Trickerion: Dahlgaard's Academy Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Game Setup
  • General Setup
  • Player Setup
• Changes In Gameplay
• New Location: The Academy
• New Phase: The Classroom Phase
• End Turn Phase
• Game End
• Appendix
  • Optional Quick Start Rules
  • Magician Abilities
• Key To The Symbols Used

Components

• 1x Academy Board
• 16x Classroom tiles
• 16x Practice Room tiles
• 4x Closed Room tiles
• 20x Protégé's Secret tiles
• 2x Professor Bernard Teach Symbol markers
• 2x Professor Bernard Academy markers
• 2x Open Room tokens
• 7x Prophecies
• 12x Magician cards
• 12x Magician Poster cards
• 14x Additional Coin tokens
• 10x Blocking tiles
• 8x Additional Component tokens
• 4x Academy Workbook (player aid booklet)
• 1x Academy Special Assignment sticker
• 22x Special Assignment cards: 14x Academy, 2x Downtown, 2x Market Row, 2x Workshop, 2x Theater

For each player (4x):

• 1x Protégé Board Extension
• 1x Academy Permanent Assignment card
• Wooden Banners (12x in total)
• Additional Trick markers (1x in each suit)
• Academy markers (1x in each suit)
• Protégé Wooden Character disks (2x)

Game Setup

General Setup

The setup described here assumes that you are playing with the Dark Alley, which is required to play Dahlgaard's Academy. The example shows a 4-player setup; the rules also describe the setup for lower player counts.

1. Place the double-sided Academy board to the left of the Main Game Board. The side with 10 Room slots is for 4-player games, while the side with 8 Room slots is for 2- or 3-player games. Initially dilapidated, the Academy is a new, customizable Location hosting Practice Rooms and Classrooms, and hiding Secrets that you can learn to improve your new Specialist, the Protégé.
2. Place Closed Room tiles over Classroom and Practice Room slots. Some rooms of the derelict Academy are initially unsafe and will only open up later in the game. a. In a 2-player game, place the tiles on slots marked with A and B, leaving 4 slots open. b. In a 3-player game, place the tiles on slots marked with A, leaving 6 slots open. c. In a 4-player game, place the tiles on slots marked with A and B, leaving 6 slots open.
3. Place Open Room tokens on the Turn Counter track based on the number of players. Open Room tokens tell you when to remove Closed Room tiles from the Academy. a. In a 2- or 4-player game, place two tokens: one on the IV and one on the VI slot. b. In a 3-player game, place one token on the V slot.
4. Separate the Practice Room and Classroom tiles by type and Fame Threshold (1, 16 and 36) and create six face-down stacks. Place them near the Academy board. You will be able to build these rooms in the Academy. Practice Rooms will improve your Tricks in various ways, while Classrooms will turn them into passive but consistent sources of Fame, Coins or Shards.
5. Shuffle the Secret tiles to form a face-down stack, and place it above the Academy board. Then, draw the top two tiles of the stack and place them on the indicated slots on the Academy board. Secrets allow you to customize your new Specialist, the Protégé, with various abilities.
6. Before placing the four Special Assignment decks (Downtown, Market Row, Workshop, Theater) into the Dark Alley as usual, shuffle the 2 new Special Assignment cards for each location into their respective decks. The expansion's two new sets of Assignment cards introduce interactions with the Academy and the Advertise mechanism.
7. Shuffle the 14 Academy Special Assignment cards and place the deck face up in the empty area at the Dark Alley between the Prophecies and the 4 original Special Assignment decks. You may use the sticker provided to mark this space for the Academy deck. The Academy Special Assignment cards provide various interactions with the Academy Actions and the Protégé.
8. Before choosing the Pending Prophecies, remove 7 Prophecies at random, then add the 7 new Prophecies to the Prophecy pool. The new Prophecies provide even more interaction with the Academy.

Player Setup

The Academy expansion introduces 4 new Magicians to choose from at the beginning of player setup — one for each Trick category. The original Magicians have new artwork and a new Poster card, and two of them (the Priestess of Mysticism and the Master of Chains) also received a new ability. All new Magician abilities are detailed in the Appendix.

Note: If a player chooses Professor Bernard, also give them the two special Symbol and Academy markers.

In addition to their usual starting setup, each player receives the following:

1. The Protégé board and both Protégé Character disks. Place the disk with 1 Action Point on the Character slot on the Protégé board. Note: This means that each player will start with one Protégé and one of the other three Specialists of their choice. Your aspiring Protégé is a new type of Specialist, an insider at the Academy. They will be able to learn Secrets over the course of the game, unlocking custom abilities and additional Action Points.
2. The Academy Permanent Assignment card in their starting hand.
3. 12 wooden Banners. Banners commemorate each Magician's contribution to the renovation of the Academy. At the end of the game, you can score a significant amount of extra Fame if you placed more Banners than your rivals.
4. 2 additional starting Coins. In a 4-player game, starting with the first player in the Initiative Order, this means 12/14/16/18 starting Coins. Renovation is a costly endeavor, but thanks to Magoria's Golden Age, our Magicians are significantly wealthier.
5. 4 additional Trick markers, 1 in each suit. The Academy's Practice Rooms provide a way to increase the Trick marker capacity of your Tricks.
6. 4 Academy markers, 1 in each suit. Academy markers help identify your Tricks in the Academy's Classrooms and Practice Rooms.

Changes In Gameplay

With the introduction of the Academy, some of the core game's rules have been slightly modified.

• Effects that would affect all of Downtown, Market Row and Dark Alley now also affect the Academy.
• The maximum number of Trick markers in play per Trick is increased from 4 to 5.

New Location: The Academy

This expansion adds a new Location to the game: the Academy. Just like all other Locations, Characters can be assigned and placed here using Academy Assignment cards (Permanent or Special). Similarly to the Downtown, Market Row and Dark Alley, it has four Character slots with +2, +1, +1 and +0 Action Point modifiers, respectively.

2-3 player rules: One of the +1 slots is not used in 3-player games, and neither of the +1 slots are used in 2-player games. Cover those slots with the Blocking tiles provided. If you are playing the Duel of Magicians variant from the Dahlgaard's Gifts expansion, the Academy's Character slot setup each turn is the same as the Dark Alley's.

The following Actions can be taken in the Academy:

Renovate (2 AP): With the 'Renovate' Action, you can turn the worn-down rooms of the Academy into marvelous Practice Rooms and Classrooms, earning Fame in the process. The earlier you renovate, the more you contribute to the overall look of the Academy, which is represented by your Banners.

The 'Renovate' Action consists of the following steps:

1. Select an empty room space with no Closed Room tile on it.
2. Choose one of the three Coin-Fame ratios printed on the selected room space. Note that this choice is limited by the usual Fame Thresholds — you may only choose a ratio if you meet its minimum Fame requirement (1, 16 or 36), or pay the difference between your current Fame and the threshold with Coins.
3. Pay Coins and gain Fame according to the chosen ratio. You may only choose a ratio that you are able to pay the full cost for.
4. Look through the Classroom or Practice Room stack with the same Fame Threshold as the chosen Coin-Fame ratio. Choose one and place it on the room space, face up. The room spaces on the left are only for Classrooms, while the room spaces on the right are only for Practice Rooms.
5. Finally, place Banners on the slots adjacent to the newly renovated room. The number of Banners placed depends on the current turn. In the unlikely case that you have fewer Banners left than you need to place, place as many as you can.
   • Turn I-II: place 4 Banners.
   • Turn III-IV: place 3 Banners.
   • Turn V-VI: place 2 Banners.
   • Turn VII: place 1 Banner.

IMPORTANT: If a player places their last available Banner, each other player returns one of their unused Banners to the box (thus decreasing the maximum they can place). If another player has no available Banners left at this time, they return nothing.

IMPORTANT: You may only take the 'Renovate' Action if you have at least 1 available Banner remaining.

PRACTICE (1-3 AP): Practice Rooms can be used to improve your existing Tricks in many different ways. A new twist to an old trick is always helpful in your pursuit of fame!

When you take the 'Practice' Action, select one of your Tricks and place the Academy marker corresponding to its suit on an empty slot on a Practice Room tile. That Trick is now considered to be "in a Practice Room".

The following rules apply:

• The Action Point cost of the 'Practice' Action depends on the level of the Trick you selected. Level 1/2/3 Tricks cost 1/2/3 Action Points to Practice, respectively. (Using the 'Practice' Action on a Level 1 Trick is 1 Action Point.)
• As a 'Practice' Action, it is possible to move an Academy marker from a Practice Room slot to another Practice Room slot.
• It is not possible to move an Academy marker from a Classroom slot to a Practice Room slot.
• The Trick being placed into the Practice Room does not have to meet its Component requirements. (In fact, some of the Practice Room effects lowers said requirements.)
• You may return one of your own Academy markers from a Practice Room slot at any time to free it up for a different Trick.

As long as a Trick's Academy marker is on a Practice Room slot, its bonus applies to the Trick. For details on the various bonus effects granted by the Practice Rooms, refer to the Player Aid booklet.

TEACH (1-3 AP): Magoria's Golden Age attracts aspiring young minds from far and wide, eager to learn from the greatest practitioners of illusion. In the Classrooms, you can reveal the secret of your Tricks to a class of novice Magicians — this prevents you from performing that Trick for the remainder of the game, but will grant you a steady source of Fame, Coins or Shards.

When you take the 'Teach' Action, select one of your Tricks and place the Academy marker corresponding to its suit on an empty slot on a Classroom tile. That Trick is now considered to be "in a Classroom".

The following rules apply:

• The Action Point cost of the 'Teach' Action depends on the level of the Trick you selected. Level 1/2/3 Tricks cost 1/2/3 Action Points to Teach, respectively.
• As a 'Teach' Action, it is possible to move an Academy marker from a Practice Room slot to a Classroom slot.
• As a 'Teach' Action, it is possible to move an Academy marker from a Classroom slot to another Classroom slot.
• To place a Trick on a Classroom slot, you either have to meet its Component requirements (A), or have at least 1 Trick marker on it (B).
• You may not return one of your own Academy markers from a Classroom slot to free it up for a different Trick.
• If the Trick and the Classroom it is placed on have the same Fame Threshold, the player who placed the Trick gains a one-time bonus printed on the Classroom tile, between the two slots.

Once a Trick's Academy marker is on a Classroom tile, the following special rules apply to it:

• It may no longer be Prepared in the Workshop. (But if it has Trick markers on it at the time it is placed on a Classroom tile, those markers stay on the Trick. It can even be Performed in the Theater, but only this turn — see 'Classroom' phase.)
• If the Trick is discarded from the Workshop and returned to the Dahlgaard Residence, its Academy marker is also removed from the Classroom tile — this is the only way such a marker is ever removed from the Classrooms.

After the 'Performance' phase, the newly added 'Classroom' phase occurs, which is when players will benefit from their Tricks in the Classrooms. This phase be detailed later.

LEARN SECRET (2 AP): The Academy hides much more than worn-down rooms waiting to be renovated. Your smart and talented Protégé may uncover the secrets of the Great Dahlgaard himself, potentially becoming the most valuable member of your team.

The 'Learn Secret' Action allows you to improve your new Specialist introduced in this expansion: the Protégé.

When you take the 'Learn Secret' Action, choose a Secret from one of the two Secret slots in the Academy, and either place it on the bottommost empty Secret slot on your Protégé board extension, or replace a Secret already on your Protégé board extension with the chosen new Secret. Return the Secret replaced this way to the box.

The Protégé's board extension has three slots for Secrets.

Learning Secrets has the following effects on your Protégé:

• Each Secret grants the Protégé a new ability. The abilities granted by the Secrets are detailed in the Player Aid booklets.
• Your Protégé starts with 1 Action Point. The second and third Secret you learn increases the Protégé's base Action Points to 2 and 3, respectively.
• Your Protégé starts with a wage of 0 Coins. The first and second Secret you learn increases your Protégé's wage by 1 Coin each.

NOTE: When your Protégé gains their second Action Point, flip your starting Protégé Character disk. When they gain their third, replace your Protégé disk with the one with 3 Action Points printed on it.

NOTE: You do not have to send the Protégé to learn a new Secret. In fact, it is usually best to send another Character before the Protégé is sent elsewhere, to benefit from the potential extra Action Point they may gain.

NOTE: Each Secret's function is detailed in the Academy Player Aid booklets.

NOTE: The Protégé's wage is increased even if the corresponding Secret is learned after the Protégé has already performed their assignment this turn.

IMPORTANT: This Action can only be taken once per Character placement, even if you would otherwise have enough Action Points to take it multiple times.

DISCOVER NEW SECRETS (1 AP): When you take this Action, draw a face-down Secret from the top of the stack, and place it on an empty Secret slot in the Academy.

NOTE: This 'Learn Secret' Action is only available if at least one 'Learn Secret' Action has been taken this turn.

New Phase: The Classroom Phase

Dahlgaard's Academy introduces a new game phase after the 'Performance' phase and before the 'End Turn' phase. This is when players are able to benefit from their Tricks in the Classrooms.

The 'Classroom' phase consists of two steps:

• If a Trick in a Classroom still has Trick markers in the Theater and/or the Workshop, remove those Trick markers and place them into their owner's personal supply.
• In player order, each player receives the Yield(s) for their Trick(s) in the Classrooms. Most Classroom slots modify the Yield of the Tricks on them — these modifiers are detailed in the Player Aid booklets.

NOTE: The Thursday/Sunday Yield modifiers in the Theater have no effect on the Classroom Yields.

NOTE: Since the Trick markers are only removed from the game during the 'Classroom' phase, you may still Perform Tricks that are in Classrooms during the turn they were placed there.

End Turn Phase

The Dahlgaard's Academy expansion slightly changes the resolution of the 'End Turn' phase.

• During the 'Move Turn Counter' subphase, if the turn counter is moved to a slot with an Open Room token on it, remove 2 Closed Room tiles from the Academy slots marked with the letter on the Open Room token ("A" or "B").
• The new 'Reveal Secrets' subphase has been added after "Discard Special Assignment Cards". During this subphase, return any Secrets still on the Academy's secret slots to the bottom of the Secret stack, then place two new ones from the top of the stack. These will be the Secrets available next turn.

Game End

Just like in the core rules, the game ends after Turn VII. The players score endgame Fame as described in the core rules, with two minor changes:

• The maximum Fame that can be scored for leftover Shards, Coins, Special Assignment cards, and for each Level 3 Trick is limited to 20 Fame each. In other words, a player can score a maximum of 20 Fame for each Level 3 Trick, and a maximum of 20 Fame each for leftover Shards, Coins and Special Assignment cards, respectively.

  NOTE: This rule has been retroactively added to future printings of the Trickerion base game. As such, you might have already learned the game with this rule in play.

• When checking the endgame Trick Bonuses of Level 3 Tricks, players may score them if they either meet their Component requirements, or have at least 1 Trick marker on them.

After the usual endgame Fame has been scored, players may also earn bonus Fame for their contribution to the renovation of the Academy. This bonus depends on the number of players and is based on the number of Banners placed.

• In a 2-player game, the player with more Banners scores 8 Fame.
• In a 3-player game, the player with the most Banners scores 12 Fame, and the player with the second most Banners scores 6 Fame.
• In a 4-player game, the player with the most Banners scores 15 Fame, the player with the second most Banners scores 10 Fame, and the player with the third most Banners scores 5 Fame.

In case of a tie, all tied players score the lower amount. (For example, in a 4-player game with 3/3/2/1 Banners, players would score 10/10/5/0 Fame, respectively.) In case of a tie in a 2-player game, no Fame is scored.

NOTE: If a player did not place any Banners at all, they may not score any Fame during this step.

Appendix

Optional Quick Start Rules

With the Quick Start ruleset, you can shorten the overall game length by starting on Turn II, with some additional starting assets. This variant can also be used without the Academy and with or without the other expansions.

Changes in Setup

• After creating the Performance Deck, reveal its top card and place it face up on the rightmost empty Performance Card slot in the Theater. The Theater should now have a number of face-up Riverside Theater cards equal to the number of players.
• Place 1 randomly drawn Classroom tile with a Fame Threshold of 1 on an empty room space in the Academy. Do not place any Banners. Skip this step if playing without the Academy.
• In reverse Initiative Order, each player draws 1 Special Assignment card from a deck of their choice.
• Each player starts with 3 additional Fame (8 Fame if playing without Academy, 6 Fame if playing with Academy).
• Each player may choose additional starting Components for a Coin value of 3. These Components are gained after checking whether the starting Trick starts the game Prepared or not.

Each player starts with 1 additional Shard. If you choose the Assistant as your starting Specialist, you receive 2 additional starting Coins besides the additional Apprentice.

Magician Abilities

The expansion introduces four new Magicians with new abilities, one for each Trick school. On top of that, due to the rule and balance changes introduced in Dahlgaard's Academy, two of the original Magicians (the Priestess of Mysticism and the Master of Chains) have received new abilities to remain attractive choices. We recommend using these abilities instead of the original ones.

New Magicians

• Geert van Augustin (Magoria's Benefactor): When you use the 'Renovate' Action, you may choose a Coin-Fame ratio with a Fame Threshold one level higher than your current Fame. Whenever you spend 6 or more Coins on a 'Renovate' Action, you may immediately Advertise without spending any Coins, if you haven't already. You receive the usual 2 Fame.

New Abilities of the Original Magicians

• Priestess of Mysticism (Déjà Vu): During the 'Discard Special Assignment Cards' subphase, you may pay 1 Shard. If you do, you may return one of your placed Special Assignment cards to your hand instead of discarding it.

• Anjali (Whisperer of Secrets): During the 'Assignment' phase, you may place 1 Coin onto as many Secrets learned by your Protégé, up to all of them, as you wish. Before placing an Apprentice during the 'Place Characters' phase, you may spend the Coin from one Secret. If you do, the ability granted by that Secret also applies to your Apprentice during its placement. During the 'Return Characters' subphase, return all Coins that are still on the Secrets to the general supply.

• Master of Chains (The Secret Combination): When you Perform, each Trick Link with your Trick marker in it awards a Performer Bonus of 2 Fame instead of 1.

• Professor Bernard (Mentor of Magicians): Whenever you receive the Yield of one of your Tricks in the Classroom (during a 'Classroom' phase), you may remove that Trick from your Workshop and set it aside. Replace its Symbol marker and its Academy marker in the Classroom with your own special markers. Until the end of the game, you will benefit from this Trick in the 'Classroom' phase, but it does not occupy a slot in your Workshop. You may do this with up to 2 of your Tricks.

  NOTE: Tricks set aside this way are ignored during the endgame scoring.

• Lumenia the Radiant (Luminous Bonds): You receive 1 additional Fame or Coin (but not Shard) for each Link you create when you set up Tricks in the Theater.

Key To The Symbols Used

• Secret
• Academy marker
• Protégé Character disk
• Banner
• Classroom tile
• Classroom phase
• Practice Room tile
• Remove Closed Room tile