DesignJoe MorrisseyDoug WoolseyVince D’AmelioArtDoug WoolseyPlaytestingRebecca Morrissey, Michelle Rice, Griffin Morrissey, Alex Woolsey, Victoria D’Amelio, Glen McKnight, Robert Owen, Rick Luebbers

© 2014 Sand Hat Games, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this product may be reproduced without specific permission.

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You are the ruler of a fledgling kingdom in the land of Vye. Around you are untamed lands ripe for the taking. But you are not alone! Other rulers seek to broaden their holdings as well. You must carefully protect your borders even as you race to expand them. Will you control the largest kingdom? Or will you see your power splintered? Plan your moves well - it will take strategy and a little luck to win the battle for Vye!

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OverviewVye is a strategy card game played by 2-4 play-ers. The goal of the game is to have the larg-est connected kingdom when the game ends. You grow your kingdom by placing Land and Family cards on the table, claiming the cards you place and potentially others around them in the process. The game is easy to learn and can be played in about 20 minutes.

The DeckThere are a total of 53 cards that compose the basic Vye deck. There are 36 Land cards, 16 Family cards, and 1 Inevitable Empress card.

Etc.Also included in this edition of Vye are this rulebook and 100 tokens.

Setup• Find and set aside the Inevitable Em-

press card.

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• Find and group by color the 16 Family cards (Advisor, King, Queen, Heir).

• Each player chooses a token color to represent him or her in the game. Each player then takes the four Family cards that match their token color.

• Each player sets all four Family cards face up in front them in a line: Advisor to the far left, next King, then Queen, and, finally, Heir.

Blue player sideboard.

• Choose one person to go first by deter-mining the person last in a place of roy-alty (the porcelain throne counts).

• The person to the right of the player tak-ing the first turn will be the dealer.

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• After thoroughly shuffling the deck, the dealer should deal 4 cards to each player from the top of the deck. These cards are kept secret from the other players.

• The dealer will then play the top 5 cards from the deck and lay them out in the center of the table in the order shown. These cards are unclaimed. Do not place to-kens on them.

• Next, take the bottom 3 cards from the deck and shuffle them together with the Inevitable Empress. Place this stack of cards on the bottom of the deck.

• Play now begins with the player to the left of the dealer.

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On Your Turn• Play a card from your hand or a Family

card from your sideboard. You must al-ways play a card.

• Score your card by placing one of your tokens on top of it.

• If you’ve played a Family card, perform any special actions of the card.

• If you’ve played a Land card, check to see if a chain is created. If a chain is cre-ated, place tokens on all captured cards.

• If you played from your hand, draw back up to four cards in your hand. Do not draw a card if you play from your side-board.

• Play then passes to the player to your left.

Green player hand and sideboard.

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The CardsThere are two types of cards you may play in the basic Vye set, Lands and Families (expan-sion sets add more card types - see the rules for those expansions for more information). Cards are played face up on the table next to other cards along one of their four sides. Di-agonal placement is never allowed (although diagonal capture is allowed when specified by the card being played - more on that later).

Valid Card Placement Invalid Card Placement

Land Cards and Card MatchingWhen you play a Land card, you are the owner of that card. Place one of your tokens on that card. If the Land card you have played is next to another Land card with a matching picture, then you also capture that Land card, even if it has another player’s token on it. When you capture a Land card that belongs to another player, remove their token and place yours on the card. If there are multiple matching cards in a non-diagonal path, you can capture them all with one Land card placement of the same picture.

Green player captures a matching Land card.

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Green player captures two matching Land cards.

Valid Captures Diagonal Chain Not Allowed

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Connected CardsCards are considered connected if they share card borders. Remember, diagonal connec-tions do not count.

The goal of Vye is to own the largest number of contiguously connected cards when the In-evitable Empress is drawn and the game ends.

A

B C

D E

In the illustration above, cards A and B are connected and cards B and C are connected for a total of 3 connected cards. Cards C and D are not connected because they do not share a border. Cards D and E are connected for a total of 2 connected cards.

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Family CardsWhen you play a Family card, you are the owner of that card. Place one of your tokens on your Family card. You also capture cards surrounding your Family card as determined by the symbol on the Family card.

HeirQueenKingAdvisor

The Families and their corresponding symbols and color groups are:

• House Midnight - Blue• House Immortal - Green• House of the Thousand Roses - Red• House of Ladders - Gold

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The following illustrates the way each Family card captures the cards connected to it.

The King – When played, you gain control of this card, plus the four cards adjacent on the top, bottom, and sides of your King card.

The Advisor – When played, you gain control of this card, plus all eight cards surrounding your Advisor.

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The Queen – When played, you gain control of this card, plus all four cards on the non-connected diagonals of your Queen.

The Heir – When played, you gain control of this card, plus one adjacent card, which you choose from among the eight cards sur-rounding it.

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Color CaptureIn addition to the standard capture rule for Family cards, when you place a Family of

one color group next to another Family in the same group, you may also capture that Family as well.

In the example shown, the Queen of Ladders (gold queen) would capture the Heir of Ladders (gold heir), even if the Heir is not in a valid capture location for the Queen.

Ending the HandThe hand ends immedi-ately when the Inevita-ble Empress is drawn. No one else gets to take a turn.

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ScoringVye is played in a series of hands. When a hand finishes, each player tallies his kingdom score and a winner of that hand is declared. Depending on desired play time, the number of hands varies.

• Short: 1 hand• Normal: 3 hands• Long: 5 hands• Epic: 7 hands

Kingdom Score: You earn a number of points based on your single largest hold-ing at the end of each hand. Count the number of cards under your control that share a border. You may have multiple groups of connected cards, or holdings. Your largest holding at the end of a hand is your kingdom score for that hand.

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In the example shown, the player with the blue to-ken has a kingdom score of 5, red’s is 6, and gold’s is 7.

Determining The Winner: Once you have played the de-

sired number of hands, add up the total king-dom score for each player. The player with the largest kingdom score wins the game.

Game VariantWarlords (Luck of the Draw) - All Family cards for all colors are shuffled into the deck. Each player draws four cards during setup, but does not have a sideboard. Players may play any Family cards. Each player’s token color does not need to match a family. Note that this variant can be played with more than 4 players.

Things you can do on your first turn:• Play a Land card that matches one on

the table.• Play a Family card and capture mul-

tiple other cards on the table.• Consider capturing the center card as it

will become more difficult to capture as the hand progresses.

What to do when your holdings are frac-tured?It often happens that your holdings will be fragmented as other players seek to expand theirs. If this happens, do not despair. Keep an eye on the deck and aggressively defend a corner of the map if you can. In three and four player games, it often happens that the other players will duke it out and fragment their holdings in the process, while you spend a few turns quietly rebuilding. Planning a comeback in the late game is a viable strategy in games with three or more players.

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