Theming: What’s the point?
You are a dracologist building a cavern sanctuary and attracting dragons to live in it. Over four rounds, build an engine in three caves and score the most victory points.
Players
- The standard game is for 1-5 players; the solo game uses the included Automa rules.
- In a multiplayer game, players share the card displays, the Dragon Guild, and round-end goals.
- Guild spaces and the guild’s player-count side depend on the number of players.
Setting up: How to get started?
Choose a start
- Your mat starts with the leftmost space of each cave excavated.
- Choose four cards from three dragon cards and three cave cards.
- Choose any three food resources. Keep your choices hidden until play begins.
Rounds and Phases
Start of a round
- The game has exactly four rounds.
- At the start of every round, gain 6 coins and 1 egg.
- Coins may be saved from an earlier round, subject to the end-of-turn limit.
Take turns
On a turn, spend coins to take one action. The main actions are:
- Excavate: play a cave card into an available cave space, pay its placement cost if any, and take its when-played benefit.
- Entice: play a dragon into an excavated, unoccupied space, paying the resources and any egg shown on that dragon.
- Explore: send your adventurer through one cave from left to right. Resolve each dragon encountered in order and take the benefit at the cave’s end if reached.
- Advance on the Dragon Guild: pay the listed cost to claim an available Guild benefit and move your marker.
Passing and cleanup
- When you cannot or do not wish to take another action, pass for the round.
- Once everyone has passed, resolve the round-end goal, then refresh the shared cave and dragon displays for the next round.
- At the end of each of your turns, discard down to at most 9 cards, 9 coins, and 9 resource tokens.
Important exceptions
- Most card abilities are optional. An ability that offers something to other players must activate, but each player chooses whether to take the benefit.
- A dragon that says “in this cave” means its own row, not all three caves.
- Reaching a stop sign or the end of an explored cave sends the adventurer back to Base Camp and ends that turn.
- You may exchange two resources for one resource of your choice at any time.
Scoring
End of game
After round four’s goal is scored, add:
- victory points printed on dragons;
- eggs in nests;
- tucked dragon cards and cached resources where the relevant effect scores them;
- objective-tile points;
- Dragon Guild end-game benefits; and
- end-game card abilities.
The highest total wins. Ties for a round-end goal are friendly: tied players receive the full points for that place, then the next player receives the next lower place.
Terminology
- Excavate: add a cave card and make a space available for a dragon.
- Entice: play a dragon into an excavated space.
- Explore: move the adventurer through one cave, activating dragons in order.
- Hatchling: a baby dragon with an egg cost, a feeding effect, and a later growth effect.
- Tuck / cache: store a card beneath a dragon or a resource on it.
- Dragon Guild: a shared progression board with limited benefits and end-game scoring.
Official rules
Stonemaier Games: Wyrmspan Rules and FAQ links to the official rulebook, solo rules, and rulings answers.