Wizard's Academy
Wizard's Academy Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Component Descriptions
Game Contents
Boards (2), Corridors (24), Miniatures (41), Rooms (17), Character Cards (7), Disaster Cards (56), Room Cards (14), Spell Cards (72), Glyphs and Glyph Source Tokens (91), Threat Tokens (98), Mana Tokens (8).
Boards (2)
The academy board has space for the sixteen rooms that comprise the academy, and highlights the possible links between them. In most games a seventeenth room is placed outside of the board, symbolising an alternate dimension.
The spell grid has spaces marked for spells, indicating the level of the spell appropriate to each space. The glyphs are also printed on the grid, indicating which pair of glyphs are required to cast each spell.
Corridors (24)
Corridor pieces can be placed between rooms in order to indicate which rooms are adjoining. Characters and tokens cannot occupy them and they have no gameplay effect; they exist only to serve as a visual aid for the players.
Miniatures (41)
Miniatures indicate the positions of wizards, guardians, imps, trolls and demons within the academy.
Rooms (17)
The academy consists of a series of rooms which are placed at the start of each game and may move as play progresses.
- Room title.
- Room effect. This may apply continuously or only when a wizard takes an action. The latter are highlighted with the phrase "room action".
- Rooms are linked by doors. If two rooms are next to each other, they are "adjacent"; if both have doors facing each other, they are also "adjoining".
Character Cards (7)
Each player has a card representing their character; this has information unique to the character (1-5) and spaces for players to store glyphs and magic items gained in play (6-9).
- Name and icon indicating specialist school (see "Spells", below).
- Description.
- Quote.
- Portrait and space to store collected glyphs.
- Special ability.
- Space to share glyphs with other wizards.
- Space to place a threat to indicate a magic robe.
- Space to place a glyph to indicate a wand.
- Space to place a pair of glyphs to indicate a staff.
The reverse of each character card has a rules summary for the advanced game.
Disaster Cards (56)
Disaster cards interfere with the players' plans by introducing new threats, intensifying existing ones, or having unpredictable effects on the game.
- Disaster title.
- Level, indicating the severity of the disaster. The weakest disasters are level 0 and the most dangerous are level 4. Some disasters have a level of "-", indicating that they become more dangerous as the game progresses.
- Effect of the disaster when played.
Room Cards (14)
Sometimes an effect requires a random room or random direction, in which case a room card is drawn.
- Room used if a random room is called for.
- Direction used if a random direction is called for. The direction marked "1" is used, but in cases where only some directions are suitable, use the lowest number that indicates an appropriate direction.
Some rooms state that the direction is "Towards the Cursed Room"; in such cases use the suitable direction which is the fewest moves from the Cursed Room. If there is no route to the Cursed Room, the direction which would generate the most additional threats is used.
In the event that a room card is needed and the deck is empty, shuffle the room discards to form a new deck.
Spells (64)
Your most powerful tool for interacting with the world is casting the spells represented on these cards.
- Spell title.
- The level of the spell. If the title background is red, the spell is termed a "botch". Botches are magical mistakes referenced on some cards. A botched spell is still considered a spell of its level.
- The main effect of the spell. For a spell with no school, this appears on the bottom of the card.
- An icon indicating the spell's school of magic (see "Glossary"). When this matches an icon on the casting character or the room that they are in, the spell is more powerful. Some spells have no school of magic.
- On spells with schools, an additional text box indicates the effect of boosting the spell.
Glyphs and Glyph Sources (91)
Glyphs are required to cast spells. Glyph source tokens are larger and are placed on a room to indicate a source of power. A wizard there may use it to obtain glyphs for their glyph collection.
A glyph in a wizard's glyph collection or shared box is a glyph that they own and can use to cast spells.
A glyph in a wizard's wand or staff box indicates that they own a wand or staff and is not considered a glyph for any other purpose.
The glyphs are numbered 1-7, with the lower numbered glyphs being used to cast weaker spells. The glyphs are printed in order on the spell grid, from left to right and top to bottom.
Threats (98)
As the game proceeds, various forces will oppose the players' progress. These are represented by threat tokens and models, which are placed onto rooms as they appear. There are six kinds of threat token that the players may face: fire, water, ice, haunt, darkness, and portal.
Mana (8)
The academy wishes to protect the wizards and will expend mana to do so, until it runs out and the building collapses. Mana can also be spent on various "Last Resort" actions which allow players to quickly resolve dangerous situations at the cost of coming closer to losing the game outright.
Quick Start Rules
This is a basic introduction to the game, allowing you to get started quickly with a minimum of fuss. You should be able to master the basic game in a couple of sessions. Once you have managed this, the much harder advanced game awaits.
Advanced Game Components
On the character cards, only the glyph collection and specialist school of magic are used in the basic game; the other information can be ignored. The Grimoire rules and rules summary on the reverse of each character card should also be ignored. Ignore the text on all rooms except the Library and rooms that boost spells (Flux Point, Planar Rift and Holy Room). The other rooms do not have special effects in the basic game.
The only threats that occur in the basic game are imps, fire and water. The trolls, demons, darkness, ice, haunt, and portal tokens can be returned to the box.
The Helpful Hand of Fate
Whenever an effect could be legally resolved in several ways, for instance if a threat must move "Towards the Cursed Room" and two routes are equally short, then the players may decide how to resolve it. If the players cannot agree, then the player whose turn it is makes the decision.
Setup
- Each player selects a character at random. Use only characters with specialist schools (indicated by an icon beside the character's name) for the basic game.
- Remove the Lost Room tile from the pack (it is not used in the basic game) and shuffle the remaining 16 tiles. Place these face-up on the table, randomly oriented into a four-by-four square. Ignore the room setup text on the Master's Study and the Outer Dimension.
- During the setup of the basic game, if there is a room that cannot be reached from the Mana Crystal by any route then players may freely rotate the room tiles until all rooms can be reached.
- Shuffle all of the room cards to form the room deck. Draw five cards. (If the Cursed Room is drawn, discard it and draw a room to replace it). Place glyph sources 1–5 on the rooms drawn. The drawn room cards form a discard pile.
Cards in a deck should be face-down and cards in discard piles should be face-up. Unless otherwise specified, cards are placed into the appropriate discard pile when played. Players may examine the cards in a discard pile at any time. If the room deck is empty and you need to draw from it, shuffle the discard pile to form a new deck.
- Place a guardian on each of glyphs 4 and 5.
- Shuffle the following spell cards and deal them face-down onto the level 1 spaces on the spell grid: Steal Glyphs (1), Philanthropy (1), Danger (1), Nova (1), Dash (1) and Dimension Twist (1).
- Shuffle the following spell cards and deal them face down onto the level 2 spaces on the spell grid: Deface (2), Enrage (2), Burn (2), Call Flood (2), Summon Imp (2), Teleport Self (2), Snuff (2), Bend Dimension (2) and Abjure (2).
- The level 3 and 4 spaces on the spell grid are not used in the basic game.
- Shuffle the following disaster cards to form the disaster deck: all eight cards titled Activate Threats (-), one copy of Wild Magic (-), and one copy of Imp Invasion (1).
- Shuffle the following disaster cards to form the progression deck: Twist (0), Gathering (0), Lure of Power (0), the other copy of Imp Invasion (1), and two copies of Fire (1).
- Place the miniatures for your characters on the Mana Crystal and place five mana tokens there.
- Each player draws a card from the disaster deck. They may look at this card and discuss its contents but should not show it to other players.
The spells and disasters required in the basic game are marked by an icon in the bottom right corner of the card to make them easy to separate from the rest of the deck.
Play (Basic Game)
The first player to ask "How do we decide who goes first?" goes first and play proceeds clockwise. On their turn a player takes the following steps, in order:
- Play disaster card
- Draw disaster card
- Take three actions
- Endure threats
Play Disaster Card
To play a disaster card, simply follow the instructions on the card. Some cards have several instructions; in this event simply follow them in order from top to bottom. There are four types of instruction:
PLACE [THREAT]: Place one or more new threats onto the board. If a random space is required, draw a card from the room deck. Next, resolve threat interactions, e.g. if a fire token and a water token are in the same space, remove all fire tokens from that space. If an imp and a guardian are in the same space, then remove all imps from that space.
ACTIVATE [THREAT]: All threats of the indicated type activate. The effects of activating each type of threat are described in the "Threats" section, below.
ACTIVATE ALL THREATS IN [ROOMS]: All threats in the indicated rooms activate, regardless of type.
Early in the game it is common for "activate all threats in [room]" cards to be played with no ill effects. Don't worry; they'll soon start to cause more trouble.
SPECIAL: Follow the instructions printed on the card. The Wild Magic disaster requires some additional clarification. When Wild Magic occurs, shuffle all of the unbound (face-down) spells on the appropriate level of the grid and then deal them back onto the grid.
Draw Disaster Card
Draw the top card of the disaster deck. It will be played on your next turn. If the disaster deck is empty, add two cards from the progression deck to the disaster deck discard pile and shuffle these cards to form a new disaster deck. If the progression deck is also empty then the academy crumbles and the players lose.
Take Three Actions
You may take up to three actions, each of which may be used in any of the following ways:
MOVE ACTION: Move. Your character moves into an adjoining room. Adjoining rooms are defined as rooms that are adjacent to your current room and that are not obstructed by a wall on either tile. If you move into a room containing one or more water tokens it takes an additional action to enter the room; if you do not have another action the move is wasted.
ROOM ACTION: Take Glyph. If you are in a room containing a glyph source and there is no guardian present, you may take a copy of that glyph. Take a matching glyph from the supply and place it onto the glyph collection section of your character.
ROOM ACTION: Bind Spells. If you are in the Library you may attempt to bind spells. To do this, indicate an unbound (face-down) spell and state its name. Turn the spell face-up. If you were correct the spell remains face-up and is considered "bound"; if you wish, you may immediately attempt to bind another spell as part of the same action. You may continue to bind spells until you decide to stop or you incorrectly identify a spell. If you incorrectly identify a spell, turn the spell face-down and shuffle all unbound spells of that level. Additionally, remove one mana token from the Mana Crystal. If this was your last mana token then the players have lost.
MAGIC ACTION: Cast Spell. Casting spells is the primary way in which you influence the world. You can cast a spell regardless of whether it is bound (face-up) or unbound (face-down). In order to cast a spell you must do the following:
- Expend Glyphs. You must choose two glyphs to use. You may either use two from your own glyph collection, or one from your own and one from another wizard's, but never two from another wizard's collection. You may use another wizard's glyphs even if they are not in your room, but you must have their permission. The used glyphs are returned to the supply.
- Reveal Spell. Look for the card placed on the intersection between those two glyphs on the spell grid. This is the spell that you have just cast. If it is face-down, turn it face-up.
- Boost Spell. If there is a boost icon in the middle of the spell, check whether it matches either the boost icon on your character or a boost icon on the room that you are in. If it does then the spell is boosted.
- Resolve Spell. Perform the actions listed on the spell. All of the text on a spell with no boost icon applies. If a spell has a boost icon then only the text in the upper box applies, unless the spell was boosted, in which case all text applies. If the spell deals damage to a target, choose an imp or guardian within range and remove it from play. (Both imps and guardians are killed by a single point of damage.)
- Hide Spell. If the spell was unbound (face-down) before it was cast then turn it face-down again. Otherwise, leave it face-up.
It can be hard for new players to decide how to act. The conventional approach is to spend the first few turns gathering glyphs, then casting a few spells at random before moving to the Library to bind them before Wild Magic makes you lose track of them. There are unconventional approaches that can work too; experiment to discover them!
Endure Threats
If a wizard ends their turn in the same space as a threat, the threat may affect them in some way. The details of this are described in the "Threats" section, below.
Note that while you must endure all threats in your room, the order in which they take effect is unspecified, so the Helpful Hand of Fate allows players to choose.
Threat Rules (Basic Game)
This section describes each threat. Each threat has an ACTIVATION, ENDURE and ATTACK section. Follow the rules in the ACTIVATION section if the threat is activated by a disaster or spell. Follow the rules in the ENDURE section if a wizard ends their turn in a room with the threat. Follow the rules in the ATTACK section if the threat ends up in the Mana Crystal.
Imps
Imps like to steal glyphs and use them to perform minor magical acts. They can be targeted with spells that deal damage and are killed by a single point of damage. If an imp is in a room with a guardian, it is killed; remove it from play.
ACTIVATION: As an intelligent opponent, imps change their behavior depending on the situation.
SITUATION (first that applies):
- In a room with a wizard who has glyphs: that wizard loses a glyph of their choice and a fire or water token is removed from the room.
- In a room with a glyph: all wizards lose a glyph of that type. If at least one glyph is lost this way, the imp removes a fire or water token from its space. If no wizard has a glyph of that type, then the imp is removed from the board, having stolen everything it can.
- All other situations: draw a location card. The imp moves in the direction indicated by the lowest-numbered arrow that leads to an adjoining room.
ENDURE: If a wizard ends their turn in a room with an imp then they lose one glyph of their choice. If they lose a glyph then remove a fire or water token from the room; otherwise nothing happens.
ATTACK: If a single imp is in the Mana Crystal, there is no effect. If there are ever multiple imps in the Mana Crystal, remove them from the board and lose one mana token for every two imps removed (rounding up).
Fire
Fires spread through the academy consuming rooms with flames and making them dangerous to enter. If there are ever two fire tokens in a room, remove one of them; this has no further effect in the basic game. If a room ever contains both fire and water tokens, remove the fire tokens.
ACTIVATION: When a fire is activated, all fire tokens in rooms adjoining the fire token are also activated. This causes fire tokens adjoining them to also be activated, and so on. To resolve the activation, draw one room card; all fire tokens that are activating use the same card. Place a fire token into each room adjoining a room with an activated fire token in the direction indicated by the arrow marked with a "1". (If there are no such rooms, the fire does not spread; unlike imps, it is not intelligent and does not change direction when faced with a wall.) If this leads to two fire tokens being in a room, remove one of them. A fire token being placed onto a room with a wizard has no effect until the end of the wizard's turn (during the "endure threats" step).
ENDURE: If a wizard ends their turn in a room with a fire token, the Mana Crystal protects them from being killed by the flames. Remove one mana token from the Mana Crystal. If the player wishes, they can be teleported to the Mana Crystal, but this is not required.
ATTACK: If a fire token is in the Mana Crystal, remove it along with all fire tokens connected to it by adjoining rooms that also contain fire. Remove one mana for every three fire tokens removed (rounding up).
Water
Water floods rooms, making them difficult to move through. If one water token is in a room it indicates shallow water; two tokens indicate deep water. If there are three water tokens in a room, remove one of them; this has no further effect in the basic game. If a room ever contains both fire and water tokens, remove the fire tokens.
ACTIVATION: In the basic game, activating water has no effect.
ENDURE: If a wizard ends their turn in deep water, the Mana Crystal needs to protect them from drowning. This follows the procedure described for surviving fire above.
ATTACK: If a water token is in the Mana Crystal, remove it along with all water tokens connected to it by adjoining rooms that also contain water. Remove one mana for every six tokens removed (rounding up).
Imp Portal
A portal is a gateway to another dimension through which other threats emerge. A room can only contain one imp portal; if another opens in the same room, return it to the supply.
ACTIVATION: Place an imp into the room containing the imp portal.
ENDURE: A wizard may end their turn in a room with a portal with no ill effects.
ATTACK: If a portal is in the Mana Crystal, the Mana Crystal loses a mana and the portal is destroyed.
Guardian
Guardians are animated statues seeking to protect the wizards of the academy. They are not considered to be threats. If an imp enters a room with a guardian, the imp is killed; remove it from play.
A guardian will not let wizards take glyphs that they do not understand; wizards cannot use the "take glyph" action in any room containing a guardian.
Guardians have been built to be vulnerable to their masters' magic; as such they can be targeted with damaging spells and are killed by a single point of damage.
ACTIVATION / ENDURE / ATTACK: As guardians are not threats, they are never activated, cause no problems for wizards, and will not attack the Mana Crystal.
The Mana Crystal
Whenever a threat is placed into the Mana Crystal, the threat is removed and the Mana Crystal loses some mana, as stated above. Other occurrences, such as wizards dying, can also cause mana to be used up. When the last mana is removed from the Mana Crystal, the players have lost.
The Other Stuff
Many elements of the game have no effect on the basic game. Characters' special abilities are ignored. The magic item boxes and the shared glyphs box have no effect. The room actions other than Library are not used. Many types of threat (e.g., trolls, demons, ice, darkness and haunt) and spells will not be used, and can all be safely ignored while playing the basic game. Once you have mastered it, you will be ready to play the advanced game.
Victory and Defeat
If the Mana Crystal loses its last mana token, the academy collapses and you have failed.
If you need to draw a disaster card and both the disaster deck and the progression deck are empty, then you have failed.
If a wizard casts the Abjure spell while in the Mana Crystal and there are currently no fire tokens on the board, then the crystal has been protected and you are victorious.
You are now ready to try the advanced scenarios.
Advanced Rules
Main Differences
The main differences between the introductory and advanced game are as follows:
SCENARIO SELECTION: At the start of each game, a scenario is selected which determines the objective and obstacles that face the players.
ACADEMY SETUP: At the start of the game, the players have a limited number of "shifts" to refine the academy, rather than being able to freely alter it until all rooms are empowered.
CHARACTER CUSTOMISATION: All characters gain access to their special abilities and have the capacity to acquire magic items to provide permanent bonuses.
RESTRICTED ACTIONS: Rather than having three actions that can be used in any way, you take a move action, room action and magic action, each of which can only be used in limited ways.
LIMITED SHARING: Each character can make only one glyph available to other wizards, rather than having their entire glyph storage at their allies' disposal.
GROWING THREAT: The progression deck is no longer shuffled during setup. Instead, disaster cards are stacked in level order so that the challenge grows over time.
MORE POWER: Higher-level spells and powerful room abilities are now available to combat these new threats.
THE GRIMOIRE: The Grimoire contains reference material for all of the threats in the advanced game, as well as clarifications for particularly complex spells or abilities.
The Helpful Hand of Fate
As in the basic game, whenever an effect can be legally resolved in several ways (for instance, if a threat must move "towards the Cursed Room") and two routes are equally short, then the players may decide how to resolve it. If the players cannot agree, then the player whose turn it is makes the decision.
Setup
SELECT SCENARIO: Select a scenario from the Grimoire and read it in full. Rules specific to the scenario supersede the general rules in this book, including the rest of the setup instructions.
SELECT CHARACTERS: Each player takes a character card and miniature. You may assign characters randomly or take turns to choose.
BUILD ACADEMY: Remove the Outer Dimension tile from the room tiles and shuffle the remaining sixteen tiles. Place these face up and randomly oriented on the academy board. Place the Outer Dimension to one side and place a guardian in the Master's Study.
POPULATE SPELLBOOK: Select the spells required at each level as specified by the scenario. First take the specific named spells and separate the remaining spells at each level into botches and non-botches. Shuffle each deck, deal the required number of each and place the remaining spells of that level in the box; they will not be used during this game. Take the newly dealt spells, shuffle them together with the named spells of the same level, and place them in the slots of that level on the spell grid. Repeat this for each level of spells.
PREPARE DISASTERS: Shuffle the disasters specified by the scenario to form the disaster deck and place it within reach of all players. Each player draws a disaster card.
Cards in a deck should be face-down and cards in discard piles should be face-up. Unless otherwise specified, cards are placed into the appropriate discard pile when played. Players may examine the cards in any discard pile at any time; likewise, players may examine their disaster card at any time.
If the room deck is empty and you need to draw from it, shuffle the discard pile to form a new deck.
PREPARE DISASTER PROGRESSION: Build the progression deck from the remaining disaster cards as specified by the scenario. If the scenario calls for disasters of a particular level without specifying which, then select them randomly without examining which disasters were selected. The remaining disasters can be returned to the box; they will not be used in this game.
FORM ROOM DECK: Shuffle the room cards to form the room deck. If cards are drawn during the scenario setup, they remain in the discard pile at the start of play.
SCENARIO SETUP: If the scenario has any special setup instructions and it is not clear when to perform them, do them now.
REFINE ACADEMY: The players may make up to three "shifts" to improve the academy. To perform a shift, switch the position of two adjacent rooms or rotate a room by 90 degrees.
PLACE WIZARDS: Place the wizard miniatures onto the Mana Crystal along with the appropriate number of mana tokens. You are now ready to play.
Turn Sequence
The first player to ask "How do we decide who goes first?" goes first, and play proceeds clockwise. On their turn a player takes the following steps, in order:
- Play your disaster card
- Draw a new disaster card
- Take a move action, room action and spell action in any order.
- Endure threats
- Share a glyph
Play Disaster Card
To play a disaster card, follow the instructions on the card in order from top to bottom. If an instruction cannot be carried out, such as activating a type of threat which is not present on the board, skip that instruction. There are four types of disaster:
PLACE THREAT: Place one or more new threats onto the board. If a random space is required, draw a card from the room deck. On rare occasions there may not be enough tokens or models to represent all of the threats on the board, in this instance use another token to represent the threat. Certain threats eliminate each other when they occur in the same room (see "Threat Interaction" in the Grimoire).
Some disaster cards ask you to place threats only if no threats of that type are threatening the Mana Crystal. A threat is "threatening" if there is a path between it and the Mana Crystal, with no impassable threats (threats that merely slow movement have no effect).
ACTIVATE [THREAT]: All threats of the indicated type activate. The effects of activating each threat are listed in the Grimoire.
ACTIVATE THREATS IN [ROOM]: All threats in the indicated rooms activate.
SPECIAL: Follow the instructions printed on the card. Due to the Helpful Hand of Fate, if an effect could legally be resolved in multiple ways and no resolution is specified, then the players may choose how to resolve the disaster. For instance, there might be more than one botched spell that satisfies "The current player casts the highest level botched spell that has been bound", in which case the player can choose which one to cast. On the other hand, "Select a random room, place a darkness token in that room" does not allow the players to make a choice, as the method of selection is specified.
Draw Disaster Card
Draw a new disaster card; this disaster will occur at the start of your next turn. You may inspect your disaster card at any time and are free to share that information with other players.
If the disaster deck is empty, shuffle two cards from the top of the progression deck into the disaster discards to form a new disaster deck. If the progression deck is also empty then the game is over and the players have failed.
If the highest-level spell you've bound is lower than the number of times you've shuffled the disaster deck, victory is highly unlikely. For instance, if you have added two sets of two progression cards to the deck but are yet to bind a level one spell, defeat is extremely likely.
Some groups choose to adopt this as an additional defeat condition so that they can spend less time playing out doomed endeavours; others enjoy the challenge of trying to recover "unwinnable" positions.
Take Actions
You may take a move action, a room action and a magic action in any order.
MOVE ACTION: Move to an adjoining room. Some threats will influence your ability to move into or out of rooms containing them, as noted in the Grimoire entries for the relevant threats.
Rooms are adjoining when both room tiles display an open door facing each other. Other effects may influence whether rooms are adjoining; for instance, a room containing two ice tokens is not considered to be adjoining any room.
ROOM ACTION: A room action may be spent as a move action (see above). In order to spend a room action in any other way, you must be in an empowered room. A room is empowered if there is a route between it and the Mana Crystal containing no threats, such as double ice, that completely block movement (threats that impede movement, such as darkness, have no effect).
If you are in a room with a glyph source, a room action may be spent to collect one glyph of that type.
If you are in a room with a printed room action, a room action may be spent to perform the action listed on the room. Details on these actions are in the Grimoire (under "Rooms").
Boosts on rooms such as the Holy Room are not room actions. These are passive effects that do not require you to spend an action to use.
Some threats will influence your ability to use room actions, as noted in the Grimoire.
The most common entities that influence room actions are trolls and guardians. A troll prevents all room actions, whereas a guardian only prevents you from taking glyphs.
MAGIC ACTION: A magic action may be spent as a room action or move action (see above). It may also be used to cast a spell, in the following ways:
- Expend Glyphs. You must choose two glyphs to use from your glyph collection or from shared glyph boxes. You may only use one shared glyph in each spell, even if it is your own shared glyph. The used glyphs are returned to the supply.
- Reveal Spell. Look for the card placed on the intersection between those two glyphs on the spell grid; this is the spell that you have just cast. If it is face-down, turn it face-up.
- Boost Spell. Look for a boost icon in the middle of the spell. If it matches either the boost icon on your character or a boost icon on the room that you are in, then the spell is boosted.
- Resolve Spell. Perform the actions listed on the spell. All of the text on a spell with no boost icon applies. If a spell has a boost icon, then only the text in the upper box applies, unless the spell was boosted, in which case all of the text applies. The threat entries in the Grimoire describe which threats can be killed by damaging spells and how much damage is required. The Grimoire's "Spells" section describes in more detail how the most complicated spells function.
- Hide Spell. If the spell was unbound (face-down) before it was cast then turn it face-down again. Otherwise, leave it face-up.
Endure Threats
Ending a turn in the same room as a threat may have adverse effects. During this step you should check whether any of the threats in your room influence you. The Grimoire entry for each threat describes how it reacts to a wizard ending their turn in a room with it.
Share a Glyph
You may move a glyph from your shared glyphs to your glyph collection. If your shared glyph box is empty, you may move one glyph from your glyph collection to the shared glyph box. Other players can use a shared glyph to cast spells, but not to pay other costs.
Emergency Recall
A wizard may teleport to the Mana Crystal at any time during their turn. This does not use up one of their actions, but does cost one point of mana.
HINT: Running out of mana will result in instant failure, so try not to put yourself into positions where you will need to use an emergency recall.
Turn Complete
Once you have finished the shared glyphs step, your turn is complete and the next player takes their turn. Continue in this manner until you lose by running out of mana or disaster progression cards or until you win by achieving the victory condition specified in the scenario.
Disasters
When a disaster card is resolved, the effects on the disaster card are resolved in order, one paragraph at a time. A given threat cannot be activated more than once by the same paragraph, but it can be activated several times by the same card due to effects in different paragraphs.
Example: One Activate Threats disaster card reads "Activate all threats in the Cursed Room and Warded Room". An imp in the Cursed Room activates and moves to the Warded Room; it is not activated again. A fire that is in both the Cursed and Warded Rooms will only be activated once.
The Wildfire disaster card reads "Place a fire portal in a random room. Activate fire. Activate fire." As the two "Activate fire" instructions are printed in separate paragraphs, every fire in the academy is activated twice.
The Mana Crystal
When a threat reaches the Mana Crystal, the Mana Crystal will often defend itself by expending some mana to destroy the threat. Each threat has an "attack" section in its Grimoire entry describing the consequence of the threat reaching the Mana Crystal. Note that the ice threat can influence the Mana Crystal once it is in all rooms adjoining the crystal.
Mana can also be spent to prevent a wizard from dying, as noted in the threats section of the Grimoire.
A wizard may also spend a mana at any point during their turn to teleport to the Mana Crystal. This is typically used to escape being trapped, but may be used for any reason.
Finally, a wizard taking a room action in the Mana Crystal may expend mana to produce a variety of useful effects as described in the "Rooms" section of the Grimoire.
If the Mana Crystal ever runs out of mana for any reason the game is over and the players have lost.
Magic Items
Some rooms and spells create magic items. A wizard may only own one item of each type. If a wizard gains a second item (e.g. an extra robe) they must choose which of the two items to keep and which to destroy. When an item is acquired, glyphs or threats are placed into the appropriate box in the character card to indicate the function of the item.
Robes
Robes can be acquired in the Awakened Room for four glyphs. Their function is indicated by a threat and they make the wizard immune to the effects of that threat. For all purposes except spell-casting, the wizard treats such threats as if they did not exist and these threats likewise treat her as if she did not exist. When casting spells these threats can be targeted and are affected normally. For instance, a wizard with an ice robe must move through rooms as if ice were not present; she will not slide on single ice (even if she wants to), and she may move into rooms using routes that would normally be blocked by double ice. A demon will ignore a wizard with a demon robe; it is not able to kill the wizard, nor will the wizard's presence influence its choice of action.
Wands
Wands can be acquired in the Workshop for three glyphs. Their function is indicated by a single glyph and they allow the wizard with the wand to use any glyph as if it were a glyph of the indicated type. This ability extends to glyphs they receive from other wizards via shared glyph, but they are not able to use it to supply an altered glyph to another wizard.
Staves
Staves can be acquired in the Hoard for five glyphs. Their function is indicated using two glyphs. They allow the wizard to cast the spell indicated by this pair of glyphs as a move action, without expending any glyphs. The spell is treated in all respects as if the wizard had cast it normally using a magic action and two appropriate glyphs. A given staff may not be used more than one hundred and one times in a turn.
Glossary
Adjacent — Rooms are considered adjacent if they are orthogonally touching. Rooms that only touch corner-to-corner are not considered adjacent in this game.
Adjoining — One room is adjoining another when they are adjacent and the path between them is not blocked. A wall printed on either tile blocks adjoining rooms. If a room contains two ice tokens it does not adjoin any other rooms.
Bound / Unbound — Bound spells are face-up, remain face-up when cast and will not be shuffled by Wild Magic. Unbound spells are face-down, are revealed by casting, but are returned to a face-down position once the spell has been resolved. The most common way for spells to become bound is through the use of the "Bind Spells" action in the Library.
Empowered — A room is considered to be empowered if a route can be traced from that room to the Mana Crystal through a chain of rooms that adjoin each other. It is not possible to use a room's "room action" or to collect glyphs there unless it is empowered.
Containing — A room contains all wizards, glyph sources and threats placed on top of its room tile. The academy contains the rooms on the academy board and, by extension, all of their contents. The academy does not contain the room placed to one side (initially the Outer Dimension in most scenarios).
Damage — Some spells inflict damage on a target. It takes one point of damage to kill an imp or guardian, two to kill a troll and three to kill a demon. Other entities cannot take damage. Killing a creature requires you to deal enough damage to kill it in a single turn; this can be dealt over several spells if you are able to cast multiple spells in a turn.
Forced Movement — When a creature is moved by a spell or disaster, no random card is drawn and it ignores its usual movement rules. If it could legally be moved in multiple directions, the players choose the direction in which it moves.
Forced movement is not influenced by board elements that do not entirely block movement. They are not randomized by a haunt and are not slowed by darkness or water.
Helpful Hand of Fate — Whenever a decision needs to be made that is not specified in the rules, the players may make the decision. If they cannot agree then the player whose turn it is chooses. For instance, if a disaster card reads "Activate all threats in the Flux Point" and there are several threats in the Flux Point, the players may choose in which order they activate.
Magic Items — Wizards can acquire robes, staves and wands to make their lives easier. Each of these items provides a different bonus. Only one of each type may be carried at a time. When presented with an opportunity to obtain a magic item you already possess, you must choose which to keep.
Overflow — When a room receives its third water token, threat interaction requires that the excess be removed and additional water tokens be placed in all adjoining rooms.
If a room receives its third water token via an overflow, a chain overflow occurs and water is only placed into adjoining rooms that have not executed an overflow since the last time that a water token was added to the board for a reason other than threat interaction (i.e. rooms that have not overflowed since the last time a spell, disaster or similar effect added water to the board).
Priority — Various rules in the game may contradict each other. For instance, a spell may allow a wizard to take an action that would not normally be permitted. If one rule does not explicitly state that it overrides another, the following priority is observed:
Scenario Rules > Character Abilities > Spells > Rooms > Rules for threats > All other rules
Random Room or Direction — When a random room or direction is called for, the top card of the room deck is drawn to select it. If a room is required, then the room on the card is used. If a direction is required, then the lowest-numbered arrow that points in a suitable direction is used. If a random direction with no restrictions is required, this will always be the "1", but if a restriction applies (such as "A random adjoining room"), then the "1" direction may be unsuitable if there is no adjoining room in that direction. Some cards read "Towards the Cursed Room" instead of giving a direction; see below for how to handle such cards.
If the players have used spells to modify the room deck, this may not be truly random. This is intentional.
Threatening — A threat is considered to be threatening if a route can be traced from that threat's room to the Mana Crystal through a chain of rooms that adjoin each other.
Target — Guardians, imps, trolls and demons may be selected as targets for damaging spells (unless the spell specified otherwise). Other threats, wizards, mana and glyph sources may not be targeted unless a spell specifically instructs you to select a target of this type.
Towards the Cursed Room — Some room cards do not have a direction arrow and instead take the direction to be "towards the Cursed Room". In this case, the direction is whichever direction an entity would move to reach the Cursed Room by the smallest number of moves, ignoring all threats that do not completely block movement. If there is a tie (or if the entity is already in the Cursed Room, or cannot reach the Cursed Room), whichever direction produces the most new threats (after threat interaction) is selected. If that is also tied, the players may choose which direction is selected. Even unintelligent threats, such as fire, will follow the shortest unobstructed route to the Cursed Room.
School of Magic — Most spells belong to one of six schools of magic and are more powerful when cast by characters who specialize in these schools or when cast in rooms that make those schools particularly powerful. The schools are:
- AUGMENTATION: Physically improving the caster.
- DESTRUCTION: Inflicting damage or breaking things.
- DIMENSION: Manipulating physical space or portals.
- ELEMENTALISM: Influencing the four classical elements.
- ENCHANTMENT: Creating magic items or manipulating glyphs.
- SANCTUARY: Protection or restoration.