Mythe
Mythe Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 16 Adventure cards
- 5 Reference cards (blue, green, yellow, black, and orange)
- 1 Red Dragon
- 1 Sacred Cheese
- 5 Mice Heroes (blue, green, yellow, black, and orange)
- 1 Pop-up game board
- This rulebook
Overview
The players, as mice heroes, must travel to the castle of the Red Dragon, where one of them has to defeat the evil creature and recover the Sacred Cheese. The player who does this wins the game!
To progress on their journey, players must draw cards from other players' hands, one by one. When a player has decided that they have taken enough cards, they can decide to advance their hero on the game board.
However, if a player draws an Obstacle card, then the hero must stop and deal with the mishap, and does not move that turn.
When a player finishes their turn (whether they advanced or not), they may then redistribute any of their cards to the other players.
Finally, to win the game, a hero must have one of the legendary cards (Shield, Sword, or Fairy) and then move onto the Dragon's space to defeat him and save the Sacred Cheese.
Setup
- Open the pop-up board and place it in the center of the table. For the board to lay flat, you may need to bend it slightly further, but be careful not to bend it too far!
- Place the Red Dragon token on the highest space in the castle (second to last) and the Sacred Cheese on the last space.
- Each player chooses a mouse hero token, placing it in the village (the enclosure on the board). Each player also takes the player card of the matching color and places it in front of themselves.
- Place any remaining mice and player cards back in the box.
- If playing with fewer than 5 players, some of the 16 Adventure cards are not used. There are marks on the cards to guide you:
- in a game with 5 players, use all the cards;
- in a game with 4 players, remove all cards marked "5";
- in a game with 2 or 3 players, remove all cards marked "4+" and "5".
Any cards removed are placed back in the box.
NOTE: For a game with 2 players, read these rules, and then see the notes at the end of this rulebook.
The player with the biggest ears is the starting player. Alternatively, or if players can not agree on who that is, the youngest player starts.
The starting player shuffles all of the Adventure cards being used in the game and deals them out, one by one, face down to the players in clockwise order, starting with the player to their left. This may result in some players starting with one more card than other players.
Players may look at their cards but must keep them secret from other players, as each mouse hero wants the glory of defeating the evil Red Dragon for themselves.
How to Play
The starting player takes the first turn. Players take their turns in clockwise order.
A turn consists of two phases:
- Phase 1. Draw cards
- Phase 2. Give cards
1. Draw Cards
At the start of your turn, you must draw one card from the hand of any other player. Drawn cards are placed face-up on the table in front of the player who drew them.
The text on the cards serves to describe the adventure but otherwise plays no part in the game.
You may continue to draw cards one by one, until:
- You decide to stop and Advance on the board.
or
- You draw an Obstacle card.
If there are no more cards remaining in the hands of the other players and the last card you drew was not an Obstacle card, you must stop drawing and Advance.
Advance
If you stop drawing cards to Advance, add up the numbers on all the cards you drew this turn which are face up in front of you.
The total number is your Adventure points you can spend to move your hero forward on the game board.
Each space on the board requires 1-3 Adventure points to enter, depicted on the space by a number of white dots. To enter the space, you need to spend the appropriate number of points. (Example: a path of spaces costing 1, 2 and 1 requires 1+2+1 = 4 points.)
NOTE: There may never be more than one mouse hero per space. If another player's hero is present in a space, it is counted as requiring 0 Adventure points to move through. In essence, the space is skipped, and you move through it for free. (Example: 1+0+1 = 2 points.)
You must make all possible moves forward and may not save any Adventure points for future turns. If you have any Adventure points left after you have finished moving, those excess points are lost.
Moving onto the space with the Dragon has special rules (see End of the Game).
Obstacle
If you draw an Obstacle card, this phase ends immediately. You may not draw any more cards and your hero does not Advance.
2. Give Cards
Regardless of whether you Advanced or were stopped by an Obstacle, you may now give cards to the other players. To do so, take the following steps:
- Take all the cards you drew this turn, and add them to your hand.
- Decide on how many cards to give to the other players. You may also keep all cards drawn.
- Distribute the given cards to the other players face-down, one by one.
- Each player given cards draws them into their hand.
- At the end of this process, every player (including you) must have at least one card in their hand.
It is now the next player's turn, who begins by drawing cards from other players (Phase 1).
Variant
In this variant a player may only give away cards drawn this round. This makes for a longer and much more challenging game, so when adventuring in the Mythe kingdom, please use it with caution!
End of the Game
In order to win the game, a hero must defeat the evil Red Dragon and recover the Sacred Cheese. To do this, they need to enter the Dragon's space, armed with one of the legendary items (Sword, Shield, Fairy).
At the start of your turn, you may reveal one of the legendary items from your hand and declare you will attempt to defeat the Dragon that turn.
You then proceed to take a normal turn. The Adventure points depicted on the legendary item you revealed from your hand can not be spent on Advancing that turn.
If during the course of that turn, you manage to move onto the Dragon's space (which costs 1 Adventure point), then you defeat the Dragon, recover the Sacred Cheese, and win the game!
You may not move onto the space with the Dragon if you did not reveal a legendary item at the start of your turn.
If you declare that you are fighting the Dragon but then fail to enter his space (either by drawing an Obstacle card or not drawing enough Adventure points), you complete your turn as normal, performing the steps in Phase 2. The game then continues with the next player in clockwise order.
Mythe for 2 Players
In a game for 2 players, there is an additional separate card deck that both players may draw from.
After removing the cards only used in games for 4 or 5 players, deal the remaining cards in 3 decks of 4 cards each. Give one deck to each player, and place the third deck next to the game board.
During the game, when a player draws cards they may draw cards from the other player or from the neutral card deck.
When giving cards, a player may give cards to their opponent or place them in the neutral card deck, in the same way as described for Phase 2.
If any cards are placed in the neutral deck, it is reshuffled before the next player's turn. At the end of giving cards, there must always be at least one card in the neutral card deck.
Card Distribution
- 2-3 Players: 12 cards
- 4 Players: 13 cards
- 5 Players: 16 cards