The Vale of Eternity

Enter a fantastical world of monsters, spirits, and gods!
As a tamer, you’ll hunt and tame a variety of creatures, with the ultimate goal of capturing the powerful and noble dragons. With 70 creatures from global myths, each game is unique and unpredictable. In each round, players draft cards, take actions, and use the effects of their summoned minions.
The player who tames the most outstanding creatures will emerge victorious.

• Age: 14+
• Players: 2–4
• Duration: 40′

Components

• 1 Game Board & Eternity Standee
• 1 Score Board (with Round Track & Scoring Track)
• 1 First Player Marker
• 1 Round Marker
• 42 Magic Stones:
  • 16 Red Stones (worth 1)
  • 14 Blue Stones (worth 3)
  • 12 Purple Stones (worth 6)
• 8 Player Markers (2 per player)
• 4 Score Markers
• 4 Player Tiles (Double-sided)
• 70 Cards

Setting Up the Game

1. Each player chooses a color and takes 2 player markers and 1 player tile of that color.
2. The player who has most recently seen a reptile becomes the first player. They receive the first player marker.
3. Place the game board and the score board in the middle of the table.
4. Shuffle all the cards to form a draw pile. Leave some space next to the draw pile for the discard pile.
5. Put the round marker on the first space on the round track.
6. From the first player and going clockwise, each player gets as many points as their rank in the turn order. Put each player’s score marker on the scoring track to record each player’s score (Start player gets 1 point, second player 2 points, etc).
7. Put the magic stones next to the score board to form the supply.

You are free to use the Eternity standee. Placing it in the center of the game board will add a nice touch to your photos.

The Cards

Each card represents a creature.

1. Name of the card.
2. Summoning cost.
3. Family of the card. There are 5 families:
   • Fire
   • Water
   • Earth
   • Wind
   • Dragon
4. Effect of the card. There are various effects that give players benefits.
5. Type of the effect. There are 3 types of effects:
   • Instant: Triggers only when the card is being summoned.
   • Permanent: Always active after the card has been summoned.
   • Active: Activates once per round during the Resolution Phase.

Hands

Hands are the cards that a player gets (usually by taming) during the game.

• Hands must remain secret from opponents.
• There is no hand limit.

Magic Stones

Players usually earn magic stones by selling cards that they hunted. They can then use these magic stones to summon a card from their hand.
There are 3 types of magic stones:

• Red Stone is worth 1.
• Blue Stone is worth 3.
• Purple Stone is worth 6.

• IMPORTANT: A player cannot have more than 4 magic stones, regardless of their type(s).
• If a player exceeds this limit, they must keep 4 magic stones and discard the rest. This decision must be made before taking any other actions.
• Players cannot trade their magic stones for the magic stones in the supply unless a card effect allows them to do so.
• Players do not receive change when they pay more than the required cost.
• Magic stones that each player has are public information.
• The quantity of the magic stones is not limited. If you run out of magic stones, use any other item as replacement.

Area

• An area is a zone that a player uses to display the card that they have summoned.
• The number of areas that each player may have is equal to the number of the current round.
  E.g.) In 5th round, the number of your areas is equal to 5.
• IMPORTANT: You cannot have more summoned cards than the number of areas you have. Once you have as many summoned cards as there are areas, your areas are considered full.

Points

Players get points in various ways by triggering card effects. When players get points, they advance their score marker as many spaces as points that they have scored. If any player has a score of 60 or more at the end of the round, the game ends.

NOTE: Your score can be reduced by card effects. However, it cannot go below zero.

The game is played over several rounds (typically 8 to 10). Each round is divided into 3 phases:

1. Hunting Phase: Players draft two cards.
2. Action Phase: Players do various actions, including summoning cards.
3. Resolution Phase: Players use the Active effects of the cards in their areas.

Successive rounds are performed until the end of the game is triggered.

1. Hunting Phase

1. Reveal as many cards as twice the number of players from the draw pile. Sort them by their families and place them in the matching zone around the game board.
   NOTE: If the draw pile runs out, shuffle the discarded cards to create a new draw pile.
2. From the first player and in clockwise order, each player chooses a card and places their player marker on it. Players may not choose a card if there is already a player marker on that card.
3. Then, from the last player and in counterclockwise order, each player chooses a second card and places their remaining player marker on it. In other words, the last player chooses two cards consecutively. After the first player has placed their player marker on the last card, the Hunting Phase ends.

2. Action Phase

From the first player and in clockwise order, players take their turns. A player can take as many actions as desired during their turn. There are 4 kinds of action that players may perform:

• Sell a Card
• Tame a Card
• Summon a Card
• Remove a Card

• Players may perform the same action several times.
• Players may perform actions in the order of their choice.
  E.g.) You may summon again a card after you summon a card then sell a card.

If a player has no more actions to do or if they don’t want to do any more actions, they finish their turn. The next player (in clockwise order) now plays their turn. Once all the players have finished their turns, the Action Phase ends.

NOTE: Players can’t end a turn while their player marker is on a card; it must be retrieved by selling or taming that card.

Sell a Card

• To sell a card, retrieve one of the player markers that you placed during the Hunting Phase. Then discard the matching card and receive magic stones depending on the family of the card (regardless of the cost of the card).
• The game board shows the magic stones that players can get when they sell a card of a certain family:
  • Fire: 3 Red Stones ( )
  • Earth: 4 Red Stones ( )
  • Water: 2 Blue Stones ( )
  • Wind: 1 Red Stone & 1 Blue Stone ( )
  • Dragon: 1 Purple Stone ()
• REMINDER: You cannot have more than 4 magic stones, regardless of their type(s).

Tame a Card

• To tame a card, retrieve one of the player markers that you placed during the Hunting Phase. Then take the matching card in your hand.
• REMINDER: There is no hand limit.

Summon a Card

• First, check whether your areas are full or not.
• If your areas are full (that is, you already have as many summoned cards as the number of areas you have), you cannot summon a card.
• IMPORTANT: The number of areas you have is equal to the number of the current round.
• Pay as many magic stones as required by the card costs and place the card face-up in front of you. Even if you pay more than the cost, you don’t get any change.
• NOTE: The cost of the card can be reduced by card effects, and these effects can stack. However, the cost cannot be reduced below zero.
• Resolve the Instant effect of the summoned card, if any.

Remove a Card

• Discarding a summoned card from a player’s own area is called ‘REMOVE’.
• The cost required to remove a card is equal to the number of the current round.
• IMPORTANT: Players can only remove their own summoned cards with the Remove a Card Action.

3. Resolution Phase

From the first player and in clockwise order, players take their turns.

• On their turn, players use every available Active effect of the cards in their areas once.
• If there are multiple Active effects, they may use the effects in the order of their choice.
• If a player doesn’t have any Active effect remaining, or if they already activated every available Active effect once, they finish their turn.
• When all of the players have finished their turns, the Resolution Phase ends.

End of the Round

After the Resolution Phase, the round ends.

1. Check the end of the game condition.
2. If the end game condition has not been met, begin the next round. Move the round marker to the next round space.
3. The player on the left of the first player becomes the new first player and gets the first player marker.

End of Game and Victory

If the end game condition has been met at the end of the round, the game ends. There are two kinds of end game conditions:

• Any player has a score of 60 or more at the end of the round.
• Or, the 10th round ends.

If your score marker exceeds 60 points, flip your player tile to indicate this.

The player with the most points wins.
In case of a tie, the player among them with the most summoned cards wins. If there is still a tie, they share the victory.

Effect of Cards

If the effect of a card breaks one of the game rules, the card’s effect takes precedence.

• Every effect must be used.
  E.g.) Unless your hand is empty, you must activate the effect of ‘Medusa’ at the Resolution Phase, which forces you to discard a card from your hand.
• If the triggering effect is not resolved, the triggered effect is not activated.
  E.g.) If you cannot discard a card, you cannot get .
• The card cannot be summoned if any part of the Instant effect cannot be resolved.
  E.g.) You must select a player (including yourself) who has at least one summoned Water card. The player of your choice gets to decide which card to discard. If there are no players with summoned Water cards to discard, you cannot summon ‘Ember’.
• When summoning a card with a Permanent effect that affects summoning, the card itself is not affected by the Permanent effect.
  E.g.) You cannot get 2 points even if you summon ‘Kappa’ with paying .
• When resolving an Instant effect, the card itself is considered as already being in the area but not in hand.
  E.g.) You can get 4 points for the Dragon family when you resolve the Instant effect of ‘Eternity’ because ‘Eternity’ is considered as already being in your area.
• Recover is a keyword that puts a summoned card back in the owner’s hand.
  If any specific target isn’t described, the card recovers itself.
  E.g.) If ‘Imp’ is summoned, you recover it in your hand at the Resolution Phase.

Credits

• Game Design: Eric Hong
• Cover Art: Stefano Martinuz
• Illustrations: Erica Tormen, Gautier Maïa, Jiahui Gao, Stefano Martinuz
• Producing: Marco Jung
• Editing: Tylor Kim
• Graphic Design: Chong
• Additional editing and proofreading: Antoine Prono (Transludis)

Thanks to all the staff at Mandoo Games who worked hard to release this game.
I’m also grateful to everyone who playtested various versions of the game, especially 이승찬, 김정엽, 박주영, and 조원우. They recognized the potential of the game even in its very early stages and provided passionate advice and encouragement.
— From Eric Hong