Trash Cult Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Contents
• Choose a Cult to Lead to Victory
• Collect Your Food First and Become the Supreme Cult Leader
• Throughout the Game You'll Build Your Cult as a Tableau
• The Setup
• What to Do on Your Turn
• Take 2 Actions
  • Action Type 1) Add One Card to Your Cult
  • Action Type 2) Perform a Snackrifice
  • Action Type 3) Play an Action Card from Your Hand
  • Action Type 4) Discard a Card from Your Hand
• Frequently Asked Questions
  • Chaos Cards
  • Defense Cards
  • Snackrifices
  • Winning
  • Discarding as an Action
  • Drawing
  • Shuffling
• Terminology

Game Contents

• Active Deck: 7 Raccoons, 7 Skunks, 7 Squirrels, 7 Rats, 10 Pizzas, 10 Pies, 10 Cookies, 10 Donuts, 6 Pigeon Thieves, 4 Poison Their Punches, 2 Opossum Plushies, 9 Convert Hostages, 3 Protection Spells, 4 Hides
• Chaos Deck: 2 Animal Controls, 2 Trashnados, 2 Hungry Bears, 2 Garbage Trucks Broke Down, 2 Lunar Eclipses, 2 Rat Poisons, 2 Trash Swaps, 2 Thunderstorms
• 4 Player Reference Cards
• 1 Rule Book

Choose a Cult to Lead to Victory

Each player gets a unique cult:

• Raccoons - Worship Pizza. Snackrifice raccoons or pizza to steal your food of worship from an enemy.
• Skunks - Worship Pie. Snackrifice skunks or pie to steal your enemy's food of worship that they have in their shrine.
• Squirrels - Worship Cookies. Snackrifice squirrels or cookies to dig through the active deck and grab a card you need.
• Rats - Worship Donuts. Snackrifice rats or donuts to summon one of your food of worship from the trashpile.

Collect Your Food First and Become the Supreme Cult Leader

Win by being the first to collect enough of the food your cult worships in your shrine and have at least one active cult member (your own animal or a converted hostage) to worship it!

How many food cards of what you worship you need to win:

Players	Food needed
2 players	6 food
3 players	5 food
4 players	4 food

Throughout the Game You'll Build Your Cult as a Tableau

The general gist is that cards that are naturally a part of your cult get placed vertically and things that usually belong to other cults get placed horizontally. The exception: a Hostage you have in-play has the potential to become a Cult Member. When you attach a Convert Hostage card to your Hostage, it will be turned from horizontal to vertical to show that it is now a Cult Member.

The tableau areas are: Cult Members (Natural Cult Members and Converted Cult Members), Shrine, Hostages and Stash.

The Setup

1. Separate the active deck from the chaos cards.
2. Shuffle the chaos cards and place them aside, face down.
3. Shuffle the active deck thoroughly. The dealer will be the person who most recently ate pizza.
4. Each player picks their cult starting with the dealer and going clockwise; no 2 players can have the same cult.
5. The dealer deals 5 cards from the active deck to each player clockwise. The person to the left of the dealer will play first.

The table has: the Active Deck, the Trash Pile, the Chaos Deck and the Chaos Discard.

What to Do on Your Turn

1. If you start your turn with less than 6 cards in your hand, draw up to 6. If you start with 6 or more, just draw 1 card. This means you'll always get at least 1 new card and will have a minimum of 6 cards before proceeding.
2. Play two actions. No more. No less. (see list of Action options)
3. Your turn ends. The player to your left starts their turn.

Take 2 Actions

You can choose 2 different actions or do the same action twice. There are 4 types of actions you can take.

Action Type 1) Add One Card to Your Cult

• Recruit a Cult Member
• Hold a Hostage (other cult's animal)
• Add your food to your shrine
• Add another cult's food to your stash

Action Type 2) Perform a Snackrifice

Send 1 cult member, 2 like hostages, or 2 like foods to the trash pile in order to use the Snackrifice perk listed on the card. Animals/Food must be in-play in your cult before they can be Snackrificed.

Snackrifice perks: steal your food from an enemy's stash; dig through the deck for what you want; steal your enemy's food from their shrine; dig through the trash for your food.

Snackrifices unleash chaos! Pull a Chaos Card after Snackrificing food or animals. Chaos cards affect the whole table! Each and every player must do what it says (or play a Hide card instead).

Action Type 3) Play an Action Card from Your Hand

• Convert Hostage: Have one of your hostages drink the cult-aid to turn them into a Cult Member! Turn one of your hostages you already have in-play from horizontal to vertical to show that it is now a Cult Member. Tuck the Convert Hostage card under the newly converted Cult Member.
• Opossum Plushie: Get the Snackrifice perk without drawing chaos! No need to lose any food or animals; it pays for itself. Example: The Raccoon Cult leader plays the Opossum Plushie in order to use the Rat Cult perk to summon one of their worshipped food from the trash pile instead of Snackrificing rats or donuts.
• Pigeon Thief: Play a Pigeon Thief to blindly snatch a card from an enemy's hand. You may play what you stole immediately as a free action.
• Poison Their Punch: Play a Poison Their Punch card to make an enemy lose all their Cult Members (natural and converted). Their hostages are safe.

Action Type 4) Discard a Card from Your Hand

When you're out of options, consider discarding a card. Each card you discard counts as an action.

Frequently Asked Questions

Chaos Cards

Is playing a chaos card an action? Playing a chaos card is not a separate action. It is a part of the Snackrifice action.

What if we got Hungry Bear and I have 1 food and 1 animal on the table? What do I trash? You would trash 1 food since this is an either/or card and you don't have enough animals to fulfill that choice but you do have enough food to trash.

What if we got Rat Poison and I have 1 food and no animals on the table? What do I discard? You trash the 1 food. You can't fulfill either punishment fully so you take the maximum penalty you can afford.

Defense Cards

How and when do I play a Protection Spell? If someone plays a Poison Their Punch card or performs a Snackrifice, you can play this card directly from your hand and then discard it. In the case of a Poison Their Punch card this will stop the affected player from having to trash their Cult Members. In the case of a Snackrifice, the player performing the Snackrifice still pays the price for their Snackrifice, a chaos card is still played, but they do not receive the reward of their Snackrifice.

How and when do I play a Hide card? If a chaos card is played that you don't want to partake in and you have a Hide card in your hand, play the Hide card by discarding it instead of doing what the chaos card says.

Snackrifices

I'm a Rat cult leader and I have a Rat in my hand. On my turn can I Snackrifice it from my hand as one action? No, it will require two actions. During your turn you'd first play the Rat as an active Cult Member (your first action). Then as your second action you would Snackrifice the Rat that is now in play.

Food/animals must be put in play as Hostages, active Cult Members, Stashed Food or Shrine Food before they can be Snackrificed.

Can I use the Snackrifice perk of another cult? Yes! If you Snackrificed 2 cookies, 2 squirrel hostages, or a converted squirrel Cult Member you had in play, you'd be able to use the squirrel cult perk regardless of what cult leader you are.

Winning

I made a Snackrifice to get the last food item I needed to win during my turn but then a chaos card made me discard the food item I got from the Snackrifice. Did I win? Sorry, no. To win, you have to have enough of your worshipped food and at least one active Cult Member survive to the end of your turn.

Discarding as an Action

How many cards can I discard as an action? One card. You may discard two cards during your turn if you want to use both actions to discard cards.

Do I draw a card immediately after I discard as an action to replace the one I got rid of? No. At the start of your next turn you'll draw to make up for the card(s) you discarded.

Drawing

I have 6 or more cards in my hand at the start of my turn. How many do I pick up? One card. There is no maximum hand size in Trash Cult.

I have 4 cards in my hand at the start of my turn. How many do I pick up? Two cards. When you start your turn with less than 6 cards, you draw until you have 6. Then proceed with your actions.

Shuffling

It's the start of my turn, and I have to draw one card. There's only one card left in the active deck. Do I shuffle the trash to make a new deck before or after completing the actions of my turn? The trash pile gets shuffled immediately when the active deck runs out. In this case, you pick up the one card to start your turn, shuffle the trash into a new active deck, then perform your two turn actions.

Terminology

• Cost: What you need to trash from the table in order to perform that Snackrifice. (Values are listed on cards.)
• Active Cult member: These are animals that are in play as part of your active cult. There are two types of active Cult Members: Converted Cult Members and Natural Cult Members.
• Converted Cult member: An animal that was a Hostage that you've attached a Convert card to in order to make it an active Cult Member.
• Natural Cult member: An animal you've put in play as a Cult Member that would naturally join your cult without needing to be converted. (i.e. a Rat would join the Rat leader's cult.)
• Trash (verb): When a card says to trash an animal or food, it is referring to taking a card you have played in front of you and putting it in the trash, NOT discarding from your hand.
• Hostage: An animal you've put in play sideways that will require a Convert card in order to make it into a Cult Member. (i.e. If you were the Rat leader, you'd place Skunks, Squirrels, and Raccoons as Hostages until they could be converted.)
• Shrine: The section of the table in front of you where you put the food you worship.
• Stash: The section of the table in front of you where you put the food you don't worship sideways.