The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game – The Long Dark
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game – The Long Dark Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Encounter Deck
"The Long Dark" is played with an encounter deck built with all the cards from the following encounter sets: The Long Dark, Twists and Turns, and Hazards of the Pit. (Twists and Turns and Hazards of the Pit can both be found in the Khazad-dûm deluxe expansion to The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game.)
Locate Test
While playing this scenario, players are at times instructed to make a "Locate Test". These tests represent the heroes' attempts to maintain a sense of direction in the mines.
A locate test is made by a single player, as specified by the card initiating the test. The player making the locate test may choose and discard 1 card from his hand to discard the top card of the encounter deck. Many of the cards in The Long Dark encounter deck have a bold "PASS" printed in the bottom right hand corner of their text box. If the discarded encounter card has "PASS" printed in its text box, then the test succeeds, and no ill effects trigger. If the card does not have "PASS" printed in its text box, then the player has not succeeded, but may attempt the test again, repeating this action until either the test is successful or he no longer wishes (or is able to) discard more cards. If a player runs out of cards or declares that he is not willing to discard any more cards to the test, then the test is considered a failure, and players should follow the rest of the instructions on the card that initiated the test.
Example: The card "Vast and Intricate" reads:
"When Revealed: The first player makes a locate test. If this test is failed, raise each player's threat by 7, remove all progress tokens from play, and trigger all "Lost:" effects in play."
When this card is revealed, Eric, the first player, must make a locate test. He can choose to fail the test immediately by not discarding any cards from his hand, but decides to try and beat it. He discards 1 card from his hand and discards the top card of the encounter deck. It did not have a bold "PASS" printed in its text box, and so he did not pass the locate test. He decides to try again, discarding another card from his hand. This time the discarded encounter card does have "PASS" printed in its text box, and so Eric has passed the test. He ignores the "If" statement on "Vast and Intricate" and the card is discarded with no further effect.
Lost: Effects
Some cards have "Lost:" effects on them. These effects are only triggered by other card effects, and are not tied to any timing structure or phase of the game.
Cave Torch
This scenario uses the Cave Torch objective card. During setup the first player selects any hero to attach it to, and that hero bears the Cave Torch for the rest of the game.
If Cave Torch would leave play, then it is removed from the game. Do not place any "removed from game" cards in the discard pile, as effects that bring cards back from the discard pile no longer interact with these cards.
Next Player
The next player is the player sitting directly to the left of the player referenced by the card effect. If there are no other players in the game, there is no next player.
Secrecy X Keyword
Secrecy is a new keyword introduced on player cards in the Dwarrowdelf Cycle. Secrecy lowers the cost to play the card by the specified value, provided the threat of the player who is playing the card is 20 or below. Secrecy only applies when the card is played from hand, and never modifies the printed cost of the card.