Parco Molo, one of the wealthiest and bravest merchants in the kingdom, is preparing for a trading expedition to distant lands beyond the seas. He is looking for an experienced leader for his expedition.

He offers generous payment and also a share of the profits -it is no wonder that many adventurers are interested in joining his campaign. But there is a hitch: Parco wants an accomplished adventurer and as proof he demands a certificate from each of the land's five guilds.

It is time to set out on a journey and get all the certificates /s quickly as possible-and with them a chance of enormous wealth and undying fame!

Components

• 1 Game Board
• 5 Double-sided Summary Cards
• 2 six-sided dice (each in a different color)
• 40 blue and 40 red cubes
• 10 Character Cards
• 10 playing pieces (depicting the characters)
• 5 stands for playing pieces
• 10 large (value 5) Experience tokens
• 25 small (value 1) Experience tokens
• 10 large (value 5) Gold tokens
• 25 small (value 1) Gold tokens
• 211 Cards
• 1 Basic Rule booklet
• 1 Standard Rule book

The Basic Version

This is a simplified version of the Standard Version. It is recommended for players who have little experience with similar games.

If you already have some experience with similar games, feel free to skip the Basic Version and start playing the Standard Version.

Object of the Game

In the Basic Version, each player takes the part of an adventurer who is traveling the land, fighting beasts and villains, and attempting to gain enough gold and experience to obtain a Certificate from each of the five guilds faster than the other players.

Setup

Game Board Setup

Separate all of the cards according to their backs into decks, shuffle each deck and put it on the appropriate place on the game board. In the Basic Version, you have to remove several cards, as noted below.

Take the deck of yellow Adventure cards. Find and remove the card Lost Library, then shuffle the deck and put it in the appropriate place in the corner of the game board.

Take the deck of green Chance cards. Find and remove the following cards: Fortress, Thieves' Guild, Magic Tower, Forest Camp, Monastery, Interesting Times, Training Offer, Open Training and Prophetic Dream. Shuffle the rest of the cards and put them in the \ appropriate place in the corner of the game board.

Take the deck of brown Common Item cards and the deck of Rare Item cards. Shuffle both decks and place them in the > appropriate places in the corners of the game board.

Separate the black Ability cards into five decks according to the pictures on their backs and put those in the appropriate places near the center of the game board.

All of the cards shown here (Artifacts, Lesser _ I Guardians and Greater Guardians) are not required in the Basic Version.

Character Setup

Deal one character card to each player. Each player then places her character card before her and notes the starting Strength and Willpower printed on the right side of the character: put as many red cubes ON THE RIGHT SIDE of her character indicating the Strength of her character, and as many blue cubes to indicate her starting Willpower.

Red cubes also represent a character's Health. If a character loses a Health, take a red cube from the right side of the card and place it ON THE LEFT SIDE of the card. Until healed, the character has her Strength reduced by one.

Similarly, the blue cubes also represent a character's Magic (magical energy). As with Health, if a character loses some Magic, move the blue cubes to the left, indicating a reduction in Magic as well as Willpower, until recharged.

The Game Board

The Guilds

(The Fortress, Thieves' Guild, Magic Tower, Forest Camp, Monastery)-in the Basic Version, a character may buy a Certificate and repair damaged Items here.

The City, Village

Here you may sell Items and also buy them (if any such card is lying here). You may repair your damaged Items here, too.

Mountains, Forest, Plains

Adventure cards appear here during the course of the game (Creatures and Opportunities).

In addition, each player takes three small yellow tokens (worth 1 each) representing Gold, and three small green tokens (worth 1 each) representing Experience.

Then each player finds the playing piece of her character, inserts it in the stand and places it on the game board in the space of the guild which is stated first on her character card. The remaining cubes and tokens should be placed in a reachable place to form a bank.

Now everyone rolls the dice. Whoever rolls the highest begins.

One Round of the Game

When it is your turn to play, first draw a Chance card, read it and follow its text. You may then move your character.

You then have to fight Creatures residing in the space or you may use Possibilities which the space offers. Then the player to your left takes her round.

Drawing a Chance Card

Reveal the top green card. One of the following cards appears:

Mountains, Forest, Plains - take one yellow Adventure card and place it face-up (without looking at it) in all empty spaces of the appropriate terrain.

City Merchant, Tradesman - if there are any Item cards in the respective space, first discard them, then draw the appropriate number of Item cards from the appropriate deck and place them there, face-up.

Refreshing Wind, Kindly Wind, Magical Breeze - all players may heal lost Health or recharge lost Magic, i.e. move the appropriate number of cubes from the LEFT to the RIGHT side of their character cards.

Good Times - all players may take an appropriate amount of Gold. Large yellow tokens count as five Gold.

Charity - this is a combination of the previous four cards: it heals lost Health, recharges Magic and gives Gold, but only to the player that has the least at the time. If several players are tied for the least, all of them profit from Charity.

Peaceful Times - this gives the player who drew it an additional turn. The additional turn is almost a whole new round, but no Chance card is drawn.

Moving Your Character

You may move your character one space to the left or right. You may move two spaces instead if you wish, but pay 1 Gold for renting a horse (discard one small yellow token to the bank).

Another option is to use a boat: if you stand on a space with a Port (a blue anchor) and pay 1 Gold, you may move along the dashed line to an adjacent Port on the left or right.

The last option is to use a Magic Gate: if you are standing in a space with a Magic Gate and pay 2 Gold, you may move to any other space with a Magic Gate.

You may use only one of those options - either move on foot, rent a horse, rent a boat or use a Magic Gate. You may also decide to not move at all and stay in the current space.

Adventure Cards

There are two types of Adventure cards in the game: Creatures and Opportunities. You are always affected by the Adventure cards located in the space where you end your movement.

You are never affected by the Adventure cards located in the space where you start your movement (the Giant Spider is an exception), nor by Adventure cards located in spaces you move through, e.g. while riding a horse.

If you want to encounter the card located in the space where you start your movement, you must not move at all. It is not possible to encounter the card first and then move away.

Opportunities

If you encounter an Opportunity, decide if you wish to use it or not. If you decide to use it, simply follow the text of the card. Used Opportunities are discarded, unused ones stay face-up in the space.

Creatures

If you encounter a Creature you must battle it (unlike using an Opportunity, fighting a Creature is mandatory). There are three possible outcomes to a battle.

If you defeat the Creature, discard it and get Experience: take as many small green tokens as stated on the Creature card in the upper right corner of the card. If there is a followed by text, you also get this treasure.

If the battle is a draw, you receive nothing, but you also lose nothing.

If you lose to the Creature, then you usually lose one Health - move one red cube from the right side of the character card to the left. Some nasty Creatures do something worse to you instead: if there is a followed by text, you must follow this text.

When you draw or lose, the Creature stays face-up in the space (no further cards may be placed here until someone defeats the Creature).

Rules of Combat

You may engage Creatures in two types of battles: Battles of Strength and Battles of Wills.

Battle of Strength

If the Creature only has Strength, you must fight a Battle of Strength. The Strength of the Creature is stated on its card; your Strength is equal to the number of red cubes on the right side of your character card. You may also have a weapon or another helpful Item, which grants a bonus in a Battle of Strength.

Roll both dice at once. The lighter die is yours and the darker one is the Creatures. Add your Strength (and bonuses) to the number rolled on the lighter die.

Add the Creatures Strength to the number rolled on the darker die. Whoever has the higher total wins. In case of a tie, the battle ends in a draw.

Battle of Wills

If the Creature only has Willpower, it forces you to fight a Battle of Wills. A Battle of Wills is identical to a Battle of Strength, just use your current Willpower instead of Strength (the number of blue cubes on the right side of your character card).

Some weapons and Items may grant bonuses.

Optional Battles

Should the Creature have Strength stated first, then Willpower, it attacks you with Strength, but is also capable of fighting with Willpower.

You have two options: You may accept a Battle of Strength or you may decide to initiate a Battle of Wills, costing you two Magic (move two blue cubes from the right to the left side of the character card). Note that by initiating a Battle of Wills you actually weaken yourself before the fight.

Special Battles

Creatures, which have Willpower first then Strength, e.g. the Vampire or Skeletal Wizard, and also some other Creatures, e.g. the Ghostly Spirits or Escaped Murderer, follow some special combat rules.

Such rules are stated on the card and are denoted by an exclamation point or a question mark. Rules denoted by an exclamation point are mandatory.

If a rule is denoted by a question mark , it is optional, e.g. Escaped Murderer.

Creatures Coith Three Lives

Some Creatures have three lives. This means that to defeat such a Creature you have to roll the dice three times in a row and to win all three rolls.

If you lose or draw any one of those rolls, stop rolling - you have lost (or drawn) the whole battle. In the next battle the Creature has three lives again, even if you have previously won one or two rolls of the dice.

Note that all three rolls are done in a single battle, so if you decide to initiate a Battle of Wills, you only have to pay once before the first roll of the dice.

Weapons and Items

You have to state explicitly which weapons and other Items your character uses. A character may use only one weapon during a battle.

If the weapon is one-handed, she may use a shield or another non-weapon Item, e.g. a wand, at the same time. She may also use only one piece of headwear. How- ever, she may use any number of Items that are not handheld or headwear.

Some weapons may be thrown to add a bonus to a single die roll in a Battle of Strength. They then usually become damaged-turn the weapon face- down; you may not use it or sell it until you repair it in a civilization space (see Special Spaces below).

What good may happen to a Character

By defeating a Creature or using an Opportunity a character may gain various benefits, as stated on the respective card. She might be healed: return the red cubes from the left side to the right side of the character card (if any red cubes are on the left).

Her Magic might be recharged (return blue cubes to the right side of the character card). She might earn some Gold or Experience - the amount of Experience gained when defeating a Creature is stated in the upper right corner of the card.

She might find a Common or Rare Item: in this case draw the top card from the deck of Common (brown) or Rare (gold) Items. And finally, she might permanently gain an extra point of Strength or Willpower (take a red or blue cube from the bank and place it on the right side of the character card).

Note this is the only case where you would move red or blue stones between the bank and the character - all other moves are between the left and right side of a character card only.

What evil may derail a character

Firstly a character may lose one Health. This is the default cost of losing a battle against a Creature (unless stated otherwise on the Creature card).

A loss of Health means moving red cubes from the right side to the left side of the character card (do not discard the cubes to the bank!). In case there is no red cube to move to the left when the character loses Health, she dies and her player has lost.

The loss of Health also effects the characters Strength: a wounded character is also weaker until healed.

Another common eventuality is the loss of Magic, which means moving blue cubes from the right side to the left side of the character card. Unlike losing all Health, losing all Magic never kills a character.

If the character has no blue cubes on the right side, she merely cannot lose any more Magic (and now she cannot use anything that requires the payment of Magic) and her Willpower is zero.

Special Spaces

Some spaces cannot contain Adventure cards, but they offer other Possibilities instead. You may use these if your movement ends in the respective space. Special effects of the spaces are depicted by icons directly on the game board.

You may use several such Possibilities during a single turn, i.e. use the same Possibility several times, or use several Possibilities, unless it is stated otherwise.

Buying and Selling Items

There are Items that appear during the course of the game in the City and Village. You may buy these by paying their cost (stated in the upper right-hand corner of the card) in Gold to the bank.

It is also possible to sell Items in the City or in the Village - you get half of the cost of the sold Item (rounded up). Sold Items are discarded.

Recovering Lost Health and Magic

In the Monastery, you may heal one Health for free once per turn. In the Forest Camp, you may heal any number of Health, but you must pay one Gold for each.

Similarly, in the Enchanted Wilderness you may recharge up to three Magic for free once per turn, while in the Magic Tower you may recharge any number of Magic, but you must pay one Gold for every two Magic (round up).

In the Village, you may pay one Gold for lodging at the tavern where you rest - heal one Health and recharge one Magic (but only once per turn).

The icon of a white dove does not apply in the Basic Version.

Possibilities instead of Movement

In the City you may earn two Gold by spending one Magic, in the Thieves' Guild you may earn three Gold by spending one Health.

In the Fortress you may gain two Experience by spending one Health. You may use any of these Possibilities only if you start your movement in the appropriate space and decide not to move at all, and only once per turn.

Repairing Items

Some Items may become damaged during the course of the game (turn their cards face-down). While visiting civilization (blue) spaces you may repair them. The cost of a repair is one Gold per Item.

Acquiring a Certificate

If you are in a guild space, you may pay five Experience and five Gold to obtain a Certificate of this guild - a card with a black back with a symbol of the guild.

If your character belongs to the guild, i.e. one of two guilds which are stated on your character card, you do not have to pay any Gold, but you must still pay five Experience.

You may have only one Certificate from each guild. When you obtain a Certificate, place it before yourself face-down - the text of the card is not used in the Basic Version.

End of the Game

The object of the Basic Version of Prophecy is to obtain Certificates from all five guilds (the Fortress, Forest Camp, Thieves' Guild, Magic Fower, and Monastery).

A Certificate may be purchased for five Experience and five Gold (or only for five Experience in the guilds that are stated on the character card).

When a player gets her fifth Certificate, the game ends immediately and she wins. The others are ranked according to the number of Certificates they collected.

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