Mythic Baths Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Gameplay
• Main Actions
  • 1. Gather 1 ingredient card
  • 2. Nourish a regular guest
  • 3. Treat a guest
  • 4. Clean the baths & welcome new guests
• Troublesome Guests
• Guest Favour Tokens
• Managers
• End of Game & Scoring
  • Scoring example

Components

• 35 regular guest cards (green banner)
• 10 troublesome guest cards (pink banner)
• 5 reference cards (1 per player color)
• 10 manager cards
• 50 ingredient cards
• 7 bath tiles
• 25 guest favour tokens
• 5 nourish tokens (1 per player color)
• 20 large amber gems (5 VP each)
• 30 small amber gems (1 VP each)

Setup

1. Place 1 bath tile per player + 2 tiles, clean side up, in a row in the center of the table. Return any extra baths to the box. (e.g., for 3 players, place 5 baths)
2. Shuffle the guest cards, then draw and place a guest, dirty side up, onto each bath tile. Place the remaining guest cards dirty side up to the left of the baths.
3. Shuffle the manager cards, place the deck face-down below the baths, and reveal the top card to the right.
4. Place the 1 value and 5 value amber gems within reach of all players.
5. Shuffle the ingredient cards, place the deck face-down to the right of the manager, and deal out a row of 5 ingredient cards to the right of the deck, below the baths. This is the supply. Leave some space to the left of the deck for a face-up ingredients discard pile.
6. Place the guest favour tokens in stacks creature side face-up within reach of all players.

Each player draws 3 ingredient cards from the top of the deck. Give each player a nourish token.

The player who most recently had a bath is the first player.

Gameplay

Players compete to earn the most amber tokens by treating the mythic guests that visit the baths. Guests arrive with a set of ingredient requirements that must be met to complete their treatment. Over the course of the game players will gather ingredients needed to treat guests, nourish them to earn their favour, and clean dirty baths left after their treatment. Treating guests and cleaning baths earns players amber (victory points).

Each turn, you take 1 main action, and possibly 1 bonus action, in any order of your choice.

Main actions:

1. Gather 1 ingredient card used to treat guests.
2. Nourish a regular guest to ensure only you can treat them and earn their favour.
3. Treat a guest with ingredients.
4. Clean dirty baths vacated by treated guests to earn amber and welcome new guests.

Bonus action: If you have any active favour tokens, which you earn by treating nourished guests (see below) you may use one of them to take a bonus action. You may do this before or after you take your main action.

After you have completed your actions, the player on your left takes their turn. The last round begins once a player completes a certain number of treatments (collected guests) based on the number of people playing (see End of Game & Scoring). Each other player then gets 1 final turn before scoring.

Main Actions

1. Gather 1 ingredient card

You may either:

• Take 1 ingredient card from the supply of ingredients, and refill the space from the top of the deck.

OR

• Draw 1 ingredient card from the top of the deck, and discard all ingredient cards in the supply to the discard pile. Then deal a fresh set of 5 ingredient cards into the supply.

If you have more than 6 ingredient cards in your hand, you must discard down to 6 cards.

2. Nourish a regular guest

Place or move your nourish token onto a regular guest on a bath to nourish them.

• You may not nourish a guest that is already being nourished by another player (i.e., that has another player's nourish token on them).
• You may not nourish a troublesome guest.

No other player can complete that guest's treatment while your nourish token is on them.

3. Treat a guest

Use ingredients found on both ingredient cards, or the wild ingredient found on the Tatzelwurm favour token, to treat guests.

Regular guests must be treated in full by 1 player in 1 action. Troublesome guests may be completed in the same way, or over multiple turns, by 1 or more players.

You may provide more ingredients than a guest requires (for example, using a card with 2 ingredients where only one of those ingredients is required for the guest). However, if you provide the exact ingredients a guest requires in full, in 1 action, you gain a tip from the guest (see below).

To treat a regular guest, play ingredient cards from your hand that contain at least the full set of ingredients shown under the guest's name.

To treat a troublesome guest, play ingredient cards from your hand that contain any of the as yet unfulfilled ingredients shown under the guest's name. Place the ingredient cards above that guest, and gain 1 amber per matched ingredient.

This troublesome guest will now only give amber for unfulfilled ingredients, although extra ingredients may also be used as usual.

When a guest's treatment is completed in full:

1. If you provided the exact ingredients the guest required in a single action (i.e., no more and no less ingredients due to any other effect), gain 2 amber as a tip from the guest.
2. If your nourish token is on the guest, take its matching guest favour token, placing it active side up in front of you. You may only have 1 favour token for each creature type.
3. Take the guest card from the bath tile and place it clean side up in front of you for end of game scoring.
4. Flip the bath tile to its dirty side.
5. Discard all ingredient cards used for the treatment to the ingredient discard pile.

4. Clean the baths & welcome new guests

To clean the baths:

1. Flip all dirty baths to their clean side, and take 1 amber for each bath cleaned (e.g., if you clean 3 baths, take 3 amber).
2. Then, starting from the leftmost empty bath, refill the baths with guests from the top of the guests deck.
3. If one or more troublesome guests are placed in a bath in this way, reveal a new manager card, replacing the previous manager.

Printed-manual note: the three steps above are printed as "1." each; they are numbered 1, 2, 3 here for sequence.

Troublesome Guests

Troublesome guests disrupt the tranquility of the baths in various ways, as written on the bottom of each guest.

Troublesome guests' abilities stay in effect until they are fully treated and taken by the player who completed their treatment.

Unlike regular guests that must have their treatment fulfilled in 1 action by a single player, troublesome guests can be partially, then fully completed over multiple turns, by multiple players, allowing players to work together to clean them and restore peace to the rest of the baths. However, doing so makes it impossible to get their exact treatment bonus.

You may still provide more ingredients than a troublesome guest requires, as usual.

However, troublesome guests still give tips for exact treatment if they are treated in full in 1 action by 1 player with the exact ingredients they require, just like regular guests (i.e., no more or no less than all 6 of their required ingredients).

Troublesome guest abilities:

• Cerberus: Only accepts these ingredient types. You may overpay, but only with these ingredient types, e.g. 2 x tea.
• Jackalope: Regular guests do not give amber for exact treatment.
• Owlbear: Adjacent guests cannot be nourished.
• Sea-Lion: Adjacent baths cannot be cleaned.
• Tatzelwurm: Adjacent guests require 1 additional ingredient. You may choose any 1 ingredient to pay for this.

Guest Favour Tokens

Before or after you take your 1 main action you may use any 1 of your active guest favour tokens as a bonus action. When you do, take that token's action, then flip it face-up. You may use a token on the same turn you gain it (i.e., immediately after completing the treatment of a nourished guest).

When any player completes a guest's treatment that matches a guest favour token that you have already used (i.e., one that is face-up), you may flip it back to its active side, ready to be used again on one of your future turns.

Favour token actions (face side / active side):

• Cerberus token: Take 1 ingredient card from the supply. Refill the supply immediately.
• Jackalope token: Gain 1 amber per Jackalope you have.
• Owlbear token: Nourish a guest.
• Sea-Lion token: Clean the baths.
• Tatzelwurm token: Counts as any 1 ingredient. This still counts as exact treatment.

Printed-manual note: the favour tokens are pictured but not labelled in the manual. The creature names given here are matched by picture to the guest cards, as the manual's own text does for the Tatzelwurm token.

Managers

There are 10 managers that each offer to help the players in different ways. Whenever one or more new troublesome guests are welcomed after the baths are cleaned, reveal 1 new manager from the deck, and place it on top of the previous manager.

Their effects remain active until they are replaced by another manager, so only 1 manager's effect is ever active.

• Amber Appraiser: When treating a guest you may spend 1 amber in place of 1 ingredient. This does not count as an exact treatment.
• Bathing Curator: After cleaning the baths you may also take 1 ingredient card from the supply.
• Creature Whisperer: After treating a troublesome guest you may also take 1 ingredient card from the supply.
• Earth Mage: When taking ingredients from the supply you may take 2 single ingredient cards (i.e., 2 cards that each show just 1 ingredient on them).
• Gardener: Before taking ingredients, you may discard and refill 1 ingredient card in the supply.
• Fire Mage: When completing a treatment of a guest you have nourished, you may ignore 1 ingredient they require. This does not count as an exact treatment.
• Head Chef: When treating a guest you may use 2 matching ingredients in place of 1 ingredient. This does not count as an exact treatment.
• Spirit Caretaker: After treating a nourished guest, gain 1 amber.
• Water Mage: After cleaning the baths, gain +1 amber.
• Wind Mage: After treating a troublesome guest, gain +1 amber.

End of Game & Scoring

The last round begins when a player completes a certain number of treatments (collected guests) based on the number of people playing:

• 2-3 players: 8 guests
• 4 players: 7 guests
• 5 players: 6 guests

Then, each other player gets 1 final turn.

When the game ends the players total their scores as follows:

• Gain points matching the amber values shown on the clean side of your treated guest cards.
• Gain victory points matching the amber gem values you have collected: 1 VP each for small amber gems, 5 VP for large amber gems.

The player with the most victory points wins. In the case of a tie, the player who treated the most guests wins.

Scoring example

At the end of the game a player has 7 treated guests worth 1, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7 and 7 amber respectively (31 victory points). They also have 4 large amber gems worth 5 VP each and 7 small amber gems worth 1 VP each (27 victory points) for a total of 58 victory points.