Children of Morta: The Board Game

To set up the game, first, prepare the draw bag by placing a full set of five colored tokens (one of each color) for each player participating in the campaign. Next, each player selects a character board, placing three white tokens on the health, defense, and focus tracks (health starts at maximum, defense and focus at zero). Each player also receives three character-specific tokens to place on their board and an experience dial set to zero. Character-specific skill cards are shuffled and placed next to the board. The scenario book is opened to Chapter 1, revealing the family home board, upgrade costs, and narrative text. Enemy decks are prepared according to the chapter's instructions, and a small reserve of treasure tokens is kept nearby. Link cards, which provide shared powers, are introduced from the second scenario onwards, with one card revealed per pair of players.

The primary objective of Children of Morta: The Board Game is to successfully complete the objective specified for the current chapter. This objective is detailed in the scenario book and can vary from reaching a specific location on the map to defeating a particular boss or clearing certain areas. Players must work cooperatively to achieve these goals, navigating through a series of encounters and combat rounds. Successfully completing a chapter allows the group to progress to the next chapter in the campaign, while failure results in a return to the family home for upgrades before reattempting the current scenario.

A round in Children of Morta is structured into several phases. It begins with an Encounter Phase, where players move their group token on the map to a connected location with encounter tokens. The active player reveals these tokens, distributing enemy tokens among players and collecting any rewards. This is followed by a Combat Phase, which includes a Hero Turn and an Enemy Turn. During the Hero Turn, players draw up to five tokens from their bag, then simultaneously assign these tokens to their character's abilities to perform actions like attacking, gaining focus, or boosting defense. Some abilities have a cost in focus or require specific colored tokens. Players can also use 'wild' tokens to activate any ability or discard tokens to re-roll dice. After all heroes have acted, the Enemy Turn activates enemies from left to right and top to bottom, resolving their attacks and effects. Finally, the Cleanup Phase involves returning used skill tokens to the bag, resetting defense and focus, and passing the leader token.

Scoring in Children of Morta is primarily tied to progression and character development rather than competitive points. Players earn experience points by defeating enemies, which are tracked on their individual experience dials. These experience points can be spent during the 'Return Home' phase to upgrade character abilities, making them more powerful for subsequent scenarios. Gold tokens are collected from certain encounter spaces and can be used to purchase improved skill tokens from the family home board, enhancing the shared draw bag. While there isn't a traditional 'score' to win the game, the accumulation of experience and upgrades is crucial for successfully completing the overarching campaign.

A 'run' (a single attempt at a scenario) concludes in one of two ways: victory or defeat. Victory occurs when the chapter's objective, as outlined in the scenario book, is successfully completed. If players win, they proceed to the next chapter after a 'Return Home' phase. Defeat occurs if one or more players are reduced to zero health, or if a player needs to place an enemy token but there are no available spaces on their character board. In case of defeat, players return to the family home, where they can spend accumulated experience and gold on upgrades before reattempting the same scenario. The campaign itself ends when all chapters are successfully completed.