Overview

As Frederick II's vassal, you will perform tasks such as summoning Allies from around the Mediterranean, building Structures in your castle, and promoting Specialists to improve your kingdom. Certain actions will trigger Edicts that affect Frederick's Palace, and determine the rewards players may receive from their Allies. You may improve your chances by upgrading your castles: Towers house additional Allies, Walls store more Resources, and Keeps aid in managing Action Cards.

The players will take turns during the game, going clockwise, until one of the game end conditions is met.

How to Play

Stupor Mundi is played over a variable number of rounds, each of which is divided into two phases:

• the Action Phase, played in clockwise turn order

1. Travel
2. Perform action

• the End Phase, performed simultaneously by all players.

1. Refill hand
2. Castle income
3. Ally income
4. Reorganization

Action Phase

Travel

[TRAVEL]

At the start of your turn, you may choose to travel. To travel, move your Ship 1-4 spaces clockwise around the Voyage Board, paying 1 Augustalis for each space moved. You may then perform your turn action as normal.

Perform action

[PLAYCARD]

Action Cards may be played face-up or face-down in any Action Card slot of your choice, and any sequence – you are not required to play the Action Cards from left to right.

• Note: At the beginning of the game, the rightmost slot of each player’s Action Board is locked and may not be used. Building a specific Keep during the game will allow you to remove the tile blocking that card slot.
• Playing a card face-up will allow you to perform the action displayed on that card.
• Playing a card face-down will allow you to perform one of the board actions pointed to by the soldiers’ spears on the back of that card.

Once you have resolved the actions associated with your played card, the next player will take their turn. That player must choose to travel (or not), and then play an Action Card. If a player cannot or does not want to play an Action Card, they must pass their turn. A player who has passed may not travel nor play any more Action Cards in that round. This process continues until all players have passed.

Promote a Specialist

[PROMOTE]

This action allows you to move one of your Specialists one space along one of the three paths on the Workplace Area. Specialists move from one Workplace space to the next, following the arrows.

• the Workplace Area is divided into 3 areas. From left to right, these are the Countryside (blue), Village (yellow), and City (green) areas. Each area uses different Workplace tiles.
• Each Countryside and Village tile has two Workplaces, which provide special abilities if you have at least one Specialist in that Workplace.
• City Workplaces offer one-time bonuses. When your Specialist reaches a City Workplace, take a City bonus tile of your choice (if available), receive the indicated bonus.
• If a Specialist’s move would cause it to pass over an arrow accompanied by a Grain symbol [GRAIN], you must pay a Grain to the supply before your Specialist may move forward.

• If a Specialist’s move would cause it to move to a Workplace with a Workplace Edict Token, you must immediately issue an Edict and remove the token from the Workplace.

Trade with the locals

[TRADE]

This action allows you to do one or both of the following actions:

• Sell a single resource (a Grain or Stone)
• Buy a single resource (a Grain or Stone)

The amount of Augustales spent or gained with this action depends on the Market tile that is located in the city where your Ship is currently docked.

Build a Structure

[BUILD]

This action allows you to add a single Structure to your Castle. There are three types of Structures: Towers, Walls, and Keeps:

• Each Structure must be built in its corresponding space on your Castle Board. Structures may be built as either normal or Great, and in any order.
• Each Structure must be paid for using Stone [STONE]. The cost to Build each Structure is indicated on its space on the Castle Board.
• Great Structures provide bonuses once built, but they have additional costs that must paid in Augustales.
• You may only build a Wall if it connects to a Tower already present on your Castle Board, and vice versa.

Each type of Structure has a different function:

• [TOWER] At the start of the game, you may only host 1 Ally in your Castle. Each Tower you build during the game allows you to host 1 additional Ally.
• [WALL] At the start of the game, you may store up to 3 resources (Grain and/or Stone) in your Castle. Each Wall you build during the game allows you to store 1 additional resource.
• [KEEP] When built, Keeps provide advantages that help improve your hand of cards. When you build a Keep, take the corresponding Keep Cover tile from your Castle Board and place it on the empty Keep space of your Player Board to remind you of its effect.

Summon an Ally

[SUMMON]

You may summon one Ally to your Castle by paying the cost shown under that Ally’s spot on the Voyage Board.

• You may only summon an Ally from the area of the Voyage Board where your Ship is currently located.
• Summoned Allies are immediately placed in an empty, dedicated Ally space of your Player Board (one that does not contain a Tower).

Note: Your Castle may never contain two identical Allies. Allies will prove crucial during the “Ally Income” step at the end of the round, when they provide VP. Pay close attention to which Allies your opponents have summoned!

Purchase an Action Card

[GAINACTION]

You may use this action to purchase one advanced Action Card.

• You may only purchase an Advanced Action Card from the area of the Voyage Board where your Ship is located.
• Once that card’s cost is paid, you may perform that card’s action immediately, as though it had just been played on your Personal Board.
• Then, take the card into your hand - it may be played this turn, as normal.

Cards’ costs can be found in their top-right corners. These costs may either be: A certain amount of Augustales, OR The removal of one of your Action Cards from the game, either from your hand or your discard pile, but NOT your draw pile.

End Phase

All players may perform their End Phase steps simultaneously.

Refill hand

[HANDLIMIT]

1. This step begins with players discarding all played cards from their Player Boards.
2. Then, each player may discard any number of cards from their hand.
3. Finally, each player must draw from their draw pile until they have 5 cards in their hand (or possibly more, depending on certain bonuses). If your draw pile ever runs out, shuffle your discard pile into a new draw pile.

Castle income

[INCOME]

Castles help to guarantee income during this phase.

• Each closed side of a Castle provides a specific income.
• A closed side consists of 2 Towers connected by a Wall.
• The income provided by that side is indicated by the corresponding exclamation mark icon.

Ally income

[ALLY]

There are two kinds of Allies: Loyalists (yellow) and Independents (blue), and each produces VP in different ways.

• Loyalists provide VP based on the items in Frederick’s Castle (or the position of his Specialist).
• Independents provide VP based on the number of items in your Castle.

During the End Phase each Ally produces 1 VP, plus another 2 VP if their specific requirement has been met (for a total of 3 VP).

Reorganization

1. If one or more spaces of the Voyage Board have no Advanced Action Cards, refill those spaces from the draw pile.
2. If there are any face-down Allies on the Voyage Board, turn them face-up.
3. The First Player marker is passed to the next player in clockwise order, and a new round begins.

End of the Game

[ENDGAME]

The end of the game is triggered at the end of a round in which one or more of the following situations occur:

1. One or more players have built every Structure in their Castle, OR
2. There are no more Edicts to fill the 3 Active Edict spaces in the Imperial Area, OR
3. There are insufficient Advanced Action Cards to fully refill all empty spaces on the Voyage Board.

Your final score is equal to the position of your marker on the VP track, plus:

• +1 VP for each Structure in your Castle.
• +4 VP for the player (or players) whose Castle contains the most Structures, and +2 VP for the player (or players) whose Castle contains the second-most Structures. In 2-player games, the +2 VP is not awarded.
• Exchange your Grain and Stone cubes for 2 Augustales each. Then, gain 1 VP for every 6 Augustales you have remaining.

The player with the most Victory Points wins the game. If there is a tie for most VP, the winner is the tied player who built the most Great Structures. If there is still a tie, the tied players share the victory.

House Action Cards

Each player receives a set of 8 identical House Action Cards (2 of each)

[CARD0] Gain 1 Stone

[CARD1] Gain 1 Grain

[CARD2] Gain 3 Augustales

[CARD3] Draw 4 cards from your draw pile

Each player also receives 2 unique House Action Cards

House Black

[CARD4] Gain 1 Stone for every 2 structures in Frederick's Castle (max. 3)

[CARD5] Move your ship 0-4 spaces for free, then take a Trade action

House Blue

[CARD10] Gain 2 Augustales for each resource in Frederick's reserve (max. 8)

[CARD11] Take a Build action; you may pay any combination of Grain and/or Stones. Augustalis costs to Build a Great Structure must be paid as normal

House Green

[CARD16] Gain 1 VP for each step Frederick's Specialist has taken along the road on the Workplace area (max. 3)

[CARD17] Using a Build action, spend exactly 2 Stones to Build a Tower (instead of the indicated costs). Augustalis costs to Build a Great Structure must be paid as normal

House Yellow

[CARD22] Gain 1 Grain for each of Frederick's Allies (max. 3)

[CARD23] Take 2 Augustales and an Advanced Action Card from the area of the Voyage Board where your Ship is located