Location Rules
How Location Cards Work
Location cards set a mood. We designed them to have art that reflects our vision of the lore of Zun. They are also easy to distinguish from rune cards — which is good because they normally belong in their own deck.
- Each Location has unique rules which affect everyone
- One Location is active at a time, drawn from their own deck
- On your turn, you may skip your action phase to move everyone to a new Location
Card Challenge Rating
Each Location card has a set of diamonds (or skulls) at the top to represent its challenge rating.
| Diamonds | Challenge |
|---|---|
| (none) | A Location card with no diamonds has no effect, letting players play normally until a new location is played |
| ◆ | Some influential effects, but nothing too troubling |
| ◆◆ | Will change the game significantly or require far more attention than normal |
| ◆◆◆ | Demands your attention with potentially game-breaking changes that either may quickly end a game or at least cause many unexpected outcomes to those unprepared |
These ratings are only a guide, but they could help you choose the Locations you want available before you start your next game.
Keywords
Locations may have bold keywords in parentheses that follow the same rules as the keywords with rune cards (currently, only immune is a Location keyword).
Effect Timing
Each effect on a Location card is limited by the bold time given before its non-bold text. There may be multiple effects during a single time, and there may also be multiple times when different effects occur.
Always: If you discard a Reaction due to any card effect, increase your HP by 1. If you discard an Action due to any card effect, draw 1 card.
Start of your turn: You may skip your action and recovery phase to set your HP to 5, then discard 4 cards.
Temporary Rune Card Areas
Some Location cards describe within their effects the creation of a temporary rune card area that it uses while the Location is active. These rune cards are often discarded once the Location that called for them is discarded.
When this card is played: Reveal 10 cards from the top of the deck and place them face-up as the “Bookshelf”.
Always: If the Bookshelf has 0 cards, all players discard 2 cards to the Bookshelf.
Your turn: You may take 1 card from the Bookshelf.
When this card is discarded: Discard any Bookshelf cards.
You may organize these sets of rune cards as you like. We recommend stacking them in a pile to save table space, but that’s up to you.
Normal Rules
Location travel isn’t precise and often produces unexpected results. This is the official way Locations are meant to be played, and other rule sets are based on this.
Setup
Before you start your game, shuffle all desired Location cards into a separate deck.
Changing locations
You may discard any current Location and play a new Location by choosing to skip your action phase. So:
At the start of your turn, after you deal with your start of turn effects and you go past the mulligan step, you may play a Location card. Playing Location cards normally can only occur at this point, which is the last part of your start of turn, just before you begin your action phase.
To play a Location, you must discard any currently active Location card first. Deal with any effects that may occur when discarding the active Location before you finish discarding it.
Flip over the top Location card in the Location deck and place it in a central location or directly in front of you while still out of the way of any rune cards.
Once played, the Location card’s effects resolve and begin affecting players immediately as written.
After playing a Location card this way, you must skip your action phase this turn.
Simplified Rules
When you just want to learn how to play a new Location, or you want to make your entire game have a particular flavor, try this.
Play using the Normal Rules above, except:
- Only play with one Location for the entire game
- Players may not play a new Location or discard the current one
Tourist Rules
When you want to take a trip and turn your game into more of an adventure, try this.
Play using the Normal Rules above, except:
- During setup, select the Locations you want to visit and place them face-up in their own deck in the order of your choosing
- Any player may look at the Locations deck at any time but must keep the Location cards in order
- Each Location lasts 3 rounds; discard any active Location and play a new one at the end of every 3rd round
- Return discarded Locations to the bottom of the Location deck face-up so they may loop in order
Questions?
Join our Discord server or email our support team to ask rule questions or volunteer your time to help others in the community, test future content, or contribute to the game’s development.