Islebound: Deep Fog
Islebound: Deep Fog Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
1 Deep Fog Card
Deep Fog Card
The Deep Fog card has a front side and a back side.
- Front: shows three dice joined by plus signs, with the wave icons 2, 3 and 4 printed below them. The front side shows the difficulty of traveling to the deep fog regions (see Traveling Through the Deep Fog).
- Back: shows the fog monster with three values: 15, 10 and 10. These match the fog monster rules (see Defeating the Monster).
Setup
- Visibility and travel are limited because of the fog. Shuffle the sea boards and stack them together in one pile so that the basic (not advanced) sides are facing up. Place the stack in the middle of the table. Place the four sea ports in the corners of the stack so that they fit correctly and there is one of each port name (you may have to flip them over). All text on the board should be facing the same direction.
The map for deep fog will be significantly smaller than for the base game. The sea board at the top of this stack is known as the active sea board.
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Place the deep fog card to the upper left of the board with the front side facing up. This is called the deep fog area.
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Shuffle the event cards and place them in only one pile, face down, near the board (does not have to be on the renown board). Place the top card of the stack face up.
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Shuffle the reputation cards and place them in only one pile, face up, on the renown board.
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Place the book tokens in the box. You do not need them.
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Draft building cards:
Deal six building cards to each player. The players review the cards and choose one for their hand. The players then pass their remaining cards to the player on the left. The players review the new cards and choose one for their hand, passing the rest to the left again. This continues until all cards have been chosen. After all cards have been drafted, place the remaining building card deck near the board, face down.
A Player Turn
Move
The game is played in rounds. At the start of each round, every player's ship starts off of the board (off to the side on the table).
At the beginning of their turn, a player places their ship in one of the visible regions on the sea board or ports. In Deep Fog, movement does not affect how far a player can travel. Players are free to visit any space on the main board.
Movement does affect a player's ability to travel through the deep fog (explained further under Traveling Through the Deep Fog).
Action: Visit
In Deep Fog, book tokens refer to unbuilt building cards rather than book tokens. This means that if an action says a player gains a book token by visiting, then the player draws a building card. If the action says that the player must pay a book token, then the player pays a building card from their hand.
The visit action is otherwise the same as the main game.
Action: Attack or Diplomacy
Use event cards instead of colored cubes to keep track of owned towns on sea boards.
When a player successfully takes over a town, then they must search through the stack of event cards and take the card with the name that corresponds with the town they conquered. They place this card beneath the top edge of their player board so that only the town name is showing.
If an opponent takes a town from a player, then the new owner takes the card from them.
Players are responsible for keeping track of the towns they own and making sure others pay them for visiting.
Attack and diplomacy are otherwise the same as the main game.
Free Action: Event
Only one event can be active at a time, and only one per round. The active event card is the one face up on top of the deck.
At the start of each round, if there is not a face-up event card, turn the top card of the deck face up. If the town that corresponds to the event is currently showing on the new active sea board, then the event token goes in that space. If the town corresponding to the event is not on the active sea board, then the event token goes in the lower right region of the active sea board.
When a player completes an event, they receive the bonus and the completed event card goes to the bottom of he [sic] deck. Remove the event token from the board.
Free Action: Buy a building
Players may only buy buildings from their own hand. Buildings grant renown and bonuses only after they've been purchased or built. Purchased buildings cannot be spent in place of a book token.
Note: Buildings in a player's hand can be built using fish and lumber when visiting a town that allows for such action, as normal.
Rotating Sea Boards
When all players have taken their turns, the round ends.
Place the active sea board to the upper left of the main board (near where the Deep Fog card is placed). This is known as the deep fog area. Players remove their ships from the board, along with the event token (if there), and the player with the first-player card passes it to the player to the left. This player will go first in the next round.
At the end of each round, continue to place the active sea board on top of the new deep fog stack. The top-most fog board should always be the active sea board from the previous round.
When the pile of active sea boards runs out, take the stack of fog boards and flip them over so that the advanced side is showing and place them in the center of the sea ports. Continue to run through sea boards, alternating between the basic sides and the advanced sides, until one of the players can trigger the end game.
Traveling Through the Deep Fog
A player may choose to travel to a region on the top-most sea board in the deep fog area, but navigating through the fog is difficult, so the player must roll a die to see if they successfully find their way or if they spend a turn lost in mists. (Thematically, this is the "edge of the fog", while regions hidden beneath sea boards are "lost in the deep fog".)
The front of the deep fog card shows the difficulty of traveling to those regions. Every player starts with a base movement of 2, meaning they must roll a 4 or higher in order to successfully visit a deep fog space. Crew members with travel icons (waves) increase the chance of success. If a player fails the roll, they lose their turn.
Fog Monster Emerges!
The fog monster emerges when one player has seven building cards. At this point, the deep fog card is flipped so that the fog monster is showing.
Players may now, on their turn, visit the deep fog card by placing their ship there, attempting to defeat the fog monster by force or persuasion.
Defeating the Monster
Defeating the monster works exactly like the attack or diplomacy action, except that players do not collect spoils. A player must either roll 10 attack or spend 10 influence to defeat it. If successful, the player places a cube on the card, gaining 15 renown for end-game scoring.
Once a player defeats the monster, play continues until the round ends. At the end of the round, the game is over and players count up renown. Until the monster is defeated, players continue to play the game as normal. Once the monster is revealed, players need not roll a die to travel to the top-most sea board in the deep fog area.
Multiple players can defeat the fog monster, as long as they do it on their turn before the last round ends. Multiple players may visit the deep fog card and need not exhaust a crew member with the "administrate" skill.