Aeon Trespass: Odyssey
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Important Game Rules
- Campaign Basics
- Voyage Phase
- 1. Movement Step
- Tile Sectors
- Other Movement Symbols
- Map Symbols
- 2. Timeline Step
- Timeline Events
- 3. Exploration Step
- 4. Expedition Step
- 5. Encounter Step
- Campaign Battles Flow
- 6. Advancement Step
- Research
- Technology Types
- Technology Breakthroughs
- Gaining Technology Cards and Project Cards through Different Means
- Technology Usage
- Trading
- Resources
- Crafting Gear
- Titan Breeding
- How to Breed a Titan
- Titan crafting using Primordial Cores (fusing)
- Named Titans
- Titan Patterns
- Other Advancement Timeline Events
- 7. Story Step
- Story Progression
- Clue Cards
- Story Events
- Mnemos Breakthroughs
- Secret Codes
- 8. Doom Step
- 9. End Step
- Additional Voyage Rules
- Adventure Phase
- A Narrative Game of Choice
- What are Adventures?
- Navigating Storybooks
- Following the Paragraphs
- Story Choices
- Making Notes
- Choice Matrix
- Party Leader
- Story Adventures
- Hub Adventures
- R&R Adventures
- Inward Odyssey
- Inward Odyssey Adventure Requirements
- Mnemos Breakthroughs
- Mnemos Breakthroughs Rewards
- Dreams of Pharos
- Pharos Delve
- Special Events
- Other Adventures
- Additional Adventure Rules
- Mnemoses
- Mnemos Cards
- Mnemos Nodes
- Resolved Mnemoses and Katharsis
- Mnemos Card Limit
- Mnemos Vault
- Fated Mnemoses
- Fated Mnemos Cards
- Resolving a Fated Mnemos and Trauma Growth
- Adventure Tests and Rolls
- Adventure Tests
- Solo vs. Group Tests
- Fail: Effects
- Other Adventure Rolls
- Peril
- Adventure Terrain
- Fated Boxes
- Least and Most Likely Argonaut
- Battle Phase
- Primordial Round
- Primordial Sheet
- Primordial Diagram
- Basic Traits
- Primordial Level-specific attributes and Traits
- Primordial Traits
- Signature and Routine
- Primordial Round Overview
- Start of Primordial Round
- Resolve AI
- Priority Target
- Line of Sight
- Primordial Facing
- Primordial Turning
- Primordial Attack Types
- Window of Opportunity
- Chain Break
- Fate Effect Triggers
- Other Effect Triggers
- Resolve Other Actions
- End of Primordial Round
- Titan Round
- Titan Sheet
- Trauma Table
- Kratos Table
- Triskelion
- Kratos Tokens
- Gear cards
- Fists
- Game Elements and Attachments
- Gear Attributes
- Backs of Gear cards
- Pattern cards
- Titan Round Overview
- Start of Titan Round
- Titan Turns
- Movement action
- Move-like Ability
- Voluntary Movement
- Involuntary Movement
- Involuntary Movement Reduction
- Other Uses of Movement Actions
- Combat Action
- 1. Declare Attack and Active Weapon
- 2. Raise Rage and Check Priority Target
- 3. Attack Roll
- Crit die
- 4. First Ability Window
- 5. Draw BP Card
- 6. Power Roll
- 6.1 Creating the Power Pool
- Power Dice Limit
- 6.2 Rolling the Dice
- 6.3 Power Re-rolls
- 6.4 Using Potentials
- 6.5 Resolve The Power Roll
- 7. Primordial Responses
- Responses and Adjacency
- 8. Wounds and Escalation
- Wound Stack
- Performing Escalation
- Escalating the BP Deck
- Escalating the AI Deck
- Full Escalation Chart
- Escalations Outside of Wounding
- Escalations Outside of Battle
- Escalating Only One Deck
- 9. Clear the Kratos Pool
- 10. Second Ability Window
- End of the Titan Attack and Attack Responses
- End of Titan Round
- Other Actions in the Titan Round
- Battle Aftermath
- Additional Battle Rules
- Death in Battle
- Many Ways to Die
- Mercy Rule
- Other Round Timing Rules
- Bonus Attacks
- Bonus Attacks during Titan Attacks (Follow-ups)
- Instant Death Effects
- Death Blows
- Retreat
- Sisyphus Tears
- Wise Providence
- Conditions
- Afflictions and Boons
- Moiros Cards
- Kratos Cards
- Kratos Roll
- Ambrosia
- Ambrosia Limit
- Modifier Tokens
- Generic Tokens
- Vantage Points
- Awakenings
- Summonings in Battle
- Tests in Battle
- Ability Usage
- Exhausting, Discarding and Removing
- Fatigue
- Keywords
- Terrain
- Mnestis Theatre
- What is the Mnestis Theatre?
- Accessibility
- Mnestis Battles
- Tree of Knowledge
- Unlocking Adversaries
- Custom Battles
- General Mnestis Theatre Rules
- Mnestis Battle Setup
- Mnestis Loadouts
- Mnestis Rewards
- Cycle Ascending Materials
- Ascending Costs
- Ascended Cores
- Guaranteed Loot
- Primordial Cores
- Mnestis Gear
- Nymphs
- Mnestis Battle Diagrams
- Skyseer Titan Expansion
- Skyseer Technology
- Alternate Mnestis Battle Diagrams
- Tree of Knowledge (chart)
- Master Index
- Last Page Summaries
- The Most Popular In-Game Symbols
- Credits
Introduction
Using this Book
This Rulebook is not meant to teach you the basics of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey. If you are new to the game, use the Learn to Play book instead and play the Tutorial that will introduce game elements and rules necessary to start playing step by step.
This Rulebook is meant as a reference for specific rules, providing a detailed explanation, additional examples and clarification. The Rulebook has been divided into sections, including the rules for the main Phases of the game:
- Important Game Rules: All the basic game information, including player characters, main statistics and win/lose conditions.
- Campaign Basics: A detailed breakdown of the Campaign Round with all the Steps and Phases.
- Voyage Phase: Rules concerning the Voyage map and all the game elements connected to it. If you are currently not resolving any Encounters on the Battle Board or going on an Adventure, you are in the Voyage Phase.
- Adventure Phase: Rules concerning Adventures, be they Main Story, hub adventures or even R&R! If you are currently reading through a Storybook passage, you are in the Adventure Phase.
- Battle Phase: Rules concerning Battle encounters. If you are currently resolving a Primordial encounter on the Battle Board, you are in the Battle Phase.
- Mnestis Theatre: All rules concerning the Mnestis Theatre game mode, including the Tree of Knowledge and Mnestis rewards.
Do not open Secret envelopes!
Important! There are a number of sealed envelopes in the game box. Do not open these unless specifically instructed to! If you're not sure you're instructed to open an envelope, you aren't! Don't spoil the fun for yourself! These are spread throughout all three Cycles and you might not even encounter them on your first playthrough, so be patient!
Inverted Combat Paradigm
In Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, battles don't wind down, they heat up. Bruises and wounds don't make the Titans weaker, they make them soar! Primordials don't just get beaten, they power up!
The combat has a distinct heroic flow that's always on the uptake. You are playing heroes facing unimaginable evil, you will not be stopped. Each time you fall, you will stand back up stronger. Each time you're knocked back, you'll punch harder. There's no defeat snowball effect: no negative modifiers that keep stacking up, hindering your options and making you a glorified spectator. There is always a chance at a comeback; the closer you are to death, the more powerful you become. This is the heart of the Triskelion system: against all odds, you will triumph!
The Primordials also have their own comeback mechanic: the more you hit them, the more dangerous and deadly they become! This is what we call Escalation. The longer the Battle rages on, the more wounds they gain, the harder to defeat they become! This means that a Primordial is truly defeated only when the last wound is dealt!
This dance is what makes the Battles of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey exciting. Victory is never assured, defeat never inevitable. You must be on your toes at all times and use all the options at your disposal.
Escalating World
Just like the battles, everything in Aeon Trespass: Odyssey improves and becomes more powerful over time. Primordials grow in levels, you advance your technology, discover your past selves, the exploration deck becomes more rewarding.
Hard Co-op
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey is a cooperative game about a band of heroes facing a world full of monsters. Co-op is a big focus, but we wanted to take it to the next level. We achieved this through co-op actions. Basically, when you attack, it's sometimes more about creating an opening for another player or creating a "chink in the armor" of the Primordial, than it is about dealing a Wound.
Game about Consequences
The stories we tell have a tangible influence on the gameplay. The narrative and mechanics of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey are interconnected — analyzing prevalent themes in each Cycle may help you in your journey, so pay attention!
Card ID Numbers
Each card (except Map tiles) in the game has a unique ID number that will help you track it. The following ID Numbers, though, are rather conspicuously missing: 0265, 0363, 0365, 0414, 0433-0445, 0449-0463, 0484, 0504-0516, 0518-0521, 0542, 0561-0562, 0606-0621, 0677, 0698, 0711-0714, 0716-0723, 0745, 0766-0767, 0769-0779, 0802, 0821, 0823-0826, 1052-1058, 1061-1069, 1091, 1150-1157, 1159-1169, 1239-1240, 1282, 1327-1328, 1330-1342, 1385-1388, 1489, 1680, 1682-1694, 1773-1791, 1815, 1820-1823, 1870-1873.
Components
- 15 Titan Miniatures and 1 Exclusive Helios Statue
- 11 Primordial Miniatures
- 12 Interchangeable Parts
- 3 Voyage Miniatures
- 56 Kratos Tokens
- 1 Priority Target Token (Priority Target and Party Leader Marker)
- 36 Modifier Tokens
- 112 Other Tokens (Status token, Combo token, Ambrosia token, Condition token, Labyrinth token, Fatigue token, Time-anchor token, Nymph token)
- 28 Story Tokens
- 55 Generic Tokens
- 30 Charge/Trespass Tokens
- 74 Terrain Tiles
- 13 Custom d6 Dice
- 7 d10 Dice
- 4 Triskelions (with connectors)
- 1 Battle Board
- 166 Technology Cards (160 Standard, 6 Tarot)
- 64 Clue Cards
- 9 Doom Cards
- 30 Mnemos Cards
- 27 Fated Mnemos Cards
- 126 Exploration Cards
- 382 Gear Cards
- 15 Story Cards (Main and Inward Odyssey)
- 25 Terrain Cards
- 41 Condition Cards
- 3 Storybooks
- 15 Titan Sheets
- 170 Secret Cards
- 233 AI Cards
- 73 Trauma Cards
- 10 Trait Cards
- 199 BP Cards
- 12 Primordial Sheets
- 20 Divider Cards
- 13 Argonaut Cards
- 27 Pattern Cards
- 6 Kratos Cards
- 270 Map Tiles
- 10 Single/Double Wound Cards
- 8 Moiros Cards
- 8 Secret Envelopes
- Rulebook and Learn to Play
Total cards list: 1901 Cards: 830 Mini American (41 x 63 mm), 747 Standard Card Game (63,5 x 88,9 mm), 54 Tarot (70 x 120 mm), 270 Small Square – Map Tiles (70 x 70 mm).
Exclusive Helios Statue, Priority Target and Party Leader Marker. You probably noticed the giant Helios miniature in the game box! It's not a Primordial and will not be used directly in gameplay, except as a marker. This is a collectible miniature from an unreleased resin line we included in the game to thank all our backers for their support and patience as we delivered this massive game! The miniature is thus designed to replace (if you so wish!) the original cardboard Priority Target marker. It can also be used as a Party Leader marker during adventures, to showcase the burden of responsibility! Helios watches and judges!
Important Game Rules
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey is a big game, so it's easy to get lost. That's why we've taken some of the most important game rules, the golden rules if you will, and put them in a section of their own here, at the start of the Rulebook!
Cruel Fates Rule
If you are unable to find the answer to a rules or timing conflict, resolve the conflict in the manner that the you perceive as the worst possible at that moment, and continue with the game.
Rules Precedence
In case of a rules conflict, cards and sheets take precedence over books. Cycle-specific rules found in Storybooks take precedence over the Rulebook. Specific rules take precedence over general rules.
Game Elements
Game elements include all physical components of the game as well as story passages and notes.
Game Phases
If you're not in the Adventure Phase or the Battle Phase, you're in the Voyage Phase.
Immediate Effects
If an effect is followed by the word immediately it must be resolved the moment it is triggered and takes precedence over any other lingering effects as well as overruling any conflicting rules.
Ignore and Disable
Many game effects will instruct you to "Ignore" or "Disable" other rules, effects or game elements.
When you are instructed to ignore something, you simply do not resolve any of its effects.
If the ignore effects is activated, it affects only a specific instance (e.g. "ignore this gain," "ignore this loss"). If the ignore effect is passive, the game element is ignored whenever the ignore effect is triggered (e.g. if a Titan has a weapon with an "ignore Wound Responses" effect, this Titan ignores Wound Responses whenever it is using this Gear card as an active weapon).
"Disable" on the other hand completely deactivates a rule, effect or game element. When you are instructed to disable something, all Titans as well as the Primordial ignore this effect (or all effects associated with it in case of rules and game elements). Unless instructed otherwise, Disable lasts until the end of Battle.
Instead
The word "Instead" always implies that the corresponding effect is resolved in place of a different effect.
If the effect resolved "instead" is an improved or otherwise modified variant of another effect, it replaces this effect only and does not influence any other effects of this element (e.g. "Opening 2 instead" on a Gear card means that the value of its original "Opening" keyword changes to 2, but the rest of its ability box remains unchanged).
If the effect resolved "instead" is triggered by an effect you are "about to" resolve, it substitutes this effect (e.g. an effect that states "When you are about to die from an Instant Death effect, resolve an Obol Draw instead", the original Instant Death effect is ignored and the player resolves only the Obol Draw effect).
May
If an effect includes the word "may", it is not mandatory and you can choose not to resolve it. All effects that do not include the word "may" must be resolved to their full extent (if possible) each time they are triggered.
Resolve all parts of an effect that can be resolved, while skipping any parts that are impossible (i.e. if an effect instructs you to "lose -1 Danger and stand up" when you are not knocked down, you still lower your Danger. Similarly, if your Danger is already 0, you cannot lower it further, but you still stand up if you are knocked down).
Note: Active abilities (both Titan and Technology) are only triggered if you decide to pay their cost. When you do, however, you must resolve the entire ability text unless preceded by the words "you may." To learn more, see Ability Usage (p. 60) and Technology Usage (p. 18).
Resolution Order
If more than one effect is triggered at the same time (e.g. "End of Primordial Round", "during the second ability window", etc.) you can choose the order in which these effects are resolved, unless explicitly stated otherwise. If any of these effects invalidate the conditions triggering another pending effect, that effect is no longer resolved.
Example: An Earthshaker Titan has an ability that allows you to place 1 Opening and 1 Break token into the Kratos Pool if you're attacking the Primordial while the Kratos Pool is empty. You also have a Mnemos card that grants -1 Fate when attacking while the Kratos Pool is empty. If you decide to resolve the Mnemos card first, and then place tokens into the pool, you benefit from both of these effects. If, however, for some reason you did not want to lower your Fate value, you could instead resolve the Earthshaker's ability first, invalidating the Mnemos card ability.
Dice
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey uses two types of dice:
Custom d10 dice with numbers and the '10' symbol, used for Attack Rolls, Evasion Rolls, Tests and other miscellaneous Rolls. Treat the '10' symbol result as a '10'. A natural (i.e. before applying any modifiers) '10' on a d10 is always a success (or a hit in case of an Attack Roll) whereas a natural '1' on a d10 is always a fail (or a miss in case of an Attack Roll). These dice are not limited. If you would ever be required to roll more d10 dice than provided in the game box, substitute them with regular d10 dice or re-roll the dice as many times as necessary, noting the previous results.
Custom d6 dice with Power and Potential results, used for Power Rolls and Armor Rolls. These come in three different colors (see Power Dice Tiers, p. 50) and they are limited by the number of dice provided in the game box (see Power Dice Limit, p. 50). Each Power die has a different spread of symbols: Power, potentials and the "???" symbol. Don't worry about the "???" symbol, you will learn about them one day…
Dice Re-rolls
Many effects will allow you to roll some of the dice again if you are not satisfied with their result. All of these effects are referred to as re-rolls. During a single roll, each die can only be re-rolled once. You must declare all dice you wish to re-roll before you perform any of these re-rolls. If multiple players perform their rolls at the same time (for example when the text states "Each Argonaut tests"), they must all declare whether they want to re-roll their dice before any of them performs a re-roll.
Fate Re-rolls
Gaining Fate is the most common way of re-rolling d10 dice.
The following rules apply to Fate Re-rolls:
- You must gain 1 Fate for each die you decide to re-roll.
- Using Fate, you can re-roll Attack Rolls, Evasion Rolls and Tests (see p. 31).
- Using Fate, you cannot re-roll Power Rolls, Armor Rolls and any other roll not listed above.
- To re-roll an Argo Test you must gain Argo Fate instead (see p. 31).
Choosing a Random Element
When you are asked to choose a random element, perform the following:
- Random Argonaut: Roll one d10 for each Argonaut. The lowest roll designates the randomly chosen Argonaut.
- Random direction: Draw the top card from the Minor Trauma deck. The arrow in the bottom left corner designates the randomly chosen direction. If it shows the "any direction" symbol, you may instead choose a direction. Place the drawn card at the bottom of the deck.
- Random card: Draw the top card from the indicated facedown deck. If the designated cards do not form a deck, shuffle them together and draw one.
- Any other random element: Roll one d10 for each of the indicated elements. The lowest roll designates the randomly chosen element.
Secret Decks
There are several Secret Decks in the game! A Secret Deck is separated with two Divider cards, one in the front and one in the back. When you are instructed to draw from a Secret Deck, always start looking from the front Divider, by revealing the bottoms of the cards (these have the ID numbers, see diagram).
Campaign Basics
The Argo
The Argo is the giant mysterious city-ship made of metal that you use to move around Hellas. The Argo holds many secrets, some of which will be revealed during the main story, while others are restricted to Inward Odyssey progress (p. 27) or are hidden even more securely…
In the game, the Argo is represented by the Argo miniature that you move on the map. The Argo miniature is always on a Map tile.
Argo Sheet
The Argo Sheet serves as the main means of tracking your campaign progress, resources, diplomacy, available Titans and other campaign statistics. Whenever you gain or lose any of these statistics, adjust their value in the corresponding section of the Argo Sheet. You will find a print-friendly version of the Argo Sheet at the back of every Storybook (they're different), as well as on our official website.
Timeline
The Timeline serves to organize your campaign, giving it a definitive beginning, middle and end. Game time is measured in days and each day is a Campaign Round. The Timeline has some fixed events on it, while other events will be added by the players.
Progress and Doom
To succeed in a campaign of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey you will be required to complete various tasks designated by the Story cards. Many of them will require you to collect Progress represented by the Progress tokens. For each Progress you gain, you must place 1 Progress token on your current Story card or the Inward Odyssey card (see Inward Odyssey on p. 27). Progress is primarily gained by exploring the map and resolving Adventures.
Doom is the opposite of Progress. For each Doom you gain, you must place 1 Doom token on your current Doom card. These cards represent the encroachment of evil forces. Reaching the end of the last Doom card will inevitably lead to your failure.
Note: Some rare effects may cause Unavoidable Doom. It means that this Doom gain cannot be mitigated or lowered in any way.
Basic Argo Stats
The Argo Sheet tracks various statistics throughout the game. These will be described as they become relevant throughout this Rulebook and the various Storybooks. However, a few key statistics are important enough to warrant a separate section. These are collectively called Basic Argo Stats and include Crew, Hull, Argo Fate and Argo Knowledge.
Crew represents the strength of the able-bodied members of the Argo's crew, be it sailors, warriors, philosophers, academics and so on. A high Crew value (6 for Cycle I) means the city-ship is fully staffed, while a low value (such as 1) means it's run by a skeleton crew. Losing too much Crew will lead to a campaign loss (see Campaign Win and Lose Conditions, p. 10).
Hull represents the integrity of Argo's hull, its general seaworthiness. A high Hull value (5 for Cycle I) means the city-ship is running at full capacity, while a low value (such as 1) means it's close to sinking. Losing too much Hull will lead to a campaign loss.
Argo Fate represents the collective destiny of the Argo and its crew. The more you try to bend the fates in your favor, the more resistance the Moirai will put up. Unlike Hull and Crew, and exactly like the Triskelion stats (see p. 11), a low Argo Fate value (0) means you're doing great, while high value (such as 9) means you've pushed your luck too far and can expect a reckoning. Gaining Argo Fate over 9 will lead to a campaign loss.
Argo Knowledge represents the collective knowledge about the Argo and the state of the world. It's a cumulative stat that will only ever go up. Argo Knowledge is directly tied to the Inward Odyssey Story card. Whenever you gain an Argo Knowledge point, you will trigger the next Inward Odyssey adventure. During each Cycle you can gain a maximum of 20 Argo Knowledge, with each of these tied to a unique adventure. When you finish one Cycle and start the next one, you will skip all unresolved adventures and move to the next Inward Odyssey card, so be sure to collect that knowledge!
Campaign Win and Lose Conditions
The players' ultimate goal is to reach the end of the current Cycle's plot, represented by its Story cards. As the story unfolds, your goals should become clear. You only win if a Story Paragraph explicitly says so.
There are, however, quite a few ways for the Campaign to end in a game over before the Argonauts reach their objective. These include:
- Resolving the last Doom card of the Cycle.
- Losing all Crew or Hull; this means the Crew or Hull stat goes to 0. It's generally easier to lose and gain Crew than it is to lose and gain Hull.
- Gaining Argo Fate over 9.
- Getting to the end of the Timeline.
- Initiating a Battle with 0 Titans aboard the Argo.
- Other narrative-related events.
When you reach some of the conditions listed above, the game will direct you to a story paragraph that informs you how to proceed. If you are not directed to a specific paragraph, see Campaign Loss in your current Storybook.
The Argonauts
In Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, players take the roles of newly awakened Argonauts, the only people capable of controlling the mighty Titans. There are always exactly 4 active Argonauts, no matter how many players take part in a campaign. If you play with a smaller group, distribute the Argonauts between players as evenly as possible. The player controlling a given Argonaut always has the final say in all decisions regarding that Argonaut.
Each Argonaut uses a separate Argonaut Sheet, an Argonaut Portrait card (with a Skill bonus) and a Triskelion dial. There are no Argonaut miniatures!
When they are awakened, the Argonauts are amnesiacs, with no recollection of their prior life. However, during the game, they will acquire Mnemos cards that show them glimpses of their past (see Mnemoses, p. 29). They may also acquire Fated Mnemos cards, which represent specific traumas or vices.
During Battles, the players will use their Argonauts in conjunction with a Titan Sheet (see Titan Sheet on p. 44).
Argonaut Sheet
The Argonaut Sheet, just like the Argo Sheet, is used to track progress, but for a given Argonaut. Here, you will write your character's name (from the Argonaut Portrait card or one devised by you) and keep track of your Mnemos and Fated Mnemos cards and their respective progress, your Skill bonuses and note any unusual things, boons and penalties that may apply to your character (you put these under Boons, Afflictions and Notes).
The Katharsis space is only used once you reach the end of a Mnemos storyline (see Resolved Mnemoses and Katharsis on p. 30).
The Triskelion space is used to save your Triskelion stats between game sessions (see below and Saving the Campaign on p. 22).
Argonaut Death
Unlike many other adventure games, your heroes are not immortal and Argonaut deaths, though rare, will happen. In such a case, consult the Rude Awakening Special Event of your current Cycle, it will instruct you on how to create a new Argonaut.
Remember that your Argonaut dies only when explicitly stated or when any of their Triskelion stats goes over 9 outside of Battle (see Triskelion p. 11).
Important: Never discard or destroy the Argonaut Sheets of deceased Argonauts, as some events might reference them later!
Argonaut Retirement
Some story effects may cause an Argonaut to leave the Argo. When it happens, take a new Argonaut Sheet, draw a new Portrait card (or simply choose a Skill you would like to apply the +1 bonus to) and draw a new Mnemos card from the Mnemos Vault.
Argonaut Skills
Each Argonaut has six Skills: Courage, Cunning, Endurance, Fury, Will and Wisdom. These will be used during various tests, both in Adventures and Battles. They start with a +0 modifier, meaning you neither add, nor subtract anything to/from your roll, but may go up or down as a result of other effects. The most common source of Skill bonuses are the Argonaut Portrait card and the Mnemos cards. The most common source of Skill penalties are the Fated Mnemos cards.
Triskelion
The Triskelion is the heart of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey and the key component of the Inverted Combat Paradigm. It's a triple dial that represents the union of Mortal (Danger), Divine (Fate) and Titan (Rage) elements that make the junction between Argonauts and Titans possible. As such, these 3 statistics are shared between the Argonaut and the Titan they choose to take into Battle.
Unlike typical stats, these three are always in flux. They are mainly used in Battles (they will go up as a result of getting hit, attacking and using abilities), but you may also use, gain or lose these from various effects during Adventures and other parts of the Voyage Phase.
Triskelion stats always reset back to 0 after each Battle.
Whenever you gain or lose Danger, Fate or Rage, simply rotate the appropriate dial by the corresponding amount.
The Triskelion stats can go from 0 to 9. In general, you want them as high as possible because that means you're using your potential to the fullest, but the higher they are, the closer to despair, darkness and death you are! Being forced to raise any of them over 9 will always have dire consequences:
- During a Battle, it may lead to a Titan death or other grim effect (see p. 56).
- Outside of Battles, it will always lead to an Argonaut death!
Therefore, you cannot voluntarily gain Danger, Fate or Rage if it would take you over 9.
Danger: Represents the rising threat of death. You gain Danger when you are attacked and also through suffering other negative effects. Note, however, that many abilities and Gear cards become more powerful when you reach a certain Danger value (you may even ignite a spark of the Old Gods inside you!). In Battle, raising Danger over 9 usually causes an Obol Draw (see p. 42).
Fate: Represents the extent to which you oppose your destiny. You can gain Fate to re-roll your dice and to pay for powerful abilities. Be warned though, high Fate may enable negative effects from Primordial Attacks. If you would have to raise your Fate over 9 in Battle, immediately draw a Moiros card (see p. 57).
Rage: Represents the fury of Titans. It increases each time you attack and makes you more powerful, giving you access to additional abilities from the Kratos Table. It also makes you more likely to become a Target — whenever your Rage becomes higher than that of all other Titans, you gain the Priority Target token. If you would have to raise your Rage to more than 9 during a Battle, your Titan is consumed by rage and you lose control over it. In game terms, the Titan dies as soon as you finish your current action.
Campaign Setup
If this is your first campaign of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, we recommend starting with the Learn to Play book, which will introduce all necessary game elements as they become relevant. If you have already played through the Learn to Play story and wish to start a new Cycle, follow these steps:
- Find and prepare the following elements from a Cycle you are about to play (the first Cycle is Truth of the Labyrinth):
- Map tiles (you can differentiate them by their color — brown for Cycle I, red for Cycle II and purple for Cycle III — or by the Faction symbols)
- Argo miniature
- Exploration cards
- Clue cards
- Fated Mnemos cards
- The Cycle's Inward Odyssey Story card
- Prepare the current Cycle Argo Sheet (these differ from Cycle to Cycle!), along with a Choice Matrix (it persists from Cycle to Cycle) and 4 Argonaut Sheets (you will find these at the back of the Storybook or on our website).
- Continue campaign preparations according to your current Cycle's Storybook.
Gameplay Flow
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey is a campaign game played over multiple game sessions. It's a big game and its structure is pretty fluid. On a given game session, you will play a few Campaign Rounds. During each Campaign Round, you'll go through a series of Steps. Each of these Steps will incorporate one or more of the game's Phases: Voyage Phase, Adventure Phase or Battle Phase.
A Campaign Round represents one in-game day on the Timeline.
Steps make up the structure of a Campaign Round and are always resolved in a fixed order.
Phases refer to gameplay segments that revolve around a shared game concept: voyaging, adventuring or battling (sounds familiar, right?). Phases are handy, because they group sets of rules and are referred to by other game effects (for example, some Technologies can be used only in the Voyage Phase, while others only in the Battle Phase).
It's important to note that you're always in some Game Phase. An easy rule of thumb is that if you're not in the Adventure Phase or the Battle Phase, you're in the Voyage Phase!
In the course of each Cycle, you will journey across an explorable map (the Voyage Phase), from time to time embarking on adventures (the Adventure Phase). You will gather resources from adventures, from the map and from the Exploration deck (the Voyage Phase) to craft Gear, create Titans and develop new technologies (the Voyage Phase). Each move on the map will advance the Timeline, getting you closer to the campaign's resolution (the Voyage Phase again!). You will try to win by achieving story goals, described to you on a sequence of Story cards, while the villains will try to fulfil their own agenda by advancing a sequence of Doom cards (Adventure Phase). Periodically, triggered either by a Timeline Event or some other game element, you will fight a Primordial in a four-on-one Battle (the Battle Phase).
Knowing what Phase of the game you're in is important!
Campaign Round Sequence
As already mentioned, Aeon Trespass: Odyssey is played in a series of Campaign Rounds, with each Campaign Round representing one in-game day on the Timeline. Each day you will go through the following nine steps, resolving them from top to bottom.
Some of these steps will always require your action or decision (like Movement), others will be resolved only if the right conditions are met (like Encounter), while one is mostly optional (Advancement), left to the discretion of the players (though you pretty much always want to resolve it, because civilization building is fun!).
- Movement (always): Move the Argo onto a different tile (p. 13).
- Timeline (always): Advance the Timeline (p. 14).
- Exploration (always): Trigger Exploration symbols, then resolve an Exploration Draw (p. 15). Move the Adversary if required (p. 16), then perform an Acclimation if applicable.
- Expedition (conditional): If on a tile with an adventure or R&R symbol, consult the Adventure Table and resolve an adventure (p. 16). Remember to gain Mnemos nodes (p. 29) and mark a fated box (p. 32).
- Encounter (conditional): If there are any Timeline Battles or Battle Events on the Timeline, resolve them (p. 17).
- Advancement (optional): Craft Gear, resolve Advancement Events, develop new Technologies and use existing ones (p. 17).
- Story (conditional): If there are any Story Events on the Timeline, someone has an unresolved Mnemos Breakthrough or the Story progression has been triggered, resolve them (p. 20).
- Doom (conditional): If there are any Doom Events on the Timeline or the Doom progression has been triggered, resolve them (p. 21).
- End (always): If you are on an Unexplored tile, it becomes Explored (p. 22).
After the End Step, proceed to the next Campaign Round. Continue resolving Campaign Rounds until the Cycle ends with your Victory or Defeat (see Campaign Win and Lose Conditions on p. 10).
Rounds, Steps, Phases
The game sequence of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey is very fluid. A technological breakthrough may lead into an adventure, and an adventure (especially a Main Story one) may lead straight into battle!
For this reason, the Campaign Round is divided into steps which may then lead into one of the three major phases: Voyage, Adventure and Battle.
In general, Movement, Timeline, Exploration and Advancement steps are considered Voyage Phases, Encounter steps are Battle Phases and Expedition, Story and Doom steps are Adventure Phases. However, as mentioned above, one can lead straight into another!
Also, an easy rule of thumb is that if you're not in the Adventure Phase or the Battle Phase, you're in the Voyage Phase!
Voyage Phase
Think of the Voyage Phase as an all-encompassing sea: sometimes, during your journeys, you'll stumble on an island of the Adventure Phase or Battle Phase. But most of the time, you'll be sailing through the endless expanse of the Voyage Phase.
For that reason, this section includes the rules for all the Campaign Round Steps. Yes, sometimes a Step will launch you into an adventure or battle. But when it doesn't, you'll still be considered to be in the Voyage Phase.
1. Movement Step
During the Movement Step, you must move the Argo to an adjacent Map tile. Directional arrows on your tile represent waterways you can travel through. If the tile you're moving to isn't already on the table, you need to find the Map tile with the corresponding number on its back (visible next to the arrow) and place it adjacent to the Map tile you are traveling from, so that the directional arrows on the shared border of the two tiles align. Make sure to orient the new tile in the same way as all of the other tiles.
Remember: You must move the Argo exactly one tile each Campaign Round, unless an effect instructs you otherwise. In other words, you cannot "drop anchor" and stay on a tile for two consecutive rounds in a row.
Tile Sectors
The Argo can only travel on water. Most of the time, the position of the Argo on the tile doesn't matter: once you enter a tile, you're on that tile, that's it. However, sometimes a Map tile is divided into tile sectors, marked with alpha and beta symbols, representing bodies of water separated by land. If that's the case, the position of the Argo on the tile matters!
If your current tile has two arrows pointing in the same cardinal direction, it means that the adjacent tile will be sectored. You must choose which one of those arrows to follow before you reveal the new Map tile.
Once you place the new Map tile, aligning the arrows, you'll end up on either the alpha or beta sector. You can leave a sector only by following the directional arrows marked with that sectors symbol.
Last Visited City. After you move from a Map tile with the City symbol, mark this tile with the Last Visited City token. You cannot use Negotiation Technology Abilities (see p. 18) on a tile with this token. Remember that you only mark the last settlement you visited: when you leave another tile with the City symbol, move the token from its previous location.
Example: The Argo is on a tile with two directional arrows pointing in the same direction. The players choose to follow the top one and place a newly discovered tile adjacent to the current tile. They then move the Argo to the new tile, placing it in the alpha sector, since the top arrow aligns with that section of the new tile, and place the Argo miniature on that sector. This means that they are now in sector alpha and they can only travel further through another directional arrow with an alpha symbol.
The tile sector you are currently on does not influence your access to Map symbols (see Map Symbols below). You resolve all Map tile symbols from your tile, even if graphically they seem to be located in a different sector.
Other Movement Symbols
Most waterways are accompanied by Movement Symbols that provide additional information or requirements that may influence your movement. You already know of the sector symbols.
Faction symbols inform you about the Local Faction you can encounter on a Map tile your current tile connects to. The Cycle I factions are Minoan, Labyrinthian and Hornsworn.
You may also encounter other, Cycle-specific movement symbols. These may be explained in the corresponding Storybook or on Technology cards. Note that movement symbols never block movement, unless they are accompanied by a Restricted symbol.
This restricted symbol informs you that you require an additional Technology to move through this waterway.
Map Symbols
The list below includes the most common Map symbols you will encounter in each Cycle. This list is not comprehensive. If you encounter a Map symbol you are not familiar with, consult the Storybook as well as your current Story and Doom cards, and your Technology deck. If you don't find the rules pertaining to a specific symbol there, don't worry about it now, they will become relevant later.
Exploration Symbols
- Doom: During the Exploration Step, you will gain +1 Doom.
- Progress: During the Exploration Step, if the tile is Unexplored, you will gain +1 Progress.
- Titan: During the Exploration Step, if the tile is Unexplored, you will gain +1 Titan (Dreamwalker).
Adventure Symbols
- Adventure: Denotes a hub adventure. During the Expedition Step, if the tile is Unexplored, you will resolve an adventure from one of your Cycle's adventure hubs (see Hub Adventures on p. 26).
- R&R Adventure: Denotes an R&R adventure. During the Expedition Step, if the tile is Unexplored, you will resolve an adventure from the R&R section (see R&R Adventures, p. 27).
Other
- City: Represents cities and other large settlements. Has no inherent effect, but allows usage of Negotiation Technology abilities during the Advancement Step. Remember that Negotiation abilities cannot be used on tiles with the Last Visited City token (see p. 13).
2. Timeline Step
During the Timeline Step, simply mark the next empty box on the Timeline on your Argo Sheet. It designates the current day of your Odyssey. If there are no empty boxes to mark in the Timeline Step, your time has run out and your campaign is lost.
Timeline Events
If there are any symbols, events or other notes assigned to the current day, they must be resolved in the appropriate Campaign Round Step:
Acclimations: Acclimations upgrade your Exploration deck with new cards and are resolved in the Exploration Step.
Battles: Timeline Battles and additional Battles noted on the Timeline are resolved in the Encounter Step.
Technology Breakthroughs: Structural Technology and Battle Technology Breakthroughs are resolved in the Advancement Step.
Advancements: All events added to the Timeline by using Argo Facilities are resolved in the Advancement Step.
Story Events: Any event leading directly to a story paragraph in the Storybook as well as any other events that are not Breakthroughs, Advancements, Acclimations or Battles are Story Events and should be resolved in the Story Step.
Timeline Symbols
- Timeline Battle symbol: Resolve a Timeline Battle.
- Structural Technology symbol: Research a Structural Technology.
- Battle Technology symbol: Research a Battle Technology.
3. Exploration Step
During the Exploration Step, you (1) resolve all active Exploration symbols from your current tile, (2) perform an Exploration Draw from the Exploration deck, (3) move the Adversary if required and, occasionally, (4) perform an Acclimation.
1. Resolving Exploration Symbols
Exploration symbols represent predictable elements present in the region, both beneficial and detrimental to your cause, things like wandering Titans, sympathetic allies and nefarious forces.
Exploration symbols are a type of Map symbol, and the most common are Progress, Titan and Doom (see Exploration Symbols, p. 14). You can find additional Cycle-specific Exploration symbols in the corresponding Storybooks.
Positive Exploration symbols, like Progress and Titan, are active only on Unexplored tiles and as such are only resolved once per tile per Cycle. This means that if you revisit an Explored tile, you will not gain the associated bonuses again (Tiles become Explored in the End Step, see p. 22).
Negative Exploration symbols, like Doom, are always active, meaning that they are active both on Explored and Unexplored tiles. This means that if you revisit an Explored tile, you will always gain the associated penalty!
Remember: During the End Step, if you are on an Unexplored tile, it becomes Explored.
2. Resolving an Exploration Draw
The Exploration deck, always specific to a given Cycle, represents the efforts of your crew, scouts and diplomats at acquiring resources, allies and intel. The Exploration Draw is the main source of Mortal resources (see Resources box on p. 19).
To perform an Exploration Draw, start drawing cards from the Exploration Deck. Draw cards from the top of the deck and resolve them one by one until you draw a card that shows the stack end symbol in the lower right corner. Then, repeat the process, creating a second stack of cards. Note: Cards that have the stack end symbol are usually resource cards. This means that each Exploration Draw will result in two stacks of Exploration cards, each of which will probably end with a resource card.
Exploration cards are always resolved in the following order:
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Main Effect: Resolve the Main Effect of the card, from top to bottom.
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Adversary activation: If there is an Adversary symbol on the card, resolve the Adversary activation (see p. 16).
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Special Disposal Effect: If there is a Special Disposal Effect, resolve it:
- If a card is removed until the next Timeline Battle, set it aside. It is shuffled back into the Exploration deck after you resolve a Timeline Battle (see Encounter Step, p. 17).
- If it is removed permanently, return it to the game box.
Note: Conversely, this means that all other Exploration cards are left on the table until the end of the Exploration Draw and that they will be shuffled into the deck.
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Stack Symbol: If there is a an "End stack" symbol in the lower right corner of the card, end the stack. Otherwise, if there is a "Draw another" symbol there, draw another Exploration card for that stack.
After you end the first stack, draw the second stack (do not shuffle any cards back into the Exploration deck yet!). When you end the second stack, shuffle all drawn Exploration cards that have not been removed from the deck back into the deck.
Note: Some Exploration Card effects can be triggered by your Diplomacy Scores, Argo Fate value or other statistics. Only resolve the effects that apply. Unless stated otherwise, Diplomacy triggers always refer to the Local Faction (see Diplomacy, p. 23).
Exploration Triggers. Think of triggers as "intensifiers". If an effect harms you, a negative trigger will amplify that effect. If you're gaining something from the Local Faction, a positive trigger will garner you a better reward. Some common Exploration Triggers include:
- Argo Fate: a high Argo Fate value is usually a bad thing, so be careful!
- Diplomacy Score: a Friendly Faction is more likely to help you than a Faction that Denounces you, not to mention being At War with someone!
Gaining Resources from Exploration cards
Resolving most Exploration cards will provide you with useful Mortal resources, necessary for crafting Gear, as well an occasional Titan, Crew, Hull or other bonus. For more information about resources, see p. 19. For more information about gaining and losing, see p. 23.
Exploration Card Penalties
Similarly, resolving Exploration cards can give you penalties and result in you losing stuff such as Titans, Crew, Hull. For more information about gaining and losing, see p. 23.
Trading
Some rare Exploration cards will allow you to trade resources. For more information about trading, see p. 18.
3. Moving the Adversary
The Argonauts actions are sure to draw the attention of vile forces, represented by Adversaries. These are special Primordials that actively hunt the Argo on the Map. They are not strictly tied to a specific Cycle — they will hunt you until they are permanently defeated — or you are! The Storybooks will instruct you on when to introduce an Adversary into your campaign as well as how to defeat it. When an Adversary is introduced into a campaign, write its name on the Adversary Track. Note: When you start a new Cycle, the Adversary is not placed on the map by default and it will not start chasing you until the Storybook says so. Ignore all Adversary activations until an event instructs you to introduce it.
Adversary Activation
Once the Adversary has been introduced, whenever you encounter an Adversary activation on an Exploration card:
- If the Adversary is already present on the Map, move it: Move the Adversary one tile towards the Argo along the shortest available path. Then, if the Adversary is on the same Map tile as the Argo, remove its miniature from the map and trigger an Adversary Battle (go to the corresponding Battle Scenario in the Storybook; Adversaries are not tied to a single Cycle and you may need to refer to other Cycles for Battle Setup). You must resolve the Adversary Battle at the end of your current Step!
- If the Adversary is not on the Map, but this is the first Adversary symbol encountered during this Exploration Step, nothing happens: You're much closer to the Adversary spawning.
- If the Adversary is not on the Map, and you've encountered two Adversary symbols during this Exploration Step, spawn the Adversary: Place the small miniature of the current Adversary four tiles away from the Argo. If you can't place it four tiles away, place it as far away as possible. If you spawned the Adversary during the Exploration Step, immediately end this Adversary Activation and ignore any other Adversary activations until the end of this Step.
Important exception: Whenever you encounter an Adversary symbol on an any other game element, for example when you gain a unique Loot card, or use a Summoning or Awaken, you must perform an Adversary activation as normal, with the following exception: it only takes one Adversary symbol to spawn the Adversary!
Adversary Movement Rules
These are the specific rules governing the Adversary's movements:
- Unless stated otherwise, the Adversary moves one tile per symbol.
- The Adversary can only move vertically or horizontally through revealed tiles.
- The Adversary can move onto any adjacent Map tile, even if it is not connected by a directional arrow. It ignores tile sectors and all Map symbols.
- If there is more than one equally viable path, the Adversary prioritizes horizontal as long as it brings it closer to the Argo.
- If there is more than one way for the Adversary to move, it will always move horizontally.
- If the Adversary is already on the same tile as the Argo during an activation, it does not move but you still trigger the Adversary Battle.
- If an Adversary activation happens during a Battle (due to an Awakening, Summoning or gaining Loot), you must resolve it as soon as the current Battle ends.
Important: We mentioned "any game element" because the Adversary, though primarily active in the Exploration Step, may move during different parts of the game, for example after an Awakening or from gaining a Primordial Loot card!
4. Performing Acclimations
As you journey across a region, get more accustomed to it and build a local network of informants and suppliers, your exploration efforts will bear more fruit. In Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, this is represented by Acclimation brackets.
Each campaign has a fixed number of Acclimations, marked on your Timeline.
Whenever your current day calls for an Acclimation, first resolve all other actions during the Exploration Step, except an Adversary Battle, then perform the Acclimation.
To perform an Acclimation, search the Exploration deck for the cards with numbers corresponding to the list found on the left of the acclimation arrow and permanently remove them (return them to the game box, you won't be using them anymore). Then, find the Exploration cards with numbers listed on the right of the arrow, add them to the Exploration deck and shuffle it thoroughly.
4. Expedition Step
During the Expedition Step, if the Argo is on an Unexplored tile with an Adventure or R&R symbol, resolve an Adventure Phase (see p. 25). Remember: All newly revealed tiles are Unexplored and they become Explored during the End Step (see p. 22). If you move back onto an explored tile, you do not resolve the Adventure and R&R symbols!
5. Encounter Step
During the Encounter Step, you meet the monstrous, unknowable Primordials, giant beings that invaded Hellas after the death of the Olympian Gods. Only the Argonauts, controlling the mighty Titans, stand a chance of slaying such foes!
During this Step, you resolve Timeline Battles and any other battles noted on the Timeline. If more than one Battle happens on the same day, you may choose the order in which they are resolved.
For Timeline Battles, choose which of the two Regular Primordials (shown on the Evolution Track on the Argo Sheet) from your current Cycle you want to face, then proceed to the corresponding Timeline Battle Setup in the Storybook.
For Adversary Battles (see Adversary Activation on p. 16), find the corresponding Battle Setup in the Storybook.
Additional Battles will point you to a specific page of the Storybook containing the Battle Setup.
Resolving a Battle happens during a Battle Phase. Detailed rules for the Battle Phase can be found on p. 33.
Campaign Battles Flow
Timeline Battles are spaced regularly across the Timeline to give your campaign a certain flow and to order your game sessions. Many things accompany a Timeline Battle such as Primordial Evolutions (see Evolution and Battle Tracks, p. 34) and Tides of Fate, which reduce your overall Argo Fate and reset Triskelions.
Primordial Evolutions are particularly important because they mean that, over time, you'll be facing increasingly harder monsters. As they are tied to the passage of time, you should be always on your toes, advancing your capabilities, researching new Technologies and crafting new powerful Gear.
6. Advancement Step
The Argo is a magnificent ship crewed by pretty extraordinary people! Be it the shipbreakers from the Argo Works, the philosophers from the Last Academy, various merchants coming and going from the Trade Fleet Dock or the Titan Enamotas, everyone is working towards a common goal: the betterment of your lives and the salvation of Hellas!
During the Advancement Step, you research new Technologies, trade, craft Gear, create new Titans and make use of Argo Facilities.
Research
Technology Cards
Researching Technology is your main way of keeping up with the rapidly evolving Primordials. You research Technology by gaining new Technology cards. These come in a variety of types and sizes!
One thing every Technology card has in common is that it is double-sided. One side shows a science project, a field of study or hypothesis. Here you will find the Technology's Requirements and learn about other Technologies that will become available for research once you have researched that card, i.e. the Technology cards it Leads to. The other side shows the benefits of researching the Technology: these may range from building a facility that will allow you to craft new Gear to gaining unique abilities useful both in and outside of Battles.
Technologies that you have already researched are added to the Technology deck. You gain access to all abilities provided by Technologies in the Technology deck.
Technologies that are available for research are added to the Projects deck. You gain no benefits from them but you can freely peek at them to see what you can gain by researching them. When you research a Technology card, immediately add all the Technology cards it Leads to to the Projects deck. Note: Some Technology cards have more than one requirement, so even though they are in your Projects deck, you may research them only when you unlock all of their requirements.
Technologies that are neither in the Technology deck nor the Projects deck are considered to be in the Reserves and should be kept in the game box. They may be added to the Projects deck when you research another Technology or as a result of some other event. We advise you not to look at the Technology cards in the Reserves so as to not spoil the fun!
Technology Card Size. If you parse through some of the Technology cards, you'll quickly notice they come in two sizes: Regular and Large. The Large cards are also illustrated! What does that mean? This doesn't have any special effect on the game; both sizes work the same mechanically, but it's our way of assigning significance to certain Technologies and highlighting the many memorable places on the Argo! All Core Technologies are Large cards.
Technology Types
Technologies are divided into three types:
Core Technologies are non-researchable. They are gained automatically, usually at the start of the Cycle. These Technology cards are Large and some of them have Cycle-specific versions, so be sure to use the right card during your campaign!
Structural Technologies include Utility Facilities that allow you to mitigate the hardships of the voyage, manage resources, breed new Titans, scout the region and more.
Battle Technologies include Production Facilities, giving you access to new Gear cards and Argo Abilities, providing unique effects during Battle.
Technology Breakthroughs
New Technology cards can only be researched on specific Timeline days called Technology Breakthroughs. These are marked by the Structural Technology symbol and the Battle Technology symbol.
If there is a Structural or Battle Technology symbol on your current day on the Timeline, you may research one Technology of the appropriate type from the Projects deck. Structural and Battle Technology progress is completely separate — the Technologies they lead to will always be of the same type.
To research a new Technology card, you must fulfill all of its requirements.
Usually, the requirements for researching a Technology card are other Technology cards. However, some Technologies have other requirements. These can include: encountering a specific Primordial in Battle, encountering a specific Primordial of a given level in Battle, killing a specific Primordial, having a specific Diplomacy Score with a Faction and more.
Once you choose a Technology you want to research, first search the Reserves for all Technology cards it leads to and add them to the Projects deck. Then add the researched card to the Technology deck. From this point onward, you gain access to all the benefits and abilities provided by this Technology.
Important: In general, there is no additional cost to researching a new Technology (besides the time you have to wait to research another one!). If a Technology card has any additional costs or conditions, they will be clearly described on the card itself.
Some Technology Requirements. Some Technologies may require you to encounter a specific Primordial of a given level in Battle. This means that Technology is gated until the Technological Breakthrough following such Battle. As these are almost always tied to Regular Primordials encountered in Timeline Battles, and the Evolution Tracks of Primordials are fixed, you can calculate when that Technology will become available to you.
Some Technologies may require you to have a certain number of Map tiles Explored. As you can usually Explore one tile per day, you can calculate the earliest date that Technology will become available to you.
Some Technologies may require only one of two conditions to be true. If two of the requirements are separated by a capital OR, it means that you must fulfill either of them (e.g. the Specialized Trireme Weapons Technology requires either Teleresuscitation OR Trireme Reach Weapons on top of all other requirements).
Gaining Technology Cards and Project Cards through Different Means
Sometimes you will gain a Technology card from a source other than a Technology Breakthrough. In that case, you simply add it to your Technology deck (remember to add any Technology cards it Leads to to your Projects deck).
Sometimes you will be instructed to add a Technology card to the Projects as a result of something other than another Technology's Leads to box. In that case, you simply add it to your Projects deck.
Technology Usage
Technology cards provide access to various benefits and can be used in many different ways, both during and outside of Battle.
Structural Technologies
Structural Technologies are primarily used outside of Battle. Some of them provide passive (permanent) bonuses or must be resolved the moment they are researched (immediate). Others grant access to active abilities. If an active ability of a Structural Technology does not specify when it can be used, it can be used during the Advancement Step. Each active Technology ability can be used once per day (so once per Campaign Round), with the exception of Save abilities.
Below, you'll find a complete list of the various abilities and bonuses provided by Structural Technologies:
- Permanent abilities introduce constant effects and rule changes. They are always active.
- Reference abilities include rule summaries and serve as a reminder. They do not introduce any additional effects of their own. These are primarily Core Technologies designed to ease you into the game or update the status quo for a new Cycle.
- Immediate effects must be resolved the moment their respective Technologies are researched.
- Negotiation abilities may be used while on a Map tile with a City symbol (except tiles with the Last Visited City token, see p. 13).
- Save abilities may be used "on demand" whenever you need them. The only limit here is one use per ability per game effect (i.e. you cannot use one Save ability to try to mitigate the same -1 Crew loss multiple times, but you can use it again if you suffer another -1 Crew loss on the same day). To learn more, see Gain/Loss Mitigation, p. 24.
- All other Technology abilities may be used in the Advancement Step, unless their effect denotes a specific timing condition.
Battle Technologies
Battle Technologies are either Production Facilities or Argo Abilities. Production Facilities give you access to new Gear cards and are only used for crafting. Argo Abilities are used during Battles.
For further details on Crafting Gear in Production Facilities, see Crafting Gear (p. 19).
When you perform Battle Setup during the Battle Phase, you will decide which Argo Abilities you will prepare for that Battle. The number of Argo Abilities you may simultaneously prepare during a Battle depends on your current Propylon Technology (the basic Excursion Propylon allows for use of 2 Argo Abilities). For specific rules concerning Argo Ability usage in Battle, see p. 55.
Trading
Some game elements such as certain Exploration cards and Technologies may allow you to Trade resources. Each of these effects has a limited number of resource exchanges you can perform. A single exchange is a trade of one resource type for another resource type, according to the ratio noted on the card. As a single exchange, you can trade as many units of a resource type as you like. Note: Traders have different exchange rates. You can usually find the best deals in cities and other highly populated areas.
Example: The players need 2 Fleshy Mantles to craft a Great Tree Club. Thankfully, they are visited by a Theban Trader! They decide to exchange some Muscle Clusters, but there is no direct exchange option between these two resources. Therefore, they decide to spend one exchange to trade 5 Muscle Clusters for 10 Raw Ambrosia, then spend their second exchange to trade 10 Raw Ambrosia for 2 Fleshy Mantles. They are left with three more exchanges that they decide to forgo, realizing how steep the conversion rates are!
Technology Ability Cooldown. Some Technology abilities include a "Cooldown: X days" instruction. When you use an Ability with Cooldown, write its name down as an event on the Timeline, X days from now (your current day) with the word "Cooldown" in parentheses. Cooldown Events have no effect when resolved but you can only use the ability again after you resolve its Cooldown event. Cooldown Events are considered to be Advancement Events. That means you may use Abilities with Cooldown on the same day you resolve their Cooldown Event.
Resources
Resources are mainly gained from the Exploration deck and Primordial Battles. They are primarily used to craft Gear cards and activate certain Technology abilities. They differ between Cycles, but there are four main categories of resources:
Mortal resources represent ordinary tools, vessels and armaments that can be salvaged from the remnants of mortal civilization. They are noted in the Mortal part of the Cargo Hold section on the Argo Sheet.
Primordial resources represent body parts of slain Primordials and are mainly earned as a result of Primordial Battles. They are noted in the Primordial part of the Cargo Hold section on the Argo Sheet.
Of all Primordial resources, Cores are the most valuable. You gain Cores from critically wounded BP III cards. When you gain a Core, write its name and quantity in the Cargo Hold under Cores.
Divine resources represent extremely rare items that possess exceptional qualities or are necessary components for some of the most powerful Gear cards. They are noted in the Hidden Hold section of the Argo Sheet.
Rare resources include all resources (other than Cores) not listed on the Argo Sheet. They are incredibly limited and can be used to craft mythical equipment. When you gain a Rare resource, write both its name and quantity under Rare Resources.
Crafting Gear
Under Alkibiades, the Argo Works runs around the clock to create the best anti-Primordial weaponry known to mortals! As each Primordial is unique, you will need a wide array of weapons, armor and support Gear to face them effectively.
Crafting is the main source of new Gear cards that can greatly improve the combat capabilities — and survivability — of your Titans. You can craft multiple Gear cards during every Advancement Step, provided you have the required resources. You can only craft Gear listed on the Production Facilities in your Technology deck and you cannot craft more copies of a single Gear card than there are available copies of that card in the game box (in other words, you are limited by the number of cards provided). The cost of each Gear card is printed on the Production Facility Technology card.
To craft a Gear card, perform the following steps:
- Choose an available Gear card you would like to craft.
- Spend resources equal to the Gear cost found on the corresponding Technology card and remove those resources from your Argo Sheet. If another Gear card is specified as part of the cost, it is also spent and should be returned to the game box.
- Add the crafted Gear card to the Argo Armory. From now on, it can be equipped on Titans and used in Battle.
Note: Some rare Gear cards can have additional unusual costs.
Titan Breeding
Titans have been a menace to mortal civilization for centuries. They are mindless, full of rage and the need to destroy. If the Primordials weren't threatening the world, the Titans would be next in line. Where do they come from? That is the question. They are found in the wild and special hunter teams, the Titanokinigos, bring them onto the Argo. There, the city-ship itself transforms them into more docile beasts that the Argonauts can junction with. This is called "breeding."
Certain Technologies allow you to breed Titans, either by evolving the ones you have already captured or catching new ones to replenish your stock. Each Breeding Technology shows the costs of breeding a specific Titan and how many days it is going to take.
All Titans belong to one of the following types:
Gaia-born Titans: Caught in the wild, prepared for junctioning, but otherwise unmodified. These are all Dreamwalker class Titans.
Argo-bred Titans: These are all the other Titan classes, even those gained through means other than Breeding. These Titans have been modified, conditioned or further transformed to face the Primordials. There are a few restrictions relating to Argo-bred Titans:
- You may have more than one Titan of a given Argo-bred class on the Argo, however,
- You cannot breed a Titan of a given Argo-bred class if you already have one onboard (but you can still gain it from other sources, such as adventures),
- You can only take one Titan of a given Argo-bred class into Battle, regardless of the number of Titans of that class you have.
How to Breed a Titan
Titans are bred using Technology cards. When you use a Technology ability to breed a Titan, you pay any associated costs (usually a Dreamwalker Titan), then write the Titan's class on the Timeline the indicated number of days from the current day. This is a Breeding Advancement Event.
Once you reach that day, during the Advancement Step, you resolve it and gain a new Titan. Important: A given Technology card may be involved in only one breeding process at a time. This means once you put a Titan class on the Timeline, you will be able to breed more Titans from that Technology card only after that Breeding Advancement Event is resolved.
Titan crafting using Primordial Cores (fusing)
Breeding a new Titan requires advanced technology, time and experimentation. However, there is a quicker way to gain access to new Argo-bred Titans: by fusing a Primordial's core with a malleable Titan. Crafting Titans using Primordial Cores is called Fusing.
Some Production Facilities allow you to craft Titans alongside Gear cards. Fusing a Titan in such a way requires two things: 1 Gaia-born Titan (Dreamwalker) and 1 specific Primordial Core. If you have these, you simply pay this cost and immediately gain access to the new Titan!
Note: Some Titans on Production Facilities are Prototypes. Those Titans can only be crafted during the Cycle that Technology originates from.
Named Titans
Titans are more animal than mortal. One could even argue that they are more war machines than animals — and so are treated as such. Nameless, expendable, unmourned. And easily replaceable. However, from time to time, a Titan will stand out. Maybe it's bigger, nimbler or has a natural aptitude for some things. Or maybe it was involved in a particularly heroic deed and became memorable.
These types of Titans get names. There is nothing stopping you from naming all your Titans, however Named Titans usually have some special quality to them. The most common one is that they have a Pattern.
Some effects may also require you to note a Titan's name somewhere (like the Timeline). In such case, if the Titan is not named, you must immediately name it to resolve this effect.
Titan Patterns
Patterns are a catchall category for all things that further modify the Titans, be it special training, special conditioning or some unusual trait. Whenever a Titan is assigned a Pattern, they should get a name.
Patterns will override the Titan's basic Trauma Table or Kratos Table and sometimes introduce new special rules or abilities. A Titan can have more than one Pattern, but if both Patterns relate to the same game element, the newer one will override the older (and that card will be discarded).
At the start of Cycle I, Patterns are unique, one-of-a-kind things: a Titan is assigned a Pattern through a story event and it becomes its permanent feature (it cannot be removed). When a Titan with an assigned Pattern dies, that Pattern is discarded and lost forever.
Maybe down the line, there will be a way to assign Patterns more freely…
Other Advancement Timeline Events
Note that the list of Advancement Events is open and it is not limited to Technology Breakthroughs and Breeding. There are many unique Advancement Events you will gain access to throughout the campaign. Remember: all Events added to the Timeline using Technologies are Advancement Events and should be resolved in the Advancement Step.
7. Story Step
During the Story Step, you resolve main story progression, Timeline Story Events, Mnemos Breakthroughs and any secret codes you manage to find. All adventures triggered during this Step will be resolved using the Adventure Phase rules (p. 25).
Story Progression
Don't let the size of this section fool you. Story progression is important! Paramount, even. This is how you win the game, by following the narrative presented on the Story cards, unraveling the mysteries of your current Cycle and thwarting the plans of the villains. And all of that happens right here, during the Story Step.
Main story progression is resolved only if you fulfill all requirements noted on your current Story card. Usually, story progression triggers when there are a certain number of Progress tokens on the current Story card. Another common requirement is being on a certain Map tile. In general, your current Story card will specify the exact thing you need to do to trigger its story progression.
When you meet the current Story card's requirements, you will resolve its story progression during the Story Step.
Most of the time, resolving story progression involves flipping the Story card to the other side or referring to a paragraph in your current Storybook or on another game element. When you resolve the current story progression, discard all Progress tokens collected on the current Story card (unless explicitly stated otherwise).
Clue Cards
Each story is different, and it's hard to include everything on standardized game elements. That is why each Cycle has a number of Clue cards that influence the game, introducing new rules, mechanics and hints. Clue cards might represent new rules references, story passages, maps, layouts, events and more.
Clue cards have a distinct back, showing the number of the Cycle they belong to and the number of the Story (or Doom) card they will be introduced with. Important: You should never look at any Clue cards if you were not specifically instructed to!
Other game elements, like the aforementioned Story cards, will tell you how to use particular Clue cards.
Story Events
Story Events are story related. They happen on a certain day and start an adventure. They are like Battle Events and Advancement Events in that they are either already printed on your Timeline (this is a fixed Story Event) or you will add them there yourself (for example, one of the Dreams of Pharos).
If there is a Story Event noted on your current day (i.e. an Event that is neither an Advancement nor a Battle), find the passage it leads to in the Storybook and read it. Note that Special Events (such as the Cackle Special Event) do not lead to specific paragraphs. To resolve them, find a passage with the designated name in the Special Events section of the Storybook.
Mnemos Breakthroughs
Mnemos Breakthroughs are pieces of your lost memories. Once you gain enough Mnemos nodes, you will trigger the next Mnemos Breakthrough. For detailed rules on resolving Mnemos Breakthroughs, see p. 27.
Secret Codes
Rarely, you will find a secret 4-digit number on a game element. If you do, during the Story Step you may find the corresponding paragraph in the main story section of your current Storybook and resolve it. Unless stated otherwise, each secret code paragraph can only be resolved once.
For detailed rules on resolving Storybook paragraphs, see the Adventure Phase section of the Rulebook (p. 25).
8. Doom Step
Doom, represented by Doom tokens and Doom cards, is like an antithesis to Progress tokens, story progression and Story cards. If the Story cards lead you to victory, Doom cards lead you to defeat. Doom cards show the slowly unfolding plans of the villain (or villains) of the Cycle and how they come to fruition.
Doom progression is resolved only if you fulfill all the requirements noted on your current Doom cards. Usually, doom progression triggers when there are a certain number of Doom tokens on the current Doom card.
When you meet the current Doom card's requirements, you will resolve its doom progression during the Doom Step.
Most of the time, resolving doom progression involves flipping the Doom card to the other side or referring to a paragraph in your current Storybook or on another game element. When you resolve the current doom progression, discard exactly as many Doom tokens collected on the current Doom card as the requirement and move all excess Doom tokens to either the other side of the card (if progressing from side A) or the next Doom card (if progressing from side B).
If you're on the B side of the last Doom card of the Cycle, be wary: if your Doom progresses one more time, you will lose the game!
For detailed rules on resolving Storybook paragraphs, see the Adventure Phase section of the Rulebook (Story Adventures, p. 26).
9. End Step
During the End Step, if you are on an Unexplored tile, it simply becomes Explored. This means that if you're already on an Explored tile, nothing happens.
During the first game session, knowing which tiles are Explored is easy: it's basically all the tiles revealed on the table. The rest of the Map tiles are Unexplored. However, once you play a few more game sessions, saving the game in between, it will become a bit tougher to keep track of. That's why it's important to remember how to save the Map properly (see Saving the Campaign below).
After you resolve the End Step, proceed to the next Campaign Round.
Additional Voyage Rules
This section covers all the additional rules governing the Voyage Phase that are not specifically tied to any of the Campaign Round Steps.
Saving the Campaign
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey is an odyssey of a game. You won't finish it in one game session. You won't finish it in two. In fact, a single Cycle will take you dozens of hours. To manage that, you will need to periodically save the campaign. This section provides the rules on how to do it.
At the end of any Campaign Round Step, you may decide to save your game progress and end your current game session. We advise saving at the end of the End Step so that you can begin your next game at the start of a new day. To save your game, take out the Argo Sheet and perform the following steps:
Note the number and letter of your current Story card along with the number of gathered Progress tokens (in parentheses).
Note the number and letter of your current Doom card along with the number of gathered Doom tokens (in parentheses).
Note the number of the current Map tile (the one the Argo is on).
On the last page of the sheet, to the right of the Choice Matrix, note any other Map tile numbers relevant to the current Story and Doom cards, as well as all numbers of Map tiles with other game elements, such as tokens and tiles, placed on them (e.g. Labyrinthian Temple marker), as well as the current position of the Adversary.
Note the current Triskelion stats of each Argonaut on their respective Argonaut Sheets.
Store your Technology deck, Projects deck, Argo Armory deck, Exploration deck, Mnemos Vault, gained Clue cards and all unlocked Godform and Summoning cards separate from other components of the same type, to easily access them when you resume your campaign.
Place all Explored Map tiles into the Explored Map space in the game insert. Important: Always remember to put all the Explored Map tiles in this space! During the next game session, you may reconstruct the whole Map at the start or only reconstruct the parts relevant for that game session (the Map is big!).
If you don't reconstruct the whole Map, be sure to leave all the unused Explored Map tiles in the Explored Map space in the game insert.
Nymph Summonings
During the course of a campaign, you will unlock various mythic allies that can be summoned to turn the tide of Battle or enable game-changing Voyage abilities. As such, the usage of these allies is extremely limited.
Each Nymph Summoning has a corresponding tarot-sized Summoning card and a matching Summoning token.
Every Summoning has its own requirements and sometimes costs.
Once you use a Summoning, you use up 1 Summon Charge (see Summon Limit below). Mark a box in the Summoning section of the Argo Sheet to denote the spent charge.
In total, you cannot use more Summon Charges than your current Summon Limit. You will find the Summon Limit on the Technology card that will allow you to perform Summonings. Whenever you research or gain a Technology card with a Summon Limit that is higher than your current limit, the higher value becomes your new Summon Limit (note it on the Argo Sheet in the box near the Summoning section).
On top of that, once you use one of the Summonings, it exhausts: write its name in the Summonings section, next to the marked Summon Charge box to denote that it is exhausted. That particular Summoning then remains unusable until the next Divine Surge (see Divine Surges on p. 23).
Special Summonings and Bonus Summoning Charges
Very rarely, you may gain access to a one-off Summoning, usually of a Nymph you don't normally have access to. When this happens, you also gain a bonus Summon Charge. This Charge can be only used to summon that particular Nymph and that Nymph can only be summoned once. Consequently, that bonus Summon Charge does not get replenished during a Divine Surge (see below) and you have to return the Summoning card to the box as soon as you use it (unless you have already unlocked it permanently). Note this Summoning's name in the Summoning section of the Argo Sheet (even if you already used it) but do not mark the box next to it to indicate that it is available and does not count towards your Summon Limit. If you gain a bonus Summon Charge that is not tied to a specific Summoning, circle one of the Summon Charge boxes to denote that it does not count towards the Summon Limit.
Summonings and the Adversary
Nymphs are unknowable, but their power is quantifiable. It's beyond mortal limits. Such rapid manifestations are likely to draw unwanted eyes. And whose eyes are more unwanted than your Adversary's?
All Summoning cards have the Adversary symbol. This means, whenever you perform a Summoning, the Adversary immediately moves toward the Argo.
Divine Surges
Awakenings, Summonings and some other powerful effects make use of divine power. However, the Olympians are dead and any lingering divine power they had is hard to come by. This is represented by Divine Surges: only during specific moments of a Cycle do these powers replenish.
A Divine Surge is a periodic game effect that allows you to replenish available Godforms (see Awakenings, p. 59), as well as Summonings and Summon Charges (p. 22). Divine Surges are mainly associated with major breakthroughs in the Story. Whenever you are instructed to perform a Divine Surge, simply erase all marks and names from the Godforms section and Summonings section of the Argo Sheet.
Diplomacy
During your voyages you will meet many peoples. Some of these peoples will represent major Factions you can interact with. Each Cycle has a different set of Factions. Your standing with a given Faction (called a Diplomacy Score) will influence everything from the resources you gain during the Exploration Step, and the available choices during the many adventures, to Battles and various tests (like Skill tests or Saves).
You should note your current standing with different Factions on the corresponding Diplomacy track. Whenever you gain or lose Diplomacy with a Faction, mark the appropriate space on the corresponding track. Each track is divided into sections representing different Diplomacy Thresholds (like Friendly or Denounced).
The Cycle I Diplomacy Tracks cover the Minoan, Labyrinthian and Hornsworn Factions, and are divided into the following Thresholds: At War (-3), Denounced (-2), Unfriendly (-1), Neutral (+0), Friendly (+1), Allied (+2).
Various game elements will include Diplomacy triggers that may modify their game effect or extend or restrict your options. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, these always refer to your Diplomacy Threshold (i.e. "Friendly or better") or Score (i.e. "Diplomacy 5+") with the Local Faction (the Faction whose symbol is in the bottom right corner of the Map tile the Argo is currently on). As with other triggers, like Danger or Argo Fate, the following effects are resolved only if your standing with this Faction is within the specified range (e.g. if you encounter a game element with an effect preceded by "Friendly+" or the words "Friendly or better," it is resolved only if you are Friendly or Allied with the Local Faction).
Local Faction. The Local Faction is the Faction whose symbol is in the bottom right corner of the Map tile the Argo is currently on. If there is more than one faction symbol on a tile, you can choose which of the Local Factions you want to take into consideration when applying modifiers and triggers.
The numbers in parenthesis above the track sections denote the Diplomacy Bonus/Penalty you should apply if you are within a given threshold. Whenever you test Diplomacy (for example when using Negotiation abilities), raise or lower your result by the value of that bonus or penalty.
If you ever reach the At War section of any Faction's Diplomacy track, there is no going back: you can no longer gain or lose Diplomacy with this Faction. Simply ignore all gains and losses of this Faction's Diplomacy.
Gain
During the game, you will gain a lot of different things! (And lose those things too…) You may gain or lose resources, Gear cards, Mnemos cards, Technologies and other game elements from Battles, adventures and other sources. Whenever you gain a card, simply find it and add it to the appropriate place:
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Gained Gear cards are added to the Argo Armory deck. However, if for whatever reason you gain a Gear card during a Battle, the Titan responsible for the gain can immediately equip that Gear card (discarding any other Gear card if needed). For example, this may happen as a result of a Critical Wound or a Search test. Important: If you gain a card with a Possession keyword, the Titan or Argonaut must immediately equip it.
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Gained Technology cards are added to the Technology deck.
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Gained Clue and Ally cards are placed next to your current Story and Doom cards.
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Gained Mnemos cards are placed in the play area of the Argonaut who gained them.
If it is impossible to distribute a gained Mnemos card to any Argonaut (it would exceed their limit of 2 Mnemos cards), it is instead added to the Mnemos Vault (see Mnemos Cards on p. 29).
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Gained tokens are placed in the appropriate area. For example, Progress tokens will be usually placed on the Story card or Inward Odyssey. Doom tokens will be placed on Doom cards. Ambrosia and Despair tokens gained outside of Battle will be held by the Argonaut who gained them.
Gaining Other Game Elements
Some game elements are not represented by physical components. These include resources, statistics, Mnemos nodes, Titans, Crew, Hull, various Boons and Afflictions, permanent Skill bonuses and more. If you gain any element that is not represented by a component, note it down in the correct section of the Argo Sheet or, if it was gained by a specific Argonaut, on their Argonaut Sheet.
Loss
Similarly, when you lose a physical component, simply put it back into the game box, unless instructed otherwise. When you lose a game element that is not represented by a physical component, erase it from the appropriate sheet (if it is singular) or lower its value by a specified number.
Gain/Loss Mitigation
Some Technology abilities may allow you to perform a "save test." These abilities will always contain the word "Save." A successful save test allows you to ignore gaining or losing a specific game element (usually a negative resource). It can be re-rolled using Argo Fate just like any other Argo test (see p. 31). Each Save ability can only be used once per a single instance of gaining/loss. However:
- If you possess multiple separate abilities that would allow you to perform a save test for the same effect, you can use as many of them as you like during one instance.
- If you gain/lose the same game element more than once in a day from different sources, you can use the same Save ability for each of these gains/losses (because these are separate "instances").
- You cannot use Save abilities to mitigate Unavoidable gain or loss.
Note: Most Save tests are influenced by your Diplomacy bonus/penalty.
Voluntary Gain/Loss
If the gain/loss is listed in the text of an active ability, story choice or any other non-forced effect, it is considered a voluntary gain/loss (a "payment") and cannot be mitigated in any way. To resolve this effect, you must gain/lose all listed game elements. You can't use Save abilities or any other effects that would allow you to ignore any of these gains/losses. These types of voluntary gain or loss may sometimes use the word "pay."
Gaining/Losing as a Group
When you are instructed to "gain X as a group" or "lose X as a group," distribute the specified statistic or element among all of the Argonauts. It does not have to be distributed evenly. You may assign this gain to one Argonaut or distribute it among some or all of them.
Adventure Phase
The Adventure Phase is not as structured as the Battle and Voyage Phases. There is no strict round sequence to follow, but there are some important rules and ramifications nonetheless. There are at least 7 types of adventures in Aeon Trespass: Odyssey:
- Story Adventures (p. 26)
- Hub Adventures (p. 26)
- R&R Adventures (p. 27)
- Inward Odyssey (p. 27)
- Mnemos Breakthroughs (p. 27)
- Dreams of Pharos (p. 28)
- Special Events (p. 29)
Continue reading to learn more about general Adventure rules, or proceed to the paragraph concerning a specific adventure type to learn how to resolve it.
A Narrative Game of Choice
The Olympian Gods are dead, Hellas has been rocked by the cataclysmic Eschaton. Primordials ravage what is left of mortal civilization.
The Argo sails the Great Sea towards a destination unknown. It brings with it hope for a better future for all mortals. But those onboard have no such luxury of fallback: people look to them, but they can only look to each other, there is no greater authority here. The burden of responsibility is heavy indeed.
You, the Argonauts, will have to make those choices… and live with the consequences.
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey is a game about stories, more so than most adventure games. Though, on the outset, the narrative may look like a choose your own adventure, it's much more than that. Your choices will not only inform where you end up at, but also who you truly are. Usually, there are no inherently good or evil choices. There are hard choices, difficult choices, moral choices, pragmatic choices. Weighty choices that will have major consequences for your games going forward.
What are Adventures?
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey will send you on myriad adventures: from swashbuckling clashes on high seas, through stealth infiltration missions, war stories and diplomatic negotiations, to introvertive pieces about your character or the Argo as a whole.
So, what makes an adventure and when does the Adventure Phase start? The general rule is, everything that sends you to a Storybook paragraph is considered an adventure.
Navigating Storybooks
Storybooks contain all the story paragraphs and Battle Setups associated with a given Cycle, as well as Cycle-specific rules. When playing a given Cycle, you will mostly be required to use the Storybook associated with that Cycle, although some, such as Mnemos Breakthroughs or Adversary Battles, are not strictly connected to a single Cycle and as such may require you to refer to other Storybooks.
The first and most important rule of the Storybook is: never read story passages unless you are clearly instructed to! This will ensure you don't spoil the story for yourself. On that note, read only the paragraphs you've been directed to and try not to look at those around them. When you begin resolving a story paragraph, it marks the beginning of the Adventure Phase.
Following the Paragraphs
Many Storybook paragraphs include an outcome pointing you to another paragraph. When you are done resolving them along with all associated effects, simply proceed to the paragraph you were directed to (for example, "Fail: See 0006. Success: See 0005.").
Alternatively, a story paragraph may end with the words "Return to the Voyage Phase" or simply conclude, with no further direction. This means that the adventure is over and you should return to the Campaign Round Step you were on when you were instructed to read the paragraph (for example, "Gain +1 Crew, then return to the Voyage Phase.").
Remember: The adventure ends only if you are instructed to "Return to the Voyage Phase" or there is no further paragraph mentioned. You must always resolve all chained paragraphs before you can perform any other actions or resolve further Campaign Round Steps.
Story Choices
Some of the story paragraphs have choice-based outcomes. Depending on your decision, they will point you to different paragraphs, and sometimes will list some of the gains and losses associated with a given choice. We've intentionally designed these choices to give you insight into their outcomes, allowing you to make informed, strategic and narrative decisions. Read all of your choices and weigh your options. Some consequences of your choices are supposed to remain obscured and these have been moved to the next paragraph in the chain. Some choices are only available if you fulfill specific conditions. Even if you do, however, you are not forced to choose a given option, unless stated otherwise.
Making Notes
Some story paragraphs will instruct you to note some information. If they specify where to note it, write it down in the appropriate section of your Argo Sheet or Argonaut Sheet. Otherwise, simply remember it for the duration of your current adventure.
Choice Matrix
In Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, the Choice Matrix is a system used to track important choices and refer to them during future events. Whenever the game instructs you to mark a Choice Matrix node (for example, "mark A1"), you should take your Argo Sheet and mark an appropriate space with an X. Later, the game may instruct you to check if a given box is marked. You cannot mark a box twice.
If a box is already marked when the game instructs you to mark it, ignore this instruction. On very rare occasions, a game element will tell you to "cross out" or "erase" a Choice Matrix node. In that case, erase it or encircle it, to note that the choice has been reversed.
Important: The Choice Matrix persists through ALL the Cycles of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey! When you progress from one Cycle to the next, carry over all marked choices to the Choice Matrix of your new Argo Sheet (or simply use the same last page).
Party Leader
During each adventure (whether main story, hub or other), one of the Argonauts must become the party leader.
Unless instructed otherwise, choose a party leader as soon as they are referred to in the paragraph (either in the story or in a mechanical instruction) or when you are faced with a choice (whichever comes first).
Most importantly, the party leader breaks all decision ties during the adventure if the players cannot reach a compromise. They are also the most likely to be tested during the adventure, as well as to gain Triskelion statistics (Danger, Rage or Fate), Boons, Afflictions, tokens and various other game elements. Finally, they resolve all other effects and choices that refer to the party leader.
Once the party leader is chosen, give them the Priority Target token as a reminder. This player remains the party leader until the end of this adventure.
Tip: You are free to choose whomever you want as the party leader. However, you should consider your choice well. They should be chosen based on their Triskelion statistics, Argonaut Skills and other attributes that you predict will be useful in a situation you are about to face. If you cannot reach an agreement on who should be the party leader, you should choose one randomly.
Story Adventures
Story Adventure is the category that contains all Storybook passages in the Main Story section of the book. Usually, you will be directed to them by Story and Doom cards, but there are some other, unique effects that may lead to Story Adventures as well.
Remember: If a game element directs you to a passage without telling you which section you can find it with, you should refer to the Main Story section.
There are no specific rules concerning Story Adventures. Simply find the designated paragraph and resolve it, according to general Adventure Rules.
Hub Adventures
Besides the main story, most of the adventures will come from your Cycle's Adventure Hubs. You resolve a Hub Adventure each time you encounter an active adventure symbol.
Adventure hubs are groups of adventures connected through a common theme, with fixed opening and closing adventures, that tell a coherent story. In hub adventures, you will encounter people and places relevant to the region the Argo is currently in. Some of these adventures will be side stories, while others may have lasting consequences and even influence the main story.
To find out which adventure you should resolve, find the Adventure Hubs table on the first page of your current Storybook. Roll a d10 and refer to the column corresponding to your current Story (Story cards 1A and 1B are Story I, Story cards 2A and 2B are Story II and so on). This will inform you which Adventure Hub you should go to as well as which Adventure Terrain you should add to the next Battle (see Adventure Terrain, p. 31).
Example: The players have encountered an unexplored adventure symbol. During the Expedition Step, they go to the Adventure Hubs table and roll a d10, getting a result of '8'. They are currently on Story card 2B, so they refer to the Story II column. They find out they should resolve the Adventure Hub corresponding to the 7-8 range — Man of Purpose. Before they proceed to this chapter, they mark a box on the Man of Purpose track on their Argo Sheet, then note Abandoned Temple (Outer 3) on the day of their next Timeline Battle.
Once you know which Hub you have encountered, remember to mark a box on an adventure track on the Argo Sheet (if all boxes are already marked, re-roll to choose a different Hub). Then go to the corresponding chapter in the Storybook.
There, you will find an Adventure Table, listing all adventures available in a given Hub. If the box you marked on the Argo Sheet has the alpha or omega symbol inside, simply proceed to resolve the paragraph marked with the same symbol in this Hub's chapter.
If the box you marked was empty, instead roll a d10 again and consult the Hub's Adventure Table to find the adventure you have to resolve. Mark a fated box (see Fated Boxes on p. 32) next to this adventure's name, then find it in the Hub's chapter and read it.
Once you find the correct paragraph, remember to gain Mnemos nodes — see p. 29 for details. Finally read and see where the adventure takes you.
R&R Adventures
R&R (rest and recuperation) adventures are shorter, mostly self-contained stories that revolve around the Argo and the lives of its crew. They are generally much more light-hearted, often comedic, romantic, nostalgic or dramatic. These are the "slice of life" stories of the Argonauts and the less prominent members of the city-ship community. R&R adventures usually offer only bonuses, but they may also give you interesting choices!
When you encounter an R&R adventure symbol, during the Expedition Step go to the R&R Adventure chapter of your current Storybook. Roll a d10 and consult the R&R Adventure Table to find the adventure you have to resolve. Mark a fated box (see Fated Boxes on p. 32) next to this adventure's name, then find it in the R&R Adventures chapter and read it.
Inward Odyssey
The Argo sails across Hellas, visiting many strange lands and interacting with their native inhabitants. But what is constant over the span of all the Cycles is the Argo itself and its crew. Inward Odyssey tells that part of the story.
However, each Inward Odyssey adventure will also net you a valuable unique reward: some increase basic statistics and resources, but most will introduce powerful new gameplay elements, including Technologies, Godforms, Summonings and Patterns!
Each Cycle has its own Inward Odyssey Story card. That Story card is like a table of contents for Inward Odyssey adventures. There's always 20 Inward Odyssey adventures per Cycle and only the most inquisitive players will experience them all.
Inward Odyssey adventures are directly tied to the Argo Knowledge statistic. Each time you gain Argo Knowledge, you unlock the next adventure from the Inward Odyssey chapter of your current Storybook. You will resolve this adventure at the end of your current Step. This means that Inward Odyssey adventures have the potential to trigger during any Step of the Round.
If you ever gain more than 1 Argo Knowledge during a given Step, you will resolve all of the corresponding Inward Odyssey adventures, one by one.
Powerful Rewards. Inward Odyssey adventures are your main source of Godforms, Summonings and Patterns. Do not sleep on these and gain as much Argo Knowledge as you can. Once you clear your current Cycle and move to the next one, you will change Inward Odyssey cards. Any Inward Odyssey stories you haven't experienced by that point are lost forever (for that playthrough). Remember that you can place Progress tokens on Inward Odyssey to gain additional Argo Knowledge. Every 2 Progress tokens generate 1 Argo Knowledge.
Inward Odyssey Adventure Requirements
Some rare Inward Odyssey adventures may have specific requirements, like having a certain Technology or advancing past a certain point in the game. When you encounter a requirement you do not yet meet, stop resolving that adventure. Later, when you meet the requirements, resolve that adventure at the end of the current Step (you do not need to gain additional Argo Knowledge for this).
If you have an unresolved Inward Odyssey adventure and gain another +1 Argo Knowledge, move to the next adventure on the card. Note any Inward Odyssey adventures you had to omit on the Argo Sheet.
Mnemos Breakthroughs
Mnemos Breakthroughs are adventures initiated from an Argonaut's Mnemos (see Mnemoses, p. 29). They are called Breakthroughs, because they unlock a better understanding of your character and their shrouded past. During the Story Step, if all nodes to the left of a breakthrough symbol have been marked (see Mnemos nodes, p. 29), and the breakthrough symbol itself is unmarked, resolve the associated paragraph (noted above this breakthrough symbol), then mark the breakthrough symbol as resolved.
Mnemos breakthrough adventures are similar to hub adventures, but they only involve the Argonaut that the memory belongs to. These are their personal stories that may influence their mindset to a great extent and define their character.
For this reason, we encourage you to read Mnemos paragraphs alone. This is important, because people process emotions differently in a group and the stories told in the Mnemoses are quite intimate. Then, you should decide if you want to read it out loud, or just share what you've learned, disclosing as much as you wish and including your own interpretation of these events, tailoring them to better fit your outlook on the Argonaut you play as. These are only faint memories, after all, they don't define you.
For the same reason, to deepen the immersion, we advise you to take into consideration what kind of person you believe your Argonaut to be, as you debate on future story choices.
However, if you wish to read a Mnemos aloud to the whole group straight away, that's fine too! Just note that Mnemos Breakthrough adventures don't have a party leader: it's all up to the one Argonaut.
Mnemos Breakthroughs Rewards
Your main reward for resolving a Mnemos Breakthrough is learning more about your Argonaut's past and unlocking a new Mnemos ability (see Mnemos Cards, p. 29). Most Mnemos Breakthroughs, however, will grant you additional unique rewards. Note them on your Argonaut Sheet.
Important: If you gain a Gear card from a previous Cycle as a Mnemos Breakthrough reward, it counts as a card from the current Cycle, overriding their original Cycle affiliation.
Dreams of Pharos
Dreams of Pharos are… different. These adventures take you to a mysterious place, seemingly outside of reality itself: Alexandria, the day before it was obliterated during the Eschaton. There, you will explore its famous library for clues and secrets, both concerning the current Cycles, as well as the Aeon Trespass setting as a whole.
Dreams of Pharos, sometimes denoted by the Argo Knowledge symbol, are mysterious adventures initiated by specific game effects and usually added to the Timeline as Story Events. Unless stated otherwise, a Dream of Pharos is resolved in the Story Step (just like any other Story Event). To resolve it, go the Dreams of Pharos chapter of your current Storybook. Roll a d10 and consult the Dreams of Pharos Adventure Table to find the adventure you have to resolve. Mark a fated box (see Fated Boxes on p. 32) next to this adventure's name, then find it in the Dreams of Pharos chapter and read it.
The main reward for resolving a Dream of Pharos is cryptic knowledge! It's for you to figure it out. Dreams of Pharos will also offer more tangible rewards, but these carry with them a peculiar risk represented by the Pharos Delve mechanic.
Pharos Delve
Most Dreams of Pharos include a unique push your luck mechanic, called the Pharos Delve. When you see the Pharos Delve prompt, start drawing cards from the Major Trauma deck, adding the numbers in the lower left corner of the cards. After each draw, you may decide to either stop the Delve or to continue. If you continue, draw another card and add the number denoted on it.
To succeed in a Delve, the sum of your cards must be equal to or higher than the Delve difficulty (denoted in brackets), but lower than 16.
Pharos Delve example: players should aim for a total between 12 and 15 — e.g. "Pharos Delve (12) — Success: Play the next battle with the top BP card in the BP deck revealed. Fail: Lose -1 Crew or Hull, whichever you have more."
If the total is at any point equal to or higher than 16, you immediately Fail the Pharos Delve and resolve the Fail effect.
If you decide to stop the Delve before reaching 16, check if the total is equal to or higher than the Delve difficulty. If it is, resolve the Success effect. Otherwise nothing happens.
Some other game effects may also use the Pharos Delve mechanic. When an effect tells you to use the Pharos Delve rules, it means it will be resolved exactly like a Pharos Delve, but is not considered a Pharos Delve (or a Dream of Pharos for that matter!).
Pharos Delves Odds. Pharos Delve is a game of push your luck. It's always worth it to start a Delve, but sometimes you will need to walk away: it's better to run with nothing, than stay and lose. There are 15 cards in a standard Major Trauma deck. There's a pair of each: '1s', '2s', '3s', '4s', '5s', '6s' and '7s', and a single '8'.
Special Events
Special Events are a broad category for unique, usually short and one of a kind adventures. There are no specific rules concerning Special Events. When instructed to resolve a Special Event, simply find an appropriately named passage in the Special Events chapter of your current Storybook and read it.
Other Adventures
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey is a big game, full of exploration, discovery, surprises and secrets. In effect, you may encounter other types of adventures along the way (in the core game and expansions). These adventures will provide any additional rules required to resolve them.
Additional Adventure Rules
Mnemoses
Although the Argonauts do not remember their pasts, certain Story Events and Adventures may trigger flashbacks of their defining moments. These fragmented memories are represented by Mnemos cards. They not only allow you to learn more about your character's past, but also give access to unique abilities that can be later improved by collecting Mnemos nodes.
When you gain a Mnemos, find the associated Mnemos card in the game box and write its title on your Argonaut Sheet, in the appropriate space. Then, write the paragraph number of the first Mnemos Breakthroughs (see below) above the Breakthrough symbol on the corresponding Mnemos track. From then on, you gain access to this card's Level 1 ability.
Mnemos Cards
On the back of a Mnemos card you will find a title and an illustration, as well as a cryptic note as to its nature. On its front, the card shows the Cycle number, three Mnemos levels, each with a corresponding ability and a Breakthrough paragraph number, as well as Skill bonuses for your Argonaut and the Mnemos traits.
You gain access to the Level 1 ability as soon as you gain the Mnemos card, while Level 2 and Level 3 abilities are unlocked, respectively, by reaching the first and second Mnemos Breakthroughs.
The Skill bonuses are simply applied onto your Argonaut Sheet, right after you gained the Mnemos card. They are permanent, as long as you have the Mnemos card.
The Mnemos traits have no inherent effect, but they are used to determine if you gain a Mnemos node from a hub adventure (see below).
Mnemos Nodes
Mnemos nodes are like experience points for your individual Mnemos cards. Each Mnemos progress track goes from 1 to 10 nodes. At certain thresholds (called Breakthroughs) you will experience a Mnemos adventure that further illuminates your past, as well as unlocks the next Mnemos Ability (using abilities will be described in further detail in the Battle Phase section of the Rulebook, on p. 33).
You gain Mnemos nodes from various game elements, but the most common source of nodes is hub adventures. To gain a Mnemos node from a hub adventure, you simply need to match one of the Mnemos's traits to the adventure's trait, found on the right of the adventure title.
When you are about to resolve a hub adventure, first each Argonaut with a Mnemos card with the corresponding trait gains 1 node for that Mnemos. Mark the leftmost empty node on the Argonaut Sheet next to this Mnemos's title.
Important! This way an Argonaut can only gain 1 node per adventure, regardless of the number of Mnemos cards with matching traits they have.
This means that if both of their Mnemos cards have the corresponding trait, they only gain a node for one of them. In that case, the node must go to the dominant Mnemos, that is the one with the most nodes. In case of a tie, the player controlling this Argonaut may choose.
Note: It's possible to gain nodes past an unmarked Breakthrough symbol (for example, by gaining a few nodes before the next Story Step). In such a case, simply note them on the Mnemos track, then resolve the Breakthrough during the Story Step and only then mark the symbol. You're already on your way to the next Breakthrough! (This may even lead to you resolving two Breakthroughs during one Story Step, one after the other!).
Resolved Mnemoses and Katharsis
Once you resolve the last Breakthrough of a Mnemos card, it becomes resolved. This means that when your Argonaut dies or leaves the Argo, this Mnemos does not return to the Mnemos Vault. Instead it is put back into the game box with other unused Mnemos cards. You probably won't see it again.
A special type of Mnemos resolution is called a Katharsis. If you reach a Katharsis, you will be given a code you will write in the Katharsis box on your Argonaut Sheet.
Mnemos Card Limit
Each Argonaut can have a maximum of 2 Mnemos cards. If you are instructed to gain a Mnemos card and you are already at the limit, the Mnemos card goes to another random Argonaut. If all Argonauts already have 2 Mnemos cards, the new Mnemos is instead added to the Mnemos Vault.
Mnemos Vault
The Mnemos Vault is a deck that consists of all Mnemos cards you have unlocked during your campaign, which are not currently assigned to any Argonaut. Keep it separate from other Mnemos cards. You add Mnemos cards to the Vault in the following situations:
- When an Argonaut dies or leaves the Argo for any reason, they return their unresolved Mnemos cards to the Vault.
- When you gain a Mnemos card and all Argonauts already have 2 Mnemos cards each, the newly acquired Mnemos card goes to the Vault instead.
Usually, when a new Argonaut is introduced into the game (you will learn how this works soon enough), you will be instructed to assign them a Mnemos card from the Mnemos Vault.
Fated Mnemoses
Fated Mnemoses are a different type of Mnemos cards. They are condensed mental traumas, memories not of particular events, but of the states of your mind. These memories are always bad and they weigh on your heart, introducing various mechanical hindrances.
Each Argonaut can have 2 unresolved Fated Mnemos cards at the same time. These do not count towards the limit of 2 Mnemos cards per Argonaut (i.e. in total, an Argonaut can have up to 2 Mnemos cards and up to 2 Fated Mnemos cards).
Fated Mnemos cards do not count as Mnemos cards for the purposes of other effects.
When you gain a Fated Mnemos, search the game box for all of the Fated Mnemos cards associated with the Cycle you are currently playing, shuffle them and draw a random card. Then, note it on your Argonaut Sheet, just like a regular Mnemos. Fated Mnemos cards are always gained black side up.
Fated Mnemos Cards
Each Fated Mnemos card has a title and an illustration, as well as a short description of the memory. Mechanically, the card includes a hindrance, which you will overcome, as well as Skill penalties for your Argonaut and the Mnemos traits.
The hindrance is a special negative effect or limitation the Argonaut must always adhere to. If the effects of your 2 Fated Mnemos cards contradict each other, the one you gained earlier (is on a higher position in your Argonaut Sheet's Mnemos section) takes precedence.
The Skill penalties are simply applied onto your Argonaut Sheet. They are applicable as long as you have the Fated Mnemos card.
The Mnemos traits have no inherent effect, but they are used to determine if you gain a node from a hub adventure, just like with normal Mnemoses (see Mnemos Nodes, p. 29). At the beginning of a hub adventure, each Argonaut with at least 1 Fated Mnemos card with a matching trait gains 1 node for that Fated Mnemos. This is in addition to any node gained for a regular Mnemos card!
This means that, if traits match, each Argonaut can gain 1 regular Mnemos node and 1 Fated Mnemos node from a single adventure. However, they will never gain 2 or more nodes for the same Mnemos card or the same Mnemos type (regular or Fated).
Resolving a Fated Mnemos and Trauma Growth
A Fated Mnemos has no breakthrough adventures — if all the nodes to the left of the first breakthrough symbol are marked, it is automatically resolved during the Story Step.
However, overcoming any mental hurdle makes you grow. This is reflected by the trauma growth abilities found on the backs (blue side) of Fated Mnemos cards. Each resolved Fated Mnemos gives you a positive ability that you should write down on your Argonaut Sheet, then return the card to the Fated Mnemos deck. There is no limit to the amount of trauma growth abilities a single Argonaut can have (you can even gain the same trauma growth ability more than once and their effects will stack).
Adventure Tests and Rolls
Adventures in Aeon Trespass: Odyssey are based around your absolute and informed choices. However, sometimes we're not fully in control, sometimes it's up to chance and effort. When the outcome of a given choice is undetermined, you will be instructed to perform a test, a roll or some other activity.
Adventure Tests
Many adventures will instruct you to perform a test. To do it, simply roll a single d10 and compare the result to the difficulty of the test (i.e. 6+). If the result is equal to or higher than the difficulty, it is a Success. Otherwise it is a Fail.
Important: Similarly to other d10 rolls, a natural '10' is always a success, while a natural '1' is always a failure.
Some abilities and game effects (like a marked Matrix choice or a Diplomacy Score) may allow you to add a bonus to the test result. Unless stated otherwise, all of these effects must be declared before you perform the test. Then, after you roll the die, increase the result by the bonus. Unless stated otherwise those effects can be used once per test.
There are two types of tests in the Adventure Phase:
Argonaut Tests: Tests performed by a specific Argonaut (or each Argonaut). These are generally associated with a specific Argonaut Skill (e.g. Cunning or Endurance). In this case, you must increase (and in certain situations decrease) the test result by your Skill value. Argonaut tests can be re-rolled using Fate just like Attack and Evasion Rolls (see Fate Re-rolls on p. 8).
Example: "Each Argonaut tests Endurance or Fury (6+). Gain +1 Danger to add +1. Fail: You are gravely wounded during the battle. Lose -1 Crew. 0–2 successes: You manage to hold your own, but your crew pays the ultimate price for your safety. Gain +2 Danger. 3–4 successes: You quickly gain the upper hand and push the attackers back. Subtract -1 Doom. See 0074."
Argo Tests: Tests that are not resolved by a specific Argonaut are Argo tests. They are commonly found on Technology cards. These can be re-rolled by raising Argo Fate instead of an Argonaut's Fate statistic. For all other purposes they are resolved like Argonaut tests.
Solo vs. Group Tests
Some tests will require only one Argonaut to make the test (usually the party leader), while others will have each Argonaut make a separate test.
A solo test is a make it or break it affair, the Argonaut will either succeed or fail. Usually, other Argonauts will get the chance to influence the test slightly (i.e. gain Danger to add +1 to the result), but the pressure is on the single Argonaut.
Group tests are different, in that an individual success or failure means less. Usually, a group test has success ranges. After every Argonaut makes their test, the Argonauts sum up their successes and consult the results. This means a group test usually has more than two possible outcomes: typically an outright failure (0-1 successes), a moderate success (2-3 successes) and a full success (4 successes).
Fail: Effects
Group tests also introduce "Fail:" effects. A Fail effect is applied to the individual Argonaut who failed the test and not the whole group. It's entirely possible to succeed at a group test as a group, but fail as an individual Argonaut.
Other Adventure Rolls
There are many types of rolls you may be required to make during an adventure. Not all rolls are tests. An effect may instruct you to simply roll a d10 and resolve it according to the result (e.g. "roll a d10. On a 10 you Awaken."). Such rolls are not tests (their description does not include the word 'test') and cannot be re-rolled using Fate.
Peril
Some choices, tests and rolls are marked with the Peril keyword. The Peril keyword states that the party leader must make the decision, test or roll without consulting the other players. This means no talking, no shrugging, no meaningful glance. It's all on you.
Adventure Terrain
Each Adventure Hub has an associated Terrain tile that you add to the upcoming Timeline Battle if you go on an adventure from that hub. Once you establish which Adventure Hub you are about to resolve, consult the Adventure Terrain column in the same row. Note this Terrain's placement instructions on the Timeline, on the day of the earliest upcoming Timeline Battle. This Terrain affects only a Timeline Battle, not a Battle triggered in any other way. If an Adventure Terrain is already noted for this day, ignore this instruction.
During the Battle Setup of a Timeline Battle with an Adventure Terrain, place the corresponding Terrain tile(s) on the Battle Board, after you place all Battle-specific Terrain tiles. This Terrain tile(s) cannot overlap with Titans, the Primordial, or other Terrain tiles. Adventure Terrain placement instructions include:
Outer 3: Means you need to place the tile only within 3 spaces from any Board Edge.
Inner 3: Means you need to place the tile on any spaces that are not within 3 spaces of the Board Edge.
Note: Some Terrain tiles may include additional setup instructions on their Terrain card.
Fated Boxes
Fated boxes are commonly found in adventure tables. They are used to denote that you have already encountered this part of the story. By default, you mark a fated box in an adventure table (in the R&R, Inward Odyssey or Hub section) immediately after you roll the associated number, before you proceed to resolving this adventure.
If you have already marked one fated box corresponding to an adventure and rolled its number again, check if there is another fated box associated with it. If there is, simply mark it and follow the instructions denoted next to it. If all fated boxes associated with a given adventure are marked, roll a d10 again and resolve a different adventure instead. If at any point the fated boxes of all adventures in any of the adventure tables have been marked, reset all of the boxes in this table.
Note that fated boxes may also be encountered in some of the paragraphs, outside of the adventure tables. These paragraphs will inform you when to mark the fated boxes and may introduce additional effects referring to the number of marked fated boxes.
Fated boxes carry over between all your playthroughs of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey. If you repeat any of the Cycles, do not reset marked fated boxes. This will allow you to experience new stories and encounter unexpected twists in the narrative.
Least and Most Likely Argonaut
The least likely Argonaut is the one with the least amount of Mnemos cards. In case of a tie, the one with the least amount of Mnemos nodes. If there's still a tie, choose randomly from the tied players.
Conversely, the most likely Argonaut (or the 'strongest' Argonaut) is the one with the most Mnemos cards and Mnemos nodes. If there's a tie, choose randomly from the tied players.
Important: Fated Mnemos cards and Fated Mnemos nodes do not count towards this.
Battle Phase
When the cataclysmic Eschaton happened, mortals thought it was the end of the world. That was not the case: the world continued, although diminished, without the Olympian gods' guidance… and then the Primordials appeared. Giant monsters from some Other Place, here to finish the mortals once and for all. There is no power capable of stopping them, as nothing pierces through their unearthly armor, the Aeon Trespass field (AT for short). Nothing, save the Titans.
What are Battles?
Battles happen when the Argo encounters one of the Primordials. Argonauts descend into the Balaneion and junction with 30 ft. high Titans, then meet the giant monster and, hopefully, kill it before it kills them. That is the life on the Argo.
In Battle, each player controls an Argonaut/Titan pair, while the Primordial is controlled by a deck of advanced AI cards. The Titans (usually four of them) want to deal a set number of Wounds to slay the Primordial (in general ten Wounds are required), while the Primordial tries to kill the Titans. Whoever prevails, wins.
Whenever the game instructs you to resolve a Battle, you begin the Battle Phase. Timeline Battles will be resolved in the Encounter Step, while other Battles (such as Adversary attacks or narrative encounters resulting from a Story card progression) may take place during other Steps.
Resolving Battles
During each Battle you will follow the same steps:
- Find the correct Battle Scenario
- Perform Setup
- Resolve the Battle
- Resolve the Aftermath
Battles Scenarios
When instructed to resolve a Battle, unless directed to a specific page, find the Battle Scenario corresponding to the particular Primordial you're facing. The scenario includes all the setup rules of this specific Battle and may sometimes introduce additional narrative elements and mechanics. These scenarios will help you set up the Battle Board, the Primordial, Terrain tiles and make any other applicable preparations. You will find the scenarios of the Battle from a particular Cycle in that Cycle's Storybook.
All Battles are played on the Battle Board.
Note: If you want to conserve space, you may want to save your campaign before the Battle (see Saving the Campaign, p. 22) and set aside all elements not used during this Phase: the Map tiles, Technologies (other than Argo Abilities), Story and Doom cards as well as any Clue cards.
Basic Terms
These are the most common game terms used in the Battle Phase.
Titan. During Battle, game elements may refer to the Titan. The Titan is represented by the Titan Sheet and a Titan miniature. However, in some cases, this term will also include the Argonaut junctioning with the Titan (e.g. the Primordial Attack makes you draw a Fated Mnemos card. The Argonaut will gain it, not the Titan itself).
Primordial. During Battle, game elements may refer to the Primordial. The Primordial is represented by the Primordial Sheet and a Primordial miniature.
Battle Board. The Battle Board is made up of spaces. Only spaces and their edges are considered to make up the Battle Board. The Battle Board has two short and two long Board Edges. Short Board Edges are marked with letters to identify rows, and the long Board Edges are marked with numbers to identify columns.
Spaces. Spaces are square boxes you place other game elements on. A Titan takes up one space. A Primordial typically takes up four or nine spaces. Spaces are occupied if there is a miniature or an Obstacle Terrain tile on them. All other spaces are considered empty spaces.
Adjacent. Something is adjacent if the space it's on shares at least one edge with the other space.
Board Edge. Edges not shared with another space are considered to be part of the Board Edge (see Battle Board).
Attack Dice. Custom d10 dice (see Dice, p. 8).
Power Dice. Custom d6 dice (see Dice, p. 8).
Kratos Tokens and the Kratos Pool. Kratos tokens are a special type of "cooperative" token used by the players to enhance other player's attacks. These can help you hit and wound, escape Primordial Responses and more. The area you place Kratos tokens is called the Kratos Pool (see Kratos Tokens on p. 45 for more details).
Primordial Types. Tactical Battles against Primordial monsters are a key element of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey. During your voyage you will face the following types of Primordials:
Regular Primordials: There are usually two regular Primordials in each Cycle, as noted on the Evolution Track on the Argo Sheet. You can expect to face these at regular intervals (through Timeline Battles). As the campaign progresses, they will evolve and become more powerful (see Evolution and Battle Tracks).
Adversary: Your deeds are sure to bring unwanted attention. Adversaries are powerful monsters, actively hunting the Argo on the Voyage map (see p. 16). You can (and sometimes should!) try to run away, but sooner or later you are bound to face them. These are going to pursue you for as long as they remain undefeated, even from one Cycle to another.
Boss Primordial: The ultimate foe, the boss Primordial is an enemy unlike any other. Boss Battles may be triggered from various Story and Doom adventures, so you should always stay on your toes. Each Cycle leads to a final showdown with the boss Primordial. Until then, you can merely hope to keep it at bay.
Battle Setup
When you locate the correct Scenario, you will perform Battle Setup. There are standard elements to every Battle Setup (hence the name Standard Preparations), but most of the scenarios will introduce additional specific rules, including those found on the Primordial Sheet and Trait cards.
1. Standard Preparations
Before each Battle, perform Standard Preparations. These include instructions that are common for every Battle in every Cycle. Whenever you are instructed to setup a Battle, perform the following steps first:
- Battle Board: Place the Battle Board in the middle of the table.
- Decks and tokens: Shuffle the Trauma decks, the Kratos deck and the Moiros deck. Place all decks in the designated spaces and place Kratos tokens, Attack dice and Power dice within reach of all players.
- Argonauts: Each player places their Argonaut Portrait and Mnemos cards in front of them.
- Triskelions: Each player places their Triskelion near their other components. The Triskelion does not reset at the beginning of Battle; you start with the Triskelion stats you've accumulated over the course of the other Phases.
- Titans: Each player chooses the Titan they will control from the available Titans and takes its Titan Sheet and miniature. If at least four Titans are available, each Argonaut must control one Titan. Note: It does not have to be the same Titan they controlled in a previous Battle. Remember: You cannot take more than one Titan of the same Argo-bred class into Battle.
- Gear Loadouts: Players as a group assign Gear cards from the Argo Armory to the Titans. Each Titan has limited card slots: two weapon slots (one handed, two handed, three handed), two support slots and one armor slot. They can also have up to three Attachment cards attached to their Titan Sheet and up to one Attachment attached to each of their Gear cards. A symbol in the upper left corner of a Gear card denotes which slot it occupies. You cannot equip Gear cards that would exceed the available slots of your Titan. Each Titan can only have one copy of the same Support card.
- Argo Abilities: Players choose the Argo Abilities they want to use during the upcoming Battle. You may use as many Argo Ability cards as your Argo Ability (AA) Limit allows. Place the Argo Abilities you have chosen next to the Battle Board, along with the indicated number of Charge tokens. You can learn more about Argo Abilities on p. 55.
- Primordial: Place the Primordial Sheet of the Primordial you are about to fight in the designated space near the Battle Board. Place its Routine and Signature cards in the corresponding spaces (be careful not to use the Mnestis Routine side, unless you are currently playing a Mnestis Theatre Battle). Take all of the Primordial's AI cards and divide them into three decks numbered I, II and III (you'll find the roman numeral on the back of the cards). Do the same for the Primordial's BP cards. Then place the AI and BP decks numbered "I" on the appropriate spaces at the bottom of the Battle Board. Place decks numbered "II" and "III" directly below. These are Escalation decks. Find the Trait cards for any Traits that are not described on the Primordial Sheet and place them nearby as a reference.
- Terrain and Titan Placement: Find all the Terrain cards and Terrain tiles used in the Battle. Place the Terrain cards near the Battle Board and the Terrain tiles on the Battle Board according to the Battle Diagram. Remember to place additional Adventure Terrain, if noted (see p. 31). Place Titans on Titan Starting Positions as indicated by the diagram. Then proceed to Primordial positioning.
Less than 4 Titans? If you have less than four Titans on the Argo, oh boy, you're in for tough times! You must start the Battle with as many Titans as possible. Every Argonaut that is not assigned a Titan will not participate in Battle.
Important: If you are ever forced to do Battle without any Titans onboard, you immediately lose the campaign!
2. Primordial Positioning
Battles handle Primordial positioning and orientation in different ways. The rules for your particular Primordial's placement will be found in the scenario rules, at the end of the Storybook.
3. Evolution and Battle Tracks
Every Primordial in Aeon Trespass: Odyssey either evolves to match the Argo's growing power or simply reveals more of the power it held back. This is represented by the Evolution and Battle Tracks.
Regular Primordials use Evolution Tracks and, consequently, will evolve during the campaign, usually from Level 1 to Level 4.
Adversaries and Cycle Bosses are almost always fought on Level 1 throughout the whole campaign, but their Battles still change: this is reflected by their Battle Tracks. They are also much more powerful than Regular Primordials, and your first few encounters may be rough!
Most Battles will tell you to either mark one Evolution box or one Battle box on the respective Primordial's track.
Higher Level Primordials
You may have noticed that the Primordial Sheets have Levels above 4 (for Regular Primordials) and 1 (for Adversaries and Bosses). These may be used in special, difficult encounters, but will be primarily encountered in the Mnestis Theatre (see p. 69).
4. Additional Setup
Battling each Primordial is different and battling each Primordial Level is different as well. Thus, each scenario will introduce its own specific rules and setup instructions that you need to follow. Similarly, every Primordial has Traits.
You will find some Traits on the Primordial Sheet itself, while others will be represented by Primordial Trait cards. Each Primordial Level specifies which Traits to use. Most of the Traits are additive, meaning that as the Level rises, they accumulate. Some rare Traits (like the Pursuer's Tease) may be removed permanently when certain conditions are met.
In this step you should also resolve any additional Escalations (see Escalations Outside of Battle, p. 54).
Battle Sequence
Battles in Aeon Trespass: Odyssey are resolved in a series of alternating Primordial and Titan Rounds. They immediately end with the Argonauts' Victory as soon as the Primordial is slain: once it has suffered Wounds equal to its Wounds value. The Battle immediately ends with the Argonauts' Defeat as soon as all Titans die or the Argonauts decide to Retreat (see Retreat, p. 57).
Unless an effect explicitly states otherwise, all Battles begin with the Primordial Round. During the Primordial Round, you draw and resolve the top AI card and in the Titan Round each Titan takes their turn and performs their actions.
Primordial Round
Primordials are governed by a set of attributes, Traits and two distinct decks: the AI deck and the BP deck. They are not controlled by a specific player. Instead, players as a group will resolve instructions denoted on AI and BP cards that will dictate its behavior.
Primordial Sheet
Each Primordial is represented by a large Primordial Sheet that includes all the basic information about a given Primordial. Besides the Primordial name, its illustration and spaces for the Signature and Routine cards, it shows the Primordial diagram, its basic Traits, as well as Level-specific attributes and Traits.
Primordial Diagram
The Primordial diagram shows the number of spaces the Primordial occupies on the Battle Board (usually four or nine), as well as its front and the Rear spaces. Usually, you use the front for establishing targeting of a Primordial Attack, while the Rear spaces don't have general rules; however, other rules may refer to the positioning of Titans in regards to the rear.
There are two special types of positioning symbols that may be found on the Primordial diagram. These symbols show the spaces where some Basic Traits take effect:
Blindspots: Blindspots are spaces the Primordial cannot see. Titans in Blindspots are excluded from targeting, unless the targeting specifically mentions Blindspots. A Titan in the Blindspot gains a +1 Precision bonus (see Offensive Gear Stats, p. 46) to their Attacks.
Weakspots: Weakspots can have different effects depending on the Primordial and are usually unlocked by some other effect or game element. In other words, Weakspots don't have any inherent effects of their own, and a Weakspot space only indicates a space where a Weakspot may be created.
Basic Traits
Basic Traits are universal Primordial abilities or features. A Primordial may have any number of Basic Traits. The common Basic Traits throughout all Cycles are:
- Unavoidable Knockback: The value of the Unavoidable Knockback done by the Primordial if it ends its Movement on the same space as a Titan (see p. 40).
- Blindspot: The Primordial has a limited field of view and consequently has Blindspots (see p. 38).
- Weakspots: The Primordial has some inherent weakness or flaw that may be exploited and consequently has Weakspots (see Primordial Diagram).
- Lumbering: The Primordial is massive or is nigh immovable, and as a consequence cannot suffer Pushback or be moved involuntarily in any other way (see p. 63 and 65).
- Vantage Points: The Primordial can be mounted and consequently has Vantage Points (see p. 59).
Primordial Level-specific attributes and Traits
The rest of the Primordial Sheet is dedicated to Primordial attributes and Traits, grouped by Levels. This is because the attribute values and Traits depend on the Level of the Primordial you are currently facing. Remember to always refer to the attributes and Traits associated with its current Level (designated by the roman numeral).
A Primordial Level box will include the Level numeral, Main Attributes, Bonuses, a list of added or removed Traits and, sometimes, a definition of a newly introduced Trait. Remember to always check Traits added and removed on the current level as well as all previous levels and to find the Trait cards for Traits not explained on the Primordial Sheet.
Main Attributes:
- To Hit: How hard the Primordial is to hit (see: Attack Roll on p. 49).
- Speed: Maximum number of spaces the Primordial can travel with a single move.
- Wounds: The number of Wounds required to slay the Primordial.
Bonuses:
- AT bonus: Increase the AT of each BP card by this value.
- Danger bonus: Increase the Danger dealt by each Primordial Attack (not by each hit, unless specifically stated; see Evasion Roll, p. 41) by this value.
- Evasion dice bonus: Increase the Evasion dice value of each Primordial Attack by this value.
- Escalations: At the start of Battle, Escalate the Primordial a number of times equal to this value.
Primordial Traits
Primordial Traits cover a broad spectrum of additional abilities, effects and special rules. Some Traits are described on the Primordial Sheet, while others are represented by Primordial Trait cards. Many Primordial levels introduce new Traits, some of which transform the Battle completely. Always make sure you are familiar with all Primordial Traits as you prepare for Battle. Remember: Usually, your current Level has all the Traits of the previous Levels.
Signature and Routine
The Primordial Sheet has spaces for two special cards: the Signature and the Routine. These represent the Primordial's typical behaviors. The Signature is the "signature attack," while the Routine is what it does when there is no one around to attack.
The Signature is the creature's iconic default Attack. It behaves like an AI card, but is not an AI card. If another card, Trait or any other effect instructs you to perform Signature, this is the Attack you should resolve.
The Routine is a special action the creature performs when there is no eligible Target for any of the targeting lines on its current Attack. Usually, Routines are devastating effects that should be avoided at all costs! They often affect not only the Titans or the Battle Board, but the Argo itself.
Note: Most Routines have a Mnestis Theatre version on the back. Make sure to use the regular Routine during your campaign battles.
All Signatures and some Routines are Attacks, but they are not AI cards for the purpose of any other effects.
Primordial Round Overview
Unless an effect explicitly states otherwise, all Battles in Aeon Trespass: Odyssey begin with the Primordial Round.
The Primordial Round proceeds in the following order:
- Start of Primordial Round (see below)
- Resolve AI (see below)
- Resolve Other Actions (p. 44)
- End of Primordial Round (p. 44)
Start of Primordial Round
Sometimes the Primordial will have an effect that triggers at the start of the Primordial Round. In that case, it's resolved before drawing the AI card. If there is more than one start of Round effect, the players may resolve these effects in any order they like.
Resolve AI
The AI cards are the heart of the Primordial Round. Most AI cards are Primordial Attacks. You resolve an AI card by performing these steps (in the following order):
- Draw AI (p. 37): Draw the top card from the AI deck.
- Targeting (p. 37): Decide who or what becomes the Target of the Attack.
- Movement (p. 38): Resolve any Primordial moves.
- Attack (p. 40):
- 4.1. Evasion Roll (p. 41): Attempt to evade the Attack.
- 4.2. Attack Consequences (p. 42): Resolve Attack effects and a Trauma Draw.
- After Attack (p. 44): Resolve all After Attack effects.
1. Draw AI
To determine the Primordial's behavior, draw an AI card from the top of the AI deck. Notice the roman numeral in the center of the card back. This number indicates the level of the AI card. So, although the AI cards are facedown, you get some sense of how dangerous the next Primordial Attack will be.
AI card elements include the Primordial type, Card Level, Evasion stats, Targeting, Move & Attack instructions, After Attack effects and the Attack type.
2. Targeting
After you reveal the AI card, check the targeting to see who or what is being attacked. Targeting is a series of increasingly general separate instructions called lines. Each line consists of the word "Target:" followed by targeting instructions. Note that a single targeting line can in fact take up more space than a text line.
To check who is the Target of the Primordial Attack, read the lines in the "targeting" area of the AI card, one by one from top to bottom until you find the first one that you can resolve. Do not check further targeting lines.
To become the Target, a Titan must fulfill all requirements of a single targeting line. If there is no valid Target for any of the targeting instructions, the AI card is discarded and the Primordial performs its Routine instead. Note that some Zone Attacks target spaces, not specific Titans and they are considered performed even if there are no Titans in the designated Zone (therefore they do not result in a Routine).
Note: Some targeting instructions will require you to measure distance (e.g. Closest or Furthest). Distance in Aeon Trespass: Odyssey is always measured in spaces and orthogonally (in cardinal directions), never diagonally.
Specific Targets
Some game effects will instruct you to resolve an Attack against a specific Target (e.g. "Perform Signature against the Attacker"). When it happens, this instruction overrules any targeting instructions on the card itself. Note that if a Titan becomes a Target in the Targeting step, it remains the Target until the end of this AI card unless an effect specifically states otherwise.
Typical Targeting Instructions
Possible targeting instructions include:
Adjacent: The Target is on a space that shares an edge with a space occupied by the Primordial.
Board: This targets all spaces on the Board.
Closest: The Target is the shortest distance (in spaces) from the Primordial (counted through Obstacles and red lines) among all possible Targets.
Furthest: The Target is the furthest distance (in spaces) from the Primordial (counted through Obstacles and red lines) among all possible Targets.
In front: The Target is on any space in front (see Primordial facing p. 40) and within Line of Sight (see p. 38) of the Primordial.
In range: The Primordial can reach the Target by moving a number of spaces up to its Speed value and perform an Attack against the Target.
In sight: The Target is within Line of Sight (see p. 38) of the Primordial.
In/on X: The Target is in the specified area or on the specified space. For example, In Blindspot, On Labyrinth, On Vantage Point.
Last to Wound: The Titan who was the last to successfully wound the Primordial with an Attack.
Least X: Least value/amount of a specified statistic/resource. For example, Least Fate, Least Mnemos nodes.
Most X: Most value/amount of a specified statistic/resource. For example, Most Speed, Most Danger.
Not in/on X: The Target is not in a specified area or on a specified space. For example, Not in Rear, Not on Vantage Point.
No Target: Always resolve this instruction if no other targeting instruction is applicable.
Priority Target: The Target with the Priority Target token.
With X: Titan with a specific game element, like a Gear card, Condition card, statistic value. For example, With 6+ Fate, With a Unique Gear card.
X Titans: Specified number of Titans.
Zone: All spaces in an indicated area. This targeting line triggers even if there are no Titans within the indicated area. Some Zones have been named for narrative reasons. These are resolved like ordinary Zone Attacks, unless instructed otherwise.
Blindspots and Vantage Points. Blindspots and Vantage Points are special types of Battle Board spaces! Spaces are always considered Blindspots in relation to the Primordial (see Primordial Diagram on p. 35). Blindspots and Vantage Points are never in the Primordial's Line of Sight. Vantage Points have more rules, such as special adjacency. For details see Vantage Points on p. 59.
Priority Target
The Priority Target token serves as a tiebreaker for the purpose of Targeting. The Titan with the Priority Target token is considered to be the Priority Target.
When you increase your Rage for any reason, compare your current Rage level to the Rage of the token's holder. If your Rage is higher, you become the new Priority Target and gain the Priority Target token. At the start of the Battle assign the Priority Target token to a Titan with the highest Rage. If two or more Titans have equal highest Rage, choose which one to assign the token to.
If two or more Titans are equally viable Targets (fulfill all instructions of the same targeting line) and one of them is the Priority Target, that one becomes the Target.
If two or more Titans are equally viable Targets and none of them is the Priority Target, the players may choose which of them becomes the Target.
When the Titan with the Priority Target token dies, pass the token to a living Titan with the highest Rage.
Some effects (such as Awakenings and some Trauma cards) state that a Titan cannot lose the Priority Target token. If there are multiple such effects in play at the same time, the Titan that got it the earliest remains the Priority Target. For the purpose of passing the Priority Target token after the Titan's death, Titans with such effects are treated as if their Rage was 9.
Remember: Some Attacks specifically target the Priority Target!
Line of Sight
Line of Sight (LoS) is used to determine whether the Primordial has an unobstructed view of a Titan and vice versa. A Titan must have LoS to the Primordial to perform an Attack. The Primordial must have LoS to the Target if the command line requires it to be in front or in sight. Note that some targeting instructions do not require LoS (for example, Target: Priority Target).
To check LoS, draw an imaginary straight line from a corner of any space occupied by the Attacker to a corner of any space occupied by the Target:
- If the line passes through an obscuring Terrain space or a red line, there is no Line of Sight.
- If the line passes along the edge of an obscuring Terrain space or a red line, there is no Line of Sight.
- If the line goes through a corner of an obscuring Terrain space or the endpoint of a red line, there is Line of Sight.
- If the line would go through a corner where two features (like Terrain tiles) connect diagonally (i.e. through this corner), there is no Line of Sight.
- Blindspots and Vantage Points are never in the Primordial's Line of Sight.
- A miniature never blocks LoS to itself or other miniatures.
- An Obscuring Terrain tile does not block LoS to or from Targets standing on any of its spaces (see Terrain on p. 67).
Line of Sight example: Herodotus does not have LoS because there is a red line between him and the Hekaton. Ulyssea has LoS, because the line touches only the corner of an Obscuring Terrain tile. She wouldn't have LoS if the line went through the tile or along its edge. Solon has LoS, even though he is on an Obscuring Terrain tile, because Terrain tiles never block LoS to themselves or miniatures on them. Philoctera, however, is fully behind the Obscuring Terrain so it blocks LoS for her. It is worth noting that the reverse is also true: unless the Primordial has any additional Traits or effects that would allow it to ignore game elements for the purpose of LoS, the Primordial always sees Titans that can see it and vice versa.
3. Primordial Movement
Most Primordial Attacks will instruct you to move the Primordial. In such a case, the Primordial will always try to move and tries to move as close to the Target as possible, up to its Speed value, stopping only when it becomes adjacent to the Target (unless stated otherwise). Note: A Primordial performing a Ranged Attack will stop as soon as it is within range!
Unless stated otherwise, at the beginning of a move the Primordial always turns to face the Target first (see Primordial Facing, p. 40).
A Primordial always moves along the shortest possible path, that is, through the fewest number of spaces. It can move through any other game components (including Titans and Terrain) unless explicitly stated otherwise.
A Primordial always moves one space at a time, in cardinal directions (not diagonally).
If the Target is not in a straight line from the Primordial, the Primordial will "zigzag" move towards it cardinally, switching the movement axis after every space travelled until it reaches a position that would allow it to continue moving towards the Target in a straight line (see examples, p. 39). In such cases, the players may decide the starting direction (horizontal or vertical) of the Primordial movement.
If two or more routes are considered equally short, the players choose which one to use.
If any effect would cause the Primordial to move past the Board Edge, it will continue to move along the edge prioritizing a direction that will initially lead it away from the most Titans (if possible).
Most Primordial moves will take place as a result of AI cards or Traits. However, sometimes Titans may force the Primordial to move (for example, by using the Pushback keyword, see Involuntary Movement, p. 48).
Movement example: The Hekaton moves towards the Titan. As it is not in a straight line from it, it will first "zigzag" towards it. In the example the players decided to first move horizontally (1), then vertically (2) and then continue to move horizontally (as at this point the Hekaton can move in a straight line). Note that the players could have also moved up first, and then continue to move in a straight line towards the Target.
In another example, the Hekaton targets Herodotus. To move adjacent, it will have to zigzag. Since players can choose the starting direction of the zigzag move (as long it brings the Hekaton closer to the Target), they may decide to move it in a way that is less harmful, i.e. not through Ulissea!
As a Primordial Response from a BP card, the Labyrinthauros tramples into the Board Edge. According to the rules, it continues to move along the edge, prioritizing movement that will initially lead it further away from the most Titans. Note that in the end this movement will still bring the Primordial closer to the Titan.
Primordial movement through and onto Terrain spaces
During movement, the Primordial ignores Terrain tiles, unless they have the Destructible keyword, in which case they are destroyed and removed from the Battle Board. Consequently, a Primordial can freely move through and onto spaces with most Terrain tiles (including Obstacles).
Primordial movement through Titan spaces (Crash)
Titans do not impede Primordial movement in any way, but a Titan on a space the Primordial moved through or onto suffers Crash. A Titan subjected to Crash gains +1 Danger and suffers Knockdown (see Crash, p. 63 for more details).
Ending Primordial movement on a Titan space
If the Primordial ends its movement on a space occupied by a Titan, that Titan suffers Crash and Unavoidable Knockback equal to the Primordial's Unavoidable Knockback value.
The Unavoidable Knockback happens in a straight line away from the Primordial and is subject to all normal Knockback rules (see Knockback on p. 63) with the following exception: it cannot be lowered or ignored in any way any other than effects that cause you to stop (such as colliding with an Obstacle) or effects that specifically refer to Unavoidable Knockback. If there are two or more equally possible Unavoidable Knockback directions, the player chooses one.
Target out of Range. Some Primordials will target Titans outside of their effective Move and Attack range. In such cases, they will still perform the movement, trying to get as close to their Target as possible, and then simply skip the Attack step and go straight to the After Attack step.
Smarter Primordials always target in range!
Primordial movement types
The rules above apply to most cases of movement. There are, however, some special movement types that reflect unique or unexpected ways of traversing the battlefield. They still adhere to standard Primordial Movement rules, but in case of a conflict, the rules below take precedence:
Move X: Perform movement by up to X spaces, instead of using the Primordial's Speed value. For example, "Move 6", "Move Unlimited".
Move to X: Perform movement to the designated area or in the indicated direction. Treat the Primordial's Speed as unlimited for the duration of this movement. For example, "Move to the center of the board".
Primordial Facing
Every Primordial miniature has a front, the direction it is facing. Identifying the front of some Primordials is easy, of others less so (these are eldritch monsters from some Other Place after all). For game purposes, it's just important to designate a side of the miniature you considered the front (marked with a white arrow on the diagrams found on the Primordial Sheets) and sticking with it.
Some targeting instructions and other game elements may refer to the Primordial's front or rear. To find out if a Titan or any other game element is in front of the Primordial, draw an imaginary line passing along the edges of the spaces occupied by the Primordial miniature's front. All spaces beyond this line in the direction the Primordial is facing are considered to be in front.
Rear designates only the spaces adjacent to the Primordial, directly behind it (in relation to the front). These are also always marked on the diagram on the Primordial Sheet with the Rear space symbol.
Primordial Turning
Unless stated otherwise, the Primordial always bears down on its victim! Consequently, the Primordial always turns:
- Towards its Target, when it begins and ends its move.
- Towards its Target, before it performs an Attack (unless it targets a Zone).
- In the designated direction when another effect instructs you to turn it.
The Primordial doesn't turn:
- When it is being moved forcefully (for example, if it's being pushed back by a Titan).
- During a Simultaneous Attack against 2 or more Titans (see p. 41).
- During a Zone Attack.
4. Primordial Attack
Primordials always move first, then attack. For an Attack to be resolved, the Target must be within Attack Range, as dictated by the Attack type. Note that Primordial Attack types also introduce additional effects and rules for resolving them.
Primordial Attack Types
Usually, an Attack without a specific type is considered Melee and requires adjacency. Below, you will find a list of Attack types encountered in Cycle I: Truth of the Labyrinth. Due to each Primordial's unique nature and the game's evolving mechanics, future Cycles may introduce new Attack types, which will be described in the appropriate Storybooks. An Attack may have none, one, or multiple types. If it has more than one Attack type, all rules referring to these types apply.
Range Attack X: Can be performed against a Titan within X spaces of the Primordial.
Simultaneous Attack: Performed against multiple Targets. Each of them resolves the Attack separately (performs a separate Evasion Roll) in any order, but it is considered to happen at the same time, therefore a Chain Break (see p. 43) caused by one Titan does not invalidate unresolved Attacks against other Titans.
Sequential Attack: Performed against multiple Targets, one at a time, in a specific order. A Chain Break (see p. 43) during one of these Attacks stops the sequence and invalidates any lingering Attacks.
If a Sequential Attack targets "All Titans in path," it happens during the Primordial's movement. Move the Primordial towards its Target one space at a time. When it would move onto a space occupied by a Titan, instead of moving through it, stop, resolve an Attack, then continue moving towards the original Target. When it reaches its original Target, resolve an Attack against that Target as well. Primordial movement during this Attack does not cause Crash. If at any point while resolving this Attack the Primordial stops on a space occupied by a Titan (for example, to attack another Titan), this Titan suffers Unavoidable Knockback equal to the Primordial's Unavoidable Knockback value, as normal.
Zone Attack: Performed against all Titans in a designated zone. Each Titan performs a separate Evasion Roll but they are considered to happen simultaneously (similarly to a Simultaneous Attack). The following rules apply:
- A Chain Break during one of these Attacks does not invalidate unresolved Attacks against other Titans.
- If a Titan moves outside of the Attack Zone after you have already begun to resolve this Attack against other Titans in the Zone (i.e. performed an Evasion Roll and applied Attack effects) it does not invalidate an Attack against it.
- Zone X attacks all Titans within X spaces horizontally, vertically and diagonally from the source of Zone X.
- Other Zones may be shown on diagrams on the AI cards themselves. These Zones target the specific spaces shown on the diagram.
- If a Zone Attack targets a specific Titan, it still affects other Titans in the designated area.
- The Primordial is not considered to be inside the Zone originating from it and neither are Titans on Vantage Points.
Judgement: These are mental assaults that force the Target to perform a special Skill test. Each Judgement will designate a specific Skill it tests (if it designates two, the Target chooses which one to use). They usually have unlimited range. It is not considered an Attack for the purpose of other effects and the Target must resolve a test instead of an Evasion Roll. Therefore, a Judgement cannot be mitigated by an Armor Roll, be re-rolled using Evasion Re-rolls or blocked with the Block X keyword. All rules referring to Skill tests apply. Judgements can be modified by Attack types, just like Attack (i.e. a Zone Judgements affects all Titans in a designated Zone).
Who's Hitting Whom? All effects of AI and BP cards are resolved by the Primordial against the Target (in case of an AI) or the Attacker (in case of a BP), unless stated otherwise. For example, this means that when an AI card deals Danger, it's the Primordial dealing Danger to the Titan, or if a BP card triggers a Knockback ability, it's the Primordial who knocks back the Titan.
4.1 Evasion Roll
In Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, the Primordial doesn't roll to hit the Titan. It always hits, unless the Target manages to evade the attack! In the upper right corner of the AI card, each Primordial Attack has a number of Evasion dice and the Evasion Roll difficulty.
To perform an Evasion Roll you must roll the specified number of dice (which must always include one Crit die, see p. 49), trying to roll equal to or higher than the difficulty.
If you have any Gear cards or effects that give you an Evasion bonus, add it to the result of each die rolled. Some Gear cards may grant you Evasion re-rolls that can now be used to re-roll the specified number of dice. You may also use Fate to re-roll Evasion dice (see p. 8). Remember: Each die can only be re-rolled once, regardless of the source of the re-roll!
Then compare the results to the Evasion Roll difficulty. Each result equal to or higher than the Evasion Roll difficulty value is a successful evade, whereas each result lower than the difficulty is a hit. If you have the Block X keyword, you may trigger it now to ignore X hits.
If there are no hits (meaning that you successfully evaded with all dice), it is considered to be a full evade and you should proceed straight to the After Attack part of the AI card, as well as trigger all "Full Evade:" abilities. Otherwise, proceed to the Attack effects (see Attack Consequences on p. 42).
Defensive Weapons
Some weapons (like Shields) have defensive capabilities: they can provide Evasion re-rolls, an Evasion bonus, a Block (see Block X keyword) or Armor dice (see p. 42). If you use any of these effects during the Evasion Roll or Attack Consequences, that weapon Gear card becomes your active weapon until the end of this Primordial Attack. You can only have one active weapon at a time — until the end of this Attack you cannot use any other weapon Gear card (for either defensive or offensive capabilities!).
Crit Evade
Some Gear cards may provide you with Crit Evade abilities and effects. If you roll a Crit during the Evasion Roll (see Crit Die on p. 49), you simply trigger that effect. A Crit result can trigger multiple Crit Evade effects (but you cannot activate Crit Evade effects from two different weapons — only one active weapon at a time!).
Out of Reach (OoR) Evade
If, for some reason, a Titan moves outside of the Attack's effective range after becoming its Target but before resolving an Evasion Roll (for example, by using a Reaction ability), the Attack cannot be performed and the Evasion Roll, as well as any Attack effects, are not resolved. Instead, the Primordial resolves its movement towards the Target, then proceeds straight to the After Attack actions and effects. This maneuver is colloquially called an Out of Reach Evade.
The Hekaton targets Herodotus (who is 6 spaces away) with the Cold Open AI card. In the first window of opportunity, Herodotus uses his Iapetus Lifeguard Gear card to move out of the Attack's effective range. Consequently, the Hekaton moves up to its Speed value, stops 1 space short of adjacency and does not perform the Attack — the player goes straight to the After Attack and proceeds to resolve Pushback 3.
4.2 Attack Consequences
If, after performing the Evasion Roll, any re-rolls and using Block, the Titan is left with at least one hit, you resolve Attack Consequences. The most common consequences are effects and Trauma Draws.
Attack Effects
If at least one die is a hit, you must trigger all effects of the AI card. Thankfully, most Attacks scale with the number of hits you receive, so even a partial evade will make the Attack weaker. Resolve all Attack effects in the order they are written on the card, one sentence at a time. There are many possible Attack effects, but these are the most common ones:
Danger: Most AI cards deal Danger. When this happens, gain Danger equal to the value dealt, then resolve a Trauma Draw (see below).
Other statistics and tokens: Attack effects may also deal Fate, Rage or tokens (for example, Ambrosia or Despair tokens). This is resolved the same way as being dealt Danger (gain a statistic or a number of tokens equal to the value dealt) but does not cause a Trauma Draw unless Danger is dealt as well.
Conditions, other effects and abilities: Some Attacks also include effects that cause you to gain a Condition or another game element, or suffer the effects of abilities (such as Pushback or Knockback).
Armor Roll
When you are dealt Danger as a consequence of a Primordial Attack, if you have any Gear cards with Armor dice, you must perform an Armor Roll. Roll a pool of Power dice equal to the total of all Armor dice on all of your equipped Gear cards (exception: remember that if you use a weapon to defend, you cannot use other equipped weapons during the same Attack. See Defensive weapons, p. 41).
During an Armor Roll, you count Potential symbols, not Power. Subtract all Potential symbols rolled from the total value of Danger dealt. If it reduces your Danger gain to 0, do not resolve a Trauma Draw. Note: Like Power dice, Armor dice cannot be re-rolled using Fate.
Trauma Draw
In Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, there are no hit points or health. When you are hit, your Danger level simply rises. This leads to you drawing Trauma cards of rising severity (Minor, Major, Grave, Obol). These cards can take the form of injuries and negative Conditions, but they are equally as likely to present you with opportunities or allow you to perform heroic deeds. Getting hit in Aeon Trespass: Odyssey doesn't make you weaker, it makes you stronger!
When any Danger is dealt to you, raise your Danger value on the Triskelion, then, before resolving any subsequent effects, immediately perform a Trauma Draw.
To perform a Trauma Draw, consult your Trauma Table (found on the Titan Sheet, see p. 44) and draw a Trauma card of a severity corresponding with your current Danger value.
There are three normal severity levels of Trauma cards: Minor, Major and Grave, referring to the thresholds found in your Trauma Table. There is a fourth, special severity level, called the Obol (see below) but it follows a few different rules.
Some Trauma cards are instantaneous, while others persist throughout the Battle or force you to gain a Condition card. After resolving the Trauma card effects, discard it (unless stated otherwise). Any Trauma card you discard should be put at the bottom of the corresponding deck.
Some game effects may also specifically instruct you to resolve a Trauma Draw, in which case you should draw a Trauma card corresponding to your current Danger level, without raising it (if your Danger is 0, nothing happens). When instructed to draw a Trauma card of a specific severity or to draw an Obol card, simply resolve the Trauma Draw from the designated deck, regardless of your current Danger value.
After you draw a Trauma card, remember to resolve any lingering Attack effects, then proceed to the After Attack effects.
Remember: A Trauma Draw is resolved only when you are dealt Danger from an Attack, not when you gain Danger from other sources (unless it goes over 9, as explained further). Perform a Trauma Draw immediately after you finish resolving an Attack effect that dealt Danger.
Obol (and Obol Draw)
If you have to draw an Obol (either as a result of a Trauma Draw or when another effect instructs you to), you're in real peril. There is a 50:50 chance you will die on the spot!
To draw an Obol, shuffle the Obol deck and draw the top card. There are only 2 Obol cards in the standard Obol deck: a You live! card and a You died card. More cards may be added or changed through other game effects (for example, as a result of Massive Danger, see p. 43). Some game effects may refer to the You died Obol cards. This term includes all Obol cards that result in the Titan dying.
Resolved and discarded Obols are always shuffled back into the Obol deck.
Note: Drawing an Obol is often times called an Obol Draw, though technically it's still a Trauma Draw.
Important: If you are ever forced to perform two or more Obol Draws at the same time, you die.
Example: A knocked down Solon is Trampled by the Labyrinthauros causing him to draw an Obol. However, suffering Crash makes him raise Danger over 9, also resulting in an Obol Draw. He would effectively have to draw an Obol from two sources at once, therefore he dies instead.
Gaining Danger over '9'
Though the Triskelion only goes to 9, you can — and will — gain Danger over this value. In such a case, raise Danger to 9, but for the purpose of the following Trauma Draw treat it as if it was increased to the actual value you would reach. Note: Raising your Danger over 9 during the battle ALWAYS triggers a Trauma/Obol Draw, even if it wasn't dealt during an Attack.
Example: Herodotus is at 8 Danger. The Hekaton stops its move on Herodotus's space, causing Crash and Unavoidable Knockback. The Crash does not trigger a Trauma Draw; the player simply raises their Danger to 9. However, the Unavoidable Knockback sends Herodotus flying into a Column, which causes a second Crash. This second Crash causes him to go over 9 Danger. As the player cannot physically raise Danger on the Triskelion over 9, they leave it at 9. However, Herodotus must resolve a Trauma Draw and draw an Obol because this effect would cause him to raise his Danger to 10. If he survives this draw, he will again be treated as having a Danger value of 9, since that is the maximum Danger value on the Triskelion.
Massive Danger
You thought drawing an Obol from two cards was dire. Think again. In Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, there's always a deeper depth…
In general, the Obol deck consists of two cards: one allows you to survive, while the other spells a gruesome death. However, if you gain so much Danger that you go way above your Obol threshold, you may be forced to add additional Obol cards into the deck, severely decreasing your chances of surviving an Obol Draw. If your Danger temporarily goes up to 14 or higher, remember to always consult the Massive Danger Chart below.
A card added to the Obol deck as a result of Massive Danger is added to the deck immediately before resolving an Obol Draw and it remains there until the end of Battle, effectively making it harder for all Titans to survive subsequent Obol Draws, even if only one of them suffered Massive Danger.
Massive Danger Chart
- 14+ Danger: Add the You died horribly card to the Obol deck.
- 18+ Danger: Add the Your gruesome death becomes legend card to the Obol deck.
- 21+ Danger: Add the Your death transcends reality card to the Obol deck.
These effects stack, i.e. if a Primordial Attack leaves you with a hypothetical 21 Danger and no Obols have been added to the deck so far, add all of them.
Example: Philoctera is at 8 Danger when the Hekaton attacks, dealing a further +8 Danger. She raises her Danger value to 9 and resolves an Obol Draw, temporarily treating her Danger as 16. This causes her to go over the first Massive Danger threshold and she must add the You died horribly Obol card to the Obol deck. She survives it and at a later point she is attacked again! She suffers +6 Danger, causing her to treat her current Danger value as 15. She goes over the Massive Danger threshold again, but doesn't add any more Obols to the deck, since the You died horribly Obol card is already there. For her to add another Obol card to the deck, she'd have to go over the next Massive Danger threshold, and for that her Danger level would have to be raised from 9 to 18 in a single blow.
Window of Opportunity
Most AI cards, as well as some BP cards and other game elements, give the players an opportunity to react to the situation, most often during a Primordial Attack, outside of their normal turn. These "action spaces" are called Windows of Opportunity and are represented by the Window of Opportunity symbol. On AI cards, the symbol will be always placed on the left side of the card, next to the Attack effect.
Whenever you encounter the Window of Opportunity symbol preceding an AI instruction, you may activate Reaction abilities immediately before you resolve that instruction. During a single window of opportunity each Titan may activate any number of Reaction abilities in any order, but no more than one ability with the same name per Titan (see Named Abilities, p. 61).
Chain Break
Some Trauma cards, abilities and other game elements may allow Titans to act during a Primordial or Titan Attack, slightly disrupting the natural flow of the game. If the disruption is big enough, it may trigger a Chain Break, immediately ending the original Attack and invalidating all of its lingering Attack effects, as well as After Attack effects.
If a Titan Bonus Attack or additional Primordial Attack is triggered during a Primordial Attack (for example, by a Trauma card), it causes a Chain Break and the original Primordial Attack immediately ends.
If any game element instructs you to Chain Break, the Attack currently taking place (if any) immediately ends.
In case of Primordial Zone Attacks, a Chain Break performed by one Titan ignores any lingering Attack effects and After Attack effects for this Titan only. Any other Target of the Attack must still resolve them.
If, for any reason, a Titan moves out of its weapon's effective range after it attacks the Primordial but before it performs the Power Roll, it causes a Chain Break and the Attack immediately ends.
If a Chain Break happens during a Titan Attack, resolve the Clear the Kratos Pool and second ability window steps (see Combat Action, p. 48) before you proceed to resolving the effect that caused the Chain Break.
Note: Titan Bonus Attacks triggered during a Titan Attack are considered to be Follow-up Attacks. They do not cause Chain Breaks and are instead resolved after you finish resolving the current Attack, much like Primordial "Attack Responses."
Fate Effect Triggers
Fate is a cruel mistress. It allows you to re-roll your Attack and Evasion dice and pay for abilities, but luck eventually runs out and you have to pay out.
Some AI cards have additional or stronger effects depending on your Fate level. This is always indicated by a special banner, showing the Fate level needed for the effect to trigger, such as "Fate 3+: +1 Evasion die". In this example, if your Fate was 3 or higher, you'd have to roll an additional Evasion die.
Other Effect Triggers
There may be other effect triggers out there, based not on Fate, but other Triskelion statistics or even completely different game elements. These will be represented the same way but with corresponding symbols or descriptions. Stay vigilant!
5. After Attack
The After Attack section of an AI card has additional effects that happen after you resolve, or evade, the main part of the Primordial Attack. Note that these are completely separate from the Attack, therefore they get resolved even if the actual Attack was fully evaded or if it wasn't performed at all (because the Target was out of range). The only thing capable of canceling the After Attack effects is a Chain Break (see p. 43) or the Mercy Rule (see p. 56).
Unless stated otherwise, all After Attack effects targeting a single Titan affect the original Target of the Attack.
Note: An After Attack instruction on an AI card that targets multiple Titans is resolved against each of these Titans. However, if an Attack includes an After Final Attack instruction, it only takes effect after resolving the Attack against the last of its Targets.
Once you finish resolving the After Attack effect (if there is any), discard the AI card. If there are no more cards in the AI decks, shuffle the discard to form the new AI deck.
Resolve Other Actions
Primordials are unspeakable monsters and they have many tricks up their sleeves. Some may perform additional Attacks after the mandatory AI Draw, while others will trigger Trait effects and other effects.
Any additional Attacks are resolved using the normal rules explained above. Every Trait that triggers an additional effect will introduce its own rules.
End of Primordial Round
Sometimes the Primordial will have some effect that triggers at the end of the Primordial Round. In that case, it's resolved after all other actions. If the Primordial has more than one end of Round effect, the players may resolve these effects in any order they choose. Also remember to unexhaust Argo Abilities (see Argo Abilities on p. 55 for details).
Titan Round
So, you survived the Primordial Round? Good for you! Now's the time to fight back! This section covers everything that happens during the Titan Round, including Titan turns, using Argo Abilities, Awakenings and more.
First, let's start with the basics: the Titan Sheet and Titan equipment.
Titan Sheet
During Battles, you play as mortal Argonauts junctioning with mighty Titans using the Triskelion, therefore you use a combination of an Argonaut Sheet (see p. 10), a Triskelion triple dial (see p. 11) and a Titan Sheet (see below). The Titan serves as a "vessel," while the Argonaut is the "pilot," providing their expertise (in the form of Skills and Mnemos Abilities, see p. 11 and 29).
Each Titan is represented by a large Titan Sheet that includes all the basic information about a given Titan. Besides the Titan class name and illustration, it shows the Titan Power die, Speed value and inherent abilities, as well as a Trauma Table and a Kratos Table.
Main Attributes:
- Titan Power: A Power die you include in every Power Roll you perform. Some Titans may have inherent Keywords or even additional raw Power denoted here as well.
- Speed: Maximum number of spaces the Titan can move with a movement action.
- Inherent Ability box: Abilities available to you while you are junctioned with this Titan.
Trauma Table
The Trauma Table represents the Titan's ability to stay in the fight. It features various Trauma thresholds (Minor, Major, Grave and Obol) that correspond to your current Danger level (see Triskelion, p. 11). Whenever you are instructed to perform a Trauma Draw, check your current Danger and draw a Trauma or Obol card of the corresponding level, based on this Table. (see Trauma Draw, p. 42).
Kratos Table
The more Rage you have, the deadlier you become. This is reflected by the Kratos Table. The table shows Rage levels and corresponding abilities and bonuses applied to every Attack you perform. Most Kratos Table effects are keyword abilities (see p. 63) and they follow all rules of keyword abilities (stackable keywords from a Kratos Table may stack with keywords from other sources). You gain the benefits of your current Rage level, as well as all preceding levels. All symbols found in the Kratos Table are explained on the back of the corresponding Titan Sheet or Pattern card.
Triskelion
The Triskelion, shared between the Argonaut and the Titan, is the central element of the Aeon Trespass: Odyssey setting and the key component of the Inverted Combat Paradigm, a main Battle mechanic. It's important. That's why we described it earlier, in the Campaign Basics section, on p. 11. Even if you've already read that, it's worth checking out again!
Kratos Tokens
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey has been designed around the idea that a single person may be weak, but a group of them, working in unison, is unstoppable. Consequently, many mechanics require close cooperation between players.
One of these mechanics are the Kratos tokens, a special kind of ability that allows you to leave helpful effects for others to use. You may leave Kratos tokens as a result of weapon abilities, Kratos Tables or through other game effects. All Kratos tokens are placed in the Kratos Pool. They can be used during the following Titan Attack, after which they will be discarded (regardless of whether you used them). In other words, there's no point in saving them up.
The most common types of Kratos tokens are the Opening tokens and the Break tokens:
Each Opening token in the Kratos Pool adds +1 to the result of each Attack die rolled during an Attack Roll (see p. 49).
Each Break token in the Kratos Pool, can turn 1 potential into 1 Power (see Power Roll, p. 50).
Most abilities allow you to place Kratos tokens in the Kratos Pool during the second ability window, at the very end of a Titan Attack (see Combat Action, p. 48). Some rare abilities, however, may allow you to place Kratos tokens during the first ability window, making your own Attack stronger. Make sure to always check the timing of new abilities and keywords.
Gear cards
Gear cards represent various types of equipment used by the Titans in their Battles against Primordials. Most Gear is crafted during the Advancement Step (see p. 17), while some is gained as rewards from adventures, Critical Wounds and other sources.
Each Gear card has a symbol that designates its type. It may also have offensive stats, defensive stats, an ability box and Gear traits.
There are four types of Gear cards:
- Weapons (one handed, two handed and three handed): All Gear carried by Titans in their hands counts as a weapon (shields included!). Weapons can occupy one hand slot, two hand slots or even three hand slots. All weapons have offensive capabilities, but some of them may grant you defensive ones as well. Usually, Titans have two weapon slots.
- Armor: This category includes all sorts of defensive Gear that covers the Titan's body. Armor cards usually grant armor dice, Evasion bonus, Evasion re-rolls or a combination of these defensive statistics. Usually, Titans have one armor slot.
- Support: Gives you access to unique abilities and effects. Support cards don't usually have defensive or offensive statistics. By default, Titans have two support slots. Tip: Do not delay getting Support cards; in Aeon Trespass: Odyssey they're vital for your survival!
- Attachment: These cards must be attached to another game element (such as other Gear cards or the Titan Sheet). They may modify the game element they are attached to, apply additional effects or give you access to completely new abilities. Normally, a Titan Sheet can have up to three Attachments and each other card can have up to one Attachment.
Gear Slots. A basic Dreamwalker and most Argo-bred Titan classes have the same number of various Gear slots. Two hand slots for weapons, one armor slot and two support slots.
Attachments do not take up slots but they are also limited. You can have up to three Attachments on your Titan Sheet and up to one Attachment on each Gear card. Note that Attachments can have their own additional limitations.
Some Argo-bred Titan classes, as well as some other Gear will add new slots or modify existing slots, making Titan Loadouts even more flexible.
Fists
Even without a weapon, a Titan is armed: with its fists and teeth and grit! This is represented by the special Fists Gear card. For all intents and purposes, Fists are treated as any other Gear card, with the following exceptions:
- Fists can be used one handed or two handed.
- Each Titan can use a single Fists card. If, after performing Gear Loadout (see Standard Preparations on p. 34), a Titan has one or more free hand slots, you may equip a Fists card and use it as a one handed or two handed weapon, respectively.
- If, at any point of the Battle, a Titan loses their weapon Gear card(s), they may immediately equip a Fists card and use it as a one handed or two handed weapon, respectively.
- When a Titan is about to declare an active weapon during an Attack, you may choose to discard one or more of your equipped weapon Gear cards (see Discarding on p. 62) to equip a Fists card (for example to resolve a Bonus Attack when your Titan is adjacent to the Primordial and equipped with a Ranged weapon).
- If, at any point of the Battle, the Titan gains a Gear card that uses up their hand slot(s) occupied by Fists, you must set the Fists card aside. It is then no longer equipped on the Titan.
- Fists can be exhausted or discarded just like any other Gear card! If a Titan loses its Fists card, then they are truly helpless!
- Fists remain unchanged in every Cycle.
Game Elements and Attachments
If a game element is exhausted or lost, its attachments also share the same fate. In other words, an Attachment of an exhausted game element is also exhausted, an Attachment of a discarded game element is also discarded, and if, for whatever reason, the game element is lost and removed from the game permanently, the attached Attachment card shares its fate.
Gear Attributes
All Gear cards share a number of attributes that define them. They include offensive and defensive Gear stats.
Offensive Gear Stats
These attributes are found primarily on weapons and influence your ability to attack. They are always situated on the left side of the Gear card and include:
- Attack dice: Number of Attack dice rolled during an Attack.
- Precision bonus: A value you add to the result of each of your Attack dice.
- Weapon Power: Number and tier (color) of Power dice provided by each hit. Once you hit the Primordial, for each successful hit you add this many dice to your Power Pool.
- Bonus Power: Some powerful weapons have Bonus Power, i.e. a bonus Power die or even raw Power that is added to each Attack, providing the player scored at least one hit.
Defensive Gear Stats
These attributes increase your survivability and are found primarily on armor, shield weapons and some support cards. They are always situated on the right side of the Gear card and include:
- Armor dice: Number of Armor dice added to your Armor Roll dice pool.
- Evasion bonus: A value you add to the result of each of your Evasion dice.
- Evasion re-roll: During an Evasion Roll, you may re-roll a number of dice up to this value without any additional cost. Note: These work like normal Fate re-rolls (see p. 8), but don't carry an additional cost. Remember you can only re-roll each die once, regardless of how many re-roll sources you have!
Other Gear Stats and Qualities
These are various other commonplace stats and qualities found on many Gear cards.
Charges: Some powerful effects are limited by the number of charges. At the start of Battle, place a number of Charge tokens on this card equal to the Charges value. When an ability instructs you to spend a charge, discard one token from this card. If there are no charges on a Gear card, you cannot use abilities that require you to discard a charge.
Ability box: All effects described in this part of a Gear card are abilities. To learn more about them, see Ability Usage on p. 60.
Gear traits: These are additional descriptors of each Gear card. They have no inherent effect but other game elements may refer to specific Gear traits. They are always active as long as the Gear card is equipped on a Titan.
Gated Abilities and Effects
In Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, even Gear cards (and some other game elements) grow more powerful as the Battle goes on and their wielder inches closer to death. Consequently, most Gear cards have effects and abilities that are gated by certain requirements, usually a certain Danger level.
These abilities are most often found at the bottom of a card, in a differently colored box. The gate requirement can be found at the top of the box. If the gate requirement is met, the ability or effect is treated as if it was part of the ability box. If, for some reason, you stop meeting the gate requirement, the ability is again locked and unavailable. Note that some gated abilities are added on top of the normal abilities, while others replace the normal abilities of a card.
Backs of Gear cards
Gear cards are double sided. The back includes additional information, like which Cycle the Gear card belongs to, the Technology card that allows you to craft the Gear, as well as some flavor text. Some rare, unique Gear cards may also include additional rules there.
Pattern cards
Pattern cards represent permanent enhancements and modifications applied to the Titans themselves. These can take the form of specialized Training or outright augmentations to the Titan's biology, through the introduction of Strains.
Pattern cards can modify either the Trauma Table (Trauma Patterns) or Kratos Table (Kratos Patterns) of a Titan Sheet.
Whenever a Pattern card is applied to a Titan, name that Titan (note it on one of the Argonaut Sheets) and note its Pattern. This connection is permanent. In other words, you cannot move the Pattern card to another Titan at a later time, you have to stick with what you've got.
If a Titan with a Pattern dies, that Pattern is also lost — it's not returned to the Argo Armory like Gear cards are. This means that Patterns are unique and hard to come by. If only there was a way to make the process of acquiring Patterns easier and more regular…
Titan Round Overview
Unless an effect explicitly states otherwise, a Titan Round always comes after a Primordial Round. The Titan Round proceeds as follows:
- Start of Titan Round
- Titan turns
- End of Titan Round
Start of Titan Round
Sometimes a game effect will trigger at the start of the Titan Round. In that case, it's resolved before any of the players take their turns. If there is more than one start of Round effect, the players may resolve these effects in any order they like.
Titan Turns
During the Titan Round, you take turns activating your Titans, one at a time, until each Titan has acted. You may take your turns in any order you like to make best of the tactical situation at hand. Just remember, you cannot pause one Titan's turn to take another Titan's turn! In other words, you must completely resolve one Titan turn to start another.
During their turn, a Titan gets one combat action and one movement action. You can perform these actions in any order, but you must finish one action before you perform another. Some effects and abilities may require you to spend one or both of your actions. You can only spend an action if you haven't performed it yet, and after it is spent it cannot be performed this turn. Note: Unless stated otherwise, you are not forced to perform all of your actions, but any unused actions will be lost when the turn ends.
A Titan's turn ends immediately once it has performed all of its available actions and it cannot take their turn again until the next Titan Round. To track this, turn your Argonaut card 90 degrees to the right. Once all Titans have taken their turns, turn all Argonaut cards back to their normal positions and proceed to the Primordial Round. Note: This is not considered to be exhausting a card!
Movement action
The movement action is, generally, used to move the Titan around. You will use it to get close to the Primordial or take any other tactically advantageous position.
When you perform your movement action, you can move a number of spaces up to your Titan's Speed value. First declare the space you want to reach, then move your Titan, one space at a time, resolving the effects of Terrain tiles you travel through as you move onto them.
There are other general rules and restrictions that apply to movement actions:
- All movement is performed in cardinal directions. You cannot move diagonally!
- You cannot move through Obstacle or Chasm Terrain tiles.
- You cannot move through other Titans or the Primordial.
- You cannot move through red lines (see Labyrinth, p. 68).
- As part of a single movement, you cannot move onto the same space twice.
Titan Movement Example: Titans can only move in cardinal directions, never diagonally. They cannot voluntarily move through other miniatures.
Titan Movement Example: Titans cannot move through Obstacle Terrain tiles and red lines. They may, however, freely move through other Terrain tiles, unless stated otherwise.
Move-like Ability
If an ability, Trauma, or any other effect allows you to move voluntarily without performing a movement action, it is considered a Move-like ability. Move-like abilities are resolved in the same way as movement actions (unless stated otherwise), but they are not considered a movement action for the purpose of other abilities and effects.
Voluntary Movement
All movement performed as part of a movement action and any move-like abilities are voluntary, meaning that you may perform as much of it as you require (i.e. if you have 5 Speed, you may choose to move only 3 spaces; if you have the Reposition 2 keyword, you may still choose to Reposition 1 instead).
Involuntary Movement
All movement caused by an opposing force (i.e. Primordial actions causing Titan movement or Titan actions causing the Primordial to move) is involuntary and must be resolved up to its maximum value, unless another effect forces you to stop. The most common causes of involuntary movement are Knockbacks (see p. 63) and Pushbacks (see p. 65). Involuntary movement is resolved like voluntary movement, with the following exceptions:
- Titans can be involuntary moved through spaces occupied by other miniatures and Obstacle Terrain tiles. If a Titan is involuntarily moved into a Board Edge, it continues to move along its edge, away from the source of the involuntary movement (if possible).
- If a Titan ends involuntary movement on a space occupied by another Titan, the other Titan is displaced (see Displace keyword, p. 63).
- If a Titan is involuntarily moved onto a space with an Obstacle Terrain tile, it suffers Crash (p. 63). If the Terrain is Destructible, it is then removed from the Battle Board. If it's Indestructible, it stays on the board.
- If a Titan ends involuntary movement on a space with a Chasm Terrain tile or they are pushed onto such a space during Pushback, they die. Note: A knocked back Titan will die by falling into a Chasm only if it ends Knockback on it, otherwise it will be moved over it.
- Some Terrain tiles may have special rules that come into play when a Titan or Primordial move onto them involuntarily.
Important: A single effect can be a voluntary movement for one miniature and involuntary for another. For example, when a Titan performs Pushback against a Primordial, it is a voluntary movement for the Titan and an involuntary one for the Primordial.
Involuntary Movement Reduction
Titan abilities, traits and other effects may reduce involuntary movement. Multiple effects reducing involuntary movement may be applied at the same time, e.g. if a Titan has two Gear cards that allow them to reduce suffered Pushbacks by 1 each, then deal a Critical Wound that reduces Primordial Pushbacks by 2, all of these effects can be combined to reduce Pushback suffered by this Titan by a total of 4.
Other Uses of Movement Actions
As mentioned at the start of this section, there may be some other uses for a movement action, for example to unexhaust Gear (see Unexhausting on p. 62) and as part of a complicated action (see Complicated Actions on p. 54).
Combat Action
The combat action is generally used to attack the Primordial. This is how you deal Wounds and win the Battle!
A combat action is the main way of performing Titan Attacks. To perform a Titan Attack, resolve these steps, called the attack sequence, in the following order:
- Declare Attack and Active Weapon
- Raise Rage and check Priority Target
- Attack Roll
- First Ability Window
- Draw BP card
- Power Roll
- 6.1 Create the Power Pool
- 6.2 Roll the Dice
- 6.3 Power Re-rolls
- 6.4 Use Potentials
- 6.5 Resolve the Power Roll
- Primordial Responses
- Wounds and Escalation
- Clear the Kratos Pool
- Second Ability Window
1. Declare Attack and Active Weapon
Declare you are about to Attack, then choose one of your unexhausted weapon Gear cards as an active weapon for this Attack. You can only choose a weapon as active if the target of your Attack is in its effective range (adjacent for melee, within range X–Y for ranged, etc.) and LoS (see Line of Sight on p. 38). Note: If a weapon does not have a Ranged or Reach keyword, it is considered Melee.
If you cannot choose a legal active weapon or don't have LoS, you cannot perform an Attack. Do not resolve any further steps of the attack sequence. If an Attack ends in this step, it does not cause a Chain Break (see p. 43).
Effective Range. Effective range is the distance, in spaces, from the Attacker to the Target. Just like movement, it is calculated in cardinal directions, never diagonally.
An effective range of most weapons is adjacency, meaning you need to stand next to the Primordial to perform the Attack. These are called Melee weapons.
Reach X weapons have an effective range of X, meaning you can attack a target up to X spaces away. Reach weapons can also be used when adjacent.
Ranged X–Y weapons have an effective range of X–Y, meaning you can only attack a target at least X and up to Y spaces away. Most ranged weapons cannot be used while adjacent.
2. Raise Rage and Check Priority Target
Raise your Rage value by 1. Then, if your Rage is higher than the Priority Target's Rage, you become the new Priority Target. Gain the Priority Target token.
3. Attack Roll
Roll a number of (d10) Attack dice equal to the Attack dice value of your weapon. Increase the result of each Attack die by your weapon's Precision bonus. Remember that you can use Opening tokens from the Kratos Pool to gain additional Precision (see Kratos Tokens on p. 45). You can also re-roll your dice by paying Fate or using other abilities and effects that provide Attack re-rolls (see Dice Re-rolls on p. 8).
Each die with a result equal to or higher than the Primordial's To Hit value is a hit. If you hit with all your Attack dice, it is considered a full hit and activates all "Full hit:" abilities (except ones on inactive weapons). Note that not all "Full hit" abilities activate immediately. If they denote a specific timing condition, they take effect at that time (see Ability Usage, p. 60).
All dice that are not hits are misses. If you miss with all your Attack dice, it is considered a full miss. Go straight to step 9 (Clear the Kratos Pool), without resolving any further Attack steps, then activate all "Full miss:" abilities (except ones on inactive weapons) and immediately end the Attack.
Note that some Gear cards have additional effects that activate based on the result of your Attack Roll.
Remember: A natural '10' is always a hit and a natural '1' is always a miss no matter how many positive or negative Precision modifiers you apply.
Crit die
Whenever you perform an Attack or Evasion Roll, one of the dice you roll must always be the white Crit die. If you roll only one die, it is always the Crit die. The Crit die is used to simulate strokes of luck, as well as unexpected failures. Whenever you roll a natural (i.e. before applying any modifiers) '10' on the Crit die, you gain a "Crit Chance" for this Attack. During a Titan Attack, a Crit Chance may turn your Wound into a Critical Wound! If you successfully wound the Primordial while you have a Crit Chance, ignore all other responses and instead resolve the Critical response. If you fail to wound, resolve Responses as normal.
Some Gear cards, Titan Sheets and Mnemos cards introduce other crit effects during and outside of attacking. These refer only to the result on the Crit die and they include:
Crit Chance: Resolve this effect if you roll a natural '10' in the Attack Roll (on top of gaining the "Crit Chance" as normal).
Crit Miss: Resolve this effect if you roll a natural '1' in the Attack Roll. You may re-roll this die as normal (using Fate or other effects), but Crit Miss effects must be resolved nonetheless. If you re-roll the Crit die and roll a natural '1' again, resolve any Crit Miss effects an additional time.
Crit Evade: Resolve this effect if you roll a natural '10' in the Evasion Roll.
Crit Evade Fail: Resolve this effect if you roll a natural '1' in the Evasion Roll. You may re-roll this die as normal (using Fate or other effects), but Crit Evade Fail effects must be resolved nonetheless. If you re-roll the Crit die and roll a natural '1' again, resolve any Crit Evade Fail effects an additional time.
4. First Ability Window
Activate applicable abilities from your Titan's Kratos Table, Mnemos cards, your active weapon and any other non-weapon Gear cards equipped on your Titan. Only the attacking Titan may activate abilities during this window, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Abilities used during this window will influence your own Attack. These mostly include abilities that allow you to change your Titan's positioning or push the Primordial (such as Vault or Pushback X). Some rare abilities may also allow you to add Kratos tokens for yourself (such as Auto-break X), but most Kratos token abilities are used during the second ability window (see Kratos Tokens, p. 45). To learn more about each ability's timing, see the Keywords List on p. 63 or the back of your Titan Sheet.
5. Draw BP Card
Primordials are giant monsters from some Other Place and their wholly alien biology reflects that. Their bodies are as varied as they are grotesque, and that is represented by the BP cards.
Draw the top card from the BP deck and reveal it. Notice the roman numeral in the center of the card back. This number indicates the level of the BP card. So, although the BP deck is kept facedown, you get some sense of how tough the next BP card will be to wound.
If at any point the BP or AI decks would be empty (for example when all cards from that deck are on the corresponding discard pile) after resolving the current action, shuffle the discard pile into the deck.
BP cards include the following information:
- Primordial Symbol: Shows the Primordial the BP card belongs to.
- Name: Name of the Primordial body part you are attacking.
- Card Level: The level of the BP card. The higher the level, the more vital the body part and the higher the AT and the consequences of the Attack.
- Primordial Resources: The resources you will gain after the Battle, if the BP card is in the Wound Stack.
- AT: The Aeon Trespass field, the Primordial's supernatural resistance to harm. The higher the AT, the more Power is required to wound it.
- Responses: The Primordial will usually react to your Attack, depending on whether you Wound it, Fail to wound or regardless of your wound attempt, on Instinct.
- Critical: If you manage to deal a Critical Wound, you will deal a powerful blow to the Primordial. Read the flavor text and enjoy your spoils! You do not resolve any other Responses if you critically wound the BP card. Important: A Crit Chance by itself is not a Critical! If you fail to wound the Primordial, it's just a fail!
6. Power Roll
Hitting the Primordial is only the beginning. These beings are made of otherworldly flesh and surrounded by a strange field we call the Aeon Trespass field (AT field). No mortal weapon can penetrate the AT field. Only the tenacity and supernatural power of a Titan can break through and deal a Wound!
To do that, your Total Power must be equal to or higher than the current BP card's AT value. To perform the Power Roll, follow these steps:
- 6.1 Create the Power Pool
- 6.2 Roll the Dice
- 6.3 Power Re-rolls
- 6.4 Use Potentials
- 6.5 Resolve the Power Roll
6.1 Creating the Power Pool
First, gather your Power Pool. The pool is comprised of Power dice of various colors (red, black and white) and, sometimes, of raw Power. The higher the number of dice in the pool, the better your chances of wounding a Primordial.
Each successful hit grants you as many Power dice as your active weapon's Weapon Power attribute. In other words, the more hits you score on your Attack dice, the more powerful your Attack is going to be. Some weapons also have the Bonus Power attribute, which is added to the pool if you score at least one hit.
Then, add your Titan's Power die and any other bonuses from your Kratos Table, equipped non-weapon Gear, Mnemos cards and other applicable game effects.
Example: Herodotus attacks with a Maze Rake. He hits with both of his Attack dice, so he adds two dice to the Power Pool from the Maze Rake's Weapon Power attribute. Maze Rake also has a Bonus Power attribute that grants him an additional single red die (note that Bonus Power is not multiplied by the number of hits!). By performing this Attack, Herodotus raised his Rage up to 5 so he gains another red die from the Kratos Table. Finally, he adds his Titan's Power die, resulting in an impressive Power Pool of 5 red dice!
Power Dice Tiers. In Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, there are three tiers of Power dice. If an effect instructs you to use a dice of a higher tier, use the following chart to make the upgrade: red → black → white.
Power Dice Limit
Some powerful weapons combined with additional bonuses may allow you to generate a Power Pool surpassing the number of dice provided in the game box. If you are required to add a die to the Power Pool and there are no dice of that type available, instead roll a die one tier higher instead of two of these dice (i.e. if you were required to roll 7 red Power dice, instead roll 5 red dice and 1 black die).
6.2 Rolling the Dice
To perform a Power Roll, simply take all the dice in your Power Pool and roll them. Each Power symbol gives you one Power. Then, add all the raw Power you have, each of these is simply treated as another Power symbol.
6.3 Power Re-rolls
Power dice cannot be re-rolled using Fate. There are, however, other effects that may grant you Power Re-rolls. Remember that all re-roll restrictions apply to Power Re-rolls as well: each die can be re-rolled only once and you must declare all dice you wish to re-roll before re-rolling any of them.
6.4 Using Potentials
Each potential result gives you one potential. These do not provide you with any benefits of themselves, but they can be turned into Power using various effects. The most common of those effects are the Break tokens (see Kratos Tokens p. 45 and Keywords on p. 63).
6.5 Resolve The Power Roll
After using all re-rolls, potential symbols and all other applicable abilities, sum up all those Power. This is the Total Power of this Attack.
Remember, to successfully wound the Primordial, your Total Power must be equal to or higher than the current BP card's AT value! If it is, you deal a Wound. If you gained a Crit Chance during the Attack Roll, you deal a Critical Wound instead! Then, if the total number of Wounds on the Wound Stack (including the Wound you just dealt) equals or exceeds the Primordial's Wounds value, the Primordial is slain. The Battle immediately ends with the Argonauts' victory and you should proceed to the Aftermath. Exception: If you won through dealing a Critical Wound, you still gain every tangible reward from that Critical (no additional Attacks though)!
If your Total Power is less than the AT, you Fail to wound.
Note: Some game elements have additional effects that trigger (or may activate) on a Wound or Fail. Remember to always resolve all "Wound:" and "Fail:" effects.
7. Primordial Responses
Primordials are powerful monstrous beings and they do not take lightly to being attacked! Almost every Titan Attack will garner some form of response. Most responses are resolved immediately after the Power Roll, with the exception of the deadly Attack Responses and devastating Follow-up Titan Attacks, both of which happen after the current Titan Attack is completely resolved.
The exact nature of the response depends on the result of the Power Roll. If you scored a Wound, you resolve the Wound Response.
If you failed to wound the Primordial, you resolve the Fail Response. If you scored a Critical Wound, resolve the Critical (and ignore all other Responses). Sometimes a Primordial will also have an Instinct Response that you have to resolve regardless of the Power Roll result (and in addition to any other normal Response; the only exception to this is a Critical).
Example: If a Titan fails to wound this BP card, it will suffer Pushback 2. If it wounds, no Response will be resolved.
Once you know which Response should be resolved (if any), see if it involves a Primordial Attack (AI card, Signature or Routine) or a Follow-up Titan Attack. If it does, note what kind of Attack it will be, then finish up the current attack sequence. The new Attack will happen immediately after this one is completely resolved and will not cause a Chain Break.
If the Response doesn't involve any kind of new Attack, resolve it now. If there are no appropriate Responses (for example, you failed to wound, but the BP card doesn't have a Fail Response), nothing happens. If multiple Responses apply, resolve them in the order of your choosing.
Unless stated otherwise, Responses are resolved by the Primordial against the Titan (e.g. to resolve Wound: Pushback 4, the Primordial would push the Titan 4 spaces).
Responses and Adjacency
Unless stated otherwise, a Response should be resolved regardless of the Titan's positioning. This means that ranged Attack will still elicit a Primordial Response (e.g. even if the Titan is 6 spaces away from the Primordial, you will resolve Wound: Pushback 4 by moving the Primordial 4 spaces towards the Titan).
Knockback and Knockdown are the exceptions. If, for any reason (for example, if the Titan is using a ranged weapon or moved away during a Window of Opportunity), a Titan isn't adjacent to the Primordial when they should resolve a Knockback or Knockdown Response, that Response is ignored.
8. Wounds and Escalation
Primordials get progressively harder as the Battle goes on because power begets power. Such is the effect of Escalation, a central Battle mechanic to rival the Triskelion. Escalation will make the Primordial tougher by adding higher level cards to the BP deck, and more deadly, by swapping AI cards in the AI deck.
Note: If the Total Power of your Attack is lower than the AT value of the targeted BP card, you failed to wound the Primordial. Place the BP card you targeted on top of the BP discard pile and do not perform Escalation. Skip this step and continue to resolve the Attack.
If the Total Power of your Attack is equal to or higher than the AT value of the targeted BP card, you wound the Primordial and perform Escalation.
Wound Stack
Successfully wounded BP cards become Wounds and end up on the Wound Stack. However, not all Wounds are equal!
Some attacks are so devastating they inflict multiple Wounds instead! The most common source of Double Wounds are the BP III cards. Some game effects, especially Critical Wounds, can also cause you to deal Additional Single Wounds. The general rules are as follows:
- If you wound a BP I or BP II card, you place it faceup on top of the Wound Stack. This is a single Wound.
- If you wound a BP III card, you place the generic Double Wound card on top of the Wound Stack and set the wounded BP III card aside. It will return to the bottom of the deck after Escalation (see Full Escalation Chart, p. 53).
- If you critically wound a BP III card, you place it on top of the Wound Stack instead. Each BP III card on the Wound Stack counts as two Wounds (just like a Double Wound would).
- If an effect instructs you to deal an additional Single Wound, place a generic Single Wound card on top of the Wound Stack, in addition to any other Wounds you've dealt.
Performing Escalation
Escalation is the process of adding more powerful cards to the BP and AI decks. It works slightly differently for each deck and in some special circumstances, but the general principle is the same. If you are instructed to search a deck and discard pile for a card, always prioritize cards from the deck. Only if you find no applicable cards in the deck should you search the discard pile.
For a full breakdown of each case, see the Full Escalation Chart on the next page.
For general rules, see the following paragraphs.
Escalating the BP Deck
Your attack has exposed a deeper or more important body part of the Primordial. Maybe you've broken through the outer defenses, maybe you've torn away a piece of armor or smashed a carapace plate. Beneath lies something new, something more vital to the wellbeing of the creature.
In general, when the current BP card leaves the BP deck to become a Wound, you take a random BP card of a higher level from the BP Escalation deck and shuffle it into the BP deck. If the new BP card would end up as the only card in the deck, shuffle in the BP discard pile too.
For special cases, see the Full Escalation Chart on the next page.
Escalating the AI Deck
Just as your attack has exposed a more vital part of the Primordial's body, so has it exposed the creature itself to the notion of death. It does not like it and will become more aggressive and deadly to assure it does not fall today!
To escalate the AI deck, search the deck and discard pile (prioritize the deck) for a card matching the wounded BP card's level and remove it from the Battle. Then, take a random AI card of one level higher and shuffle it into the AI deck. If there is now only one card in the AI deck or you removed a card from the discard pile, shuffle the discard pile into the deck.
If there are no AI cards that match the level of the BP card, remove a card of one level higher and escalate based on that card. This will lead you straight from a level I card to level III. Note: If there are no more current or higher-level cards to escalate, you will add a permanent stat bonus instead.
For special cases, see the Full Escalation Chart on the next page.
Example: Herodotus wounded a BP III card! It wasn't a Critical Wound, so the players set it aside, place a Double Wound on top of the Wound Stack, then resolve the Escalation instructions: they search the BP deck and discard pile for the lowest level BP card. They find that the lowest card in the BP deck is a BP II and the lowest card in the discard pile is a BP I. Therefore, they remove the BP I card from the discard pile from the Battle and shuffle the discard pile back into the BP deck. Then, they add a BP III card from an Escalation Deck and shuffle the BP deck again. Finally, they place the set aside BP III card at the bottom of the deck and proceed to AI escalation. They search the AI deck and discard for the lowest level card, just as they did with the BP cards. They find an AI I card both in the deck and in discard. Since none of them is lower, they prioritize the deck — the card from the AI deck is removed from the game and the discard pile returns to its place, unshuffled. Finally, they shuffle an AI III card from an Escalation deck into the AI deck and continue resolving the Titan Attack.
Full Escalation Chart
Wounded card: BP I (Place the wounded card on the Wound Stack)
- BP deck: Shuffle a BP II card from the Escalation deck into the BP deck.
- AI deck: Search the AI deck and the AI discard pile for an AI I card and remove it from the Battle. If you removed a card from the discard pile, shuffle the discard pile into the AI deck. Shuffle an AI II card from the Escalation deck into the AI deck.
Wounded card: BP II (Place the wounded card on the Wound Stack)
- BP deck: Shuffle a BP III card from the Escalation deck into the BP deck.
- AI deck: Search the AI deck and the AI discard pile for an AI II card and remove it from the Battle. If you removed a card from the discard pile, shuffle the discard pile into the AI deck. Shuffle an AI III card from the Escalation deck into the AI deck.
Wounded card: BP III (Set the wounded card aside and place a generic Double Wound on the Wound Stack)
- BP deck: Search the BP deck and BP discard pile for the lowest level BP card and remove it from the Battle. If you removed a card from the discard pile, shuffle the discard pile into the deck. Shuffle a BP III card from the Escalation deck into the BP deck. Place the set aside BP III card at the bottom of the BP deck.
- AI deck: Search the AI deck and the AI discard pile for the lowest level AI card and remove it from the Battle. If you removed a card from the discard pile, shuffle the discard into the AI deck. Shuffle an AI III card from the Escalation deck into the AI deck.
Wounded card: BP III – Critical Wound (Place the wounded card on the Wound Stack — it counts as 2 Wounds)
- BP deck: Search the BP deck and BP discard pile for the lowest level BP card and remove it from the Battle. If you removed a card from the discard pile, shuffle the discard pile into the deck. Shuffle two BP III cards from the Escalation deck into the BP deck.
Wounded card: BP III – When there are no BP III cards in the Escalation decks. (Set the wounded card aside and place a generic Double Wound on the Wound Stack)
- BP deck: Shuffle the BP discard pile into the BP deck. Place the set aside BP III card at the bottom of the BP deck.
- AI deck: Search the AI deck and the AI discard pile for the lowest level AI card and remove it from the Battle. If you removed a card from the discard pile, shuffle the discard into the AI deck. Shuffle an AI III card from the Escalation deck into the AI deck. If there are no level III AI cards in the Escalation decks, instead the Primordial gains 1 bonus per Wound, in the following order: +1 Danger dealt per hit, +1 To Hit, +1 Evasion die, +1 Escalation.
Wounded card: BP III – Critical Wound, when there are no BP III cards in the Escalation decks. (Place the wounded card on the Wound Stack — it counts as 2 Wounds)
- BP deck: Shuffle the BP discard pile into the BP deck. Note: the BP deck will have 1 card less.
Escalations Outside of Wounding
Some effects, like Responses, may instruct you to escalate the Primordial even if there is no Wound or even outside of a Titan Attack. If that happens, simply perform the Escalation as normal, with the following exception: as no Wound was dealt, you will have to remove the lowest BP card from the Battle.
Escalations Outside of Battle
Some effects may instruct you to escalate the Primordial outside of Battle (usually using the phrase "Escalate X," where X is the number of Escalations to perform). If that happens, note it, then perform the Escalations during Battle Setup, as normal, with the following exception: as no Wound was dealt, you will have to remove the lowest BP card from the Battle.
Escalating Only One Deck
Some rare effects may instruct you to escalate only the BP or AI deck. If that happens, simply escalate the indicated deck and leave the other deck as is.
9. Clear the Kratos Pool
After resolving Responses and performing Escalation, remove all tokens from the Kratos Pool, unless explicitly instructed otherwise. Important: Remember to always make use of as many Kratos tokens as possible, since they will be removed at the end of the Attack anyway.
10. Second Ability Window
Activate applicable abilities from your Titan's Kratos Table, Mnemos cards, your active weapon and any other non-weapon Gear cards equipped on your Titan. Only the attacking Titan may activate abilities during this window, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
During this ability window, you can use most of the abilities that place tokens in the Kratos Pool (such as Opening X or Break X) to support your fellow players. Note that you often have a choice what tokens to leave, so look at the back of the top BP card and make an informed choice. To learn more about each ability's timing, see the Keywords List on p. 63 or the back of your Titan Sheet.
End of the Titan Attack and Attack Responses
After you resolve the second ability window, leaving Kratos tokens for other players, the current Titan Attack ends. If the BP card was not wounded (did not go to the Wound Stack), discard it now. If the attack triggered an Attack Response, like a Primordial Attack or a Follow-up Titan Attack, it will happen next, starting a new attack sequence. Designer's note: Though initiated as part of a Titan Attack, Attack Responses are resolved after the current Attack ends to avoid conflict with other effects.
End of Titan Round
Sometimes a game effect will trigger at the end of the Titan Round. In that case, it's resolved after all of the Titans take their turns. If there is more than one end of Round effect, the players may resolve these effects in any order they like.
Also remember to unexhaust Argo Abilities (see Argo Abilities on p. 55 for details).
Other Actions in the Titan Round
Complicated Actions
Sometimes, especially complicated maneuvers (like the Rush ability) will require you to use both the movement action and the combat action together. That's what we call a complicated action. Complicated actions can be performed only if the Titan can perform both movement and combat actions, and during their turn still has at least one unused action of each type. There is no "action space" between both parts of a complicated action, which means you cannot perform other actions during a complicated action, even if the two parts of the complicated action are easily distinguishable (for example, the Rush ability allows a Titan to move at increased Speed and Attack with additional force; though you could easily tell when the movement part of Rush ends and the Attack part begins, you cannot perform any additional actions in between, even free actions).
Free Actions
Many active abilities, as well as some other game effects, are activated as a free action. This means that, as long as you fulfill all of its requirements, you may perform this action in your turn, without spending your movement or combat action. During your turn, you can perform as many different free actions as you want, but each of them can only be performed once per turn. You can perform free actions before your movement and combat action or between them but not during another action.
Remember: Unless you gain additional actions in some way, a Titan's turn ends immediately once you've performed both movement and combat actions, leaving you no "end of turn" window to use free actions.
Reactions
The rarest type of Titan action is the Reaction, denoted by the reaction symbol. Reaction are powerful effects that may be performed during a window of opportunity (see p. 43). As windows of opportunity are generally found on AI cards, Reactions allow Titans to act during the Primordial Round!
Whenever you encounter the reaction symbol preceding an instruction, you may activate Reaction abilities immediately before you resolve that instruction. During a single reaction each Titan may activate any number of reaction abilities in any order, but no more than one ability with the same name per Titan (see Named Abilities, p. 61).
Argo Abilities
Argo Abilities are Technologies that can be actively used during the Battle. They represent various ways the Argo's crew can support the Titans from afar.
Argo Ability (AA) Limit
All Argo battle operations are coordinated from the Excursion Propylon. Thus, the current Propylon Technology dictates how many Argo Abilities you can field during a single Battle. Note this number on your Argo Sheet as the AA Limit. The basic Excursion Propylon has a limit of two. If you later research another Propylon technology, apply only the one that allows you to use the most Argo Abilities and change the AA Limit on your Argo Sheet accordingly.
You choose which Argo Abilities to prepare during Battle Setup (see p. 34).
Argo Ability Charges
Each Argo Ability has a number of charges it gains at the start of Battle. Each time you use an Argo Ability, discard one of its charges. Once an Argo Ability is out of charges, it cannot be used again during the current Battle.
Using Argo Abilities
In general, Argo Abilities can be used during any moment of the Titan Round (excluding in the middle of other actions, unless explicitly stated otherwise). Some Argo Abilities, however, specify an exact moment when they can be used, either during the Titan Round or the Primordial Round.
You can use as many of the active Argo Abilities each Round as you want, but each one can be used only once per Round. After using an Argo Ability, exhaust it to denote that it has already been used this Round.
Argo Abilities automatically unexhaust at the end of each Round — that is both the Primordial Round and the Titan Round.
Battle Aftermath
Each Battle has a specific Aftermath, described in the Battle Scenario. Depending on whether you won or lost the Battle, the Aftermath will award you with bonuses and rewards or sometimes saddle you with additional penalties. Each Battle has unique consequences, but there are some more general effects of an Aftermath, including gaining Primordial resources, tallying Casualties, observing the Tides of Fate and shuffling the Exploration deck.
Remember to resolve any End of Battle effects before you proceed to Battle Aftermath.
Also note that you can use a Sisyphus Tear before you proceed to Battle Aftermath to replay the Battle, if you're not satisfied with its outcome (see Sisyphus Tears, p. 57).
Gaining Primordial Resources
Each Battle nets you Primordial resources from the Wounds you've dealt. Remember that you gain resources even for Battles you have lost!
Generally, you gain the resources shown in the upper right corner of every BP card on the Wound Stack times the Primordial level (i.e. if you fought a Level 3 Hekaton, each BP card will award you with 3 times the resources shown).
You also gain one Primordial Core resource for each BP III card in the Wound Stack (remember that only critically wounded BP III cards land in the Wound Stack). The Core type always corresponds to the Primordial you were facing (e.g. if you faced the Hekaton, you gain a Hekaton Core).
In addition, if you fight a Level 3 or 4 Primordial, you will gain bonus Ambrosia resources, denoted in the corresponding level stat block on the Primordial Sheet.
If there are any generic Single Wounds and/or Double Wounds in the stack, first combine the BP discard pile with the BP deck and separate them by level. Then, for each set aside Single Wound, draw a random BP of the lowest available level and gain its resources. For each set aside Double Wound, draw a random BP III and gain its resources (you do not gain Cores for these BP III cards).
Note the gained Primordial resources on your Argo Sheet.
Other Primordial Resources
The Battle Aftermath may indicate you gain additional or other Primordial resources. If it does, follow the specific instructions.
Resources for Death Blows
If the Primordial was slain by a Crit Effect that caused it to die instantly (a Death Blow) and the number of Wounds in the Wound Stack is lower than its Wounds value, add the top card from the BP deck to the Wound Stack, as if it was wounded (use Double Wounds instead of BP III cards). If that causes the number of Wounds to become equal to or higher than its Wounds value, proceed to gaining resources as normal. Otherwise, escalate the BP deck as if you have just wounded that BP card, then repeat this process. Continue until the number of Wounds in the Wound Stack is equal to or higher than the Primordial's Wounds value.
Casualties
Battles, especially lost ones, can be grim affairs. During the Casualties step, note the loss of any Titans on the Argo Sheet.
Also during this step, you discard all Conditions, Condition tokens and tokens on Titan Sheets (like Ambrosia, Modifier tokens, etc.). Note that some game elements and Conditions may have End of Battle effects. Make sure you have resolved all of these effects before you discard these Condition cards.
End of Battle effect example: "End of Battle: If you still have this Condition card, draw a Fated Mnemos card."
Tides of Fate
Battles push both the Argonauts and their Titans to their limits. As a consequence, debts accrued with the Moirai are partially paid.
Tides of Fate mechanics affect both Argonauts and the Argo itself. Each Argonaut resets their Triskelion values to triple '0'. As for the Argo, you lower its Argo Fate value by the indicated number. In Cycle I, this is usually -2 Argo Fate.
Shuffling the Exploration Deck
Finally, as the Battle Aftermath comes to a close, the Argo catches new wind in its sails (or current in its turbines). New opportunities await!
As a result, during the aftermath of every Timeline Battle, you should shuffle all Exploration cards removed from the Exploration deck as a result of the Timeline Battle Special Disposal Effect back into the deck. This way, you have refreshed the Exploration deck!
Final Battle
If your current Cycle has a final Battle, if there is no specific Aftermath, note Casualties and perform Tides of Fate.
Additional Battle Rules
Death in Battle
Unlike Argonauts, Titans are expendable. In most cases, when you die in Battle you only lose the Titan you are currently junctioned with. This Titan is then removed from the Battle Board (note its loss on the Argo Sheet) and cannot be used in any way. Do not discard its Conditions and tokens or reset its Triskelion stats until instructed to do so (see Casualties, p. 56).
However, Story Events, as well as some especially brutal effects, may result in the Argonaut dying. In that case, consult the current Cycle's Rude Awakening Special Event. Remember that Argonaut Death happens only when explicitly stated!
Important: Never discard or destroy the Argonaut Sheets of deceased Argonauts, as some events might reference them later!
Many Ways to Die
There are many ways to die in Battles! The most common are drawing a Disemboweled Trauma card or a You died Obol card. But there are many possible instances of death, including:
- Drawing a Heroic Death, Heroic Life or Disemboweled Trauma cards or another death-inducing card.
- Drawing a You died Obol card.
- Being forced to perform two Obol Draws at the same time (see example in Obol Draw, p. 42).
- Being forced to draw a second Moiros or Kratos during a Battle.
- Gaining Ambrosia tokens exceeding the Ambrosia Limit (so, in most cases, 5 or more tokens)
- Having four Despair tokens while not adjacent to another Titan.
- Falling off/beyond the Board Edge or into a Chasm space.
- Being forced to displace when there is no legal space to be displaced to (see Displace on p. 63).
Mercy Rule
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey is a challenging game, but in the face of a Titan's death, it offers a glimmer of respite in the form of this Mercy Rule. If a Titan dies:
- During an Attack against the Primordial, you ignore all negative Responses elicited by that Attack.
- During a Primordial Attack, the Primordial ends its Attack, forgoing all lingering Attack effects and After Attack effects targeting that Titan. Conversely, if a Titan dies, but the Attack has an effect that is separate from the Target or has other Targets, those effects should still be resolved.
Other Round Timing Rules
Some Primordial Traits, Gear cards and abilities may introduce effects that trigger at specific moments during the Primordial Round or Titan Round. These include:
Start of Battle: Resolve this effect after you finish Battle Setup, but before the first Round begins.
End of Battle: Resolve this effect when the Battle ends (regardless of its outcome), before you proceed to the Battle Aftermath.
When: Resolve this effect after you resolve the effect it refers to (or, in some cases, when you begin to resolve it), but before any other actions or effects.
Example: If an effect triggers "When you draw a Trauma card," it activates immediately after you draw the card but before you resolve it.
When you are about to: Occurs immediately before you resolve the effect that is about to happen (i.e. if an ability is triggered "when you are about to die," it activates after another effect instructs you to die, but before it is actually resolved).
Note that it does not invalidate the effect that triggered it unless explicitly stated otherwise, even if it causes a Chain Break (e.g. if you resolve an Attack triggered by a "When you are about to die" effect, it causes a Chain Break — no further effects of this Attack are resolved, but it does not allow you to avoid death itself). Any other effects and abilities with a specific trigger must be resolved after the trigger occurs, before resolving any effects other than the ones caused or enabled by it.
Bonus Attacks
A Bonus Attack is an effect that allows you to perform an immediate Attack, often outside of your turn. Most Bonus Attacks cause a Chain Break (see exception below). For a Bonus Attack you may declare an exhausted weapon as your active weapon. If you do, unexhaust it, then continue the Attack. During a Bonus Attack you may ignore Attack Responses (see p. 51) to this Attack. When the Attack ends, continue resolving the Battle Round that was interrupted by the Bonus Attack. All other restrictions and rules of a combat action apply.
Bonus Attacks during Titan Attacks (Follow-ups)
A Bonus Attack during a Titan Attack is also called a Follow-up Titan Attack and will be resolved immediately after the current Titan Attack ends. In other words, it does not cause a Chain Break. All other Bonus Attack rules apply.
Instant Death Effects
Instant Death effects are special effects of Primordial Attacks and Responses that cause a Titan to die immediately, without drawing an Obol or a Trauma card.
Death Blows
Some rare Critical effects may allow you to slay the Primordial before dealing all required Wounds. These may be referred to as Death Blows (see p. 55).
Retreat
Most Battles give the players a chance to retreat if they think their chances of winning are slim. Usually, a retreat is only possible after at least 2 Titans died in the current Battle. If Retreat is possible, you may retreat at the beginning of a Titan Round (before you take any Titan turns). For all purposes a retreat is treated as a defeat, but allows you to save the remaining Titans to fight another day. Note that a retreat is not possible in most Battles against Adversaries and Boss Primordials.
Sisyphus Tears
Sisyphus Tears are mysterious Divine resources of unknown origin. When a Battle ends, players as a group may decide to spend one Sisyphus Tear to replay the Battle, without suffering any of its consequences: do not lose Titans, gain Danger or resolve End of Battle effects. Simply restore the game to the state from before the Battle (that includes any spent Godforms and Summonings). You can freely change your Titans and loadouts and prepared Argo Abilities before you attempt the Battle again. Note, however, that Sisyphus Tears are an extremely rare resource and should not be spent lightly.
Wise Providence
Wise Providence is a rare temporary boon that gives you an edge in combat. If you have it, you gain the initiative for the upcoming Battle — that Battle begins with a Titan Round instead of the Primordial Round. In general, Wise Providence impacts the next Timeline Battle only — note it on the Timeline, on the day of the first upcoming Timeline Battle. Sometimes, however, Wise Providence may refer to a specific Battle in which case it should be noted in the "Boons, Afflictions, Notes" section of the Argo Sheet.
Conditions
Various effects (like Trauma cards or Primordial Attacks) cause Titans and Argonauts to gain Condition cards that apply additional negative or positive effects. When you gain a Condition card, place it next to your Titan Sheet. Some Conditions may also require you to gain Condition tokens. These are always placed on the corresponding Condition card. All Conditions are discarded during the Casualties step of the Battle Aftermath. Some Conditions may have additional End of Battle: effects that trigger if you were unable to get rid of them before the Battle ended.
If you gain a Condition card outside of Battle, it remains active until the end of the next Battle.
Some cards instruct you to gain a certain Condition, while others become Conditions themselves (See Moiros and Kratos cards below). You cannot gain a Condition if you already have it, but some Conditions may trigger additional effects if you would gain them again.
Afflictions and Boons
As with Conditions, Afflictions introduce additional effects and are more closely tied to the Argonauts. Unlike Conditions, they are not represented by physical components. Instead, whenever you gain an Affliction, write it down in the "Afflictions" section of your Argonaut Sheet. Afflictions are bad things, like curses and sickness, that plague the Argonaut. Afflictions are permanent — you can only remove them if an effect explicitly tells you to!
Boons, though rarer, are the positive equivalent of Afflictions. These can come in the form of personal traits, equipment or allies! You also note these on your Argonaut Sheets.
Moiros Cards
Moiros cards represent the consequences of trying to cheat fate one too many times. When you push it too far, it pushes back. When any effect requires you to raise your Fate over 9 you must immediately shuffle the Moiros deck and draw a random Moiros card. Keep this card until the end of Battle (even if its effects aren't lasting).
There may be other effects that instruct you to draw a Moiros card. Be warned: The consequences of your recklessness may not only affect you, but also other Titans or even the Argo itself!
Also, if you are ever forced to draw another Moiros card while you already have one, you die instead!
Kratos Cards
Kratos cards are drawn when you temporarily lose control over your Titan and their bottomless rage takes over. When a game effect instructs you to draw a Kratos card, shuffle the Kratos deck and draw a random Kratos card. Keep this card until the end of Battle (even if its effects aren't lasting).
If you are ever forced to draw another Kratos card while you already have one, you die instead!
Kratos Roll
Some effects will give you a chance to avoid drawing a Kratos card, or resolving its negative effects. This will usually be resolved through a Kratos Roll. When you are instructed to perform a Kratos Roll, roll a d10 and compare the result to your Rage value. If it is equal or higher, you succeed. If it is lower, you fail. Unless stated otherwise, when you fail a Kratos Roll, you must draw a Kratos card. Note: Kratos Rolls cannot be re-rolled using Fate.
Ambrosia
Ambrosia is a mysterious substance, the lifeblood of the monstrous Primordials, used as a resource and fuel for the Argo. In its raw state, however, it is extremely harmful. Various effects cause Titans to gain Ambrosia tokens. When you gain an Ambrosia token, place it on your Titan Sheet.
While other effects may trigger based on the number of Ambrosia tokens you have, the tokens themselves don't have any inherent effects… until you exceed your limit.
Ambrosia Limit
Each Titan has an Ambrosia Limit. Unless your Titan Sheet or Gear cards state otherwise, your Ambrosia Limit is 4. If you have multiple elements that modify your Ambrosia Limit, choose the one with the highest Ambrosia Limit, then apply bonuses and penalties to that limit (if any).
Example: The Abysswatcher Titan has an innate Ambrosia Limit of -1. On top of that, he equips an Ambramat Armor that grants him Ambrosia Limit 5. He applies the highest Ambrosia Limit X among his Gear (5), then applies all Ambrosia Limit modifiers (-1) for a total Ambrosia Limit of 4. This means it will die as soon as it gains its 5th Ambrosia token.
If, at any point, the number of Ambrosia tokens on your Titan Sheet is higher than your Ambrosia Limit, the Titan dies. You do not draw Trauma and you do not draw an Obol. You simply die.
Modifier Tokens
Modifier tokens are used to mark temporary and permanent changes to Titans' and the Primordials' attributes. When a Titan or a Primordial gains a Modifier token, find a token with an icon corresponding to the attribute it modifies and place it on the appropriate sheet (Titan or Primordial). Modifier tokens are double-sided: each negative (red) Modifier token changes the attribute by -1, whereas a positive (blue) Modifier token changes it by +1.
Stacking Modifier Tokens
There may be times when you need more than one Modifier token of a given attribute, for example, you receive a Precision penalty of -5. In such a case, don't look for five Precision Modifier tokens. Instead, take one Precision Modifier token and four generic tokens (grey) and stack them, so that the -1 Precision modifier token is on top.
Temporary and Lasting Modifier Tokens
Some Modifier tokens are temporary, meaning that they are discarded after they take effect (e.g. if you gain a temporary Evasion token, discard it after the next Evasion Roll). Place temporary Titan Modifier tokens on their Triskelions as a reminder. Temporary Primordial tokens are always placed in the Kratos Pool and are removed in the Clear the Kratos Pool step of a Titan Attack.
Other Modifier tokens are lasting, meaning that they remain with the Titan or Primordial until the end of Battle. All modifier tokens are discarded at the end of Battle.
Types of Modifier Tokens
Possible Modifier tokens include:
- Precision: The Titan has +/-1 Precision for each token. For each of these tokens on the Primordial, increase/lower the Evasion difficulty of each AI card by +/-1.
- Evasion: Titans only. For each of these tokens, the Titan has +/-1 Evasion bonus.
- AT: Primordials only. For each of these tokens, the Primordial has +/-1 AT.
- Speed: For each of these tokens the Titan/Primordial has +/-1 Speed.
- Evasion die: Primordials only. For each of these tokens, Titans must roll +/-1 Evasion die when attacked by the Primordial (to a minimum of 1).
- Danger: Primordials only. For each of these tokens the Primordial deals +/-1 Danger with each Attack (sum Danger from all hits first, then add/subtract Danger for each Danger token), or, in some cases, for each hit (see Escalation Table on p. 53).
- To Hit: Primordials only. For each of these tokens, the Primordial has +/-1 To Hit.
Generic Tokens
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey is a monster of a game. There are various effects, abilities and actions to track; if we wanted to create a special token for each of them… we'd have a lot of different tokens. Like, a lot. And you'd spend a lot of time looking through your game box for that single Engine Pressure marker. Instead, we cut down on the types of tokens included in the game, and created the generic tokens. Whenever there's an effect that doesn't use any of the specific tokens, you will be instructed to use a generic token to track it. You can also use generic tokens to mark exhausted abilities or cards to conserve table space and to mark stacking Modifier tokens (see Modifier Tokens).
Vantage Points
Even though Titans are big, Primordials are much much bigger, lumbering monstrosities the size of temples! Some are so big, in fact, that you can climb them. And you will!
Some Primordials may allow you to create Vantage Points (VPs) — special spaces on top (or inside!) of them. Titans can then climb them to strike vital body parts, avoid Primordial attacks or enable other effects and abilities. Each Primordial's VP effects are described on its Primordial Sheet.
Creating VPs
Most VPs need to be created before they are climbable:
- Unless stated otherwise, the Primordial VP must first be created before it can be used. In other words, until you "create a VP," the VP is locked.
- When a Primordial VP is created, remove the interchangeable part of the Primordial miniature and switch it with the Vantage Point part. Alternatively, if you don't want to switch the parts, you can use the VP space marked on the Primordial Sheet instead. Note: Some hard-to-reach VPs are only represented on the Primordial Sheets.
- If a Primordial has no associated VP description, you cannot create VPs on it by any means. These Primordials simply cannot be climbed!
Climbing and Falling from a VP
If there is an unlocked VP on the Primordial during your turn, you may climb it!
Climbing a VP: A Titan adjacent to the Primordial may perform a Climb test as a free action. Simply test the Skill specified on the Primordial Sheet (see Tests in Battle, p. 60). If you succeed, place your Titan on the VP space.
Falling down from a VP: Primordials don't stand still. At the end of the Primordial Round, most VPs force you to perform a Hold on test to find out if you fall down. The particular effects of falling from a VP are explained on the Primordial Sheet.
Movement and VPs
A Titan may move from a Primordial VP space to a space adjacent to the Primordial using a movement action or any move-like ability, as if they were adjacent spaces.
If a Titan suffers Knockdown or involuntary movement while on a VP space, they must first be displaced to a space adjacent to the Primordial.
Only one Titan can occupy a single VP at a given time.
VPs, Adjacency and Range
Titans on VPs are considered adjacent and in range 1 to the Primordial and all Titans adjacent to this Primordial. They measure range to other Titans and game elements from the space occupied by the Primordial that is closest to that Titan or game element.
Other Titans adjacent to the Primordial are not considered to be adjacent to Titans on VPs.
Awakenings
The Olympians are dead, killed during the first minutes of the Eschaton. Their worshippers scattered, their temples abandoned, their power waned and left the world. But not completely. When the darkest hour comes and all hope seems lost, you may find it inside yourself: a glimmering ember of the old gods. If you have the audacity to reach for it, if you have the tenacity to contain it, if you have the will to wield it, that ember becomes a spark and that spark becomes a pyre in which you will burn away the darkness!
Awakening will provide you with enhanced attributes and very powerful abilities that may break the normal game rules!
Unlocking the Awakening Mechanic
Transcend your limits and for a brief moment achieve a Godform of one of the fallen Olympians and walk their hallowed ground. Such is the power of the Godform transformations, otherwise known as Awakenings.
Once you gain access to the Forlorn Naos Technology, you will unlock a hidden potential, allowing Titans to Awaken. At this time, you will also permanently add the Awakening Grave Trauma to the Trauma deck and switch the You died Obol with its special variant.
How to Awaken
Whenever an effect instructs you to Awaken, choose one of the available Godforms and place its card over your Titan's illustration on the Titan Sheet. Note its name in the Godform section of the Argo Sheet and mark the associated box — this means this Godform becomes unavailable until the next Divine Surge (see Divine Surges on p. 23). If there are no available Godforms, you cannot Awaken.
Immediate Effects of Awakening
As soon as you Awaken, immediately:
- Perform a Chain Break (see Chain Break on p. 43).
- Gain the Priority Target token. As long as you are Awakened, you cannot lose this token.
- Discard any Condition cards and Condition tokens, as well as Despair tokens (but not Ambrosia tokens).
- If you were knocked down, you may stand up.
- Gain Trespass tokens equal to the Trespass value denoted in the bottom right of your Awakening card (usually 2).
- You may immediately perform a move or Pushback up to your Speed value and perform a Bonus Attack (see p. 56). These are not regular actions.
- Important: The instructions that allow you to Awaken found on the various game elements always include the Adversary symbol. That's right. Each time you Awaken, the ripples of power are felt for many, many leagues. Your Adversary takes notice and moves towards the Argo (see Adversary Activation, p. 16).
Other Awakening Rules
The following rules changes apply to you as long as you are Awakened:
- When you perform a Power Roll, add the Godform Power die to the Power Pool instead of your Titan Power die.
- You gain all other bonuses listed at the bottom of the Godform card.
- Some Godforms allow you to perform a Special Attack. These Attacks use statistics and effects denoted on the Godform card and cannot be combined with your weapons. When you declare this Attack, the Godform card is considered to be your active power (instead of an active weapon).
- When you are about to perform an Obol Draw, shuffle the You live: By the power of the Dead Gods… card into the Obol deck. Remove it from the deck when you finish resolving the Obol Draw. In other words, only you get two You live! Obol cards during your Obol Draws!
- If you are knocked down while Awakened, during your turn, you may discard one Trespass token to immediately stand up.
Ending the Awakening
At the start of your turn, you must discard one Trespass token from your Godform card. Note that some other Godform abilities may also use Trespass tokens for other effects. If you cannot discard a Trespass token at the start of your turn, return the Godform card to the supply. You lose all bonuses provided by it. Then, if you awakened as a result of an Obol Draw, you die. If you have awakened through any other means, after you end your Awakening, continue resolving your turns as normal.
Summonings in Battle
Summoning rules were described on p. 22. However, summoning Nymphs in Battle needs some clarification. First of all, most Summonings have a steep requirement that needs to be met before you are able to perform it (for example, at least one Titan needs to die). This requirement always refers to the current Battle.
Most Summonings specify the moment they can be used. If a Summoning does not specify this moment, it can be used like an Argo Ability (see Argo Abilities, p. 55), during the Titan Round.
Otherwise, Summonings function according to the rules on p. 22.
Remember: Similarly to Awakenings, Summonings show the Adversary symbol. This means that, whenever you perform a Summoning, the Adversary immediately moves towards the Argo.
Tests in Battle
Many Battle abilities and effects will instruct you to perform a test. This is similar to tests during adventures (see Adventure Tests and Rolls p. 31).
To perform a test, simply roll a single d10 and compare the result to the difficulty of the test. Some tests are associated with a specific Argonaut Skill (e.g. Cunning 6+), allowing you to increase the result by your Skill value. Tests can be re-rolled using Fate, just like Attack and Evasion Rolls (see Fate Re-rolls on p. 8).
Some abilities and game effects may allow you to add a bonus to the test result. Unless stated otherwise, all of these effects must be declared before you perform the test. Then, after you roll the die, increase the result by the total bonus.
Note that some effects will instruct you to simply roll a d10 and resolve an effect according to the result (e.g. "roll a d10. On a 10 you Awaken."). Such rolls are not tests (their description does not include the word "test") and as such cannot be re-rolled using Fate.
Ability Usage
Titans, Mnemos cards and equipped Gear cards, as well as other game elements, give you access to various abilities. Some of them can be used as a free action or as a reaction, others will have a specific timing condition or even grant a constant effect.
In general, each effect described within the ability box on Mnemos cards, Gear cards and Titan Sheets is an ability. There are a few categories of abilities.
Active Abilities
Abilities that require you to pay a cost are active abilities. The cost is always shown directly before the ability. Ability costs may include:
- Using a combat action,
- Using a movement action,
- Using a complicated action,
- Gaining +1 Fate,
- Exhausting the game element providing this ability,
- Discarding the game element providing this ability,
- Discarding a charge.
Other, more specific costs may be listed in the particular ability.
Active ability usage is always voluntary (you may pay the cost to resolve the ability). As such, these costs can never be prevented or ignored by the use of other game effects.
Active abilities that have a specific timing condition (such as "during the second ability window," "when you are about to die," etc.) can be activated only during that specific activation time, unless another rule overrides this timing (for example, by instructing you to resolve the ability immediately once something else occurs).
Active abilities that do not have a specific timing condition can be used as a free action (see p. 54).
You cannot activate an ability if you cannot pay its full cost (e.g. an ability requires you to raise Fate and your Fate is already at 9, or an ability requires you to discard a charge and there are none remaining).
You can use each available active ability on a single game element once per Round.
Example: During his turn, Herodotus uses a Primordial Lure Gear card to place the top card from the BP deck at the bottom of the deck. The Titan still has another charge on it, but since it is an active ability, it remains unusable until the end of this Titan Round.
Constant Abilities
Abilities that do not require you to pay a cost are constant abilities.
Most constant abilities continuously seek specific timing conditions and must be resolved anytime the specified condition is met, unless the ability text itself specifically says that "you may" resolve its effect.
As a general rule, you must always resolve keywords that place Kratos tokens in the Kratos Pool (like Opening X or Break X), as well as keywords that hinder you in any way (like Cumbersome or Commit). You generally may use abilities that grant you move-like abilities (like Reposition X) or allow you to forcefully move the Primordial (like Pushback X). See the Keywords List on p. 63 to learn more about using other keyword abilities.
Constant abilities that have a specific timing condition (such as "during second ability window," "when you are about to die," etc.) always take effect in that window, therefore they can be used multiple times during the same Round.
Exception: Some powerful constant abilities, called flexible abilities (like Pushback X or Vault), have dual timing conditions, namely, they can be triggered during either the first or the second ability window of a Titan Attack. You may use such abilities in either of the windows, but not in both. (E.g. Titans may use Pushback X in either the first or second ability window but not in both).
Constant abilities that do not have a specific timing condition are called passives and provide a passive ongoing effect (such as "+1 Precision," "Ranged 2–4", etc.).
Example: The Labyrinthauros moves through a space occupied by Philoctera, triggering the Tumble ability on her Smelted Breastplate Gear card. She passes the Tumble roll and does not suffer Crash! Later in the same Primordial Round, the monster moves through her space one more time! Since Tumble has no cost and is a passive ability, she will then attempt to avoid Crash again.
Kratos Table Abilities
Kratos Table abilities are a unique ability type, represented by icons in the Kratos Tables. You can find an overview of the symbols used in each Kratos Table on the back of the corresponding Titan Sheet or Pattern card. Similarly to constant abilities, Kratos Table abilities do not have a cost, but they are resolved slightly differently.
Most Kratos Table abilities modify your Attack, either by giving you access to additional keywords (like Break or Opening) or unique powerful effects, such as Power Re-roll.
Kratos Table icons representing keywords should be treated as such (they can stack with keywords from other sources, see Stackable Keywords, p. 63).
Each Kratos Table ability is gated by your current Rage level. As you gain Rage, you unlock more powerful abilities and effects.
You can apply bonuses from each Kratos Table level equal to or lower than your current Rage.
Most Kratos Table levels give you a choice of two options. These are always exclusive: If you decide to apply one of these options, you cannot apply the other. Note: Some options may include more than one effect. Kratos Table symbols that are linked with a "+" symbol are both part of the same option.
In this example, the player can choose to either use Break 1 and Motivate 1 or to use Power Re-roll 1.
You must always make as much use of your Kratos Table as possible. When you reach the second ability window of your Attack, you must apply relevant effects from each level of the Kratos Table that is still available. Remember: If an ability text says that "you may" do something, it is never forced. You can apply this ability, then decide not to resolve its effect.
Kratos Table Golden Rule. You do not have to use any of your Kratos Table abilities until you reach the second ability window, at which point you must activate all applicable effects from your Kratos Table (1 option per level) that are still available.
Example: Herodotus has 5 Rage, which means that the player has access to quite a few abilities and effects! They attack and hit the Primordial. In the first ability window, they decide to activate Pushback 1 from Kratos level 4.
Then, they gather their Power Dice Pool, adding an additional red die from Kratos level 5. They perform a Power Roll and gain a Power Re-roll 1 from Kratos Level 2. If they haven't used the Pushback ability, they could have gained an additional Power Re-roll 1 from Kratos level 4, effectively making it Power Re-roll 2 (according to Stackable Keywords rule).
However, the player decides that they are satisfied with their Power Roll results and don't re-roll anything: Power Re-roll X is not forced (its description says that "you may" re-roll your dice) so they can choose to activate it, then decide not to resolve its effect.
Finally, they reach the second ability window and apply any remaining available effects: they choose to resolve Opening 1 and Break 1 from Kratos levels 1 and 3 to place 1 Opening token and 1 Break token in the Kratos Pool.
Named Abilities
The text of some abilities is preceded by an ability name (e.g. Sacrifice, Reflex) and, optionally, a subtype, preceding their name (such as Advanced Reflex, Superior Jump, etc.).
You cannot use multiple abilities with the same name at the same time (unless they are stackable keywords, see p. 63). For example, you cannot use a Reflex ability and an Advanced Reflex ability in the same window of opportunity (see Window of Opportunity, p. 43).
You can use multiple active abilities with the same name during a single Round, provided that they come from different game elements (as each single active ability can only be used once per Round!).
Example: The Gamechanger has a Titan ability named Advanced Reflex, as well as a Iapetus Lifeguard Gear card with a Reflex ability. Even though one of them has a subtype (Advanced), while the other doesn't, they are still named the same and as such they cannot both be used in the same window of opportunity. The Gamechanger has to choose which one to use. If, however, there is another window of opportunity in the same Round, the player controlling the Titan may choose to use the other ability.
Gated Abilities and Effects
Many abilities and effects of Gear cards, as well as Mnemos cards, Titan Sheets and other game elements, unlock when some other requirement is met, usually having an appropriately high level of Danger. For details see p. 46.
Primordial Abilities
Restrictions pertaining to ability usage do not apply to Primordials. Resolve Primordial abilities each time you are instructed to do so by an AI or BP card, Trait or any other game element. All abilities on BP and AI cards are resolved by the Primordial against a Titan — the Target (in case of an Attack) or the Attacker (in case of a Response) — unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Exhausting, Discarding and Removing
Many effects will instruct you to exhaust, discard, or remove an element. Generally exhausting is a temporary effect, whereas discarding is more permanent. Removing (or archiving) a game element from the game means returning it back to the game box. It will not be used again, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Exhausting
When instructed to exhaust a card, you should turn it 90 degrees to the right to denote it. It is still treated as equipped on your Titan or Argonaut but you cannot use it as an active weapon, use its defensive statistics nor activate any of its abilities except effects triggered by exhaustion (e.g. "if exhausted") or effects resulting in it unexhausting (e.g. "When you are knocked down, unexhaust this card"). Note: Passive abilities (such as Ranged 2-4 or +1 Precision) are ongoing, therefore they remain in effect even if a card they are printed on is exhausted. Similarly, Gear traits are always active.
Cards remain exhausted until they are unexhausted by another effect (see below).
Some game elements other than cards may instruct you to exhaust them. In that case, you only exhaust that specific game element.
For example, if exhaust is a cost of a Titan ability described on a Titan Sheet, you should exhaust only this ability. Place a generic token on this ability as a reminder that it is exhausted, but that it does not invalidate any other Titan abilities or the Kratos Table.
All game elements remain exhausted until they are unexhausted by another effect (see below).
Unexhausting
Each Argonaut may spend their movement action or combat action to unexhaust all exhausted equipped game elements (Gear cards, Mnemos cards, Titan abilities and so on). Some other game effects may also allow you to unexhaust some or all of your game elements.
Exhaustable Gear
Some game effects refer to Exhaustable Gear. This category includes all Gear cards with the Cumbersome keyword or with active abilities that include exhaust as their cost.
Discarding
When a game instructs you to discard a token, place it back in the token pool.
When instructed to discard a Gear or Mnemos card, flip it facedown. It is unusable until the end of this Battle and it is not treated as equipped by your Titan or Argonaut. It is not, however, permanently removed from the game — it remains in the Argo Armory (in case of Gear cards) or assigned to your Argonauts (in case of Mnemos cards) and can be used in future Battles.
Removing Elements (archiving)
When instructed to permanently remove an element from the game, place it back in the game box. It will likely not be used in your current playthrough, unless a future effect explicitly refers to this element. Permanently removing an element may sometimes be referred to as Archiving a game element.
Sometimes you may be instructed to remove an element for a specific duration. In such case, set it aside and keep it separate from other game elements for this duration. For example, when instructed to remove an element from a Battle, it is removed from this Battle only but will be used in consequent Battles against the same Primordial.
Similarly, if an Exploration card is removed until the next Timeline Battle, it should be removed from the Exploration deck, then shuffled back into it in the next Timeline Battle's Aftermath (as prompted in the Battle Scenario).
Note: Permanently removing an element from the game is an extremely rare occurrence and will always be specifically referenced. If the effect does not explicitly state that an element should be permanently removed from the game, it isn't.
Fatigue
Some powerful abilities and effects may require you to gain a movement action or combat action Fatigue token. As long as you have a Fatigue token, you can use the corresponding action only to discard this token. This is the only way to discard this token.
You cannot gain a Fatigue token if you already have one. After you discard a Fatigue token, if you have any actions remaining, you can perform them as normal.
Keywords
A keyword is an ability which conveys specific common rules. Each keyword has its own rules which can be found on the keyword list below. These are all named abilities and follow all of the rules and restrictions of named abilities.
Stackable Keywords
Abilities do not usually stack (for example, if you have the Deadly keyword on your weapon and gain it from another source, you cannot use both of them to roll two additional Crit dice). There are, however, some abilities that do stack: unless the ability text says otherwise, every keyword followed by a number is a stackable keyword.
You may activate several stackable keyword abilities with the same name at the same time. Their effects then add up and "stack." For example, two separate Opening 1 abilities would effectively be the same as Opening 2.
Keywords that are not followed by a number do not stack.
Keywords List
The following list contains keywords common to all Cycles of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey. Keywords that are introduced in a specific Cycle will be described in that Cycle's Storybook. All of these are referenced in the Master Index (see p. 76).
Ambrosia Limit X/+X: Your Ambrosia Limit becomes X or is increased by +X. Note: Ambrosia Limit X does not stack, but all +X bonuses are cumulative.
Ascended: This Gear ignores Power Level penalties (irrelevant in Cycle I).
Attack Re-roll X: During an Attack Roll, you may re-roll up to X Attack dice with no additional cost. Remember that you can only re-roll each die once, regardless of the re-roll source.
Auto-break X: During the first ability window, place X Break tokens in the Kratos Pool (see Break X keyword).
Block X: While performing an Evasion Roll, treat X successful hits as evaded.
Break X: During the second ability window, place X Break tokens in the Kratos Pool. During the Power Roll step, each Break token in the Kratos Pool allows the attacking Titan to turn 1 potential symbol into 1 Power.
Bypass: You may move through other Titans. You cannot end your voluntary movement on a space occupied by another Titan.
Carving X: When you wound the Primordial, test Wisdom (8+). On a success, you immediately gain X additional non-Core Primordial resources from that BP card. Note: These resources are not multiplied by the Primordial level.
Commit: To attack with this weapon, gain +1 Fate.
Crash: The Titan subjected to Crash gains +1 Danger and suffers Knockdown. A Titan suffers Crash each time a Primordial moves onto or through its space, as well as when any effect forces it to move onto a space with an Obstacle Terrain tile or places an Obstacle Terrain tile on its.
Cumbersome: During the second ability window, if you successfully wounded with this weapon, exhaust it. Treat it as a voluntary exhaust.
Deadly: During an Attack Roll, replace one of your regular Attack dice with an additional Crit die. If you roll only one Attack die, you gain a Crit Chance on a natural 9–10 result instead.
Displace: Move the displaced target to an empty space adjacent to its current position. If a Titan is displaced and there is no space it can be legally displaced to, it dies instead.
Diversion: During the second ability window, place a Diversion token in the Kratos Pool. An attacking Titan may use a Diversion token from the Kratos Pool to ignore Fail Responses until the end of their Attack.
Dodge: When you are about to resolve an Evasion Roll, gain +1 Evasion bonus for this roll.
Doomed: During this Primordial Attack, Titans cannot re-roll the Evasion Roll or Judgement Test using Fate.
Elation X: During the second ability window, you may discard X Despair tokens or Ambrosia tokens to place X Opening tokens in the Kratos Pool (see Opening X keyword).
Escalate X: Escalate X lowest level BP cards (remove each one from the BP deck and shuffle in a card one level higher), one at a time. Then do the same for the AI deck. Do not look at the removed cards.
Frontlines: If your Titan is dead, at the End of Battle roll a d10. On a '1', your Argonaut dies as well.
Heal: Take the top card from the Wound Stack and remove it from the Battle. It does not count as a Wound and does not provide resources at the end of the Battle.
Heartseeker: During the Draw BP card step of the Attack, you may look at the top two BP cards and choose which one to attack. Shuffle the other card back into the deck.
Hide: If you are not in front of the Primordial, you may activate this ability at the end of your turn to become Hidden. If you have the PT token, pass it to the Titan with the highest Rage other than you. As long as you are Hidden, you have +1 Evasion and +1 Precision. You stop being Hidden if you move in front of the Primordial, gain the Priority Target token, after the second ability window of your Attack or at the end of your next turn. Place a generic token on the game element granting you Hide as a reminder.
Knockback X: Move the affected miniature X spaces directly away from the source of Knockback in a straight line (or in a specified direction in case of directional Knockback; see examples on the next page).
- If Knockback is caused by a Primordial Attack, it affects the Target only if it is within the Attack's effective range (adjacent for normal Attacks, in the designated zone for Zone Attacks, within X spaces for Ranged X Attacks, etc.).
- If Knockback is caused by a Primordial Response, it affects the Attacker only if they are within adjacency.
- Knocked back Titans ignore all Terrain tiles they move through except Obstacles.
- If a Titan would be forced to move through a Destructible Obstacle Terrain tile, stop its movement, remove the Terrain tile from the Battle Board and place the Titan in its space, then the Titan suffers Crash.
- If a Titan would be forced to move through an Indestructible Obstacle, it stops on an adjacent space right before the Obstacle, then suffers Crash.
- Knocked back Primordials can move through any Terrain tiles and miniatures without hindrance. They destroy any Terrain tiles (except Indestructible) they move through and cause Crash and Unavoidable Knockback to Titans as normal.
- Titan Timing: Titans may use the Knockback X keyword during either the second ability window.
- If the affected miniature is knocked back into a Board Edge, it continues to move along the edge, if possible, away from the source of Knockback.
Knockback examples: The affected miniature must move in a straight line, directly away from the source of Knockback. Specific Knockback direction overrides regular rules. When a Titan is knocked back into the Board Edge it continues to move along the Edge, away from the source of Knockback (if possible). When a Titan is knocked back into another Titan, the other Titan is displaced (according to involuntary movement rules). When a Titan is knocked back into an Obstacle, it must stop on the Obstacle space (if Destructible) or adjacent to it (if Indestructible). Then it suffers Crash.
Knockdown: Gain the Knockdown Condition card, Falling down side up, and place your miniature on the side. Follow the rules of the Condition card. If Knockdown is caused by an Attack, it affects the Target only if it is within the Primordial's effective range (adjacent for Melee Attacks, in the designated zone for Zone Attacks, within X spaces for Ranged X Attacks, etc.). If it's caused by a Response, it affects the Attacker only if they are within adjacency.
Knockdown. Knockdown is a special Condition. When you get knocked down, you put your miniature on its side and take a Knockdown (falling down) card. While you have the Knockdown (falling down) card, you cannot perform any actions, reactions or free actions, unless stated otherwise. At the end of your next turn, you flip the card to the Knockdown (standing up) side. All Titans with a Knockdown (standing up) card stand up at the start of their next turn. If for whatever reason this card is discarded, stand up too.
Lifeline: When you are about to die from falling into a Chasm space, displace instead. Alternatively, when you are about to die from falling from a Boundless Board Edge, stop adjacent to it. This ability can be used even if knocked down or otherwise prohibited from using active abilities.
Lumbering: Cannot be involuntarily moved.
Motivate X: During the second ability window, choose another Titan. That Titan may move up to X spaces. If this keyword stacks, you can use each stacking instance on a separate Titan (i.e. you may use Motivate 1 from two sources to move one Titan twice or to move two Titans, one space each).
Opening X: During the second ability window, place X Opening tokens in the Kratos Pool. During the Attack Roll step, each Opening token in the Kratos Pool adds +1 to the result of each die.
Overbreak X: During the second ability window, if your Total Power exceeds AT by 1 or more, place X Break tokens in the Kratos Pool (see Break X keyword).
Peril: You must make this decision on your own. Do not consult other players.
Titan Possession: Once you equip this Gear card on a Titan, you have to equip it on this Titan for every subsequent Battle. You may, however, junction this Titan with a different Argonaut. Possible subtypes:
- Argonaut Possession: This Gear must be always equipped on any Titan controlled by this Argonaut in every subsequent Battle.
Unique: There can be no more than one instance of a unique card in play or in the Argo Armory at any given time. Other game elements may interact with this keyword.
Provoke: During the first ability window, gain the Priority Target token and turn the Primordial to face you.
Power Re-roll X: During the Power Roll step of an Attack, you may re-roll up to X Power dice. Remember, you cannot re-roll Power dice using Fate.
Pull X: Pull the target towards you X spaces.
Pull X. Move the affected miniature X spaces towards the source of the Pull, along the shortest possible path (see examples in Primordial Movement section, p. 38).
- Other miniatures: The affected miniature can move through spaces occupied by other miniatures.
- Terrain: The affected miniature must resolve the effects of any Terrain tiles it moves through.
- Destructible Obstacles: If a Titan is about to be pulled into a Destructible Obstacle (e.g. a Column), remove the Terrain tile from the Battle Board, the Titan suffers Crash, then continue the Pull.
- Indestructible Obstacles: If a Titan is about to be pulled into an Indestructible Obstacle, it suffers Crash and continues to move along the Obstacle's edge along the shortest possible path towards the Primordial.
- Adjacency: If the affected miniature is or becomes adjacent to the source, the Pull does not end. Instead, move the source directly away from the affected miniature the remaining number of spaces, then finish the Pull. The source follows the rules of voluntary movement (i.e. Pulling Primordials can move through Obstacles and other miniatures, but Pulling Titans cannot).
- Titan Timing: Titans may use the Pull X keyword during either the first or second ability window.
Pushback X: Push the target in front of you X spaces, moving along with it.
Pushback X. Turn the source towards the affected miniature. Then, move X spaces in the direction of the affected miniature, pushing it in a straight line.
- Other miniatures: Pushed Titans can move through spaces occupied by other miniatures. If a Titan ends involuntary movement on a space with another miniature, the other miniature is Displaced.
- Terrain: The affected miniature must resolve the effects of any Terrain tiles it moves through.
- Shortest path: If the affected miniature is not adjacent, move the source in its direction along the shortest possible path (see examples in the Primordial Movement section, p. 38).
- Destructible Obstacles: If a Titan is about to be pushed into a Destructible Obstacle (e.g. a Column), remove the Terrain tile from the Battle Board, the Titan suffers Crash, then continue Pushback.
- Indestructible Obstacles: If a Titan is about to be pushed into an Indestructible Obstacle, displace it to an adjacent space that would allow the Primordial to continue movement onto a space previously occupied by the Titan, then continue Pushback. If displacement is impossible, the Titan dies and, once the Primordial has moved into the space formerly occupied by the targeted Titan, the Pushback stops.
- Board Edge: If a Titan or Primordial is about to be pushed into the Board Edge, it is displaced to an adjacent space in a way that would allow the source of Pushback to move onto a space previously occupied by the affected miniature, then continue Pushback. If displacement is impossible, the Titan dies and the Pushback stops.
- Titan Timing: Titans may resolve the Pushback X keyword during either the first or second ability window of their Attack or when specifically instructed to resolve it immediately.
The Titan is pushed back and reaches the Board Edge. Since the Pushback has not been fully resolved yet, it must be displaced in a way that will allow the Hekaton to continue the Pushback along the Board Edge.
When a Titan is pushed back into a Column, it suffers Crash, gaining 1 Danger and suffering Knockdown. The Column is destroyed and the Hekaton continues pushing the knocked down Titan until the Pushback is fully resolved.
Ulyssea is pushed back into a red line, which is an Indestructible Obstacle. There are no adjacent spaces she can be legally displaced onto that would allow the Hekaton to move onto her space and continue the Pushback, so she dies instead, crushed by the Primordial.
Ranged X–Y: To attack with this weapon, you must be at least X and up to Y spaces away from your target. This keyword is not stackable.
Reach X: You may attack from up to X spaces away. This keyword is not stackable.
Reflex: Move up to 1 space. Possible subtypes:
- Advanced Reflex: Move up to 2 spaces.
- Superior Reflex: Move up to 3 spaces.
Reposition X: During the second ability window, you may move up to X spaces.
Restricted (Trait): You can equip only one Gear card with the following trait per Titan.
Reinforce X: When you are about to resolve an Armor Roll, add X red dice to your Armor dice pool. Possible subtypes:
-
Advanced Reinforce X: When you are about to resolve an Armor Roll, add X black dice to your Armor dice pool.
-
Superior Reinforce X: When you are about to resolve an Armor Roll, add X white dice to your Armor dice pool.
-
Rocksteady: When you are about to suffer Knockdown, you may use this ability to ignore it.
Rush: Move with +1 Speed and Melee/Reach Attack with Auto-break 1. You must move at least 3 spaces and reach your target via the shortest possible path. Possible subtypes:
- Improved Rush: Move with +2 Speed and Melee/Reach Attack with Auto-break 1 and +1 Precision. You must move at least 3 spaces and reach your target via the shortest possible path.
Sacrifice: During the first ability window, you may gain +1 Danger to place one Break token in the Kratos Pool (see Break X keyword).
Scale: When you are about to perform a test to climb a Vantage Point, automatically succeed at that test instead.
Second Chance: After you draw a Trauma or Obol card, you may ignore its effect and discard it. Draw and resolve another card from the same deck (note: a discarded Obol is immediately shuffled back into the Obol deck). You cannot ignore the second draw in any way. This ability can be used even when knocked down or otherwise prohibited from using active abilities.
Solace: Discard a Mind Condition card or a Despair token from yourself or an adjacent Titan.
Spotlight: During the first ability window, if you have the Priority Target token, gain +1 Titan Power for this Attack.
Stalwart: When you are about to suffer Knockback, you may use this ability to ignore it.
Suppress: Shuffle the discard pile denoted by the subtype into the appropriate deck. Possible subtypes:
- BP Suppress: Shuffle the BP discard pile into the BP deck.
- AI Suppress: Shuffle the AI discard pile into the AI deck.
Tireless: When you are about to activate the Cumbersome keyword, you may ignore it.
Tumble: When you are about to suffer Crash, roll a d10. On a 6+ ignore it.
Vault: If you're adjacent to the Primordial, place your miniature on an empty space in a straight line from you, on the opposite side of the Primordial, adjacent to it. A Titan may use this ability in either the first or second ability window. Possible subtypes:
- Forced Vault: If you're adjacent to the Primordial, place your miniature on a space in a straight line from you, on the opposite side of the Primordial, adjacent to it. Treat as involuntary movement. If you would have to end this movement outside of the Board Edge or on an Indestructible Obstacle Terrain tile, you die instead.
Terrain
Battles don't happen in a void. The places you face off with the Primordials matter a great deal. For the Argonauts, the more desolate a battlefield, the better. A Siren Shell Terrain tile may provide a hiding place and a Column Terrain tile is an ideal trap to push the Primordial into. But the monsters are drawn to mortal settlements, like Cities, where they can do the most harm.
Terrain is set up as part of every Battle Scenario (see scenario diagrams), but other game elements may also introduce additional Terrain tiles to the Battle Board. Hub adventures add Adventure Terrain (see Adventure Terrain, p. 31), while some other adventures and game effects may instruct you to place additional Terrain tiles at the start of the next Battle. If any effect instructs you to add Terrain to a Timeline Battle, note it on the Timeline.
Basic Terrain Rules
Terrain Tiles are made of spaces. Unless stated otherwise, you resolve a tile effect when entering the first space of a tile. A tile does not block LoS to itself (just like a miniature).
Placing and Removing Terrain in Battle
Terrain tiles can also be placed or destroyed during Battle as a result of various effects.
When a Terrain tile is destroyed, simply remove it from the Battle Board.
When a Terrain tile is placed, put it in on the indicated spaces on the Battle Board. If all the Terrain tiles of this type are already on the board, remove the tile furthest from the Primordial, then place it on the indicated spaces.
Terrain Placement on Other Terrain
When a Terrain tile is placed on a space occupied by another Terrain tile:
- If the other tile has the Indestructible trait, you cannot place anything on top of it. Ignore this new tile placement.
- In all other cases the other Terrain tile is destroyed before you place the new tile.
Terrain Placement on a Titan
When a Terrain tile is placed on a space occupied by a Titan:
- If the tile has the Obstacle and Destructible keywords, it is destroyed and the Titan suffers Crash.
- If the tile has just the Obstacle keyword, the Titan suffers Crash and is Displaced to an adjacent space in a way that would allow the tile to be placed without overlapping. If there is no such space, the Titan cannot be legally Displaced and dies.
- In all other cases the Terrain tile is simply placed underneath the Titan miniature and this Titan must immediately resolve this tile's effects (if any) as if it had just moved onto it.
Terrain Placement on Primordial
If a Terrain tile is placed on a space occupied by the Primordial:
- If the tile has the Indestructible trait, it is placed as normal.
- In all other cases the Terrain tile cannot be placed. Ignore this tile placement.
Terrain Abilities
In a similar way to Titans and Primordials, Terrain tiles possess various abilities that may greatly influence the course of the Battle. Some of them are represented by Terrain traits and their effects are explained in this section. All of these abilities are forced and must be resolved each time they are triggered unless explicitly stated otherwise. If an ability has no trigger, its effect is constant and always active as long as this tile is present on the Battle Board.
Terrain Traits List
The following list contains Terrain Traits common to all Cycles of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey. Traits that are introduced in a specific Cycle will be described in that Cycle's Storybook. All of these are referenced in the Master Index (p. 76).
Ambrosia: When a Titan ends its movement on this tile, voluntarily or not, it gains 1 Ambrosia token. If a Titan starts its turn on this tile and doesn't move until the end of this turn, it gains 1 Ambrosia token. If a Titan moves through this tile, but does not end its movement on it, roll a d10. On a 6+, gain 1 Ambrosia token.
Board Edge: This tile functions like the Board Edge (see Board Edge on p. 33), reducing the play area of the Battle Board.
Boundless: You cannot voluntarily move onto this tile. If you would be forced to move onto or beyond this tile or Board Edge, you die.
Chasm: Titans cannot voluntarily move through Chasm spaces. If a Titan ends their movement on a Chasm space, it dies. If it is pushed back or pulled through a Chasm space, it dies. If a Chasm tile is placed under a Titan, it dies. Note: Titans do not die from moving over a Chasm during Knockback unless they end their movement on it.
Cover: Titans on this tile have +1 Evasion.
Destructible: When a Titan is involuntarily moved onto this tile, the tile is destroyed. Note: If a Titan is knocked back, it ignores non-Obstacle Terrain tiles it moves through. Therefore, it will not destroy a Destructible tile unless it ends its movement on it. Possible subtype:
- Reinforced Destructible: When the Primordial moves onto this tile or a Titan is involuntarily moved onto it, flip this Terrain tile and corresponding Terrain card. It then becomes Destructible.
Exposed: If the Primordial stands on this tile, it has -1 To Hit.
Indestructible: This Terrain tile cannot be destroyed in any way. It invalidates Terrain placement on top of it.
Inhabited: Apply any bonuses and penalties listed on the Terrain card based on your Diplomacy Score with the Local Faction. If this Terrain tile is destroyed, lose -1 Diplomacy with the Local Faction.
Labyrinth: Red lines on these tiles should be treated as Obstacles. Connecting Labyrinth tiles are considered a single Terrain tile. See detailed rules in Cycle I Storybook.
Obscuring: This tile blocks Line of Sight.
Obstacle: Titans cannot move through Obstacles. Many move-like abilities interact with Obstacles. See Knockback, Pushback and Pull in the keywords list section on p. 63.
Trap: This tile has special interactions with the Primordial, listed on the Terrain card.
Treasure: This tile has special interactions with Titans, listed on the Terrain card.
Mnestis Theatre
Warning: This section contains spoilers! If you want to preserve your fun, read this section only after you gain access to the Mnestis Theatre Technology in the campaign!
What is the Mnestis Theatre?
The Mnestis Theatre is a special place, both in-world, onboard the Argo, and for Aeon Trespass: Odyssey as a game. You will develop the Mnestis Theatre towards the end of Cycle I: Truth of the Labyrinth as a means to an end. But those means will quickly outgrow that end and you'll find yourself coming back to the Theatre for more and more.
The Mnestis Theatre is a location, a theatre of memories. It can show you your past in vivid detail, but it can also create visions of possible futures based on the roads not taken. The Mnestis Theatre has its own, hidden story spread throughout all Cycles. It will serve as a place of reflection and self-actualization for the Argonauts. It will also allow you to delve into alternate "dream realms" to face higher level, more powerful and more deadly versions of the Primordials you've defeated before.
The Mnestis Theatre is a special game mode that allows you to test your mettle against powerful variants of the Primordials encountered in your campaign of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey. It is designed to be the ultimate challenge. To triumph, you will need to use all the tools at your disposal and exploit every weakness in the Primordial's defense.
Although it may seem real at first glance, everything that happens in the Mnestis Theatre is just a "simulation" — a play of sorts — that allows your Argonauts to relive their combat encounters and take part in simulated scenarios through the eyes of make-believe personas they create for themselves.
Important: The Mnestis Theatre is a bonus game mode and is not needed to complete the game! Though it will offer ascending materials you can use in your campaigns, the game is balanced without them, thus they are not required to beat any of the Cycles! No grinding in Aeon Trespass: Odyssey!
Accessibility
The Mnestis Theatre is a game mode separate, but not completely disconnected, from the main campaign. In the Theatre, you can only battle Primordials from the Cycles that you have already completed. Furthermore, you only have access to Gear, Mnemoses, Argo Abilities and Titans that you have unlocked in your campaign or in the Mnestis Theatre (see Mnestis Loadouts on p. 70).
The main way to experience the Mnestis Theatre is through the Tree of Knowledge, which further restricts your battle choices by creating a sprawling, tailored progression path through the many Primordial encounters and levels.
However, the good news is that you do not suffer any consequences of Mnestis Battles — you do not lose Titans, gain Doom or risk permanently losing your Gear or Mnemos cards. You also do not gain Progress, Mnemos nodes or normal Primordial resources! No effects or game elements carry over from the Mnestis Theatre to your campaign unless explicitly stated.
Mnestis Battles
In the Mnestis Theatre, you'll be fighting more powerful versions of normal Primordials. Specifically, Levels 5 to 9 of Regular Primordials, and Levels 2 to 9 of Boss and Adversary Primordials. If you tackle them through the Tree of Knowledge, you will also gain their unique rewards (only once per Primordial per Level!): ascending materials, ascended Cores and Mnestis Gear!
Tree of Knowledge
The Tree of Knowledge (see on p. 74-75) is the intended way to experience the Mnestis Theatre. It's a branching inverted "tower" of Battles. Whenever you beat a given Battle for the first time, you get its Mnestis rewards, mark it as completed and unlock one or more connected Battles. Remember: All Primordials from a given Cycle are locked in the Mnestis Theatre until you actually complete that Cycle!
Note that some Mnestis Battles are locked by more than one other Battle. You can access such a Battle only if you have won all the preceding Battles!
Unlocking Adversaries
For the purposes of unlocking Primordials, treat the Hermesian Pursuer as a Cycle I Primordial and Burden as a Cycle II Primordial (e.g. you can only choose to battle the Hermesian Pursuer level III if you have won the Temenos level II and Labyrinthauros level VI Battles and only if you have already finished Cycle I).
Custom Battles
Alternatively, you can just play any Battle, with any encountered Primordial, at any level you've unlocked, using any combination of Gear, Mnemoses and Titans you gained access to in the campaign. In other words, you play a custom game.
You can even battle lower level Primordials. Always wanted to stomp that Level 1 Hekaton with Cycle III endgame gear? Well, now you can.
However, only progression through the Tree of Knowledge grants you Mnestis rewards. This means that, although you can play a custom battle for the fun of it, you will not get any rewards from it: not only the normal ones, that are not available in Mnestis Theatre from the onset, but also no Mnestis resources, no Loot drops, no Mnestis Gear. Nothing!
General Mnestis Theatre Rules
These are the cardinal rules of the Mnestis Theatre all Mnestis Battles follow.
- Nymphs are banned: Summonings are disabled for all Mnestis Theatre Battles. Although the Theatre is able to recreate almost everything, it struggles with the unknowable nature of the Nymphs.
- Available assets: You have access to all Argo Abilities, Gear, Titans and Mnemos cards that you unlocked during the course of your campaign with the exception of game elements marked with the "Mnestis Prohibited" tag (see Mnestis Loadouts). Of course, you also have access to everything you've unlocked so far through the Tree of Knowledge.
- No consequences (nearly!): Nothing that happens in the Mnestis Theatre carries over to your current campaign unless specifically stated otherwise.
- No holds barred: Note that the Mnestis Theatre is designed to be a ruthless experience. Death is rampant here. Use the Mnestis Sheet to track your dead Titans!
- Mnestis only rewards: Rewards from Mnestis Battles can only be used in Mnestis Battles. They are so powerful that they border on broken… in the real world. In the Mnestis Theatre, they will be your lifeline instead!
- Unlimited Battles: There is no limit on the number of Mnestis Battles you can do back-to-back. In other words, if you so desire, you can pause your campaign and then go through all the available Battles in the Tree of Knowledge. However, you are limited by Primordial and Battle accessibility! For example, you cannot battle Cycle II Primordials until you actually complete Cycle II! Also, there is little point in grinding Mnestis Battles, so if you hit a wall, you're better off continuing your campaign!
- Awakenings: Awakenings in the Mnestis Theatre are allowed and are not limited by your campaign progress. In other words, you can freely use all Godforms unlocked so far, even if you have used them up at your current point in the campaign.
Mnestis Battle Setup
Mnestis Battle Setup is performed according to the normal rules, with the following exceptions. To begin a Mnestis Theatre Battle, resolve the following steps:
Choose a Battle: Choose the Scenario you wish to play. You can either play a Scenario through the Tree of Knowledge in an attempt to earn unique rewards or replay a previously played Battle Scenario, for the fun and training of it!
In the case of the Tree of Knowledge, you can only choose Battles that are not marked (you haven't won them yet), but that you have unlocked (all the preceding Battles leading into them are marked and you have completed that Primordial's Cycle). Use the Mnestis Sheet to to mark the Battles won through the Tree of Knowledge.
In case of replaying a previously completed Battle, choose a Primordial and decide which level you want to face. You can only choose a Primordial level if you have defeated it in your campaign or in the Mnestis Theatre. Note that these Battles do not grant you any rewards.
Perform Battle Setup: Perform all normal preparations with the following exceptions:
- For the duration of a Mnestis Theatre Battle, you are considered to be in the Cycle that the Primordial you are battling with originates from. All global rules that govern this Cycle are applicable!
- Construct your Trauma and Moiros decks accordingly (substitute or remove cards specific to this Cycle).
- Choose any Argonaut Portrait cards and assign two unlocked Mnemos cards (see Mnestis Loadouts) to each of them, one on Level 2 (with 7 nodes), and one on Level 1 (with 3 nodes). Alternatively, play with any deceased or retired Argonaut (just don't tamper with their sheets!).
- Choose any four unlocked Titans and distribute them among the Argonauts. Then, choose any unlocked Gear cards to equip (see Mnestis Loadouts). Note that any ascendancy rules do not apply in the Mnestis Theatre. You can use unlocked Gear from any Cycle with no additional penalties.
- Find your Technology with the highest Argo Support ability as normal, and choose the indicated number of Argo Abilities to use. Apply the Quantum Propylon Technology if you have it, regardless of the Cycle you're in.
- Do not mark any boxes on any of the Evolution Tracks or Battle Tracks. Ignore any special Victory Conditions. You can only win by slaying the Primordial. This is just a simulation.
- Use the Mnestis side of a Routine card (the one that says Mnestis Routine in its Attack Type).
Mnestis Loadouts
In the Mnestis Theatre, you have access to all Titans, Gear cards, Argo Abilities and Mnemos cards that you unlocked during the course of your campaign:
- Titans are unlocked if you have them in your Titan Stoa or possess a Breeding Technology that would allow you to breed them.
- Gear cards are unlocked if you have them in your Armory or if you possess the Production Technology that would allow you to craft them (you do not need to possess the necessary resources but you need to possess all unique elements required to craft them, such as other Gear cards).
- Mnemos cards are unlocked if you have them in your Mnemos Vault, assigned to your Argonauts or if you have already resolved them.
- Argo Abilities are unlocked if you have them in your Technologies deck.
- Pattern cards are unlocked if you have them in your Gymnasion deck or they are equipped on any of your Titans.
- Additionally, you have access to all Mnestis rewards.
Exception: You can never use game elements with the "Mnestis Prohibited" tag in Mnestis Theatre.
It's Make-believe! Remember! This is just a simulation, smoke and mirrors, an elaborate play. Nothing that happens in the Mnestis Theatre carries over to your campaign unless explicitly stated otherwise. You do not lose Titans, gain Mnemos nodes or Doom or suffer any other negative consequences of your Battles. Similarly, most positive effects and rewards are available only in the Mnestis Theatre. The most notable exceptions are Ascending Materials, Guaranteed Loot and the mysterious Skyseer Titan (if you have the Skyseer Expansion)…
Mnestis Rewards
The Mnestis Theatre may be an elaborate case of smoke and mirrors, but it's much more than what you put in. Sometimes, it offers you something unique, extraordinary, not solely based on your previous experiences. These are Mnestis rewards. Remember: The use of Mnestis rewards is limited to the Mnestis Theatre, unless specifically stated otherwise.
Whenever you win a Mnestis Battle through the Tree of Knowledge, you mark it and gain its rewards. This means you only get the rewards of a given Battle once (even across multiple campaign playthroughs!). Each of these Battles always gives you ascending materials, but some may also grant you unique rewards.
Cycle Ascending Materials
Once you win it for the first time, each Mnestis Battle in the Tree of Knowledge will reward you with one Cycle-specific ascending material. Each Cycle has a differently named ascending material:
Labyrinthized Tears are awarded for Cycle I Primordials and will allow you to ascend your Gear to Cycle II. Excavated Tears are awarded for Cycle II Primordials and will allow you to ascend your Gear to Cycle III. Accursed Tears are awarded for Cycle III Primordials and will allow you to ascend your Gear to Cycle IV.
Ascending Costs
To ascend Gear, simply choose any non-Unique Gear card and pay the corresponding ascending cost in ascending materials. Your Gear card is now ascended to the Cycle one higher than the Cycle from which you used the ascending material (e.g. you can use ascending materials from Cycle I Mnestis Battles to ascend Gear to Cycle II). Note it on the Argo Sheet or one of the Argonaut Sheets. There is no reason to ascend Gear from a higher numbered Cycle to a lower numbered one. Also note that you have to ascend a card to Cycle II before ascending it to Cycle III.
Ascending doesn't grant any special abilities, but it allows you to ignore the ascendancy rules for that Cycle. It also grants a new trait to the Gear card (Labyrinthized for Cycle II, Excavated for Cycle III, Accursed for Cycle IV and so on).
Gear cards from these Production Technologies cost one ascending material to ascend: (I) Trireme Weapons, Trireme Armor, Trireme Ranged Weapons, Siren Armor, Advanced Trireme Weapons, Basic Support Equipment, (II) Lakonian Support Equipment, Temenos Armor, Temenos Weapons, Temenos Advanced Gear, Temenos Support Equipment, (III) Temporal Support Equipment, Nietzschean Armor, Nietzschean Reach Weapons, Nietzschean Weapons, Delphian Siren Armor, Delphian Siren Weapons, Hypertime Oracle Sighting, Icarian Harpy Sighting.
Gear cards from these Production Technologies cost two ascending materials to ascend: (I) Hekaton Sighting, Labyrinthauros Sighting, Trireme Reach Weapons, Specialized Trireme Weapons, (II) Chimera Metastasios Sighting, Cyclonus Sighting, Experimental Gear, War Support Equipment, (III) Sun Descendant Sighting, Atemporal Support Equipment, Black Ice Armor, Advanced Transforming Weapons, Argoline Transforming Weapons.
Gear cards from these Production Technologies cost three ascending materials to ascend: (I) Hekaton Autopsy, Labyrinthauros Autopsy, Smelted Gear, Advanced Support Equipment, (II) Metal Weapons, Relief Gear, Chimera Metastasios Autopsy, Cyclonus Autopsy, (III) Monomythological Support, Hypertime Oracle Autopsy, Icarian Harpy Autopsy, Helios Fanatics Equipment, Apostate Armor.
Gear cards from these Production Technologies cost four ascending materials to ascend: (I) Hekaton Live Study, Labyrinthauros Live Study, Temenos Sighting, (II) Cyclonus Live Study, Chimera Metastasios Live Study, Nietzschean Meeting Study, Cyclopean Gear, Spartan Weapons, Spartan Advanced Weapons, Cyclopean Advanced Gear, (III) Hypertime Oracle Live Study, Sun Descendant Partial Autopsy, Icarian Harpy Live Study, Sun Descendant Live Study, Helios Fanatics Light Weapons, Apostate Weapons.
Ascended Cores
Ascending Unique Gear cards is a lot harder, but still doable! To ascend a Unique Gear card, you need to use one appropriate Ascended Core (a Labyrinthized Ascended Core to ascend from Cycle I to Cycle II and so on). Ascended Cores are guaranteed rewards from some of the Battles in the Tree of Knowledge (see p. 74).
Guaranteed Loot
Sometimes a Mnestis Battle will reward you with Guaranteed Loot. Guaranteed Loot is the loot you can gain from the Primordial BP cards. If a Mnestis Battle instructs you to gain a Guaranteed Loot card, gain a random card from the list below corresponding to the Primordial you fought. That's your guaranteed loot!
- Hekaton: Shieldblade (Secret deck 2, card 10)
- Labyrinthauros: Mazemace (Secret deck 2, card 12), Glimmer Shroud (Secret deck 2, card 13)
- Temenos: Pyramidion (Secret deck 5, card 46)
- Pursuer: Nail Spear (Secret deck 2, card 17), Vulture Mask (Secret deck 2, card 18)
- Cyclonus: Right Maulfist (Secret deck 5, card 47), Left Maulfist (Secret deck 5, card 48)
- Chimera: Muck Virus (Secret deck 5, card 50), Remembrance (Secret deck 5, card 49), Jaws of the Lion (Secret deck 5, card 51)
- Nietzschean: Umbral Virus (Secret deck 5, card 175), Fumeblade (Secret deck 5, card 178), Necroxiphos (Secret deck 5, card 177), Elephantine Armor (Secret deck 5, card 176), Cowl of Char (Secret deck 5, card 53), The End (Secret deck 5, card 54)
- Burden: Leg Khopesh (Secret deck 5, card 52), Sisyphus's Burden (Secret deck 5, card 60)
- Oracle: Eye of the Watcher (Secret deck 8, card 84), Paradox (Secret deck 8, card 85)
- Harpy: Right Talon of Doom (Secret deck 8, card 86), Spherecast (Secret deck 8, card 87)
- Sun Descendant: Icarus Lot (Secret deck 8, card 88), Icarus's Fall (Secret deck 8, card 89)
Important: Guaranteed Loot does get added to the Argo Armory, meaning you can use it in your campaigns! (though you probably will need to ascend it first…)
Primordial Cores
You may be tempted to ascend your Guaranteed Loot immediately, but it may be a better idea to reforge it first. It is worth finding out (by checking the Production Technology cards from a corresponding Cycle) if the Gear card you just earned is used as a crafting component for a more powerful item. If it is, then the Mnestis Theatre gives you an alternate way of reforging these artifacts.
Whenever you score a Critical Wound on a BP III card that under normal circumstances would give you a Primordial Core, you may instead immediately craft a Gear card that requires a Unique Gear card dropped by the Primordial you are fighting, without paying any additional crafting costs.
Mnestis Gear
The toughest Mnestis Battles will award you special Mnestis Gear! These are possibly the most powerful items in the game! Remember, these are restricted to the Mnestis Theatre; you cannot use these in normal campaign Battles (they'd probably trivialize them…).
Nymphs
The Mnestis Theatre is a very odd place. As already mentioned, it cannot simulate the unknowable nature of the Nymphs, making their Summoning during Mnestis Battles impossible. However, the Mnestis Theatre can attract the attention of the Nymphs, especially those that may have never visited the Argo before.
Therefore, some Mnestis Battles will unlock new Nymph Summonings for your campaigns. These Nymphs may have been attainable during normal play, but they were missable. Now you have a chance to gain them again! And yes, you can use these Summonings during normal campaign play!
Mnestis Battle Diagrams
Generally, for Mnestis Battles you use the Primordial Battle Scenarios from the Storybooks. For Adversaries and Boss Primordials use their regular Battle setup, not the final narrative Battle Scenario. Some Mnestis Traits may introduce alternate Battle Diagrams. You can find these on the next page.
Skyseer Titan Expansion
And finally, we come to the strangest Mnestis Theatre reward of them all. One that should not exist. And yet, it's there, for all those who dared to reach out towards the sun and grasp at it during the funding campaign…
When you win the appropriate Mnestis Battle, if you have the Skyseer Expansion, read the following paragraph:
You enter the Mnestis Theatre and the machina does the rest, conjuring up scenes most fantastic. You inhabit your roles and the play starts. Everything goes the way it always does: you battle the dreamt-up Primordial, an impossible challenge but a marginal risk, a way to hone your skills and discover new tactics.
As the monster falls to its imaginary death, something unexpected happens. The Mnestis lights dim and go out, and the scene dissipates before your very eyes. You're back in the Theatre chamber, for you never truly left. It was all shadowplay.
And yet, amongst you, a fifth Titan now stands, one you do not recognize, but that clearly dons an Antikratos Helm. Their giant fleshy wings spread wide, like a shroud. Their coarse skin has endured much hardship, and is both sunburned and windswept.
An inscription on the helm reads: child of the Icarcore, the seer not of time, but of place. But what does that mean?
Gain 1 Skyseer Titan and the Skyreach and Horizon's Edge Gear cards. All of these can be used outside of the Mnestis Theatre as well.
Skyseer Technology
The Skyseer Technology describes the way you can create more Skyseer class Titans. This Technology can be used during any of your campaigns (meaning the Skyseer Titan is not restricted to the Mnestis Theatre). Below, you'll find the rules for Skyseer Breeding.
Skyseer Breeding: Lose 2 Dreamwalker Titans to note the Skyseer Event on the Timeline, 20 days from now. When you resolve this event, gain a Skyseer Titan. You cannot use this ability again until you resolve this event.
Instant Drop: Lose 1 Ascended Core and 1 Dreamwalker Titan to immediately gain a Skyseer Titan.
Alternate Mnestis Battle Diagrams
Hekaton level 8+. Required tiles: 2x City, 11x Column, 2x Labyrinth I, 2x Labyrinth L, 1x Labyrinth O, 2x Labyrinth Z.
Cyclonus level 8+. Required tiles: 2x Fortified City, 1x Spartan River Works Z, 5x Spartan River Works 1x1, 5x Spartan River Works 1x4, 3x Spartan River Works 1x5.
Burden level 5+. Required tiles: 3x Black Glacier 1x5, 2x Black Lake, 9x Column, 3x Large Cliff O, 4x Small Cliff I, 3x Small Cliff L, 5x Small Cliff Z.
Tree of Knowledge (chart)
The Tree of Knowledge is presented as a large branching chart of Mnestis Battles spanning two pages. Each node shows a Primordial name, its Primordial Level, a Mnestis Battle checkbox and the rewards granted the first time you win it.
Legend: Mnestis Battle checkbox; Primordial Level; Labyrinthized Tear (Cycle I Ascending Material); Excavated Tear (Cycle II Ascending Material); Accursed Tear (Cycle III Ascending Material); Labyrinthized Ascended Core (Cycle II); Excavated Ascended Core (Cycle II); Accursed Ascended Core (Cycle III).
Nodes on the chart include, among others: Hekaton; Hermesian Pursuer (Skyseer Titan); Alpha Temenos (Guaranteed Loot); Labyrinthauros (Guaranteed Loot); Hekaton (Guaranteed Loot); Alpha Temenos (Secret deck 5, card 44); Hermesian Pursuer (Secret deck 12, card 162); Labyrinthauros (Secret deck 12, card 148 / card 165); Hekaton (Secret deck 12, card 147 / card 150); Chimera Metastasios (Guaranteed Loot / Secret deck 12, cards 151, 157); Cyclonus (Guaranteed Loot / Secret deck 12, cards 154, 152, 171); The Burden (Guaranteed Loot / Secret deck 3, card 30; Secret deck 6, cards 75, 78; Secret deck 12, cards 153, 156, 158, 159, 167, 169, 170); The Nietzschean (Guaranteed Loot / Secret deck 12, cards 155, 159, 168); Hermesian Pursuer IV (Secret deck 12, card 163); Hypertime Oracle (Guaranteed Loot / Secret deck 12, cards 160, 172); Icarian Harpy (Guaranteed Loot / Secret deck 12, cards 149, 164); Sun Descendant (Guaranteed Loot / Secret deck 12, cards 161, 166).
Master Index
The Rulebook closes with a four-page Master Index listing all rules found in this Rulebook, as well as in all 3 Storybooks. Unless noted otherwise, all page numbers refer to this book; all references to the Storybooks are explicitly denoted.
Last Page Summaries
Triskelion
Rage increases each time you attack, giving you access to additional abilities from the Kratos Table. Whenever your Rage becomes the highest of any Titan, gain the Priority Target token. A Rage of more than 9 means death.
Use Fate to get re-rolls for Attack Rolls, Evasion Rolls and Skill tests, as well as to pay for powerful abilities. High Fate may enable additional negative effects. A Fate of more than 9 means you must draw a Moiros card. You cannot use Fate to re-roll Power dice.
You gain Danger when you are attacked and from suffering other negative effects. A Danger of more than 9 usually causes an Obol Draw.
Basic Kratos Tokens
Opening token: Each Opening token in the Kratos Pool adds +1 to each of your dice results during an Attack Roll.
Break token: Each Break token in the Kratos Pool turns 1 potential into 1 Power during your Power Roll.
Campaign Round Sequence
- Movement Step (always): Move the Argo onto a new tile (p. 13).
- Timeline Step (always): Advance the Timeline (p. 14).
- Exploration Step (always):
- Resolve Exploration symbols (p. 15).
- Draw two stacks of cards from the Exploration deck (p. 15).
- Move the Adversary (p. 16).
- Perform an Acclimation (if applicable).
- Expedition Step (conditional): If on a tile with an adventure or R&R symbol, consult the Adventure Table and resolve an adventure (p. 16).
- Encounter Step (conditional): If there are any Timeline Battles or Battle Events on the Timeline, resolve them (p. 17).
- Advancement Step (optional): Craft Gear, resolve Advancement Events, develop new Technologies and use existing ones (p. 17).
- Story Step (conditional): If there are any Story Events on the Timeline, someone has an unresolved Mnemos Breakthrough or the Story progression has been triggered, resolve them (p. 20).
- Doom Step (conditional): If there are any Doom Events on the Timeline or the Doom progression has been triggered, resolve them (p. 21).
- End Step (always): If you are on an Unexplored tile, it becomes Explored (p. 22).
Titan Attack Sequence
- Declare Attack and Active Weapon (p. 48)
- Raise Rage and check Priority Target (p. 49)
- Attack Roll (p. 49)
- First Ability Window (p. 49)
- Draw BP card (p. 49)
- Power Roll (p. 50)
- 6.1. Create the Power Pool
- 6.2. Roll the Dice
- 6.3. Power Re-rolls
- 6.4. Use Potentials
- 6.5. Resolve the Power Roll
- Primordial Responses (p. 51)
- Wounds and Escalation (p. 51)
- Clear the Kratos Pool (p. 54)
- Second Ability Window (p. 54)
Standard Battle Preparations
Battle Board: Place the Battle Board in the middle of the table.
Decks and tokens: Shuffle the Trauma decks, the Kratos deck and the Moiros deck. Place all decks in the designated spaces and place Kratos tokens, Attack dice and Power dice within reach of all players.
Argonauts: Each player places their Argonaut Portrait and Mnemos cards in front of them.
Triskelions: Each player places their Triskelion near their other components. The Triskelion does not reset at the beginning of Battle; you start with the Triskelion stats you've accumulated over the course of the other Phases.
Titans: Each player chooses the Titan they will control from the available Titans. If at least four Titans are available, each Argonaut must control one Titan. Note: It does not have to be the same Titan they controlled in the previous battle. Remember: You cannot take more than one Titan of the same Argo-bred class into Battle.
Gear Loadouts: Each Titan has limited Gear card slots: two weapon slots, two support slots and one armor slot. A symbol in the upper left corner of a Gear card denotes which slot it occupies. You cannot equip Gear cards that would exceed the available slots of your Titans. Each Titan can only have one copy of the same support card.
Argo Abilities: Players choose the Argo Abilities they want to use during the upcoming Battle. You may use as many Argo Ability cards as your Argo Ability (AA) Limit allows. Place the Argo Abilities you have chosen next to the Battle Board, along with the indicated number of Charge tokens.
Primordial: Place the Primordial Sheet of the Primordial you are about to battle in the designated space near the Battle Board. Place its Routine and Signature cards in the corresponding spaces. Take all of this Primordial's AI cards and divide them into three decks numbered I, II and III (you'll find the roman numeral on the back of the cards). Do the same for the Primordial's BP cards. Then place the AI I and BP I decks on the appropriate spaces on the Battle Board. Place decks II and III directly below. These are Escalation decks. Find the Trait cards for any Traits that are not described on the Primordial Sheet and place them nearby as a reference.
Terrain and Titan Placement: Find all the Terrain cards and Terrain tiles used in the Battle. Place the Terrain cards near the Battle Board and the Terrain tiles on the Battle Board, according to the Battle Diagram. Remember to place additional Adventure Terrain, if noted (see p. 31). Place Titans on Titan Starting Positions as indicated by the diagram. Then proceed to Primordial positioning.
Resolving an AI Card Attack
- Draw AI: Draw the top card from the AI deck (p. 37).
- Targeting: Decide who or what becomes the Target of the Attack (p. 37).
- Movement: Resolve any Primordial moves (p. 38).
- Attack (p. 40):
- 4.1. Evasion Roll: Attempt to evade the Attack (p. 41).
- 4.2. Attack Consequences: Resolve Attack effects and a Trauma Draw (p. 42).
- After Attack: Resolve all After Attack effects (p. 44).
Massive Danger
- 14+ Danger: Add the You died horribly card to the Obol deck.
- 18+ Danger: Add the Your gruesome death becomes legend card to the Obol deck.
- 21+ Danger: Add the Your death transcends reality card to the Obol deck.
The Most Popular In-Game Symbols
Triskelion: Danger, Fate, Rage.
Dice: Attack die, Crit die, '10', Red die, Black die, Armor die, Potential, Power, "You will find out in due time…".
Titan: Break token, Opening token, Exhaust, Reaction, Gear, One handed, Two handed, Three handed, Armor, Support, Combat Action, Movement Action, Complicated Action.
Primordial: AT, Window of Opportunity, Priority Target, Unavoidable Knockback, To hit, Speed, Wounds, Escalation, Blindspot, Rear, Weakspot.
Voyage and Adventure: Progress, Doom, City, Titan, Adventure, R&R Adventure, Restricted, End stack, Draw another, Adversary Activation, Timeline Battle, Combat Technology, Structural Technology, Crew, Hull, Argo Fate, Argo Knowledge, Summon Charge.
Credits
Into the Unknown Studio. Idea and Worldbuilding: Marcin Wełnicki. Producer: Marcin Wełnicki and Konrad Rekieć. Art Direction: Marcin Wełnicki and Mateusz Lenart. Creative Direction: Marcin Wełnicki. Game Design: Marcin Wełnicki. Lead Writer: Marcin Wełnicki. Writing: Marcin Wełnicki, Iain MacAskill, Sylvie Gorak. Additional Writing: Olivia Wood, George Lockett, Nick Henning, Thomas Warmbrodt. Editing: Eleanor Bolton. Graphic Design: Mateusz Lenart, Daniel Comerci, Michał Teliga, Mikołaj Olejniczak, Marcin Wełnicki, Łukasz Bacherycz, Stephanie Gustafsson. Compositor: Mikołaj Olejniczak and Ewa Pietras. Cover Art: Mateusz Lenart. Game Art: Mateusz Lenart, Jan Różański, Seweryn Borkowski, Michał Teliga, Augustinas Raginskis, Bartłomiej Fedyczak, Sarunas Macijauskas, Fotis Kalialis, Michał Orzechowski.