The Rise of a Jarl
The Rise of a Jarl Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
1 Civilization Card (callouts: Round Tracker, Storehouse, Citizens, Wealth Cards, Kingdoms)
17 Action Cards (callouts: Suit, Actions, Resources, Power, Kingdom, Development, Citizen)
Note: The cards within a suit differ only by their kingdom names and developments (they share the same actions, resource icons, citizens, and power values).
Setup
- Place the Civilization Card on the table with "Round 1/3" facing up.
- Shuffle the remaining cards into a face-down deck.
- Flip the top card and place it below the Civilization Card as your starting kingdom.
- Draw 4 cards into your hand, then jettison 1 (place it into the sea next to your deck).
- Reserve space for the sea, the discard pile, and your developments.
Terminology
Add: Place a card on the indicated side of the Civilization Card. Wealth cards (wealth icon) are tucked under the left edge of the Civilization Card and any existing wealth icon, offset to show only their coin values. Citizens, resources, and kingdoms are placed at their respective edges, overlapping any existing cards as shown below. Developments are placed in their own area, spread out so their effects are all visible.
Note: The wealth icon always refers to wealth cards that are part of your civilization. It does not include any other face-down cards.
Gameplay
Over the course of four rounds, build your civilization by placing cards around the Civilization Card to represent attracting citizens, gathering resources and wealth, and settling kingdoms. You may also invent new developments to strengthen your civilization.
Each round consists of three phases: Growth, Invasion, and Cleanup.
Growth
Each round, you will play through all the cards in your hand and the deck to advance your civilization. You may take 1 action with each card (see Reference). When you can take no more actions, or if you choose to end the Growth phase, proceed to the Invasion phase.
To take the Plan action, jettison 1 card from your hand, or jettison the top card of the deck, then refill your hand to its hand limit.
To take any other action, place 1 card from your hand on the table, resolve one of its actions, then jettison it. During resolution, the card you placed is neither in your hand nor the sea (for example, you may not use a card's Attract action to add itself as a citizen).
Note: The only way to draw cards is through the Plan action; this requires jettisoning a card from your hand or the top of the deck.
Jettison, Discard and Matching
- Jettison: Place a card in the leftmost space in the sea, shifting each existing sea card 1 space to the right. If the sea already has 3 cards when you jettison, place the rightmost sea card into the discard pile.
- Discard: Place the card directly on the discard pile, bypassing the sea.
- Matching: Two or more cards match if they share the same suit.
- Hand Limit: Your maximum hand size at all times is 2 cards, plus 1 for each kingdom in your civilization.
- Citizen Limit: You may have a maximum of 1 citizen in your civilization, plus 1 for each food icon or livestock icon in your storehouse.
- Wealth Limit: You may have a maximum of 1 wealth card of any value in your civilization for each wood icon in your storehouse.
The Storehouse
Your stored resources allow you to expand your civilization in various ways.
- Food: Each food icon (a sprout) or livestock icon (an animal) in your storehouse supports 1 citizen, increasing your citizen limit by 1. If you remove food from the storehouse or exceed the limit, you must immediately discard citizens of your choice down to the new limit.
- Wood: Each wood icon in your storehouse supports 1 wealth card, increasing your wealth limit by 1. If you remove wood from the storehouse or exceed the limit, you must immediately discard wealth cards of your choice down to the new limit.
- Metal: Each metal card (a green knot) in your storehouse helps your citizens defend your civilization (see Invasion).
Invasion
Each round, you must defend against ever-escalating invasions by comparing their strength with your defenses.
Each stored metal card arms up to 1 citizen of your choice in your civilization. Each armed citizen provides 2 defense. Any remaining citizens are unarmed and provide 1 defense each.
You succeed if your total defense meets or exceeds the invasion strength. Otherwise, your defense fails. During the first three rounds, proceed to the Cleanup phase regardless of the outcome.
If you fail to defend the fourth round's invasion, you lose the game! If you succeed, proceed to Scoring.
| Round | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Invasion Strength | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Cleanup
Collect all of the cards from the deck, sea, discard pile, and your hand. Shuffle them together to form a new face-down deck.
If you failed to defend against the last invasion, discard the top 2 cards from the deck.
If there are no cards remaining in the deck, you lose the game. Otherwise, draw cards up to your hand limit if possible. Lastly, flip the Civilization Card to advance to the next round, and begin its Growth phase (You do not jettison any cards.)
Alternate Histories
In this variant mode, play with all 17 starting kingdoms and achieve the best legacy possible for each one! Each game before setup, set aside an Action Card to be your starting kingdom. During step 3 of setup, place your starting kingdom instead of the top card. Play according to the normal rules, and record your legacy for each game.
Scoring
Tally the score for your civilization as follows:
- Score the power values of your developments.
- Each citizen can populate one matching kingdom. Score the power value of each populated kingdom.
- Score the coin values of your wealth cards.
- Score any additional points from the effects of your developments.
Reach the target scores below to cement your legacy!
| Score | Legacy rank |
|---|---|
| 15 | Remembered |
| 20 | Revered |
| 25 | Renowned |
| 30 | Legendary |
Scoring Example
- Score 5 points for the five coins on your wealth cards.
- Use the Shield's effect to arm the Smith and the Sailor. Score 6 points from the Axe's effect and your two armed citizens.
- Score 3 points from the Plow's effect and Iceland. (The Azores was already populated and scored above; it does not score twice.)
- The Smith populates England and the Sailor populates the Azores. Score 6 points from your two populated kingdoms.
- 11 points from the power values on developments.
Your total score is 31 points, earning you a Legendary rank!
Reference
- Attract: Choose 1 card from your hand or the sea. Add that card as a citizen. If you are now over your citizen limit, discard any 1 citizen.
- Trade: Choose 1 card in your storehouse and count its number of resource icons. Flip it over, rotate the card to show the number of coins matching its number of resource icons, and add it as wealth. If you are now over your wealth limit, discard any 1 wealth card.
- Settle: Choose 1 citizen in your civilization and add it as a kingdom.
- Raid: Choose 1 card from the sea and add it to your storehouse. For each resource icon on that card, you must discard 1 card from your hand (if you cannot, you may not Raid).
- Tribute: For each kingdom in your civilization, you may choose 1 matching card from your hand or the sea and add it to your storehouse.
- Innovate: Choose 1 development, and up to 1 matching card from the sea. Place those cards into your hand.
- Develop: Choose 1 card from your hand, and count the number of cards in your hand and your storehouse that match it (including the chosen card). If this total is greater than or equal to the chosen card's power, add it as a development. Its effect is now available.
- Plan: Choose 1 card from your hand or the top card of the deck (you may not peek at it before deciding) and jettison it. Refill your hand up to your hand limit. If the deck is empty or runs out of cards, skip the remaining draws.
Symbol key: the Invasion icon = the Invasion phase; the black ribbon = the power of a development; the wealth icon = a wealth card (of any value) that is part of your civilization; the coin = the coin value of a wealth card.
Gameplay Example
In the game shown, these are some (but not all) of the actions you could take.
- Play A to Trade: You flip the red knot in your storehouse and add it as wealth (3 coins). The 2 wood in your storehouse gives a wealth limit of 2, so you must discard 1 wealth card. Your storehouse no longer contains any food or livestock, reducing your citizen limit to 1 and requiring you to discard 1 citizen. Jettison A.
- Play B to Raid: Add the gold triangle from the sea to your storehouse. It has 1 resource icon, so you must discard 1 card from your hand. Jettison B.
- Play C to Tribute: Add cards matching your kingdoms to your storehouse. For the Azores, you may add the matching blue ring from your hand. For Iceland, you may add the red knot from the sea. Jettison C.
- Play C to Innovate: Return the Cauldron development to your hand. You may also place the green knot from the sea into your hand. Jettison C.
- Play D to Develop: You choose the blue ring in your hand, a card with 2 power. It and the blue ring in your storehouse meet the requirement of 2 matching cards, so you place it as the Timber Trade development. Jettison D. (You could have chosen to develop the gold triangle in your hand instead, but you do not have the required 3 matching cards to develop your red knot.)
- Plan: Your 2 kingdoms result in a hand limit of 4. You jettison 1 card from your hand, and draw 1 card to return to your hand limit. (If you had chosen to jettison the top card from the deck instead, you would not draw anything because you are already at your hand limit.)
Action Cards
Each card below is listed by suit, kingdom, power and printed text. The printed suit banner and kingdom name are given first. The card's power is shown after the card name. Icons are described by their printed symbol; the wealth icon is the bag, the coin is the gold coin, the food icon is the sprout, the livestock icon is the animal, the wood icon is the log, and the metal icon is the green knot.
Farmer (gold)
- Navigation (Estonia, power 1): When you play a red knot card, you may Settle or Raid instead.
- Hird (Finland, power 1): During the Invasion phase, you may discard 1 wealth card. Gain 1 defense for each coin on that wealth card.
- Tithing (Norway, power 1): When you play a gold triangle card, you may Tribute or Innovate instead.
- Farmstead (Sweden, power 1): When you play a blue ring card, you may Develop instead.
Sailor (blue)
- Longhouse (Azores, power 2): Each stored food or livestock icon supports 2 citizens.
- Timber Trade (North Africa, power 2): When you Develop, you may discard 1 wealth card to require 1 fewer matching card.
- Knarr (Portugal, power 2): Each stored food icon also supports 2 wealth. When you Trade, you may also take 1 card from the sea.
- Longship (Poland, power 2): When you Raid, discard 1 fewer card.
Herder (red)
- Beacons (Iceland, power 3): During the Invasion phase, gain 1 bonus defense.
- Shield (Greenland, power 3): You may use both metal cards and blue ring cards to arm citizens.
- Domestication (Vinland, power 3): When you Develop, you may count each matching card in your storehouse twice.
- Wool (Shetland, power 3): When you Trade, gain 2 bonus coins, up to a maximum of 4.
Smith (green)
- Axe (Denmark, power 4): At the end of the game, add the power of each armed citizen to your score.
- Cauldron (England, power 4): At the end of the game, add the number of stored food and livestock icons to your score.
- Runestones (Ireland, power 4): At the end of the game, double the points scored from 1 and 2 developments.
- Plow (Normandy, power 4): At the end of the game, score all unpopulated gold triangle, blue ring, and red knot kingdoms as if they were populated.
- Jewelry (Scotland, power 4): The wood icon (not the wealth icon) determines your wealth limit. At the end of the game, gain 2 bonus points per wealth card.
Civilization Card
The Civilization Card is printed with the following reference. Both sides (Round 1/3 and Round 2/4) carry the same action list.
- Citizens: Limit: 1 + food + livestock.
- Wealth: Limit: 0 + wood.
- Kingdoms: Hand limit: 2 + 1 per kingdom.
- Actions:
- Trade: Convert 1 stored resource card to wealth.
- Attract: Add 1 citizen from your hand or the sea.
- Settle: Convert 1 citizen to a kingdom.
- Raid: Add 1 resource card from the sea. For each resource icon, discard 1 card from your hand.
- Innovate: Take 1 development and up to 1 matching card from the sea into your hand.
- Tribute: For each kingdom, add 1 matching resource from your hand or the sea.
- Develop: Add 1 development from your hand (requires enough matching cards in hand and storehouse).
- Plan: Jettison 1 card from your hand or the deck. Draw up to hand limit.
Index
The printed index panel in the preview is a placeholder ("Index content", with a "Rules continued" heading) and carries no entries, so none is transcribed.