Awesome Kingdom: The Tower of Hateskull Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal
• Game Components
• Setup
• Your Awesome Turn
  • During your turn, follow these steps:
    • Play an Action Card
• Abilities & Movement
  • STOP
  • PASS
  • LAND ON
  • LAND ADJACENT TO
• Claiming Cards
• Refilling the Dungeon
• End of Your Turn
• Coins and Wounds
• Fiddly Timing Issues
• At the End of Each Day
• At the End of Day 3
• Card Icons
• Notes on Specific Cards
  • Heroes
  • Action Cards
  • Dungeon Cards

Goal

To become the MOST AWESOME HERO, of course! You do this by racking up awesomeness. Every Dungeon card has a flaming skull on the bottom of it that tells you how many Awesome points it's worth. Have the most awesomeness at the end of the game and you win! The rest of you are still awesome, but, you know, not as much.

Game Components

• These Rules
• 110 cards, including:
  • 8 Hero cards
  • 40 Action cards
  • 60 Dungeon cards
  • 1 Tower of Hateskull card
  • 1 Time Tracker card
• 81 cardboard tokens, including:
  • 1 Time Tracker dial
  • 1 First Player token
  • 8 Hero standups
  • 11 Dungeon tiles
  • 15 1-Wound tokens
  • 15 3-Wound tokens
  • 15 1-Coin tokens
  • 15 3-Coin tokens
• 8 plastic bases for Hero standups

Setup

1. Set the Scene: Place the Time Tracker card and the Tower of Hateskull card in the middle of the play area. Then, read the story on the Tower of Hateskull card out loud. Afterwards, flip it over so that the rules side is face-up.

2. Create the Decks: Sort the Hero, Action, and Dungeon cards into three different decks (they each have different card backs to make this easy) and shuffle each deck.

3. Hand Out Heroes: Randomly deal a Hero card face-up in front of each player. Each player should then take the standup for their hero and place it in front of them. Return the unused Hero cards and Hero standups to the box, no loot for them.

4. Build the Dungeon: Take a number of Dungeon tiles equal to the number of players plus 7 and lay them out in a circle around the cards in the middle of the play area. Place unused Dungeon tiles in the box.

5. Choose Starting Player and Place Heroes: Choose a player to go first and give that player the First Player token. That player places their Hero standup next to one of the Dungeon tiles. Then, starting to the first player's left and going clockwise around the table, every other player does the same. No more than one hero can be placed next to each Dungeon tile. (Don't sweat this decision too much, folks. The Killsassin, Clergeon, and Rockaneer like to start close to other heroes. The others, not so much.)

   As far as choosing a player to go first, I recommend the player who has most awesomely thwarted death or who owns the most pointy things, but any metric of AWESOME you can think of works. Smoke bomb! Poof!

6. Fill the Dungeon: Deal out a Dungeon card face-up next to every Dungeon tile that doesn't have a Hero standup next to it. Place the rest of the Dungeon deck facedown near the dungeon.

Your Awesome Turn

A player's turn is extremely simple in Awesome Kingdom. On your turn, just choose one Action card from your hand and play it, following the instructions on the card. Most Action cards tell you to move your hero in a particular way, while others have special instructions on them that you'll have to read and follow. Once you've resolved your Action card, claimed any Dungeon card your hero has landed on, and refilled any empty spaces in the dungeon by drawing cards from the Dungeon deck, your turn is over!

During your turn, follow these steps:

Play an Action Card

Most Action cards have a number with one or more arrows next to it. These are telling you to move your hero EXACTLY that many spaces in the indicated direction. If the card has more than one arrow on it, choose whichever direction you like. If the card has a left-pointing arrow, that means clockwise around the dungeon, while a right-pointing arrow indicates counterclockwise around the dungeon.

NOTE: When moving, ONLY count the cards you move onto. Passing over other heroes is free, and you'll never end your movement in the same space as another hero.

Beware of passing over me! I get to look at the hand of any hero that passes over me and trade an Action card with them! If you are playing me as a character, don't forget this rule! And make sure to snicker when you enforce it.

Diagram captions (Racing Zozzle example):

If the Racing Zozzle has an arrow that points RIGHT, it causes Paladude to move four spaces in the Dungeon COUNTERCLOCKWISE. Any heroes (such as Junkventor) do not count towards Paladude's move.

But if the Racing Zozzle has an arrow that points LEFT, it causes Paladude to move four spaces in the Dungeon CLOCKWISE. Any heroes (such as Killsassin and Longtrudger) do not count towards Paladude's move.

Abilities & Movement

There are a number of abilities in Awesome Kingdom that affect either your movement or you, as you move. These are described in more detail below.

STOP

Some cards have the STOP ability on them. The moment you move onto a card with the STOP ability, you lose any movement you had left and end your movement on that card. You still resolve the rest of your turn, you just have to stop on the card.

For example, when you move onto a Gronk Trap, immediately end your movement.

EXCEPTION: In the Action deck there are several cards called DÉJÀ VU and DÉJÀ VU AGAIN. These let you move one space, claim the card you've landed on, and do it again. If you land on a STOP card as the first card when playing one of these Action cards, you claim it and then move another space and claim another card as usual since you've technically stopped on the STOP card, at least for a moment.

PASS

In addition, as you move your hero, watch for abilities that activate when you pass over a card or hero. These trigger the instant you move off the card or skip over the hero that has the ability.

For instance, when you pass over the Well of Ill Wishes, you must leave two coins on the well if you can. Note that you must always fulfill abilities as completely as you are able, so if you only have one coin, leave it on the well.

LAND ON

When your hero ends their movement, look at the card the hero has landed on and trigger any relevant ability on that card.

For instance, when you land on the Tin Coins card, you get to gain one coin from the bank. Not bad!

LAND ADJACENT TO

Finally, look at any cards directly adjacent to your hero (a card is directly adjacent if there aren't any cards or other heroes between your hero and that card), and activate any relevant abilities on the adjacent card.

Case in point, if you land directly adjacent to the Guillotine Gauntlet, you gain two wounds. Not good!

So remember, when moving, resolve abilities in this order:

1. Cards with the STOP ability.
2. Abilities that activate when you PASS over a card/hero.
3. Abilities that activate when you LAND ON a card.
4. Abilities that activate when you LAND ADJACENT TO a card/hero.

NOTE: If a card/hero has an "or" in an ability trigger, like PASS or LAND ADJACENT TO, it only affects you once per turn, even if you both passed over it and landed next to it, in this case.

Claiming Cards

Once you've ended your movement, take the card you've landed on and add it to your score pile (face-up in front of you). This is called "claiming the card." That card's Awesome points will now be added to your total at the end of the game.

CLAIMED cards will ADD or SUBTRACT from your AWESOME points based on the number by the FLAMING SKULL symbol on each card.

Refilling the Dungeon

Finally, to end your turn, draw a card from the Dungeon deck for each Dungeon tile that is now empty (i.e., has neither a card nor a hero next to it). New Dungeon cards are placed face-up next to their Dungeon tile.

If, for some bizarre reason, you don't have enough Dungeon cards to refill all the Dungeon tiles, the game immediately ends (see "At the End of Day 3").

Hey, brah, I found it confusing at first that you replace the card you claim at the space where you STARTED your move, but if you think about it, the room you left being refilled with stuff makes totes sense. Just make sure there are 7 cards in the dungeon at the end of your turn, and all will be excellent.

End of Your Turn

After your turn is finished, play passes to the left. If it's the start of your turn and you don't have any Action cards left to play, the day is over (see "At the End of Each Day").

Coins and Wounds

Each time you gain a coin, take a Coin token from the bank, and add it to your score pile. Coins are worth 1 Awesome point each—they're good, keep them. Each time you gain a wound, take a Wound token, and add it to your score pile. Wounds are each worth -1 Awesome point—wounds are bad, try to get rid of them.

Wounds can be healed in various ways, including GRONK JUICE and other cards. Don't worry about dying from wounds, however. You can have any number of wounds in Awesome Kingdom, and the only effect is lowering your score at the end of the game. After all, you're way too awesome to let a few flesh wounds slow you down!

It's more than traps and monsters ye should be fearing in the dungeon. Some mutinous "heroes" will be lookin' to leave a blade in yer back or lighten your pockets, given the chance.

I think he's saying that your WOUND and COIN tokens can be taken or added by various effects, even other players.

Aye!

You'll often receive coins and wounds from abilities triggered on cards (or from other heroes' abilities).

Fiddly Timing Issues

Occasionally, more than one effect may trigger at the same time. When this happens, the player being affected gets to choose which order they trigger in. After all, it's not awesome to argue about fiddly timing issues.

At the End of Each Day

Once players have played all of their Action cards, the current day is over. Move the dial on the Time Tracker card to the next day. If it is the end of Day 3, the game is over.

Otherwise, if the game isn't over yet, the first player passes the First Player token to the player to their left. That player is now the new first player. Every player is then dealt a new hand of 3 Action cards from the Action deck, and play continues, starting with the new first player. After Day 3 is completed, the game is over. Players

At the End of Day 3

(The printed sentence above breaks across the "At the End of Day 3" heading; it is continued here.)

count up their total Awesome points, remembering to add or subtract points for their coins and wounds. The player with the highest total is the MOST AWESOME HERO (and incidentally wins the game). If there's a tie, the player with the most coins wins. If there's still a tie, the player with the fewest wounds wins. If there's STILL a tie, the tied players must duel to the death in a fierce game of rock-paper-scissors—winner takes all! There are no shared wins in Awesome Kingdom! Shared wins are for other, less-AWESOME games.

As the final hero crawled from the ruins of the crumbling and smoking Tower of Hateskull and looked up into the clear night sky, they realized their quest was over. The lone figure checked the bindings on their wounds and considered the companions they had helped or stabbed in the back. Finally, hefting the sack of treasure they had acquired and preparing to undertake the long journey back to town, a single word was spoken under their breath… "Awesome."

Card Icons

Card types:

• Hero card (sword and shield icon)
• Magic card (wand icon)
• Monster card (purple flask icon)
• Action card (taco icon)
• Trap card (bear trap icon)
• Treasure card (pile of gold icon)

Awesome points and symbols:

• Awesome Points (flaming skull icon)
• Worth -1 Point at end of game (crossed-bones icon)
• Worth 1 Point at end of game (coin icon)
• Activates when landed on by a hero (hero landing on a card)
• Activates when an adjacent card is landed on by a hero (hero landing next to a card)
• Activates when a hero moves past it (hero passing over a card)
• STOP: Hero must stop on this card when attempting to move past it.
• PASS: When moving over a card with PASS on it, a power on this card activates.

Notes on Specific Cards

The following section contains clarifications for specific cards.

Heroes

Clergeon, Paladude, and Rockaneer: The coins that the Clergeon and Paladude gain because of their abilities come from the bank, unlike the Rockaneer, who takes the coin from the hero (or heroes) he passes during his movement.

Junkventor: Any card with a negative value has that value turned positive before any other modifications are made to the card's value. Thus, if the Junkventor has a trap card worth -3 awesome and an effect saying that all of her traps are worth -2 awesome at the end of the game, that trap card would be worth 1 awesome, since you change its value to 3 awesome before subtracting 2.

Prestidigimancer: You may only trade Action cards with another hero if you both have at least 1 Action card in your hand.

Longtrudger: You may only increase actual numbers on Action cards by 1. You may increase a 2 to a 3, or a 4 to a 5. You cannot, however, change the word "first" to "second," for instance. Also, note that the Longtrudger's ability is particularly awesome with the Dungeon Speed Run and Sneak Attack Action cards, since he can increase how far he moves, and therefore, how many cards he passes.

Action Cards

Déjà Vu and Déjà Vu Again: As noted under the STOP ability, if the first card you move onto has the STOP ability, you may still move again and claim a second card, since you did technically stop on the first card, even if it was only for a moment.

Whirlwind of Activity: Note that since you are claiming the cards WITHOUT LANDING ON THEM, cards such as Gold Coins will not actually give you any coins. In your hurry, you grabbed an empty chest! Whoops!

Dungeon Speed Run and Sneak Attack: Cards claimed as you PASS them cannot affect you with any LAND ADJACENT TO abilities, since they are claimed before you end your movement. Cards with a PASS ability will still have that effect on you, however. Also, remember to pay attention to whether cards are claimed as though you LANDED ON them or not. Monsters you don't land on often don't get to deal wounds to you!

Seven League Scoots: The Action card you discard after drawing may be the same Action card you just drew, if you so wish.

Dungeon Cards

Brute Squad Armor: When you have this magic item, all Monster cards are considered to have the STOP ability when you (and only you) are moving.

Gronk Juice: As an example, if you have 5 wounds when you discard a Gronk Juice, you would be healed of 3 wounds, leaving you with just 2 wounds.

The Stick of 6 Parts: To further explain the ability of this card, if you have 1 Stick of 6 Parts card, it's worth 1 Awesome point. If you have 2 Stick of 6 Parts cards, each of them is worth 2 Awesome points. If you have 3, each is worth 3 Awesome points, and so on. And yes, there are 6 Stick of 6 Parts cards in the deck, as you might expect.

World's Smallest Violin: The value of the World's Smallest Violin is always determined at the very end, after all other Awesome points have been tallied up. Also, if you are tied with another player, the Violin is not worth +3 Awesome points for that player–they must actually have more Awesome points than you for the Violin to receive the bonus.