Mists over Carcassonne: The Spell Circles
Mists over Carcassonne: The Spell Circles Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents and Setup
This mini-expansion contains 9 land tiles with mist and spell circles as well as the cat Eloise. Assemble the cat before your first game.
You can play The Spell Circles with all levels of the base game.
As usual, place the starting tile in the centre of the table and place 3 ghosts on it.
Place the cat at the edge of the play area. Then place 7 ghosts in front of the cat. The remaining ghosts (depending on the level) are placed in a separate supply next to the play area.
Shuffle the 9 tiles with spell circles with the rest of the tiles. Then setup the game as usual, depending on which level you want to play.
Note: For levels 3-6, you must divide the tiles into 3 equal stacks of 23 tiles each.
Unless otherwise described here, the rules from Mists over Carcassonne apply.
The Spell Circles
1. Place a land tile
If you draw a tile with a spell circle, you place it according to the usual rules.
You may also place a meeple on the tile as usual. Meeple can not be placed on spell circles.
2. Place ghosts
If you have placed a tile with one or more spell circles, you must place 1 ghost in each spell circle shown. Spell circles draw in ghosts that are nearby.
You must therefore move ghosts from other tiles are directly adjacent (8 tiles, orthogonally or diagonally) to the placed tile. Place them in the spell circles shown. If you cannot move enough ghosts, you must take the remaining ghosts from the supply until all spell circles are occupied.
Important: You cannot move ghosts that are already in spell circles.
Example: You draw a tile with 3 spell circles and place it. There are 2 ghosts on the surrounding tiles, which you place in the spell circles. Since there are no other on the surrounding tiles, you have to place 1 more from the supply.
Level 2-4: You only have to place an extra ghost to an open cemetery if you place a ghost from the supply into a spell circle. If you only move ghosts that are already on the game board, you do not have to add a ghost to the cemetery. Ghosts from cemeteries can also be drawn into spell circles.
The spell circles have another special feature: Ghosts that are trapped in spell circles are held until the mist in which the spell circle is located is closed. So you cannot remove these ghosts by foregoing a scoring. You will only get them back into your supply when you close the mist.
From level 3: Even the dogs cannot remove ghosts from spell circles.
Note: If you destroy a mist with spell circles in it, you can no longer remove the ghosts in these spell circles.
Example: You close the mist and thus remove all the ghosts that are in it. You also place the ghosts from the spell circles back into the supply.
Special case: If you place a tile with a spell circle in such a way that it closes a mist, you don't place additional ghosts in these spell circles.
The Cat Eloise
2. Place ghosts
At the beginning of the game there are 7 ghosts in front of the cat Eloise. Whenever you have to take ghosts from the supply, you take them from the cat's supply. If you remove ghosts from the board, you also put them back into the cat's supply.
As soon as there are no more ghosts in the cat's supply (i.e. 10 or more ghosts on the board), you must place the cat.
Immediately place the cat to any unburied meeple of your choice on the board.
Note: Afterwards you may place a meeple according to the usual rules.
Example: You place the last two ghosts from Eloise's supply on the tile. Then you place Eloise to this meeple.
3. Score points
As soon as you score the meeple with the cat, you immediately get as many points as there are ghosts in spell circles at that time.
Return the scored meeple to your supply as usual. After the scoring phase, move the cat to another meeple on the board.
If this meeple is scored, you again get points for ghosts in spell circles, then move the cat, etc. So the cat stays in the game until you win or lose.
You still have the usual number of ghosts available. When the supply in front of Eloise is empty, you take the other ghosts from the separate supply. Once the cat is in play, you have 1 ghost supply as usual.
Example: You place this tile and put 1 ghost in the spell circle. Since the city is completed, the meeple is scored and you get 4 points. Now Eloise is also scored and you get 1 point for each ghost in a spell circle, so another 4 points. Then you place Eloise to another meeple.
Special case: If you don't have a meeple on the game board and you have to place Eloise, you place her next to the game board. You then place her again together with the next meeple.
The Spell Circles as a Mini-Expansion for the Carcassonne Base Game
Setup
Together with the Mists over Carcassonne expansion "Ghosts, Castles and Cemeteries", you can also combine this mini-expansion with the Carcassonne base game.
Shuffle all 9 spell circle-tiles with the tiles from the base game and the expansion. This is your supply of tiles as usual. The cat Eloise, like the dogs, does not like competitive games, she prefers to cuddle with the dogs in the box.
The rules from the base game and the expansion still apply.
1. Place a land tile
If you draw a tile with a spell circle, you place it according to the usual rules.
You may also place a meeple on the tile as usual. Meeple can not be placed on spell circles.
If you place a tile with a spell circle in such a way that at least 1 side of the mist is adjacent to a side without mist, you must place as many ghosts as there are spell circles on the tile with your own meeple. You may split the ghosts.
Example: You place this tile with a spell circle so that the mist on it is destroyed. Therefore, you must place 3 ghosts from the supply to your meeple.
2. Place ghosts
As in the cooperative variant (p.1), the spell circle draws in ghosts from the 8 surrounding tiles. If there are not enough, you have to take the remaining ones from the supply to fill all the spell circles.
Special case: If there are not enough ghosts in the supply, the remaining spell circles remain empty.
Note: As with the expansion, you must place ghosts to meeple if you expand or destroy the mist (see p.2 of the Mists over Carcassonne rulebook, "The expansion").
More ghosts!
If at a later time you place a tile connecting to a tile with a mist in which there is at least 1 occupied spell circle, you must place even more ghosts. Again, it depends on whether you continue or destroy the mist.
Continue the mist
If you place a mist tile in such a way that at least 1 side of it continues an existing mist, you must place 1 ghost (from the supply) to another player's meeple on the game board, as usual.
If there is at least one occupied spell circle in the mist you have continued, you must place another ghost. You take 1 ghost from one of these spell circles and place it to another player's meeple of your choice.
You may split the ghosts between different meeple.
If you close a mist with a spell circle, you place all ghosts that are in spell circles in this mist to another player's meeple. Here, too, you may split the ghosts.
Example: You place this tile and continue the mist with it. So you place 1 ghost from the supply to the blue meeple. As there is an occupied spell circle in the mist, you also take 1 ghost from one of the spell circles and add it to the yellow meeple.
Destroy the mist
If you place a tile in such a way that at least 1 side of the mist is adjacent to a side without mist, you must, as usual, place 1 ghost to one of your meeple.
If there is at least 1 occupied spell circle in this mist, you must take all the ghosts from these spell circles and add them to your own meeple. You may also split the ghosts among your own meeple.
Important: A maximum of 3 ghosts are allowed to be placed to a meeple. Then you immediately return the meeple to the supply. If you are required to place more ghosts to your meeple, you must add the remaining ghosts to another of your meeple. If you have no more meeple on the board, the ghosts are forfeited and returned to the supply instead.
Example: You place this tile and destroy the mist with it. So you place 1 ghost from the supply to your meeple. As there is an occupied spell circle in the mist, you additionally take 1 ghost from the spell circles and add it to your meeple.
Note: Only at the end of this phase you may place one meeple as usual.