Argent: The Consortium

Players set up Argent: The Consortium by preparing the university boards, drafting secret consortium members with unique voting criteria, and distributing starting resources including mages, mana, gold, and spells. Each player chooses a mage school and takes corresponding starting components, while public vault and bell tower cards are laid out to frame the game's progression.

The main goal is to be elected the new chancellor of the magical university. To achieve this, players must strategically collect influence points and secure the votes of hidden consortium members by fulfilling their secret scoring criteria, such as having the most supporters, influence, or specific types of spells.

A round consists of placing mages into different rooms of the university to trigger actions, cast spells, and acquire new spells, supporters, and resources. Mages can interact, push other players out, or get wounded, adding high interaction and tactical depth to worker placement.

Points and votes are tallied based on collected influence and by fulfilling the secret conditions of the twelve consortium members, two of whom are revealed at setup while the rest remain hidden until the end.

The game ends automatically upon the completion of the fifth round, or immediately when the third bell tower card is claimed, triggering the final vote reveal and scoring.