Transcription
RulebookIf this is your first time playing Apocrypha, find the deck marked with theENTER HERE card and go to lonesharkgames.com/apocrypha/enterherefor a video guide of how to play.
CreditsConcept: Rian Sand and Mike SelinkerGame Design: Chad Brown, Keith Richmond, Mike Selinker, Liz Spain, ElisaTeague, and Gaby WeidlingGame Development: Thomas Ball, Linus Chan, Tanis O’Connor, Paul Peterson,Javier Quintero, Aviva Schecterson, Sarah Shuler, and Lucy TibbitsInitial Setting Development: Rian Sand with Matt Forbeck and Miles TugmanFlavortext: Mike SelinkerChapter Memories and Additional Flavortext: Keith Baker, Wolfgang Baur,Bruce R. Cordell, Erin M. Evans, Matt Forbeck, Jerry “Tycho” Holkins, Kij Johnson,Patrick Rothfuss, Kris Straub, and Teeuwynn WoodruffSteganography: Mike Selinker, Elisa Teague, and Gaby WeidlingEditing: Tanis O’Connor and Aviva SchectersonArt Direction and Graphic Design: Elisa Teague and Mike VaillancourtGraphic Development: Aviva Schecterson, Liz Spain, and Skylar WoodiesBusiness and Production Management: Marie PooleOperations: Vandy Anderson, Lance Bohac, Amy Neth Sand, Shane Steed, and Tara TheoharisApp Development: Lane Daughtry and Tinkerhouse GamesAugust Counsel: Brian E. LewisIllustration: Nate Abell, Daniel Alekow, Jacob Atienza, Jack Baker, J.R. Barker, Julio Bencid, Natalie Bernard, Bruce Brenneise,Richard Burgess, Oscar Cafaro, Paul Canavan, Dhaniels Castillo, Echo Chernik, David Demaret, Alex Drummond, Carl Ellis,Tawny Fritz, Luis Gama, Luke Green, Grant Griffin, Alexander Gustafson, Jonny Hinkle, Nicholas Kay, Priscilla Kim, Kate Laird,Jettila Lewis, Ed Mattinian, James Mosingo, Josh Newton, Grzegorz Pedrycz, Len Peralta, Brandon Perlow, Miro Petrov, LeePfenninger, Pixoloid Studios (Gaspar Gombos, David Metzger, Mark Molnar, and Ferenc Nothof), Kristen Plescow, Ramon PuasaJr., Jorge Ramos, Daria Rashevskaya, Stephane Wootha Richard, Ned Rogers, Eddie Smith, Serg Souleiman, Ernanda Souza,James Starr-King, Kathryn Steele, Matthew Stewart, Nate Taylor, Alex Thomas, Shane Tyree, Pete Venters, Elliot Whiting, andNikolay YeliseyevSpecial Thanks: Ad Magic (Yvonne Apgar, Brooke Anne, Amy Row, and Shari Spiro), Michael Andersen, Dan Anderson,Lori Anderson, Matt Anderson, William Ansell, Richard Aronson, Alex Barbieri, Jessica Blair, Richard Bliss, Joe Boerjes, KittyBrown, Aaron Burke, Katie Burkett, Card Kingdom and Mox Boarding House, Chase Bank, Curtis Chen, Lazarus Chernik,Justin Cole, Rick Collins, Kenna Conklin, Amber Cook, Brian Coppola, Luke Crane, Aaron Curtis, Maria Davis, Patrick Day,Theresa Desautels, Joshua Dinges, Storm diCostanzo, Double Exposure (Vincent Salzillo and Avonelle Wing), Steve Ellis,James Ernest, Matthew Evans, Aspen Farer, Matt Fantastic, Rainier Feiler, TK Focht, David Fooden, Evon Fuerst, Todd Furler,Melinda Getch, Ed Grabianowski, Thomas Gutschmidt, Julie Haehn, Scott Hall, Jess Hartley, Joe Hauck, Joel S. Hills, AmandaHoerter, KC Humphrey, David Kiker, Joe Kim, Kevin Kulp, Austin Lamb, Tom Landaker, Jonathan H. Liu, Richard Malena,Jeffrey Marman, Tobias McCurry, Joshua McNett, Lukas Myhan, John Nephew, Marvin Neth, Corey O’Connor, Jamie O’Connor,Paizo Publishing (Jeff Alvarez, Jason Bulmahn, Erik Mona, Lisa Stevens, and Vic Wertz), Penny Arcade (Mike Fehlauer, JerryHolkins, Robert Khoo, and Mike Krahulik), Brian Perrin, Tim Peyton, PledgeManager (Meloney Buehl and Adam Clark), CharliePoole, Jefferson Powers, Katherine Powers, Russel Prophet, Ian Ramsey, Mike Robles, Chris Ross, Jennifer Ross, Neil E.Schmidt, Larry Selinker, Phyllis Selinker, Travis Severance, Jesse Shepherd, Krishna Simonse, Pieter Sleijpen, Greg Spence,M. Craig Stockwell, Alexander Theoharis, Amber Thiesen, Rodney Thompson, Jeff Tidball, Tyler Tinsley, Darrel Tjepkes, JustinTurner, UltraPRO (Jay Kuo, Lynne La Placa, and Sean Lashgari), Uncle’s Games, Uptown Espresso Gameporium, MichaelWebb, Angela M. Webber, Aubrey Webber, Wil Wheaton, Frank Whittaker, Stevie Williams, Worldbuilders, James Youngman,the players of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, the assembled citizenry of GameStorm, and all of our many backers onKickstarter and PledgeManager. 2017 Lone Shark Games, Inc. This is an original work of fiction, and contains thousands of references to things real andimagined. No claim of ownership is made to any third-party copyright or trademark. If we kid, it’s because we love.2
BOX ONE: THE WORLDby Mike Selinker and.BASE: Chad Brown, Keith Richmond, AvivaSchecterson, and Liz SpainCANDLEPOINT: Gaby Weidling and PatrickRothfussSKINWALKERS: Liz Spain and Matt ForbeckBOX TWO: THE FLESHby Mike Selinker and.DEATHLESS: Liz Spain and Bruce R. CordellFAE: Liz Spain and Jerry HolkinsGOLEMS: Chad Brown and Teeuwynn WoodruffPHYSICIANS: Keith Richmond and Kris StraubBOX THREE: THE DEVILby Mike Selinker and.ANIMUS: Gaby Weidling, Keith Richmond,Aviva Schecterson, and Kij JohnsonDAMNED: Chad Brown, Liz Spain, Elisa Teague,and Erin M. EvansDREAMERS: Liz Spain and Keith BakerSERPENTS: Chad Brown, Elisa Teague, andWolfgang Baur3
ContentsThe Object of the Game5Using Dice17Players and Components6Attempting a CheckAssisting Other SaintsUsing Fragment Powers181819ConsequencesSuffering DamageFadingConfronting an ArchetypeEscaping1919202020Number of PlayersThe BoxesCard TypesAdditional ComponentsThe Golden RulesPlaying Against the GameSetting Up Co-Op ModeChoosing Your SaintPreparing the MissionPreparing the NexusesStarting the Mission4666778Taking cial Steps8Ending a Mission8Between Games91010 Playing with a GuideHow to Be a GuideSetting Up the Roleplaying Game11Running a Mission11Taking Turns12Confrontations, Checks, and Damage12Controlling Guided Mode12Ending a Mission131313 Mission: Taking the PlungePlaying CardsPositioningChapter PowersPaying for Powers15 Glossary1515 Quick Reference Guide1622222424242526262727283236
Everything I’m about to tell you is true. You already know it. You just don’t know youknow it.You’re having trouble holding onto it, I get that. You grasp at something aboutlightning, something about the trembling of the walls when it rained. It wasn’t thatyour parents thought you were afraid of the lightning. It’s that the lightning made yourparents afraid of you.It is missing now, though. You can’t remember the middle bit. There’s a gloss overyour brain, a hole in your consciousness, an amyloid plaque clumping over yourneurons. It’s no accident. Somebody put it there. Somebody put it everywhere.There are other things you do see, flashing in the corners. Things with teeth.Things with scales. Things with gears and dreams and nothing at all. No one elsesees them. We’ve all agreed it’s better if we don’t see them. It’s easier that way. Easierfor us, and catastrophically easier for them.Wait, part of that wasn’t entirely true. There’s the sour-faced guy who never letsgo of his shotgun, the woman who got a bone graft in her jaw and now can’t stop thevoices, the purple-eyed girl who just can’t quite tell whether she has wings. And if shecan’t tell, how can anyone else?These aren’t your friends. But you can feel a connection to them, hot and shining,like you’re a bend in a ring of fire. They’re your choir. Together you can do all thethings you’ll probably regret. You can make the things in the shadows stay in theshadows, even if you join them there.You’ve heard one of them call you a “saint.” You knew the meaning of that word,but maybe you didn’t. Today it means that someone else is counting on you, whetheryou want them to or not. You may not know how to save them. At least you havesomething in common.My name is Coyote. Honestly, you probably won’t remember I was here tomorrow.You should try to remember because there are two things people know about saints:They tend to do amazing things, and they tend to be dead. You want to hold that lastpart off as long as possible. But if you have to go, then go out radiant. Make themremember you.That way, it won’t feel so bad that you can’t remember yourself.The Object of the GameIn the Apocrypha Adventure Card Game, you work to thwart a modern apocalypse at the hands of nine powerful entities calledthe novem. Each of you is a saint with a halo of fragmented memories and a deck of cards that you can play. Throughout themany storybooks you can play in any order, your saints cooperate to investigate dark corners of the world, disrupting the plansof dark and troubling forces whose actions may doom us all. Masters and their minions will stand in your way, plotting schemesyou must thwart before the doomsday clock runs out. Over a number of sessions, your saints improve their decks, gain powersthrough unlocking repressed and ancestral memories, and take on ever-evolving threats. And maybe, just maybe, stop the end ofthe world from coming. Today, anyway.5
Players and ComponentsNumber of PlayersYou can play Apocrypha as a cooperative card game againstthe game itself or play it as a roleplaying game with a guide.When playing in co-op mode, 1-6 players may play. Whenplaying in guided mode, an additional player takes on the roleof the guide for the mission.The BoxesThis incarnation of Apocrypha is built out of a block of threeboxes called the “Revelation Block.” The first box is called TheWorld, and contains the Base cards and a chapter called TheBook of the Skinwalkers. The World contains: The Base cards—486 cards, generally with black borders:7 player aids, 9 saints, 48 fleeting fragments, 40 deaths,34 nexuses, 5 mutations, 60 omens, 44 Mind gifts, 44Body gifts, 44 Soul gifts, 44 Rage gifts, 45 threats, 21 truethreats, 9 missions, 13 structures, 3 master archetypes,and 16 minion archetypesThe Book of the Skinwalkers —98 cards, generally withred borders: 1 saint, 3 nexuses, 4 mutations, 9 omens, 9Mind gifts, 9 Body gifts, 10 Soul gifts, 10 Rage gifts, 15threats, 17 true threats, and 11 missions and fragments10 saint pawns and 6 plastic saint bases4 red dice, 4 blue dice, 4 green dice, 4 purple dice, and 4white diceA rulebook and a storybook for The Secrets of Candlepointand The Book of the SkinwalkersThe two expansion boxes are called The Flesh and The Devil,each with the cards, pawns, and storybooks to play four morechapters. The Flesh contains the Deathless (white) , the Fae (purple) , the Golems (silver) , and the Physicians (brown),while The Devil contains the Animus (green) , the Damned (orange) , the Dreamers (blue) , a nd the Serpents (gold).Other useful objects available separately for this game arethe Apocrypha Soulbinder, which lets you arrange your saints’cards in haloes; the Apocrypha Playmat, which lets you displayyour cards on the table; and the Box of Hope and Box of Doomdeck boxes, which let you hold your saint’s cards.Card TypesThere are many types of cards in the game. These includesaints that you play, fragments that you unlock, missions thatyou undertake, structures that guide your mission, nexuses6that you investigate, omens that influence your efforts, giftsthat you gain, threats that you confront, archetypes thatrepresent important conflicts, mutations that change yourinvestigations, and deaths that you suffer.Regardless of type, cards have a few common features: acard number for each unique card, a chapter that tells youwhere it goes in the box, and a border matching its chapter.Black- and neutral-bordered cards go in the Base set, whilethose with different colored borders go in chapters named afterfactions in the world.SaintsA saint is the character you play. You canaffect the game through your powers, fourvirtues (Body, Mind, Rage, and Soul), andskills (Charm, Conjure, Hack, Resist, Sense,Strike, and Study). A saint has a deck of giftsto play and is surrounded by a halo offragments and deaths, built over multiplemissions.FragmentsA fragment is a powerful repressed orancestral memory gained as a reward forwinning a mission. Black-bordered fragmentsrepresent fleeting short-term memories, whilefragments with different borders representenduring long-term memories.DeathsA death is a vision of your demise. You geta death in your halo when you fade from themission and can no longer use that slot forfragments. If all nine of your slots are filled withdeaths, your saint is dead forever.MissionsA mission describes the unique setting, story,and method of play for the game you areabout to play. This information is located withineach chapter, on each mission card, and oneach structure card. The storybook will giveyou The Lowdown, along with a setup andrules that are also on the mission card.
ArchetypesStructuresA structure describes how part of amission is set up or played. Since thereis no canonical way to start, play, or enda mission, the goal, nexus, and clockstructures will describe your mission.NexusesA nexus is a location you caninvestigate during a mission.Each nexus also has specialrules for when you are thereand how to guard and seal it.One side is oriented towardsHope and the other towardsDoom. Each nexus also has a deck full of other card types:archetypes, gifts, omens, and threats.OmensAnomen is used toinvestigate and orient anexus. A timer deck calleda doomsday clock (or just“clock”) is built out of omens.Omens are aligned to twosides: Hope and Doom.As the apocalyptic darkness encroaches on the world, Omensof Hope will gradually become harder and harder to find.GiftsA gift is a resource that helps you win amission. There are four types: Body,Mind,Rage, andSoul. On thebottom, a gift has chapter, skill, and traitkeywords that may affect your powers. An Alpha gift is one that your saint can start with,represented by the in the upper right corner. An Enhancedgift is an altered version of a Base gift, represented by the .Threatsthreat is a hazard that comes out of a nexus and tries toharm or block you. Threats also have chapter,skill, and trait keywords that may affect yourpowers. A true threat represents a mainthreat in a mission; these include mastersand minions, which chan
You can play Apocrypha as a cooperative card game against the game itself or play it as a roleplaying game with a guide. When playing in co-op mode, 1-6 players may play. When playing in guided mode, an additional player takes on the role of the guide for the mission. The Boxes This incarnation of Apocrypha is built out of a block of three
