Trickerion: Legends of Illusion Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object
• Core Concepts
• Setup (overview)
• The Turn (Game Phases)
  • 1. Roll Dice
  • 2. Set Initiative Order
  • 3. Advertise
  • 4. Assignment Phase
  • 5. Place Characters Phase
  • 6. Performance Phase
  • 7. End Turn Phase
• Locations and Actions
  • Downtown
  • Market Row
  • Workshop (your own; only your Characters)
  • Theater
• End of the Game
• Expansions (overview)

Object

Earn the most Fame over five turns (weeks). Fame is gained mainly by performing tricks in the Theater, plus advertising, trick links, and end-game bonuses.

Core Concepts

• Tricks come in four categories (Mechanical, Spiritual, Escape, Optical). Learning, gathering components for, preparing, and performing tricks is the heart of the game. Each trick has a Fame Threshold (minimum Fame to learn it) and component requirements.
• Components (Basic/Advanced/Superior, costing 1/2/3 coins) are bought at the Market Row and kept in your Workshop; you need them to prepare tricks.
• Characters are wooden disks placed at Locations to spend Action Points (AP): Apprentices give 1 AP, Specialists 2, and the Magician 3. Slot modifiers adjust these; you may spend one Trickerion Shard to add +1 AP (not in the Theater).
• Assignment cards secretly plan where each Character will go. Specialists (Manager, Engineer, Assistant) add board extensions with better slots and bonuses.
• Trickerion Shards are a third resource (with Fame and coins); in the base game they buy extra AP and are each worth 1 Fame at the end.

Setup (overview)

Place the main board (base-game side). Sort the Fame-Threshold 1 and 16 tricks into four category decks in the Dahlgaard Residence (Downtown). Stock the Market Row's Buy area with a Wood, Metal, Glass, and Fabric. Build the Performance Deck and fill the Theater's Performance slots. Pile components, shards, and coins as a supply. Set the Trickerion Stone on turn I. Each player picks a Magician (with a favorite trick category), takes a player board, 9 Permanent Assignment cards (3 Theater, 2 Workshop, 2 Market Row, 2 Downtown), trick/symbol markers, a starting trick and components, a chosen Specialist with its bonus, coins, and 1 shard. Set a random starting Initiative Order; everyone starts at 5 Fame.

The Turn (Game Phases)

Each of the five turns runs through these phases.

1. Roll Dice

The starting player rolls the six Downtown dice and places them on their matching colored slots. They determine which trick categories can be learned, which Characters can be hired, and how many coins the Bank offers. An X face means no action from that die.

2. Set Initiative Order

Reorder Initiative as the reverse of the Fame ranking—the player with the least Fame goes first. (Skipped on turn one.)

3. Advertise

In turn order, each player may once use their Magician Poster to gain 2 Fame, paying coins equal to their Initiative position (1–4).

4. Assignment Phase

Simultaneously and secretly, players plan by placing Assignment cards face down beneath their Characters. A Character with no card beneath it will be Idle (not placed, and not paid wages).

5. Place Characters Phase

Reveal all Assignment cards. In Initiative Order, players place one Character at a time on a free slot at the Location its card names (or leave it Idle). A placed Character immediately spends all its Action Points on Actions at that Location (AP can't be saved). Then the next player places one, and so on.

6. Performance Phase

In weekday order (Thursday→Sunday), each player with a Magician on a Performance slot chooses a Performance card bearing at least one of their own Trick Markers and performs all tricks on it. Every trick's owner receives that trick's Yields (Fame/coins/shards)—opponents whose markers are on the card are guest performers who also collect. The performer gains extra bonuses (see Theater).

7. End Turn Phase

• Pay Wages: 1 coin per working Apprentice, 2 per working Specialist (the Assistant's free Apprentice is exempt). Unpaid wages cost 2 Fame per coin owed.
• Return Characters to their boards (adding any newly hired Specialist's extension).
• Orders Arrive: move ordered components into the Buy area; clear the Quick Order slot.
• Move Performance cards clockwise; from turn 3 on, discard the last card and deal a new one.
• Remove Posters, then advance the Trickerion Stone one turn.

Locations and Actions

Downtown

• Learn Trick (3 AP): take a trick matching a Dahlgaard die (or your Magician's favorite category) into a Workshop trick slot and mark it with a symbol; set that die to X. You needn't meet the component requirement to learn it. If short on Fame vs. the trick's threshold, pay the difference in coins.
• Hire Character (3 AP): take a Character matching an Inn die from your supply; it joins your team in the End Turn phase (one of each Specialist type max). Set the die to X.
• Take Coins (3 AP): take coins equal to a Bank die, then set it to X.
• Reroll Die (1 AP) / Set Die (2 AP): reroll, or freely set, a Downtown die.

Market Row

• Buy (1 AP): buy up to three components of one type from the Buy area, paying their coin cost.
• Bargain (1 AP): used with a Buy, reduce the total price by 1 coin per AP (never to 0).
• Order (1 AP): place a currently-unavailable component in the Order area; it becomes buyable next turn.
• Quick Order (2 AP): make a component available this turn for all players, at +1 coin.

Workshop (your own; only your Characters)

• Prepare (1–3 AP): if you hold a trick's required components (which are not spent), place Trick Markers on it equal to the overlapping squares in its slot. Prepared tricks are ready to be set up in the Theater. (An Engineer's trick slot grants +1 marker.)
• Specialist actions (usable by any Character once the Specialist is hired): Move Tricks, Move Components, Move Apprentices to the better Specialist slots.

Theater

Character slots are divided among four weekdays (Thursday–Sunday); you may place Characters on only one unoccupied weekday per turn. The bottom row holds Performance slots, where only Magicians go (forfeiting their 3 AP) to perform later.

• Set Up Trick (1 AP): move one of your Trick Markers from a prepared Workshop trick onto a free slot on a Performance card. The marker's category corner must sit in a Link circle connecting two slots; two markers of the same color and symbol can't share a Performance.
  • Trick Links: if two matching category symbols meet in one Link circle, the tricks link—the linking player gains a Fame/coin bonus scaled to the trick's Fame Threshold, and Link circles with a shard symbol award a shard to each linked marker's owner.
• Reschedule (1 AP): move one of your Trick Markers to another free Performance slot (no link bonus).
• Perform (Magician only): executed in the Performance phase.

Performer bonuses (beyond trick yields): +1 Fame per Link in the performance; Specialist bonuses if they are behind you in the Theater (2 Fame for an Assistant, 3 coins for a Manager, 1 shard for an Engineer); and the Performance card's printed bonus.

Yield modifiers: a Character on a Thursday slot subtracts 1 from each of your performed tricks' Fame and coin yields; a Sunday slot adds 1 (yields never drop below 0).

End of the Game

After the fifth turn's End Turn phase, final scoring adds, in Initiative Order:

• 1 Fame per unspent Trickerion Shard,
• 1 Fame per 3 leftover coins,
• 2 Fame per Apprentice,
• 3 Fame per Specialist.

The player with the most Fame wins and claims the Trickerion Stone. Ties are broken in favor of the player ahead in the Initiative Order.

Expansions (overview)

• The Dark Alley adds a fifth Location, two extra turns (seven total), a Fame-Threshold-36 trick tier, single-use Special Assignment cards, and Prophecies that alter the rules each turn.
• Magician Powers (played with Dark Alley) lets each Magician learn customizable special abilities.
• A Duel of Magicians variant provides dedicated two-player rules.