Combat

  • A piece never ends on another piece. Minions have 1 HP, Heroes 4 (Bone Wardens' Hero 5, see its Passive). A piece at 0 HP is slain: take it off the board. Slain Minions wait on your Faction card.
  • Adjacent = the 8 surrounding squares; within N = at most N squares away, counting a diagonal as 1, ignoring blocking. Blocked = off board, Ruin, or occupied by a piece (a Relic never blocks; a square holding only a Relic remains empty). A step moves a piece to an adjacent unblocked square; steps never jump. Swap = two pieces exchange squares. Damage falls only on enemies, unless a card says otherwise.
  • LoS (line of sight): draw a straight line between the two squares' centres. A Ruin blocks LoS if the line crosses that Ruin's square. A piece never blocks LoS. If the line passes exactly through a corner shared by 4 squares, no Ruin there blocks it.
  • Push moves a piece away from the attacker; pull moves toward it. Both move along the row, column, or diagonal closest to the line between centres. The piece moves the card's distance, or as far as it can, and stops if blocked.
  • A push or pull that moves its target 0 squares (including an already-adjacent pull) crushes it for 1 damage instead. Crush is ordinary damage; damage-prevention effects apply.
  • Resolve the attack's damage, then its push or pull. Crush damage adds to the attack as one blow. A 1-damage attack whose push crushes deals 2 total. If the attack slays the target, skip the push or pull.
  • Gamble attacks roll the Gamble d6, as the card describes.

The Relic

  • A piece that ends a move, step, swap, or push/pull on the enemy Relic's square picks it up. That piece carries the Relic wherever it ends, even if a push or pull put it there.
  • A carrier keeps the Relic through anything its own side does, and can still attack. A piece never picks up or carries its own side's Relic.
  • An opponent's push, pull, or swap makes a carrier drop the Relic on the square it left, however far it travels. A carrier that is only crushed keeps it. A slain carrier drops the Relic where it died.
  • An attack that needs LoS ignores it against a carrier, unless the card says otherwise.
  • You can stand a piece on your own Relic to guard it. A piece placed on a square, rather than moved there, picks up nothing.
PRINT BOTH SIDES, FLIP ON THE SHORT EDGE · FOLD DOWN THE MIDDLE, PAGE 1 OUT
RELIQUARY28 · RULES · ONE A4 SHEET, FOUR PAGES A5
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Reliquary28
Two warbands duel amid ruins for each other's holy relic.
2 PLAYERS · ~20 MIN

You need:

  • A square grid (8×8 to 12×12).
  • Per player: 1 Hero, 3 to 5 Minions, 1 spare Minion for Rites that add one.
  • 2 Relic tokens and 2 sigils (Key, Skull).
  • The 18-card deck, 9 Rite cards, 9 Faction cards (each holds an HP track and your slain Minions).
  • 2 d6 (Gamble die, Vigil die) and damage tokens.

Board scale

Agree any size. Use this table as a guide:

BoardMinions eachRuinsDeploy rows
8342
9 to 10462
11 to 12583

Bigger boards need more bodies, or the armies never meet.

Winning

You win if the enemy Hero is slain, whatever slew it. You also win by Steal: end any turn with your piece in your own back row carrying the enemy Relic, however it got there.

The Vigil: The die resets to 6 when HP is lost (yours included), a Relic is picked up or dropped, or a Rite is played. Each full round (a turn each, paired from turn 1) without a reset takes 1 off the die. Every turn ends in this order: end-of-turn effects, win conditions, Vigil. If both players win at once, the active player wins. If the die is at 1 and a round passes with no reset, the game ends and each player scores: +1 for a piece of theirs that carries the enemy Relic in the enemy half, −1 for one in their own half (no carrier, or a carrier on a centre row, scores 0). Higher score wins. If tied, the player whose Hero took less damage wins, then the player with more Minions on the board, then a draw.

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Setup

  1. Take 1 sigil: Key or Skull. The row nearest you is your back row. Your half is on your side of the centre. On odd-sized boards the centre row belongs to neither player.
  2. Mark the Ruin squares: players take turns marking pairs (a square and the square opposite it through the centre), Key first, until the board has the table's Ruin count. Never a back row, never the exact centre.
  3. Secretly choose a Faction card, then reveal together. If you chose the same one, choose again. The card gives your Faction Attack, and some also give a Passive.
  4. Shuffle the deck and deal 7 cards: 3 face-up to each player, 1 aside as the waiting card. Every card also bears a Key or Skull stamp; the waiting card's stamp names the first player. Leave the rest face-down, out of play but reachable. Set the Vigil die to 6.
  5. Draft Rites: the second player chooses first. Each takes 1 of the 9 Rite cards, openly. Put the other 7 face-down, out of play.
  6. Deploy: the first player places first. Alternate, 1 piece at a time, into the rows nearest you (the table says how many). Never onto a Ruin. Hero last.
  7. Place your Relic, first player first, on an empty square in your half. Not your back row, not a Ruin.
DEPLOY ROWS: 2 ON THIS BOARD, HERO LAST
RUIN PAIR: A SQUARE AND ITS 180° TWIN ABOUT THE CENTRE
CENTRE ROW: NEITHER HALF ON ODD BOARDS
RELIC: IN THE OPEN, ON AN EMPTY SQUARE IN YOUR HALF, NEVER A RUIN
BACK ROW: NEVER A RUIN, NEVER YOUR RELIC
A 9×9 game set up. Key holds the near side: 4 Minions and a Hero in the deploy rows, 6 Ruins in 3 mirrored pairs, both Relics on the board, one in each half.
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Your turn

Play 1 of your 3 cards in one mode. Set it aside as the new waiting card, and take the old one. Your opponent takes the new waiting card on their next turn and can first play it the turn after that.

  • MOVE (top): move one piece exactly as the diagram shows (top of diagram = toward your opponent). Pieces jump over pieces and Ruins in between, but must end on an unblocked square. If the card bears the Escort mark, one other friendly piece can then step 1 square (the Hero can be that piece).
  • ATTACK (bottom): you make no MOVE this turn. Choose an attacker and do what the card says: the Hero: line for your Hero, Minion: for a Minion. An adjacent attack lets the attacker step 1 square first (the lunge). Check the attack from the square it stepped to. Faction Attack = the attack on your Faction card.
  • RALLY: do not use the card's move or attack. Return one of your slain Minions to any empty square in your back row.
  • RITE: once per game each, with any card: do not use its move or attack, and do what your Rite card says instead. Then discard your Rite card, out of the game. The card you played still becomes the waiting card.

If any card offers a legal MOVE, ATTACK, RALLY, or RITE, you must play one. A RALLY, an ATTACK, or a RITE is legal only if you can complete its effect. It still counts as complete if something prevents part of it, or if you decline an optional part, but not if it names something it cannot find. If none is legal, set any one card aside as the new waiting card and take the old one. Nothing else happens. Card text overrides these rules, but a restriction on a card or rule forbids only what it names and implies nothing else. On each player's first turn, they deal no damage, crush included: no card changes that.

PilgrimVaultSmiteRequiemWAITINGSerpentBoltAegisPilgrimSmiteRequiemVaultWAITINGSerpentBoltAegisPilgrimSmiteRequiemBoltWAITINGSerpentAegisVault
The deal: 3 cards each, Requiem waits. Its stamp says Key starts.
Turn 1: Key plays Vault, sets it aside as the waiting card, and takes Requiem.
Turn 2: Skull plays Bolt and takes Vault, the card Key played.
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