Emberheart

To set up Emberheart, place the main board in the center of the play area and set the ambassador aid tokens and round track marker. Organize all cards by their backs and shuffle them, placing them near their matching board icons and dealing them face up into designated spaces. Special cards like heroes and dragons are organized separately by color and value. Players take a player board (using side A for beginners), matching crests, a dragon companion, a flame marker, attribute markers, ten grunts, and two gear tokens. Place attribute markers at the bottom of their tracks, advance one if it is your first game, and set the flame marker. Randomly assign the first player marker to begin.

The main objective of Emberheart is to prove yourself as the island's best dragon ambassador by rescuing majestic dragons from poachers, recruiting helpful heroes, establishing sanctuaries, and fending off threats. Players must carefully balance gathering resources, managing hierlings, and keeping the island's flame track as low as possible over five fast-paced rounds to accumulate the most glory points.

The game spans five rounds, each divided into action, reward, raid, and reset phases. During the action phase, players take turns performing one of three possible actions: sending a party of hierlings with a crest to a common location track, visiting a special location for instant resources, or claiming an available aid token. Gear tokens can be spent to exchange grunt hierlings for expert scouts, rangers, or wardens. Players can also utilize their dragon companion once per round to reduce hierling requirements or trigger special placement bonuses.

Endgame scoring calculates total glory from several sources. Players score the printed glory values on all collected dragons, the highest unlocked levels on their attribute tracks, active bonuses from heroes attached to matching dragons, and completed garrison requirements tucked under their player boards. Finally, players score points based on their relative position on the flame track, where having a lower flame level compared to opponents yields substantial bonus glory.

The game ends automatically after the completion of the fifth round. Players skip the final round's reset phase and proceed straight to final scoring using a score pad. All glory points from dragons, attributes, heroes, garrisons, and the flame track are summed up. The player with the highest total glory wins the game. If there is a tie, the tied player with the most dragon cards wins, and remaining ties share the victory.