Canon Variants

Advanced Solitaire

• At the beginning of the game, if the adventuring party consists of three or more adventurers, the dungeon begins with 1 Fear token.
• When a quest is used for the first time, the dungeon gains 1 Fear token.
• Each 12 dungeon cards defeated, the dungeon gains 1 Fear token.

Suggested Rules

Fear of the Lich

In the solitaire game, the Lich starts with one Fear token for each adventurer beyond the first (and does not get an additional token for three or more).

Tactical Retreat

During the equipment phase, the adventurer player may, as many times as she likes, discard one Courage token to

• remove a Tenacity token from a face-up monster; or
• return a face-up monster without a Tenacity token to its deck, reshuffle it, and reveal a new card.

The dungeon master gains one Fear token for each Courage token discarded.

This helps prevent "lock-out" situations while still imposing a penalty if the player finds themselves in one.

Nem Akh

Change Nem Akh's skill to:

Start with 2 extra Courage tokens. You may gain 1 Courage token when defeating the first card of each deck.

In the usual case this provides the same number of Courage tokens for only a little more work, which is offset by reducing the risk of a C card at the start and letting the adventurer player bank the token for later. In the case of the unusual dungeons described below, it makes her ability remain useful.

Larger Dungeons

Longer Corridors

In the constructed game more than 48 cards can be used, in multiples of six. The deck as a whole must meet the normal deckbuilding criteria — equal amounts of each color, half with a Mana icon. If the deck size is a multiple of six but not four, it must have one card more of two colors, one of which has a Mana icon.

For every six extra cards, the adventurer player may start with one more Courage token; or for every 18, one more card. This can be mixed and matched, e.g. 24 extra cards can be used to start with four extra Courage tokens, or one extra Courage token and one card.

Multiple Dungeons

Use the above variant skill for Nem Akh. After defeating the final monster, the adventurer player:

• takes two Courage tokens.
• must discard all revealed quests.
• may discard unwanted adventurers. These are removed from the game and Aka's ultimate power cannot be used to retrieve them.
• returns all other non-adventurer cards to her collection. She may spend any number of Courage tokens to keep that many previously revealed objects; if she does they remain revealed. (The dungeon master gains no Fear tokens for this.)
• picks cards from her collection, back up to five total, including kept revealed cards.
• keeps the defeated final monster, which has Bounty.

The dungeon master:

• can take up to one undefeated dungeon card of each color from the previous deck and shuffle them into the next dungeon deck.
• takes one Fear token per adventurer, plus one more.
• deals out the corridors for the next dungeon.
• starts the first Construction phase in the new dungeon.

In the solitaire game a new scenario begins with Fear tokens and the Fate Chart already at 1.

The Deepest Dungeon

Prepare one dungeon deck of 48 cards, and another of 80. The decks must follow the normal construction restrictions, and the same Unique card cannot be in both decks.

Deal the 48 card deck out into three decks as usual. Below that, deal the 80 card deck out into four decks, with 24 cards in the center rows. Place final monsters face-down (if playing solitaire, randomly and secretly), one at the top of the three decks and the other two above the two center decks. The resulting layout should look like:

The adventurer player starts at the four bottom decks. The leftmost three lead to the final monster on the left, and the rightmost three to the final monster on the right. Defeating the left one gives access to the top left and central decks, and the right one, to the top central and right decks.

(Or, if Aksuetu or another effect causes an extra deck to be dealt,

The leftmost three lead to the final monster on the left, and the rightmost three to the final monster on the right. Defeating the left one gives access to the top leftmost two, and the right one, to the top rightmost two.)

The turn sequence proceeds as usual. The adventurer player wins by defeating the final monster at the top.

• the dungeon master has two Construction phases, one for the top row and one for the bottom row.
• effects that reshuffle or move dungeon cards apply to both levels, but separately. They are never shuffled together, and the dungeon master cannot swap top and bottom decks.
• effects that affect dungeon cards, such as Bubbleyes +X, affect all face-up dungeon cards on both levels.
• for one Fear token the dungeon master may switch the positions of the final monsters. Final monsters that were revealed may be replaced face-down.
• for two Fear tokens the dungeon master may reveal a final monster, enabling its effect. Otherwise, a final monster is revealed when the adventurers empty a deck that reaches it.
• upon defeating a final monster, the adventurer player may take two Courage tokens, one new object (face-down) from her collection, and the final monster itself, which has Bounty.