Objective of the Game

Welcome, intrepid investigators, to the chilling world of Elder Sign! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to prevent an ancient, cosmic horror from awakening and devouring our reality. You and your fellow investigators will delve into the mysteries of the museum, gathering powerful Elder Signs to seal away the Ancient One before it's too late. It's a race against time, sanity, and monstrous forces!

You win if you collect enough Elder Signs to seal the Ancient One before its doom track fills up. If the Ancient One awakens, you'll have one last, desperate battle to save the world.

Preparation (Setup)

Setting up Elder Sign is like preparing for an expedition into the unknown. Here’s how to get started:

1. The Ancient One: Choose an Ancient One card and place it on the table. This is your ultimate foe! Its doom track will be a constant reminder of the impending doom.
2. Investigators: Each player chooses an Investigator card. These brave souls are your avatars in this cosmic struggle. Pay attention to their unique abilities, like Carolyn Fern's ability to restore 1 Sanity or Vincent Lee's to restore 1 Stamina to an investigator once per day. Mandy Thompson can even reroll 2 dice once per day after any player has rolled!
3. Dice Pool: Gather the core dice. Remember the red die has a special wildcard symbol that can be used as a lore, a peril, a terror, or a 4 investigation result.
4. Adventure Cards: Shuffle the Adventure cards and place a few face-up around the table, forming the museum layout. These are the challenges you'll face.
5. Monster Markers: Place monster markers under the bottom task of Adventure cards. If there are no available monster tasks, distribute them as evenly as possible. No Adventure card gets a second monster until all have at least one, and so on.
6. Museum Entrance: Place the Museum Entrance sheet within reach. This is your safe haven for healing (you can heal one stamina OR one sanity for free) and buying souvenirs. Remember, you can only make one purchase each time you visit "Buy a Souvenir."
7. Mythos Cards: Draw a Mythos card to start the game. However, "At Midnight" effects do not trigger at the start of the game.

The Game Turn

A turn in Elder Sign is a tense sequence of decisions and dice rolls. Here's how it generally flows:

1. Choose an Adventure: The active player chooses an Adventure card to attempt.
2. Roll Dice: Roll your initial pool of dice. You might gain extra dice like the red or yellow die through items, but you can only add them once per adventure. Once used to complete a task or discarded after failing, they're gone for the rest of that player's turn.
3. Resolve Tasks: Try to match your dice results to the symbols on the Adventure card's tasks.
   • Clue Tokens: If you're not happy with your roll, you can spend a clue token to reroll one, some, or all of your dice. You can keep spending clues until you're out!
   • Spells and Held Dice: Spells that secure dice are cast after you roll. You look at the results, then cast the spell to place a die on it. These dice stay on the spell until used or removed. You can modify dice results with items/abilities before placing them on a spell, but not afterwards. Before any roll, you can remove dice from spells to reroll them. If a die becomes locked while on a spell, it's removed and locked, and the spell is discarded if it has no dice left.
   • Locked Dice: Some tasks or monsters can lock dice. If a die is locked by multiple sources, it remains locked by the others even after one lock is removed. Only Sister Mary's ability can access locked dice.
   • Monsters: If a monster is part of an adventure, its task must be completed last (unless an item defeats it). Items that "defeat a monster" turn it facedown, considering all its tasks completed without paying costs.
4. Focusing and Assisting: If you fail to complete a task, you can either focus (once per turn) to set aside a die for a future roll in that adventure, or another player can assist you. You can't do both on the same roll, nor can you focus or assist if you successfully completed a task.
5. Complete or Fail:
   • If you complete all tasks, you gain the rewards of the Adventure card.
   • If you fail, you suffer the penalties.
6. Midnight: This doesn't happen during a player's turn anymore! Instead, it occurs immediately after any player's turn in which the clock hand moved to or past "XII." All "At Midnight" effects in play trigger, regardless of investigator location.

End of Game and Scoring

The game of Elder Sign can end in two primary ways:

1. Victory! If you collect enough Elder Signs to match the Ancient One's requirement, you win! Even if the last Doom Token and the last Elder Sign are added at the same time, the investigators win.
2. The Ancient One Awakens: If the doom track fills up before you gather enough Elder Signs, the Ancient One awakens! Discard the current Mythos card and its lingering effects immediately end. Locked dice are lost forever, unless locked by the Mythos card itself. "At Midnight" effects also cease during this final battle. You'll then face the Ancient One in a desperate final confrontation. If an investigator is devoured during this battle, a doom token is added, and that player is eliminated, but the clock still advances.

Tips for Winning

• Heal Wisely at the Museum Entrance: Don't forget the Museum Entrance allows you to heal one stamina OR one sanity for free. This can be crucial for staying in the game, especially when facing tough adventures.
• Leverage Investigator Abilities: Pay close attention to your investigator's abilities and those of your teammates. "Once per day" abilities (like Carolyn Fern's or Vincent Lee's) can be used during other players' turns, but only once before midnight strikes again. "Once per roll" abilities can only be used on that investigator's turn, once per dice roll (rerolling dice with clue tokens doesn't grant another use).
• Strategic Clue Token Use: Clue tokens are powerful! They allow you to reroll dice, giving you a second (or third, or fourth!) chance to complete a task. Joe Diamond's "Hunches" ability is particularly strong here, granting a free second reroll each time he spends a clue token. Remember, you can't use clue tokens during another player's turn.