Shapers of Gaia Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Objective
• Components
• Game Board Setup
• Player Setup
• Resource Overview
  • Toxicity
  • Discarding Toxicity
  • Prestige (VP)
• On Your Turn
• Introduce an Animal
  • 1. Move Shaper
  • 2. Spend Resources and Place an Animal
  • 3. Activate Shaper Abilities
  • 4. Add a Species Card to Your Ecosystem
  • 5. Activate Species Cards
• Shaper Abilities and Upgrades
• Restore Biomes
  • 1. Place a Biome Tile and Move the Caretaker
  • 2. Resolve the Biome Tile
• Biome Tiles
• End of Game
• Scoring
  • Scoring Example
• Additional Explanation for Shaper Abilities
  • Telrin Aviary
  • Synthara Lab
  • Oraplexis Terraria
  • Maldera Rivers
  • Rastar Nursery
  • Xanarin Preserve

Objective

Operate the Caretaker to restore the ruined biomes of the land to their former splendor. Utilize the resources produced by the reclamation process to introduce animals to inhabit the restored biomes. Gain Prestige by arranging animals following their established behaviors, collecting DNA samples, and unlocking new Shaper abilities. Only the Shaper with the most Prestige (VP) at the end of the game will be allowed to permanently join the Caretaker as guardians of the rebirthed Gaia.

Components

• A. 1 Game board
• B. 30 Biome tiles (10x I, 10x II, 10x III)
• C. 7 Starting Biome tiles (1 Vault, 1 Forest, 1 Crystal, 1 Mushroom, 3 Water)
• D. 6 Shaper boards
• E. 3 Resource Tracks (1 of them showing first player icon)
• F. 3 Shaper figures (1 per player color)
• G. 1 Caretaker figure
• H. 30 Animal figures (4 Scavengers, 4 Herbivores, and 2 Predators per player color)
• I. 15 Resource markers (1 Seed, 1 Shard, 1 Spore, 1 Nutrient, and 1 Energy per player)
• J. 18 DNA tokens (6 yellow, 6 blue, 6 red)
• K. 45 Prestige (VP) tokens (27x 1-denomination and 18x 5-denomination)
• L. 30 Toxicity tokens
• M. 45 Species cards (15 Scavengers, 15 Herbivores, and 15 Predators)
• N. 9 special Species cards (3 Rastar, 2 Synthara, 1 Maldera, 1 Xanarin, 1 Telrin, 1 Oraplexis)
• O. 3 Behavior cards (endgame scoring)
• P. 1 score pad
• Q. 6 Reference Cards
• R. 1 Rules booklet

Game Board Setup

1. Place the Game board in the center of the play area.
2. Place the central Vault tile faceup on its denoted space in the middle of the Game board.
3. Place the 3 starting ("S") Water Biome tiles faceup adjacent to the Vault tile, leaving a space between them. Place the Caretaker figure on the Water tile showing the Caretaker icon.
4. Randomly place the remaining 3 starting ("S") Biome tiles faceup between the Water tiles on the empty spaces adjacent to the Vault tile.
5. Sort the remaining Biome tiles into 3 piles by their backs (I, II, III). Shuffle each pile separately and create a stack of facedown tiles by placing them on top of each other in ascending order (III at the bottom, I at the top). Deal 3 tiles from the stack facedown to each player.
6. Place the remaining tiles on the space provided on the Game board.
7. Place the DNA tokens on the spaces marked on the Game board matching their icons.
8. Take the 3 Behavior cards, choose a faceup side for each card, and place them on the indicated area of the Game board. For your first game, choose A1, A2, and B3 to be faceup.
9. Sort the Species cards by type (Scavenger, Herbivore, Predator), creating 3 decks. Shuffle each deck separately and place them near the Game board. Draw 2 cards from each deck and place them below their respective decks to create the display. It doesn't matter which sides of the cards are facing up.
10. Place the Toxicity tokens and Prestige (VP) tokens where all players can reach them.

Player Setup

1. Give each player a Shaper board and a set of Reference cards. Take the corresponding special Species card(s), and place them next to your Shaper board.
2. Take all Animal figures of your chosen color and place them on your Shaper board in their matching spaces.
3. Take the Shaper figure of your chosen color and place it on the vault tile.
4. Randomly give each player a Resource Track, ensuring that one of the dealt tracks shows the #1 player icon.
5. Place each of your 5 resource markers on the "1" space of your Resource Track.
6. Return any unused player components to the box.
7. The player with the Resource Track showing the #1 player icon is the start player. The game will begin with that player taking their first turn.

Resource Overview

There are 2 categories of Resources in the game: basic and advanced. Use your Resource Track to record your amounts of basic and advanced Resources. These Resources are limited and if you are already at the maximum amount when you would gain more of that Resource type, then you do not gain any more of it.

• Basic (Shards, Spores, Seeds): Mostly used to Introduce Animals and are gained by restoring Biomes. Also used by some Species cards to convert to other Resources.
• Advanced (Nutrients, Energy): Typically used to perform special abilities, pay for the special cost for Introducing Animals in certain Biomes, or convert Resources.

Toxicity

If you must or choose to spend advanced Resources and you don't have any in your supply, you must take a Toxicity token for each missing Nutrient or Energy. This may occur even if you're not the active player.

Discarding Toxicity

The discard icon means you discard a Toxicity token from your play area and return it to the general supply.

Note: These tokens will reduce your score if you still have them in your supply at the end of the game (see Scoring).

Prestige (VP)

Prestige tokens are worth 1 VP (or 5 VP) at the end of the game. They are also used to resolve certain abilities when restoring Biomes or activating your Animals.

Note: The general supply of Toxicity and Prestige tokens is not limited. Use substitute components if you run out of them.

On Your Turn

Choose 1 action to perform: Introduce an Animal or Restore Biomes. If you are unable to Introduce an Animal, you must Restore Biomes. Once you have completed an action, it will be the player to your left's turn to take an action. Continue taking turns until the end of the game is reached (see End of Game).

Introduce an Animal

You will move your Shaper figure to a Biome tile, place an Animal on the tile, and activate special abilities. You can only take this action if you can afford the cost required to Introduce an Animal by following these steps:

1. Move Shaper

You may move your Shaper figure up to 3 Biome tiles away, ending your movement on a land tile (including the Vault) that does not already contain an Animal.

Example: You want to Introduce a Scavenger on the Crystal Biome tile 2 spaces away from your Shaper. Since there isn't an Animal on that tile, move your Shaper 2 spaces onto the Crystal Biome tile.

Teleport your Shaper: you may spend 1 Energy resource to move your Shaper to any land tile that does not contain an Animal. Remember, if you do not have an Energy resource, you can take a Toxicity token in order to teleport.

2. Spend Resources and Place an Animal

Choose an Animal from your Shaper board and spend resources equal to the cost shown to the far left of the Animal. Resources spent must match the type of Biome where your Shaper is located. Place the Animal figure on that tile. If you only have one type of Animal remaining on your Shaper board after Introducing an Animal, trigger the end of the game (see End of the Game).

Example: After moving your Shaper to a Crystal Biome tile, you spend 1 Shard resource by moving the marker down on your Resource Track. You then take a Scavenger that has a cost of 1 resource from your Shaper board and place it on the tile where your Shaper is located.

Some Biome tiles show an additional Resource cost to Introduce an Animal as specified on the tile. You must spend this extra cost in addition to the normal cost when you Introduce an Animal there.

Example: It will cost 1 Nutrient in addition to any Shards to Introduce an Animal here. If you do not have the Nutrient, you can still Introduce here by taking a Toxicity token instead.

3. Activate Shaper Abilities

If the Animal you just removed from your Shaper board unlocks a special ability or upgrade, that ability or upgrade is considered active and may be triggered now or for the rest of the game depending on its type.

Example: You Introduce Maldera's Scavenger that unlocks the Purify Water ability. You immediately gain 2 Nutrients since that Scavenger is adjacent to 2 Water Biome tiles.

If SPECIAL CARD ability is triggered, you will use your Shaper's special Species card instead of taking a card from the display during the next step.

4. Add a Species Card to Your Ecosystem

Choose a Species card from the display that matches the type of Animal you just Introduced. Replace the card with a new card from the corresponding deck if necessary. You may take the top card of the deck.

Add the Species card to your tableau at the end of the Ecosystem row that matches the type of basic Resource (base cost) that you spent to Introduce the Animal. You may choose which side of the Species card is faceup but you may not flip or move the card once it's placed unless an ability allows you to do so. The bottom of the card shows what you will find on the other side, and otherwise has no effect.

Example: After Introducing a Scavenger on a Crystal Biome, take a Scavenger card and place it in your Shard Ecosystem row.

You cannot have more than 4 Species cards in the same Ecosystem row. When placing a Species card in a row that already has 4 cards, you must take 2 Toxicity tokens from the supply and remove an existing card before placing a new card in that row. Return the removed card to the bottom of the corresponding deck.

5. Activate Species Cards

Trigger the effects of all of the Species cards located in the Ecosystem row where you just placed the new card, including that card. You may activate these effects in any order, but you must finish resolving one card before starting to resolve another.

Example: After placing an Herbivore card in your Shard Ecosystem row, you activate the Scavenger card in that row and gain 1 Shard Resource. You then activate the Herbivore card and return one of your Toxicity tokens to the general supply.

If an effect offers a conversion, you are not required to activate this effect. If you do, and for example, do not have the necessary advanced Resources required for the conversion, you can gain Toxicity tokens to achieve the conversion effect.

Example: You activate a Predator card that allows you to spend 1 Nutrient to gain 1 Shard and 2 Prestige. Since you do not have any Nutrient Resources in your supply, you must take a Toxicity token if you decide to take the Shard and 2 Prestige.

Once players are experienced with the game, you can allow the next player to start taking their turn while you activate your Species cards.

Shaper Abilities and Upgrades

• Instant abilities: These effects are triggered immediately after an Animal is placed on a Biome. This happens before placing a Species card and activating an Ecosystem row in your tableau.
• Persistent abilities: These abilities give you ongoing effects for the rest of the game. They are optional and can be activated any number of times during your turn unless specifically mentioned in the ability's description.
• First unlock: If the ability is instant, resolve it when you Introduce either Animal associated with it. If the ability is persistent, its first level is now available for use.
• Second unlock: If the ability is instant, resolve it when you have Introduced both of the Animals associated with it. If the ability is persistent, its second level is now available for use.

Restore Biomes

Choose 1-3 Biome tiles from your hand to add to the Game board. Place these tiles down on the board one at a time by following these steps:

1. Place a Biome Tile and Move the Caretaker

Take a tile from your hand and place it faceup on an empty space on the board so that it is adjacent to the tile with the Caretaker figure and at least one other tile. Place the Caretaker figure on the Biome tile you just placed.

If the space you want to place the Biome tile on contains a DNA token, you must take the token before placing the tile there. Put any DNA tokens that you collect near your Shaper board. These tokens may score you points at the end of the game (see Scoring).

Example: You have a Mushroom Biome tile in your hand that you want to Restore. You place the tile down on the board so that it touches the Water Biome where the Caretaker is and the Crystal Biome that is next to it. You could alternately place the tile on the other side of the Water Biome since it will touch the Water and Mushroom Biomes.

Example: The space where you want to Restore the Temple tile has a red DNA token. You take the token and place it in your supply. Then, you place the Temple tile on the space and place the Caretaker on the tile.

Teleporting the Caretaker: You may spend 1 Energy Resource to place a Biome tile anywhere on the board instead, as long as it is adjacent to 2 or more tiles, and place the Caretaker on the tile you just placed.

Example: You have a Temple tile in your hand that you want to Restore, but you want to place the tile on a space that is not adjacent to the Caretaker. You spend 1 Energy and place the Temple tile next to a Mushroom tile and a Water tile. You then move the Caretaker to the Temple tile. Remember, if you do not have an Energy resource, you can take a Toxicity token in order to teleport.

2. Resolve the Biome Tile

You MUST select 1 of the 2 actions depicted on the Biome tile you just placed and resolve that action. Your opponents may then choose (in turn order starting on your left) to resolve the action on that tile that you did not select.

Example: After restoring the Mushroom tile, you choose the action that gives you 1 Shard Resource. Then, your opponent decides to resolve the other action on the tile to gain 1 Seed Resource.

If the action you selected requires converting advanced Resources, you MUST gain Toxicity tokens if you do not have the necessary advanced Resources for a conversion. If you do not have the Prestige (VP) tokens required for a conversion, you cannot select that action.

Example: You Restore a Crystal Biome and choose the action to convert 1 Nutrient into 1 Spore and 1 Prestige. Since you do not have any Nutrient Resources in your supply, you must take 1 Toxicity token and then take the Spore and Prestige.

If you have Biome tiles remaining in your hand, you can Restore another tile by repeating steps 1 and 2. Your opponents must finish resolving the actions on the Biome tile (if they choose to do so) before you select another tile to place on the board.

At the end of your turn, draw back up to your hand size by taking tiles from the top of the stack of facedown Biome tiles. Your standard hand size is 3. If there are not enough tiles left in the stack, take as many as possible and trigger the end of the game (see End of Game).

Note: In the unlikely event that you have no Biome tiles in your hand at the start of your turn and you are unable to take the Introduce an Animal action, you must skip your turn.

Biome Tiles

• Water: The Shapers and the Caretaker can enter Water tiles, but only the Caretaker can end its movement on a Water tile. You cannot end your Shaper's move to Introduce an Animal in a Water Biome unless an ability allows you to do so. Water tiles are not considered land tiles.

• Crystal: Introducing an Animal here requires Shard (purple) Resources equal to the Animal's cost.

• Forest: Introducing an Animal here requires Seed (green) Resources equal to the Animal's cost.

• Mushroom: Introducing an Animal here requires Spore (yellow) Resources equal to the Animal's cost.

• Temple: Introducing an Animal here requires Resources of any 1 basic type equal to the Animal's cost, in addition to the extra cost shown on the tile. When placing the Species card in your Ecosystem, place it in the row matching the basic cost of the Animal (not the extra cost).

  Example: You Introduce a Scavenger in a Temple and choose to use Seed Resources. You spend these Resources and any additional cost shown on the Temple tile. Then, you take a Scavenger Species card from the display and add the card to the end of the Seed Ecosystem row.

• The Vault: The tile at the center of the game board is where the Shapers emerged from. To Introduce Animals at this location, follow the rules for Introducing an Animal in a Temple tile. Place the Introduced Animal on any empty Vault space on the game board that matches the Animal's type instead of placing it on the Vault tile. If there are no matching spaces remaining on the Vault you cannot Introduce an Animal there. Spaces with an icon are not used when playing the game with 2 players. You will score these Animals at the end of the game (see Scoring).

  When adding a Species card to your Ecosystem, you may refresh the display that matches the Animal's type before selecting a card. Do this by placing the 3 cards that are visible on the bottom of the deck and revealing 2 new cards.

End of Game

The end of the game is triggered at the end of a player turn when at least one of these conditions occurs:

• A player has only one type of Animal left on their Shaper board.

  Example: After Introducing a Scavenger, you trigger the end of the game because you have Introduced all of your Scavengers and Predators, even though 3 of your 4 Herbivores remain on your Shaper board.

• The last Biome tile is drawn from the stack of facedown tiles and the stack is empty.

  Example: You Restored 3 Biome tiles on your turn and need to draw back up to 3 tiles. There are 2 tiles left in the stack. After drawing those 2 tiles, the stack is empty, triggering the end of the game.

When this happens, finish the current round of the game and play one final round. Then, tally the final scores for all players and determine the winner.

Scoring

Place each DNA token you collected on a Species card in your Ecosystem showing the matching icon. Most Species cards can only have one DNA token on them, but some special cards can hold more. Place the remaining DNA tokens not placed on Species cards and any of your Toxicity tokens onto your Shaper board, covering up the VP value of Animals you Introduced, starting from the bottom. Any DNA or Toxicity tokens unable to cover up these spaces are kept to the side and will subtract further from your score.

Example: At the end of the game, you have 1 blue DNA token that you are unable to place on your Species cards and 2 Toxicity tokens left in your supply. You cover the Scavenger space showing 1VP with the DNA token, and the 2 Scavenger spaces showing 2VP with the 2 Toxicity tokens. You cannot place a Toxicity token on your second Scavenger space showing 1VP because there is still an Animal on that space.

Then, total up the scores as follows:

• Gain points from Animals you Introduced on the Game board as indicated by the Behavior cards.
  • Example: The Predator behavior card gives you 4 VP because one of your Herbivores and one of your opponent's Herbivores are both adjacent to your Predator.
  • Example: The Herbivore Behavior card gives you 3 VP because one of your Herbivores has 2 of your Scavengers adjacent to it, and your other Herbivore has an opponent's Scavenger next to it.
  • Example: The Scavenger behavior card gives you 3 VP because 3 of your Scavengers are located on Biomes along the outer ring of the board.
• Each DNA token on a Species card will score points equal to the total number of the same type of token in its Ecosystem row. Do this for each row in your tableau that has Species cards with DNA tokens on them.
  • Example: Your Shard Ecosystem row contains 2 red, 1 blue, and 1 yellow DNA token. This would score you 6 VP total: 4 VP for the 2 red tokens, 1 VP for the blue token, and 1 VP for the yellow token.
• Earn points from Animals you have Introduced, as denoted on the empty spaces on your Shaper board (spaces covered by Animals, DNA or Toxicity tokens do not score points!).
• Earn points from any Vault spaces that you placed Animals on.
• Any remaining Resources score points individually per type, as indicated on the Resource Track.
• Prestige (VP) tokens are worth 1 (or 5) point(s) as illustrated on the token.
• Lose 5 points for each DNA or Toxicity token that cannot be placed on your Shaper board (try to avoid this at any cost!).

Scoring Example

• A. You get 10 VP for Behavior cards: 4 VP for the Predator Behavior card, 3 VP for the Herbivore Behavior card, and 3 VP for the Scavenger Behavior card.
• B. You get 19 VP for the Animals you Introduced (5 VP for the Predator, 8 VP for both of your 4 VP Herbivores, and 6 VP for both of your 3 VP Herbivores. Your Introduced Scavengers do not get you any points because they are covered by DNA and Toxicity tokens.
• C. The Herbivore that you Introduced in the Vault gives you 2 VP.
• D. You get 7 VP for the Resources remaining in your supply (4 VP for Seeds, 2 VP for Nutrients, 1 VP for Energy).
• E. You get 10 VP for the DNA tokens on your Species cards (6 VP for your Shard Ecosystem and 4 VP for your Seed Ecosystem).
• F. You get 9 VP from the Prestige tokens in your supply.

Total VP = 57.

The player with the highest score wins the game. In the case of a tie, the tied player who Introduced the least number of Animals is the winner. If there is still a tie, the tied player who has the most Prestige (VP) tokens wins; otherwise, the tied players share the victory.

Additional Explanation for Shaper Abilities

Telrin Aviary

• Avian Call [5]: Take a Herbivore card from the display and add it to any of your Ecosystem rows before taking this Predator's card. If the Ecosystem row already had 4 Species cards before adding the Herbivore card, remove one card, take 2 Toxicity, and place the Herbivore card in that row. You only activate Species cards in the Ecosystem row where you placed the Predator card.

Synthara Lab

• Rapid Lifecycle [1]: When activating Species cards this turn, you must activate the Scavenger card you just added to your Ecosystem twice, if able. Remove the card from the game at the end of your turn.
• Swarm [2]: Immediately after placing this Animal and taking a Scavenger card, you may Introduce a second Animal by moving your Shaper to another Biome tile and paying its Resource cost. If you do, only activate the Ecosystem row containing the second card.

Oraplexis Terraria

• Create Island [5]: Grants you the ability to end your Shaper's move on a Water Biome and Introduce a Scavenger or Herbivore on that tile. You get to pick which type of Basic Resource to spend, just like when Introducing an Animal on a Temple tile.
• Biomolecular Synthesis [4]: You lose the ability to treat Energy or Nutrient Resources as Wild Basic Resources as soon as you have 2 (or less) Toxicity in your personal supply. This may occur in between Species card activations.
• Recycler [4]: DNA tokens spent should be removed from the game.

Maldera Rivers

• Clone Experiment [2]: Select a second Scavenger card from the display when you Introduce this Animal. You may resolve that card when you activate Species cards in your Ecosystem this turn.
• Accelerated Accretion [2,1]: Allows you to take a Water Biome tile from the board into your hand and then replace it with another tile from your hand. You cannot take a tile that has an Animal on it. Starting Water Biomes provide no resources when Restored later and the Caretaker icon has no effect.
• Stasis Chambers [3, 2]: When you unlock the second level, you can now choose to either spend 2 Energy to move your Animal from a Biome tile to the Vault OR spend 2 Nutrients to move your Animal from the Vault to a land Biome that does not contain an Animal.

Rastar Nursery

• Metamorphosis [5]: When adding new cards to your Ecosystems, you may spend 1 Energy to select a Herbivore card instead of a Scavenger card or a Predator card instead of a Herbivore card.
• Redeploy [4]: Lets you move one of your already Introduced Scavengers to another tile that does not contain an Animal. You cannot move Scavengers to or from the Vault tile.
• Power Surge [4, 3]: The 2nd unlock allows you to activate 2 different Scavenger cards on any Ecosystem regardless of their DNA type, or 1 Herbivore card that matches the DNA token you just gained.

Xanarin Preserve

• Harvester [2]: You may choose to resolve both actions shown on a Forest Biome tile when it is Restored, even when you are not the active player. If you are the active player, you choose which action is treated as the one you did not select.