Actions and Resources

Actions are operations that can be invoked by a player by expending player, character, or covenant resources. Actions, depending on the resource involved, may be performed at any time or only during a conflict.

Player resources include Council Votes and cards in hand.

Character resources include Traits (Vigor, Craft, Influence, Insight), Companions, Items, and Assets.

Covenant resources include Servants, Coffers, Relations, Archives, and Essences.

Actions can have one of the following effects (dictated by the type of resource used):

-Modify a resource (or prevent one from being modified).

-Modify the rank of a card (either by a fixed value or by the rank of another card).

-Change the suit of a card.

-Manipulate a player’s hand (e.g. draw new card into hand, take a card from a player’s hand, etc).

There is a large variety of actions that can be taken within those categories.

Covenant Resources of any type permit only on thing during conflicts – immediately drawing a card from the draw deck into your hand. The player Claims a resource of choice from the covenant (or Harms a resource of choice if none of a given type remain to be Claimed). This forces the player to immediately draw a card from the draw deck. The suit of the card drawn is changed for all purposes to match the resource expended (Vigor for Servants, Diamonds for Coffers, Hearts for Relations, Spades for Archives).

Essences are a special case of this. They can only be expended for Magic contests and permit an extra card to be drawn in that case only (the card’s suit is unchanged).

Companions are associated with a single Trait (Vigor, Craft, Influence, Insight). Using a Companion will permit the conversion of a single card of the suit matching the Trait (e.g. Hearts for Influence Companion) to a suit of any other type. Companions may have one or more uses, depending on their power. Companions can be Harmed in order to activate them more times than their power permits.

Items are associated with a single Trait. Using an Item will permit playing one or more cards of the suit matching the Trait, from a players hand, against a card of the same suit played by an opponent in a conflict. The rank of the opponent’s card is reduced by the combined rank of the cards played from the player’s hand. Items may have one or more uses depending on their power. Items can be Harmed in order to activate them more times than their power permits.

Assets are associated with a single Trait and permit a single additional use of the associated Trait (as if the character had spent a Trait point). Assets cannot be Harmed, and a character may never have more than a single Asset associated with each Trait.

The Vigor Trait of a character may be used in conflict if the player plays a club for the trick. By expending a point of Vigor, a player may play any number of clubs from their hand. The combined rank of the cards played from their hand is added to the rank of the original card.

The Craft Trait of a character may be used in conflict if the player plays a diamond for the trick. By expending a point of Craft, a player may take either the winning or losing card from the trick into their hand once the winner of the trick is determined. If both players expend a point of Influence, the first to do so chooses first.

The Influence Trait of a character may be used in a conflict if the player plays a heart for the trick. By expending a point of Influence, a player may play any number of cards from their hand as Aiding cards.

The Insight Trait of a character may be used in a conflict if the player plays a spade for the trick. By expending a point of Insight, a player may take a card at random from their opponent’s hand and put it into their own hand; they then give a card of choice from their own hand back to their opponent. The opponent must receive a card back from the acting player, so if the acting player has no cards in hand the opponent receives their own card back.

A player may expend 2 Council Votes to draw a card from the draw deck (or 1 Council vote if they are the Antagonist). The suit of the card is unchanged.

A player may expend 5 Council Votes to restore 1 use to any character resource (Trait, Companion, Item, or Asset), up to its maximum value. This cannot be used to repair Harm.

A player may expend 10 Council Votes to switch all cards in play for the protagonist and antagonist. This means that the trick card, plus any aiding or other cards, of the protagonist are swapped with the trick card, plus any aiding or other cards, of the antagonist. Even after the cards are swapped, they retain any rank or suit modifiers they received prior to the swap (from conflict type, aiding, Influence or Vigor Trait use, Magic, etc).

If a player A wishes to Claim or Harm a Covenant Resource, player B (e.g. any player not currently involved in a conflict against player A as protagonist or antagonist) may bid Council Votes to prevent them. Player B offers a number of Council Votes (minimum 1) to player A to accept in the place of the Covenant Resource. If Player A wishes to refuse, they must outbid player B by offering player B at least one more Council Vote than they were offered. Player B may refuse by increasing the bid and so on. If at any point player A accepts, they receive player B’s Council Votes and cannot Claim or Harm any Covenant Resource for this trick. If at any point player B accepts, they receive player A’s Council Votes and player A may Claim or Harm a Covenant Resource of their choice. If one of the players is outbid (he cannot offer a raise in response because he has insufficient Council Votes to cover it) he must concede and accept his opponent’s offer.

A player may discard a face card from their hand during a conflict to restore 1 use to any character resource (Trait, Companion, Item, or Asset), up to its maximum value. This cannot be used to repair Harm.

A player may throw a trick to discard and redraw all cards they currently hold. This is accomplished by placing a card face down for the trick as normal. After the opponent has placed their trick card facedown, but before the cards are revealed, the player announcing that they “concede the trick”. The cards are not revealed and the opponent automatically wins the trick. The player discards all cards in their hand and redraws from the draw deck the same number of cards they discarded +1 (for the card they conceded).

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