Game Manual | Mythicarium

INTRODUCTION

Mythicarium Adventure Card Game is an adventure game for up to 4 players, based exclusively on the use of completely customizable decks of cards.

GAME EXPLAINED THROUGH PLAY SEQUENCE

SETTING UP

First, each player chooses their "Character" card. Each character has its identity, characteristics and attributes. Characters also have a Class, such as a Warrior, a Monk, a Wizard or a Ranger. The Class defines an important part of their role.

Around that character, players build 40-card decks (filled with Weapons, Armor, Artifacts, Allies, Companions, and Talisman cards) that help strengthen that character during their adventure. This deck constitutes the “Character Deck”.

Players then build a shared deck, the "Adventure Deck." In it, they place all the challenges they will face together. These challenges are of two types: "Enemy" cards and "Destiny" cards. Each enemy and destiny card has a difficulty level associated with it, represented by stars (from 1 to 3 stars). The enemies and challenges with the most stars are the most difficult to beat (but the ones that deliver the best rewards).

Also, the players prepare a deck where they place the "Scenario" cards ("Scenario Deck"), which represent the places they will visit in their adventure and establish global conditions to develop the game.

Both the adventure deck and the scenario deck can be arranged as desired or completely randomized (shuffled). There are no construction rules here: the players establish the rules. There are certain recommendations to have a more guided initial experience and even pre-built campaigns, but the idea is that players can create their very own adventures to share and enjoy replaying the game as many times as they want and always have a different and entertaining experience.

Players can also start with up to 3 gold each. Gold can be transferred from one player to another during the planning phase, but cannot be shared to pay costs at any point in the game. That is to say, if the player does not have gold to pay the cost of a card and that gold was not transferred to him during the corresponding phase, he will not be able to use it.

PLAYING THE GAME

Players put their chosen character card on the battlefield, shuffle their Character-decks and draw 5 cards. Maximum hand size is 8. Discard any excess at the end of the turn.

Roll the dice to see who goes first. The starting player reveals 1 scenario card from the Scenario-deck and puts it into play. Immediately place a counter on top of the scenario card to indicate the number of turns remaining there (total indicated on the card). When all the turns are completed, the following scenario is revealed.

That same player then reveals 1 card (2 cards in "Advanced Mode") from the Adventure-deck and puts it into play. The cards in the Adventure-deck indicate exactly what to do when they are revealed or put into play. The next player then reveals the next card and so on, until all players have revealed cards. This stage is called the “Discovery Phase”.

Next, the “Draw Phase” where players draw 1 card. The first game turn NO card is drawn.

Next, the "Planning Phase", where players must discuss the strategy they will use to deal with the threats revealed.

Destiny cards do their effect and are then put into the graveyard (unless otherwise stated on the card).

Next, the "Combat Phase" is played, where players must roll a die for each enemy in play. The player with the lowest score will be attacked by the enemy first. The order in which the enemies attack is, by default, from the weakest to the strongest. Characters, depending on its "Class" can be attacked more or less often. Ex.: Warriors have a modifier to their dice rolls which substracts points to make them being attacked more often.

By default, enemies will always attack first and then, the characters have the chance to respond (defend). Even if an enemy attacked a particular character, all other characters can respond. For a Character to engage in combat or simply "attack", it must be exhausted. This is very important, since if the Character were already exhausted, they will not be able to defend (counterattack) even if their Strenght points are full.

Enemies always attack its targets using all their "Strength Points" available. This means that, if a character already received an attack from that enemy, the other characters can attack him freely without the risk of taking any damage (since their strength points were depleted). For characters is different: players decide how many strenght points spend on the attack their characters execute, allowing them to spread their damage across multiple targets.

Every time an enemy is destroyed, its destroyer is rewarded in Gold Pieces (commonly GP or just Gold). Gold can be distributed among players during planning phases. Ex.: If player 1 got 4 Gold for destroying an enemy, in the second planning, the players can decide that it is best to distribute 1 Gold each other, or share them as they need it.

A "Second Planning Phase" comes to resupply after combat and prepare for the next discovery phase.

Then, the "Ending Phase" when players decide to end the turn and start a new one.

In the planning phases, players can pay Gold to play cards from their hand. They can equip their characters with Weapons, Armor and Artifacts. They can also bring Allies and Companions into play. Each Character can only equip 1 card of each type. If you want to unequip a card, you must "sell" it. Selling means destroying the equipped card to receive 1 gold piece.

Talisman cards can be played at any time in the game and always in response to an action. Other cards can only be played during the planning phases. However, their abilities can always be activated in response to actions.

To carry out actions such as attacking, player must "exhaust" their characters (or other cards such as Artifacts). This can be accounted tapping the character. An "exhausted” character cannot perform other actions that require exhaustion: it must wait until the next beginning of the turn to be restored.

Victory is determined by the goal set by the players. By default, we recommend surviving 3 scenarios; collecting 20 gold or; defeating a high level enemy. However, you can fully customize all the parameters.

ROLE-PLAYING GAME SETUP

The adventure game can be configured as a role-playing game.

To do this, players can use cards that they can print at home, which we will make available in this website.

These cards will be useful to the campaign director for several things, for example:

Tell the story and present progression options to players.
Generate enemy encounters (custom or random).
Generate custom challenges, such as overcoming an obstacle (a river, a sealed door, a riddle, etc...)

Various adventure decks can be made to achieve the desired effect. Whatever works best for you.

In addition, each character will be able to interact with the world through their skills.

The skills will also be available to you on this page. The default number of skills per character is 1 but you can set it however you want.

A skill can allow a character to have bonus dice rolls when persuading an NPC, picking a lock, among other things.