Harmony
Harmony Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1.0 Components
- A 1 Main board (Forest)
- B 1 Pathway board (in 3 parts)
- C 1 Campfire token
- D 1 Campfire standee (2 pieces)
- E 1 Day marker
- F 1 Portal marker
- G 1 Stun token
- H 10 Damage tokens (1/3)
- I 4 Character boards
- J 4 Life/Shield markers
- K 118 cards:
- K1 1 Journey deck (54 cards)
- K2 1 Forest Guide deck (8 cards)
- K3 1 Event deck (8 cards) with a distinctive back
- K4 4 starting decks (12 cards each), distinguished by the icon corresponding to each character
2.0 Preparing the Game
Place the Main board (A) in the middle of the table. Place the Campfire token (C) in the starting space, and the Portal and Day markers (on the dawn side) in the first space of their respective tracks. Shuffle the Event deck (K3) and place it next to the Day track (E). Put the Forest Guide deck (K2) on the other side, face up. Place the Campfire Standee (D) in an empty area of the table.
Assemble the Pathway board (B) and place it under the Main board. Shuffle the Journey deck (K1) and place it to the right of the Pathway. Draw one card and place it in each of the eight spaces on the Pathway board (1). If an Enemy card appears in the Camp spaces, place it in the discard pile, then move the rest of the cards to the left and fill the empty spaces on the right with more cards from the deck (2). Repeat this process until there are no Enemies occupying the Camp spaces.
Give each player a character, either randomly or by agreement.
Give each player the corresponding Character board (I), Life/Shield token (J) and deck (K4). Each player places the Life/Shield token in the leftmost space of their character's Life track, shuffles their deck, and draws 6 cards.
Leave the remaining tokens aside (G & H).
Playing area
Each player's play area is arranged around their Character board: the player's deck sits to the left, the Item area below the Character board, and the Player's Discard Pile to the right. Camp Storage is a shared area next to the Campfire standee.
3.0 Player Decks
Harmony is a deck-building game. This means that each player starts with an initial deck, which will evolve as the game progresses by acquiring new and better cards, but also by removing others. Players will also share some cards with each other through the Camp Storage. This way cards will move from one deck to another.
Place your deck to the left of your Character board. When it is your turn to play, you play the cards in your hand, and when you are finished, those cards go to your discard pile to the right of your character deck, and then you draw a new hand of 6 cards. If you run out of cards in your deck, shuffle your discard pile, move it to the left to make a new deck, and draw the cards you need to bring your hand back up to 6 cards. Each time you shuffle your discard pile to make a new deck, take the first card from the Event deck and place it in front of the next player (or yourself in a solo game).
Card types
Each card in the game shows some or all of the following information, depending on its type:
- A Character reminder icon.
- A Basic resource cost.
- Enemy life and attack values.
- Life loss when advancing.
- A Seasonal resources cost.
- A Power activation symbol.
The card types are: Starting card, Item, Ally, Enemy, Hazard, and Relic.
4.0 Victory
In Harmony, you must work together to find the four Relics, reach the Shrine and deliver them. To do this, you will need to acquire new cards for your deck, which will allow you to overcome the dangers of the journey and make your way through the forest, crossing the seasons and the Portals that separate them, before the chaos consumes you and the forest. If any of you manages to cross the last Portal and deliver the four Relics, all of you win. If any of you is defeated before that (their life runs out), all of you fail in your quest and the forest is doomed.
5.0 The Game
Starting with the first player, you will take turns until you win or are defeated. When it is your turn, you should follow these steps in order:
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Resolve the Event(s): If you have one or more Event cards in front of you, resolve their effects.
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Take Actions: Play cards from your hand or from Camp Storage to pay for the actions you want to perform.
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End of turn: If there is an Enemy in the Camp, they will now attack you. You then discard the cards you played, along with the rest of your hand, and draw a new hand.
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Upkeep: Fill the empty spaces on the Pathway Board by moving cards to the left and then adding cards from the deck to fill the empty spaces on the right. Straighten your used item cards.
5.1 Events
Each time you shuffle your discard pile to form a new deck, you must take the first card from the Event deck and place it in front of the next player (or yourself in a solo game). It is unusual, but possible, that this happens more than once in a turn.
Each Event has an initial effect that gets worse as the days go by. These are the possible effects:
- Remove a card in your hand from the game.
- Advance the Portal marker one space on the track. If it cannot advance any further, you lose one life instead.
- You lose one life.
All of these negative effects are faced by the player who resolves the Event.
You only need to resolve the effects listed in the section corresponding to the day you are on and those in a higher section. At the start of the game, you are on Day 1, so you only need to resolve the effects on the top section of the Event card. When the Event deck is finished and you need to resolve a new Event, shuffle the discarded Events into a new deck and move the Day marker to Day 2, i.e. the second space of the track. From now on, when you resolve an Event, you must resolve the cumulative effects of the first two sections of each card. Each time you shuffle the Event deck, the Day marker advances and a new section is added to the total of effects to be resolved. Discard the card you are resolving face-up next to the Day track to see up to which section you should activate its effects.
Some sections of the Event cards are marked as Twilight. Ignore them for your first few games, don't take their icons into account when resolving the Event. For a more challenging game, flip the Day marker over to the twilight side. In this mode, when you resolve an Event, you must apply all of its effects, including those from the twilight sections.
Example: Maui must resolve an Event card at the beginning of her turn. The Day marker has already moved to the second day, but since the marker is not on the Twilight side, she ignores the second section of the card and only needs to advance the Portal marker one space. (If the Day marker had been on the Twilight side, she would also have to remove a card from her hand.)
5.2 Action Step
Once you have resolved any Event(s), you may play cards from your hand or from Camp Storage. Place the cards in front of you and announce how you want to use them. Most give you resources, but some let you choose between two or more options. Others are infused and can be kicked to give you extra resources or effects (see infused cards below). When you have enough resources to pay for an action, simply announce that you will perform it. Any resources required are considered spent and cannot be used for any other action.
During your turn, you can perform any of these actions as many times as you can keep paying for it:
Buy a card from the Pathway board: There are eight cards available on the Pathway, in two rows of four. You can buy any non-Enemy card on the board that you can pay for. The cost of each card is shown in its upper left corner (1). The cards on the leftmost spaces of the board are very close to the Camp and can be reached at no extra cost, but you will need to travel a little further ahead of the group to reach any of the other cards. To acquire any of these cards, you must also pay the Advance (compass) cost printed on the track, one for the second and third columns, and two for the rightmost spaces. When you acquire a card, you move it to the place indicated on the card: Allies go to your discard pile (2), Items go to your item area, while Hazards and Relics go directly to the Camp.
Hire a Forest Guide: By paying any 2 basic resources (3) you may take a Forest Guide (if there is one) from the corresponding stack and place it in your discard pile.
Travel: Lead your party to the next location on the trail. See 6.0 Traveling for more details on how to travel.
Fight an Enemy: Use as many Attack icons as you wish to fight an Enemy. If the Enemy is not near the Camp, you need to travel ahead of the group to do this by paying the Advance cost indicated on the pathway. Place as much damage on the Enemy (using the damage tokens) as attack icons you used for this action, and then you lose as many lives as the Enemy strength value (4). If the Enemy has now damage equal to or greater than their life value (5), they are defeated. Place the Enemy in the Camp, where they can be played like any other card.
Heal: Use a healing icon to heal one life from a character of your choice.
Activate an item: Items on your play area can be activated once per turn. Some require you to pay a certain resource to activate the effect. Rotate the card 90° to show that you have already used it this turn.
Activate an ability: Each character has a special ability that can be activated by paying a Magic Crystal (6), and another that can produce one specific resource by discarding 2 cards (7). Unlike items, either ability may be used more than once in the same turn. See the end of the rulebook for an explanation of each ability.
Infused cards: Some cards give you extra resources or effects when you activate a particular power. All Relic cards, character cards from the initial decks, and some allies activate a power when played (one of the four seasonal powers). When this happens, all cards that can be infused by that power that you have played, or that you play later in the same turn, will produce those extra resources or effects.
- If the effects are consecutive, you can activate them all in the order you want. In one example, activating a card also activates its power.
- If the effects are separated by a bar, you must choose one or the other.
- The effects inside a shadowed box will only be activated if you play a card that triggers the indicated power that same turn.
- If the effect has an arrow, the part on the left is a cost that you have to pay to activate it.
5.2.1 The Camp
During the Action step of your turn, you may place cards from your hand in the Camp Storage. They are no longer part of your deck. Use the Campfire standee to signal the cards that are in the Camp. You can play any card already in the Camp Storage during your Action Step, and if you do, it goes to your discard pile at the end of your turn, becoming part of your deck from that moment on.
Forest Guides and character cards from the initial decks cannot be placed in the Camp. Enemies, Hazards and Relics go directly to Camp Storage when acquired or defeated, where they can then be used and become part of a player's deck.
5.2.2 The Pathway Board
The cards on the Pathway board represent all the encounters you may find during your quest. Some are allies or items that can help you, while others are Enemies or Hazards that can hinder your progress.
The Pathway board has two rows of four cards each, one at the top and one at the bottom. The cards on the left are the ones closest to the Camp: you don't have to travel to reach them, but if they are Enemies, they will attack you at the end of your turn. If you want to acquire or attack a card that is further away on the Pathway, you must pay the extra Advance cost noted on the board.
If you discard a card from the Pathway board, place it in the general discard pile to the left. You do not replace the cards you remove from the board until the end of your turn, unless you take a Travel action.
Example: Ryker wants to remove this Hazard from the Pathway, so on his turn he must use a total of 2 (the Hazard's seasonal resource) and 3 Advance icons — two for the cost of the card and one more for the distance it is at. He then places the Hazard card on the Camp area. He does not refill the space on the Pathway board until the end of his turn.
5.2.3 Removing and Recycling
Some effects force you to remove a card from the game:
- Many steps on the Trail require you to remove a card that can produce a specific resource.
- An Event may require you to remove one or more cards from your hand.
- Enemy cards are removed from play if they are used to acquire a Relic card.
Return all cards removed in this way to the box. They will no longer be used in this game.
Cards marked with the recycle symbol, such as Hazards and some Allies, go to the Pathway discard pile instead of your own when they are played (not when eliminated). This also applies if you use the Hazard card to acquire a Relic.
Forest Guides used to produce a Magic Crystal or an Attack icon must return to their own stack instead of your discard pile, and can be acquired again.
6.0 Traveling
To win, you must travel along the forest trail all the way up to the Shrine. When it is your turn, you can decide to move to the next location on the trail by paying the cost shown. Each step has a cost in Advance icons and will probably ask you to remove a card from your hand that can produce the resource indicated. If it asks for 2 resources, you may remove just one card if it produces all the required resources.
If you choose to move and there are Hazards present on the Pathway board, you lose one life for each Hazard.
Once all costs have been met, move the Campfire token to the next location on the trail and immediately update the Pathway. Discard any cards on the leftmost spaces of the board and move the rest to the left, then fill the empty spaces with cards from the Journey deck.
6.1 The Portals
Along the Trail you will find four Portals you must pass through to move between seasons. These Portals are unstable and crossing them can be dangerous. If traveling to the location you are trying to reach involves a Portal, you will need to repair it in addition to paying for the usual travel costs. The Portal track indicates how many Magic Crystals you need to pay. If you don't have enough, you can still go through the Portal, but its energy will backfire on you. For every Magic Crystal you don't pay, each character loses one life.
When you cross a Portal, do the following:
- Return the Portal marker back to the first space on the track.
- Flip all players' Life markers to the Shield side.
- Take all the cards from the Pathway board, the Journey deck and the common discard pile and shuffle them to make a new Journey deck. Refill the Pathway board.
Example: Leia decides to advance on her turn (1), so she checks the indicated cost between the location of the Campfire token and the next trail location (2). She must play 2 Advance icons, remove a card from her hand that generates the required resource, and since she is crossing a Portal, also play up to 2 Magic Crystals (as indicated by the Portal marker) (3). In addition, she must lose a life because there is a Hazard on the Pathway board (4). The group loses one life for each Magic Crystal it was unable to pay, and then everyone flips their Life marker to the Shield side.
7.0 Life and Defeat
Each character starts the game with 5 lives. You can lose them in many ways:
- Each time you attack an Enemy, you lose a number of life points equal to their strength.
- At the beginning of your End turn phase, every Enemy on the leftmost spaces of the Pathway board, i.e. those closest to the Camp, will attack you, causing you to lose a number of lives equal to their strength. Note that this attack takes place before refilling the board.
- If you choose to advance and there are Hazards on the pathway board, you lose one life for each Hazard present.
- If there is a Lose Life icon on an Event that you need to resolve, or if you need to advance the Portal marker and it is already at the end of the track, you lose one life.
- If a player advances through a Portal but doesn't pay the required Magic Crystals, you all lose a life for each one not paid.
When you lose one life, move your Life marker one step to the right. If the marker reaches the skull symbol, you are defeated and all players lose the game. If you lose life and your Life marker is on the Shield side, flip it over to reduce the loss by one. If you produce a healing symbol during your turn, you may choose one player to heal, recovering a life: move their marker one step to the left without changing its side.
Example: Rock must lose two life points due to an Enemy attack. Since he has Shield, he flips the marker to the Life (5) side and moves it only one space to the right (6).
8.0 Relics & Victory
There are four Relic cards in the game, one for each season. Relics can be acquired from the Pathway board like any other card, but they require a special resource that can only be produced by that season's Enemies and Hazards. You need two of these cards to purchase each Relic. Enemies used in this way are removed from play, but Hazards go to the Pathway discard pile and will return to the Journey deck when you shuffle it.
When you acquire a Relic, it is placed in the Camp Storage, from where it can be played at any time. Remember that if you play it, it will end up in your discard pile at the end of your turn.
8.1 Reaching the Shrine
The final Portal will take you directly to the Shrine. The player traveling through this Portal needs to deliver all four Relics, in addition to paying the Travel action costs. Relics can either be played from your hand or taken directly from Camp Storage. If you are unable to deliver the Relics, you will not be able to travel through the Portal and will have to wait until you have collected all four Relics. If you get through the Portal and deliver the Relics, you win the game!
9.0 Adjusting Difficulty
The difficulty of a Harmony game depends on many factors, and some groups of players may prefer a friendlier game, while others may enjoy a bigger challenge.
For an easier game:
- Play the Event cards ignoring the Twilight sections.
- When setting up the game, remove all visible Enemies and Hazards from the Pathway board and fill in the gaps with new cards.
For a more challenging game:
- Play the Events in Twilight mode, i.e. resolve the effects of all card sections.
- When setting up the game, return a certain number of Event cards to the box. Returning one card is challenging enough, two would be an expert game, and returning three cards will make the experience extremely difficult.
10.0 Iconography
10.1 Character Abilities
- Draw ability: A player of your choice selects a card from their discard pile and adds it to their hand.
- Discard-from-Pathway ability: Discard one card of your choice from the Pathway board. You don't have to pay any extra Advance cost to perform this action.
- Stun ability: Place the Stun token on an Enemy on the Pathway board. You don't have to pay any extra Advance cost to perform this action. The next time that Enemy deals damage, it is reduced to 0 and the Stun token is discarded.
- Shield ability: A character of your choice flips their Life marker to the Shield side. The next time that character loses one life, flip the marker back to the Life side instead.
Note that the Spirit Ally of each season copies the ability of a specific character.
10.2 Iconography
Resources:
- Basic resources — three kinds of basic resource, plus a fourth "Any basic resource" symbol that can be paid with any one of the three.
- Seasonal resources — four kinds, one per season (winter, spring, autumn, summer).
- Magic crystal.
Actions and effects:
- Advance — the compass icon; the cost to travel further along the Pathway or the Trail.
- Attack — the strength used to fight an Enemy, and the strength value of an Enemy or a Hazard.
- Heal (a heart icon) — a player of your choice recovers one life.
- A red-crossed card icon — this card can never be placed in the Camp Storage.
- Lose life — the active player loses one life.
- Remove card — the active player removes one card from their hand from the game.
- Advance the Portal — advance the Portal marker one space (or lose a life if it can't advance any further).
- Draw — the active player draws a card from their deck.
- Discard — the active player discards a card from their hand.
- Remove a resource card — remove from the game a card from your hand that produces the specified resource.
- Return to the game after resolving — return this card to the game after resolving this effect.
- Return to the Forest Guide deck after resolving — return this card to the Forest Guide deck after resolving this effect.
- Return to the general discard after resolving — return this card to the general discard after this effect is resolved.
Remember that when the party crosses a Portal, all characters flip their Life marker to the Shield side.
AUTHOR: Adrián Alba ILLUSTRATOR: José Soto GRAPHIC DESIGN: Dossom Studio DEVELOPMENT: Pau Carles & Javi Caparrós www.dmzgames.es