World of Draghan: Once Upon a Dragon Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal Of The Game
• Components
• Set Up
• Game Overview
  • 1. Healing
  • 2. Visit a new location
  • 3. Search the location and fight monsters
  • 4. Check the results
  • 5. Sharing equipment
  • 6. Healing
  • 7. Check equipment
  • 8. End of round
• Facing the dragon
• Winning and losing
• Playing solo
• Epilogue

Goal Of The Game

The players are brave adventurers who work together to find the dragon and defeat it. When they succeed they all win the game.

Components

• 6 Character cards
  • Front: healthy. Back: hurt.
  • Each Character card shows 3 skills (Strength, Charm, Knowledge) on the healthy side and 1 skill on the hurt side.
• 18 Marketplace cards
  • Each shows a Price and a Type (hand): Head, Torso or Hand.
• 53 Draghan and 13 Shadow Realm Encounter cards
  • Monster cards and Equipment cards. Equipment cards have icons on a wooden background.
  • Both Draghan and Shadow Realm Encounter cards have the same back. You can sort them based on the Location icon or color (red/blue).
• 13 Location cards Draghan (Location icon Draghan)
• 6 Location cards Shadow Realm (Location icon Shadow Realm)
• 4 Large Dragon cards
• 1 Map/Overview card
• 28 gold coins (Gold Pieces)

This game also contains 12 coins for Sneaky Ol' Dragons, the second game in the Draghan series. The rules for that game are at www.jumpingturtlegames.be/draghan.

Set Up

1. Sort the cards per type (Character cards, Encounter cards Draghan, Encounter cards Shadow Realm, Marketplace cards, Location cards Draghan, Location cards Shadow Realm) and shuffle each type separately, ending up with 6 separate stacks and the Map/Overview card.
2. Remove the 3 Marketplaces and the 3 Portals from the Location cards Draghan. Put the remaining Location cards Draghan on 2 stacks of 2 cards and 1 stack of 3 cards.
3. Shuffle 1 Marketplace and 1 Portal in each of those 3 stacks. Then, put the 3 stacks on top of each other (the largest, now consisting of 5 cards, will be on the bottom).
4. Put the stacks of Location cards Draghan, Encounter cards Draghan and Marketplace cards at the center of the table. Leave a little room to create a fourth stack, the discard pile, while you play. The stacks of Location cards Shadow Realm and Encounter cards Shadow Realm are put aside for the moment; these will not be used until later in the game.
5. Each player chooses 1 of the 6 Character cards and places the card with that character in front of them. The remaining Character cards are put aside. All characters have a combination of 3 skills, represented by these icons: Strength, Charm and Knowledge. These represent the strengths of each character. Each Character card starts out with the healthy side facing up (the side with 3 icons). During the course of the game, your character can get hurt, causing you to flip the card and the character's skill set gets limited to only 1 icon.
6. Each player takes the top card of the Marketplace stack and puts it face up next to their Character card. This is the piece of equipment you get to start your quest with.
7. The player with the pointiest ears goes first. This player takes the Map card and plays the first turn. The player with the map is called the active player. An overview of a game round in symbols is detailed on the back of the Map.

Game Overview

The game is played in rounds. Each round has 8 phases.

1. Healing

If the active player is hurt (the hurt side of the Character card is face up), that player can play a card with the Healing icon. The character is healed (flip the Character card to the healthy side). Put the used card on the discard pile.

2. Visit a new location

The active player flips over the top card of the Location pile where they are at that time (Draghan or Shadow Realm; the players will start in Draghan on the first round of the game). The Location card's ability is resolved first:

• Healing: All characters are healed (the Character card is flipped over so the healthy side is face up).
• Aid: The characters receive a strategic advantage from this location; it counts as an extra Equipment card with the icons displayed that can be used this turn to (help) defeat a single Monster (see below).
• Risk: When drawing Encounter cards (the next phase), draw an extra Encounter card.
• Theft: The active player loses 1 Gold Piece. When you don't have any Gold Pieces, you must put one of your Equipment cards at random on the discard pile. If you also don't have any Equipment, nothing is stolen.
• Marketplace: Put the top 4 cards of the Marketplace stack face up on the table: these can be bought by paying the price in Gold Pieces after the next fight is resolved (after phase 4). All players can buy from these 4 Marketplace cards, but should a disagreement occur, the active player decides who can buy what.
• Portal: When you reveal this card, you can choose to travel to the Shadow Realm at the end of the round. If you do, remove the stacks of Location cards and Encounter cards Draghan from the game and use the stacks of Location cards and Encounter cards of the Shadow Realm for the remainder of the game. Be careful! Once you decide to go to the Shadow Realm, there's no going back! If you decide to stay in Draghan, leave the Portal card face up on the table: if all 3 Portals have been drawn, you MUST go to the Shadow Realm at the end of the round.

3. Search the location and fight monsters

The active player flips over as many Encounter cards as the number of characters in the game. You always take Encounter cards from the top of the corresponding stack (Draghan or Shadow Realm). Put these cards face up on the table so everyone can see them. Encounter cards can be Monsters (red/blue) or Equipment (brown).

If a Monster has the theft ability, this is resolved first. The active player loses 1 Gold Piece. When you don't have any Gold Pieces, you must put one of your Equipment cards at random on the discard pile. If you also don't have any Equipment, nothing is stolen.

All players now play their Character cards next to a revealed Monster cards to match their icons (Strength, Charm, Knowledge). To defeat a Monster with 2 Charm, for example, you'll have to play 2 Charm icons or more. The players are encouraged to communicate with each other during this phase.

• The players are allowed to play Equipment to gain additional icons. Each Equipment card can only be used once and is put on top of the discard pile afterwards.
• Several icons on a single card can't be divided among more than one Monster; for example, the Elf can't use 1 Strength to defeat a goblin and 2 Charm to sweet-talk a merchant.
• You can only use Equipment against the Monster your Character card is facing that turn. You can't give Equipment cards to other players at this point, but multiple characters can join forces to defeat a single Monster!

If the players do succeed in defeating ALL of the Monsters, 1 thing will happen:

• The active player keeps ALL of the Equipment cards that were revealed from Encounter cards this turn. Put the cards next to your Character card.

If the players don't succeed in defeating ALL of the Monsters, 2 things will happen:

• The character of the active player gets hurt. The player flips their Character card over so the hurt side is face up (it only has 1 skill icon left). You can only get hurt during your own turn. If a character who's already hurt gets hurt again, they're too severely wounded to carry on. The Character card and all the Equipment and Gold Pieces that character owns are discarded. If the characters are in Draghan, the player receives a new Character card and the top card of the Marketplace pile as starting equipment. However, if your character is too badly hurt to continue in the Shadow Realm, you can't choose a new Character card. That player is out of the game. When you search the next location, you draw one Encounter card less.
• All Equipment cards revealed from the Encounter stack are put on the discard pile.

4. Check the results

This will always happen:

• Every character receives an amount of Gold Pieces equal to the gold value of the Monster they've defeated (if any). Place the Gold Pieces on the Character card. If several characters combine forces to defeat a single Monster, its Gold Pieces are divided as evenly as possible. In case of a dispute, the active player decides how they will be divided.
• Gold Pieces can be used to buy new Equipment cards at a Marketplace (see above). Defeated Monster cards go to the discard pile.
• In Draghan: Undefeated Monster cards without a Run icon (see below) go to the discard pile.
• In the Shadow Realm: All undefeated Monster cards are put back on the Encounter cards Shadow Realm pile and this pile is shuffled.

Monsters in Draghan that don't have a value in Gold Pieces come with a Run icon. If they are defeated, the Monster card is put on top of the discard pile. If it's not defeated, however, it will flee to the Shadow Realm (the Monster card is shuffled among the Encounter stack of the Shadow Realm). The more Monsters that are able to escape, the tougher the fight will be once you reach the Shadow Realm!

This icon only has a function in Draghan; in the Shadow Realm, no Monsters have a value in Gold Pieces as there aren't any Marketplaces in the Shadow Realm Location deck (even the most enterprising merchants won't find many prosperous opportunities in the Shadow Realm...). This also means you won't be able to buy any more equipment with Gold Pieces you acquired once you travel to the Shadow Realm through a Portal (see above).

5. Sharing equipment

The active player can (but isn't required to) give one Equipment card owned to another character.

6. Healing

The active player has again a possibility to heal (see phase 1).

7. Check equipment

At the end of the turn, each player checks their Equipment and Marketplace cards. A character can only have as many equipment as they can carry. This is represented by three different body parts: Head, Torso and Hand.

A character only has 1 head, 1 torso and 2 hands. As a result you're allowed to keep maximum 1 card with a Head icon, 1 card with a Torso icon and 2 cards with a Hand icon. Additional cards can't be brought along to the next Location but must be left behind on the discard pile.

8. End of round

The active player passes the Map card to the player on the left hand side. The game continues with a new round.

Want to see an example round or do you want to make the game more challenging? Check www.jumpingturtlegames.be/draghan

Facing the dragon

When you find the dragon, the endgame immediately starts. The game will be played somewhat different from this point on.

When the dragon card is revealed (from the Encounter Shadow Realm pile), immediately draw one of the larger Dragon cards (at random). This card states which dragon you encounter, and what skills are needed to defeat it. This special Monster card also has the following properties:

• As long as the dragon and ALL other Monsters on the table aren't defeated, the dragon and undefeated Monster cards don't go to the discard pile; they will instead gather more forces the next turn, when a new Location card is revealed.
• The dragon cannot be defeated as long as other Monsters are present, they will defend the dragon with their lives! So you should first finish off all the Monsters and when they are defeated, you can check if you're able to defeat the dragon as well.
• As long as you can't defeat all other Monsters, the active player will be hurt and all Equipment cards revealed this turn are discarded.
• If all Monsters EXCEPT the dragon are defeated, the active player can claim all the Equipment cards revealed.

When the Encounter cards stack is depleted, you're in luck. Ignore additional cards you have to draw.

Winning and losing

All players (also players who don't have a Character card anymore) win the game by defeating the dragon. You lose whenever a player has to choose a new Character card, but these are exhausted; when no more characters are active in the Shadow Realm; or whenever you're not able to draw a new Location card in the Shadow Realm (this means you're forced into a corner, and all hope is lost...).

Playing solo

This game can also be played solo if you control multiple characters. Keep in mind every character has his own equipment. When the rules state "active player", you should also interpret this as "active character".

Epilogue

Don't read this part before you won the game a first time!

You're still hearing the sounds of your mortal fight with the dragon when you've long returned to Draghan. The people of the kingdom are celebrating your victory; people are dancing to the merry music of minstrels, glad to be rid of the threat that was the Society of the Dragon. Peace has returned to Draghan, and you're hailed as heroes everywhere you go. Priests of Fulgor even take care of the wounded to make sure that even the defeated heroes are able to fight another day in the name of all that is good.

But this unsteady peace won't last. More dragons are captive in the Shadow Realm and the Society of the Dragon doesn't rest; they immediately set out looking for a way to release another dragon. Put the dragon you just defeated aside so you won't run into him again when you play the game anew. Each time you defeat another dragon, put it aside until only one remains. Draghan is only saved once you defeated the last dragon and imprisoned them all again... at least for a little while...