Shock! Knights & Poisons

About this board game

Shock! Knights & Poisons is a 30-minute trick-taking game for 3–5 players, who compete to collect the most jewels and escape before being poisoned twice by the same type.

The game uses cards ranked from 1 through 11 in four suits. Some cards show jewels, some provide medicine, and others have no special feature. The base game includes three types of poison, while four optional cards add a fifth type.

• Play through tricks using the suited rank cards.
• Collect jewels, poison, and medicine from won tricks.
• Reveal additional cards from a separate deck between tricks.
• Withdraw from a round to protect the jewels you have gathered.

After each trick, the winner places any jewels shown on the played cards in front of themselves, along with any poison or medicine cards played. Before the next trick begins, a card is revealed from a different deck. These revealed cards may show poisons or may contain only jewels, adding more opportunities and risks as the round develops.

Whenever they have the chance to play a card, a player may instead play one face down to announce that they are withdrawing from the round. They move the jewels collected during that round into their bag. Although they continue playing cards, they cannot win any more jewels for the rest of that round.

Across five rounds, players must balance the temptation to gather more treasure against the danger of matching poison types. In Shock! Knights & Poisons, timing your withdrawal can be just as important as winning tricks. After the fifth round, the player with the most jewels wins.