Objective: Control and/or burn six feng shui sites in a two-player game, or five feng shui sites in a game of more than two players. You must either seize or "burn for victory" your final feng shui site. Each player starts the game with a hand of six cards and his or her first turn with 1 Power point in his or her Power pool.
Turn Sequence
Establishing Shot (Perform steps in order.)
Add any Power generated by cards (The power a site generates is in its upper left hand corner) to your pool. You may skip this step for the priviledge of discarding more than one card during your discard step.
Unturn all your cards. Cards that are "turned and maintained" need not be unturned.
You may discard a card. If you skiped Power-generation, discard as many cards as you like. You must then bring your hand size up to six cards, or stay if you already have six or more cards.
Main Shot (Do steps in any order): You may play any type of card; you you must have the proper resources available and spend the right amount of Power. You may only play one site per turn. (The Power cost of playing a feng shui site is equal to the number of feng shui sites you already have in play.) You may turn damaged characters to heal them. If you have no feng shui sites in play, you may recieve a point of Power right after you play one. You may launch attacks at sites and at characters controlled by other players.
Kicking Butt
Attack Declaration: You may attack with unturned characters. turn all attacking characters. You may have as many characters attack as you wish, but you can only attack one target. Each player in turn, clockwise from the attacking player, has a chance to join in the attack.
Defense: Before the player under attack defends, each player in turn, clockwise from the player under attack, may intercept the attack by turning each character he or she wishes to intercept with and declaring which attacker that character is intercepting.
If a player wishes to intercept a given attacker with multiple characters, those characters must defend in a chain. Resulting combats take place at the location of the target. Defense is chosen and combat is resolved before the next player may intercept.
After all players other than the player under attack have had a chance to intercept, the player under attack may intercept with any characters at the same location as the target.
Combat: Characters in combat inflict their Fighting score (upper right hand corner) in damage. Damage lowers Fighting score. Attacking characters that defeat interceptors continue to attack until they have reached their target. If any one of the attacking characters manages to damage its target, another attack can be declared.
Damaging Sites: Damaged feng shui sites are turned face up. A feng shui site that has its Body rating (upper right hand corner) reduced to zero by an attacking character can be either seized, smoked, or burned, and a feng shui site can be burned either to reduce by one the total number of feng shui sites you must control for victory or to add five Power to your Power pool. If you burn a site for Power your turn ends.
A regular site taking damage equal to its Body rating can be either seized or smoked. When a front row site is removed, the site behind it, if any, must be moved forward to occupy the front row.
Definitions
Site
A card that is placed in your site structure which provides you with Power, Resources, or some special ability and which has a specific "location" in the game.
Feng Shui Site
A special kind of site, the playing, seizing, or burning of which brings you closer to winning the game.
Non Feng Shui Site
Any other site which, while doing any of the three things above, has no bearing on how close you are to winning. Non Feng Shui Sites may not be burned, only smoked or seized.
Site Structure
Site structure refers to the order in which you play sites. You may play sites in columns two deep, thus having a front row and a back row, or you may play a site into a new column, thus expanding your site structure. You may only play new sites in one direction from the original column, first front row, then either back row or a new column. If you have a back row position open anywhere in your site structure, you may fill it at a later date. Vacancies caused by a site being seized are filled by moving the back row site forward, if there is no back row site, that column is filled by the next column over. Sites are considered to be locations for game purposes and each column is a separate location where your characters are considered to reside.
Character
Characters are the main protagonists in the game, they have a name, a subtext a Fighting score, a "tag" which is usually some quote from that characters idiom, a cost, and if a factioned character, a resource provision, and have no other card type name such as State or Event. In addition, some characters have special abilities such as Toughness, or Guts, and restrictions such as Unique, or Limited. Characters can move around and initiate all sorts of mayhem (which occurs at sites). They inflict damage equal to their Fighting score, plus or minus any damage modifiers, on sites or other characters.
State
A card which is attached to another card to improve or to reduce its abilities (i.e.: vehicles, weapons, poison, security, etc.). States may only be played during your turn.
Event
A card which causes something special to happen which can either help or hurt your cards. (i.e.: Neutron Bomb, Difficulty at the Beginning, Rigorous Discipline). Events can either initiate or respond to effects, and may be played during another players turn.
Edge
A card that changes the environment of the game in your favor or to the detriment of an opponent (i.e.: generate extra Power or cause an opponent to lose Power etc.).
Faction
One of (currently) seven groups that are fighting over the fate of history and the future of the world. They are identified by their distinctive Resource symbols. The seven factions are Dragons, Architects of the Flesh, Four Monarchs, Jammers, Eaters of the Lotus, Ascended, and Guiding Hand.
Resource
A resource is generated either by a character or site of your faction. Generally, each character you play generates one resource of that faction which stays in your pool even if Smoked, but not if Toasted or under an opponents control. Some characters, events, sites, edges, or states require you to have one or more resources in your pool in order to play them. This leads to the distinction between Foundation characters and Resource requiring characters.
In addition to the seven faction resources, there are three non-faction resources which any of the factions may use. They are Magic, Chi, and Tech.
Power
Power is the basic unit of currency in the game. You can use it to pay for any events, states, sites, characters, or edges that require it. It is primarily generated by sites but can also be generated by edges, events, or even characters. Some events allow you to steal Power from an opponents pool.
Pool
A pool can consist of Power or Resources. Unspent Power remains in your power pool until it is needed. Resources generated by cards in play under your control or in your smoked pile form your resource pool.
Owner
The owner of a card is the player who's deck that card was in and who played that card. The owner of a card does not change.
Controller
The controller of a card is the player who's side the card is currently working for. You may take control of other players' cards under special circumstances, in which case you become the controller, though not the owner. States played by opponents on cards you control remain under that players control.
Burn for Victory
When you reduce a feng shui site's body to zero by inflicting combat damage on it, you may "burn it for victory" the card goes into your "burned for victory pile" and counts toward the number of feng shui sites you need to win the game.
Burn for Power
Similarly, you may "burn for power". In burning for power the site goes into the owners smoked pile and you gain five power. You are no closer to fulfilling victory conditions and your turn immediately ends.
Seize
Seizing a site involves playing that site into your site structure. You may seize any site who's Body you have reduced to zero in combat.
Smoke
Alternately, you may simply smoke a site. This is usually done to avoid triggering an effect generated by another card. A smoked site goes to its owners smoked pile. You gain no other benefit from it but that the site is taken from play.
Establishing Shot
The establishing shot is the set-up for your turn. Actions which occur during your establishing shot include generating power, unturning your cards, discarding, drawing, and playing certain events. Actions permitted during an establishing shot are limited.
Main Shot
This is the part of your turn when you play cards, reveal sites, and attack, you may play events, sites, characters, edges, or states, declare attacks, make deals, etc.
Turning
Cards in play that generate effects by turning will say so on the card. Characters may turn to attack, heal, or change location unless otherwise stated in the card text. Note: intercepting does not require you to turn, but intercepting an attack at another location requires you to turn to change location. Turning simply means that you turn a card 90° and perform some action.
Turn and Maintain
Some cards may remain turned during your establishing shot to maintain an effect. All other cards become unturned at this time.
Play
To play a card from your hand, paying all costs and meeting all resource requirements.
Sacrifice
When you sacrifice a card, you smoke it to fulfill conditions set out on one or more cards in play or being played. You may only sacrifice cards you control.
Smoke
To smoke a card means it is taken from play and placed in its owner's smoked pile. This may happen due to damage recieved or due to the effects of other cards. Cards smoked still provide resources but, unless otherwise stated, do not have any further effect on cards in play. Cards in this pile may be brought back into play later.
Toast
Toasting a card is done only under special circumstances. Cards that toast will say so on them. To toast a card, it is removed to its owner's discard pile where it provides no resources and may not reenter play. Note that cards which are discarded are toasted, but that 'discarding' and 'toasting' are
two separate game terms.
Discard
Discard a card into your discard pile. this card does not come into play for the rest of the game. No other card can affect a card in the discard pile. Discarding is done during your establishing shot, when allowed to by another card, or when you are forced to by an opponent.
Draw
To draw a card from your deck or to fill your hand to its maximum hand size; usually six cards.
P.U.D.D.
An acronym/mnemonic for Power Unturn Discard Draw; the steps performed in your establishing shot.
Declaration
An action you take, such as attacking, joining an attack, intercepting, turning a card, or ending your turn.
Effect
An action generated by a declaration or a card. Events generate effects that may be the trigger for other effects.
Reaction
An action that is triggered by another action.
You
When a card refers to "you" it means the person controlling or playing that card.
Designators
Designators are words in the title or subtitle of a card and do not include the words edge, state, site, event, feng, or shui, nor do they include articles, prepositions, or conjunctions.
Abilities
Characters may have special abilities. Abilities are found in the cards text box. Currently the abilities are toughness, guts, tactics, superleap, stealth, assasinate, and ambush.
Restrictions
Resrictions are also found in the text box and may be found on sites, events, and edges as well. Restrictions are unique, limited, and toast-it.
