Sleeping Gods Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Crew, Skills, and Damage
• Turn Overview
  • 1. Ship Action
  • 2. Event
  • 3. Two Actions
• Spending Command
• Skill Challenges
• Combat
• Totems, Quests, and Keywords
• Campaign, Saving, and Defeat

Overview

Players jointly control the crew of the Manticore. Each turn a player takes a ship action, resolves an event, and performs two actions (travelling the atlas, exploring locations, visiting markets and ports). Success is measured by progressing the story and gathering totems; you are defeated if the ship or crew is overwhelmed. A campaign takes roughly 10–20 hours and can be saved between sessions via the journey log.

Crew, Skills, and Damage

Crew members have five skills: Strength (physical effort), Perception (search/senses/stealth), Savvy (knowledge), Craft (build/repair/run engines/travel), and Cunning (persuade/lead/deceive). Crew members take damage (reducing health) and can gain fatigue (max 2 — a crew member with 2 fatigue cannot participate) and status tokens: Venom (1 damage at the start of each turn), Frightened (cannot attack), Weakened (−2 to skills), Madness (1 damage when in skill challenges), Low Morale (pay 1 extra command to use in skill challenges).

Command tokens represent crew readiness (spent to equip abilities, activate crew/adventure cards, and help other players). The ship has five usable rooms plus the hull; each room can take 2 damage (unusable at 2), the hull 1; at 11 ship damage you are defeated.

Turn Overview

Starting with the first player (captain token), take turns clockwise:

1. Ship Action — move the ship action figure to one of the five ship rooms (must be a new room each turn) and apply its effect.
2. Event — draw the top event card and resolve it (a choice, challenge, or effect; cannot be ignored).
3. Two Actions — perform two actions.
4. End of Turn — pass the captain token left.

1. Ship Action

Move the ship action figure to one of the five rooms (Bridge, Galley, Deck, Quarters, Sick Bay — the Hull has no action) and apply its effect (room command amounts scale with player count). Rooms with 2 damage cannot be used. Highlights:

• Bridge: draw 1 ability card, gain command, and remove all command from crew/adventure cards.
• Galley: draw ability cards, gain command, and optionally discard 1 ability card to remove 1 fatigue.
• Deck: gain command and draw up to 3 search tokens (applying all damage shown but keeping one token's reward).
• Quarters: draw 1 ability card, gain command, and remove some command from crew/cards.
• Sick Bay: draw 1 ability card, gain command, and restore 1 health to a crew member.

2. Event

Draw and read the top event card and apply its effect (some offer choices; "ongoing" cards stay in play until you meet their discard condition). Over a campaign you pass through the event deck three times; each time you reach the end, on the next turn read the indicated storybook paragraph (1, then 1.2, then F1) instead of drawing an event.

3. Two Actions

Perform two of: Travel, Explore, Visit a Market, Visit a Port (repeats allowed; you may skip an action to gain 1 command).

• Travel: move the ship to a new region, performing a Craft challenge — optionally fatigue a crew member (adding their craft) and discard craft ability cards (+1 each), then draw fate and read the travel table for your distance (each distance = one adjacent region). Entering a region with a hazard requires passing its challenge or taking the consequence. At the map's edge, cross to the atlas page indicated, entering on the opposite side.
• Explore: explore a red-circle location in your region — open the storybook to its paragraph and read the first box. Paragraphs present choices (which may involve challenges or combat), rewards/penalties, and end with "Return to the ship." Never read ahead.
• Visit a Market: in a market region, draw 7 market (adventure) cards and buy any number by paying their coin cost (equip purchased weapons to a crew member).
• Visit a Port: in a port region, use any of: Inn (pay 4 coins: each crew restores 2 health, removes 1 fatigue); Shipyard (pay materials/coins to repair 1 ship damage each); Healer (pay 1 coin to fully restore a crew member); Spend XP to buy permanent level cards for crew.

Spending Command

You may spend command at any time (even on others' turns) to: equip an ability card to a crew member (pay its cost; max 2 equipped ability cards each, +1 skill of its type; not during combat/challenges), activate a crew ability (place required command on their board; cannot reuse until cleared), or activate an adventure card. You may never give command or ability cards to other players.

Skill Challenges

To overcome a challenge (a skill type and a target number, e.g., "CUNNING 5"):

1. Choose participating crew members (fatigue each; other players pay 1 command to add their crew), summing their relevant skill.
2. Draw fate (a card from the ability deck; its fate number is added to the crew skill for your total). Discard ability cards with matching skill icons for +1 each.
3. If your total meets or exceeds the number, you pass (ignore the failure consequences and read on). If you fail, apply the listed consequences (−X health, ship damage, status tokens, or "turn to" a fail paragraph). Some cards let you redraw fate.

Failure often means suffering injury or setback rather than being unable to proceed.

Combat

When a story ends with COMBAT and enemy numbers, retrieve and shuffle those enemy cards face up in a row, distribute the 4 combat action tokens among players (by player count), and place each crew's synergy token. Play combat rounds until all enemies are defeated or all crew are at 0 health.

Each round: Attack and Counterattack — place a combat action token on your crew member (max 2 per crew per round), choose a weapon and enemy target, draw fate and add your weapon's accuracy (must meet/exceed the enemy's defense to hit), then place damage tokens adjacently on the enemy card (covering all heart symbols defeats it). If the enemy survives, it counterattacks the attacking crew member (its basic attack + uncovered damage symbols, reduced by your block). End of Round: surviving enemies attack the crew and use their end-of-round abilities. Then check for victory or start a new round.

Totems, Quests, and Keywords

Totems are special adventure cards; find as many as possible, since their number determines the campaign's finale. Adventure cards (people, equipment, knowledge, totems) are gained by exploring or buying market cards; any player may use ones you own to help. Quest cards carry keywords — a story may require a keyword to read a paragraph or make a choice; active quests can be travelled to and completed.

Campaign, Saving, and Defeat

Track your campaign on the journey log (names, XP, saves, and notes on the map). You may save mid-campaign at the start of any turn by recording the ship's state and bagging components. Sleeping Gods supports one campaign at a time; reset to start a new one.

You are defeated if all crew health reaches 0, or the ship takes 11 damage. In normal mode, defeat is forgiving: move to the nearest port, remove all crew (or ship) damage and fatigue, discard 6 event cards, and start a new turn (marking a defeat box). In brutal mode, defeat ends the campaign — you must reset and start over, recording the totems you found.