Cosmic Frog: Find Muck Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components and Expansion Compatibility
• The New Stuff
  • Brain Icon
  • Added Terminology
  • Ability Card Decks
  • Chips and Dice
    • Chips
    • Rerolling Dice and Redrawing Chips
  • Muck Lands
• Combat
  • Combat Types
  • Chip-Based Combat Resolution
  • Combat Modifiers
  • Dice and Chip Ability Cards
  • Full, Soft, and Thrown Combat
  • Mental Targeting and Combat
    • Mental Targeting
    • Initiating Mental Combat
    • Losing Mental Combat and Purging
    • Purging on the Shard
    • Purging in the Aether
    • Mental Combat Knockback
• AGGRO
• Chip-Based Raiding
• The Outer Dimensions
  • Returning to Dimension Zero
  • Outer Dimensional Antics
• Using and Scoring Muck Lands

Components and Expansion Compatibility

In this box, you'll find two sets of custom dice, six sets of colored chips, 48 muck lands, and two 24-card decks of frog abilities that support mental combat.

Why two decks of ability cards? One is for use with chips and one is for use with dice. Why 24 cards? Eight new frog abilities!

This expansion can be used with the original Cosmic Frog dice-based system as well as the new chip-based system. Just be consistent. If you want to use dice, then use dice for everything (i.e., combat, raiding, and returning from the Outer Dimensions).

The New Stuff

Brain Icon

All ability cards have a new symbol on them: the brain icon. The brain symbol shows how powerful a frog is in mental combat.

Added Terminology

The expansion adds eight new terms:

• AGGRO: A mental action that forces a frog to physically attack you.
• Combat Score: A common term to represent your final modified combat roll (for dice) or combat chip total (for chips).
• Mental Attack: An attack using psionic powers that initiates mental combat.
• Mental Combat: All combat that uses the brain icon is mental combat.
• Muck Land: A special land type in or harvested from the Outer Dimensions.
• Physical Combat: All combat that uses the Shard combat icon or the Aether combat icon is physical combat.
• Purge: A violent projectile expulsion of some or all of your gullet contents.
• Unobstructed Target: A frog is an unobstructed target if there are no frogs directly between that frog and their attacker.

Ability Card Decks

There are two ability card decks in Find Muck. Each deck contains all 24 frog abilities, the original 16 updated for mental combat plus eight new abilities.

The set of ability cards with the blue back and right facing frog is for use with the original dice-based system. The abilities in this deck are presented in terms of rolling and rerolling dice. The colors of the combat and raid icons designate the color of die the frog uses for these actions (see "Dice and Chip Ability Cards" on page 9).

The set of ability cards with the green back and left facing frog is for use with the new chip-based system. The abilities in this deck are presented in terms of drawing and redrawing chips. The colors of the combat and raid icons designate the fixed bonus the frog adds to their chip total for these actions (see "Dice and Chip Ability Cards" on page 9).

Chips and Dice

Chips

Find Muck allows you to play Cosmic Frog with dice or chips. The dice system is the same as that used in the base game. In the chip system, each player uses a set of five chips instead of dice. These chips have backs that match the color of the player's frog and display the numbers 0 through 4 on their faces.

Rerolling Dice and Redrawing Chips

Rerolling a die is a well understood process. The similar process in the chip system is called redrawing a chip. To redraw a revealed chip, turn the chip face-down and return it to the set of unrevealed chips from which it was drawn. The owner of those chips arranges them however they want or shuffles them as the situation warrants, then places the chips face-down on the table. The player who chose the original chip then chooses a new one to replace it and that chip is revealed (note that it could be the same chip).

Muck Lands

Land tiles purged in the Aether go into the Outer Dimensions and become muck lands (see "Purging in the Aether" on page 13).

The back of a muck land tile denotes it as a regular muck land (default) or an oozing muck land.

Diagram captions: Muck Land (Front); Muck Land (Regular Back); Muck Land (Oozing Back).

Combat

Combat Types

Combat is now partitioned into two types: physical combat and mental combat. Physical combat includes both Shard combat and Aether combat. Mental combat consists of psionic attacks and may be used on the Shard or in the Aether.

When you declare an attack, you must also declare whether the attack is a physical or a mental attack.

Dice-based combat proceeds as described in the base game (see page 10 in the Cosmic Frog rule book). Chip-based combat follows the same procedures for combat declaration, attacker commitment, and defender response but differs in how combat is resolved.

Chip-Based Combat Resolution

When the time comes to resolve combat, both you and your opponent lay out all five of your chips face-down on the table. You may look at your chips first and place them in any order you choose. You may lay them out in a deliberate order or randomly. You may tell your opponent which chip is which or lie about how you placed them, but they must be face-down. Both players regain all their chips after combat resolves.

There are three steps to resolving combat with chips:

1. Step 1. Attacker chooses two (2) of the defender's face-down chips. The defender sets these chips aside but does not reveal them.
2. Step 2. Defender chooses two (2) of the attacker's face-down chips. The attacker sets these chips aside but does not reveal them.
3. Step 3. Both players reveal the chips that were chosen for them and add up the numbers shown on their chips. Each player's chip total is their combat score.

If the attacker's combat score exceeds the defender's, the attack is successful and X is the difference in the combat scores. In addition to the number of gullet items lost, X determines knockback in physical combat and purge distance in mental combat.

Combat Modifiers

The combat modifiers using the chip system are:

• The colored icons on ability cards translate directly into bonuses to chip totals: white is +0, yellow is +1, and red is +2 to the chip total. (A white icon gives you a white die in the dice system and a +0 to your chip total in the chip system.)
• Overpowering your combat costs 2 W and makes your opponent draw one extra chip for your combat score (i.e., three chips rather than two). You may only overpower once per combat.
• Boosting your combat costs 1 W and adds +1 to your combat score per boost. You may boost as much as you want each combat.

Dice and Chip Ability Cards

The dice version of the Temporus card. Blue card back with right-facing frog. Abilities presented in terms of dice. The mental combat icon is white, so Temporus uses a white die for mental combat.

The chip version of the Temporus card. Green card back with left-facing frog. Abilities presented in terms of chips. The mental combat icon is white, so Temporus gets +0 to their mental combat chip total.

Full, Soft, and Thrown Combat

When you declare or respond to an attack, you automatically use full combat unless you specifically state that you will use soft combat or that you will throw combat. In full combat, you aggressively seek to defeat your opponent. In soft combat, you hold back and pull your punches. In thrown combat, you put up no defense. You may overpower and/or boost full and soft combat, but not thrown combat.

• Full Combat (default): Use your full combat score. May overpower and boost.
• Soft Combat: Use half of your combat score (round down). May overpower and boost.
• Thrown Combat: Your combat score is zero. May neither overpower nor boost.

Soft and thrown combat allow you to strategically use knockback. You can use these tactics in combination with AGGRO when you want to be knocked off the Shard to raid a vault or get knocked into the Outer Dimensions to gather muck lands (see "AGGRO" on page 14, "Outer Dimensional Antics" on page 16).

Mental Targeting and Combat

Mental combat proceeds the same way as physical combat with a few minor modifications.

Mental Targeting

If you are in the Aether, you may target any other frog in the Aether. You may not target a frog on the Shard if you are in the Aether.

If you are on the Shard, you may only target frogs on your target lines that are unobstructed. A frog is unobstructed if there are no other frogs between you and that frog. You may not target a frog in the Aether if you are on the Shard.

You may not mentally target yourself.

Initiating Mental Combat

You remain on your hex when you use your action to launch a mental attack. Simply declare that you are making a mental attack to initiate combat. There are no distance limits for mental combat in the Aether or on the Shard.

Losing Mental Combat and Purging

The attacker remains on their hex and suffers no loss or ill effect from losing a mental combat. A defender losing a mental combat by X must purge X-many items from their gullet. If you have fewer than X-many items in your gullet, you must purge all items in your gullet. Items exit your gullet one at a time from the top down.

Purging on the Shard

When you purge on the Shard, the top item in your gullet lands X-many hexes away from you on the target line between you and your attacker, the next item lands X - 1 hexes away, the next lands X - 2 hexes away, and so on.

Purged tiles stack on top of the Shard hexes they land on. Destroy purged tiles that land in the Aether unless they land next to a terrain tile. In that case, the purged tile connects to the adjacent terrain tile and stays where it lands.

If a purged land tile passes over you, you may snap that tile out of the air and put it into your gullet as though you just harvested it. If another frog is between you and the purging frog, that frog must decline the land before you can snap it up. If a purged tile would land on top of you, you must put that tile into your gullet.

Example (see diagram on page 13): Suppose Red has two land tiles in their gullet when Gray mentally attacks and defeats them by X = 6. The top item purged from Red's gullet will land on spot 6. The next item purged from Red's gullet will land on spot 5. The purged item landing on spot 6 would be destroyed because it fell into the Aether. The purged item landing on spot 5 would not be destroyed despite falling into the Aether because it landed next to a terrain tile that it could connect to and become part of the Shard. Gray could snap either or both of these items out of the air as they passed overhead and put them in their gullet. If another frog were behind Gray on spot 4, that frog could snap up any items that passed over Gray but would be required to snap up any item that passed over Gray and landed on spot 4.

Purging in the Aether

When you purge in the Aether, the top item in your gullet goes into Outer Dimension X, the next item goes into Outer Dimension X - 1, and so on. Destroy all items that fall beyond Outer Dimension 6.

When a purged land tile enters an Outer Dimension, it becomes a muck land. Replace the land tile with a randomly selected muck land tile.

Mental Combat Knockback

Unless otherwise modified or specified by a frog's ability, mental combat knockback is always zero.

AGGRO

AGGRO is a new action that forces a targetable frog to immediately launch a physical attack against you. You may use AGGRO in the Aether or on the Shard. On the Shard, your target must be unobstructed. The target frog may pay 2 W to ignore your AGGRO.

If your target doesn't ignore your AGGRO, they must immediately declare a full combat physical attack against you and attack. If they can't reach you on the Shard with their normal LEAP, they must spend up to 2 W to reach you (or get as close as possible). This happens in the same action as your AGGRO and doesn't require the target frog to use an action. The target frog may overpower, boost, or use abilities as they see fit during the combat but AGGRO does not force them to do any of these things. Treat the combat exactly as though the target frog attacked you on their action (they may have advantages when attacking).

Chip-Based Raiding

Instead of rolling a raid roll, arrange your chips face-down in front of you in any order you want and have the vault owner choose one to reveal. That chip's value is your raid strength. Add any modifiers to your raid strength to determine if your raid is successful.

A chip-based raid is successful if your raid strength equals or exceeds your raid target. This is different than the dice-based system where your raid roll must strictly exceed your raid target.

• Dice System: Your die roll must exceed your raid target.
• Chip System: Your chip draw must equal or exceed your raid target.

The Outer Dimensions

Returning to Dimension Zero

All of the normal rules apply for returning from the Outer Dimensions. However, if you use the chip system you won't roll a die to see how many dimensions you return. Instead, you'll shuffle your chips and lay them out face-down in front of you without looking at them and have another player choose a chip to reveal. That chip value determines how many dimensions you return.

If you don't return to Dimension Zero, the chip remains revealed and your remaining chips remain face down. You may not look at them. On your next action, pick a player to choose one of your remaining chips to see how many dimensions you return. This process continues until you return to Dimension Zero. (If you're still in the Outer Dimensions after all your chips have been revealed, shuffle and lay them out again to repeat the process.)

Outer Dimensional Antics

When you roll a die or draw a chip to escape the Outer Dimensions, the number you roll or draw is the number of points you assign to drifting back to Dimension Zero or gathering muck lands. Each point you spend drifting moves you one dimension closer to Dimension Zero. Each point you assign to gathering muck lands allows you one gathering attempt.

To gather muck lands in the Outer Dimensions:

• There must be a muck land for you to gather in the Outer Dimension you currently occupy.
• Discard your action card if you attempt to gather one or more muck lands on your turn (instead of keeping your action card like normal).
• Each point you spend to gather a muck land allows you to make a RAID against X. On your first attempt during your turn, X = 0 for the dice system and X = 1 for the chip system. X increases by 1 for each subsequent attempt you make during the same turn.
• If your raid is successful, place the muck land in your gullet. If your raid fails, you may spend additional points to try again.
• There is no limit on the number of muck lands you may gather on your turn.

For the purposes of filling and overfilling your gullet, treat muck lands you gather in the Outer Dimensions the same as lands you HARVEST on the Shard.

Here's a scenario using the dice system. You're in Outer Dimension 2 and roll a three on your action. You decide to try to gather a muck land before you drift to Outer Dimension 1. It's your first attempt this turn, so you must make a successful raid roll against a zero to gather a muck land. You have two points remaining after your attempt. You decide to spend one point to drift into Outer Dimension 1 and then spend your last point to try and gather a muck land from Outer Dimension 1. This is your second attempt on the same turn, so you must make a successful raid roll against a one to gather a muck land.

Using and Scoring Muck Lands

Muck lands form when purged land tiles enter the Outer Dimensions. If a purged land tile falls into Outer Dimension X, destroy that land tile and place a random muck land tile in Outer Dimension X.

Each Aether Flux event causes all muck lands in the Outer Dimensions drift further out one dimension. Destroy any muck lands that drift beyond Outer Dimension 6. If a muck land is purged on the Shard and falls on a terrain tile, destroy both the muck land and the terrain tile it fell on. Destroy all muck lands purged on the Shard that fall into the Aether.

Muck lands may be stolen in combat, deposited in vaults, and raided like normal lands. Regular muck lands count as lowlands and oozing muck lands count as highlands for basic scoring and raiding (e.g., a line of oozing muck lands would score as a line of highlands).

Muck lands act as wildcards during game play and vault scoring. When scoring your vault, you may count any given muck land as your choice of any land type currently in your vault (e.g., if you currently have a swamp in your vault, you may score any muck land as though it were a swamp). During game play, you may treat any regular muck land in your vault as any type of lowland and you may treat any oozing muck land in your vault as any type of highland. This means that muck lands may be used to form siphons, but siphons must still be aligned with a specific Land Domain.

Muck lands don't affect diversity scores because they do not constitute a separate Land Domain. However, a muck land scored as a land of type X counts as a land of type X when counting lands of type X (e.g., if you are using harmonious land scoring).

Here is a scoring example for the vault shown in diagram A. Lands outlined in the diagram are exposed lands (the top lands in their stacks). For this example, the muck lands will be regular muck lands (they will count as lowlands of their own type unless they are used as wildcard lands).

Diagram B: Remove the two meadows first. The lowland doublet gives you an initial score of 0 + 3 = 3. Underlined numbers are your score before adding new points.

Diagram C: Next, remove the two singleton lowlands for one point each and use a muck land as a forest to form a highland triplet worth nine points. Your score becomes 3 + 1 + 1 + 9 = 14.

Diagram D: Count your remaining muck land as a meadow to form a lowland triplet worth six points. Your score increases to 14 + 6 = 20.

Diagram E: The remaining mesas form a highland triplet worth nine points. Your last desert is a lowland worth one point. Your score is now 20 + 9 + 1 = 30.

This vault contained lands from three Land Domains: water (blue), plant (green), and terra (yellow). Since muck lands don't comprise a Land Domain, the three Land Domains represented give you five diversity points. Your total score is 30 + 5 = 35 points.