Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon – Red Death Expansion

Expansion for Tainted Grail: Age of Legends & Last Knight Campaigns Expansion for Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon – Red Death Expansion Rulebook

Table of Contents

Component List

Models

1 Plaguebeast
1 Fomorian Sentinel
1 Danse Macabre

Paper Components

20 Save Sheets
Red Death Exploration Journal
3 Starting Letters

Cards

Standard Cards (85):

12 Gray Encounters
11 Green Encounters
12 Purple Encounters
12 Blue Encounters
5 Random Events
29 Story Events

Oversized Cards (35):

32 Location Cards
1 Danse Macabre card
1 Miasma card
1 Help card

Small Cards (81):

17 Advanced Skill cards
28 Ancient Item cards
36 Secret cards

Introduction

Red Death is an additional campaign for Tainted Grail, designed to be played by experienced Characters and players with a good grasp of the basic Tainted Grail rules.

Miasma

As Characters delve deeper into the plagued ruins of the lost capital of Camlann, they will slowly raise their level of Miasma. It represents both the physical effect of noxious fumes in the city, and the mental toll of dark secrets that Characters discover in the campaign.

When you reveal the Miasma card for the first time, put a Dial with a Quest Token on the first of the three sections ("Low Miasma") and set it to 1.

The Miasma card outlines when players should increment the Miasma counter. Additionally, some rules and Journal interactions will cause players to gain Miasma.

When your Miasma is higher, many supernatural powers of the city will treat you as one of them, leading to an easier game. However, only lower Miasma levels will allow you to discover some secrets and reach the best endings.

Miasma Levels

The Miasma card has three levels (Low, Medium and High) each with one slot for a Dial and some additional rules. These rules are active only when the Dial is in the level that contains them.

If the Dial is at 8 in the Low or Medium Section, and you are supposed to add more points, move the Dial to the next section, set it to 1 and add any leftover points. If the Miasma Dial is at 1 in the Medium or High section, and you are supposed to remove some points, move it to the previous section of the card, set it to 8, and then apply the rest of the loss.

If the Miasma is High and equal to 8, you cannot gain any more Miasma. Resolve the special rule found on the Miasma card.

If the Miasma is Low and equal to 1, you cannot lose any more Miasma. Ignore any Miasma losses.

For example: The Miasma Dial is in the "Medium" section of the card and set to 6. The players trigger an effect that asks them to raise it by 3. They move the Dial to the "High" section instead and set it to 2 (two points added in the "Medium" section and one point added in the "High" section).

Many cards and events in the game read the current Miasma level and adapt their effects accordingly.

Menhirs, Wyrdness and Locations

Though visitors of Camlann have to contend with miasmic fumes, they at least don't have to worry about their Menhirs running out. Wyrdness does not exist in Homelands, just like these ancient statues. This means:

That you can always reveal any Location card connected to the one you are currently in.
That at each Start of the Day, you do not remove any Locations.
That you do not suffer any penalties for resting or staying out of the Menhir range. For the purpose of any skills, abilities or cards you are always considered to be in the Active Menhir range.
That instead, Locations are removed only in specific moments of the campaign (usually when moving between districts).

Danse Macabre

A horrific presence wanders the streets of Camlann, swaying to the sound of pipes and drums. The rules of the Dance Macabre will be explained during the game.

New Card Type: Advanced Skills

These special skill cards allow you to advance your Characters further and will be necessary to face the challenges of Red Death. The following rules apply:

An Advanced Skill can be bought during Character Advancement, just like regular Skills.

The cost of the Advanced Skill depends only on the number of Advanced Skills you have:

First Advanced Skill costs 10 Exp.
Second Advanced Skill costs 15 Exp.
The third and all further Advanced Skills cost 20 Exp.

Advanced Skills have minimum Attribute requirements listed on their cards. Your Attributes need to be at least this high to buy the card.

For example: If an Advanced Skill shows 3 [icon: Attribute] and 3 [icon: Attribute], you need to meet both Attribute requirements to buy this card. The Attributes listed on the card are NOT added to your Attributes!

Once you buy an Advanced Skill, place it above or below your Character Tray. Do not attach them to your regular Skills.

New Card Type: Ancient Items

Ancient Items represent rare objects you will sometimes find. Ancient Items count towards any Item limit and can be discarded by effects that cause you to discard Items.

New Secret Card Type: Mini-Encounters

The Red Death campaign also introduces a new type of a card: a Mini-Encounter printed on the Secret card that represents a special, challenging stage of some regular Encounters.

Whenever you put a Mini-Encounter on the Encounter card, all markers gained from now on should be placed on its card, forming a separate Combat Pool. The rules on the Mini-Encounter and its Attack Table replace all text of the original Encounter card.

During a Victory Check, if the total number of markers on the Mini-Encounter meets or exceeds its Value, remove its card and any markers that were on it. From now on, you once again fight the original Encounter, starting with a Character Activation.

When placing a Mini-Encounter, do not remove the original Combat Pool and do not discard the Sequence!

For example: Characters fight a Plaguebeast and trigger an Attack that spawns the "Bubonic Growth" Mini-Encounter (Secret card 151). They place this card on top of the Encounter. From now on, every marker gained in combat should be placed on Secret card 151. Once the "Bubonic Growth" is defeated, players immediately discard it and resume Combat with the original Encounter.

New Location Seal: Ruins

Many Red Death Location cards contain a brand new type of seal next to their name – the Ruins symbol. Ruins are a new type of terrain that does not count as either a Settlement or Out-of-Settlement Location. When you are in a Location with a Ruins seal, any rules and effects that take place in Settlements or out of Settlements do not work. Instead, some Red Death Advanced Skills, Items and Encounters have specific rules related to the Ruins Locations.

New Location Seal: Sewer

Some Red Death Location cards contain the Sewer seal. Its function will be explained during the game. Before you are asked to read Sewer-specific rules, simply ignore this seal.

New Rules for Using Markers

Red Death is played by advanced Characters and many Encounters have large combat pools. This may sometimes cause bigger groups of Characters to run out of standard markers. If that happens, we suggest:

Use Dials as tokens with a Value of 10 (skull-side up) and 20 (grail-side up). Since there are no Menhirs in Red Death, Dials are used much less often.
Remove the markers from Attribute slots if there's at least one Skill attached to this slot. The number of skills itself indicates the total value of the Attribute, without the need to use the markers.

New Encounter Traits

Bloodthirst – Whenever you place a Charge, lose 1 marker instead. You have no Charges in this Encounter!
Corrosive – If you win, destroy any Armor you were using.
Counter – Whenever you gain 4 markers or more when playing a single card (including all bonuses from Items and Skills), immediately resolve the Opportunity attack. [The printed icon shows a cluster of four markers.]
Demolisher – Whenever you [icon: red cracked-tile symbol], lose 1 Health. [The first icon is not explained in the Journal text and could not be identified with certainty from the printed page.]
Elusive – When the Combat Pool value is even, players are unable to connect a Bonus (zero is not considered even).
Ethereal – Gain markers only from cards connected with a Magic Key. If the last card in the Sequence is not connected with a Magic Key, Items, Skills, and any other effects cannot grant any markers.
Fear – You Panic whenever you have more than 0 Terror.
Ferocity (X) – Place all markers you gain in your Activation in a separate pile. Once there's X or more of them, no more cards can be played in this Activation. At the end of your "Play additional Combat cards" step, add these markers to the Combat Pool.
Hunger – If you have the "Red Sign" Secret card (66), the Enemy has the Rage and Feint traits during your Character Activation step.
Mindflaying – At the start of your Activation, discard a number of cards equal to your Terror from the top of your deck.

New Tracks for Diplomatic Encounters

Some of the Red Death Diplomatic Encounters have a Terror or Damage icon on their Affinity Track. If the Affinity Marker ends up on this slot of the Track, the Active Character gains 1 Terror (in case of the Terror icon) or receives 1 Damage (in case of the Damage icon).

Please note this effect does not apply when you move the Affinity Marker over the icon of the Track (for example, when resolving a double-up or double-down arrow effect).

Character Traits vs Red Death Locations

Many Locations in Red Death have complex mechanics that make use of many different markers and tokens, some of which may also be used by Character Traits. When placing a marker generated by a Character Trait or Action (such as Mabd's negative Trait) make sure to place it so that it won't mix up with the markers placed on the Location by the Journal – for example, next to the Location or on its corner.

Character Death

Replacing a dead Character with a new one is impossible in Red Death. When a Character dies, go to Verse 500 of the Book of Secrets instead.

Starting the Campaign

To set up the Red Death campaign, follow the steps outlined below.

I) Prepare Cards and Decks

Red Death is an expansion campaign that requires some components from the base Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon box. Before starting your campaign, make sure you have the cards listed below, in addition to all Red Death cards and decks.

Random Events

Use five Red Death Random Events and shuffle them with the following Random Events from the base game:

2x Good Weather
Violent Thunderstorm
Dense Mists
Unnatural Chill
Blood Moon
Howling Gale
Heavy Rainfall

Items Deck

Use all Item cards from the base game, with the exception of "Ritual Chalk" and "Wyrdstone Heart".

Encounter Decks

Use the following Difficulty 3 and 4 Encounters from the base game and place them on the four piles of Red Death Encounters of the same color:

Gray: 1x Knight Errant (Difficulty 3); 1x Fetch (Difficulty 3)
Green: 1x Bog Maiden (Difficulty 3); 1x Mulch Man (Difficulty 4)
Purple: 1x Disembodied Voracity (Difficulty 3); 1x Yr Hen Wrach (Difficulty 3)
Blue: 1x Calm Before the Storm (Difficulty 3)

Skills

Use all Skill cards from the base game.

II) Character Setup

Red Death should be played with a team of experienced Characters who have finished one of the three basic campaigns (Fall of Avalon, Last Knight, Age of Legends). Alternatively, you may create an epic-level team specifically for this campaign.

Repeat the following steps for every Character who will take part in the campaign. The Characters need to come from a single Save and from the same basic campaign.

Importing Your Character

I) Use your Save Sheet from the completed campaign to restore your Character, their Attributes, and Skills. Restore your Combat deck and Diplomacy deck from the Save compartments. If you have not saved your Combat and Diplomacy deck, use the Character Creation section to rebuild your Character within the allowed 80 Exp limit for Attributes, Skills and Deck Advancements.

II) You may replace any of the following Skills with another Skill of the same Attribute, as their usefulness in the Red Death Campaign is diminished:

9, 10, 24, 41, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66

Additionally, if you find some of your Skills from Avalon to be less useful in Camlann, be on the lookout for a Location that allows you to modify your Skills!

III) If your Character has Items and Secrets saved in a save compartment, restore the Items and discard the Secrets (with the exception of Secrets number 35, 43, 45, 62, and 94).

IV) If you haven't saved your Items, choose up to 5 Item cards per Character – but no more than one Item with each specific Keyword (weapon, armor, shield, relic, companion).

V) Proceed to "World Setup" to prepare your campaign.

Character Creation

If you wish to play the Red Death campaign without carrying over existing Characters, you can create your own, advanced Party:

Pick any number of Characters from one standard Tainted Grail campaign (Fall of Avalon, Last Knight, Age of Legends).
Each of these Characters gains 80 Exp. Spend this Exp according to the standard rules, buying any combination of Skills, Attributes and Deck Advancements.
Discard any leftover Exp.
Each Character chooses up to 5 Item cards – but no more than one Item with each specific Keyword (weapon, armor, shield, relic, companion).

Proceed to the "World Setup" to prepare your campaign.

III) World Setup

To play Red Death, set up the game world according to the Rulebook with the following changes:

I) Place Location 401 in the middle of your play space. Place all the Character models you are starting the campaign with there.

II) Do not place a Menhir in Location 401.

III) Attach the Old Port (408) to the left edge of the Mist-Covered Sea (401).

IV-V) No changes.

VI) Prepare the Red Death Save Sheet.

VII-IX) No changes.

X) Choose and read your starting letter:

If you're playing with Characters from the Age of Legends campaign, gain the "Age" part 1 status and read Starting Letter number 1.
If you're playing with Characters from the Fall of Avalon campaign, gain the "Age" part 2 status and read Starting Letter number 2.
If you're playing with Characters from the Last Knight campaign, gain the "Age" part 3 status and read Starting Letter number 3.

XI) You're now ready to start the Red Death campaign! Reveal the first Event card and follow its instructions.

(Optional) Coffin Dance Mode

The Red Death campaign was tuned to provide a considerable challenge. Still, groups of very advanced, well-tuned Characters may wish for some additional difficulty. If that's the case, instead of using standard Hard Mode outlined in the Rulebook, please follow the rules below.

You may choose to play with any of the following modifications, but for the true hardcore experience, we recommend playing with all of them.

Setup: Each player should flip the Heath [sic] limiter plastic piece upside down so that the top of heart icon points to the bottom of the track. At the start of the game take Secret card 42 and each Character takes one Secret card 66.

Escaping Combat: You may try to Escape only once per your Character's Activation. To initiate the escape, Lose 1 [icon: green running figure] and gain 1 Miasma. Then, receive the Opportunity attack and toss a Dial:

Skull – You remain in Combat!
Grail – You successfully Escape from Combat. Place the Encounter card on the bottom of its deck and reshuffle your combat deck including any discarded cards.

Encounter & Event decks: When the game requires you to place random Event cards, place 1 less than instructed. When a game requires you to create an Encounter deck always treat your Miasma level as Low.

Exhaustion: When at least one of the players ends their Day exhausted, gain 1 Miasma.

Skills & items & Resources: Characters can carry a maximum of 5 items. Characters can only have 2 Ancient Items equipped at the same time. Characters cannot have multiple Advanced Skills that require the same Attribute. You can have at most 20 of each Resource (Except Exp).

Guardians: When you roll a Guardian Die, treat the "Discard" result as "Nothing".

Danse Macabre – Rules

From the Book of Secrets, entry 100. Text reproduced from the printed rules section.

When you read these rules for the first time, start by setting up the Danse Macabre:

Find the "Danse Macabre" card and place it on the table, so that the "Up the City" side faces up.
From all the Locations listed on the "Up the City" side of the card, find the highest-numbered Location that is revealed and contains no Characters.
Place the Danse Macabre model in this Location.

The Danse Macabre is the twisted procession that walks through the streets of Camlann in a predetermined pattern. Below you can find all rules related to the Danse Macabre.

Danse Macabre Card

This card is used to track the current location of the Danse Macabre if it's not on the table. The number in front of the base outline shows the current Location of the Danse Macabre. The card has two sides – one is used when the Danse Macabre moves up through the city, and the other one – when it returns.

The Danse Macabre model can only be present in either a revealed Location or on the Danse Macabre card.

If you discard a Location containing the Danse Macabre model, put it on the card, so that its base points to the same number as the Location it was in.

Whenever you attach any new Locations, check if the Danse Macabre model points to the number of any revealed Locations. If it does, place the Danse Macabre in the matching Location.

Danse Macabre vs Characters

Any Characters present in the Location of the Danse Macabre immediately go to Verse 109.

Any Characters who walk into a Location adjacent to the Danse Macabre gain 1 Terror, unless they have Secret card 115.

Once the Danse Macabre moves, any Characters in Locations adjacent to its new Location gain 1 Terror, unless they have Secret card 115.

Danse Macabre vs Guardians

Any Guardian present in a Location with the Danse Macabre is immediately discarded.

Reminder: If you came to this rules section from the Chapter 3: Part 1 card, remember to resolve Chapter 3: Part 2 now.

Danse Macabre – Volition and Actions

Set-up lines from Verse 820 and the playing rules from Verse 870 of the Book of Secrets. The narrative text of these verses is not transcribed.

Setup for controlling the Danse Macabre (from Verse 820):

Place the Danse Macabre model in Location 436 ("Golden Alley"). From now on, all Players control the Danse Macabre model only!
Place the Danse Macabre card on the table, so that the "Down the City" side of this card is revealed.
Place a pile of 6 large markers on the table by the Danse Macabre card. This is your Volition that will run out as you spend time within the Danse Macabre and try to influence its moves. When the Volition runs out, you will be completely assimilated!
- If your Miasma is Low, gain 6 more Volition.
- If your Miasma is Medium, gain 3 more Volition.
Gain Secret card 113. Remember to check the Verse listed on this card to learn the full rules of playing the Danse Macabre.

Danse Macabre (Verse 870):

You're now part of the dance, but your will remains, and allows you to influence its movement, at least until your Volition runs out (when that happens, your Event card will tell you what to do next).

All players control the Danse Macabre model and have a single Volition pool. If there are several players, they perform one Action each, in turns.

The Danse Macabre can only perform the following three Actions:

Travel – move the Danse Macabre to any adjacent Location. Ignore any rules printed on this Location. Check the Danse Macabre card. If the Location number of your new Location follows the number of your previous Location on this card, your Travel is free. The Travel is also free if your current Location number is not on the Danse Macabre card, but the new Location number is. Otherwise, lose 1 Volition.

For example: You Travel from Location 405 to Location 408. On the Danse Macabre card, 405 leads to 408. Therefore, your Travel is free.
Turn around (only if the Danse Macabre is in the last or first Location listed on the Danse Macabre card) – flip the Danse Macabre card over.
Explore – go to the Exploration Journal of your current Location and read the "Danse Macabre" section, printed upside down on the bottom of the page.