The Gloom Chronicles
The Gloom Chronicles Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Creating Your Chronicle
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Choose Your Chapter: Start your first Chronicles game by placing CHAPTER 1: THE UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY in the center of the table, with the red side up. Later sessions use the Chronicles card chosen by the previous winner. This is the only Chronicles card in play for this game, which will become a chapter in your ongoing chronicle.
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Cast Your Characters: If this is your first Chronicles game, select a family from core Gloom or choose four Character cards from any Gloom game. This will remain your family for subsequent chapters.
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Set Up the Scene: Get out the game(s) listed in the setup section of the current Chronicles card, and sort out any particular cards it requires. Remove any other Story and Unwelcome Guest cards. Shuffle the Modifier, Event, and Untimely Death cards together into a draw deck and deal five to each player, as you would normally. You can always add other expansions, too.
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Specify Your Setting: Read aloud the setting text on the Chronicles card in play. It frames the background for this game, perhaps a location or some recent events. Work as a group to add elements and details to the people, places, and events for this chapter of your chronicle. Incorporate your Characters and the suggestions on the Chronicles card, and expand your story together.
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Rule the Roost: In addition to the setting text, Chronicles cards also have special rules text. Read the special rules aloud now. They apply to all players and their Characters for the duration of the game.
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Get in the Game: Now play Gloom as always, with players trying to make their own families miserable while cheering their opponents' families. Modifier, Event, and Unhappy Ending cards work as usual. When an entire family has succumbed to Unhappy Endings, the game ends. Self-Worth scores are then tallied, and the most miserable player wins! (Unless rules are otherwise specified on that chapter's Chronicles card.)
Unchronicled Chronicles
After playing through The Gloom Chronicles as a sequential story, you can keep playing by selecting any Chronicles card to use as an enhancement to your Gloom game. Choose one as a group or at random.
Death and Rebirth
We recommend that you choose a family and play that same family in each session of the Gloom Chronicles. This may seem counterintuitive given that in each session, at least one family will die. This is just the nature of Gloom: people endure terrible tragedies, they suffer untimely deaths, and then they meet up next week and do it all again. Don't overthink it, just focus on the story they're experiencing today.
While we suggest using the same families throughout the Chronicles, it's not a requirement. Perhaps someone wants to switch and play the Malone Mob for THE TRIAL OF BOILS MALONE, or maybe your family had such a miserable time in the last chapter that you want to let them rest in peace for a session. Whatever the reason, family choice is ultimately up to you.
Setting Sorrowful Scenes
As you build your chronicle's story over the course of each chapter's game, use the setting you agreed on as your starting point and flesh it out with your own twists and turns: Why is your family there? What are they doing? How does each card played fit in with the setting and previous events?
For example, if during CHAPTER 6: DINNER WITH THE DUKE, Lord Slogar is suddenly Disgraced at a Dance, he's likely dancing with someone at the dinner party. Who's his dance partner? Is it someone from another family? What could possibly go wrong, dancing with a brain in a box? And why is he disgraced when they aren't?
But if Melissa Slogar is at THE TRIAL OF BOILS MALONE and is Disgraced at a Dance, she might testify to the court about her disgrace. Maybe at Boils' "retirement" party she overheard him confess just before she reeled into a buffet table, since she's known for having two left feet, literally!
The goal is to establish a connection to the other families, since you're all part of the same story. As the game progresses and you start playing more Modifiers and Events, work to tie your descriptions into the story of your chronicle.
Dissimilar Settings
Feel free to diverge from the Chronicles card's prescribed details during these group discussions. For example, CHAPTER 1: THE UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY is written as a party for the Wellington-Smythe Twins, but what's most important is that it's a birthday party. If you want it to be the Old Dam's 101st birthday party, go ahead!
The important thing is for all players to collaborate and agree on the setting.
Chronicles Cards
The front of each Chronicles card contains the information used during that chapter, and the back of the card shows The Aftermath of that chapter, including its ending and directions for the winner to choose the next chapter. The front has red details in the illustration, while the back has the words "The Aftermath" under the card title.
Front of the card:
- Red Art: the illustration, which has red details.
- Chapter Title: the gloomy title of this chapter appears under the illustration.
- Setup: beneath the title is the name of the expansion or game that the card is best played with, its deck icon, and sometimes further setup instructions. The deck icon occurs on all cards in that set, to help you sort them out from other Gloom games.
- Setting: this describes details of your story's beginning, the foundation of this chapter. Read it out loud before the game.
- Special Rules: read this aloud at the start of the game as well. These rules apply to all players for the duration of the game.
- Chapter Number: each card has a chapter number at the bottom for quick reference.
Back of the card (The Aftermath):
- Grey Art: the illustration on the reverse, in grey.
- Chapter Title: the same title as on the front, with the words "The Aftermath" beneath it.
- Ending: on the reverse side of each card, the awful aftermath of your chapter is described in brief.
- Directions: also on the reverse are suggestions for choosing the Chronicles card for your next game.