Hi my name is Paul Grogan and welcome to the Gaming Rules how to play video for Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon published by Awakened Realms. Tainted Grail is a story rich survival and exploration game for one to four players. Set in a grim universe that blends Arthurian legends and Celtic mythology with the unique dark vision of Awakened Realms' artists and writers. Each player controls their own unlikely hero, who must face impossible odds chased by the encroaching, twisting power of the Wyrdness. Fighting an uneven battle against depleting resources and challenging encounters. A deep branching storyline allows you to tackle problems in different ways ensuring that no two games will play alike. In this video I'm going to be covering everything you need to start playing and I'll be doing my best to avoid spoilers, so that you don't see something that might spoil the story of the game. I would also strongly recommend playing through the four page QuickStart guide before jumping into your first game as well as watching this video, as that will guide you through many of the core mechanisms in the game in a step-by-step tutorial. Anything you see in that tutorial I am NOT considering as a spoiler, so you're going to see some of that in this video. So, if you're sitting comfortably, let's start with how you create a character. The first thing you need to do before you start your first game is to choose a character. Four different ones are available in the core box but, some of you may have the extra character, Niamh. If you choose one of the standard four, take the character tray of the same color. Niamh is special in that she can use any character tray, so wait until the other players have chosen their characters and then take one of the trays not in use. To help you decide which character to play have a look at the character action and negative trait on the front of the tile. Also, look at the starting attributes on the back, and the length of the bars on the character tray. Each character also has a unique combat and diplomacy set of cards, but for your first game I wouldn't worry too much about this. Once you have played the game a few times you will have a better idea of how each character plays, and you can always choose a different character in a future game. You could do what I did, which is just choose the one whose mini I liked the best. Once you've chosen your character mark the starting level of your energy by placing a universal marker, one of the
red cubes, in the slot with the red chevrons. Do the same with your terror, which starts at zero. You're not scared of anything...yet! place the t-shaped health marker on the health track. Again, on the slot marked with the red chevrons. Next mark your starting attributes according to what is shown on the back of your character tile. Beor, for example, has two aggression, one courage, one practicality, no empathy, one caution, and no spirituality. Also mark your starting resources according to what is shown on the back of your tile. Beor starts with three food and one wealth. Insert your character tile into your tray, with the action face-up. Locate all the 15 basic combat cards
that match the color of your character tray. These are the ones with the banner underneath the cards name and are numbered 1 to 15 out of 25. The color of the card is also shown here, indicated by a letter. Shuffle them and place them to the left
of your character tray. Similarly, locate the 15 basic diplomacy cards, also in your color and marked with a banner. Again these are the numbers 1 to 15 of 25. Shuffle them and place them to the right of your character tray. Next, create your advancement pools. One for combat, the other for diplomacy. Each of these pools should be 25 cards, and made up of the ten remaining basic cards of your tray's color, but the ones that don't have a banner on them, and 15 cards are depicting your character's name. Shuffle each pool separately and place them face-down nearby with the appropriate advancement pool card on top. Read your character's introductory letter, which explains how you got into your current situation, and take your adventure map. This map will help you reach some important landmarks on the island. But beware, the cartographer who created them up lived over a century ago and his drawing may no longer be accurate. Once everyone has created their character it's now time to set up the world. First, place the starting location this side up in the middle of the play area. For the Fall of Avalon campaign this is location card 101, Cuanacht. But other campaigns will use a different starting location. Place one Menhir model on the starting location, and put a dial in the slot under this Menhir. Turn the dial to number 8 if playing solo, 7 if playing with two characters, 6 for 3 characters, and 5 for 4 characters. The number on this dial is very important. It shows how many days you have before the Menhir goes dark, which, as you might expect, is bad news. Place all the character models on this card. Check the edges of your starting location and place the corresponding location cards next to it, so that the numbers match up. Again place the cards this side up and be careful not to look at the other side that contains story information that you will only see when you explore that location. Take all of the encounter cards and sort them by color into four piles. Take all of the item cards, shuffle them, and place them in a pile nearby. Also place the secret cards nearby. Don't shuffle them. In fact you might want to order them by number to find them more easily during the game. Take a fresh save sheet. you will use this during the game to record various things. Give each player a reference card with the turn order sequence on one side, and the list of actions on the back. Also give each player an icon reference card. place the combat and diplomacy help cards nearby. Find the chapter one setup card and follow its instructions starting from the front side. This will tell you how to build the event deck and encounter decks for that chapter. It's very important that the event deck for the chapter contains the cards in part order from top to bottom. For chapter one you will only use encounter cards with a difficulty of 1 or 2, as noted by the red banners at the top of the card. Or, if you are just playing solo, cards with difficulty 1. Later chapters will change the encounter cards that you use as you progress through the campaign. Shuffle each encounter deck and place them nearby. Optionally, for chapter 1 you may want to use the 'Your First encounter' card on top of the deck. This is recommended if it's your first game to give you an easier introduction, and remind you of the combat and diplomacy rules. Take all of the random event cards, shuffle them, and place them nearby. You'll be told when to use this deck later on. But what happens is that you'll be told to take some of these cards and put them on the top of the event deck. And whenever you are instructed to draw an event card you always draw from the main event deck, never from the random event deck. With setup complete you're now ready to begin your journey. In games with more than one player you may want to nominate one person to take on the role of the Chronicler. They still take part in the game but they're also the one who is responsible for reading out the paragraphs of the exploration journal aloud, performing some of the admin tasks in the game, and maintaining the save sheet. They also the one who breaks any ties should the group not completely agree on what to do. It's up to you and your group if you want to use the Chronicler. A game of Tainted Graill is divided into days, and each day you will follow the sequence shown on the reference card. A day is divided into three stages. At the start of the day you'll perform various tasks, such as reducing the dial on each Menhir, and revealing the next events. During the day is where each character will spend energy to perform actions such as moving, exploring, interacting with cards and so on. and then the end of the day where characters rest and recover, have dreams, and can spend experience points. I'll now describe these stages in more detail. The very first thing to do at the start of each day is to check each Menhir. If there is no dial in the base it becomes inactive and is removed from the map. Any Menhirs still on the table are referred to as active Menhirs. Then check the locations in play to see if any of them are now out of range of an active Menhir. A Menhir provides protection to its own location and every surrounding location. Any location that is outside of the range is discarded. Step 3 is to reduce the dial of each active Menhir by one. If it was already out one the dial is now removed, but note the Menhir itself is still active until the start of the next day. Next, if there are any dials with time tokens on them anywhere on the table reduce them by one. If a dial can no longer be reduced, remove it from the game. Also in this step, if there are any locations
in play with time tokens on them, remove one time token from every location that has any. Next, reveal the next event card and follow its instructions. Some events will be one-off things, or something that lasts until the end of the day. However if an event contains quest text and a red padlock symbol it is placed next to the event deck as a quest pile. Step 6 is moving the Guardians, special encounters that roam around the map. If there are any Guardians on the table roll the direction die for each of them and move them according to the rules found on page 12 of the rulebook. You should then take a bit of time as a group to discuss your plans for the day. Remember this is a cooperative game, you'll win or lose together. So it's a good idea to talk about who will move where and what actions to take. Finally, each character chooses which items they will equip for this day. You won't start the campaign with any items but you will gain some as the game goes on. You can have as many as you want but cannot equip more than one item with the same keyword. So here, for example, you have a rusty sword and an arcane staff. Both have the keyword weapon so you must turn one of them facedown at the start of the day. You've not lost the item you just
can't use it today. You can change which one you want to equip at the start of each day. This part of the day is divided into rounds. In each round the characters perform one action each in any order they choose. If for some reason you cannot agree on which order you should go in the characters take the actions in character number order which is printed on the character's introductory letter. Lowest goes first. Once everyone has taken one action the
round ends and a new round begins. Again, with all characters taking one action. You don't have to choose the same order for each round. For example, if you're playing a three player game you could choose that Beor will take the first action, then Maggot, then Arev. But in the next round Arev could take the first action, meaning that he is actually taken two actions consecutively, and that's okay. Once all players have passed the stage
ends and you proceed to the next stage, end of the day. I'll now cover the six basic actions which are summarized on the help card. Explore. This action costs one energy to perform, meaning that you move your energy cube down one space. The locations in Tainted Grail contain information secrets and tasks, and exploration is your main way of discovering them. When you explore flip your current location card over and read the text on the back. Sometimes flipping the card could be impractical because there are multiple characters and Menhir on it. In this case just turn to the appropriate section in the exploration journal. Every location section in the journal starts with the same text that is printed on the back of the card. Follow through the text in the exploration journal, which could mean that you read another entry, make a choice then read another entry, and so on. until you come to the text 'Exploration ends'. At that point your turn is over, and if you flip the location card over, you should now flip it back. I recommend reading the 'how to use the exploration journal' before your first exploration. A group of two or more characters at the same location may agree to form a party and take the same action together at the same time. If you explore as a party the cost of exploration is one per party member. but the cost does not have to be split evenly. For example, in a party of two, one character could pay 2 energy themselves to have both characters explore. Most positive and negative effects apply to every character in the party, but most rewards will have to be shared. More details on this can be found in the 'how to use the exploration journal' section Travel. This action costs 1 energy. You move your character to any location card connected to your current one, which means that there must be Direction Keys connecting them and, you can only move orthogonaly, that is left, right, up or down, and not diagonally. Here for example, although these two cards are physically next to each other, they are not connected because there is no direction keys. This is usually due to mountain ranges, walls, wide rivers and other natural features. When you enter the new location first check to see if you add any new location cards to the map. Find the cards that match the direction keys on the edges of your new location and attach them to the map, but only if the location card you're adding
is within range of an active Menhir. An active Menhir has a range of one in
all of the eight directions surrounding it. So here for example you move from Cuanacht to the Hunters Grove. You add the locations 106 and 107 to the map since they are in range of the active Menhir in Cuanacht. However even though there is a direction key to the north you do not add location 113 because it is out of range of the Menhir. What that means is that you're going to have to find another Menhir or reactivate ones that are dark, in order to add more distant locations. Next check to see if your new location has a lightning symbol on it. If it does you must resolve the rules text immediately. Like when you explore, two or more characters can travel together as a party. The cost scales to one energy per party member. And remember, this cost does not have to be split evenly. So one character could spend 2 energy themselves to move them and another character in their party together. Any immediate effect caused by moving to the location must be resolved as a party as well. So two characters may choose to travel together and then face that encounter together too. Location action. Many locations depict an action on them. If you are at that location you can perform this action. Some actions are marked as once per day. When you perform this action cover its icon with a time token. This token will be removed at the start of the next day. You may activate a location action as a party. In this case you pay the cost only once and receive the output of the action once. However, the characters involved may help each other in paying the cost splitting them however they want. If they trigger an encounter that must be resolved as a party too. For example, two characters use the location action of the Hunters' Grove. They must pay the cost of two energy somehow, either splitting the cost or one character paying all of it. Then they receive two food in total not two food each. Finally they reveal an encounter and fight it as a party. Inspect a Menhir. This action is always free. If the location you are in depicts a Menhir icon on it contains one of these ancient monuments. When you inspect a Menhir here flip the location card and read the Menhir section at the bottom. The text will tell you what you need to do to activate the Menhir. If you have acquired all the resources needed and meet all other criteria you may activate this Menhir right away as part of the inspection. Note that all costs of activating and Menhir scale up with the total number of players in the game. For example, if it says that it costs three energy and one magic per player and you're playing a three player game, it means the cost to activate the Menhir is nine energy and three magic. Activating a men here requires the help of all players so plan accordingly As with exploration, if flipping the location card is tricky then all Menhir information is in the exploration journal. Character action. Each character has a personal action on their character tile. Activating this action is only possible outside of encounters and exploration. Simply pay the cost and follow the instructions. Only you can use your characters action, but if another character is at your location you can form a party to help pay the cost. However you, as the character performing
the action, must always pay at least one. Pass. When you pass your character decides to finish their day. You may pass even if you have energy remaining, and this is often wise, since once you go low on energy you become exhausted. Once you pass the stage is over for you but other characters continue to take actions until they pass too. These are the main actions covered but there may be other actions available to you on items, skills, or even secret cards. And remember, if you're in a party the cost of actions can be split between the characters in that party, even if it means one character paying all of the costs. Each character performs the following steps: Step one: rest. Your character may consume one food to restore one health and lose one terror If you don't have any food or you don't want to eat, reduce your energy to zero. And if your energy was already at zero, you lose one health instead. Note that characters in the same location may trade food between them at any time, as long as they are not currently involved in an action or an encounter. And even if they're not in a party. So if you're short on food try to end your day in the same location as another character, as long as they have enough food for the both of you. Step two. As long as you are not exhausted restore your energy back to your starting slot. If you are exhausted you only restore 4 energy. Note that your health marker limits your maximum energy. So here, since you are wounded your energy cannot go above 5. Step three. If you have any experience points you may now spend them to raise your attribute, gain more skills, or add new combat and diplomacy cards to your deck. I'll explain this in more detail in a
later chapter. Note though that if you pass during the day when other players are still taking actions you can plan what you will spend your experience on to reduce downtime. Step four is customizing your combat and diplomacy decks, and I'll explain this later on also because it's linked with spending experience points. But remember that you can change your decks at the end of any day, even if you didn't spend any experience points. The final step is to sleep and dream. Check your location for a dream icon. if there is one refer to the exploration journal and read the dream. However if your terror marker is on one of the red slots you read the nightmare instead. Dreams are not just flavor text. They often provide you with helpful tips or reveal more of the lore and the story. In the land of Avalon, whenever a Menhir goes dark, parts of the land succumb to the primal force of the Wyrdness. As mentioned earlier if a Menhir has no dial in it at the start of the day it is removed, along with any locations that are no longer in range of an active Menhir. If you are on a location when it's removed you immediately lose 2 health and gain 2 terror. You are then moved to the nearest remaining location card, the lowest numbered one if tied. If the last Menhir on the map goes out do not remove the last remaining location cards. Instead the characters may continue to play in these locations, but they lose to health and gain to terror at the start of each day, until they activate one of the Menhirs, or die trying. As mentioned earlier, activating Menhirs requires characters to work together and pool their resources, and can only be done in a location that has the Menhir seal on it. You can also extend the remaining duration of an active Menhir by simply activating it again, but this just resets the Menhir back to its starting value. Any remaining power left on it when you
activate it is lost. The four encounter decks make up things that you will come across on your quest. The green deck is mostly used in wild locations and contains natural threats such as wild animals or legendary beasts. Defeating these encounters is a good way to gain food. The grey deck contains dangers related to the world of men, such as brigands, rogue knights or people driven to insanity. Many of these encounters grant items when defeated. The purple deck contains mysterious and supernatural threats. I won't spoil anything by saying anymore, you'll have to discover these for yourself. The blue deck is a special non-combat deck. It's mostly used when you visit an unfriendly settlement such as the Whitening, as indicated by this red settlement icon. It contains dangerous situations as well as personal and diplomatic challenges. Cards in each of these decks are divided into four difficulty levels, indicated by the number of red banners in the corner. Remember that during set-up you will be told which ones to use for your current chapter. When you are instructed to draw an encounter you must immediately resolve it. Most of the cards result in combat or diplomacy, so I'm going to explain that next. Combat in Tainted Grail is resolved using a turn-based system between a character or a party of characters, and an enemy represented by the encounter card. Together characters are going to build a line of combat cards with the aim of gaining markers equal to the encounter value of the card. Combat in Tainted Grail starts whenever you draw an encounter card that has at least one open key on its right side. Place the card in front of you, ensuring that you leave plenty of space to the right to play your combat cards. First check to see if the enemy has any traits because some of these take effect before the fight begins. All the traits are described in the rulebook and summarized on one of the reference cards. Then all party members should check their items to ensure that they do not have more than one equipped with the same keyword. You may also decide not to use some of your items in the encounter, just set them aside for now. But no items can be added once you enter the combat. Then shuffle your combat deck and draw your starting hand of cards. Three cards if there are 1 to 3 characters in the combat, and two cards if there are 4 characters. If you don't like your starting hand you can discard it and draw a new hand with one fewer card, and you can repeat this until you only have one card left in your hand. Don't worry too much about this when you start playing the game, but once you get to know your cards better you may want to consider doing this. Just be aware that the cards you discard are gone for this encounter. Once everyone has their starting hands it's time to proceed with the first combat turn. The combat turn is divided into three phases. In phase 1 you must choose the active character. If you're fighting on your own you are always the active character, but if you are in a party you must decide which character will go first. Each character can only once each turn. Once they have acted place a time token on their character tray to remind you. Phase two is divided into a few steps, the first of which is resolving delayed abilities. There won't be any of these in the first combat turn, but there might be later on. You remove one time token from each card in the line which has any, and if the last token is removed from a card then you resolve the ability with the time token trigger immediately. Step 2 is playing cards from your hand to the sequence. Unless you are in a state of panic, which is represented by your terror being higher than your health marker, playing a card is optional. The first combat card you play each time you act can be anything, just play the card so that it lines up with the previous card in the sequence. It doesn't need to connect to any of the keys depicted on the side. After you play the card check if any of the attribute Keys connect to bonus keys, and if they do apply these bonuses. For a key to connect you need to have this specific attribute level depicted on the left of the key, or, in the case of a magic key, you can connect it by paying one magic to gain its bonus. Now terminology is important here. When two cards are touching if there is a graphic on the left and the right those keys are joined, but they are only considered to be connected if you have the matching attribute or, in the case of the magic key, pay one magic. For example you play Critical Strike, sliding it over the top of your previous defender card. The top aggression key joins, but because your character doesn't have the required aggression the key does not connect. The practicality key does connect and I'll explain the bonus of this later on. The magic key can be connected but only if you pay one magic. If you do, the bonus is to draw another card, which can be really useful as you might draw just the card you need. The bottom key is a free key and you always gain its bonus, if any. In this case it is two red markers, doubled because of the two times. Nice combo. Red markers are placed in the combat pool to the left of the encounter card. You are making progress. Finally, if there is an ability on the card resolve it now. This icon tells you that the ability is relevant when the enemy attacks you, whereas this icon indicates that the ability triggers on playing the card. This icon indicates that you put a time token on the card, and the ability is only resolved when the time token is removed, as I mentioned earlier on. Remember, the first card that you play each turn can be anything, you don't need to connect any of the keys, Although you probably want to if you can. If you want to play any more cards in the same turn every card beyond the first that you play must have a connected key depicting a lightning bolt
icon. For example, let's say that you played the Defend card as your first card in the turn, and then you wanted to play Critical Strike as the second card in the same turn. You could because the practicality key that contains the lightning bolt icon is connected, because you have the required practicality. If you didn't have the required practicality the key wouldn't connect, and you could not play the Critical Strike as your second card. If you play a card on top of a card that had any tokens on it those tokens are discarded, so be careful when doing this as you might lose the ability that you would just set up for the next turn. There's no limit to how many cards you can play on a turn, you're only limited by the cards in your hand, and connecting the lightning bolt key on each card beyond the first. If you didn't play any cards this turn, which remember is optional, the enemy makes an opportunity attack as depicted on its card. You then draw one card to your hand. After playing and resolving cards you then perform the victory check by counting the number of markers in the combat pool. If it is equal to or higher than the encounter value of the card you have succeeded and the combat is over. Receive any rewards, share any loot, and place the encounter card on the bottom of its deck. Then reset your combat deck adding back in all of your played and discarded cards and shuffling it. If you haven't defeated the card step three is the enemy attack. Find the attack on the encounter card that matches the number of markers in the combat pool and apply the result of the attack to the active character. Also remember to check the text on your played cards. If any of them have the ability with the skull icon this normally modifies the enemy's attack. If the enemies attack removes any markers from the combat pool, and the combat pool doesn't have enough markers to cover the loss, the active character discards a card from their hand for every excess point instead. And if you have no cards in hand to discard then discard cards from the top of your combat deck instead. After the enemy attack check for victory again as certain effects can add markers during the enemy attack phase. After the active character has completed all of these steps check to see if any other characters are left to act in this combat turn. If there are go back to phase 1 and choose another character to be active. Essentially phase 1 and 2 repeat until all characters have had a chance to act in the combat once. Once everybody has acted proceed to phase 3, end of turn. In phase 3 each character discards down to three cards in hand and then draws one more card. If you need to draw a card and have no cards in your deck the combat is over for you, and you are forced to escape. Which I'll explain in a minute. Then, if you are placing time tokens on the character tray to remember who took a turn, remove them now, but do not remove any from the combat cards. And finally, go back to phase one, starting a new turn. You can escape from combat at any time when it is your turn to activate, including at the very start of combat before you have played any cards. You are also forced to escape if you ever need to draw a card from your deck and it is empty. When you escape lose one energy and trigger the opportunity attack listed on the encounter card. If you are in a party and the active character decides to escape from combat the rest of the party remains in the encounter and continues to fight. If all players escape place the encounter card on the bottom of its deck and all players then reset their combat decks. If your terror is higher than your current health you are in a state of panic. This effects combat in two ways. Instead of playing the first card of this turn from your hand you play the card from the top of your combat deck. Then you may play any additional cards from your hand according to the standard rules. Also at the end of the turn, if you're in a state of panic you do not draw a new card as normal. Any bonus or extra cards gained from bonus keys, skills, or abilities still apply. For example, Beor is fighting a vagabond. This enemy has the fast trait, meaning that Beor can only play a maximum of two combat cards per turn. Beor draws three combat cards from their deck, takes a look at them and chooses not to redraw his hand. Turn one of combat begins. Since there is only one character involved in this fight there is no need to choose an active player, or mark that the character has acted. Beor activates and chooses to play an attack card. Remember the first card can be anything. None of the keys need to connect, but in this case they do. Beor has two points of aggression, so the top key connects to a bonus that adds one marker to the combat pool. The free key also connects, so another marker is added too. The attack card has two abilities. First, in the enemy attack phase, the enemy will inflict one extra damage on Beor. Second, this icon means that you place
a time token on the card. At the start of the next activation the token is removed and Beor would draw a card. However, Beor chooses to play a second card. Remember each other card played beyond the first must connect to a key with the lightning bolt icon. Beor plays the defend card which overlaps the attack card, cancelling out his abilities and removing the token on it. Beor spends one magic to connect the magic key. If Beor did not have one magic this key would not be connected, which means the card could not be played. The defend card has two abilities. First, in the enemy attack phase, the enemy will inflict to fewer damage, and second, a time token is placed on the card. Since the enemy has the fast trair Beor cannot play any more cards, so a victory check is performed. You need 5 markers and only have two so you proceed to the enemy attack step, Looking at the attack table of the encounter card, because there are two markers in the combat pool the enemy deals two damage and removes one marker from the combat pool. However, because of the ability on the defend card the damage is reduced by two, so no damage is dealt. But one marker is still removed from the combat pool. Beor then draws one more card and play proceeds to the second combat turn. First the delayed ability on the
defend card is resolved, time token is removed, and Beor draws one card. Then Beor plays the Throw card. the practicality key and the free key connect. The magic key would also connect if Beor spent one magic, which he chooses not to do. This card adds a total of three markers to the combat pool: One from the practicality key. and two from the free key because of the times 2 multiplier. The ability on the card allows Beor to throw his weapon or shield, but Beor doesn't have either of those. Beor then plays an Enraged card, paying one magic to connect the magic key with the lightning bolt. Again, if the magic was not paid this key would not connect, and because it was the second card played this turn that would be required. No other keys connect, but the ability on the card triggers when it is played. Beor loses one energy and adds one marker to the combat pool for each connected aggression key. There are two connected keys of this type in the entire sequence, so Beor adds two more markers to the combat pool. There are now six markers in the combat pool, so Beor wins. He gains the loot and the reward
listed on the encounter card. In this case it's a craftable item, so cards are drawn from the top of the deck until a craftable item is found, indicated by the letter C. Beor then gains this item and shuffles any others back into the deck. The Vagabond is then placed on the bottom of the gray encounter deck, and all cards used or discarded during the combat are returned to Beor's combat deck which is shuffled and placed back on the left of Beor's character tray. Diplomacy in Tainted Grail is resolved
in a similar way to combat. It is a turn-based system where the characters involved build a sequence of cards with the aim of pushing a marker on the encounter cards affinity track to the top. In the meantime the opponent will be trying to push the marker in the opposite direction while performing various responses. The first thing to decide when faced with the diplomacy encounter is whether to try and avoid it completely. This decision can only be made before the actual diplomacy begins. You can only avoid an encounter if the card has an avoid section at the bottom. If you want to avoid it you must pay all costs and meet all requirements listed on the card, then put this card at the bottom of the encounter deck and continue playing the game. As the diplomacy encounter starts like in combat, all party members should check their items to ensure that they do not have more than one equipped card with the same keyword. Then shuffle your diplomacy deck and draw your starting hand of cards, which again is three cards if there are 1 to 3 characters involved, 2 cards if there are 4 characters. And again, if you don't like your starting hand you could discard it and draw a new hand with one fewer card, repeating this until you have only one card left in hand. When everyone has their starting cards place a marker in the grey slot on the affinity track and proceed to the first diplomacy turn. Diplomacy is resolved in a similar way to combat so I won't repeat everything here. There are three phases like in combat, and phase one is selecting a character to be active. Phase two is where the characters activate, and you repeat phases one and two until all characters in the encounter have acted. And then in Phase three all characters discard down to three cards and then draw one more, and then a new turn begins. Phase two is resolved in a very similar way to combat. The first step is to trigger any delayed abilities on cards, and then the rules on playing cards is also very similar. The first card played each turn can be anything, but then every other card played in the same turn must connect to a key with a lightning bolt icon. The difference is that you are not adding markers to a combat pool. Instead you are moving a single marker up and down on the affinity track. The up and down arrow effects indicate that you move the marker up or down the affinity track. This icon has a variable effect as determined by the encounter card itself and the attribute that it is attached to. If the marker ends up on the top slot you win the current stage of the encounter. Most encounters are just one stage, so that means that you will win the encounter, but some of them have more than one stage. When you win the first stage it means you now progress to the second one and place the marker back on the gray slot. Only when you succeed at the final stage do you win the encounter. Once you do that you receive the rewards and then place the encounter card on the bottom of its deck, And then reset your diplomacy deck. If the marker ever reaches the lowest slot you lose the encounter. Apply the failure rules to each party member and then place the encounter back on the bottom of its deck, and reset your diplomacy deck. Many cards require you to choose an approach for the encounter. This choice must be made at the start of the diplomacy attempt and cannot be changed later on. After you have played your cards, in place of the enemy attack step is the enemy response step. Find the response for the current stage of this encounter and apply this response to the active character. The rules for being in a state of panic, discarding from an empty hand, and drawing when you have no cards in the deck, are the same in diplomacy as they are in combat. Escaping from diplomacy is slightly different, and escaping is different from avoiding which, if you remember, is something that you can choose to do before the encounter begins. Escaping however is something that you can choose to do at any point in the diplomacy attempt, including before you play your first cards. If you escape all party members suffer the effects of failure as printed on the encounter card. Unlike combat you must escape as a party. For example, Arev encounters a Weeping
Orphan blue encounter. This encounter has two stages. Arev must complete stage one and then stage two in order to win. There is no avoid text on the card so
Arev must encounter it. A marker is placed on the gray slot. Arev draws three cards from the diplomacy deck, looks at them and decides to redraw. The three cards are discarded and Arev draws two cards, this time keeping them. In the first turn Arev plays Simple Truth. Arev has one point of empathy so this connects the key here giving this symbol. Checking the encounter card for stage one this symbol moves the affinity marker two slots up on the track. The free key also connects so the marker is moved up another slot. Arev doesn't have any cards with the lightning bolt so they can't play any more cards this turn. The marker is not on the last slot of the track so it's time for the enemy response. The marker is moved down one slot and Arev gains one point of terror. At the end of the turn Arev draws a new card. For turn 2 Arev plays False Promise. The empathy key connects and Arev draws one more card. The free key also connects and the marker is moved up one slot. Arev decides to spend one magic to connect the magic key, moving the marker to the last slot on the track. And at this point Arev decides to end their turn. During the affinity check stage one is complete and the encounter proceeds to stage two. Completing a stage ends the turn so there is no enemy response and Arev draws one card. In turn three Arev plays Bleak Joke. Arev draws one new card because of the connected caution key, but then triggers the ability on the card which loses one reputation, because the affinity is not green. Then Arev places two charges on the card because he has two practicality. The free key is blank and grants no bonus. Next Arev spends two charges from the Bleak Joke card to play Eye for Detail, as if it was connect b y a lightning bolt. Note that Bleak Joke is a special type of card in that the keys are on the very right side of the card. This means that it is still visible even when more cards are played to the right. The caution key connects and has the symbol, which according to the table on the encounter card, moves the marker one slot up on the affinity track. The enemy then responds and Arev loses one energy, and must remove the last card in the sequence along with its time token. Not good. The end of the turn. Arev draws one card. In turn four Arev plays Bribery, a card that he gained from experience. He spends one wealth to move the marker or two spaces. Then he plays Misdirection, connecting the caution key with the lightning bolt to allow him to play it as a second card this turn. The connected free key moves the marker up another two spaces to the top, and Arev is successful. He loses one terror and gains one red, and one experience. If you remember earlier on in the video I mentioned that during the end of the turn phase all players have the opportunity to advance their character. This is done by the character spending experience points to raise their attributes, gain additional combat and diplomacy cards, or gain skills. Gaining a new combat or diplomacy card costs 2 experience. you choose whether to advance combat or diplomacy, then draw the top three cards from the corresponding advancement pool. Choose one of them, add it to your deck, and then shuffle the two remaining cards back into your advancement pool. Your combat and diplomacy decks should always contain at least 15 cards each. Whenever you buy a new card you could swap it out for one of the cards already in your deck, or just add the new cards in there. There can be an advantage to having more cards in your deck, but then there is less chance of you drawing the better cards. Any cards that you have bought that are not currently in your deck at the moment are not returned to the advancement pool. Just place them face up nearby. You can adjust your deck at the end of each day. You can also increase one of your attributes. The attributes are paired as follows: Aggression and empathy, courage and caution, and practicality and spirituality. The cost to increase an attribute is 2 experience per point that you have in the attribute pair, including the point that you just added. For example, if you have no aggression or empathy and want to increase your aggression by one the cost is 2 experience. If you already have two practicality and no spirituality, and want to add one spirituality, that will cost you six experience because it's now the third marker in that attribute pair. Once an attribute has two markers on it you can upgrade it further by acquiring a skill card. A skill card counts as a point in that attribute for experience point costs. In other words, if you have to courage and no caution you can purchase a courage skill, but this counts as your third point in that attribute pair so the cost is six experience. If you then buy another courage skill that will cost you eight experience. You now have effectively four points already in that attribute pair - 2 from the markers and 2 from the skills. So the cost of buying one point in caution would now be ten experience. The maximum cost to increase an attribute or bias skill is ten experience. Whenever you gain a skill choose any skill matching the attribute and place it at the appropriate edge of your character tray. You can choose any skill, but note that the skills are double-sided and they are all unique. So by choosing one of them you are effectively removing the other one from the game. Skill cards give you extra benefits as printed on the card, and a skill card also counts as an attribute point for other purposes here. So if you have two empathy and two empathy skill cards you actually have four empathy. During your journey as you complete quests and solve tasks you will be sometimes asked to mark or check a certain status on your save sheet. Statuses represent your impact on the
world and things that have happened. A status affects all characters. If it is marked on the save sheet all characters have it. Secrets are story related numbered cards and you will be told to take them at specific times during the story. They may never be lost or sold, unless specifically told to do so, and they also do not count as items for the rules that limit the number of items that you can have. For example, an effect causes you to lose two of your items and you only have one regular item and one secret card that's also a weapon. In this case you only lose the regular item card. Characters can trade secret cards between themselves whenever they are in the same location and are not involved in an action, unless the card has the personal keyword, which means that it cannot be traded. If your terror reaches a red colored slot take the 'You Are Going Insane' card and follow its instructions. This will cause more dangerous nightmares and make exploration and travel harder. If your health ever falls to zero immediately escape any current encounter that you are facing and take the 'You Are Dying' card, resolving all of the text on it. Note that this card is different if you
are playing solo. From now on every action you take might turn out to be your last. In single-player mode the game ends when your character dies. In cooperative mode your death does not mean the end of the game. Instead, if there is an unclaimed character left in the box, you may claim this character. Perform the standard character setup and then place their model in the lowest numbered revealed location. Any items that are left by the dead character are placed on the location where the character has died, which can be picked up by the other players. All secrets which belonged to the dead character are split immediately between the other characters, With the exception of secrets with the Personal keyword, which are lost when the owner is killed. If there are no other characters available when someone dies the game ends in failure, even for those characters that are still alive. There is however the mercy of the Allmother herself if you don't want to have to start again. The full campaign of Tainted Grail will take many hours to play and cannot be completed in one game session. At various times you should save your game and store it away ready to pick it up again from where you left off next time. It is recommended that you save your game only after completing a chapter, or when the journal or event card gives you such an option. Otherwise you may forget exactly whereabouts you are up to. The full process for saving your game is shown in the rule book. but roughly it includes: filling in the character attributes, resources, and position of markers on a save sheet, along with any skills you have. You place your items in one of the save compartments of the box and stack your combat deck on top of your advancement pool, with the card as a separator. Do the same for your diplomacy deck and put both stacks in your save compartment. Note the current location of all characters, guardians, Menhirs, and special dials, as well as the current value on each dial on the save sheet. Stack all revealed locations into a pile and place the revealed location separator card on top of them. Then add the unrevealed locations to the pile and store them away. To restore you game follow this process in reverse. A full game of Tainted Grail isn't easy to survive. If you find the game too challenging and want a more relaxed experience where you can enjoy the story without the fear of failing then story mode might be for you. However if your group knows the game well you might want to increase the difficulty by modifying the rules listed in the challenge mode section of the rulebook. You can also modify the game by allowing characters to use any character tray other than the one of their specific color. This can lead to some interesting and exciting new combinations and deck building strategies. For more information and rules queries Awaken Realms maintains an official FAQ on their website. And there is also a very useful unofficial FAQ on BGG which I'll link to in the show notes below. I hope you found this video useful in learning how to play the game. Please remember to like, subscribe and share the video with your gaming group in advance of your next game session. Thank you to Awaken Realms for asking me to create and sponsoring this video, And if you want to support the channel please consider supporting me on Patreon. Until next time take care and thanks for watching. Gaming Rules is proudly sponsored by
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