Elder Sign

Preparing a game of Elder Sign involves laying out the entrance sheet, setting the clock to 12 o'clock, and arranging the green, yellow, and red dice nearby. Choose one of the eight ancient ones (such as Cthulhu) and place its card down, remembering its specific effects and doom track. Prepare the monster bag, shuffle both the adventure deck and the other worlds deck, and lay out six adventure cards face up in two rows of three. Separate and organize common items, unique items, spells, allies, doom tokens, sanity, stamina, clues, and resistance. Finally, select investigators, assign their starting health and sanity, place their markers on the entrance sheet, and distribute their starting items and spells, before flipping a mythos card to begin the ancient one's influence.

Players take on the roles of investigators working cooperatively to stop ancient primigenial beings like Cthulhu, Hastur, or Yog-Sothoth from destroying humanity. The ultimate goal is to seal the ancient one by collecting a specific number of arcane symbols before its doom track fills completely and it awakens.

A player's turn is divided into three main phases. First is the movement phase, where the investigator moves their marker to an adventure card, another world, or the museum entrance. Second is the resolution phase, where investigators attempt to complete adventure tasks by rolling dice and matching required symbols across multiple steps. Third is the clock phase, where the game clock advances by three hours, triggering any immediate or ongoing mythos card effects when midnight strikes.

Scoring and progression revolve around collecting trophies by successfully completing adventures. Trophies act as currency that can be spent at the museum entrance to buy common items, unique items, spells, allies, or crucial arcane symbols, as well as to recover lost stamina or sanity.

The game concludes when either condition for victory or defeat is met. Investigators win if they manage to seal the ancient one by accumulating enough arcane symbols before its doom track is full. Conversely, players lose if the ancient one awakens by filling all doom spaces or if all investigators are devoured.