horror 3). Ron has now flipped two cards, his combat value, so he's done. The demon now gets its third and last flip, and flips Blood Trail (horror 0). The player adds—Ron has 3 and the demon has 3. Since this is equal, Ron losses. Ron suffers the demons wrath and loses 2 Life.

Investigations

To win the game (and uncover the evil of Castle Bay), a player has to accumulate Investigation Points. There are two main ways to do this—winning encounters with monsters and performing Investigations on locations.

To perform an investigation, flip a card. If the horror value of the flip plus the character's Mind value (plus or minus any modifiers) is greater than the investigation target on the card (printed in the lower right corner of the Location card, just above the word "Target"), the investigation is successful and the player gains Investigation Points equal to the number indicated on the card (printed in lower right corner of the Location card just above the word "Points"). Otherwise, the investigation fails and the player doesn't gain any Points.

If a player gains the investigation points from a Location card, turn the card 90 degrees to show that it has no investigation points to be found.

Special Rules for the Cards

Running Out of Cards

If either the Terror or Location Deck runs out of cards while playing, simply shuffle all the cards in that deck's discard pile together to form a new deck.

Reacts

Some cards have the word "React:," printed on them. This indicates the card can only be played at a specific point in time or when a particular condition is true or false. All of these Reacts will indicate when they can be played. A player can even use Reacts on an opponent's turn!

Many Reacts say they can be played "before" or "after" an evade, combat, or investigation flip. These can be played only immediately before the flip or immediately after it. Most of these modify the horror value of a flip.

Characters

If a character's Life value is ever 0 (or less), the character dies. That character's player isn't out of the game (he can still play cards against other players), but that player can no longer play cards on himself, does not take turns, is not at a location and can no longer win the game (he can only try to prevent others from winning).

If a character's Mind is 0 (or less), the character goes insane and dies. (Repeat as above)

Locations

Any time a Location in play has no characters at it, put it into the discard pile.

If a character ends up not at a location (at the beginning of the game or due to certain cards), he is considered to be "wandering around the town." "Wandering" has no specific encounter and no reward. It's always considered an "Outdoor" location.

Encounters and Clues

A player can play an Encounter or Clue card either against himself or against an opponent.

Items

Items are always played directly onto your character (unless a card says otherwise), and can only be played by a player during the Actions step of his turn. You control all items on your character (even if someone else played them on you!)

Items have several special rules:

1. No character can have more than two Items in play.
2. No character can have more than one Weapon in play.
3. No character can have more than one Armor in play.
4. Some Items in play can affect another player. Using an Item to do so is considering performing an action.
5. A player may put an item into play face down; however, the player can't use that item until he chooses to turn it face up. Turning an Item face up can be done at any time, even on an opponent's turn.
6. At any time during the action part of his turn, a player can remove an item from his character and place it into the discard pile. This doesn't count as an action.

Actions

Actions specifically say what they do and what (characters, monsters, Locations, etc.) they affect.

Card Traits

Many cards (particularly Actions and Items) key off of traits on other cards. Traits can be found in one of two places on the cards:

1. Most appear directly underneath the card's artwork, on the right hand side. The two most common traits apply to Locations, indicating whether they are Indoor or Outdoor.
2. For encounters, the monster's trait type appears in "()" following the monster's name. The monster types are Abomination, Fiend, and Spirit.

Targeting

Cards only target if the word "Target" is in the game text of the card.

Glossary

• Abomination: See Monster Type
• Card Text: Text on a card that affects the game.
• Card Type: One of 5 different types of cards (Action, Clue, Encounter, Item, Character or Location).
• Combat Flip: Performing a single Flip in Combat.
• Encounter: Meeting up with one of the devious monsters in Castle Bay, usually you may try to evade.
• Encounter Card: One of the 4 types of cards in the Terror Deck.
• Evade: You may try to escape and not face an Encounter. There is usually several numbers that you may Flip in order to Evade an Encounter. See "Evading the Bad Guys".
• Fiend: See Monster Type
• Flavor Text: Text on a card that does not affect game play.
• Flip: Grabbing and discarding the top card of the Terror Deck and referring the Horror Value.
• Hand-Size: Each player starts with a hand-size of 5.
• Horror Value: The number in the lower right of all the cards in the Terror Deck that are used as randomizers in the game.
• Investigation Target: Number you need to beat with a Flip and your Mind stat in order to gain the Investigation Points. See – "Investigations"
• Investigation Points: The Points you get from successfully performing an Investigation at a Location or from defeat a Monster in an Encounter.
• Location Deck: The deck that consists of the Location cards.
• Location Text: Card Text on a Location card.
• Monster: One of the many named creatures on the various Location, Encounter, Clue or Item cards you may Encounter.
• Monster Type: The three types of creatures you may encounter. Some cards and their card text affect the different types (Fiend, Abomination, Spirit)

Example Cards

The printed example shows an Action card, "A Nice Hot Meal", and a Location card, "Asylum", with these callouts: Card Title, Card Type, Card Text, Flavor Text, Horror Value (Action card); and Card Title, Card Type, Traits (Indoor-Outdoors), Card Text, Encounter, Evade, Investigation Target, Investigation Points and Flavor Text (Location card). The Action card's text reads: "You gain 1 Life (maximum your character's starting Life) and you lose 1 Mind."

Sample Game Layout for 4 Players (A-D)

The printed layout labels the following areas: Terror Deck, Terror Discard, Location Deck, Location Discard, Character for Player "A", Character for Player "B", Character for Player "C", Character for Player "D", Current Player "A" Location with Investigation Points, Current Player "B" and "C" Location with Investigation Points, and Current Player "D" Location without Investigation Points.

Game Contents

12 6-sided dice (2 different colors), rules sheet, 120 cards.