Ethos Manual v 3.0 A PDF version of the rules, along with a complete Mechanics list, can be downloaded here  .        A game by Steven Vensel for Under Fire Media, LLC. Ethos Design and Development by Steven Vensel Editing by Steven Vensel, Benjamin Honeycutt, and Aaron Harris Art Direction by Benjamin Honeycutt and Aaron Harris Special Thanks to Katrina Neal, David Honeycutt, Stevie Rose Vensel, Thomas McLaughlin, Nick Schwartzenburger, Bryan Morrow, and Nathan Chatellier   Object of the Game: Defeat all opposing Emperors by reducing their Vitality to zero Items Needed: - An Emperor - An Empire Index with at least 45 cards - An Architecture Deck with no more than 10 cards - Dice, tokens, and/or counters (optional) - Paper and pencil (optional) Locations: The playing field is broken into several locations that units can travel into. Each player’s section of the field is known as their Empire, and they are all connected to the Battleground. Units have a Movement Action that they can use to travel to another location, but cannot pass into an opposing empire if that empire’s player has any Rested units in the battleground. Garrisoned units are those in the player’s own empire Skirmishing units are those in the battleground Raiding units are those in opposing empires Units in a location other than an empire or the battleground are Exploring Card Positions: Rested - the unit is right-side up when it comes into play Action - the unit is sideways when it uses an Action or a Chain from the Rested Position Ultimate - the unit is up-side down when it uses an Ultimate Action from the Rested Position, or a Chain from the Action Position Vigor, Vitality, and Verve Most cards have one or more colored gemstones on them, with a number in front of it. These are the card’s attributes. Vigor, Vitality, and Verve are often represented in this form: 1 / 2 / 3 with the 1 being vigor, the 2 being vitality, and the 3 being verve Vigor (Red Gemstone) represents the card’s physical power Vitality (Blue Gemstone) represents the card’s health Verve (Green Gemstone) represents the card’s energy or magical power Card Types: Resource Cards are drawn from the Empire Index and played from the hand. In most cases, the resources they produce are required to play other cards. Most cards will have the resource icon with a number in front of it to show how much of a specific resource is required to purchase it. Only one resource card can be played each turn. Unit Cards are generally represented as tokens, produced from a player’s structures. Special Hero units are drawn from the Empire Index and played from the hand, typically replacing a unit card in play as named by the Hero’s “Destiny” mechanic. The Vigor of a unit is their Standard Attack damage, the Vitality of a unit is their health, and the Verve is their energy to activate their Special Abilities. Units are also attributed to an elements (Fire, Light, Nature, Shadow, Water, or Metal). Emperor Cards are special units with a set of Ruler Levels that they gain throughout the game. When the requirements are completed, the emperor immediately levels up. The requirements are cumulative, and do not reset when a new ruler level is gained. Structure Cards are drawn from the Empire Index and played from the hand. The Vitality of a structure is its health. Temple Cards are played from the Architecture Deck. Players may look through their Architecture Deck and play any temple card they wish. The second resource cost of a temple can be used instead of the normal resource cost if a structure is also destroyed. The destroyed structure cannot be the temple’s requirement, or have less than full Vitality. Most temples can house units inside of them, making them untargetable by opposing units. Emperors can only house inside Throne Temples, and do not count towards the temple’s maximum capacity. Once a certain number of units are housed inside, the temple provides a bonus to the units of its culture. Scroll Cards are drawn from the Empire Index and played from the hand. They are attached to a unit and are discarded when they are used by the unit. Enhancement Cards are drawn from the Empire Index and played from the hand. They are attached to whichever card they say they are for, and stay in play until the card their attached to leaves play. Armor Cards are drawn from the Empire Index and played from the hand. Some armor cards are tokens purchased from structures. Armor is equipped to a unit when it comes into play and covers a certain part of the unit’s body (e.g. Chest, Shoulders, etc.). Each part of the unit’s body can be covered with only one piece of armor at a time. Armor can be sold in the player’s own Empire for half its purchase cost. The Vigor of armor is the amount of Physical damage it can prevent, the Vitality of armor is the number of times it can prevent damage before it is discarded, and the Verve of armor is the amount of Magical damage it can prevent. Weapon Cards are drawn from the Empire Index and played from the hand. Some weapon cards are tokens purchased from structures. A weapon is equipped to a unit when it comes into play, and only one weapon can be equipped by a unit at a time. Weapons can be sold in the player’s own Empire for half its purchase cost. The Vigor of a weapon is its damage increase to Physical attacks, the Vitality of a weapon is how much damage it can deal regardless of opposing damage prevention, and the Verve of a weapon is its damage increase to Magical attacks. Startup: Players begin the game by shuffling their Empire Indexes and drawing 8 cards off the top of it, and begin the game with their Emperors and a Tier 1 temple in play. Turn Phases: Rest Phase - All cards change their positions: cards in the Action Position change to the Rested Position, and cards in the Ultimate Position change to the Action Position. Units recover half their maximum verve, rounded down. Units housed inside structures may come out of them. Build Phase - Players may play and purchase cards during the build phase, and Rested units can perform non-combat actions (e.g. traveling to another location, using non-combat special abilities, pass equipment to another unit, housing inside a structure, etc.). Cards played from the hand can be played in any location, and cards that are played from card abilities (e.g. weapons from weaponsmiths, or units from temples) come into play in the same location as the card that made them. Structure cards can only be played in a location where a peasant class unit is in. Combat Phase - Combat is a series of one-on-one encounters chosen by the attacking player. Units may target any card in the location they are in to perform a Standard Attack or a Special Ability. Standard attacks are Physical Melee attacks that require the unit to Act, and deal damage equal to the unit’s Vigor. Special abilities are typically card abilities and combinations of Mechanics that require the unit to use up some or all of their Verve as part of the ability’s activation cost. Units being attacked may Retaliate against attacks made on them with a standard attack, or any special ability, that they can activate. Units may find that many times they will be unable to retaliate. A Clash will occur if the attack and the retaliation are both Melee, or both Ranged Magic, and of the same speed (i.e. Normal, Quick Draw, or Instant). In a clash, the unit that deals the least amount of damage takes damage equal to the difference of the two attacks. A card is discarded from the field if its Vitality is reduced to zero, and placed into the player’s discard pile, also known as the Graveyard. Temples that are destroyed return to the architecture deck. Equipment and scrolls attached to units sent to the location’s discard pile, known as the Debris Field. Regroup Phase - This phase is a repeat of the build phase. Note that if a resource was played in the build phase, another cannot be played in the regroup phase. Draw Phase - The player draws the top card of their Empire Index and adds it to their hand. If the player has more than 8 cards in their hand, then they must discard one. Mechanics: All special abilities utilize specific keywords that represent actions, or modifications to actions. Refer to the complete Mechanics List for more details on the website, www.underfiremedia.com. Culture-specific mechanics can also be found on the mechanics insert in the basic deck. Deck Building: To play Ethos, a player MUST have an emperor card, a 45+ card Empire Index, and an Architecture Deck of up to 10 cards. The starter Culture Decks contain one emperor, 45 Empire Index cards, and 7 Architecture cards. The number of copies of a card in the Empire Index are restricted by its rarity, shown by the color of the glowing orb on the card: Black - Common:          5 copy limit (except for resources, which have no limit) Yellow - Uncommon:     4 copy limit Green - Unique:            3 copy limit Purple - Rare:               2 copy limit Red - Legendary:           1 copy limit White - Expendable: These are Tokens, and are not placed in the Empire Index, but exist outside of the game until an effect puts them into play. The Architecture Deck can have temples from any culture in it, with any number of copies of a temple in it, as long as the total number of cards in this deck does not exceed 10. Players can choose to remain with a single culture for their deck’s theme to maximize the bonuses from their emperor and temples’ housing bonuses, or can choose classes from several cultures for a variety of class options. Game Modes: Conquest is the standard kill-the-emperor, last-one-standing match. Can be played in the standard one-on-one match, or multiplayer. Point Match uses the point values of each card, found in the lower right-hand corner, and an agreed upon victory total. Each time a player destroys a card, they receive the card’s point value. First person to reach the victory total wins. Can be played in the standard one-on-one match, or multiplayer. Cease Fire forces players to skip their combat phases, and prevents travel to other locations, for an agreed upon number of turns. House Rules: Ethos offers plenty of room for player customizations to its game modes. It is recommended to not change any of the core rules, only add to them. For example, allow players to start with some resources for the first turn.

Cultures - Rules of War - Forum - News & Updates - Find Ethos  -Site Map

© 2010 Under Fire Media, LLC.  All rights reserved.