Solstis
Solstis Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 48 Land tiles
- 12 Rainbow tiles
- 15 Spirit tiles
- 1 player aid
Goal Of the Game
Prove your mettle and get the highest star count possible by:
- Exploring the mountain. Assemble as many Land tiles as you can into the biggest portion of the panorama possible.
- Encountering spirits of the forest. Every spirit you pick up gives you at least 1 star… but try to avoid the Evil Spirit!
- Lighting fires on peaks. Create a path of tiles between the valley and the fires on the peaks.
Setup
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Place the Land tiles face down, in a random heap on the table, and mix them up so that they're thoroughly shuffled. Place the resulting pile to one side of your play area. This pile forms the Land draw pile.
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Draw 6 tiles from the Land draw pile, without looking at them, and form a line, face down, in the center of the play area.
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Draw 6 more tiles, and place 1 face up on each of the tiles in the line you have just formed.
(There are now 6 piles in the middle of the table, each consisting of 2 tiles, with the top tile face up and the bottom tile face down. This is the display.)
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Each player draws 3 tiles to form their starting hand, keeping them hidden. This leaves 30 tiles in the Land draw pile.
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Shuffle the Spirit tiles and make a face-down Spirit draw pile to the side of the play area. The first few times you play, we advise that you remove the Evil Spirit tile.
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Place the Rainbow tiles in a pile to one side of the play area.
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Keep the player aid close by so that each player can see it. The game can now begin!
Land tiles
The number in the box shows which column the Land tile goes in. The color of the number box shows which row the tile goes in. All tiles in the same row have the same box color, and show the same type of landscape.
How To Play
Decide who will go first any way you like. Each of you takes turns to play, completing all the actions in the order shown. When the first player finishes, it's the second player's turn. Play then alternates between them.
When it's your turn, you must:
1. Select a tile from your hand
Select a tile from your hand and place it face up in the middle of the play area.
2. Check if you can capture another tile
Check whether the tile you just placed down allows you to capture an additional tile.
Capture Possible
You can capture an additional tile if the tile you've played belongs to the same row (same-colored number box and similar landscape) OR the same column (same number in the number box) as any of the tiles in the display.
If you can capture one or more tiles in the display this way, then you MUST capture just one of them.
When you capture a tile, you take the tile you just played as well as the captured tile and place both of them in front of you, so that you're gradually creating the mountain panorama that is shown on the player aid (use the latter to find out exactly where you must place your tiles to recreate it). If the tile you captured from the display still has a face-down tile below it, then you must immediately turn over that tile.
By playing this tile (a 5, for example), the player can choose between capturing either a tile in the same column or a tile from the same row.
Second Chance
If the tile you selected lets you capture nothing, you add this tile to the display and you get a Second Chance. You take a tile from the Land draw pile, turn it over, and check whether this new tile would allow you to capture anything according to the usual capture rules.
For example: the first tile played wouldn't enable you to capture any of the available display tiles. So the player adds it to the display and gets to draw again from the Land draw pile (a Second Go)… and turns over the new tile they've just picked up. In this example, this second tile enables you to capture (and there's even a choice of two tiles to capture). Once they've chosen a tile, they add both tiles to their panorama.
Rainbow
If the tile you draw on your Second Chance won't let you capture anything, you must add it to the display, and it becomes available for the next player to use if valid. In compensation, you pick up a Rainbow tile and place it orthogonally adjacent (one of the sides must touch) to one of the Land tiles in your panorama. Rainbow tiles are wild cards that replace any tile of any sort. Later in the game, when you pick up the tile that should go where your Rainbow tile is in your panorama, one of the following two scenarios occurs:
- If the Rainbow is "blocked" by a Spirit (see Spirits section), you keep the Rainbow in your panorama and remove the corresponding Land tile from play and return it to the box.
- If the Rainbow is "free" (not covered by a Spirit), you move it to another position of your choice in your panorama, then place the Land tile you just picked up in the spot from where the Rainbow was just moved.
3. Build your panorama
Use Land tiles to gradually build up a panorama, a testament to your journey, and encounter mountain Spirits along the way!
You can end up with several unconnected sections of the complete panorama during the game of course. You can connect these later to form larger sections if you find the right tile to play. Remember that only the biggest panorama section adds to your star count at the end of the game (even though certain Spirits may affect your final score).
Spirits
To encounter a Spirit, you need a square in your panorama, consisting of 4 orthogonally adjacent tiles (with sides touching). You can now choose to either:
- Draw the first 2 Spirits from the Spirit draw pile, choose one, and place it in the middle of one of the squares formed this turn. Then place the other, face up, next to the Spirit draw pile (gradually creating a collection of face-up Spirit cards, spaced so they can be seen clearly).
- Choose a Spirit from the face-up collection next to the Spirit draw pile, and place it in the middle of the squares formed this turn.
NOTE: You can use the same Land tile to form different squares.
The player just made a square in their panorama using the Rainbow tile they drew. They therefore draw a Spirit, and place it at the center of the 4-tile square that they completed to encounter the Spirit. The Rainbow tile is now blocked by the Spirit.
IMPORTANT! Even if you create multiple squares in your panorama in the same turn, you can only encounter a single Spirit that turn.
4. Draw a new Land tile
IMPORTANT: The player finishes their turn by taking a new Land tile from the Land draw pile. Now it's the next player's turn.
End Of the Game
When there are no more tiles in the Land draw pile, the game is almost over. From that point, you keep playing in turns (without proceeding to stage 4 of the usual turn).
BUT you can ONLY play if you're able to capture a tile from the display with one of the tiles in your hand.
If you can still capture a tile, then you must do so. If not, you skip your turn.
The game ends when neither player can capture a tile. It's then time to calculate the scores.
Calculating the Scores
Each of you gets stars for:
Your Biggest Panorama
Every Land tile in your biggest panorama gets 1 star. Note: Rainbow tiles in this panorama score no points at all.
Fires Lit On Your Peaks
Certain tiles have Fire icons.
You can only light a Fire if you can follow a path between the tile with the Fire on and a tile in the bottom row of your panorama (the tiles with a red number box). Each Fire linked to the bottom row earns you 1 star.
Spirits Encountered
Watch out! If you've got the Evil Spirit, place it on another of your Spirits (the Spirit you cover is chosen by your opponent). These two Spirits don't earn you a single star. All the other Spirits each earn you 1 star, but some of them also give you other star bonuses.
The player with the highest star count wins the game!
In case of a tie, the players share the win and can replay the game to break the tie.
The Evil Spirit
When you pick up the Evil Spirit, you're forced to keep both it and the other Spirit you drew at the same time. Place the normal Spirit on your panorama as usual and keep the Evil Spirit somewhere in front of your panorama.
The next time you encounter a new Spirit, give the Evil Spirit to your opponent… and they can give it back to you if they encounter a Spirit, and so forth.
At the end of the game, the player with the Evil Spirit has to use it to cover one of their own Spirits, as chosen by their opponent.
Scoring Example
This player's biggest panorama section has 9 tiles in it. Each Land tile earns them 1 star, and the Rainbow tile earns them nothing. So they get 8 stars.
They managed to light 1 Fire out of 2, so that earns them 1 star.
The Spirit covered by the Evil Spirit earns them nothing. The Marmot earns them 1 star. The Butterfly earns them 1 star and they get 1 extra star because of the lit Fire (this is because the Butterfly gives you 1 star per lit Fire).
This player's Spirits earn them a star count of 3.
In the end, this player gets a star count of 12!
Spirit Tiles
The effects from Spirits on tiles with a plain background trigger as soon as you pick them up. If it's a Spirit on a blue background, the effects only trigger at the end of the game.
Plain-background Spirits (trigger immediately)
- Fish — Pick up a Rainbow tile and place it in your panorama.
- Deer — Add a tile from your hand to your panorama. You draw 2 tiles at the end of your turn.
- Eagle — Add a tile drawn at random from the Land draw pile to your panorama.
- Bear — Immediately draw a Land tile (you'll therefore have one extra tile in your hand during play).
- Fly — Add a tile to your panorama that you've randomly selected from your opponent's hand. Your opponent takes a new tile from the Land draw pile in compensation, if there are any left.
- Beetle — Add a face-up tile of your choice from the display to your panorama.
- Marmot — Finish your turn, then play another full turn (so you get 2 turns).
Blue-background Spirits (trigger at end of game)
- Bee — +1 star for every Spirit with a plain background in your panorama.
- Ladybug — +1 star for every Fire symbol that has not been lit.
- Wolf — +1 star for each separate panorama section (even those made of a single tile).
- Fox — At the end of the game, before you calculate the scores, add all the tiles you have remaining in your hand to your panorama.
- Bird — +1 star for every Spirit with a blue background in your panorama, except this one.
- Frog — +1 star for every Rainbow tile in your panorama.
- Butterfly — +1 star for every lit Fire symbol.
The 15th Spirit tile is the Evil Spirit — see "The Evil Spirit" under Calculating the Scores, above.
Credits
A game by Lumberjacks Studio.
Designers: Bruno Cathala and Corentin Lebrat.
Illustrations: Gorobeï.
English Translation and Proofreading by Naomi Long and Alexander Caves for The Geeky Pen.