Finis Terrae Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Objective
• Set Up
• Holds and Stash
• Overview
• I - Cartography Phase
  • Special Tiles
• II - Preparation Phase
  • 1 - Weather
    • Storm
    • Wreck
  • 2 - Common Exchange and Movement Value
• III - Sailing Phase
  • Sunny Day
  • Pirates
  • 1 - Move
    • Pirate Den
  • 2 - Perform 1 Action
    • A - Establish a Port
    • B - Rescue a Castaway or Recover Things
      • Treasures
    • C - Combat Another Ship
    • D - Trade in a Port
      • Redeem Castaways and/or Underwater Finds
      • Buy Spice
• IV - End of the Day
• Game End
• Scoring
  • Colonisation
  • Trade
  • Exploration
  • Various Bonus and Malus

Components

• 1 Isle of Winds big tile
• 80 map tiles
• 1 exchange board and 1 counter
• Weather cards (including 1 Finis Terrae card, sunny cards, rainy cards and storm cards)
• 1 "East" first player marker
• 2 white (loaded) dice
• 2 red dice
• 1 wind die
• 1 Black Ship, known as the Black Galleon
• 4 reversible black pirate flags
• 1 red pirate flag
• 4 ship boards
• Per player color (4 colors): 1 ship and 8 port tokens
• Doubloons: 70 of value 1, 12 of value 5, 8 of value 10
• Goods: 15 spice crates, 5 treasures, 5 underwater finds, 5 castaways
• Tokens: 8 "+3" tokens and 4 "-3" tokens

Objective

The objective of Finis Terrae is to get victory points by discovering and colonizing new lands, recovering and trading goods and treasures, saving castaways and, sometimes, sinking pirate ships. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game will be declared the winner.

Set Up

1. Place the Isle of Winds big tile in the center of the table.

2. Place the Black Galleon, the red pirate flag and 1 ship board on the side. Place 15 doubloons in the first hold of this ship board, 10 in the second and 5 in the third.

3. Place the exchange board and counter and all the dice on the side, next to the Black Galleon.

4. Each player chooses 1 ship board, 1 ship and 7 port tokens of the same color, places the last port token of this color on the round space on their ship board, then takes a face down pirate flag and doubloons (10 x 1 doubloon and 2 x 5 doubloons) which they split as they please between their holds and the place on the table just on top of their ship board, which is called the stash (see Holds and stash p.4). Put the components in the colors that are not in play back into the box. (For your very first game, we recommend to put 15 doubloons equally divided between 3 of your holds and to keep the last 5 safe in your stash.)

5. Place the remaining doubloons in a pile on the side. This is the bank.

6. Place the treasures, underwater finds, spice crates and castaways in piles. Those are the supplies.

7. Put the Finis Terrae card and 1 of the sunny cards aside for the moment and shuffle the other ones. Then take 2 without looking at them and put them back in the box: they won't be used during this game. Form a pile of the remaining cards face down next to the trading board. Then insert the Finis Terrae card (A) face up between the second (B) and third (C) cards from the bottom, slightly protruding from the pile. Finally, add the sunny card left aside face down on top of the others (D). This pile is called the weather deck.

8. Shuffle the map tiles and place them on a face down stack next to the players so they can easily be accessible to all.

   Important: For a 3 player game, remove 2 open sea tiles, 2 two borders island part tiles and 4 one border island part tiles and put them back in the box. For a 2 player game, remove 3 open sea tiles, 1 lighthouse tile, 1 fort tile, 1 pirate den tile, 3 two borders island part tiles and 7 one border island part tiles and put them back in the box. (see the Tiles description sheet)

Players will not be able to establish other ports on the Isle of Winds anymore during the course of the game.

Note: In this rulebook, special rules applying to pirates only are identified by a pirate skull symbol.

Holds and Stash

Before going into detail about the rules, a few words about your holds: your ship board is divided into 4 distinct holds. The space in front of it is called your stash.

• Your stash can only contain Doubloons. They are safe in it.
• The content of your holds can be stolen by pirates or lost in case of a wreck.
• Each of your holds can contain only 1 kind of thing at a time (doubloons, spice crates, treasures, underwater finds or castaways) and there is no limit to the quantity of things of the same kind you can keep in 1 hold.
• You can only load things in an empty hold and you cannot divide things between multiple holds while loading it.
• At any moment of the game, if you need to load something in 1 empty hold and none of them are, you can empty 1 by throwing its contents into the sea. If you decide to do that, simply return its content to the bank or supply.

Overview

A game of Finis Terrae is divided into days, each one consisting of the following 4 phases:

• I - Cartography phase, in which explorers draw the map of Finis Terrae by placing tiles next to each other's.
• II - Preparation phase, in which they will take a look at the weather and the exchange rate and determine the common movement for the day.
• III - Sailing phase, in which they will cross the seas to establish ports, trade spice and recover treasures, underwater finds and castaways.
• IV - End of the day, in which the next day's first player is designated and the red pirate flag is handed to the next player clockwise.

Once every player has completed their turn in a phase, proceed to the next phase until the end of the day.

I - Cartography Phase

At the beginning of the day, explorers gather information from various sources and complete the map of the known world.

The total of all the tiles already placed on the table is called the map. Any piece of land completely surrounded by both sea and / or the edge of the map is called an island. Islands completely surrounded by sea are called complete. They are incomplete otherwise.

Starting with the first player and moving clockwise around the table, each player will perform the following actions, in this order:

1. Draw exactly 4 tiles from the stack.
2. Place all the 4 drawn tiles in any order on the table, continuing the existing map, according to the following placement rules:
   • Each tile you add must share at least 1 edge with another tile already on the map.
   • The terrain on each connected edge must be the same (land or sea).
   • A tile cannot be placed more than 4 tiles away from another player's ship or port. The Black Galleon is not a player's ship.

Important: If you cannot place a tile according to the placement rules, put the tile back in the box, without drawing another one.

Special Tiles

When you place a special tile on the map, immediately perform the following actions, depending on its type:

• A. Pirate den: Take the red pirate flag and place it in front of you: you now control the Black Galleon. If the Black Galleon isn't already on the map, place it on this pirate den. Otherwise, leave it where it is (see Pirates, p.10).
• B. Treasure island: put a treasure from the supply on it.
• C. Shipwreck: put an underwater find from the supply on it.
• D. Castaway island: put a castaway from the supply on it.

Once there are no more tiles left to draw, keep playing but skip the cartography phase. There is no more to discover.

Example: Here is the cartography phase of the first day of a 2 player game. Red have placed their 4 tiles and Green already have placed 3 of theirs and now have to decide what to do with the last 1. They cannot place it in: (A) because tiles must share at least 1 edge with another tile already on the map, (C) because it is more than 4 tiles away from any opponent's ship or port, as the Black Galleon is not considered an opponent's ship. (E) because only one of the edges of the tile matches one of the already placed tiles. (B) and (D) on the other hand respect all the placement rules.

II - Preparation Phase

At the beginning of the day, explorers have to prepare themselves by looking at the current exchange value and, more importantly, by checking the weather!

During the preparation phase, you will determine the current exchange rate, weather and common movement value for the day.

Complete the following steps in order:

1 - Weather

The first player turns over the top card of the weather deck and places it face up on a discard pile next to it. This will show you the weather for this day.

There are 3 different types of weather cards:

• Sunny, which will allow you to move twice (see Move p.11),
• Rainy, which will allow you to move only once,
• Storm, which will enable you to move and let you at the mercy of elements!

Storm

If a storm card is revealed, the first player rolls the wind dice. Its result indicates in which direction the wind will push all the unprotected ships one tile away.

Important: The cardinal points are written on the Isle of Winds big tile.

A ship is protected from the storm and does not get pushed if:

• It is on a tile with a port.
• It should be pushed on an island with a lighthouse anywhere on its coast.

Pirate: Pirate ships aren't protected in ports because they are outlaws. Instead, they are protected on pirate den tiles (see Pirates, p.10).

During a storm, a ship can be wrecked if it is pushed:

• Across land,
• Across a reef,
• Off the map.

A ship doesn't wreck if it is:

• It ends its push without crossing land or a reef,
• It ends its push on a treasure island, castaway island, a pirate den, a shipwreck or open water tile.

Important: The storm effect is a push, and as such does not count as a move. Every event usually triggered by a move does not apply during a storm.

Storms are as violent as they are short in Finis Terrae.

Once all the players are done dealing with the effects of the storm, start a new preparation phase.

Example: A storm card has just been returned and the dice indicates the winds are blowing East. Green is protected by the port they are in and Red, who are currently pirates, are protected by the pirate den so none of them is pushed, thus avoiding falling off the map. Yellow are protected from being pushed across land by the lighthouse on the island they were supposed to wreck on. Blue is pushed on the pirate den tile which luckily does not trigger events as they didn't get there after a move so they don't have to pay the toll (see Pirate Den p. X). The Black Galleon aren't that lucky. Since it is a pirate ship, the port it is in doesn't protect it from being pushed across those reefs, causing its wreck.

Wreck

In case of a wreck, you'll lose the content of your holds and be forced to return to your starting port on the Isle of Winds for repairs.

If your ship is wrecked, perform the following actions, in this order:

• Choose 1 of the holds on your ship board and place all its content on the tile you wrecked on. You cannot choose an empty hold, except if all of your holds are empty. The things you leave will stay there until someone picks them up later (see Rescue a castaway or recover things p.13).

Important: If the storm pushed you out of the map, place the content of this hold on the tile you just left instead.

• Place the content of all of your other holds back into the common supply and/or bank.
• Put your ship back on your starting port on the Isle of Winds big tile.
• Take 1 "-3" token and place it in front of you.
• Finally, take 6 doubloons from the bank and divide them as you please between your holds. You can also load additional doubloons from your stash if you want to.

If the Black Galleon is wrecked, the player controlling it places it on the pirate den of their choice then places 15 doubloons from the bank in the first, 10 in the second and 5 in the third hold of the Black Galleon's ship board.

2 - Common Exchange and Movement Value

The first player rolls 1 red dice and 1 white dice. Move the white exchange counter on the exchange board on the number obtained with the red dice: this will be the base value for goods and rewards on this day.

Place the white dice on the wind rose on the exchange board: it indicates the common movement value for the day.

III - Sailing Phase

Once their map is up to date and they have checked the market and weather, explorers are ready to sail!

Beginning with the first player and continuing clockwise, each player must take the following steps, in order:

1. Move at least 1 tile away,
2. Perform 1 action, if they want and if it is possible.

Sunny Day

If the day is sunny, players can move then perform 1 action, twice.

At the beginning of your sailing phase, roll the second white dice then decide if you want to use its value for your first or second movement. Place it in the appropriate space on your ship board. The common movement white die will be used for your other movement.

Then perform your sailing phase twice, 1 time for each white dice, in order.

Pirates

Among the many perils explorers have to face at sea, pirates are by far the most dangerous. And the most dangerous crew of them all is, by far, the Black Galleon's one.

The player who owns the red pirate flag controls the Black Galleon. At their turn, this player plays a first Sailing phase as the Black Galleon before playing their own one.

Important: Each time you have to load something in one of your holds while you play as the Black Galleon, load it on the Black Galleon's ship board instead.

But the Black Galleon isn't the only pirate ship roaming the Finis Terrae seas! Adventurers too can become pirates!

You can become a pirate at any moment during your sailing phase. Simply turn your flag black face up.

The only way to cease to be a pirate is by doing so as an action (see Cease to be a pirate p.17).

Important: Pirates stay pirates after they wreck.

1 - Move

Move your ship from tile to tile according to the following rules:

• You have to move at least 1 tile away but you can move less than your movement value.
• You can only move to an adjacent tile (up, down, right or left), never in diagonal.
• You cannot move across land or reefs.
• You cannot end your movement on the tile you started.

Pirate Den

If you move on or across a pirate den tile, you have to pay 3 doubloons from your holds to the bank as a toll. You cannot move your ship on it if you don't have at least 3 doubloons in your holds.

Pirate: Pirates can move on or across pirate dens freely without paying the toll.

You can move across a tile with a pirate ship on it without consequences.

Example: Here Green can move up to 4 tiles away, as indicated by their movement dice. Following the rules, they can end their movement on any of the tiles colored in green but they cannot move on any of the tiles colored in red because:

• They are more than Green's movement value away ((A),(C) or (G)),
• They show a pirate den ((B) or (F)) or can be attained only by crossing one since Green hasn't enough doubloons to pay the toll,
• They are behind an obstacle, like a piece of land (C) or a reef (D),
• Green cannot stay on their tile or end their movement on it (E).

2 - Perform 1 Action

After ending your movement on a tile, you can perform 1 action on it. Performing an action ends your movement. You can perform only 1 action. Here are the possible actions:

• A - Establish a port
• B - Rescue a castaway or recover things (find a treasure or recover an underwater find or any loot from a wreck)
• C - Combat another ship
• D - Trade in port
• E - Cease to be a pirate (pirates only; only in your starting port of the Isle of Winds)

A - Establish a Port

If the tile you are on shows a beach, you can establish a port on it by paying 5 doubloons from your holds to the bank for each tile that already constitutes this island. Once paid for it, place 1 of your port tokens on that beach.

Pirate: Pirates cannot establish a port.

You cannot establish a port on an island where there already is a port. You cannot establish a port on a pirate den tile.

Important: It is possible for 2 ports or more to end up on the same island after a player has connected separate islands with a tile during their cartography phase.

Example: 1 - Green just ended their movement on a tile showing a beach. Since there is no port on this island at the moment, they decide to establish one of their own by paying 10 doubloons from their holds to the bank, 5 for each of the 2 tiles currently composing the island. 2 - During the cartography phase of a later day, a playful explorer decided to place a tile in the gap between Green's and Red's islands, merging them into one big island.

B - Rescue a Castaway or Recover Things

In Finis Terrae, a great part of the world still remains to be charted and a lot of perils await those who are brave enough to take the sea. For all those reasons, wrecks are pretty common and explorers sometimes encounter castaways.

If the tile you ended your movement on has anything on it and at least 1 of your holds is empty, you can take it and load it in that empty hold. This concerns castaways, underwater finds and treasures but also any amount of doubloons or spice crates dropped there after a wreck.

If there is more than 1 type of thing on the same tile, you can only pick 1 kind during the same action.

Later you will be able to redeem castaways and underwater finds in a port in exchange for doubloons and victory points (see Redeem castaways and/or underwater finds, p.15).

Treasures

After recovering a treasure, open it immediately. To do so, put it in front of you and roll the 2 red dice then load the indicated amount of doubloons from the bank in your hold in place of the treasure. Treasures in front of you will be used for the end scoring.

C - Combat Another Ship

If the tile you ended your movement on has more than 1 ship on it and at least 1 of them is a pirate one, you can start a combat.

You cannot start a combat if the tile you are on shows an island with at least 1 fort anywhere on its coast.

If you start a combat, choose 1 ship on the tile as an opponent. You can only attack 1 ship during the same combat.

Explorers can only choose pirates as opponents.

Pirate: Pirates on the other hand can chose explorers and pirates alike as opponents (see Pirates p.10).

You and your opponent both roll 2 red dice. Pirates then add 1 to their result. The player with the higher result wins the combat. In case of a tie, both tied players do it again until there is a winner.

When you WIN a combat, look at the holds of your opponent:

• If at least 1 of their holds contain something, you can either load its content in 1 of your empty holds or throw it to the sea by returning all its content to the supply or the bank. Your opponent's ship then stays on the tile.
• If all their holds are empty, sink your opponent's ship, applying the same rules as for a wreck (see Wreck p.9). Then, take a "+3" token from the supply and place it in front of you.

Alternative rule: For more intense ship combats, use 1 dice each instead of 2.

Example: Green just ended their move on a tile already occupied by Red, a fellow explorer currently indulging in piracy, and none other than the infamous Black Galleon. Fortunately, the tile is not in the range of effect of any fort so Green can combat one of them. They just have to decide which one. If they win against the Black Galleon, they would be able to steal the 5 doubloons from its hold but will have to get rid of one of their own hold's content in order to keep it, mercifully leaving the Black Galleon on the tile. If they win against Red whose all holds are currently empty, they would sink their ship, earning a "+3" token. If they lose however, their opponent would steal the content of one of their holds.

D - Trade in a Port

If the tile you ended your movement on has a port on it, you can buy or sell spice and / or redeem all or part of the underwater finds and / or castaways you have in your holds, as follows. Trading and / or redeeming even several times still count as 1 action.

Pirate: Pirates are not welcome in ports! You cannot trade in a port if you are a pirate.

Redeem Castaways and/or Underwater Finds

Often stranded on small islands for days if not months, castaways usually promise to reward their saviors according to their wealth once taken back to a port.

Castaways and underwater finds can be redeemed for doubloons from the bank in any port. Add the current exchange value to the roll of 1 red dice to decide their value.

Place the redeemed goods in front of you. They will be used for the end scoring.

Buy Spice

You can buy spice from your own ports only.

You can buy a maximum of 2 crates of spice at a time. The price for 1 crate for that day is indicated by the exchange board. Pay the required doubloons from your holds in the bank and load the purchased crates into a single empty hold.

Sell Spice

You can sell spice in your opponents' ports only.

You can sell a maximum of 2 crates of spice at a time. The price for one crate is determined by adding the current exchange value to the roll of one red dice.

Place the sold spice crates in front of you. They will be used for the end scoring.

There is only a limited number of spice crates in the game. Once the last crate is bought from the supply, no one can buy spice until someone puts some back in it by emptying one of their holds in the sea. You can still recover or sell some.

Alternative rule: For more speculative spice trades, increase the maximum number of crates you can buy or sell up to the number of tiles that compose the island you are trading on. You still cannot buy or sell more than 2 crates at the time on the Isle of Winds.

Example: The day is sunny and Green wants to trade spice. Using the common movement value they first set sail to one of their own ports to buy some. Looking at the exchange board, we can see that they will have to pay 4 doubloons for each crate. Green could buy up to 2 crates but as they only have 5 doubloons in their holds, they will only be able to buy 1, which they will place in an empty hold. It's now time to sell those crates. Using their second movement, Green now moves to an opponent's port. That red port will do. Once there, Green decides to sell all their spice! Adding the roll of 1 red dice to the current exchange value, they obtain 7 doubloons for each of their crates, for a total of 14 doubloons.

Reorganize Your Holds (Additional Action)

If you are in one of your own ports, you can reorganize your holds as an additional and final action. You cannot perform another action after reorganizing your holds.

You can reorganize your holds even if you established the port you are in during the same day.

Share the doubloons, spice, treasures, castaways and / or underwater finds on your ship board as you please between your holds according to the holds rules (see Holds and stash p.4). You can also move doubloons between your stash and your holds and vice versa.

Important: This additional action is the only way to move doubloons to or from your stash during the game.

E - Cease to Be a Pirate

Pirate: If the tile you ended your movement on contains your starting port from the Isle of Winds, you can become an explorer again. Simply turn your black flag face down.

IV - End of the Day

The sun rises East too on Finis Terrae. Explorers who sailed the day before are always blessed by the sunrise before their opponents and hence can start sailing earlier.

After all the players ended their turn, look at who moved their ship last on the most eastern tile. This player then takes the East marker and becomes the first to play for the next day.

Then the red pirate flag goes from its controller to the next player clockwise.

Game End

When the first player turns over the Finis Terrae card for the first time during the preparation phase, the game is about to end.

Take the Finis Terrae card without using it as the weather card for this phase and shuffle it face down with the last 2 to form a new weather deck.

Continue to play as usual.

When the Finis Terrae card is turned over for the second time, complete the preparation phase using it as the weather card for the day, play a last sailing phase then the game ends.

Important: The Finis Terrae card is a sunny card.

Scoring

Each player gains victory points (VP) as described below: (You can use the scoreboard printed in the box insert to count the points.)

Colonisation

• +1 VP for each tile constituting each of the islands you control (You control an island if you have the most ports on it. In case of a tie on 1 island, both tied players score the totality of the points for that island)
• +1 VP for each lighthouse and fort on islands you control
• +2 VP for each complete island you control
• +5 VP for the player who control the biggest complete island

Trade

• +2 VP for each treasure recovered
• +2 VP for each spice crate, both in your holds or sold
• +3 VP for each underwater find, both in your holds or redeemed
• +3 VP for each castaway, both in your holds or redeemed
• +4 VP if you have collected at least 1 of each goods (treasure, spice crate, underwater find and castaway)
• +1 VP for each series of 5 doubloons you have, both in your holds and stash

Exploration

• +3 VP if you have at least 1 port on both side of the N/S axis (tiles on the axis itself do not count)
• +3 VP if you have at least 1 port on both side of the W/E axis (tiles on the axis itself do not count)
• +3 VP if you have at least 1 port in each of the 4 quadrants of the map (tiles on both the axis do not count)
• +5 VP for the player who established the port the furthest from the center of the Isle of Winds. In case of a tie, both tied players score the points.

Various Bonus and Malus

• +3 VP for each "+3" token
• -3 VP for each "-3" token

Important: Doubloons and goods in the Black Galleon's holds do not count during the scoring.

The player with the most victory points wins and becomes the new Governor! In case of a tie, both tied players win. They both become Governors.

Example: Here Green gain 17 VP for their colonization (9 for the 9 tiles constituting the islands they control, the upper right one being shared with Red, 2 for their forts, 2x2 for having 2 complete islands and 5 for controlling the biggest one), 15 VP for their trade (2 for their treasure, 3x2 for their spice crates, 3 for their underwater find and 4 for their doubloons) and 9 VP for their exploration (3 because they have 1 port in both north and south, 3 because they have 1 in both east and west and lastly 3 because they have 1 in each quadrant) for a total of 44 VP. Red in the other hand gain 15 VP for their colonization (8 for their islands, 1 for their lighthouse and 2x3 for their complete islands), 20 VP for their trade (2 for their treasure, 2x2 for their spice crates, 3 for their underwater find, 3 for their castaway, 4 because they have 1 of each goods and at last 4 for their doubloons) and 8 VP for their exploration (3 because they have 1 port in both north and south - and none for having 1 port in both east and west since those on the W/E axis does not count - and 5 because their port on the bottom right tile is the furthest from the center of the Isle of Winds) for a total of 43 VP, only 1 little point behind Green who thereby wins the game!