Tyrants of the Underdark: Expansion Decks – Aberrations & Undead

Tyrants of the Underdark: Expansion Decks – Aberrations & Undead Rulebook

Table of Contents

Reading the Cards

Each face shows, from top to bottom: the card name; the aspect symbol (Ambition, Conquest, Guile or Malice) at top left; a top-right number; the minion type at top right; the card text; a black box at bottom right; a blue circle at bottom right; a deck mark and card number at bottom left; and rarity dots at bottom centre.

Deck mark. An octopus mark identifies the Aberrations deck. A bone mark identifies the Undead deck.
Card number. The "x/40" printed on each face is a copy number within its deck. Numbers repeat between the two decks, for example 10/40 is Death Tyrant in Aberrations and Death Knight in Undead.
Rarity dots. The dots are printed on each face. Across each deck they total 40 (1 to 4 dots per design). The base rulebook reads the dot count as the number of copies of that card in its half-deck.
Black box and blue circle. Each face has a number in a black box and a number in a blue circle at bottom right. The face does not label them. This transcription keeps them as printed, under those descriptions.
Top-right number. The face shows a number at top right with no label. It is kept as printed.
Coin icons. The card text uses two coin-shaped symbols. The faces do not name them, so this transcription writes them as [grey coin] (a grey starburst-style coin) and [dark coin] (a dark coin with a blade-like mark). It does not assign them to the base game's Power or Influence.
Arrow. ► is printed on the faces between a cost or part of an ability and its effect. It is kept as printed.
Flavour text. Quoted and italic lines are the printed flavour text. They have no effect on play, and are kept as printed.

Aberrations Deck

Spectator

Aspect: Malice · Type: Aberration · Card number: 3/40 · Rarity dots: 3 Black box: 2 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 4

[dark coin] [dark coin] [grey coin]

"If you were ripped from your home plane and forced to guard something for 101 years, you'd go a little mad too." – Volothamp Geddarm

Gauth

Aspect: Malice · Type: Aberration · Card number: 5/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 2 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 3

Choose one:

- [grey coin] [grey coin]
Draw a card. Choose one opponent with more than 3 cards to discard a card.

If you value something, don't let a gauth see it.

Mindwitness

Aspect: Malice · Type: Aberration · Card number: 6/40 · Rarity dots: 3 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 3

Assassinate a troop. If that troop belonged to another player and they have more than 3 cards, they must discard a card.

"A beholder enslaved by mind flayers. Can you imagine the horrors that could be unleashed?" – Elminster Aumar

Beholder

Aspect: Malice · Type: Aberration · Card number: 9/40 · Rarity dots: 1 Black box: 3 · Blue circle: 6 · Top-right: 5

Assassinate a troop. Gain [dark coin] for every 3 troops in your trophy hall.

"Negotiating with a beholder is a task so dangerous, it is second only to spying on a Matron Mother." – Jarlaxle Baenre

Death Tyrant

Aspect: Malice · Type: Aberration · Card number: 10/40 · Rarity dots: 1 Black box: 3 · Blue circle: 6 · Top-right: 7

Assassinate up to 3 troops at a single site. For each troop removed gain [grey coin].

Nothing is worse than a beholder having nightmares about its mortality.

Cranium Rats

Aspect: Conquest · Type: Beast · Card number: 11/40 · Rarity dots: 3 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 2

Deploy 2 troops. Choose one opponent with more than 3 cards to discard a card.

A seed of malevolent intellect lurking in each rat, waiting for them to gather together.

Grimlock

Aspect: Conquest · Type: Grimlock · Card number: 15/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 0 · Blue circle: 1 · Top-right: 1

Deploy a troop. If an opponent causes you to discard this, draw 2 cards.

Destined to be born, live their lives, and then die in service to higher beings.

Quaggoth

Aspect: Conquest · Type: Quaggoth · Card number: 17/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 2 · Blue circle: 4 · Top-right: 5

Assassinate one white troop for each site you control.

They maul their foes in a frenzy, becoming even more murderous in the face of death.

Umber Hulk

Aspect: Conquest · Type: Monstrosity · Card number: 18/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 2 · Blue circle: 4 · Top-right: 4

Deploy 3 troops. If an opponent causes you to discard this, they must discard a card.

Those lucky enough to survive an umber hulk attack often remember precious little of the incident, thanks to the umber hulk's mind-scrambling gaze.

Neogi

Aspect: Conquest · Type: Aberration · Card number: 20/40 · Rarity dots: 1 Black box: 4 · Blue circle: 8 · Top-right: 7

Deploy 4 troops. At end of turn, each opponent must discard a card.

Mind-controlling creatures from another plane that seek to enslave everything, even their own kind.

Cloaker

Aspect: Guile · Type: Aberration · Card number: 23/40 · Rarity dots: 3 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 2

Choose one:

Place a spy.
Return one of your spies ► Assassinate a troop at that spy's site.

"If you see a leather cape on the ground, stab it. Trust me." – Brawlwin Chainminer

Nothic

Aspect: Guile · Type: Aberration · Card number: 24/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 3

Choose one:

Place a spy.
Return one of your spies ► Draw a card. Each opponent with more than 3 cards must discard a card.

"You know something good. Something secret. I can see it, yes, yessss..."

Brainwashed Slave

Aspect: Guile · Type: Aberration · Card number: 27/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 2 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 4

Choose one:

Place a spy.
Return one of your spies ► + [dark coin] [dark coin] [grey coin] [grey coin]

It's mind belongs to something else. Something terrifying.

Chuul

Aspect: Guile · Type: Aberration · Card number: 29/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 4 · Top-right: 3

Place a spy. Each opponent who has a troop at that spy's site and more than 3 cards, must discard a card.

They follow the ingrained directives of their creators, as they have done since the dawn of time.

Aboleth

Aspect: Guile · Type: Aberration · Card number: 30/40 · Rarity dots: 1 Black box: 4 · Blue circle: 7 · Top-right: 7

Choose one:

Place 2 spies.
Draw a card for each spy you have on the board.

Ancient and unknowable, these creatures will only accept complete submission.

Ambassador

Aspect: Ambition · Type: Illithid · Card number: 34/40 · Rarity dots: 4 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 3

At end of turn, promote another card played this turn. If an opponent causes you to discard this, you may promote it instead.

It is important to forge new alliances, no matter how tenuous.

Intellect Devourer

Aspect: Ambition · Type: Aberration · Card number: 36/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 4

Choose one:

- [grey coin] [grey coin] [grey coin]
Return up to two troops or spies.

Why fight your enemies, when you can so easily change their mind?

Puppeteer

Aspect: Ambition · Type: Illithid · Card number: 37/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 2 · Blue circle: 6 · Top-right: 5

[grey coin] [grey coin] At end of turn, promote another card played this turn.

Sometimes you don't want to see who's pulling the strings.

Ulitharid

Aspect: Ambition · Type: Illithid · Card number: 39/40 · Rarity dots: 1 Black box: 3 · Blue circle: 6 · Top-right: 6

Play a card in the market that costs 4 or less as if it was in your hand, then devour that card.

A rare illithid whose power and ambition rivals an elder brain.

Elder Brain

Aspect: Ambition · Type: Aberration · Card number: 40/40 · Rarity dots: 1 Black box: 4 · Blue circle: 9 · Top-right: 7

Promote the top card of your deck. Play a card from your inner-circle as if it were in your hand, then return it to your inner-circle.

It eagerly feasts on the brains of its illithid supplicants who desire to achieve "oneness" with their master.

Undead Deck

Wight

Aspect: Malice · Type: Undead · Card number: 4/40 · Rarity dots: 4 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 3

Choose one:

- [dark coin] [dark coin]
Devour a card in your hand ► Supplant a troop.

In return for waging eternal war upon the living, these mortals are granted undeath.

Carrion Crawler

Aspect: Malice · Type: Monstrosity · Card number: 6/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 0 · Blue circle: 2 · Top-right: 2

[dark coin] [dark coin] [dark coin] Devour a card in the market. Instead of replacing it with the top card from the market deck, replace it with this card.

"I love the big grubbers: they eat the dead and they're easy to outrun!" – Lippo, derro sage

Flesh Golem

Aspect: Malice · Type: Construct · Card number: 7/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 3

[dark coin] [dark coin] Devour this card ► + Assassinate a troop.

An earth spirit bound by frail flesh and bone; no wonder its existence is fury.

Revenant

Aspect: Malice · Type: Undead · Card number: 9/40 · Rarity dots: 1 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 4 · Top-right: 4

Assassinate two troops. Then, if you have 8 or more troops in your trophy hall, promote this card.

They have one year to either taste sweet vengeance or crumble to dust.

Death Knight

Aspect: Malice · Type: Undead · Card number: 10/40 · Rarity dots: 1 Black box: 3 · Blue circle: 7 · Top-right: 6

Supplant a troop. Gain 1 VP for every 5 player troops in your trophy hall.

Either flee now, or join him. To choose to fight, is to choose to die.

Skeletal Horde

Aspect: Conquest · Type: Undead · Card number: 12/40 · Rarity dots: 3 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 2 · Top-right: 2

Deploy 2 troops. Devour this card ► Deploy 3 troops.

They heed the summons of spellcasters who call them from their stony tombs and ancient battlefields, or rise of their own accord in places saturated with death and loss.

Minotaur Skeleton

Aspect: Conquest · Type: Undead · Card number: 15/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 3

Choose one:

Deploy three troops.
Devour this card ► Assassinate up to three white troops at a single site.

"Any bones will do. The bigger the better." – Hommet Shaw

Ogre Zombie

Aspect: Conquest · Type: Undead · Card number: 17/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 2 · Blue circle: 4 · Top-right: 4

Supplant a white troop anywhere on the board.

"The enemy may be strong, but soon that strength will be ours to command." – Valindra Shadowmantle

Ravenous Zombies

Aspect: Conquest · Type: Undead · Card number: 19/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 2 · Top-right: 3

[dark coin] Assassinate a white troop.

Their will has been torn away and all that remains is their insatiable hunger.

Mummy Lord

Aspect: Conquest · Type: Undead · Card number: 20/40 · Rarity dots: 1 Black box: 3 · Blue circle: 6 · Top-right: 6

Choose 2 times:

Assassinate a white troop.
Take a white troop from any trophy hall and deploy it anywhere on the board.

His empire will rise again.

Wraith

Aspect: Guile · Type: Undead · Card number: 22/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 0 · Blue circle: 1 · Top-right: 2

Place a spy. Devour this card ► Assassinate a troop at that spy's site.

Only their hatred still binds them to this plane. Pray they never direct it upon you.

Ghost

Aspect: Guile · Type: Undead · Card number: 23/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 3

Choose one:

Place a spy.
Return one of your spies ► For the rest of your turn treat the top card of the devoured deck as if it was in the market.

Sometimes, killing your enemies isn't as final as it seems.

Conjurer

Aspect: Guile · Type: Human · Card number: 26/40 · Rarity dots: 3 Black box: 2 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 5

Choose one:

Place a spy.
Return one of your spies ► Recruit up to 2 cards that each costs 3 or less without paying its cost.

Plenty more where that came from.

Banshee

Aspect: Guile · Type: Undead · Card number: 29/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 2 · Blue circle: 4 · Top-right: 4

Place a spy. If another player's spy is at that site, gain [dark coin] [dark coin] [dark coin].

Where a banshee makes her home, no mortal soul is welcome.

Lich

Aspect: Guile · Type: Undead · Card number: 30/40 · Rarity dots: 1 Black box: 4 · Blue circle: 7 · Top-right: 7

Place a spy. If another player's troop is at that site, take up to 2 troops from their trophy hall and deploy them.

Every graveyard is his barracks, and every defeat a temporary setback.

Vampire Spawn

Aspect: Ambition · Type: Undead · Card number: 32/40 · Rarity dots: 3 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 3 · Top-right: 2

[grey coin] Return another player's troop or spy.

Known for their ravenous hunger for blood, no creature would willingly share the dark with a vampire's spawn.

Cultist of Myrkul

Aspect: Ambition · Type: Human · Card number: 35/40 · Rarity dots: 3 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 2 · Top-right: 2

Choose one:

- [grey coin] [grey coin]
Devour this card ► at end of turn, promote up to 2 other cards played this turn.

In life or death, we will all serve him.

Necromancer

Aspect: Ambition · Type: Human · Card number: 38/40 · Rarity dots: 2 Black box: 1 · Blue circle: 4 · Top-right: 5

Choose one:

- [grey coin] [grey coin] [grey coin]
Promote this card, or a card from your hand or discard pile.

"Kill me, then. I'll only come back stronger."

High Priest of Myrkul

Aspect: Ambition · Type: Human · Card number: 39/40 · Rarity dots: 1 Black box: 3 · Blue circle: 6 · Top-right: 6

Return another player's troop or spy. At end of turn, you may promote any number of Undead cards played this turn.

"Death is only the beginning."

Vampire

Aspect: Ambition · Type: Undead · Card number: 40/40 · Rarity dots: 1 Black box: 4 · Blue circle: 7 · Top-right: 7

Choose one:

Supplant a troop.
Promote a card from your discard pile, then gain 1 VP for every 3 cards in your inner circle.

"Give in to me, my dear, and you shall live forever by my side."