Towers of Am'harb Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Components
• Introduction of Components
• Game Setup
• Goal of Game
• Round Overview
• 1. Tower Phase (mandatory)
• 2. Power Phase (optional)
• 3. Disciple Phase (mandatory, if able)
• End of Game
• Scoring
• Cosmic Power List
• Quick Reference

Game Components

• 3 x Square Island Boards (double-sided)
• 4 x L-Shape Island Boards (double-sided)
• 8 x Player Cult Boards
• 12 x Wooden Priest Tokens (3 each in 4 colors)
• 24 x Wooden Cultist Tokens (6 each in 4 colors)
• 12 x Wooden Pyre Tokens (3 each in 4 colors)
• 16 x Wooden Tower Discs (4 each in 4 colors)
• 20 x Altar Tiles (6x 3 Doom, 6x 4 Doom, 4x 5 Doom, 4x -2 Doom)
• 48 x Resource Tiles (16 each in 3 colors)
• 4 x Lock Tiles
• 4 x Book Tiles
• 1 x Rulebook

Introduction of Components

Island Map Boards

Modular boards that make up the island of Am'harb. Not all map boards are used in every game. Please refer to the setup according to player count.

1. Number of the board: Used to identify which board to use in play.
2. Altar space: Place an Altar tile here during setup.
3. Normal space: Players send their disciples here to gain control over altars. Place one resource tile here during setup.
4. Empty space: Normal spaces that do not have any disciple, cursed altar tile, or cosmic power tile on it. An Empty Space may have an unclaimed resource tile; it is still considered "empty."

Altar Tile

Altars have 3 sizes: Large (5 Doom), Medium (4 Doom), Small (3 Doom). Cthulhu's cursed altar gives negative 2 Doom.

1. Doom Points: The player(s) with the highest influence on an altar gains the listed Doom Points (VP) at the end of the game. Influence is determined by disciples placed in the eight surrounding spaces.

"Surrounding" in this game is defined as the eight diagonally and orthogonally adjacent spaces around a central space. Each space can have up to eight surrounding spaces. Spaces along the outermost edge may only have three, five, six or seven surrounding spaces.

Disciple Tokens

Each player has a set of 9 Disciple Tokens in their color: 3 Priests and 6 Cultists.

1. Priest: Provides 3 influence to each altar in the surrounding spaces.
2. Cultist: Provides 1 influence to each altar in the surrounding spaces.

Cult Boards

Each player represents one of the 8 doom cults that worship a Great Old One.

1. Name: Name of the Great Old One the cult worships.
2. Illustration: A portrait that may or may not be an accurate representation of the Great Old One.
3. Number: The turn order number of this doom cult.
4. Round Overview Diagrams: A quick reminder of how to play this game.
5. Cosmic Power Diagrams: Each doom cult uses a unique Cosmic Power granted by their Great Old One. Please refer to details on page 9.
6. Scoring Track: Use an unused pyre token to track how many Doom Points you have won.
7. Influence Diagram: A quick reminder of how influence is calculated during altar scoring.

Tower Disc

Each player has a set of 4 tower discs of their color.

Discs come in 4 different sizes (or levels): L1, L2, L3, L4. You can only place smaller discs on top of larger ones. (Level 3 can only be placed on Level 4. Level 1 may be placed on Levels 2, 3, and 4.)

Game Setup

1. According to the number of players, assemble the corresponding island map boards below. Place the newly formed island in the center of the table within reach of all players.

For your first game, we recommend the suggested layouts below. For an added challenge, you may freely use any side of the island map boards; mix and match as you see fit.

The printed setup diagrams show these boards (labelled by board number and side):

• 2-Player Setup: boards 1A, 2A, 4A, 3A.
• 3-Player Setup: boards 7A, 1A, 2A, 5A.
• 4-Player Setup: boards 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, with board 5B in the centre.

2. Place all the resource tiles into a bag or cup (you may use the box lid). Randomly draw resource tiles and place one on each of the Normal Spaces of the island board. Return all unused resource tiles to the box. They won't be used for the current game.

On your first game, we suggest using 12/14/16 tiles of each color for a 2/3/4 player game.

3. According to the number of players, take the corresponding number of altar tiles on the chart below. Return all unused altar tiles to the box; they won't be used for the current game. Similar to the resource tiles, randomly place an altar tile on each altar space of the island.

Note: The large altars (5 Doom) should NEVER be placed on the outermost edge of the island.

	Large (5 Doom)	Medium (4 Doom)	Small (3 Doom)
2-Player Game	4	4	4
3-Player Game	4	5	5
4-Player Game	4	6	6

For your first game, we suggest placing all large altars (5 Doom) on the four centermost altar spaces of the island. Advanced players may also choose to make the altar setup completely random for a more challenging experience.

4. Randomly give 2 cult boards to each player. Each player chooses one board and places it in front of them. Return all unused cult boards to the box; they won't be used for the current game.

After players have made their choice, adjust player seating order. Cult board turn order numbers should go from smallest to largest in clockwise order.

5. Each player takes the 3 priest tokens, 6 cultist tokens, 4 tower discs of their own color and places them in front of them.

Some doom cults also receive additional components unique to their cult as shown below:

• Yog-Sothoth: 4 x Lock Tile
• Cthugha: 3 x green piece (the setup page shows the icon only; the printed text does not name it)
• Hastur: 4 x Book Tile
• Cthulhu: 4 x Cursed Altar tile (-2 Doom)

Note: Everything in this game is open information. Keep all of your components in open view for all players to see.

6. Each player should sit and play on different orthogonal sides of the island board. Then, each player places their tower discs in a single stack on the rightmost area on their side of the board.

Note: You can only place smaller discs on top of larger ones.

For 2-player games, the players should sit and play on adjacent sides of the island, instead of across from each other.

7. The player with the smallest number on their cult board will be the starting player.

8. You are now ready to play Towers of Am'harb!

Goal of Game

Players manipulate their tower discs to send their disciples (priests and cultists) to the island. Disciples will provide influence points to altars in the surrounding spaces. At the end of the game, players gain Doom Points from the altars they control. The player with the most Doom wins.

When a player runs out of their disciple tokens, the other players take one last turn each. After that, the game ends immediately.

Round Overview

Starting from the start player, players take their turns in clockwise order. Each player's turn consists of 3 phases:

• Tower Phase: Move one disc to another area. (mandatory)
• Power Phase: Pay resources to activate cosmic power. (optional)
• Disciple Phase: Place one disciple into the active area. (mandatory, if able)

Once a player's turn is finished, the next player to the left takes a turn.

Island Areas

As shown below, the island board will be divided into vertical 4 areas depending on which side the player is facing. Each area will consist of 2 vertical columns of spaces and a tower disc location.

Note that players sitting adjacent to each other will have areas that are perpendicular to each other.

Example

At the start of Carl's turn his tower discs are stacked as shown in these locations. He can only choose to move the L1, L2, and L4 discs. The L3 disc is covered by L2, so it cannot be moved. His valid movement choices for each disc are as below:

Disc	Area A	Area B	Area C	Area D
Disc L1	O	X	O	O
Disc L2	O	X	X	O
Disc L4	O	X	X	X

O = valid tower disc movement. X = invalid tower disc movement.

Carl chooses to move his L2 disc into Area D, on top of his L4 disc. Area D now becomes the Active Area for the remainder of his current turn.

1. Tower Phase (mandatory)

During the tower phase, choose a location with at least one tower disc. Take the topmost disc and move it to a new valid location. If the new valid location already has tower discs there, place the moved disc on top of the stack of other discs.

After moving a tower disc to a new valid location, this new location will become your Active Area for this turn. During the Power Phase and Disciple Phase, all actions must take place in the Active Area.

Golden Rules of Tower Movement

1. You can only move the top tower disc of a stack of discs.
2. Tower discs can only be placed in one of the four locations on your side of the island board. There can only be one stack of discs in each location. Discs can not be placed half in one location and half in another.
3. A tower disc can not be placed on top of discs smaller than itself. Discs can only be placed on empty areas or larger discs.

2. Power Phase (optional)

During the power phase, you may choose to activate your cult's Cosmic Power by paying 2 resources of the same color. You can only activate your cosmic power once per turn. See page 9 for a detailed list on all cosmic powers.

Note: After activating your Cosmic Power, you still need to carry out your disciple phase.

Example

Following the previous example, Carl activates the cosmic power of Cthugha by discarding 2 red resources. He then places a pyre token on any altar tile of his choice in his active area.

3. Disciple Phase (mandatory, if able)

During the disciple phase, you must place a disciple into your active area if you are able to do so. This phase is further divided into 3 steps:

• 3.1 Choose Space: Disciples can only be placed on empty spaces.
• 3.2 Pay Resources: There may be a cost to place a disciple.
• 3.3 Place & Gain: Place your disciple after payment, then gain the resource in that space.

Note: If and only if you cannot afford to pay for placement anywhere within your active area, you may then pass this phase and end your turn directly.

3.1 Choose a Space

First, you choose an empty space in your active area to place a disciple (priest or cultist token). "Empty space" means that this is a normal space that does not have any other disciple token, cursed altar tile (-2 Doom), or cosmic power tile (Lock Tile) on it. A normal space with only a resource tile is considered an "empty space."

NOTE: In the rare case that there are no empty spaces in your active area, then you shall skip this phase and end your turn directly.

3.2 Pay Resources

Moving disciples to the island board is rarely free. Players must be able to pay the resource cost before placing their disciple. The resource cost for movement is represented by the formula on each player's cult board:

(Number of surrounding disciples) - (Height of your stack) = Amount of resources you need to pay.

You have already chosen an Empty Space to move your disciple. For each surrounding space occupied by another disciple (including your own disciples), you need to pay 1 resource of any color. The height of your stack of tower discs in this area will offset the cost by 1 per level.

"Surrounding" in this game is defined as the eight diagonally and orthogonally adjacent spaces around a central space. Each space can have up to eight surrounding spaces. Spaces along the outermost edge may only have three, five, six or seven surrounding spaces.

To pay for resources, discard tokens of any color to the game box. Paid resources do NOT have to match in color. It is possible to place a disciple for free, but players will not receive resources if their stack height is greater than the resource cost.

NOTE: Remember, disciples of your own color count towards the cost.

Example

Carl wants to place a priest token on this Empty Space of his Active Area. There are 4 other disciple tokens in the surrounding spaces. The resource cost to place his priest here is 4 resources. The height of Carl's tower in this area is 2, thus the final cost for him is 4 - 2 = 2 resources. He discards 1 yellow and 1 blue resource tile and returns them to the box.

3.3 Place & Gain

Place one of your available disciples on the selected space after payment, then gain the resource in that space.

NOTE: If you are not able to pay the cost beforehand, then you cannot place your disciple here. You must choose another space that you can afford to pay.

Example

Carl places his priest on the chosen space, then receives the red resource tile on this space and puts it in front of him.

Your supply of priest and cultist tokens is limited. Once a disciple is placed on the island board, you are not able to retrieve it for placement on later turns. (Certain Cosmic Powers break this specific rule. See page 10 for a detailed list of all Cosmic Powers.)

Finally, your turn ends, and the next player to your left takes their turn.

Carl's turn has ended, and now it is Ana's turn.

End of Game

When a player has placed their last available disciple token on the board, all other players will each have one more turn. After that, the game ends immediately. Players check each altar on the board to see who controls it. The controlling player(s) receive the Doom Points provided by the altar.

Scoring

After the game ends, players can flip over their cult board (or take an unused cult board) to use the scoring track on the backside. Place an unused Pyre Token of their color on the space showing "0" of the scoring track. Use the Pyre Token as a scoring marker and advance forward along the scoring track when you receive Doom Points.

Note: If the Cthugha player has used all of their Pyre Tokens, just use any other suitable replacement as a scoring marker.

Altar Resolution

Repeat for each altar tile on the board:

1. Calculate the total influence each player has on the spaces surrounding this altar.
2. The player with the highest influence receives the Doom Points listed on this altar. In case of a tie, all tied players receive the full amount of Doom Points provided by this altar.
3. After players advance their scoring marker a number of spaces equal to the Doom Points received, discard the altar and return it to the box.

Example

For this altar, each player's influence is below:

• Ana: 2 Influence (pink)
• Ben: 4 Influence (blue)
• Carl: 4 Influence (green)

Ben and Carl are both tied for the highest influence, so they will both receive the 5 Doom Points provided by this altar. They both advance their scoring token 5 spaces along the scoring track, then players discard this altar tile and resolve the next altar.

Determine Winner

After all altar tiles have been scored, the player with the highest total Doom Points wins the game. If there is a tie, then the player with the smallest turn order number on their cult board wins. The winning cult summons their Great Old One into the world and leads humanity into a new dark age!

Cosmic Power List

During the power phase, you may choose to activate your cult's Cosmic Power by paying 2 resources of the same color. You can only activate your cosmic power once per turn.

1. Yog-Sothoth

Choose any empty space within your active area, and place a Lock Tile there. From now on only you may place disciples here.

During the Disciple Phase (including this and future turns), you may ignore your active area and place a disciple to the space containing the Lock Tile for free. You will also receive the resource underneath the Lock Tile upon placement.

Note: You do NOT need to activate Yog-Sothoth's Cosmic Power to place disciples onto an already placed Lock Tile. You only need to activate it when placing the Lock Tile itself.

Example: Ana activates Yog-Sothoth's Cosmic Power and places a Lock Tile on an Empty Space of her choice in the Active Area. During the Disciple Phase she chooses to place a disciple token into the Active Area (following all placement and resource payment rules) and then ends her turn.

On a later turn during the Disciple Phase, Ana decides to ignore her Active Area and places a disciple on the space containing the Lock Tile. She collects the resource tile underneath and ends her turn.

2. Nyog Sothep

Take all of your tower discs into your hand, and then rearrange all of your tower discs freely in any of the locations in front of you, as long as the Golden Rules are followed. For the remainder of this turn, all areas that you have a disc (or discs) are counted as your active area.

3. Shub-Niggurath

Choose one of your disciple tokens from anywhere on the island board, and move it into another space within your active area that currently contains one disciple or more disciples. Two (or more) disciples will now occupy this space.

During end game scoring, all disciples in this one space will provide influence to surrounding altars.

A few things to note:

1. You cannot move a priest token into another space that already has a priest token.
2. You may use this power to add more than one disciple to the same space. There may be more than 2 disciples in this space.
3. When calculating the cost for placement, spaces that have more than one disciple token still only count as ONE occupied space.

Example: First Ben moves a disc to Area B. Then, he activates Shub-Niggurath's Cosmic Power. Ben chooses a priest from Area D and moves it into a space in his active area already containing a cultist. Then during the Disciple Phase, Ben pays and places another disciple into a different space in Area B.

4. Dagon & Hydra

Choose one of your disciple tokens from anywhere on the island board, and move it into any Empty Space within your active area. You do not have to pay any costs for entering this space; however, you will NOT gain the resources either.

5. Nyarlathotep

Choose one of your disciple tokens from anywhere on the island board, and exchange it with another one of your disciple tokens within your active area.

Note that this power only has an effect when you exchange the locations of a priest and cultist.

6. Cthugha

Choose any altar tile within your active area, and place a Pyre Token of your color on it. Each Pyre Token will provide 1 influence (your influence) to the altar it is on. You can only place one Pyre Token on an altar tile. Once a Pyre Token is placed on an altar tile, it CANNOT be moved and placed elsewhere.

Note: Pyre tokens DO NOT count towards the cost for placing Disciple Tokens.

7. Hastur

Choose any space containing one of your disciples within your active area, and place a Book Tile underneath it.

During Altar Resolution (final scoring), if you are tied for the highest influence on an altar that has one or more book tiles in the surrounding spaces, then only you will receive the Doom Points from this altar.

NOTE: This includes Cthulhu's Cursed Altar Tile.

Example: For this altar, each player's influence is below:

• Ana: 2 Influence (pink)
• Ben: 4 Influence (blue)
• Carl: 4 Influence (green)

Ben and Carl are both tied for the highest influence. However, since one of Ben's disciples has a book token, only Ben will receive the 5 Doom Points provided by this altar.

8. Cthulhu

Choose any one Empty Space within your active area, and place a Cursed Altar (-2 Doom) Tile there. Discard the resource tile underneath and return it to the box.

During Altar Resolution (final scoring), the players with highest influence (including the Cthulhu player) on the Cursed Altar will receive minus 2 Doom Points; move the scoring marker backwards 2 spaces. If there is a tie for highest influence for the Cursed Altar Tile, all tied players will receive minus 2 Doom Points.

NOTE: If one of the tied players has a Book Tile within the spaces surrounding a cursed altar, then only the Hastur player will receive minus 2 Doom Points.

Quick Reference

1. Yog-Sothoth: Place a Lock Tile onto an empty space in the Active Area. On later turns, you may ignore the Active Area for the Disciple Phase and place a disciple for free on top of the Lock Tile. Then, collect the resource underneath.

2. Nyog Sothep: Re-arrange all of your tower discs any way you like. For this turn, all locations with your discs are considered your Active Area.

3. Shub-Niggurath: Move one of your disciples to a space already containing your disciples in the Active Area. Having 2 priests in the same space is NOT allowed; you may have more than 2 disciples in the same space.

4. Dagon & Hydra: Move one of your disciples to any one empty space in the Active Area. Do NOT collect the resource token.

5. Nyarlathotep: Exchange the placement of one of your priests with one of your cultists. Only one disciple must be in the Active Area; the other may be anywhere on the island.

6. Cthugha: Place a Pyre Token on any Altar Tile in the Active Area. This adds 1 influence (your influence) to this altar. Each altar can only have one Pyre Token. Once placed, Pyre Tokens CANNOT be moved.

7. Hastur: Place a Book Tile underneath one of your disciples in the Active Area. This disciple wins ties for highest influence.

8. Cthulhu: Place a Cursed Altar Tile on any Empty Space in the Active Area. This altar gives minus 2 Doom Points to the player with highest influence (including you).

Island Layout (suggested first-game layouts)

• 2P: 1A, 2A, 4A, 3A
• 3P: 7A, 1A, 2A, 5A
• 4P: 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, with 5B in the centre

Altar Tiles Used

	Large (5 Doom)	Medium (4 Doom)	Small (3 Doom)
2-Player Game	4	4	4
3-Player Game	4	5	5
4-Player Game	4	6	6