Skullminers

# Skullminer Lore

In the realm of Western Aesteros, the dwarven mining guilds were summoned by the priests of Thalin to unearth relics said to be the holy skulls of gods. Promised eternal life, they dug deep into the bones of the earth, never knowing the truth: the so-called God Skulls were not sacred, but cursed remnants of ancient evil. Bound by a secret spell, the miners’ hearts grew fevered with obsession, their minds consumed by the whispers of the relics. One by one, they descended into madness, lost to darkness and despair. To their kin, they became phantoms of the deep, and to all of Aesteros they are remembered by a single, dreadful name — Skullminers.

# Rules of play

Objective Be the first Company to locate and unearth the God Skull hidden within one of your Claims in competitor territory. Achieve this by constructing tunnel routes, deploying crews, and strategically outmaneuvering your opponent.

Setup Select a Company: Black Rock Mining or The Crimson Mining Company. Place 5 Claim cards in the row nearest to you. Secretly assign the God Skull Claim face-down among them. Determine the first player: Both roll a Hit Die; the first to roll a Hit while the opponent rolls a Miss goes first. (NOTE: To add to the suspense, place the God Skull card without looking yourself.)

Turn Structure

Players alternate turns, completing each of the following phases per turn:

1.Draw Phase

Draw until you have 5 cards in hand.

2.Direct Phase

Play one Crew or Directive card, or discard one card.

Crew Cards: Must be placed on a Site that creates a valid tunnel connection to at least one existing occupied Site (except when placed in your Home Row). Place one Crew Counter Dice on the Site. This Crew Counter Dice crew value equals the number shown on the played Crew card. A tunnel connection is valid only when both Sites share a matching tunnel opening.

Directive Cards: Resolve the effect as stated on the card.

3.Allocation & Contest Phase

Move Crew to any adjacent, connected Site; splitting into multiple Sites from a single Site is permitted.

Shafts: Sites that connect to only one other Site in a single direction are called Shafts; crew may only travel through them in that one direction.

No Site may hold more than 6 Crew value; excess Crew are removed from play. Contests occur when moving into an opponent-occupied Site. Both Companies roll a number of Hit Dice equal to the crew value they have in the contested Site. Each Hit removes one point from the opponent’s crew value. Adjust crew values accordingly: If a Crew Counter Dice value is reduced to zero, remove that token from the board. Outcomes after adjustments: Defenders eliminated → Aggressors occupy the Site with remaining crew value. Aggressors eliminated → remaining Defenders stay. Both eliminated → Sites becomes vacant.

Claim Discovery

To unearth a Claim, allocate one crew value from Crew Counter Die in an adjacent Site. Reduce that Crew Counter Dice value by one. Reveal the Claim: God Skull → Victory. Soil → Continue searching. Crews must be directly adjacent (not diagonal) and follow connected tunnels to reach Claims.

Additional Rules

When the draw deck is empty, reshuffle the discard pile to form a new deck. All movement and actions must occur through legally connected tunnel routes, including Shafts where travel is restricted to one direction.

Skullminers is a lore building side story to our Tilecrawl dungeon crawling system currently under development. Watch for our Company deck expansions, component upgrades and 4Player add-on to release shortly. We will be working to update our social media very soon. Feel free to subscribe to recieve all newly posted updates. Thank you.