The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game – Temple of the Deceived
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game – Temple of the Deceived Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Scenario Rules
Difficulty Level = 4
Encounter Deck
"Temple of the Deceived" is played with an encounter deck built with all the cards from the following encounter sets: Temple of the Deceived, Ruins of Númenor, Drowned Dead, and The Stormcaller Elite. (Ruins of Númenor, Drowned Dead, and The Stormcaller Elite can be found in The Grey Havens deluxe expansion to The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game.)
Preparing the Island Map
The setup for this scenario instructs the players to "Prepare the Island Map." This is done by separating all 15 of the double-sided Uncharted locations in the encounter deck and laying them out in a three by five grid as shown below, with each "Lost Island" card in the first four columns, and the three "Temple of the Deceived" cards in the rightmost column. This should be done without looking at the facedown side of any of these locations, so that the map is randomly generated.
Any card effects that reference a direction (left, right, above or below) should be interpreted from the perspective of the diagram below ("to the right," for example, would mean in the direction towards the three Temple of the Deceived locations).
Exploration
The Exploration keyword on the main quest represents the player's ability to traverse the Island Map prepared during the setup of the scenario. In this scenario, locations are not revealed from the encounter deck, and the entire island is laid out for the players to explore, one location at a time.
Locations in the Island Map cannot leave the Island Map for any reason, nor can they leave their individual positions within the island (for example, an effect that would switch two locations does not work in this scenario). The Island Map is not the same as the staging area and does not function in the same way. Note that there is still a staging area, which is used for enemies and other cards that would be placed into the staging area.
During this scenario, the active location is represented through the use of an "active location marker," which can be a resource token or a pawn/figurine of the players' choice. The active location is not moved out of its place in the island map when the players travel to it. The locations adjacent (orthogonally, not diagonally) to the active location are considered to be in the staging area. All of the other locations on the Island Map are not considered to be in the staging area.
When the players quest successfully, progress is still placed on the active location before it is placed on the current quest, up to that location's quest points, as normal. However, if progress is placed on any location equal to its quest points, it is not immediately explored. Instead, it remains in play.
During the Travel phase, if the active location has progress on it equal to its quest points, the players have the option to travel to a location in the staging area (i.e. an adjacent location). If the active location does not have enough progress on it, they cannot travel from it. If the players travel to another location, all progress is removed from the active location, and their active location marker is moved to the new location. At this point, the formerly active location is considered "explored," although it is not discarded or flipped over, and remains in place. Because players always travel from one location directly to another in this scenario, there is always an active location at any given moment in time. Remember that flipping an Uncharted location also removes all progress from it.
Players can freely travel around the Island Map using the above rules, and may return to locations they have already explored. Your goal is to find the entrance to the underwater Grotto which is somewhere inside the grand temple–the three locations on the rightmost side of the Island Map. But, in order to enter the Temple, you must find the Gate Key somewhere on the island.
Good luck!
Example
Example: David is playing Temple of the Deceived and a Flooded Ruins is the active location. Adjacent to the Flooded Ruins are two copies of Lost Island, one above and one to the right. There are no locations to the left or below the Flooded Ruins. Both of the adjacent Lost Islands are considered to be in the staging area, and therefore contribute their combined [shield icon] of 4 to the staging area. After questing successfully, David places progress on the Flooded Ruins equal to its quest points (5), and the remainder is placed on the current quest. Normally, this would explore the Flooded Ruins, but because of the Exploration keyword, it remains in play. Then, during the Travel phase, because the Flooded Ruins has progress on it equal to its quest points, David may travel to a location in the staging area. He travels to the Lost Island to the right of the Flooded Ruins, moving his active location marker from the Flooded Ruins to the Lost Island and removing all progress from the Flooded Ruins, but keeping it in play without flipping it (it is now considered "explored"). He then flips the Lost Island card faceup, due to the Forced effect on the Lost Island.
[Transcriber's note: the sheet prints the shield glyph in the Example as a picture with no name beside it, so it is shown here as "[shield icon]".]
Do Not Read
Do not read the following until the heroes have won this quest.
(The "Do not read" box on the sheet has no printed text beneath its heading. The ending text it introduces is absent from this copy of the sheet.)