The Lost Words Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Game Flow
  • 1. Draw a Card
  • 2. Perform an Action
  • 3. Reduce or Refill Your Hand to 3 Cards
  • Running Out of Cards
• Game End
• Action Cards
  • The Acorn (Die Eichel)
  • The Magpie (Die Elster)
  • The Chestnut (Die Kastanie)
  • The Skylark (Die Lerche)
  • The Heron (Der Reiher)
  • The Wall (Die Mauer)
  • The Wild (Die Wilde)

Components

The game contains:

• 20 nature cards (with beautiful illustrations)
• 40 spell cards (with 2 × 20 enchanting poems)
• 20 action cards (with illustrations and instruction text)

The action cards are:

• 3× The Acorn (Die Eichel)
• 3× The Magpie (Die Elster)
• 3× The Chestnut (Die Kastanie)
• 3× The Skylark (Die Lerche)
• 3× The Heron (Der Reiher)
• 4× The Wall (Die Mauer)
• 1× The Wild (Die Wilde)

Each card has a front (Vorderseite) and a back (Rückseite). The card backs show which pile a card belongs to.

Setup

Sort the cards by their backs into two piles:

• a low pile made up of the 20 nature cards
• a high pile made up of the 40 spell cards and 20 action cards

Shuffle each pile separately.

Nature cards: Depending on the number of players, each player receives the following number of nature cards:

Number of players	2 players	3 players	4 players
Number of nature cards	6 nature cards	5 nature cards	4 nature cards

• Lay your nature cards face up next to each other in a row in front of you.
• Place 2 of the remaining nature cards face up in the middle of the table.
• Return the remaining nature cards to the box.

Spell and action cards:

• From the pile of spell and action cards, each player receives 3 cards face down. Take these cards into your hand, fanned out.
• Place the remaining spell and action cards in the middle of the table. This is the draw pile (Ziehstapel).
• Turn over the top card of the draw pile and place it face up beside the pile. This face-up card forms the first card of the discard pile (Ablagestapel).

Important: At the start of a turn, the discard pile must always contain at least one card. If no card is face up, simply turn over the top card of the draw pile.

Setup with 4 players (as shown in the rulebook diagram):

• 2 nature cards face up in the middle of the table, for swapping
• the draw pile and the discard pile of spell and action cards
• each player has their nature cards in front of them (4 each with 4 players) and 3 spell and action cards in hand. Hold your hand so that you can see the faces of your cards and the other players see only the backs.

Game Flow

Whoever last ate a blackberry begins. If nobody has, the youngest player begins. Play passes clockwise.

Each turn consists of three steps:

1. Draw a card
2. Perform an action
3. Reduce or refill your hand to 3 cards

1. Draw a Card

• Draw a card from the draw pile of spell and action cards, or
• take the top spell card from the face-up discard pile. If an action card lies on the discard pile, you may not take it.

2. Perform an Action

In your turn you may perform exactly one of the following actions. The exception is the action card The Skylark, which allows you one further action.

You perform one of three actions:

• Pair: Place a matching spell card from your hand onto one of your face-up nature cards.
• Action: Place an action card on the discard pile and follow its instructions.
• Swap: Exchange one of your face-up nature cards for one of the two nature cards in the middle of the table.

Important: You may also choose not to perform an action.

3. Reduce or Refill Your Hand to 3 Cards

At the end of your turn you must have three cards in hand.

• If you have fewer than three cards, draw the missing number from the draw pile.
• If you have more than three cards, place the surplus cards on the discard pile. The cards you discard may be spell cards or action cards. You do not carry out the instruction of an action card in this third and final step.

Running Out of Cards

• Draw pile: If the draw pile of spell and action cards runs out before anyone has won, take the face-up discard pile, turn it over, shuffle the cards and place them face down as the new draw pile.
• Discard pile: If at any time there is no face-up card on the discard pile, turn over the top card of the draw pile and place it face up beside the pile to start a new discard pile.

Game End

The game ends as soon as one player has a matching spell card lying on every one of their own nature cards. That player wins.

Action Cards

Pages 6 and 7 of the rulebook describe the action cards. You do not need to read what they do now; look them up as needed during play.

Important:

1. In step 1 of your turn you may never take an action card from the face-up discard pile. You may only take a spell card.
2. In step 3 of your turn (at the end of your turn) you may also discard an action card unused onto the discard pile, in order to reduce your hand to three.

The Acorn (Die Eichel)

You may draw two cards. They may come from the draw pile and/or the face-up discard pile. You decide whether to take both cards from one pile, or one card from each pile.

Important: At the end of your turn you must, as usual, place any surplus hand cards on the discard pile so that you again hold three. You decide the order in which you discard them and which card ends up on top.

The Magpie (Die Elster)

Steal from another player a complete, face-up pair of spell card and nature card, and place that pair beside your own nature cards. In exchange, place one of your single nature cards (one without a pair) in front of that player.

The Chestnut (Die Kastanie)

Slide the face-up spell card of a complete pair (spell card and nature card) belonging to another player under the discard pile.

Important: If the affected player has the same spell card again in hand, they may immediately place that card onto their own nature card, and draw a card from the draw pile into their hand.

The Skylark (Die Lerche)

Play this card after you have performed an action, and then perform one further action. That further action may be: placing a spell card on a nature card, or playing and carrying out another action card, or swapping a nature card.

Playing the action card The Skylark is not itself counted as an action.

Important: You may play only one Skylark card per turn.

The Heron (Der Reiher)

Ask all other players for a spell card you need (for example: "Does anyone have the Bramble?"). If someone has it, you receive it. If several players have the requested spell card, you receive it from all of them. Take the spell card(s) you receive into your hand.

If nobody has the card you asked for, you must skip your turn the next time it comes around to you.

Important:

• At the end of your turn you must, as usual, place surplus hand cards on the discard pile so that you keep three in hand. You decide the order and which card ends up on top.
• Each player who gave you the requested spell card immediately refills their own hand to three by drawing a card from the draw pile.
• If a player has the requested spell card twice in hand, you receive both cards.
• If you ask unsuccessfully for a spell card, you must skip your next turn. But if you then play The Skylark, play another Heron, and this time ask successfully, you do not have to skip your next turn because of the first, unsuccessful Heron.
• If you ask unsuccessfully, then with The Skylark and another Heron are unsuccessful again, you still skip your turn only once.

The Wall (Die Mauer)

Place this action card on one of your own complete pairs of spell card and nature card. The pair is protected: it can no longer be taken away from you or separated by The Chestnut.

The Wild (Die Wilde)

The Wild is a joker! It can be placed on any nature card as a spell card.

The pair is also protected: it cannot be taken away from you or dissolved (as with The Wall).