Four Dragons
Four Dragons Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 50 cards
- Rules almanac
- Wooden disks
- 4 player aid (card-reference) cards
For 3-4 players, ages 12 and up. Playing time 20-30 minutes.
Object of the Game
The dragons try to capture cards in rounds of play. Each Rain card paired with a Parched Earth card captured at any time during play is worth one point. The player or team with the most points at the end of the final round wins the game.
Preparation
Four Dragons is usually played by 4 players grouped into two teams. A three player variant is provided at the end of the 4 player rules (see the note under Complications below for why that variant's text could not be recovered).
Separate the Rain (9 cards) and Earth (12 cards) from the deck to form an initial stock of scoring cards, along with the four player aid cards. Add three Rain and four Earth cards to the rest of the cards and deal all of the cards among all of the players.
At the end of each of the three hands, three Rain and four Earth cards will be added back into the deck from the stock and shuffled with the regular cards for the next hand.
When a trick is finished, the cards played to it are turned face up and placed to the side, sorted by rank, so that all players can see what has been played. Rain and Earth cards that have been captured are kept separately, in a Scored Cards pile belonging to the player or team who captured them.
Playing a Hand
The Basics
The player who has received the Jade Emperor (card number 6) goes first and MUST play the Jade Emperor card from his hand.
Each other player (going clockwise) plays one card until everyone has played a card.
The highest card played wins the trick. If multiple cards are played of the same rank, the first card of that rank played wins the trick.
The winner of the trick collects any scoring cards (Rain and Earth) that were played in the trick and adds them to their Scored Cards pile. The rest of the cards played are turned face up and placed to the side, sorted by rank, so that all players can see what has been played. The winner of the trick then plays a card to begin the next trick. The hand ends when all cards have been played.
Complications
Suit: A black card [...] be played to a tri[ck] [...] (Exception: the [...]) The other thre[e] (red, yellow, and [...]) [...] only be played o[n a] trick.
Example: Frank[...] Jade Emperor (B[...] begin[s] the first tri[ck], then plays a Red [...] plays a Blue 8. [...] last to play to th[is trick] [...] may only play a [...] black card from [...]
Note on this section: the only surviving photograph of the printed almanac's "Complications" page is cropped by the camera frame partway through this paragraph and its example — the bracketed [...] marks above are exactly where the photograph runs out, not a paraphrase. No second photograph or legible copy of the rest of this page (including the promised 3-player variant, said in the almanac to be "provided at the end of the 4 player rules," and the exact end-of-hand/scoring wording) could be located after exhaustively checking BGG's file section (the one English rules PDF on file, muertos.pdf, is gated behind BoardGameGeek's login and has been unreachable there since at least 2009 per a BGG forum post), 1jour-1jeu/cdn.1j1ju.com, Tesera, desktopgames.com.ua, Tabletopia, Wayback Machine captures of the publisher's site, and Steam Workshop. The card-by-card mechanics of every special card are nonetheless fully documented below in Card Reference, transcribed complete from the game's printed reference/aid card, which is not cropped.
Card Reference
This is the full card composition of the deck, transcribed from the printed reference/aid card that comes with the game.
| Rank | Color | Qty | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Black | 2 | Choose: This card may be Yellow, Blue, or Black. |
| 0 | Black | 1 | Flood: No rain cards after. Winner of this trick must exchange cards. |
| 0 | Black | 1 | Ask: Ask a question about player's hand. |
| 1 | Black | 4 | Swap: Trade a card with your partner. |
| 2 | Black | 9 | Rain: Scoring card. |
| 3 | Black, Red, Blue, Yellow | 4 | Kill 10: Remove one opponent's 10. |
| 4 | Red | 12 | Earth: Scoring card. |
| 5 | Blue, Red, Yellow | 3 | No special power. |
| 6 | Black | 1 | Start: Leads first trick. |
| 7 | Blue, Red, Yellow | 3 | No special power. |
| 8 | Blue, Red, Yellow | 3 | No special power. |
| 10 | Black | 3 | No special power. |
Credits
Four Dragons contains beautiful calligraphy and artwork by Jacob Walker. Designed by Frank Branham and Sandi West. Published by Jolly Roger Games (2000); originally released by Sacred Chao Games as Dia de los Muertos, themed around the Mexican Day of the Dead rather than Chinese dragons, using the same card mechanics.