Phantom Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Principle and goal of the game
• Description of the components
• Setting up
  • The house
  • The stocks of cards
  • Starting hand
  • Apparition
  • Free cards
• Game flow
  • Sequence of a turn
• Activating a Zone
  • 1. Rotating the Zone card
  • 2. Playing a card and applying its effect
    • Place
      • Gathering Power
    • Phantom
      • Charmer
      • Yeller
      • Queen
      • Poltergeist
      • Invoker
      • Squatter
  • 3. Eliminating vulnerable Phantoms
• End of game

Principle and goal of the game

You, reader and player, embody one of these two entities, and try to win the fight. The ghosts you create will haunt the different rooms of the house and ambush the family members! Each scared character will bring you victory points.

The winner is the player who has first gathered 11 victory points or the player with most victory points at the end of the game.

Phantom is a 2-player game, from 12 years old, with a playing time of 30 minutes.

Description of the components

• 32 Phantom cards: each shows its group and kind of Phantom, its terror points, and its effect.
• 26 Place cards: each shows the name of the Place, its terror points, its capacity, and the Zone(s) where the place can be played.
• 4 Zone cards.
• 8 Character cards: each shows the name of the Character, victory points, fear threshold, and the vulnerable Phantom group.
• 2 Reference cards.

Setting up

The players must face each other. One of them is the Englishman; the other embodies the Indian chief. The Indian chief plays first.

The house

Place the Zone cards in a row, in the center of the table, in the following order: Garden - Basement - Ground floor - Upstairs.

On the first player's side, the Garage is placed in front of the Basement, whereas on the second player's side, the Storeroom is placed in front of the Basement, the Fountain in front of the Garden, and the Library in front of the Ground floor.

Note that you must leave enough room for two card widths between the two gaming areas.

A Character, randomly drawn, is placed Upstairs (next to the Upstairs Zone card).

See the Playing Area diagram (Zone cards in a row; each player has an apparition area in front of each Zone; Place and Phantom discard piles beside the areas; the Characters are moved along the line of the Zone cards).

The stocks of cards

The Wilson Exorcist card is placed face up at the end of the Zone cards' row. The remaining Character cards are shuffled and put face down on the Wilson Exorcist card. It forms the Character cards stock.

The Place cards are shuffled and put face down to the side of the table; they form the Place stock.

Proceed similarly for the Phantom cards.

Starting hand

Each player places a Reference card next to him and draws 3 Place cards and 3 Phantom cards from the stocks. Then each of them discards a Phantom card, starting with the first player and ending with the second player, thus creating a Phantom discard pile. Each player has 3 Place cards and 2 Phantom cards at the beginning of the game.

Apparition

The Zone cards represent the boundary between each player's playing areas. Each player may create one and only apparition, made of Places and Phantoms, in front of each Zone. At most, there will be four apparitions on each side.

Free cards

A card is free when it is the last one that was placed on an apparition (when no other card was placed on it).

Game flow

The players, starting by the one embodying the Indian, take turns playing until a player gets 11 victory points or until the Phantom stock and discard piles are exhausted.

Sequence of a turn

During his turn, the active player must activate each one of the 4 Zones in the order he chooses. To do so, he rotates the Zone card 180 degrees so that he can read the step by step instructions and he optionally plays a card from his hand on his apparition facing this Zone.

The last steps of a Zone activation consist in eliminating vulnerable Phantoms, and in checking the terror levels. The active player must carefully perform these steps before he activates another Zone. It is not allowed to play again on a Zone that was previously activated, even though other Characters have appeared. At the end of his turn, the active player draws cards until he has five cards in his hand. He can take Place cards, Phantom cards, or both, as he chooses.

The player may take his cards one by one and look at them before he takes the next one.

As soon as a stock (Phantom or Place) is exhausted, the corresponding cards that were discarded are shuffled to form a new stock.

Activating a Zone

Activating a Zone means performing the following actions, in this order:

1. Rotating the Activated zone card 180 degrees (Mandatory)
2. Playing a Place or Phantom card from one's hand to the apparition of the Activated zone and applying its effect (Optional)
3. Eliminating the vulnerable Phantoms in both apparitions of the Activated zone (Mandatory)
4. Checking the terror level in both apparitions of the Activated zone (Mandatory)

1. Rotating the Zone card

The active player rotates the Zone card related to the Zone he is about to activate 180 degrees. Thus, he can read on this card the step by step instructions. The card reminds that the Zone has already been activated during the current turn.

2. Playing a card and applying its effect

The player can play a card in his playing area, in front of the Activated zone. He creates a new apparition or enhances the apparition that was already there. There are two kinds of cards: Place cards and Phantom cards.

Place

A Place card can only be placed in front of the Zone it corresponds to.

• An apparition is always created by a Place card.
• A Place card can also be placed on an apparition that was previously created, in which case, it is added to the cards that have been placed before.

16 Places correspond to only one Zone. 6 Places correspond to 2 different Zones. 4 Places correspond to any Zone.

Each Place has a capacity, which means that it can contain a limited number of Phantoms. Yet, you do not have to fully fill a Place before you place another one.

For instance, the Gloomy Attic can accommodate up to three Phantoms, whereas the Fireplace can contain up to two Phantoms.

Gathering Power

The six Places corresponding to two different Zones have an optional gathering power. When a player places one of these Places in a Zone, he may add to it up to two Phantoms he can take from the apparition of the second Zone corresponding to this Place.

• The Phantoms must be free in the apparition they are taken from.
• The effect of the Phantoms placed thanks to this gathering power is not applied.

For instance, The Indian places the Main stairs (a Place corresponding both to the Ground floor and Upstairs) Upstairs. Then, he takes two free Phantoms from the Ground floor and places them in the Main stairs.

Phantom

You cannot play a Phantom card to create an apparition. You may only add it to the cards that have been already placed in a previous apparition.

A Phantom occupies a Place. Placing a Phantom in a "crowded" Place - where the maximum number of Phantoms has been placed - is not allowed.

When a player adds a Phantom from his hand to an apparition, its effect must be carried out. There are six kinds of Phantoms, each of which has a different effect: Charmer, Yeller, Queen, Poltergeist, Invoker, Squatter.

Besides, the Phantoms belong to four different groups: Specters (made of a bluish mist), Ghosts (consisting of greenish fumes), Shadows (made of the deepest darkness), and Souls (beings of light).

Charmer

If there is no Character in the Activated Zone, you may either:

• take one Character card from an adjacent Zone and place it on the Activated zone
• or take one Character card from the Character stock and add it to the Activated zone.

Note: the Garden and Upstairs are not considered as adjacent.

If there are already one or more Characters in the Activated zone, the Charmer has no effect.

Yeller

If there are Characters in the Activated zone, move them all towards the adjacent Zones or under the Character cards stock (but on the Wilson Exorcist card).

Note: the Garden and Upstairs are not considered as adjacent.

If the Activated zone is empty, the Yeller has no effect.

Note: if the Characters thus moved get to a Zone which has already been activated during the current turn, they do not eliminate vulnerable Phantoms and are not scared. The players must wait until the Zone mentioned is activated again to eliminate vulnerable Phantoms and check terror levels.

Queen

If there is a free Phantom (last card of the apparition) from the same family as the Queen in any apparition of your opponent, you can take it and add it to your apparition (without applying its effect).

If adding this Phantom leads to exceeding the capacity of the Place, the Phantom card is discarded.

If there is no free Phantom from the same family as the Queen in your opponent's apparitions, the Queen has no effect.

Poltergeist

If the free card of your opponent's apparition corresponding to the Activated zone is a Phantom, you can discard it.

If there is no free Phantom in your opponent's Activated zone apparition, the Poltergeist has no effect.

Invoker

Take the first Phantom of the discard pile and add it to your apparition (without carrying out its effect).

If adding this Phantom leads to exceeding the capacity of the Place, the Phantom card is discarded.

If there is no Phantom in the discard pile, the Invoker has no effect.

Squatter

If the free card of your opponent's apparition corresponding to the Activated zone is a Place, take it and add it to your apparition.

If there is no free Place in your opponent's Activated zone apparition, the Squatter has no effect.

3. Eliminating vulnerable Phantoms

The 4 adult Characters are particularly dreadful for Phantoms, since each of them destroys a group of Phantoms: Ghosts, Souls, Shadows, or Specters (shown on the Character card).

If an adult is present in the Activated zone, the Active player must discard any Phantom from the group vulnerable to the adult, in his apparition, and in his opponent's. If several adults are present on the Activated zone, several groups of Phantoms are eliminated.

Four Places protect respectively the four groups of Phantoms (Ghosts, Souls, Shadows, Specters). If one of these Places is present in an apparition, all the Phantoms belonging to this group are protected, and are therefore not discarded when the adult who destroys them is present in the Zone.

The Active player first discards the vulnerable Phantoms in his own apparition, and then, in his opponent's. The Phantom cards are discarded one by one, starting by the one which was played last (so the cards that were placed first in the apparition end up on top of the discard pile).

Example: Because of Sarah Percy's presence in the Activated zone, the Active player must discard all the Specters of his apparition. On the contrary, the Specter of his opponent's apparition is protected by the Electric meter card.

4. Checking the apparitions' terror level

The Active player counts the terror level of both apparitions of the Activated zone and checks whether the Character who is optionally present is scared.

How to count the terror level of an apparition

The terror level of an apparition is worth the terror points sum total of the Phantom and Place cards that make it up.

Card	Terror points
Charmer	1
Yeller	2
Queen	Number of Phantom cards of its kind in the apparition (the Queen is worth one)
Poltergeist	2
Invoker	1
Squatter	Number of Place cards in the apparition
Place	0, 1 or 2

Note that the 4 Places that protect Phantoms from the adults do not bring terror points.

Example:

• Sinister Kitchen: 2 points
• Cellar stairs: 1 point
• Queen Specter: 3 points (there are 3 Specters in the apparition)
• Yeller Specter: 2 points
• Squatter Specter: 2 points (there are 2 Places in the apparition)
• Charmer Ghost: 1 point
• Total: 11 terror points

Scaring a Character

To scare a Character, the player must satisfy the following conditions:

• the Character must be alone in the Zone - it is indeed not possible to scare several Characters who are in the same Zone at the same time.
• the terror level of the apparition must be equal to or higher than the Character's fear threshold.

If a player's apparition scares a Character, the player takes the Character card and puts it aside - it will be part of his victory points, counted at the end of the game.

Then, he discards all the Place and Phantom cards from his apparition (one card by one, starting by the card that was played last). Thus, the card that was played first in the apparition ends up on top of the discard pile. The space in front of the Zone where the Character was scared is left empty.

Important note: only the apparition that scared the Character is discarded - the opposing player's apparition remains in place.

If both apparitions scare a Character, the Character is scared by the apparition with the highest terror level. In the event of a tie, he is scared by the Active player's apparition.

When only one Character card is left in the playing area, the Wilson Exorcist card is added to it. Thus, the terror threshold of the last Character into play is always raised by two. The player who scares this Character wins the Wilson Exorcist card, which brings one more victory point, in addition to the Character card.

End of game

Each Character brings victory points to the player who scared him. The adult Characters are worth 3 points each; the children are worth 2 points each; the baby is worth 4 points; and Wilson Exorcist is worth one point.

The game ends immediately when a player scores 11 victory points or more, and this player wins the game.

If both the stock and discard piles of Phantoms cards are exhausted (which means that all the Phantom cards are placed in apparitions or in the players' hands), the game ends immediately, and the player with most victory points wins the game.