Cosmic Frog Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Red Words and References
• What's This Game About?
• What's In the Box?
  • Components
  • The Player Board
  • The Vault Board
  • The Game Mat
• Keywords and Definitions
• Game Setup
  • Step 1: Count the Frogs
  • Step 2: Create the Shard
  • Step 3: Get Ready for Action
• Playing the Game
  • What's the Big Picture?
  • How Does the Game Play?
  • How Does the Game End?
  • How Do I Win?
• Main Game Elements
  • Oomph
  • Abilities
  • Gullets
  • Vaults
  • Siphons
• Actions
  • Taking Your Actions
  • Your Very First Action
  • Actions on the Shard
  • Actions in the Aether
  • Taking an Extra Action
• Combat and Knockback
  • Aether or Shard Combat?
  • What Do I Roll for Combat?
  • Can I Increase My Combat Roll?
  • How Does Combat Play Out?
  • Knockback
  • Combat Example
• The Outer Dimensions
  • Dimension Zero
  • The Outer Dimensions
  • Life In the Outer Dimensions
• Raiding Vaults
• Aether Flux
• Splinter Strikes
• The Shard Integrity Track
• Vault Scoring
  • Placement Points
  • Diversity Points
• Strategy Tips
• Play Variants
  • Abundant and Harmonious Lands
  • Aether Surge
  • Bounce Back
  • Dimensional Decisions
  • Knockback Resistance
  • Quakes and Vortexes
  • Symbiotic Teammates
• Team Play
• Notes on Abilities
• Sample Game Play
• Credits

Red Words and References

Terms written in red text are keywords and are specifically defined in the Keywords and Definitions section. Numbers in brackets (e.g., [5]) are the page numbers where you can find detailed information about a topic (page references are omitted below; use the section headings instead).

What's This Game About?

Cosmic Frog is a game of collection, combat, and theft on a planetary scale. Each player controls a rayna, a two-mile tall, immortal, invulnerable frog-like creature that exists solely to gather terrain from the Shards of Aeth, the fragments of a long-ago shattered world. (Although you will technically control a rayna, we will call them "frogs" and use the terms "you" and "your" to refer to them. For example, rather than say "You may have your frog recover" we will say, "You may recover.")

At the start of the game, your frog will descend onto a Shard of Aeth and begin harvesting Land to store in your massive Gullet. When your Gullet is sufficiently full, you will leap into the Aether and disgorge its contents into your Vault for storage. You can keep to yourself and focus on harvesting, attack other frogs for the Lands in their Gullets, or attempt to steal Land from another frog's Vault. But be warned: the Aether is a chaotic and unstable place. Waves of Aether Flux will randomly prompt you to mutate and change your strategy to fit your new powers, and Splinters of Aeth will periodically fall from their orbit and crash into the Shard, destroying terrain and ultimately the Shard itself.

The game ends when the Shard is stripped of Land or destroyed. The player with the highest valued Vault is the winner, and declared most favored among the First Ones.

What's In the Box?

Components

• 1 Neoprene Game Mat
• 6 Player Boards
• 6 Vault Boards
• 6 Frog Miniatures
• 6 Color Bases
• 36 Oomph Crystals
• 16 Ability Cards
• 38 Action Cards
• 12 Splinter Location Cards
• 6 Reference Cards
• 6 Custom Dice
• 96 Barren Tiles
• 48 Lowland Tiles
• 32 Highland Tiles

The Player Board

Each player has their own player board to keep track of their available and expended Oomph and the contents of their Gullet. Your player color will be written on the left side of your player board and serve as the board's background. Your Gullet slots are numbered one through four on your board. Slot four is the bottom slot of your Gullet.

The Vault Board

Each Vault board has a Vault on both sides. One side is colored to match a player board (e.g., the purple Vault board matches the purple player board). You use the color side for individual play. The sepia side is a shared Vault for use in team play. Your Vault has nine slots in which to store Land you harvest from the Shard for scoring at the end of the game.

The Game Mat

The Shard, the Shard Integrity Track, the Aether, and the Outer Dimensions are all displayed on the game mat. The large cluster of hexagons floating in the Aether on the mat are placeholders for the Barren tiles you will use to construct the Shard during Game Setup. The colored outlines around some of the hexes are there to help you identify where Splinters hit the Shard during play and have no meaning other than that. When Barren tiles are removed from the game and expose the game mat, the exposed area becomes Aether and the surrounding terrain tiles become adjacent to Aether.

Keywords and Definitions

Ability — An ability is a special power. All frogs have an ability.

Aether — Aether is the cosmic sea. All hexes on the game mat that do not contain terrain are Aether.

Barrens — Barrens (2mm thick) are lifeless terrain. The Barren tiles used for normal game play will be blank or have an image of a fracture on the back. There are four special Barren tiles that have Quake or Vortex on the back. These are for Play Variants.

Descend — You descend onto the Shard by placing your frog on your choice of unoccupied Barren hex adjacent to Aether.

Dimension Zero — Dimension Zero is the plane of existence in which Aeth existed and in which the game is played. The Shard and the Aether exist in Dimension Zero.

Exposed Land — A Land tile is exposed if it is the top Land tile in a stack of Land tiles, either on the Shard or in a Vault slot.

Facing Hex — In combat, your facing hex is the Shard hex adjacent to your hex in the direction the attack came from.

Fracture — A fracture is a massive crack or fissure in the Shard that destroys its structural soundness and integrity.

Gullet — Your Gullet is your distendable esophagus in which you temporarily store the Land you harvest.

In and Out of Play — Your frog is in play if you are in Dimension Zero. Your frog is out of play if you are in the Outer Dimensions.

Knockback — Knockback is the number of hexes (on the Shard) or Outer Dimensions (in the Aether) you are sent away from your opponent when you lose in combat.

Land — Land is terrain that may be harvested, and will either be lowland or highland. Lowlands (3.5mm thick) are hills, deserts, swamps, and meadows. Highlands (5mm thick) are mountains, mesas, lakes, and forests. Land tiles have two sides: the front displays only the Land type; the back displays an icon and a label indicating whether the Land is normal, Abundant, or Harmonious. The information on the back of a Land tile has no relevance in normal game play; it provides hidden information and scoring bonuses for Play Variants.

Land Domain — The four Land Domains are stone (brown), terra (yellow), water (blue), and plant (green). Mountains and hills are part of the stone domain; mesas and deserts, the terra domain; lakes and swamps, the water domain; forests and meadows, the plant domain.

Oomph — Oomph is the cosmic energy you use to activate certain powers, overpower and boost your combat, and perform certain actions. The symbol for Oomph is W.

Outer Dimensions — The Outer Dimensions are the planes of reality that are parallel with and askew to Dimension Zero.

Shard — A Shard is a large fragment of Aeth adrift in the Aether. Shards are made mostly of Barrens but have atmospheres and are rich with Land.

Shard Integrity Track — The Shard Integrity Track keeps count of the number of fractures created during play.

Siphon — A Siphon is a special arrangement of Land in your Vault that transfers cosmic energy from the Aether to your frog.

Splinter — Splinters are small chunks of Aeth that fly through the Aether and smash into the Shard.

Target — Your target is the Shard hex or frog in play that you seek to land on, attack, or affect with an ability.

Targetable — When you are on the Shard, a Shard hex is targetable if it is on one of your target lines and a frog is targetable if it is both on the Shard and on one of your target lines. When you are in the Aether, a Shard hex is targetable if it is adjacent to Aether and a frog is targetable if it is either in the Aether or on a Shard hex adjacent to Aether. You are always targetable by yourself.

Target Line — On the Shard, your target lines are the straight lines defined by the rows of edge-to-edge touching hexes that include the hex you occupy. If you are on hex A and B is in one of those rows (regardless of whether the space between A and B is terrain or Aether), then B is on one of your target lines. There are no target lines in the Aether.

Terrain — Terrain is the inclusive term for Barrens and Lands.

Terrain Tile — Terrain tiles are the hexagonal punch board pieces used for Barrens and Lands.

Vault — Your Vault is your private inter-dimensional pocket in the Aether in which you store Land you harvest.

Game Setup

Step 1: Count the Frogs

Determine how many frogs will be in the game. Typically, there will be one frog per player, but this may not be the case if you play in teams (see Team Play). The table below shows the number of each highland and lowland you will use for the game and how many action cards each frog will have.

Number of frogs in the game	Number of each highland	Number of each lowland	Action cards for each frog
3	5	6	6
4	6	8	5
5	7	10	4
6	8	12	3

For example, if there are four frogs in your game, you will use six of each highland (six forests, six lakes, etc.) and eight of each lowland (eight deserts, eight hills, etc.), and each frog will have five action cards (for a total of 20 action cards).

Step 2: Create the Shard

Place the game mat on the table in reach of the players. To create the Shard, you will need to place a Barren tile in each of the 84 open hexes on the game mat. Use the table below to determine how many of the 84 Barren tiles will have blank backs and how many will have fractures on the back.

Desired Game Duration	Blank on Back	Fracture on Back
Longer	68	16
Normal	64	20
Shorter	60	24

Lay out all 84 Barren tiles face up on the table and shuffle them, then randomly place one tile in each open hex on the game mat. No one should know what is on the back of any of the Barren tiles.

Next, populate the Shard with Land. Place all the lowland and highland tiles you will use face up on the table, shuffle them, then as a group place each lowland tile on top of any Barren tile you choose. You may place the lowlands anywhere you want, but only one lowland per Barren tile. After you have placed the lowlands, place each highland tile on top of any lowland tile you like of the same Land Domain (forests go on meadows, lakes go on swamps, mountains go on hills, mesas go on deserts), one highland per lowland tile. When you are done, there will be several lowlands without highlands on them and lots of Landless Barrens.

Step 3: Get Ready for Action

Have each player choose a frog miniature, then give each player a matching snap-on color ring, player board, and vault board to specify their color (e.g., the player with the red color ring on their miniature, red player board, and red vault board would be the red player). Place six Oomph crystals in the "Available Oomph" area on each player's board. A frog can never have more than six Oomph.

Create the Ability Deck by shuffling together the 16 ability cards, then deal two cards face down to each player. Each player secretly chooses one card to keep for their frog and places it face down by their player board, then puts the other card on the bottom of the Ability Deck.

The shuffled Splinter Location cards make up the Splinter Deck. Create the Action Deck by shuffling together the action cards for the frogs in the game (table in Step 1). Place all the decks face down on the table, then use the Aether Flux and Splinter Strike cards to start a face up discard pile by the Action Deck. You are now ready to start playing!

Playing the Game

What's the Big Picture?

The general idea is to move Land tiles from the Shard to your Vault. You do this by leaping onto a Shard hex that has Land on it and then harvesting that Land. This removes the Land from the Shard and puts it into your Gullet. Then you jump off the Shard and into the Aether where you can disgorge the Land from your Gullet into your Vault. You score more points by strategically filling your Vault.

How Does the Game Play?

The Action Deck controls game progression. You start each round of the game by turning over the top card of the Action Deck and placing it face up on the discard pile. If the card is an Aether Flux or Splinter Strike card, it triggers the named event. If the card identifies the color of a frog, that frog begins their turn and must take an action. When that frog completes their action, their turn ends. Repeat this process by sequentially turning over cards in the Action Deck and placing them on the discard pile until the Action Deck is depleted. When the Action Deck runs out, shuffle the discard pile to make a new Action Deck and start a new round.

Note that at the start of the game, the Aether Flux and Splinter Strike cards start out in the discard pile. After your first pass through the Action Deck, these cards will be shuffled into the Action Deck and will be available to be drawn.

How Does the Game End?

The game ends when either:

• The Shard Integrity Track is completely filled with fractures, or
• The Shard is reduced to nothing but Barrens.

The game ends immediately when the Shard Integrity Track fills with fractures. If the Shard is stripped of Land, the game ends when the current Action Deck runs out.

How Do I Win?

When the game ends, you calculate your score using only the Land in your Vault. The player with the highest point total wins the game and becomes most favored by the First Ones. There are no tie-breakers: if there is a tie, it is a shared victory.

Main Game Elements

Oomph

What is Oomph?

The cosmic fire that burns inside your frog's belly provides energy called Oomph, denoted W and represented by Oomph crystals. Each Oomph crystal is worth 1 W.

What Oomph Can I Use?

You may only use the Oomph crystals that are in the "Available Oomph" area of your player board. This is your available Oomph.

How Do I Use My Oomph?

You use your available Oomph to activate abilities, enhance your combat, or take an extra action during your turn. When you "use X W" or "pay X W," you must move X-many Oomph crystals from the "Available Oomph" area to the "Expended Oomph" area of your player board. You may not augment an action or ability if you haven't enough available Oomph to cover its cost.

How Do I Regain Oomph?

You can regain some of your expended Oomph with Siphons; you can regain all of your expended Oomph with a RECOVER action. When you "regain X W," you move X-many Oomph crystals from the "Expended Oomph" area to the "Available Oomph" area of your player board. You may only regain Oomph crystals that are in your "Expended Oomph" area.

Abilities

Ability Cards

Every frog begins the game with an ability card. You may only have one ability card at any time. All ability cards are unique.

Your ability card specifies your frog's combat and raiding prowess, as well as any special powers your frog possesses. Your combat ability on the Shard is denoted by a symbol, your combat ability in the Aether is denoted by a different symbol, and your ability to RAID Vaults is denoted by a third symbol. These symbols will have a white, yellow, or red background. White is strong; yellow is stronger; red is strongest.

These icons show whether you use a white, yellow, or red die for combat on the Shard, for combat in the Aether, and for Vault RAIDs. Some abilities have activated powers, and some do not.

Using Abilities

Ability cards are placed face down near your player board when they are acquired. While face down, they are secret and may not be used. Once you turn your card face up, your ability instantly comes into effect and remains in effect until the card is lost or turned face down. You may turn your ability card face up any time you wish (e.g., as you declare an attack, during another player's turn, etc.), but you may not turn your ability card face down unless forced to do so by another ability.

The colored icons on your ability card indicate your frog's prowess in combat and raiding. When your card is face down, you use a white die for all combat and raiding. When your card is face up, you use the colored die that matches the icon color on your ability card: if the icon is white, you use a white die; if the icon is yellow, you use a yellow die; if the icon is red, you use a red die. The white die has a range of 0 to 5, the yellow die has a range of 1 to 6, and the red die has a range of 2 to 7. For example, Marauder uses a white die for Aether combat, a yellow die for Shard combat, and a yellow die for Vault raiding.

Passive and Activated Powers

Most powers are passive in the sense that they are either always in effect or available to use without requiring any additional Oomph to activate them. Some powers require you to spend Oomph to turn them on and use them. These are called activated powers and are denoted by a symbol and written in italics.

Activated powers cost 1 W to use and may be used on any player's turn. Unless specifically restricted on the ability card, you may use an activated power as often as you wish on the same turn, but you must spend 1 W for each and every use.

Examples of using activated powers:

• Increase or decrease knockback you receive by one. If you were struck for 4 knockback, you could spend 3 W and reduce your knockback to 1.
• Reroll your choice of one of your combat dice this combat. You can pay 1 W to reroll one of the dice you used for your combat roll. If you don't like your new roll, you may pay another 1 W to reroll it again.

Activated powers work immediately but do not last beyond the end of the action in which they were used. You may use an activated power at any time (e.g., after combat is declared, after combat rolls but before their consequences are resolved, etc.)

Gullets

How Does My Gullet Work?

Your Gullet is the portion of your frog's esophagus used to temporarily store Land that you collect. Your Gullet has four slots. Each slot may hold one Land tile. Slot 4 is your lowest Gullet slot (the bottom of your Gullet) and slot 1 is your highest Gullet slot (the top of your Gullet). When you add Land to your Gullet, it fills your Gullet from the bottom to the top, so the first Land you add will go into slot 4, the next one will go into slot 3, and so on. When you empty your Gullet, it empties from the top down, so the first Land removed comes out of slot 1, the next out of slot 2, and so on. For example, if the lake was added first, then the swamp, that leaves two Gullet slots empty; the swamp is the top Land in the Gullet and the lake is the bottom Land in the Gullet.

What If My Gullet is Full?

If you add a Land (or terrain tile) to a full Gullet (e.g., you steal a Land when your Gullet is already full), the newly added Land goes into slot 1 and pushes all the Lands currently in your Gullet down one slot, so the Land in slot 2 moves to slot 3, and so on. The Land in slot 4 is pushed out of your Gullet and into your belly, where it is destroyed by the cosmic fire of the star that burns within you.

Gullets are subject to gravity. If a Land in your Gullet is removed or destroyed, all remaining Lands above it will shift down to fill the vacated Gullet slot.

Vaults

What Is a Vault?

Your Vault is an inter-dimensional pocket in the Aether where you store Land. Your Vault has nine slots that can each hold three Land tiles. Once you place a Land tile into a Vault slot, you may not move or remove that Land tile. Only Land tiles may be placed in a Vault slot.

How Do I Fill My Vault?

You use the DISGORGE action to transfer Land from your Gullet to your Vault. This action allows you to remove some or all Lands from your Gullet and place them into your Vault, but you must remove those Lands from the top down. That is, you must move the Land out of Gullet slot 1 before you can access Gullet slot 2, and so on. When you move a Land into your Vault, you may place that Land in your choice of any empty Vault slot or on top of another Land already in a Vault slot. You may stack up to three Land tiles in a Vault slot. Once you place a Land on a stack, you may not reorder that stack.

How Secure is My Vault?

As long as you are on the Shard or in the Aether, your Vault is locked and impregnable. When you are in the Outer Dimensions, your Vault is unlocked and may be raided by any frog that is in the Aether.

Siphons

What Is a Siphon?

A Siphon is a special arrangement of Land tiles in a single vault slot. It is a vertical stack of three Land tiles of the same Land Domain consisting of one highland tile between two lowland tiles.

You may have multiple Siphons in your Vault, but only one Siphon per Land Domain will operate. If you build a second Siphon of the same Land Domain, the second Siphon will not function while the first one is operational.

How Do Siphons Work?

Siphons draw cosmic energy from the Aether and channel it directly into your frog. Each operating Siphon in your Vault allows you to regain 1 W at the start of each of your turns (when your action card is turned up). If you have two operating Siphons, you will regain 2 W at the start of each of your turns, and so on. Having Siphons in your Vault will help you regain Oomph faster, but may cost you placement points in your final score.

Actions

Taking Your Actions

Constructing and using the Action Deck are covered in Game Setup and Playing the Game. Because the number of action cards each frog gets is determined by the number of frogs in the game, you will know how many turns you have each pass through the Action Deck, but you will not know when they will come up. Shuffling the Action Deck makes turn order random. This randomization rewards adaptation over rigid planning.

During your turn, you must take one action from a set of available actions. The actions available to you will vary depending on whether you are on the Shard or in the Aether. After you take your action, you may pay 2 W to take an extra action. Taking an extra action is optional.

Your Very First Action

On your very first turn of the game, you enter play by arriving on the Shard. This is a two-step process: you first descend onto the Shard, then you take your first action from that location. Descending onto the Shard is not your action, it simply determines your starting hex for your first action.

Actions on the Shard

If you begin your action on the Shard, you must take one of these five actions:

• ATTACK — When you are on the Shard, you attack a targetable frog by using a LEAP or SLIPSTREAM action (below) to land on their hex. You cannot attack a frog in the Aether from the Shard.
• HARVEST — Take the top Land tile off the hex you are on and put it into your highest numbered empty Gullet slot (your Gullet fills from the bottom up, from slot 4 to slot 1). Barrens are not harvestable.
• LEAP — Jump along one of your target lines from your current hex to either a target hex on the Shard or off the Shard and into the Aether. You may jump up to X-many hexes, where X is your number of empty Gullet slots. You may jump beyond this limit if you pay 1 W per additional hex. You may jump over other frogs and over expanses of Aether. If there are Y-many hexes between you and the Aether, you must jump Y+1 hexes to jump off the Shard and into the Aether. If you jump off the Shard or into a hex that has been reduced to Aether, you are in the Aether. LEAPing onto a Shard hex occupied by another frog initiates the combat sequence with that frog as the defender and you as the attacker.
• RECOVER — Regain all the Oomph from your "Expended Oomph" area. You may not take a RECOVER action if your "Expended Oomph" area is empty or if you expend any Oomph that turn.
• SLIPSTREAM — Pay an additional 1 W as part of a LEAP action to jump along one of your target lines from your current hex into the Aether, then immediately bounce off the Aether and land on any Shard hex of your choice that is adjacent to Aether. If you try to land on a Shard hex that is occupied by another frog, you must choose which Aether-adjacent edge of the hex you are entering and initiate the combat sequence with that frog as the defender and you as the attacker.

Actions in the Aether

If you begin your action in the Aether, you must take one of these five actions:

• ATTACK — When you are in the Aether, you attack a targetable frog on the Shard by using a LAND action (below) to drop onto their hex. You attack a targetable frog in the Aether by using your action to swim through the Aether and ram into them.
• DISGORGE — Transfer Land from your Gullet into your Vault. Remove the top X-many Land tiles from your Gullet and place them into your Vault, where X is your choice but may not exceed the number of Land tiles in your Gullet. Land tiles must go into your Vault as they are removed from your Gullet (i.e., the top Land tile in your Gullet is the first one out and will therefore be the first one placed in your Vault). You may place a Land tile in any empty Vault slot or on top of a Land tile already in your Vault. You may stack up to three Land tiles in a Vault slot. Barrens are pulverized into dust and removed from the game as they exit your Gullet.
• LAND — Move from the Aether onto any Shard hex of your choice that is adjacent to Aether. Unlike when you descend onto the Shard, the Shard hex you choose when you LAND may contain Land tiles or may be occupied by another frog. If you land on a Shard hex occupied by another frog, you must choose which Aether-adjacent edge you are entering and initiate the combat sequence with that frog as the defender and you as the attacker.
• RAID — Attempt to steal Land from another frog's unlocked Vault. There is no penalty for a failed raid. If your raid succeeds, you move the Land tiles you steal out of the target frog's Vault and into your Gullet in the order you steal them.
• RECOVER — Regain all the Oomph from your "Expended Oomph" area. You may not take a RECOVER action if your "Expended Oomph" area is empty or if you expend any Oomph that turn.

Taking an Extra Action

If your frog is not in the Outer Dimensions after you complete your action during your turn, you may pay 2 W to immediately take an extra action. If you take an extra action, that action is still part of your current turn. For example, suppose you use your action to LAND on the Shard. You might want to pay an extra 2 W to take an extra action to HARVEST the Land beneath you.

There are three restrictions to taking an extra action:

• If your initial action for your turn was RECOVER, you may not take an extra action.
• You may not RECOVER as your extra action.
• You may only take one extra action per turn.

Combat and Knockback

Aether or Shard Combat?

If the defender is on the Shard, it is Shard combat. If the defender is in the Aether, then it is Aether combat.

What Do I Roll for Combat?

You always roll one die. You always roll a white die unless your ability card is face up and dictates that you use a yellow or a red die. Your die roll is called your combat roll.

Can I Increase My Combat Roll?

You may pay 2 W to overpower your combat roll. If you do, you roll two dice and use the larger number as your roll. You may also pay 2 W to boost your combat roll. Each 2 W you spend to boost your combat roll adds +1 to your roll. You may both overpower and boost your combat roll.

How Does Combat Play Out?

The combat sequence immediately follows attack declaration:

Step	What Happens
Attack Declaration	The attacker is the frog initiating combat. The attacker declares their attack and declares the target of their attack.
Attacker Commits	The attacker declares whether they will overpower and/or boost their attack and pays any W required.
Defender Responds	The defender is the frog being attacked. The defender declares whether they will overpower and/or boost their defense and pays any W required.
Combat Rolls	The attacker and defender make their combat rolls with their proper color dice.
Combat Resolves	If the attacker's combat roll does not exceed the defender's combat roll, the attack fails. If the attacker was on the Shard attacking a target on the Shard, the attacker lands on the defender's facing hex. If the attacker was in the Aether attacking a target on the Shard or in the Aether, the attacker stays in the Aether. If the attacker's combat roll exceeds the defender's combat roll by X, the attack succeeds and two consequences result (see below).

If the attack succeeds by X:

1. First, the defender takes X knockback. For Shard combat, the attacker ends up on the hex the defender was knocked out of. For Aether combat, the attacker remains in the Aether.
2. Then, the attacker must choose A or B:
   • A) Move X-many terrain tiles from the defender's Gullet into their own Gullet, starting with the top tile and proceeding down. The attacker may not take fewer than X-many tiles if there are X-many or more available.
   • B) HARVEST the new hex they now occupy (Shard combat) or RAID the defender's Vault (Aether combat). This HARVEST or RAID is a free extra action.

Knockback

When you lose a battle, you get knocked backwards. This is called knockback and denoted KB.

Knockback on the Shard

When you are on the Shard and take X KB, you fly in an arc through the air and land on the hex along your attacker's target line X-many hexes away from your starting hex. The specific consequences of your KB are:

• If your KB is reduced to zero, you do not move and your attacker lands in your facing hex.
• If your KB drops you on an unoccupied Shard hex, destroy the top terrain tile on that hex. If the top terrain tile is a Barren, destroy it and place yourself in the Aether.
• If your KB drops you onto a frog that is on a Land tile, destroy the Land tile immediately beneath that frog, leave that frog in their hex, and place yourself in that frog's facing hex.
• If your KB drops you onto a frog that is on a Barren tile, destroy the Barren tile beneath that frog and place yourself and that frog in the Aether.
• If your KB knocks you off the Shard or into a hex of Aether, place yourself in the Aether.

Knockback in the Aether

When you are in the Aether and take X KB, you are knocked into Outer Dimension X. The farthest you can be knocked back in the Aether is Outer Dimension 6. When you take KB in the Aether, you must do all three of the following:

• Put your frog in the appropriate Outer Dimension ring on the game mat.
• Move all your Oomph crystals into the "Expended Oomph" area of your player board.
• Put your ability card on the bottom of the Ability Deck.

Combat Example

Zac's and Lisa's frogs are both on the Shard. It is Zac's turn. He declares an attack on Lisa and leaps onto her hex. Zac's declaration triggers the combat sequence with Zac as the attacker and Lisa as the defender. For this example, Zac will use a yellow die and Lisa will use a white die for combat.

Zac declares he is making a normal attack. Lisa pays 2 W and declares she will overpower her defense, so she will roll two dice and use the larger number. (Either player could use activated abilities at any time after the attack was declared.)

Zac rolls a 6 for his combat roll. Lisa rolls a 2 and a 4, so her combat roll is 4 (the larger of the 2 and the 4). Zac's combat roll is higher than Lisa's, so Zac's attack is successful and he wins by 6 - 4 = 2. Lisa takes 2 KB and Zac moves onto the hex that Lisa vacates. Zac must choose whether to take the top two terrain tiles from Lisa's Gullet and put them in his Gullet or take the Land he is now standing on.

The Outer Dimensions

Dimension Zero

Dimension Zero is the plane of reality in which Aeth existed and was shattered. The Shard and the Aether exist in Dimension Zero. Frogs are in play when they are in Dimension Zero.

The Outer Dimensions

The Outer Dimensions are parallel planes of existence outside of Dimension Zero. The Outer Dimensions become increasingly warped and distorted the farther they are from Dimension Zero. Outer Dimension 6 is the most distant known plane of existence beyond Dimension Zero. Frogs are out of play while they are in the Outer Dimensions. You can only enter the Outer Dimensions by taking knockback from Aether combat.

Life In the Outer Dimensions

If you are in an Outer Dimension when your turn starts:

Roll a white die and return that many dimensions. For example, if you were in Outer Dimension 4 and rolled a 1, you would move to Outer Dimension 3. You will always return to Dimension Zero when you exit the Outer Dimensions, no matter how high your roll.

If you are in an Outer Dimension when your turn ends:

• Take your action card for that turn and set it aside by your player board.
• At the end of any frog's turn, you may place two of your set aside action cards on the discard pile to immediately return to Dimension Zero.

If your Vault gets raided while you are in the Outer Dimensions:

At the end of the raid action, you return one dimension for each Land tile taken from your Vault in the raid, regardless of the point value of the Lands taken. (In team play, the team members choose which frog returns if two or more are out of play.)

When you return to Dimension Zero:

• Your frog is again in play. You immediately get a random ability (the top card on the Ability Deck) and regain all of your expended Oomph.
• You must choose whether to place your frog in the Aether or descend onto the Shard.
• You must use all the set aside action cards you have by taking one action per card at the end of the turn in which you return to Dimension Zero (place each card in the discard pile as you take the action). You may not take extra actions following actions taken using these cards. After you have used all your set aside action cards, play resumes using the Action Deck.
• If you returned from the Outer Dimensions on your turn by way of a die roll, you may spend 2 W to take an extra action before you take any required actions using your set aside action cards.

Raiding Vaults

Any frog in the Aether may use a RAID action to try and steal Exposed Land tiles from the Vault of a frog in the Outer Dimensions. Your RAID die will always be a white die unless noted otherwise on your ability card. The Raid Rules are:

1. You must state which Vault you are attempting to raid and declare your raid target. Your raid target is the number of points of Land you are trying to steal (e.g., my raid target is three points of Land). Each exposed lowland in a Vault is worth one point and each exposed highland in a Vault is worth two points. (This is consistent with placement points.)
2. Your raid target may not exceed the Outer Dimension of the Vault owner (or maximum Outer Dimension of any of the Vault owners in team play). For example, if the Vault owner is in Outer Dimension 3, your raid target cannot be greater than three.
3. Roll your raid die. If your roll does not exceed your raid target, your raid fails. If your roll exceeds your raid target, your raid succeeds and you may sequentially move from the Vault to your Gullet your choice of Exposed Land tiles with a combined point value less than or equal to your raid target.
4. When you take a Land tile from a Vault slot, you must completely empty that slot before you can take a Land from a different Vault slot during the same RAID action. This rule only applies to Lands taken in the same RAID action.

Raid rules 1, 2, and 3 are straightforward. Raid rule 4 bears some additional discussion. Suppose you make a successful raid on a Vault for a raid target of three points of Land. What could you take?

The Lands with dashed black and white borders are Exposed Lands. These Lands are either alone in a Vault slot or at the top of a stack of Lands in a Vault slot. They could be taken in a RAID. Rule 4 says that once you take an Exposed Land, you must empty that Land's Vault slot before you can take Land from a different Vault slot during the same RAID action.

In the example Vault pictured, you could take the forest first. As a highland, it would constitute two points of the three points of Land you are entitled to take. You could stop there, or you could move on to a different Vault slot because you emptied the Vault slot that contained the forest (raid rule 4). You could take one of the two meadows or the desert: they are all lowlands and worth 1 point each, so any one would bring your points taken to three and end your raid.

What if you decided to take the desert first to destroy your opponent's Siphon? Deserts are worth 1 point, so you'd still be entitled to two more points of Land. You could stop there or continue taking Land. However, since there is still Land in the Vault slot you took the desert from, you may only take Land from that Vault slot during your current raid until you empty the slot (raid rule 4). Your only choice would be the mesa beneath the desert that became exposed when you took the desert. You could take that mesa with the remaining two points of your three point raid.

What if you had taken the meadow on the right as the first Land in your raid? By raid rule 4, you would have been locked into that Vault slot: you could take the 1 point swamp next, but you would not have enough raid points remaining to also take the 2 point mesa beneath the swamp.

Aether Flux

When the Aether Flux card comes up in the Action Deck, a cosmic energy surge triggers all frogs to mutate. All frogs in play must choose one of the following three options:

• Randomly mutate. Place your existing ability on the bottom of the Ability Deck and draw a new ability from the Ability Deck. Look at your new ability card, then place the card face down by your player board.
• Resist mutation. Pay 1 W to ignore the Aether Flux and keep your current ability. Your ability card stays in its current face up or face down state.
• Selectively Mutate. Pay 2 W to pick up your existing ability card and draw an ability from the Ability Deck, then look at both cards and decide which one to keep. Place that card face down by your player board and put the other card on the bottom of the Ability Deck.

Splinter Strikes

When the Splinter Strike card comes up in the Action Deck, a Splinter smashes into the Shard. Draw a card from the Splinter Deck and position the card so that the text orientation on the card matches the text orientation on the game mat. The highlighted area on the Splinter location card shows the area affected by the splinter.

Each Splinter location card marks a unique strike hex (the yellow hex) on the Shard. Remove from the game mat all terrain tiles on the strike hex. Then, remove from the game mat the top terrain tile from all six of the hexes surrounding the strike hex, including Barren tiles that are the top terrain tile on any of those hexes. If you remove a Barren with a fracture on the back, place that tile on the Shard Integrity Track. Hexes with no terrain tiles on them become part of the Aether.

If a frog is on a Splinter's strike hex:

• Destroy all terrain tiles beneath the frog, destroy all terrain tiles in the frog's Gullet, and move all of the frog's Oomph crystals into the "Expended Oomph" area of their player board.
• Move the frog into the Aether.

If a frog is on a hex adjacent to a Splinter's strike hex:

• Move the frog into the Aether.

Remember: when Barren tiles are removed from the game and expose the game mat, the exposed area becomes Aether and the surrounding terrain tiles become adjacent to Aether!

The Shard Integrity Track

Fractures ruin the structural integrity of the Shard. When a Barren tile is removed from the Shard, look at the back of that tile to see if it creates a fracture. If the back of the Barren tile is blank, remove the tile from the game and continue play. If the back of the Barren tile has a fracture symbol, the destruction of that Barren has created a major fracture in the Shard. Immediately place that tile fracture side up on the Shard Integrity Track. (Barren tiles with fractures that are somehow harvested go directly to the Shard Integrity Track.)

When all six slots on the Shard Integrity Track are filled, the Shard shatters and the game immediately ends.

Vault Scoring

Only the Land in your Vault at the end of the game counts toward your score. Your final score is the sum of your placement points and your diversity points. Your placement points are determined by how you arrange Lands in your Vault. Your diversity points are determined by the types of Land in your Vault. You calculate your placement points first, then add your diversity points.

Placement Points

Your placement points are calculated using the straight lines of Land in your Vault. A straight line of Land is a set of Exposed Lands of the same type in adjacent Vault slots along a row, column, or diagonal. The land types are desert, forest, hill, lake, meadow, mesa, mountain, and swamp. A desert tile and swamp tile are not of the same Land type. Two desert tiles are of the same Land type. A single, isolated Land is a straight line of one Land (e.g., a single, isolated highland is worth two points).

Land tiles only need to be Exposed Lands to be counted in a straight line. They do not need to be on the same elevation (i.e., vertical level) in their respective Vault slots, they just need to be the top Land tiles on their respective stacks. When you add the points for a straight line of Land to your placement point tally, remove those Lands from your Vault. This prevents double-counting and exposes the Lands beneath for subsequent scoring.

Before you play your first game, we recommend that you take four or five random highlands and four or five random lowlands and arrange them in various configurations and stacks on a Vault board, then calculate the scores for those configurations. This will familiarize you with the scoring system for Land placement before you actually play.

Placement Point Scoring Example

Suppose we want to calculate the placement points for an example Vault. We calculate placement points by sequentially scoring and removing straight lines of Exposed Land tiles of the same type.

We first remove the straight line of two meadows. Since meadows are lowlands, this straight line gives us 3 points. Removing these meadows exposes the forest and swamp beneath and reveals a straight line of two exposed forests. Forests are highlands, so removing that straight sequence gives us 5 more points, for a total of 8 points.

With the forests gone, there are three exposed lowlands and one exposed mesa. The mesa could be part of a straight sequence but the lowlands cannot. We score the swamp, meadow, and desert as singletons worth 1 point each, bringing our score to 8+3=11 points. Removing these lowlands exposes a straight sequence of three mesas worth 9 more points. This brings our score to 20 points and gives us a total placement score of 20+1=21 points once we add in the lone remaining desert.

Diversity Points

You receive diversity points based on the number of Land Domains represented in your Vault. For example, if you have at least one hill or mountain in your Vault at the end of the game, the stone Land Domain is represented.

In the placement point example above, the Vault contained Lands from three Land Domains, so we would get 5 diversity points, for a total Vault score of 21+5=26 points!

Strategy Tips

Here are a things to think about as you embark on your mission to harvest the Shards of Aeth!

• Using miniatures in the same pose for frogs on the same team can help all the players more easily identify teammates.
• If your available Oomph falls below 2 W, you won't be able to add +1 to your combat roll, or mount an overpowered defense if attacked, or take a second action.
• Overpowering a die roll changes the likelihood of rolling any given number available on that die. Boosting a die roll shifts upward the range of values available on that die.
• It takes several actions to fill your Gullet by harvesting, but only one action to attack a frog with a full Gullet.
• Lone Lands in different slots are more easily stolen in a single raid.
• Raiding an opponent's Vault reduces their score immediately but does not increase your score until you bank the Lands you steal.
• Lands will be easier to HARVEST if you place them in clusters during game setup, but they will also be more susceptible to Splinter Strikes.
• The game plays best with 4-6 frogs. Here are a few suggestions for game play based on the number of players that make use of the Team Play Variant:
  • 2 players: Have each person control 2 frogs as a single team, then play as competing teams.
  • 3 players: Have each person control a single frog for individual competition, or have each person control a team of 2 frogs for team play.
  • 4-6 players: Have each person control a single frog and choose whether you want to play as individual competitors or group into teams.

Play Variants

Below are some optional modifications to the basic rules to enhance your game play. All of these variations except for Bounce Back and Dimensional Decisions may be used together in the same game.

Abundant and Harmonious Lands

In this variant, having Abundant and Harmonious Lands in your Vault will increase your score. Each Abundant Land will give you +2 points. Each Harmonious Land will give you +1 point for each Land of that type you have in your Vault. For example, if you have two normal swamps and one Harmonious swamp, you would get +3 points. If you had one normal swamp and two Harmonious swamps you would get +6 points.

There are two ways to use this variant. You may play the game as normal and only reveal the information on the back of the Land tiles when you score your Vault. Or, you may populate the Shard by placing all the Land tiles upside down so that everyone knows right from the start which Lands are normal, which Lands are Abundant, and which Lands are Harmonious!

You add your points for Abundant and Harmonious Lands after you add up your Vault placement points and diversity points.

Aether Surge

In this variation, the Aether surges in powerful currents around the Shard, making it impossible to leap over Aether to get from one Shard hex to another. The only way to cross open areas of Aether separating Shard hexes is to go around them or use the SLIPSTREAM action.

Bounce Back

Frogs in the Outer Dimensions immediately return to Dimension Zero when their next action card is turned up. Returning to Dimension Zero is their action, but they may pay 2 W for a second action if they wish.

Dimensional Decisions

In this variant, you get choices when you are in the Outer Dimensions and when you return to Dimension Zero. If you are in an Outer Dimension, you may choose to drift forward one dimension rather than roll a white die when your action card comes up. When you return to Dimension Zero, you may discard some or all of your held action cards to make additional draws from the Ability Deck (one such draw per action card discarded). You may look at all the ability cards you draw, then choose one to keep and return the others to the bottom of the Ability Deck. After you get your new ability and regain your Oomph, you continue play and use any remaining held action cards for extra actions as normal.

Knockback Resistance

You may use your Oomph to resist knockback. Each Oomph you expend to resist knockback will decrease your knockback by one hex (Shard combat) or one dimension (Aether combat).

Quakes and Vortexes

In this variant, you replace one or more of the blank-back Barren tiles with the special Quake and/or Vortex tiles when you create the Shard. These special tiles will then be randomly placed along with the fracture-back Barren tiles. If a Quake tile is removed from the game mat, all frogs on the Shard are thrown into the Aether. If a Vortex tile is removed from the game mat, all frogs in the Aether must descend onto the Shard (start with the player who physically revealed the Vortex tile on the game mat and proceed clockwise around the table). If a Quake and Vortex are both revealed in the same event, the Quake resolves first, then the Vortex.

Symbiotic Teammates

At the start of your turn, you may swap abilities with a targetable teammate. You may only do this once per turn. The swapped abilities maintain their current face up or face down state.

Team Play

To play in teams, use all rules as written with the four variations noted below:

1. During setup step 2, give each team of N-many frogs N+1 random ability cards. Team members jointly choose each team member's ability from this set of cards and return the unused card to the bottom of the Ability Deck.
2. Each team uses a single, shared Vault (the sepia side of the vault board). At the end of the game, your team's score is calculated using your team's shared Vault.
3. A team's Vault is unlocked and may be raided when any member of the team is in the Outer Dimensions. Frogs raiding a team's shared Vault do so at a -1 to their raid roll for each member of that team in the Aether at the time of the raid.
4. The number of Siphons a frog may draw Oomph from is equal to the number of operating Siphons in their shared Vault minus the number of teammates that frog has in play. A frog with one teammate in play and three Siphons in their shared Vault could use two of the three Siphons and regain 2 W per turn. If that frog had two teammates in play, each frog on the team could use one of the Siphons and regain 1 W per turn.

Notes on Abilities

This section offers a few notes and comments regarding the sixteen frog abilities.

Blink — Blink enables you to travel and move things between dimensions. You may use your hex relocation ability on each action to relocate to any adjacent hex before you take your action. You may not use your relocation ability to move from a Shard hex to the Aether.

Camouflage — Camouflage makes it difficult for other frogs to target you and gives you a combat advantage via die re-rolls. Because this Camouflage affects a frog's ability to actually target you, Voidshadow must pay 2 W to declare an attack against you before making you turn your ability card face down.

Empyrean — Empyrean is great in the late game because of its Aether combat strength and ability to re-roll RAID dice. The trick to successfully using Empyrean is to be in the Aether as much as possible without being caught short on Oomph.

Marauder — Marauder gives you advantages in taking second actions to HARVEST or RAID, and allows you to re-roll combat dice. Your combat trade-off will be whether to overpower your combat rolls or reserve your Oomph to re-roll your dice.

Massive — Massive provides you with immense physical density, making you very resistant to knockback both on the Shard and in the Aether. Your ability to land on terrain so hard that you destroy it can give you quick access to the Aether and potentially end the game by creating fractures.

Mindborer — The Mindborer ability enables you to literally take over a target frog and use that frog like a puppet to take any one action they could legally take, such as LEAP or ATTACK. You may use up to two of the possessed frog's Oomph (e.g., for extra movement, to overpower an attack, etc.). Your re-roll power applies to both combat and raid rolls.

Monstrous — Monstrous is designed for destruction and raiding. With Monstrous, you are well-suited to filling your Gullet and then punching a hole through the Shard to fall into the Aether rather than spending Oomph to LEAP into it.

Mutagenic — You are energized by but not immune to Aether Flux: you regain Oomph from an Aether Flux event but must still expend Oomph to resist mutating or draw an ability. Because you may only use your power to swap abilities at the very end of your turn, you may not use your new ability until your next turn. When you use your ability to use the same color combat dice as your opponent, treat it as though your ability card had the same relevant combat icon as your opponent's ability card (e.g., yellow rather than white).

Nimble — Nimble makes your frog exceptionally quick and spry. You are an excellent harvester and raider by virtue of your reduced second action cost for repeating an action. Because you are so fast, your opponents must use extra Oomph when overpowering their attacks against you.

Ravager — Ravager gives you the ability to harvest Barrens and store them in your Gullet, then consume them to regain Oomph or spit them at the Shard from the Aether to cause a Splinter Strike. Your main trade-off will be having fewer Gullet slots available for harvesting Lands (if you hold a Barren or two in your Gullet) and having the ability to potentially end the game by causing a Splinter Strike.

Telluric — The Telluric ability grants you a powerful affinity with the Shard. This affinity allows you to use the Shard itself as a Siphon and to flow through the Shard, melting into your terrain hex and instantly emerging in any other Shard hex of the same terrain or Land Domain.

Temporus — Temporus grants the ability to twist time. Your basic ability allows you to defer your actions to more useful points in the game or guarantee yourself two actions in a row. This can be useful when your strategy hinges on the actions of other frogs. If you have an action card set aside, it remains with you if you get knocked into the Outer Dimensions.

Vampiric — The Vampiric ability allows you to drain Oomph from a target frog and transfer that Oomph to yourself. The primary limitation of this ability is that the target frog must have Oomph available for you to drain and you must have expended Oomph to regain. This ability may limit the value of Siphons in your Vault, as draining your opponents may keep you at high Oomph levels without a need for Siphons.

Voidshadow — The Voidshadow power nullifies the ability of your target frog immediately upon your declaring an attack and forces that frog to turn their ability face down. When a frog's ability card is turned face down, they use a white die for all die rolls. The primary risk with Voidshadow is that you will still be vulnerable to overpowered and boosted attacks when you are low on Oomph.

Warbringer — With Warbringer, you thrive on combat. Your combat advantages and ability to recoup Oomph from combat provide great incentive for you to let other frogs HARVEST Land and then attack them when their Gullets are full before they have a chance to DISGORGE into their Vault.

Whiptongue — Whiptongue is a great early game ability as it enables you to HARVEST Lands on adjacent hexes. This allows you to spend more time gathering Lands by positioning yourself among Lands rather than atop Lands. You also are able to choose which Land to take from your opponent's Gullet, which can help maximize the value of your Vault.

Sample Game Play

For simplicity, we will use only two frogs, red and purple. We will begin the game normally, with the frogs arriving on the Shard from the Outer Dimensions and a well-shuffled Action Deck, and assume that the Action Deck is reshuffled as needed (adding the Splinter Strike card).

We turn over the top card of the Action Deck and it is red's action card. This means that it is red's turn and red must take an action. Since it is red's very first action of the game, red is entering from the Outer Dimensions and must choose an unoccupied Barren tile adjacent to Aether as the starting point for their first action. Red chooses their starting point and uses their action to LEAP onto the adjacent desert. Red then chooses to pay 2 W to take a second action and HARVEST the desert. Red puts the desert into their Gullet and ends their turn with 4 W.

The next action card is turned up and is red. Red takes their action to RECOVER and is back to six available Oomph. The next action card turned up is also red. Red has one empty Gullet slot, so red may only LEAP one hex without paying Oomph. The Aether is two hexes away, so red pays 1 W for one extra hex and LEAPs a total of two hexes into the Aether. Red uses 2 W to take a second action to DISGORGE their Gullet into their Vault. The items come out of Gullet slot 2, then slot 3, then slot 4. Red stacks them in that order in the same Vault slot to create a terra Siphon (yellow Land Domain). Red ends their turn in the Aether with 3 W.

The next action card is turned up and is red again, so red must take an action. Red reveals their ability as Whiptongue, which allows them to HARVEST adjacent hexes. Red uses their action to harvest the adjacent mesa and then pays 2 W for a second action to HARVEST the desert that was beneath that mesa. Red then ends their turn with 2 W.

The next action card turned up is purple, so purple must take an action. It is purple's very first action, so purple must enter play from the Outer Dimensions. Purple chooses to start their first action from the unoccupied Barren tile adjacent to Aether. Purple uses their action to LEAP onto the adjacent mountain and then pays 2 W to take a second action to HARVEST the mountain. Purple puts the mountain into their Gullet and ends their turn with 4 W.

The next action card turned up is purple. Purple uses their action to LEAP onto the next adjacent mountain and then pays 2 W to take a second action to HARVEST the mountain. Purple ends their turn with 2 W. The next action card turned up is also purple. Purple has two empty Gullet slots, so they may LEAP two hexes without expending Oomph. Purple decides to use a SLIPSTREAM action: purple LEAPs two hexes into the Aether and pays 1 W to immediately land on any hex adjacent to Aether. Purple chooses to land on another mountain. With only 1 W remaining, purple ends their turn.

The next action card turned up is purple. This is the third turn in a row for purple. Purple suspects that a red action card will come up soon and does not want to be caught low on Oomph (with only 1 W, purple couldn't overpower or boost their defense if red attacked)! Purple decides to use a RECOVER action to regain all of their lost Oomph. This brings purple back to 6 W and ends their turn.

The next action card turned up is red. Because red has a working Siphon in their Vault, red regains 1 W at the start of their turn, which brings their Oomph total to 4 W. Red decides to make a second Siphon. Because Siphons must be of different Land Domains to function and red already has a terra Siphon (yellow Land Domain), red's next Siphon must be water, stone, or plant. Red chooses water and uses the LAND action to drop from the Aether onto a swamp hex. Red then pays 2 W to take a second action to HARVEST the swamp. Red ends their turn on the Shard with 2 W.

The next action card turned up is red. Red regains 1 W from their terra Siphon at the start of their turn, bringing them to 3 W. Red uses their Whiptongue ability to HARVEST the adjacent lake and pays 2 W for a second action to HARVEST the swamp beneath that lake. Red ends their turn with 1 W.

The next action card turned up is purple. Purple uses their action to HARVEST the mountain beneath them. With only one empty Gullet slot, purple can only LEAP one hex without having to pay Oomph. Purple pays 2 W to take a second action to LEAP one hex off the Shard and into the Aether. Purple ends their turn in the Aether with 4 W remaining.

The next action card turned up is red. Red regains 1 W from their terra Siphon at the start of their turn, bringing them to 2 W. Red has one empty Gullet slot, so it's time to empty their Gullet into their Vault. Purple, however, has not yet revealed their ability, and that makes red a little nervous about jumping into the Aether with only 2 W, so red decides to RECOVER to full Oomph.

The next action card turned up is purple. Purple uses their action to DISGORGE their mountains into their Vault in a straight diagonal line. Purple decides not to take a second action and remains in the Aether with 4 W.

The next action card is red. Red has no Oomph to regain, so red gets nothing from their terra Siphon. With one empty Gullet slot, red can jump one hex without spending Oomph, so red uses their action to LEAP into the Aether. Red spends 2 W for a second action to DISGORGE their Gullet into their Vault and make a water Siphon. Red ends the turn in the Aether with 4 W.

The next action card is purple. Red is in the Aether with purple, so red is targetable. Purple declares an attack on red and triggers the combat sequence as the attacker with red as the defender. Since the defender is in the Aether, the combat will be Aether combat. The combat sequence is:

• As the attacker, purple makes combat commitments first. Purple states they will neither overpower nor boost their attack and will expend no Oomph.
• As the defender, red responds with their commitments. Red states they will pay 2 W to overpower their defense and also pay another 2 W to boost their roll by +1. (This will cost red all of their Oomph!)
• As the attacker, purple makes their combat roll first. Before making their roll, purple reveals their ability: Empyrean. Empyrean uses red dice for Aether combat, so purple rolls one red die and gets a 6.
• As the defender, red responds with their combat roll. Whiptongue uses white dice for Aether combat. Red paid 2 W to overpower their defense, so red rolls two white dice and uses the larger: red rolls a 0 and a 3, so red uses the 3. Red also paid 2 W for a +1 boost, so red's final combat roll is 3+1=4.
• Purple out-rolled red, so purple is the winner and defeats red by 6-4=2. Red's two points of knockback put red in Outer Dimension 2 (Aether knockback). Upon entering the Outer Dimensions, red loses their ability card and all their Oomph. The Empyrean ability lets purple regain 1 W for winning an Aether combat, bringing their total up to 5 W.
• Since purple beat red by two points in Aether combat, purple has the option of taking the top two items from red's Gullet or a free RAID on red's Vault. Red's Gullet is empty, so purple opts for the RAID.

Before purple makes their RAID on red's Vault, purple has to consider how much Land to target in their raid and what Land they want to take from red's Vault.

• Purple has three raid limitations. First, purple cannot raid for more than two points of Land because red is in Outer Dimension 2. Second, purple will be locked into a single Vault slot for their raid because all the Lands in red's Vault are stacked (raid rule 4). Third, the second Land down in both of red's stacks is a highland, so purple cannot take both a one-point lowland and a two-point highland in a two point raid (because that would be 3 points of Land).

Since purple cannot take more than a single lowland for their RAID and Empyrean uses white dice for raiding, purple decides to maximize their chance of success and only declares a 1 point RAID. Purple rolls a 3 on a white die, so the raid is successful. Purple takes red's exposed swamp and puts it into their Gullet, ruining red's water Siphon. Since 1 Land was removed from red's Vault, red is pulled forward 1 dimension and moves into Outer Dimension 1.

This concludes the combat sequence and resolves the consequences of the battle. But purple is not finished! Purple pays 2 W for a second action to RAID red's Vault again! Red is in Outer Dimension 1, so purple can only declare a one point raid. Purple does so and rolls a 1 on a white die. The raid fails. However, Empyrean lets purple pay 1 W to reroll their raid die! Purple pays 1 W and rerolls their raid die. This time, purple succeeds with a roll of 2. The only exposed one point Land in red's Vault is the desert. Purple takes the desert and puts it into their Gullet, destroying red's terra Siphon in the process. After the raid, red is pulled forward 1 dimension for the 1 Land taken and enters Dimension Zero! Red immediately regains all their Oomph and draws a new ability card. The turn ends with both frogs in the Aether, purple with 2 W and red with 6 W.

Suppose that the Action Deck has already been reformed from the discard pile and the next card turned up is the Splinter Strike card. We draw a card from the Splinter Deck to determine where the Splinter crashed into the Shard. All the terrain tiles in the yellow strike zone and all the top terrain tiles surrounding the strike zone are destroyed and removed from the game. After checking the backs of the Barren tiles destroyed by the splinter, we find that two are fracture tiles! We put these tiles on the Shard Integrity track. Four more fractures will destroy the Shard and end the game!

Then play continues... reconstituting the Action Deck as needed, dealing with Splinter Strikes and Aether Flux as they occur, and trying to evade or defeat other frogs... until the Shard is eventually stripped clean of harvestable Land or a Splinter shatters it in one final, explosive blast!

Credits

Design and Development

Jim Felli — Story, game design, graphic design, development

Artwork and Sculpts

• Tim Barton — Game mat background; action card backgrounds; player and vault board backgrounds
• Chad Hoverter — Miniature sculpts
• Tani Pettit — Ability card artwork; game box and rule book covers; rule book illustrations; player board artwork
• Naomi Robinson — Terrain tile artwork

Proofers, Playtesters, and Consultants

Chris and John Andersen; Marco Arnaudo; Demetri Ballas; Michael Barnes; Peter Blum; Fritz Breithaupt; Frank Brown; Cordia Carlson; Raf Cordero; Chris Dennett; Ben Ericsen; Bryan and Judy Everly; Zara Felli; Katy Ghormley; Chip Harner; JR Hayth; Thomas Holt; Steve Hunter; Tracy Jarrett; Mark Jones; Brian Kavalar; Charlie Krone; Brian Maloney; Karl Mayer; Scott McAhren; Kerry McIver; Joe McLachlan; Bill and Betsy Miller; Wes Miller; Hal and Liam Moore; Sam Osterhaut; David Radtke; Marc Reichardt; Vinny Romano; Ben Shienvold; Blake Svendsen; Mike Strebing; Charlie Theel; Dan Thurot; Dylan Thurston; Craig and Cathy Ulander; Adam West; Richard Wilkins; Chance Williams.

With special gratitude and dedication to Mark D. Jones, who was always there, always patient, and always helpful.

Devious Weasel Games, P.O. Box 36985, Indianapolis, IN 46236, deviousweasel.com

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