Beneath Nexus Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Box Contents
• Setup
  • Setting Up the Heroes
  • Setting Up the Blight Lord
  • Remaining Setup
  • Example Setup Layout
• How to Play
  • The First Encounter
  • The Blight Lord's Turn
  • The Heroes' Turn
  • Fallen Heroes
  • Between Encounters
  • The Final Encounter
• Resolving Effects
• Blight Lord Cards
• Hero Cards
• Definitions

Box Contents

The box contains the rulebook and 242 cards, consisting of:

• 6 large Hero cards
• 12 blue Hit Point cards (Blue HP cards)
• 1 purple Ether card
• 72 Hero Ability cards
• 8 large Blight Lord cards
• 60 Spell cards
• 34 Monster cards
• 12 red Hit Point cards (Red HP cards)
• 27 Treasure/Relic cards
• 10 large Dungeon cards

Setup

Before setting up a game, one of the players is chosen as the Blight Lord, an ancient evil responsible for the corruption of the city of Nexus since time immemorial. The other players are the brave Heroes who venture beneath Nexus to recover the great city from the cruel Blight Lord.

Setting Up the Heroes

Each player chooses a Hero to play. The player takes the matching deck of 12 Hero Ability cards for the Hero they chose (see the icons to tell which deck belongs to which Hero). This deck is shuffled and placed face down, and the player draws three cards from their Ability deck to form their starting hand. Each Hero takes a blue Hit Point card to track their hit points. Each Hero starts the game with 12 hit points.

Hero icons: the source shows a legend of icons used to identify each Hero's deck (image only).

Setting Up the Blight Lord

The player who plays the Blight Lord chooses a character card from the available Blight Lords and takes the corresponding deck of 10 Spell cards. The Blight Lord's specific Spell deck is shuffled together with the standard Spell deck to form a single deck, which is shuffled and placed face down. The Blight Lord shuffles the Monster deck (red) and the Spell deck (purple). After shuffling each deck, the Blight Lord draws two cards from the Spell deck plus one additional card for each Hero character in the game (for example, if there are three Heroes in the game, the Blight Lord draws 2 + 3, that is 5 Spell cards). This number of cards determines the Blight Lord's starting hand for the rest of the game. The Blight Lord begins the game with the Master side of the card face up.

Blight Lord icons: the source shows a legend of icons used on the Blight Lord cards (image only).

Remaining Setup

The Dungeon and Relic decks are shuffled separately and placed face down within reach of the Blight Lord. Draw three Dungeon cards and lay them face down in the center of the play area. You are now ready to begin the first encounter of Beneath Nexus!

Example Setup Layout

The source shows a diagram of an example play area (image only). Its labelled zones are:

• Per Hero: Hero Ability deck; Hero Ability discard pile (dashed outline); Hero character card; Relic (dashed outline).
• Center of the play area: Blight Lord character card; Spell deck; Spell discard pile (dashed outline); Monster deck; Monster discard pile (dashed outline); Dungeon deck; Relic deck.

How to Play

Beneath Nexus is made up of three encounters between the Heroes and the wicked inhabitants of Nexus. Each encounter is divided into rounds, and each round is divided into turns.

The Heroes win the game if they survive and complete all three encounters.

The Blight Lord wins if all the Heroes fall in any of these three encounters.

The First Encounter

The game begins when the Heroes turn over one of the three face-down Dungeon cards in the center of the table. The Blight Lord then sets up the game according to the instructions printed on the Dungeon card. The Blight Lord can track the hit points of the Monsters using the red hit point gems on the Hit Point cards included in the box. The maximum and starting hit points of each Monster are shown on the red gem at the top of the Monster card.

Most of the time an encounter ends when all Monsters in play are destroyed (their hit points reach 0), or when all Heroes are defeated (their hit points reach 0). Sometimes the Heroes choose a Dungeon card with special requirements to complete the encounter (for example, the Dungeon "The Blighted Gate"). The Heroes must complete those additional requirements to finish the encounter.

Once the encounter is set up, the first round begins. Each round starts with a turn of the Blight Lord. Once both the Blight Lord and all the Heroes have finished a turn, the round ends. A new round begins at the start of the Blight Lord's turn.

The Blight Lord's Turn

During the Blight Lord's turn, the Blight Lord is guaranteed one action for each Hero in the game (for example, if there are three Heroes in the game, the Blight Lord can take three actions). The actions available to the Blight Lord are: a Spell, a Monster, or an action on the Blight Lord character card marked with a green gem. The Blight Lord may activate each single Spell, Monster or character card action once per turn. (If the Blight Lord uses a Spell, they cannot use the same Spell again, or use the same Monster or the same action, in the same turn.)

If the Blight Lord is going to activate a Spell card, that Spell must be resolved before activating any Monster. Spell cards are discarded once their effect has been activated. Spell cards with a lasting effect stay in play until the end of the encounter.

Summoning Spells are treated as Monsters once they are activated, and stay in play until they are destroyed. Summons and Monsters are discarded once their hit points reach 0. Make sure to keep the Spell and Monster discard piles separate; Summons go on the Spell discard pile.

Once the Blight Lord has taken all of their actions, their turn ends by drawing cards until their hand reaches its starting hand size. If, at the end of their turn, they have more cards than their starting hand size, they do not draw. If the card deck runs out, shuffle the discard pile and create a new deck.

The Blight Lord has a maximum hand size of ten cards. If the Blight Lord ends their turn with more than ten cards, they must discard as many as necessary to keep ten.

The Blight Lord also has Reaction cards, represented by yellow circular gems. The Blight Lord may play a Reaction card in response to any action of another player, or to another Reaction, on any turn. Reaction cards are discarded once played.

The Heroes' Turn

Each Hero takes their turn according to the character's speed: in order, very fast, fast, slow and very slow. If several Heroes have the same speed, they decide among themselves the order in which they act in each round.

Heroes have one action per turn. The actions available to each Hero are listed on the Hero card and on the Ability cards represented with a green circular gem. Some Relics give the Hero additional actions. Actions from Relics can only be used by the Hero who owns that Relic.

If a Hero is granted another action per turn (for example, Baatar's fire cover ability), that Hero may still only activate one additional action per turn.

Ability cards are discarded once resolved. Ability cards with a lasting effect remain in play and are discarded when the current encounter ends.

After a Hero has taken their action, their turn ends by drawing one card from the deck. If the Ability deck has run out, shuffle it and place it face down to create a new deck.

Heroes have a maximum hand size of six cards. If a Hero ends their turn with more than six cards, they do not draw, and must discard down to six.

Heroes also have Reaction cards that may be used against an action or reaction of another player on any turn. Reaction cards are represented by a yellow circular gem. Once a Reaction card is played, it is discarded.

Fallen Heroes

A Hero falls when they suffer enough damage to reduce their hit points to zero. Fallen Heroes stop counting for turns in this encounter, are discarded from all of their Ability cards in play as well as from their hand, and cannot gain new Relics, even if other Heroes survive and complete the current encounter.

Fallen Heroes cannot use their passive abilities.

Between Encounters

If at least one Hero survives and completes an encounter, all fallen Heroes recover 6 hit points. The surviving Heroes each draw one card from their Ability deck. Then the Heroes draw one Relic card for each surviving Hero plus one additional card (three surviving Heroes draw 4 cards). They choose one card and discard it, and divide the remaining Treasure cards among themselves.

Some Dungeon cards do not allow the Heroes to gain any Relic cards between encounters. When such a Dungeon is chosen, the players must be told that the Heroes cannot gain any more treasure in that encounter.

In the between-encounters phase, the Blight Lord draws as many cards as needed to refill their starting hand. In addition, the Blight Lord may discard as many Spell cards as they wish, and then draw as many Spell cards as the number of cards discarded.

When the Blight Lord and the Heroes have finished these end-of-encounter steps, the game proceeds to the next encounter.

The second encounter begins with the Blight Lord dealing three new Dungeon cards face down in the center of the table, and proceeds in the same way as the first encounter. If any Hero survives and completes this second encounter, the end-of-encounter steps are carried out.

Once the second encounter is completed, the Heroes will face the Blight Lord directly in the final encounter.

The Final Encounter

No Dungeon cards are used in the final encounter. The Heroes resolve the final encounter and defeat the Blight Lord by reducing their numerous hit point gems to 0.

Rounds and turns follow the same mechanics as in the first two encounters.

To begin the final encounter, the Blight Lord turns over their character card, revealing the Monster side and showing new abilities that can be used in this encounter. Each ability on the Monster side has a hit point gem beside it. The Blight Lord has access to the first passive ability and, depending on the number of Heroes, to one ability, starting from the top and working downwards in order (three Heroes grant the top passive ability and the three abilities below it). The available abilities are associated with hit point gems and are treated as Monsters. Use the red dials to track the hit points of those abilities. Unlike Monsters, the Blight Lord does not lose abilities when one hit point gem is destroyed individually.

Resolving Effects

Beneath Nexus has been designed to be an easy game to learn, although the effects of the Blight Lord, Heroes and Relics can sometimes be confusing for some players.

Follow this basic rule if several effects must be resolved at the same time during a turn:

Multiple effects of actions, reactions and passive abilities are resolved in the order in which they were activated, resolving the most recently activated action first.

Think of it as the first activated effect being at the bottom of a stack, and each successive effect being placed on top. The effect at the top resolves first, and so on downwards.

Blight Lord Cards

Blight Lord: character side

• Grey gems indicate passive abilities that are activated through special conditions during the turn.
• Green gems indicate actions that the Blight Lord can activate during their turn. The Blight Lord chooses the target(s) of their action cards.

Blight Lord: final Monster side

• Grey gems indicate passive abilities that are activated through special conditions during the turn. The top passive ability is activated automatically on each turn.
• Red gems indicate the maximum number of hit points of a Monster. The Blight Lord activates a gem and its ability for each Hero in the game, starting from the top and working downwards.
• Green gems indicate actions that the Blight Lord can activate during their turn.

Monster card

• Red gems indicate the maximum number of hit points of a Monster. Monsters are destroyed and discarded if their hit points are reduced to zero.
• Grey gems indicate passive abilities that are activated through special conditions during the turn.
• Green gems indicate actions that the Blight Lord can activate during their turn. The Heroes choose the target(s) of the Monster's actions.

Spell card

• Green gems indicate actions that the Blight Lord can activate during their turn. Once the Spell is activated, it is discarded.
• Yellow gems indicate reactions that the Blight Lord can activate on any turn in response to any action of another player. Once a Reaction Spell is activated, it is discarded.

Hero Cards

Hero card: front

• Blue gems indicate the maximum number of hit points of a Hero. A Hero is said to have fallen when their hit points are reduced to zero.
• Grey gems indicate passive abilities that are activated through special conditions during any turn.
• Green gems indicate actions that the character can activate during the Hero's turn.

Hero card: back

• Green gems indicate actions that the Hero can activate during their turn. Once the ability is activated, it is discarded.
• Yellow gems indicate reactions that the Hero can activate on any turn in response to any action of another player. Once a Reaction ability is activated, it is discarded.

Relic cards

• Purple gems indicate Relics that the Heroes gain between encounters. Relics remain for the whole game.
• Grey gems indicate passive abilities that can be activated by the Hero.
• Yellow gems indicate new reactions that can be activated by the Hero.
• Green gems indicate new actions that can be activated by the Hero.

Dungeon cards

Dungeon cards state the rules and victory conditions for the first two encounters.

Before the encounters begin, the Blight Lord shuffles the Dungeon deck and deals three cards face down in the center of the table. The Heroes choose one and turn it over. The Blight Lord sets up the encounter according to the rules specified on the selected card.

Definitions

Charge: some cards gain points when certain conditions are met. These points are called charges. Charges are spent to activate new abilities of those cards.

Destroyed: a Monster card is destroyed when its hit points (HP) are reduced to 0. Monster cards are discarded if they are destroyed.

Ether: Ether is a unique resource for the Toa player. One point of Ether is gained whenever Toa receives any amount of damage. When Ether is used, Toa is healed one point. One point of Ether cures one point of hit points (HP). Ether can only be spent by abilities that consume Ether (spend 1 Ether, for example).

Guard: cards with the Guard ability must be the first targets of the Heroes, if they can be. At least one point of damage must be directed at the Guard Monster before it can be directed at any other Monster.

Hidden: a card with the Hidden ability cannot be the primary target if there are other available targets that do not have that ability. If damage is spread, at least 1 point of damage must be dealt to the other targets before Hidden targets.

Persistent: Spells that remain until the end of the current encounter are called Persistent. Only one Persistent Spell can be in play at a time.

Play: a play is when a player activates an action or reaction listed on the card.

Reaction: Reactions are represented by cards with yellow gems. Reactions can be played during the turns of any other player.

Spread: an action with the Spread ability allows a player to divide the damage or healing among the different targets of their choice.

Source: the source is the card on which an action, reaction or passive ability is listed.

Spell: Spell cards are the cards with the purple back that can be played by the Blight Lord.

Summon: a summon is a Spell that, when played, becomes a Monster.