How to Play The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era

Game Objective

Welcome to Tamriel! In The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era, you are adventurers cooperating to complete a quest as agents of a guild in one of Tamriel’s provinces. The game is designed to be played in a three-session campaign, where each session builds on the last. During each session, your party must travel, battle, and explore the province to complete the quest. Over the course of the sessions, your adventurers will develop by gaining experience points (XP) through completed encounters. To finalize the campaign, you will face an intense endgame session to defeat a dark threat to the continent of Tamriel. The ultimate goal is to prevent the betrayal of the Second Era.

Setup

The recommended play area for this game is at least 36 in x 48 in (90 cm x 120 cm). Follow this procedure to set up the game:

1. Choose a Province: Select a province for your session. Each province is represented by a surface map and a compendium. If this is the first session of your first campaign, it is highly recommended to choose Black Marsh. Place the province’s surface map on one side of the play area and set aside the corresponding compendium.
2. Prepare the Dice, Tokens, Markers, and Pegs:
   • Place the dice and token trays near the play area.
   • Organize the circular aptitude markers, square attribute markers, and circular surface markers by type.
   • Separate the pegs.
   • Place all skill progression markers into the trainer bag.
   • Enemy Tokens: Separate the double-sided enemy tokens into stacks by level (1, 5, 10, 20). Enemies with two-letter codes under their names can only appear in the province with those initials. Place Level 1 (black border)/Level 5 (green border) enemies into the Level 1/5 bag and Level 10 (purple border)/Level 20 (red border) enemies into the Level 10/20 bag. Place the bags near the surface map.
3. Prepare the Card Decks: Place all skill progression guides into the card tray. Then, prepare the following decks and place them in the card tray near the surface map:
   • Side Quest Deck: Shuffle all side quest cards.
   • Surface Decks: There are 2 surface decks: Peaceful () and Conflict (). For each deck, shuffle 10 general cards of that type and draw 4. Then, take the 8 cards of that type from the current province and shuffle them together with the 4 drawn general cards, story side up.
   • Incursion Deck: Remove all special cards marked with “SP” from the chosen province. Shuffle the remaining incursion cards from the province with all general incursion cards.
   • Item Decks: There are 2 item decks: the Common Deck () and the Legendary Deck (). Shuffle each separately.
4. Prepare the Map Tiles, Journal, and Counters:
   • Organize the neoprene map tiles by shape. Separate the confrontation tile (large and double-sided) and the entrance tile (light green with 5 hexes). The remaining tiles are incursion tiles; shuffle each stack face down and position them together.
   • Campaign Journal: If this is the first session, choose a party leader, who will be responsible for recording progress.
   • XP and Day Counters: The XP Counter tracks the party’s XP and enemy strength. The Day Counter tracks the days of the quest. Place the XP Counter and Day Counter tokens into the magnetic holder slots. If playing the introductory encounter Prison Break, rotate the XP Counter to 1; otherwise, to 2. The Day Counter remains unset.
5. Choose Game Difficulty: Choose a difficulty level between Apprentice (easiest), Adept (medium), or Veteran (highest). Difficulty affects adventurer rest, engagement actions, and the final battle of the session.
6. Prepare the Adventurers: Each player takes an adventurer mat and creates an adventurer.
   • First Session of a Campaign: Each player creates an adventurer by following the creation steps (see "Adventurer Creation" section below). It is recommended to play the introductory encounter Prison Break to familiarize yourself with battle mechanics.
   • Continuing a Campaign: Prepare the adventurer as they were at the end of the previous session.
7. Prepare the Guild Quest: Refer to the first step of the quest in the compendium. Separate the described quest unit tokens. Position the party marker () at the starting location on the surface map. Position any surface markers at their starting locations.
   • First Session of a Campaign: Shuffle the Guild Deck and draw 3 cards. Choose 1 card, which determines the guild and quest. Return the unchosen cards to the box and position the chosen guild card with the guild bank effect face up, near the surface map.
   • Later Sessions of a Campaign: The next guild quest is determined at the end of the previous session.

Adventurer Creation

Each player creates a unique adventurer at the beginning of the first session of a campaign. To create an adventurer, follow the steps below:

1. Choose a Race: Choose a race reference guide and the corresponding adventurer token. Position the guide next to your adventurer mat and the token in the illustration area. Flip the components to the character side you prefer.
2. Add Attributes: Take the circular aptitude markers for the Health, Stamina, and Magicka attributes, indicated on your race reference guide, and position them in the circular spaces of your mat’s aptitude rows.
   • The Health marker has a numerical value; position it with the side facing up corresponding to the indicated value.
   • The Stamina and Magicka markers have no numerical values. Position them in their spaces; then, in the rows where they were positioned and starting from the space closest to the corresponding circular marker, place a number of square attribute markers, of each attribute’s color, equal to its starting value.
3. Add a Combat Skill Progression: Take the circular marker for this skill progression and place it in an available space. Then, add the same number of Combat skill dice as indicated in the race reference guide to the square spaces of that row and position that skill’s guide next to your adventurer mat.
4. Add an Initial Skill Progression: Choose 1 other skill progression. Position the circular marker for that skill progression in an available aptitude space. Then, add 2 of that progression’s level 1 skill dice to the square spaces of that row. Position that skill progression’s guide next to your adventurer mat. For the first game, it is recommended to choose Archery (), Destruction Staff (), One-Handed and Shield (), or Two-Handed ().
5. Position the Pegs: Position a peg in the battle style marker space that corresponds to your chosen initial skill progression. Position another in the space above your recharge track, corresponding to your race’s initial recharge attribute. Finally, position 2 more in the leftmost spaces of your tenacity and Saved XP markers.
6. Choose a Class: Choose one of the following methods to determine the initial classes available to you. Place your initial class reference guide, novice side up, on the opposite side of the adventurer mat from your race reference guide.
   • Introductory Encounter Prison Break: If you play this encounter, choose from the available class options according to your feats.
   • Free Choice: Choose 1 of the available class reference guides and add it to your mat.

Game Flow

The game progresses through a series of phases that make up a quest day. The game phases are:

1. New Day Phase: Refer to the manual for details on this section.
2. Surface Phase: Refer to the manual for details on this section.
3. Encounter Phase: During this phase, adventurers resolve encounters.
   • Resolving Encounters: Refer to the manual for details on this section.
   • City Encounters: When the party is in a city, they can perform City Actions and interact with City Facilities.
     • City Actions: Refer to the manual for details on this section.
     • City Facilities: Refer to the manual for details on this section.
   • Sociability Tests: Refer to the manual for details on this section.
4. Rewards Phase: Refer to the manual for details on this section.
5. End of Day Phase: Refer to the manual for details on this section.

Battles have their own round structure:

Battle Rounds

Battles are resolved in rounds, each with the following sequence:

1. Adventurer Turns: Each adventurer takes their turn.
2. Enemy Turns: Each enemy takes its turn.
3. Companion Turns: Refer to the manual for details on this section.

Actions and How to Play

Attributes

Attributes are your adventurer’s essential capabilities. The total of each attribute is the base value of its circular marker (if any) plus the number of its colored square markers in its aptitude row. This total is the maximum attribute value.

• Health: This attribute’s aptitude marker has a base value that is added to its red markers. HP tokens are stacked under an adventurer’s token and are removed to indicate damage taken. The total Health value limits the number of HP tokens. An adventurer is defeated when they lose their last HP.
• Bonus HP: Some abilities grant bonus HP, which are positioned near the battle style marker. They are removed before regular HP tokens, unless the damage is "true."
• Stamina: Monitored by green square markers, it represents movement capacity and dice rolling for physical skills. It limits movement distance, the explore action, engagement action range, and the number of dice that can be rolled.
• Magicka: Monitored by blue square markers, it represents dice rolling capacity for magical skills and the range of those skills. It limits engagement action range and the number of dice that can be rolled in the magic battle style ().

Skills

Skills are the dice an adventurer rolls during battle. Each skill is part of a larger skill progression, linked to Stamina or Magicka, which limits the number of skill dice that can be rolled during an engagement action.

• Skill Progressions: Skill dice are grouped into skill progressions and categorized by level. They are divided among the Mage ( blue, 1 arrow), Thief ( yellow, 2 arrows), and Warrior ( red, 3 arrows) constellations. Skill progression aptitude markers are added by visiting trainers in cities. An adventurer cannot have more than 1 aptitude marker of the same skill progression.
• Combat: This special skill progression represents an adventurer’s innate fighting ability. It has only 1 type of skill die, is flexible enough to be rolled in any battle style except magic (), and can be rolled in the defensive battle style () to prevent damage.

Recharge Track

Exhausted skill dice, fatigue dice, and condition dice are placed on this track. The recharge track determines how quickly skill dice can be rolled again and how long a condition will affect the adventurer. Dice are placed one at a time in the leftmost available space. While a skill die is on the track, it will not be available. The track can hold up to 13 dice. If it is full and a die needs to be placed, that die will be drained (if it is a skill die) or returned to the reserve (if it is a fatigue or condition die), and the rightmost die (that is not an overfatigue die) on the track will be replaced by an overfatigue die.

• Recharge Attribute: It is