📜 Embers of Empire — Rulebook

1. Overview

2–5 players guide young civilizations through a handful of eventful Eras (rounds). Each Era you draw tokens from your personal bag and place them onto your player board, building up three aspects — Warfare, Culture, and Economy — to Discover the Civ Cards and wonders on display. But your bag also holds Calamities: draw too many and your civilization Collapses into a Dark Age.

Push your luck, spend your rows, build your bag, and score the most Victory Points (VP) when the deck runs out.

2. Components

• Player boards — one per player, each with three aspect rows of 7 circular slots. Rows fill left to right. Columns 3, 5, and 7 are the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Pillars, and every row's 5th slot carries a Influence space symbol (see 11). Below the rows sits the Calamity track — 4 spaces where drawn Calamities go; the 4th space IS the Collapse (see 6). No two players use the same board.
• The CENTRAL BOARD — one shared board in the middle of the table, holding the Glory track (see 9) and the 5 face-up Market slots (see 7).
• Personal draw bags — each player starts with 20 tokens: 16 Resources (3× Mono 3, 3× Mono 2, 3× Split 2, 3× Split 1, 4× Wild 1) and 4 identical Calamities — 20 tokens. (Calamities have no individual names or colors — a Calamity is a Calamity.) At the end of Era 3 every player adds a Calamity to their bag (the Era 3 Reckoning, see 6).
• Calamity supply — each player keeps 2 spare Calamities beside their board: the source of the Era 3 Reckoning.
• HOPE markers — each player starts with 3. Spend one at any time on your turn to return a Calamity from your track to your bag; unspent Hope is worth 1 VP each at game end. Extra Hope sits in the supply for card effects.
• The Frontier — a shared bag holding every token not in play. Lost and surrendered tokens go into it; fresh tokens come out of it (via the Market).
• The Resource Market — a public row of 5 face-up Resources dealt from the Frontier.
• Civ Cards & wonders — every card belongs to an Era, shown as a large Roman numeral on its BACK; each Era deals from its own stack. Cards show their Costs (aspect + number), a VP value, and an ability.
• EMBERS — lost knowledge (e.g. Pagan Rituals) worth 1 VP + a minor effect, drawn when a player Collapses (see 6). Shuffled into a face-down stack during setup, so which Ember you get is unknown until you draw it.
• Influence markers (renamed from Corruption 2026-08-05) — placed on face-up cards from the boards' Influence spaces and by effects. An Influence marker makes that card's Costs 1 lower for its owner and 1 higher for everyone else; max one per card (one in total, not one per player). Printed in five player colors — 2 per player; see 11.
• Glory markers — one per player, all starting on space 0 of the shared Glory track on the Central Board. Advances at most once per Era, to whoever shows the highest Warfare row value (see 9). Worth 1 VP per space.
• Dark Age markers — taken when you Collapse; negative VP at game end.
• Scoring is end-game counting — no score track: at game end you count the cards in front of you, your Hope, and your Dark Ages.

Token faces

A Resource's face shows a value (1–3) and 1, 2, or 3 aspect colors, which govern placement: Mono (one color) may only be placed in that aspect's row; Split (two colors) in either of its two rows; Wild (three colors) in any row. Higher values come with fewer colors — power costs flexibility. Calamities show a name instead of a value and belong to no row — they go straight to your Calamity track (see 5).

3. Setup

1. Each player takes a faction board (first come, first served), their 20-token starting bag, and their 2-Calamity supply (beside the board, not in the bag).
2. All remaining Resources go into the Frontier bag. Deal 5 Resources face up from it to form the Market.
3. Sort the Civ Cards into their Era stacks (the Roman numeral on each back). Each Era reveals 8 cards from its own stack — (2 × players) + 1 cards per Era (revised 2026-08-05): with the 2-Discovery cap, the Era's last acquisition always has a choice. Eras by player count:

   Players	Eras	Cards dealt
   2	6	5 × 6 = 30
   3	6	7 × 6 = 42
   4	6	9 × 6 = 54 (the full pool)
   5	5	11 × 5 = 55*

   *5-player games need one more card than the current 54-card pool — short 1 until the pool grows.
4. Each player takes their 3 Hope markers.
5. Pick a random start player. (Over the game, everyone starts first an equal number of times — the start rotates left each Era.)

4. Playing an Era

Deal (2 × players) + 1 cards from this Era's stack face up into the middle of the table — the Discovery area. Then, starting with the start player and going clockwise, players take turns until everyone has passed or Collapsed. On your turn, take exactly ONE action:

• Draw & Place — draw 2 tokens from your bag and place both (you see both before placing either, and choose the order).
• Discover — take a card from the Discovery area you qualify for, paying its Costs (see 10). Your round continues — but a player may Discover at most 2 cards per round.
• Pass — end your round. No re-entry.

5. Placing Tokens

Choose a legal row for the token's face (see 2), and place it in that row's leftmost open slot — no skipping ahead. A row's value is the sum of the printed values of the Resources in it.

• Unplaceable Resource? If a drawn Resource has no legal open row, it is lost to the Frontier (it may resurface in the Market — possibly for an opponent). This still counts as one of your placements.
• Influence space: place a Resource on a row's 5th slot and, if you still hold one of your two markers, you place an Influence marker on a face-up card of your choice that doesn't already have one (see 11) — that card gets cheaper for YOU, pricier for everyone else. If no eligible card remains, nothing happens.
• Full board? If you have no legal placement at all, you must Pass.

Placing Calamities — the Calamity track

Drawn Calamities MUST be placed — but never into your rows. Every Calamity goes onto your board's Calamity track, filling its 4 spaces left to right:

• All Calamities are identical and interchangeable — no individual names. (Card effects simply say "Return a Calamity to your bag.")
• The Era 3 Reckoning: at the END of Era 3, every player adds a Calamity from their supply to their bag — civilization gets harder to steer as it grows. (This replaces the retired Super Plague.)
• A Calamity contributes nothing and triggers nothing — it just advances your Collapse clock, in plain sight of the table.

Your rows stay pure: only Resources ever occupy row slots. The pressure is the track filling up beside them.

Row compaction

Rows never have gaps. Whenever a Resource leaves a row (a card effect removes it, or it returns to a bag or the Frontier), every token to its right shifts one slot left — a row is always a contiguous run from slot 1. Shifting is not placement and retriggers NOTHING: a token sliding onto the Influence space places no marker, and no card trigger fires. Pillars are simply re-read after the shift (a removal can break one, never complete one). A later legitimate placement into a reopened slot triggers normally.

6. Calamities & Collapse

If your Calamity track fills — 4 Calamities — your civilization COLLAPSES. Three are safe; landing on the track's 4th space IS the Collapse. There is no hidden counter — the track is the clock, visible to all.

When you Collapse: take a Dark Age marker (keep it face up — public, permanent) and you are out for the rest of the round. Dark Ages cost VP at game end, and the penalty escalates with each one (see 14).

Hope

Each player starts with 3 Hope markers. At any time on your turn, spend one to return a Calamity from your track to your bag — the clock rewinds. Unspent Hope is worth 1 VP each at game end: insurance or points, your call. Some card effects can grant extra Hope from the supply.

Embers

Collapsing needn't bury you. If you Collapse in an Era before Discovering your first Civ Card of that Era, draw 2 EMBERS; if you had already Discovered one, draw 1. Embers (e.g. Pagan Rituals) are worth 1 VP and carry a minor one-time effect — what survives the fire.

The Embers are shuffled into a face-down stack during setup and you draw blind. You will not know which Ember — or which effect — you have until you take it, so you can never Collapse for a particular one. It is a consolation, not a plan.

7. The Frontier & the Resource Market

The Frontier bag holds every unused token — Resources only, never Calamities. Nobody ever searches it; tokens leave it only as blind draws that refill the Market, the public row of 5 face-up Resources. Two standard verbs use them:

• Gain a Token — take any 1 Resource from the Market and add it to your bag. Refill the Market from the Frontier immediately. ("Gain 2 Tokens" = do it twice.)
• Trade — return one of your Resources to the Frontier and take a Market Resource worth exactly 1 more (1→2 or 2→3). Trading from your bag: the new Resource joins your bag. Trading from your board: the new Resource takes the vacated slot (its face must be legal for that row; this does not re-trigger the final-slot reward). If no legal 1-higher Resource is in the Market, you can't Trade.

Gained tokens are permanent — your bag grows across rounds. That's the engine-building arc: a bigger, richer bag dilutes your Calamities and reaches higher Costs.

8. The Pillars

Columns 3, 5, and 7 of every board are the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Pillars. A Pillar is complete while a Resource occupies that column's slot in every row. Spending or losing those Resources un-completes it — though Discovering never empties the Warfare row (see 9), so a Warfare Pillar slot, once filled, holds for the rest of the Era.

Pillars have no built-in reward — they are landmarks that card abilities reference ("If your Bronze Pillar is complete…"). Where the final-slot reward pays off a deep row, Pillars pay off a wide board. The Gold Pillar — a full board of Resources — is nearly impossible. Legends are written about it.

9. The Warfare Row & Glory

Warfare is not an economy — it is a standing. Two rules set it apart from Culture and Economy:

Warfare is never spent

Resources placed in your Warfare row are never paid to Discover a card. Buying a card empties its Culture and/or Economy rows as usual, but your Warfare row survives every purchase intact and keeps growing all Era. The only thing that removes a Warfare Resource mid-Era is a card effect that says so.

At Era end the Warfare row does return to your bag, along with everything else — it is exempt from being spent, not from cleanup. Every Era the contest starts fresh from an empty row.

The Glory track

The Glory track sits on the Central Board — one shared track with one space per Era, plus a 0 start. Every player's marker sits on it, stacking on the same space when players are level, so the standings are readable at a glance. All markers start on 0. At the end of each Era, the player showing the highest Warfare row value advances their Glory marker one space — compared before the rows are cleared. If players tie, all tied players advance. A player who Collapsed still competes with whatever Warfare they had placed.

The most Glory you can hold is therefore the number of Eras — 6 in a 6-Era game. At game end, each space of Glory is worth 1 VP (see 14).

Because the row resets each Era, no one can build an unassailable lead: Glory is six separate races, and each Era you must decide how much of your draw to commit to a row that buys you nothing but Glory.

10. Discovering Civ Cards

A card lists 2 Costs (Civ Cards) or 3 (wonders), e.g. Warfare 6 + Culture 3. You qualify when every listed row's value meets or beats its Cost simultaneously. A Warfare Cost is a threshold you meet but never pay (see 9) — and since your Warfare row clears at Era end, you must re-earn it each Era. Discovering is your action for the turn:

1. Take the card and place it in front of you (its VP counts at game end).
2. Pay for it: ALL Resources in ALL of the card's required rows return to your bag — the whole row empties, even beyond the Cost (no change given). Rows the card doesn't require are untouched, and your Warfare row is never paid (see 9). Your Calamity track is untouched — the clock keeps counting toward Collapse.
3. Resolve the card's ability (see 12).
4. Your round continues. You may build up and Discover again this round — with your Collapse clock still ticking — up to the limit of 2 Discoveries per player per round. Everyone has a real shot at two cards; nobody gets a third.

11. Influence

Influence markers (renamed from Corruption, 2026-08-05) land on cards in the Discovery area from two sources: card effects, and the boards' Influence spaces — every row's 5th slot (sharing the Silver Pillar column). Placing a Resource on an Influence space lets you put a marker on a face-up card of your choice that doesn't already carry one.

While on a card, the marker makes ALL of that card's Costs 1 LOWER for its owner and 1 HIGHER for every other player. Max one Influence marker per card. Influence is a claim: "this one's mine" — contest it at a premium, or go elsewhere.

Your two markers

Influence markers come in player colors (Teal, Blue, Green, Pink, White), so it is always clear whose claim is on a card. You have exactly two.

• You may only place a marker you actually hold. If both of yours are already out on cards when you fill an Influence space, you skip placing — the placement is otherwise normal and nothing else changes.
• When a card is Discovered — by anyone — the marker on it returns to its owner, not to a general supply. You can place it again the next time you fill an Influence space. A marker you put on a card someone else buys comes straight back to you.
• Cards that go undiscovered leave at Era end, and their markers likewise return to their owners.

12. Card Abilities

Every Civ Card has one ability that resolves the moment you Discover it — after that, the card sits in your play area as VP and set-collection. No exhausting, no tapping, nothing to remember. A small handful of cards instead read "While this card is in your play area…" — quiet standing effects that never need tracking.

Wonders have no abilities: their end-game scoring rule (printed on the card) is their identity.

Aspect personalities: Warfare is the standing contest — pressure, Calamity relief, and the effects that raise or tear down Warfare rows (see 9); Culture is tempo and VP; Economy builds your bag and scales with your Economy collection.

13. Era End

When every player has passed or Collapsed:

1. Resolve Glory — compare Warfare row values. The highest advances their Glory marker one space; all tied players advance (see 9).
2. All tokens return to their owners' bags — row Resources and tracked Calamities alike, Warfare included. Boards clear; what persists is your bag, your Glory, your cards, and your Dark Age markers.
3. Undiscovered cards are discarded, and any Influence markers on them return to their owners.
4. The Market is swept into the Frontier and 5 fresh Resources are dealt.
5. The start player rotates left; deal a new Discovery area and begin the next round.

14. Game End & Scoring

The game ends after the final Era. There is no score track — everything counts at the end. Add up:

1. Card VP — printed on the Civ Cards in front of you.
2. Wonder bonuses — each wonder scores its printed end-game rule.
3. Aspect majorities — for each aspect, the player with the most Civ Cards of that aspect gains +5 VP (requires at least 1 such card; ties: all tied players score the full 5).
4. Glory — +1 VP per space on your Glory track (see 9). Placeholder value, under calibration.
5. Hope — +1 VP per unspent Hope marker.
6. Embers — 1 VP each (a returned Ember scores nothing).
7. Prosperity bonus — the player(s) with the fewest Dark Age markers gain +5 VP (ties: all score it).
8. Dark Ages — lose VP for your Dark Age markers, at an escalating rate: your Nth marker costs N+1 VP.

   Dark Ages	1	2	3	4
   Total VP lost	−2	−5	−9	−14

Highest VP wins. Ties: fewest Dark Age markers, then most cards won, then shared victory.

15. Glossary