The White Castle Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• GAME SETUP
  • CASTLE SETUP:
    • BRIDGES
    • GARDENS
    • TRAINING YARDS
  • PLAYER SETUP:
• PLAYING THE GAME
  • CLANS POINTS AND CONDITIONS FOR VICTORY:
  • A Player's Turn
    • USING THE DICE
    • PROCEDURE FOR USING THE DICE:
    • STACKING DICE:
    • GAINING AND PAYING COINS AND DAIMYO SEALS:
  • THE CASTLE
  • OUTSIDE THE WALLS
  • THE WELL
  • THE PERSONAL DOMAINS
  • Sending Clan Members to the Court of Himeji
    • WARRIOR
    • GARDENER
    • COURTIER
    • Daimyo Seals
    • Lantern Rewards
    • The Passage of Time Track
• END OF THE ROUND
• END OF THE GAME
  • 1. Score Remaining Resources:
  • Score the Passage of Time:
  • 3. Score Clan Members:
• THE TOKUGAWA CLAN’S VISIT - SOLITAIRE MODE
  • Changes in the Game Setup
  • Gameplay
    • 1. Move the die to the position shown on the card
    • 2. Perform the actions on the revealed card(s)
  • At the End of each Round
  • Final Scoring
  • The Solitaire Icons

GAME SETUP

For your very first game, you should skip over Step 2 and use the cards shown in the picture. You can also skip Step 4 and make use of the tiles and the Well as shown in the picture. Be sure to place both a Mother-of-Pearl tile that has a coral die on the back and an Iron tile with a black die on the back in the Well.

CASTLE SETUP:

1. Place the main board so that it can be reached by all players.
2. If there are 2 players, leave the Steward and Diplomat cards that are marked with a ♦ in the lower left corner back in the box. Then, shuffle the decks for the Steward level (ochre) and the Diplomat level (indigo) separately. Place 1 card face up in each space of the corresponding level. Put both of the remaining decks in the spaces for them on the main board.

Important: If all the cards in the castle show the exact same dark-background action, return those cards to their decks, shuffle them again, and redo Step 2.

3. Draw 1 Daimyo card (grey deck) and place it on the last level. Put the rest of these back in the box.

4. Mix up all the Die tiles with the side showing the dice icons face up. Randomly take one of each color and place them in each of the 3 spaces marked ♦. After that, fill all the rooms by randomly placing tiles in the empty spaces in numerical order. Each room must have at least 2 different dice colors. When placing tiles in positions 6 to 10, if all the tiles in a room would be the same color, place the last tile in the next available space (check the printed numbers to see which space is next). The tiles that are placed in the Well must be placed with the dice side face down.

5. Put the Round marker in the first space of its track.

6. To one side of the board, create a common reserve of coins, Daimyo Seals, and the four +40/+80 Clan Point tiles.

BRIDGES

7. Put the Bridges in their river spaces (or you can play without the die-cut Bridges if you prefer). Take 3/4/5 dice of each color depending on whether there are 2/3/4 players in the game. Put the extra dice back in the box.

Roll the dice of each color and put them on their respective Bridges in ascending order from left to right, so that the lowest value is on the left of the Bridge near the lantern and the highest value is on the right. The others are placed in order across the center of the Bridge.

GARDENS

8. Shuffle each of the 2 Garden card decks separately. Randomly draw 1 Plant Garden card and 1 Stone Garden card and place them below each Bridge. Then put the remaining Garden cards back in the box.

TRAINING YARDS

9. Place 4 randomly selected Yard tiles in the corresponding spaces on the board with the indicated side up. Put the rest of the Yard tiles back in the box.

PLAYER SETUP:

10. Take 1 personal Domain board; 15 members of your Clan, which you must place in their appropriate spaces: 5 Courtiers, 5 Gardeners, and 5 Warriors; and 3 Resource cubes, which you place in the 0 space for each Resource. Place your Fan token next to the Clan Points track.

11. Put each player’s Influence marker on top of the Heron next to the Passage of Time track, stacking them in random order. Then, place the Heron tokens on the Turn Order track in the same order as the Influence markers, so that the color at the bottom of the stack is the last to play and the color at the top is the first to play.

12. Draw and place face up as many Starting Resource cards (orange deck) as the number of players +1. Place a random Starting Action card (yellow deck) below each of the Starting Resource cards to form a pair.

13. Now, in the opposite order as the order of turns, each player will choose 1 pair of Starting cards: The Action card goes on the card space of the Player’s Domain board. Next, they gain the Resource shown on their Starting Resource card, then place it below their Domain board in the Lantern Area as shown in the picture. Your Resource card may grant you a Decree card. If it does, take the Decree card indicated and place it directly in your Lantern Area, with your Starting Resource card.

PLAYING THE GAME

The white of the plaster on the walls and the white of the feathers on the herons that live in the area are in perfect harmony at Himeji Castle.

A game of The White Castle is divided into 3 rounds of play, during which each player takes 3 turns.

The player who is at the top of the Turn Order track is the first to take their turn. Once that player has concluded their turn, it is the next player shown on the track. Once all the players have played 3 turns (that is, once they have played 3 dice each and there are a total of 3 dice left on the Bridges), then that round comes to a close (see End of the Round) and the next round begins. At the end of the third round, it passes on to the End of the Game.

CLANS POINTS AND CONDITIONS FOR VICTORY:

Once the game is over, the winner will be the one who has advanced their Fan token farthest on the Clan Points track. When red-colored fans are collected, move the Fan token up the corresponding number of spaces. The golden fans are only counted at the end of the game.

If, at any time, 40 Clan Points are exceeded, that player takes a +40 tile and places it next to their Domain board. If 40 points are passed again, the tile is turned over to show +80.

A Player's Turn

During your turn, you will choose 1 die from one of the Bridges and place it in one of the areas marked with a die symbol, and then apply the effect of that space.

USING THE DICE

From atop the bridges of the palace, one can contemplate the koi fish swimming below. Many take this moment of calm as they pass over these bridges to decide which is the right path for them to take.

PROCEDURE FOR USING THE DICE:

1. Choose a die from either of the 2 ends of whichever Bridge you prefer. The dice between the ends along the Bridge are not available. If there are still dice on the central part of the bridge after the die is taken, the die closest to the newly vacant spot is moved onto it without changing its value so it is available for the next player.

2. Put the die in one of the spaces on the main board or your Domain board that shows a die icon. When placed, it will always cover another value: either the one printed on the board or that of another die that is already in that space.

   • If the value of the newly placed die is greater, gain the difference in coins from the common reserve.
   • If the value of the newly placed die is less, pay the difference in coins to the common reserve.
   • If the value of the newly placed die is the same as that below it, no coins are gained or paid.

3. If you choose the die on the left side of the Bridge, you gain the Lantern Reward from your own personal domain.

4. The action or actions for the space you placed the die in are now carried out in whatever order you choose.

STACKING DICE:

Only a single die can be stacked atop each die, and only on the spaces of the main board. Ina 1- or 2-player game, dice cannot be stacked on top of other dice in any part of the game.

GAINING AND PAYING COINS AND DAIMYO SEALS:

When a black number appears together with an icon, you gain a quantity of coins, Daimyo Seals, Clan Points, Resources, etc. equal to that number.

A red-colored number together with the coin icon or Daimyo Seal icon indicates that you must pay the indicated amount in order to gain or perform what is indicated by the arrow.

Any money changing hands is always indicated in the game with coins of a value of 1. The players can make change with the common reserve using the larger 5-value coins at any time.

Your Domain board has a track for each of the 3 Resources, showing values from 0 to 7. If you gain a Resource, move the cube up on the corresponding track. When you spend those Resources, move the cube down. You can never have more than 7 of any Resource (any extra are lost), and you can never spend Resources below 0.

THE CASTLE

The first floor of the castle is known as the “thousand-mat room” because of the enormous quantity of tatamis that are placed on the floor for the comfort of visitors.

Dice can be placed in the Castle within any of the 5 rooms: 3 spaces are available on the Stewards’ floor and 2 spaces are available on the Diplomats’ floor.

The action or actions for these locations are determined by the color of the die that is placed there: You can carry out the actions shown on the card next to the Die tile(s) matching the die that was just placed.

On the Stewards’ floor, up to 2 actions can be performed in any order on the same card if the die color used appears in that room twice. If there are no actions available for one of the die colors, dice of that color cannot be placed in that room.

OUTSIDE THE WALLS

The clans who come to Himeji Castle are usually made to wait at the bottom of the hill until they are granted entrance into the domains of the Daimyo.

These 2 spaces are not restricted by color, so any color of die can be placed in them.

When you place a die Outside the Walls, you are able to perform 1 of the 2 actions indicated by the space it is placed in. The game’s 3 principal actions are available here: Gardener, Courtier, and Warrior.

THE WELL

The Well of Okiku is one of the most enigmatic locations of Himeji Castle, and it hides unexpected surprises within it.

The value of this space is always 1, regardless of other dice that were placed here earlier. There is no limit to the number of dice that can be placed in this space. If a die showing a value greater than 1 is placed here, in addition to the Resources granted by this location, you will also receive the corresponding coins.

When a die is placed, 1 Daimyo Seal is gained along with the benefits indicated on the tiles there.

THE PERSONAL DOMAINS

Each clan has a council of wise men who decide what the next step is to take in order to ensure the maximum influence in the Heron’s court.

Each die color is assigned to a space on your Domain board and corresponds to a line of Clan members as well as certain actions and their associated rewards. If a coral die is taken, it can only be placed in the Courtier’s line, a black die with the Gardeners, and a white die with the Warriors. When these dice are placed, the following steps must be followed in the order they appear:

1. Gain visible rewards: You gain the rewards (Resources, Daimyo Seals, coins, and/or Lantern Rewards) indicated by the icons visible in the line where the die was placed; then
2. Gain the Action card reward: You can perform the action shown on the card that corresponds to the line where the die was placed.

Sending Clan Members to the Court of Himeji

During the game, you will send members of your Clan to work in the gardens, to train in the defense of the castle, or to climb the social ladder of the nobility. At the end of the game, these Clan members will grant Clan Points in different ways (see End of the Game).

WARRIOR

This action allows you to take the Warrior piece farthest to the left in your personal domain and assign it to any Training Yard. Each Training Yard can house any number of Warriors from all the Clans. Placing a Warrior has a cost in Iron that depends on which Training Yard you place them in. When a Warrior is placed in a space, you can carry out the action or actions indicated on that space’s Yard tile(s) in any order you choose.

GARDENER

This action allows you to take the Gardener piece farthest to the left in your personal domain and assign it to a Garden card that does not already have a Gardener from your Clan. Placing Gardeners has a cost in Food that depends on the Garden card. When your Gardener is placed on a card, you carry out the indicated action.

COURTIER

Courtiers allow you to carry out up to 2 of these different actions: either just one of them, or both once each, even using different Courtier pieces:

Request an audience: Take the Courtier piece that is farthest to the left on your Domain board and place it in the Gates of the Castle space by paying 2 coins. The Gates of the Castle can hold any number of Courtiers from all the Clans.

AND/OR

Social Climbing: Take 1 of your Courtiers that is in the Castle and pay 2 or 5 Mother-of-Pearl to move up 1 or 2 levels in the Castle. The Courtiers at the Gate can access any of the first-floor rooms. The Courtiers that are on the first floor can move to any room on the second floor. Courtiers can get to the Daimyo’s room from any room on the second floor. This movement cannot be divvied up among different Courtiers and must be done all at one time.

If the Courtier ends their movement on the first or second floor of the Castle, you must carry out the following steps in the order they appear:

• Take the Action card you have in your personal Domain, turn it over, and place it face down on top of the last card in your Lantern Area, slightly off center to the right so that the icons of all cards can be seen.
• Place the card from the room that your Courtier just reached in the now-empty space of your Domain board and carry out one of the light-background actions on that card.
• Replace the card on the main board from its deck.

! Important: If the card cannot be replaced, you still carry out the light-background action but you do not take the card and the rest of the steps are ignored.

If the Courtier’s move ends on the third floor of the Castle, in the Daimyo’s room, you must carry out these steps in the following order:

• Gain the Lantern Reward.
• Place the Courtier in any available position on the Daimyo’s favor card if there are any available, and gain the indicated benefit. If there are no available spaces left, simply leave the Courtier in that room and do nothing more.

Daimyo Seals

The Regent having a good opinion of you is essential for achieving your goals at court.

Daimyo Seals represent vouchers from the clan of the Regent, which you can accumulate during the game. Up to 5 of them can be stored in your personal domain. They can be used to move into the next season of the Passage of Time track as well as to perform certain actions on the cards of the first floor. Additionally, at any moment during the game, you can exchange 2 Daimyo Seals for 1 Resource of your choice (Food, Iron, or Mother-of-Pearl) or exchange 1 Daimyo Seal for 1 coin. You may do this as many times as you wish.

Lantern Rewards

The entire castle is illuminated with light from the lanterns, their glow guides the steps of those who visit.

Every time you activate a Lantern icon, you receive the benefits of all the icons that are visible in the Lantern Area of your personal Domain, in the order you choose. If you wish to get more cards to add to your Lantern Area, you can do so through social climbing in the Castle on the 1st and 2nd floors.

The Passage of Time Track

Herons are the symbol of Himeji castle, and their behavior over the course of the year marks the arrival of the most important events at court.

This track symbolizes the Influence that each Clan has at court, and at the end of each round of the game is used to determine the order of the players’ turns in the following round.

When your Clan gains Influence, move your Influence marker forward on the track. If you land on a space occupied by another player’s token, place your token on top of the stack.

There are 3 Checkpoints along the Passage of Time track that divide the year into the 4 seasons. In order to move past each Checkpoint, you must pay the cost of 1, 2, or 3 Daimyo Seals as shown. If you do not want to or are unable to pay the cost, you cannot move your Influence marker into the next season.

Also, you will get points at the end of the game depending on the position you have obtained on this track.

END OF THE ROUND

When there are only 3 dice in total left on all of the Bridges, the end of the round is activated.

1. New order of turns: Whoever ‘s Influence marker is the farthest along the Passage of Time track will have the first turn in the next round. If there are ties, the player whose token is on top goes first. Arrange the Heron tokens accordingly.

When you finish the third round of the game, after updating the turn order, go directly to the End of the Game section without applying the following steps.

2. Gardens: At the end of each round, there will always be some dice on some of the Bridges. When the round is over, Gardeners are activated if the Bridge above them has at least 1 die on it. The actions on the Garden cards beside the Bridges that still have dice on them are now applied in turn order: The players use each of the actions where they have Gardeners just once each, but in whatever order they prefer.
3. Prepare the following round: At the end of the first and the second round,
   • Take all the dice of each color, roll them, and then place them on the Bridges again in ascending order from left to right as you did during the game setup.
   • Move the Round marker forward 1 space.

END OF THE GAME

When the year comes to a close, the clans come together in the winter court and bow in respect to the clan that is the best among them.

At the end of the third round, after establishing the new order of turns, the final points are counted up. In addition to the points collected during the game, players also get Clan Points by carrying out these steps:

1. Score Remaining Resources:

• For every 5 coins and/or Daimyo Seals you have, 1 Clan Point is granted (rounded down).
• For each Resource that you have between 3 and 6 units remaining, 1 Clan Point is granted. If you have 7 units of a Resource left, you get 2 Clan Points.

Score the Passage of Time:

If your Influence marker has reached the second season, you get 3 Clan Points. If it ends up in the third season, then you get 6 Clan Points. Once you reach the fourth season, you are granted the score indicated on the space that your token occupies (which is between 10 and 15 Clan Points).

3. Score Clan Members:

• In the Castle: Each Courtier that is in the Castle grants Clan Points depending on the location they are in:
  • 1 Clan Point at the Gate.
  • 3 Clan Points if they are on the first floor (Stewards).
  • 6 Clan Points if they are on the second floor (Diplomats).
  • 10 Clan Points if they are on the third floor (Daimyo).
• B. In the Training Yards: You gain Clan Points for the Yard by multiplying the total value of your Warriors in this location by the number of Courtiers that you have inside the Castle (not at the Gate): Each Warrior has the value indicated in the Yard they occupy based on these icons.
• In the Gardens: Each Gardener grants their Clan as many Clan Points as is shown on the card they are on.

Whoever obtains the most Clan Points wins the game! If there is a tie, whoever is higher in the order of turns wins.

THE TOKUGAWA CLAN’S VISIT - SOLITAIRE MODE

Even in the least crowded years, achieving an audience with the Daimyo is not a simple task. There is always some up-and-coming group eager to take our place, and the critical gaze of the Shogun’s ambassadors are able to make even the coolest samurai lose patience.

Changes in the Game Setup

Set up a 2-player game normally except that when it is time to show the initial Action cards and initial Resources, you do not choose anything. Shuffle each deck separately and randomly draw 1 card from each of them. These will be your initial cards.

Choose a color for your rival, take all of their pieces, and place their Heron, Influence, and Fan tokens in the corresponding spaces according to the level of difficulty you wish to challenge yourself with:

	EASY	MEDIUM	HARD
Clan Points	0 CP	3 CP	8 CP
Heron counter	2nd position	1st position	1st position
Passage of Time track	0	1	3

Your rival does not need a Domain board; just set aside a space on the table to accumulate their coins and Clan member pieces, and a little spot for playing the cards from their deck. To prepare the Solitaire deck, shuffle the deck and leave it on the table with the Bridge side up.

Before diving into the details of solitaire mode, it is important to remember the following:

• Your rival never pays for anything.
• Your rival never activates any action to place any dice or any member of their Clan.
• During the game, your rival does not obtain any Resources; They only receive coins.
• Your rival can place dice of a color that does not match the rooms.

Gameplay

When it is your rival’s turn, take their deck of cards and turn over the first one. Look at the top card on the deck and see which die it refers to:

• If there is a die on the Bridge of the indicated color in the position shown (left, center, or right), follow the steps described below. If not...
• If there is no die of the indicated color on the Bridge in that position, draw a new card and compare it to the top card of the deck (and redo the step above). Draw and reveal cards from the Solitaire deck one by one and make a row from left to right until the card on the deck shows a die that can be taken from the corresponding Bridge.

Once a die has been chosen, follow the steps below:

1. Move the die to the position shown on the card

After it is placed, if your rival can gain coins due to the difference in the die’s value and the value printed below it, then issue those coins to them; in the opposite case, your rival does not pay anything. Remember that since there are only 2 players, no dice can be stacked anywhere. If the position for that die is already occupied, move it to the Well instead and issue the coins due, but ignore the rewards on the tiles.

2. Perform the actions on the revealed card(s)

From top to bottom and left to right, carry out all the actions shown on the last 2 cards drawn and revealed (or only the one card if the first one drawn could be used). After that, put the drawn cards on the bottom of the Solitaire deck. If it is not possible to carry out one or more of the indicated actions, your rival gains a number Clan Points equal to the current round number for each action they cannot take.

At the End of each Round

At the end of each round, right after the new turn order step, your rival will turn in their coins to the common reserve and receive Clan Points in exchange:

• If they are first in turn order, for every 3 coins turned in, your rival gains a number of Clan Points equal to the number of the round just completed.
• If your rival is second in turn order, for every 5 coins turned in, they gain a number of Clan Points equal to the round number.
• In either case, if there are coins beyond those exchanged, your rival keeps them for the round about to begin.

In the Gardens step (in rounds 1 and 2), for every Gardener that they were able to activate, your rival gets a number of Clan Points equal to the number of the round just completed.

Then, shuffle the Solitaire deck.

Final Scoring

Your rival does not score any remaining Resources or coins (since they were already scored each round), but scores just like a normal player would for all the other categories.

The Solitaire Icons

Find the Garden card of the indicated type that gives the fewest points among those that your rival hasn’t already placed a Gardener on (as in the normal game) and place one of their Gardeners there. If there are more than one with the same lowest point value, you choose which one to use. If the card allows them to place in both a Plant Garden and a Stone Garden, choose the Gardens with the lowest value.

---

Place your rival’s Warrior in the Training Yard that matches the cost indicated by the action.

---

Place your rival’s Courtier at the Gate.

---

Move your rival’s Courtier that is lowest in the Castle hierarchy 1 or 2 levels up, starting from the Gate. If there are several Courtiers in the same low situation, move any one of them. If by moving the Courtier reaches level 1 or 2, choose any room on that floor you want and remove its card, which is replaced immediately. If the Courtier reaches level 3, place the Courtier in the first empty Daimyo’s favor from the left, as long as any are available.

---

Your rival gains the indicated number of Clan Points.

---

Move your rival’s Influence marker the number of spaces shown on the Passage of Time track.

---

Your rival gains the indicated number of coins.