How To Play Ancient Terrible Things

Setting Sail

Ancient Terrible Things is played over a varying number of rounds, each round all players will take a turn starting with the player holding the Map, and each player completes their turn in full before play passes to the next. A turn consists of 7 phases:

1. Riverboat
2. Explore
3. Desperation
4. Encounter
5. Terrible Thing
6. Trading
7. Refresh

Riverboat Phase - This phase is skipped if there are any Encounter cards on any of the Locations.

Deal Encounter Cards face-up into each location, from the lowest to highest numbers. For each card take resources from the supply matching the types shown and place them on the location too.
If there are no cards in the Encounter Deck at the beginning of this phase then instead proceed immediately to the end of the game.

Explore Phase - Move your pawn to any location containing an Encounter card, called an Active Location. Take any resources from the location, then you may optionally take the special action of the location:

• Accursed Shrine - Gain either a Feat or Focus token.
• Ghastly Gorge - Discard any number of Feat cards and draw that many from the deck.
• Sinister Chasm - Exchange a resource token of any type from your stash with a token of a different type in another player's stash. Terrible Thing tokens cannot be exchanged.
• Yawning Chasm - Perform a Desperate Act against any Encounter card in a different location (see Desperation Phase for more details). You may still perform a Desperate Act against the
• Encounter in the current location during the Desperation Phase.
• Rusted Gunsloop - Gain either a Courage or Treasure token.
• Crumbling Ruin - Take control of the Map.
• Desperation Phase - You may immediately perform a Desperate Act to overcome the Encounter card, by spending an amount of Courage tokens equal to the Ancient Secrets value of the Encounter and then placing it directly into your score pile.

Encounter Phase - Roll dice and use the results to gather resources and/or overcome the Encounter (if it is still in play). Take the five green Focus dice for your base pool, and then add or modify the dice pool depending on any Swag or Feat cards in play. Roll your final dice pool, then take up to two re-rolls, each time either re-roll all your dice for free, or spend Focus tokens to only re-roll selected Focus dice, spending one token per dice rolled. Other colour dice behave differently - Red Panic dice are unable to be re-rolled, yellow Luck dice can be re-rolled without spending any tokens and blue Feat dice cannot be re-rolled but can have their value increased by one for every Feat token spent before the re-roll.

Before and after each re-roll you have the option to perform any feats by playing a Feat card from your hand and spending the cost in Feat tokens, or use any equipment that your own by Exhausting the card or paying the cost required, as listed on the Swag card.

Once finished with the rolling its time to spend the dice, you may spend any dice required to match a combination on the Encounter card, either single high number, 2-5 matching numbers or runs of 3-5 numbers, with each card showing the minimum value required on the dice to be used in that combination. Remove the dice used and add the Encounter card to your score pile. Then you may use the dice in the same way to spend against combinations on the Scenario card, exchanging the dice for resources and gaining one token for each die used in the combination. Any unspent dice at the end of the phase are lost.

Terrible Thing Phase - If the Encounter card still remains in the location then a terrible thing is unleashed. Move the Encounter card to the Rumours space on the board then take a Terrible Thing token from the Expedition Track for you stash, always take the lowest remaining Terrible Thing token. If the last token is removed from the track then proceed directly to the end game.

Trading Post Phase - Move your pawn to the Trading Post. You may now purchase any face-up Swag cards by spending the cost in Treasure tokens. Once you are finished, if you have purchased any Swag cards then slide all the remaining to the left to fill in any gaps as required, and draw new cards from the deck to the rightmost empty slots until the Trading Post is full. If no Swag cards have been purchased then take the leftmost face-up card and place it at the bottom of the Swag Deck, then refill the trading post as above.

Refresh Phase - Draw back up to three Feat cards if you have less, then Refresh any Exhausted Swag cards.

Once all players are on the Trading Post the round ends. If the Encounter Deck is empty then proceed to the end game, otherwise slide all pawns to the Riverboat and being the next round, starting with the player holding the Map.

Achievement Cards - Each achievement card lists a condition required to be met by the players to obtain the card. The first player to meet the condition will take the card. Anyone else can steal the achievement card by outperforming the owner, in which case they will take the card from them, only one player can own each achievement card, but a player may own multiple achievement cards.