Carcosa

About this board game

Carcosa is a Lovecraftian board game for 1–4 players, with games lasting about 60 minutes, in which cults summon the home of the Tattered King one tile at a time.

Each player leads a cult and uses a prophet to select a tile from the cult board. Add sections of Carcosa to the growing landscape of ritual sites, leylines, towers, and domes, then deploy cultists to control leylines, conduct rituals, or influence the districts you have just summoned.

Carcosa is unstable, and newly summoned tiles must be stabilized with power drawn from leylines. Without that power, other cults may reshape them. The city also offers sinister opportunities: theatres can recruit more cultists through the Forbidden Play, while cultists gathering power may be driven mad by terrible secrets.

• Use cultists to control leylines, conduct rituals, and influence districts.
• Spend power through oracles to cast game-changing spells.
• Recruit cultists at theatres and sacrifice them to the King’s horrific avatars.
• Stabilize tiles before rival cults reshape the developing city.

The game ends when a cult gathers enough power to conduct the final summoning of the King in Yellow, or when enough tiles have been placed for Carcosa to become a permanent feature of Earth. The cult with the most power seizes control, but only one cult can succeed in these insane tasks.

With its evolving landscape, contested leylines, rituals, spells, and dangerous sacrifices, Carcosa turns every new section of the city into another step toward triumph—or madness.