Game Objective

In the 16th century AD, during the period of the Black Death and the Hussite Wars, the Sedlec Ossuary became overcrowded. You take on the role of a Bone Collector, a nearly blind monk, with the mission of exhuming bodies and organizing the skulls in the crypt. The goal is to build your own Ossuary (a pyramid-shaped arrangement) and score according to the wishes of the deceased to determine the winner.

Setup

1. Shuffle the 18 game cards.
2. Create a Graveyard consisting of 6 piles of 3 cards each, face down and arranged in a 2 x 3 grid.
3. Choose one pile and reveal the top card.
4. The player who most recently visited a cemetery goes first.

Game Flow

Players play in clockwise order. On each turn, the player must choose and perform one of the three available actions: Dig, Collect, or Stack.

Hand Rule: The hand limit is 2 cards. If a player starts their turn already holding 2 cards in hand, they are required to perform the Stack action to play a card.

Actions and How to Play

Turn Actions

• Dig: Reveal the top cards of any 2 piles in the Graveyard. If there is only 1 face-down card, reveal it. Choose one of the revealed cards and place it in your hand. Restriction: If there are no face-down cards on top of the piles at the start of the turn, you cannot perform this action.
• Collect: Take a card that is already revealed on top of one of the Graveyard piles and place it in your hand. Restriction: If there are no face-up cards on top of the piles at the start of the turn, you cannot perform this action.
• Stack: Place a card from your hand into your Ossuary, following the Placement Rules. Restriction: If you start your turn with no cards in hand, you cannot perform this action.

Placement Rules

• The first card can be placed anywhere to start the bottom Row.
• New cards can be added to the bottom Row, to the left or right of cards already placed. The bottom Row limit is 4 cards (in 2-player games) or 3 cards (in 3-player games).
• Construction always begins with the bottom Row, but it is not necessary to finish it before starting the one above.
• A card can be placed on higher Levels as long as it is centered directly over two cards from a lower Row.
• Cards cannot be rotated; they must always be oriented vertically relative to the owner of the Ossuary.

Skull Types and Scoring

• Nobles: Score 1 point for every Noble and Peasant located on Levels below them.
• Peasants: Score 1 point each, regardless of position.
• Clerics: Score 2 points for every Level where at least one Cleric is present.
• Romantics: Two Adjacent Romantics score 6 points (3 points each). Each Romantic can only score once.
• Criminals: Score 2 points if they are Adjacent to a Cleric. Otherwise, they do not score.

End of Game and Scoring

The game ends when all players have finished their Ossuaries. A complete Ossuary consists of 9 cards (for 2 players) or 6 cards (for 3 players).

Point Counting: Sum the scores for each type of skull according to the rules described above.

Tie-breaker: In the event of a tie, players compare their highest scores obtained with any single type of skull. If the tie persists, they compare their second-highest scores, and so on, until a winner is determined.

Tips for Winning

• Noble Positioning: Since Nobles score based on who is below them, try to position them on the highest Levels of your Ossuary.
• Cleric Synergy: Try to distribute Clerics across different Levels to maximize the "presence on all levels" score and simultaneously use them to give points to Criminals.