A Small World Scenario For 3 - 6 Players.
One of the players assumes the role of a dreaded Necromancer who inhabits an island in the center of Small World's central Lake region. He captures the souls of all Race tokens lost to conquests, using them to progressively spawn Ghosts who invade the surrounding Regions.
To make matters worse, his Powers grow as his reach across the land increases. If the Necromancer succeeds in bringing all of his Ghosts into play, anytime before the game's end, he wins!
Modified Game Set-up
Select the map that matches your number of players minus 1. Place Necromancer Island in the central Lake region and add 1 Ghost token to it.
Give all remaining 13 Ghosts and the Well of Souls to the player to the right of the starting player. This player assumes the role of the Necromancer. He draws 6 Special Powers at random.
Note: If Cursed, Spirit or Stout are drawn, ignore them and draw some other Special Powers instead.
He then selects 1 of these 6, and places it with the Well of Souls, next to the board map.
The Necromancer player keeps the other 5 Special Powers and 13 Ghosts in reserve for future use. Now proceed with the standard Game set-up.
Players' Game Turn
The Players play as normal, except for the following rule changes:
All Race tokens (Lost Tribes, Player's race tokens and Ghosts) lost in conquests go into the Well of Souls instead of being discarded, always keeping any Ghosts on top of the pile of tokens in the Well of Souls.
Any extra tokens removed when a race goes In Decline still goes back into the Storage tray.
The Players conquer Ghost- occupied regions the same way they would any other Race- occupied region:
one Ghost token goes into the Well of Souls, all others go back into the Necromancer Player's hand for redeployment onto the Map at the end of the player's turn or
onto Necromancer Island, if there are no Ghost-occupied regions left on the map.
At the end of each Player's turn, once Troops redeployment is over, the Necromancer spawns new Ghosts onto the Island.
For each set of 4 Tokens in the Well of Souls (removing Ghost tokens first), one new Ghost is taken from the Necromancer's Reserve and placed on Necromancer Island.
Any Ghost token removed from the Well of Souls to spawn a new Ghost onto the Island is placed back in the Necromancer's Reserve.
All other Race tokens removed from the Well go back into the storage tray. Any Token left in the Well of Souls remains there, until at least 4 are present.
Necromancer's Game Turn
The Necromancer plays as follows:
1. Acquiring Ghosts and Special Powers
Using Victory coins earned in prior turns, the Necromancer may spend a number of coins equal to his # of Special Powers already in use + # of Ghosts on the map (including those on Necromancer Island, but not in the Well of Souls) to:
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Buy 1 New Ghost, Transferring It From His Re- Serve Onto Necromancer Island;
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Buy An Additional Special Power, From Among Those Still Available To Him.
The Necromancer may buy as many Ghosts and/or Special Powers as he can afford, during this phase, and the effects of these Powers cumulate with pre- existing ones, if any.
2. Conquering Regions
The Necromancer uses the Ghosts he has on the map to conquer new Regions, following the same Conquest rules as other players (placing lost tokens into the Well of Souls, etc..)..
His Border Regions are those surrounding the central Lake Region, and no Ghost needs to remain on Necromancer Island, whose Lake Region is immune to other players (even Seafaring ones).
3. Scoring and Spawning New Ghosts
At the end of his turn, after his final Conquest attempt, the Necromancer scores Victory coins as normal (1 per Region, by default + any bonuses from his Special Powers).
For each region he occupies, the Necromancer also receives a bonus soul (any unused token from the storage tray), which he adds to his pile in the Well of Souls. If there are at least 4 Tokens in the Well of Souls, he then spawns new Ghosts on the Island.
4. Checking for Victory
If the Necromancer now has no Ghosts left in Reserve or in the Well of Souls (i.e. they are all deployed on Regions of the map and/or on Necromancer Island), he immediately wins the game!
If not, then after the final game turn, the winner is determined as normal, from among the other players.
Other Rules
Other players always consider Ghosts as In Decline (like Lost Tribes); so they cannot strike a diplomatic pact with them, etc.
While Elves are immune to losses from conquests and thus never send tokens into the Well of Souls when conquered, any Elf token discarded when they go in Decline must join the Well of Souls instead.
Necromancer Island is not a normal Region. It can- not be conquered by other players and it does not give Victory coins or bonus Souls to the Necromancer when he scores.
Last, but not least, you can adjust the difficulty level for the Necromancer: To do so, simply remove a Ghost token or two from his Reserve before the start of the game.
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