The Stygian Society: The Cursed Library
The Stygian Society: The Cursed Library Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 4 Authors, with each having:
- 1 Author Mat
- 6 Characters
- 8 Skills
- 4 Final Boss Sheets
- 4 Mid Boss Sheets
- 6 Lower Floors
- 6 Upper Floors
- 36 Book Cards (Double Sided). Each is double sided with an enemy on one side and a worthy character on the other.
- Additional Health Tokens
- Ink Tokens (In 1's and 5's)
- 12 Status Cards (3 for each hero)
Card Notes
Book Card - Enemy Side
- Health: Deal this much damage to defeat the enemy.
- Ink: Each enemy provides ink to the player defeating it.
- Color: The book's background is the enemy color.
- Genre: Some cards affect other cards of a genre.
- Expansion Symbol: All Cursed Library cards include a book symbol. It has no effect on gameplay.
Book Card - Character Side
- Health: The charcter is discarded after taking this much damage.
- Cost: The cost to write this character into an author's tableau.
- Color: All character books are green.
- Genre: Some cards affect other cards of a genre.
Character Author Card
- Health: The charcter is discarded after taking this much damage.
- Cost: The cost to write this character into the author's tableau.
- Genre: Some cards affect other cards of a genre.
Skill Author Card
Skill author cards are very similar to hero skill cards in the base game.
- Cost: The cost to write this skill into the author's tableau.
- Skill Designation: The word 'skill' appears rather than a book name and author as a reminder that the card is not a character.
- Genre: Some cards affect other cards of a genre.
Cursed Library Status Card
Unlike the base game, Cursed Library authors can only gain a status once.
- Cost: Each Cursed Library status has a cost in cubes required to remove the status, starting the end of the turn after acquiring the status.
Setup
The setup rules are similar to the base game, with the following changes:
- Each player should randomly select an author hero and take the associated author mat and the 12 special cards. Players shuffle their special cards and draw four into their hand. Players select one of these cards to place face up next to their author mat. This card is considered written. See the Support or Write section below for details. Place any extra author cards back into the box.
- Give each player five ink tokens. Place the rest of the ink tokens in a general pool near the field board.
- Use only the lower floors, upper floors, mid-boss, and final boss decks from The Cursed Library. Enemies indicated on room cards are found on the book cards. An enemy's color matches the book color on the card.
- Set up peril and health as normal. During the game, good characters will be able to take wounds, but the party will as well.
No chests or treasure cards are used with this expansion. Authors do not gain experience.
Gameplay Overview
As in the base game, there will be six rounds total. Players will traverse two lower floors, a mid-boss, two upper floors, and then a final boss.
When an author defeats an enemy in The Cursed Library, they collect ink for themselves, instead of giving XP to the entire party. The author uses this ink to write new skills and worthy characters from their hand. Players will always have a hand of three cards. Additionally, when an author defeats an enemy, that enemy's book (card) flips to become a worthy character and is placed in a pool near the field board. Like cards from an author's hand, characters from this pool can be written to an author's tableau where it can help defeat future enemies.
Player Turn Details
Player turns in The Cursed Library work just like the base game, except as noted below.
Support or Write
Rather than a support (yellow) action, authors may take a write action before their main (green) action.
Support
Authors may play one support action before their main action just as in the base game.
A new support action available to all authors allows the author to give up to three ink to another author. Note that players may make change for ink tokens at any time as needed (e.g. turn a 5-value ink into five 1-value inks from the pool).
Write
Rather than taking a support action, a player may instead write a new card to their tableau. To do this, the player first selects one of the three cards in their hand (a skill or character previously drawn from their author deck) or one of the characters from the public pool of previously-defeated enemies.
After selecting a card to write, spend the amount of ink shown in the upper right of the card. Place the written card face-up next to the author mat. Spent ink is returned to the general supply. Written characters are instantly available and may be used this turn.
Immediately draw a replacement from the author deck for a card written from the player's hand. If the deck is empty, then continue the game with fewer than three cards.
Author or Character Action
When the hero takes a main action in the base game, they must choose a green gem action. In The Cursed Library, the author may select one of their green gem skills or characters. If the author takes the action with a skill, the party will take any damage done by enemies, just like the base game. However, if a selected character takes the action, then that character will take any damage. Mark the character with health tokens as it takes wounds. If the character takes more damage than its health, it is discarded from the game. Any excess damage that was not taken by the character is then taken by the party.
Defeating Enemies
The active author receives ink instead of XP when defeating each enemy. The amount of ink taken is shown on the top right of the enemy's card. This ink is added to the author's personal pool.
If it's the last enemy of that card type in the current room, then all the enemies in that "book" are defeated. Flip over the enemy card to the 'worthy character' (green) side and place it in a character pool in the middle of the table. There may only be up to five good characters in the pool at once. If there are more, choose one to discard before adding another.
NOTE: The mid-boss and the big boss cards do not get flipped and added to the pool of available characters. Once they are defeated, then the boss is simply discarded. Follow the instructions for starting a new floor from the back of mid-boss cards in the base game after defeating the mid-boss. Defeated mid-bosses in The Cursed Library do not have negative effects.
NOTE: Peril Damage – When the peril track deals damage, the active player chooses how the damage is dealt (unless otherwise stated). They may choose to wound the party, or any of their own characters.
New Status Cards
There are three new status types in The Cursed Library. Like the base game, the authors can gain status cards. However, an author can only get hit by each status once, and there is a set cube cost (listed on the card) to remove it. There is no need to draw status tokens; simply take the status card when affected and return the card when the status is removed.
Winning & Losing
The players win by defeating the villain at the top of the tower. Players can lose as per the base game.