Board Game "Daredragon Fellowship"
Author: Bartosz Sułkowski
1. Core Game Rules
In the game you play as a fellowship of heroes dare to stand against a dreadful dragon.
Players: 4–6 people
Mount Greymantle has smouldered faintly for as long as anyone can remember. More visibly since Skeldrath moved in, forty years ago.
The tunnel entrance is easy enough to find. There is only one, which is either reassuring or ominous, depending on your constitution. It is wide enough for a dragon to pass through comfortably, which tells you something about who built it. Four people can walk side by side, and four people are walking side by side now — though at least two of them are already regretting the life choices that led to this particular corridor, on this particular mountain, on this particular afternoon.
The walls are scored with claw marks at regular intervals. One of the four has a theory about whether these are territorial markings or a very consistent nervous habit. The others have asked them to stop talking about it.
The antechamber smells of smoke and sulphur and, faintly, of something earthy and organic that nobody has identified. The floor is scattered with the remnants of previous visitors: a dented shield here, the haft of a broken spear there, one very melted cart wheel whose presence raises questions nobody is in a hurry to pursue. Someone came this way before them. Several someones, it seems. None of them appear to have left the way they came in.
Four figures stand at the edge of the dark, looking in. They are an improbable group. They are, by any objective measure, not the most sensible people to be standing here. They are going in anyway.
1.1. You Will Need
Cards
2 standard 54-card decks (including 2 jokers), preferably in two different colours
One deck represents the daredevils' possible actions, the other the dragon's actions.
Pieces
- 8–10 distinguishable tokens, able to represent 2 states (like chess pieces or meeples, that can stand or lie down)
- 2 tokens
Each daredevil receives 1 token. The dragon receives 4 tokens, one for each body part (jaws, paws, legs, tail).
The position of tokens on the board represents the remaining health points of the daredevils and the dragon (from 0 to 25). The secondary token state indicates status (daredevil lying down / dragon body part entangled).
One token tracks the current turn. The other marks the dragon's attack target.
Printables
Board Extension (5–6 players)
Gorrak is built like a small mountain that learned to hold a grudge. His axe is ancient, his beard is legendary, and his sentences are short. He communicates mostly in grunts, but the fellowship has learned to read the grunts: one grunt means fine, two means not fine, three means run.
Beneath the gruffness is someone who would — and has — walked into a burning building for each of his companions without pausing to ask questions. He has given each team member a dwarvish nickname. None of them can pronounce the real ones.
1.2. Actors and Their Attributes
Each player plays as one daredevil. Daredevils have endurance (health points; indicated by the position of their token on the board), stance (standing or lying on the ground; indicated by the token state) and a list of available actions (cards in hand; order does not matter).
The dragon is a large beast, so it has health points assigned separately to each of its four body parts (jaws, paws, legs, tail) indicated by tokens on the board. Each body part can be entangled, which is indicated by the state of the corresponding token.
Health points cannot drop below 0.
The dragon can have one of the daredevils as its persistent attack target. This is indicated by placing the target token next to the corresponding player.
Lirien has been alive for three hundred and forty-seven years and has the patience to prove it — except when someone makes a tactical error she spotted long before, in which case the patience evaporates immediately. She moves like water around obstacles, her blade finding gaps that shouldn't exist.
She keeps a journal of poetry about her companions. She has told no one about this journal. She never will.
1.3. Initial Setup
At the start of the game, each daredevil and each of the dragon's body parts has 25 health points.
The first deck, containing the dragon's actions, is shuffled and placed in the centre of the board.
The second deck, containing the daredevils' actions, is shuffled and placed next to the board. Each player draws 2 cards to their hand. The hand limit is 6, but may be reduced later as the daredevil's health points drop.
The dragon starts with no attack target. The target token is placed on the dragon's card deck in this case.
Pip barely reaches Gorrak's shoulder, which suits him fine — he has an excellent view of the battlefield from down there, and nobody expects the small one to be the most dangerous shot in three counties. His crossbow is almost as tall as he is. He has named it. He will not say what the name is.
He always has food somewhere on his person. The origin and quantity of this food is unclear. It has never run out.
1.4. Turn Sequence
The player who most recently helped someone goes first.
Players take turns in clockwise order.
Between every two consecutive players there is a dragon turn.
For 4 players the sequence is:
- Daredevil A
- Dragon
- Daredevil B
- Dragon
- Daredevil C
- Dragon
- Daredevil D
- Dragon
- and so on from the beginning
A token placed around the board helps track the current turn.
Magnus carries a large enchanted hammer that once belonged to his warrior uncle. He uses it as a walking staff. He uses it as a hammer when the spells get complicated. His spells work reliably about 95% of the time. The remaining 5% are, in his words, "instructive."
His cat, Lemma, survived the tower fire and now travels with the fellowship. Lemma is perpetually unimpressed by everyone, including the dragon.
1.5. Performing Actions by Daredevils
Players keep their cards hidden from other players. It is important that each daredevil feels completely free to independently choose which action to perform, especially when it involves some sacrifice on their part. Every daredevil has the full right to keep their cards to themselves — respecting that privacy is part of the spirit of the game.
On their turn, a daredevil may initiate an action by playing a card from their hand. A warm-up phase then begins, lasting a set number of daredevil turns depending on the action type. This is indicated by placing the action card on the edge of the board next to the turn on which the warm-up expires (not next to the turn of the daredevil who played it). At the start of that turn the action resolves and triggers its effect, and the corresponding card is placed on the daredevils' discard pile.
The warm-up for a daredevil always expires on a daredevil's turn. For example with 4 players: if the warm-up is 1 turn, it expires on the next daredevil's turn. If it is 2 turns, on the turn of the daredevil sitting opposite. If it is 4 turns, on the next turn of the daredevil who played it.
Guard-type actions (Intervention Dodge and Shield) have no warm-up time; instead they remain active until the daredevil's next turn. They trigger on the first dragon attack. The card for such an action is placed next to the turn of the daredevil who played it.
Daredevils decide the target of their actions at the very last moment — when the effect is triggered.
The four met seven years ago, answering the same notice tacked to a village board:
> WANTED: Brave souls. Dragon, probably small. Reward: negotiable.
They arrived separately, sized each other up with varying degrees of scepticism — Gorrak grunted twice, Lirien raised an eyebrow, Pip offered everyone a sandwich, Magnus accidentally set his sleeve on fire introducing himself — and agreed, after a short and not entirely civil discussion, to split the reward four ways.
The dragon was not small. The reward was never negotiated. The barn that took the most damage still has not been fully repaired, and the village has asked the fellowship, politely but firmly, not to return. But they won, and in the aftermath — covered in soot, out of breath, Pip retrieving bolts from improbable locations, Gorrak already pretending the whole thing had been straightforward — something settled between them that none of them had a word for.
They kept finding each other on subsequent jobs. After the third time, they stopped pretending it was coincidence.
1.6. Performing Actions by The Dragon
The dragon has no hand of cards. To determine its next action, on its turn it plays the top card of its deck. A warm-up phase begins, lasting a set number of dragon turns. The action card is placed on the edge of the board next to the turn on which the warm-up expires. At the start of that turn the action resolves, followed by a cool-down phase. The action card is placed face down next to the turn on which the cool-down expires. At the start of that turn the card is placed on the dragon's discard pile and the dragon is ready for its next action.
The dragon's warm-up always expires on a dragon turn. If it is 1 turn, the action resolves on the next dragon turn (after 1 daredevil turn).
If a card has warm-up and cool-down of 0 (Glares and Far Glares), it resolves with immediate effect, is placed on the dragon's discard pile, and a new card is immediately drawn from the top of the dragon's deck and placed on the board as normal — all within the same dragon turn.
If the played card requires a target (direct or AoE attack) and the dragon has no target, the card is placed on the discard pile and the turn ends. The card triggers no effect. The dragon merely menaces the daredevils with a gesture alluding to the attack (baring its fangs, etc.).
Skeldrath is very old, very large, and very aware of both facts. He considers himself the apex of creation — a view he holds with complete sincerity and no supporting evidence beyond his own size. He gave himself the title "the Inexhaustible." Nobody else uses it.
He is genuinely dangerous. His fire has reduced fortresses to rubble, his jaws have crushed siege engines, and his tail has levelled a watchtower that, admittedly, was already leaning. He is not to be underestimated, and he knows it, and he will remind you of it at every available opportunity.
1.7. The Goal
Your shared goal is to defeat the dragon, by reducing the health points of all its body parts to 0. Any incapacitated daredevils are then revived and the whole fellowship can celebrate the victory.
Defeat occurs when all daredevils are incapacitated.
There are no individual scores. The various acts of bravery and heroism in the game are not meant for comparing who is better, but to create positive experiences among you — ones that will leave a lasting impression even after the game ends.
Magnus had spent years assembling a collection of magical artifacts for research — some acquired, some borrowed, several in states of legal ambiguity he preferred not to examine too closely. Skeldrath took the lot. He also incinerated the tower, along with twelve years of notes and Magnus's only copy of Advanced Draconic Theory, Vol. 7 — a book he had been waiting fourteen months to borrow from a colleague. The dragon did not appear to notice Magnus at all during the incident, which Magnus found both insulting and, on reflection, fortunate. He now has extremely personal reasons to study dragons up close. He also owes several people some significant explanations.
1.8. Role-playing
The game imposes no single aesthetic, leaving the choice to you, according to your sensibilities, interests and imagination.
You are invited to better immerse yourselves in the game world through role-playing. The game mechanics provide only a framework — what happens, what the outcome of actions is. All of this can be dressed in a colourful story as commentary, according to your fancy.
As it turns out, Pip's mushroom patch sat directly above an ancient earth-magic node — a confluence of ley lines that the hobbits of the village had farmed for generations without knowing it (the mushrooms were very good, which seemed explanation enough). Skeldrath sensed it from three mountains away. He came, he extracted it, and he levelled most of the village on the way through — including the mushroom patch and his mother's apple cart — without apparent awareness that anything lived there. Pip finds this last part particularly unacceptable. He intends to be noticed.
1.9. Cooperative Card Draw
On their turn, a player may opt to draw cards instead of playing an action. They do this by dealing one card to each of their fellow players. A player cannot directly get a card for themselves.
This is the only way to get cards. Keep an eye on your co-players — otherwise they might run out of cards…
If at any time a player has more cards in hand than their limit, they must discard the excess cards of their choice.
If the daredevils' deck runs out, shuffle the discard pile — it becomes the new deck.
At the heart of the Heartwood Grove stood the Heartstone — an ancient node of nature magic that had accumulated its power across centuries, and that Lirien had been sworn to protect since long before any of her current companions were born. Skeldrath drained it. The grove, stripped of its magical source, died within days; the fire that followed felt almost incidental. He did not look back. For an elf, the loss of an old forest is already a wound across generations — but being treated as irrelevant while it happened is something else entirely.
1.10. The Dracometer (Ϟ)
Damage dealt by the dragon or daredevils always takes a value from a fixed sequence called the "dracometer".
0 · 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 8 · 10 · 13 · 16 · 20 · 25
All damage modifiers are expressed as the corresponding change in position on the dracometer.
For example, with a base attack strength of 8, a +1Ϟ modifier increases the damage to 10, +2Ϟ to 13, and +3Ϟ to 16.
This solution achieves advanced attack scaling (linear for small values, roughly doubling every 3 steps above that), while sparing players from complex arithmetic.
For players' convenience, the dracometer is also marked via the red fields on the board.
Skeldrath has no interest in gold, gems, or the sentimental trinkets of lesser creatures. Such things are beneath him — the preoccupations of beings too small to think about anything that actually matters. What matters, to Skeldrath, is magic. Specifically: the magic held inside ancient artifacts, sacred objects, and places of accumulated power. He hunts them across the world, and when he finds them, he drains them — absorbing their energy to compound his own. The objects he leaves behind are husks. The places he leaves behind are dead. He does not consider this cruelty. He does not consider the inhabitants at all.
The tower full of artifacts, the Heartstone of an ancient grove, the ley-line node beneath a hobbit's mushroom patch — to Skeldrath, these were simply resources. That anyone cared about them is a fact as irrelevant to him as the preferences of insects.
2. Reference Tables
New to the game? Before diving into the tables, consider reading the Sample Gameplay alongside these rules. It walks through a full fight step by step and also continues the story.
2.1. Daredevils' Actions
| Card | Action | Type | Warm-up | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Intervention Dodge | Support, Guard |
— | — |
| K | Draw Aggro | Support | 1 | — |
| Q, J | Shield | Support, Guard |
— | — |
| 10 | Entangle | Attack | 3 | 0 |
| 9 | Charge | Attack | 4 | 8 |
| 8 | Precision Strike | Attack | 3 | 6 |
| 7, 6 | Strike | Attack | 2 | 5 |
| 5 | Quick Strike | Attack | 1 | 5 |
| 4, 3, 2 | Helping Hand | Support | 2 | — |
| Joker | First Aid | Support | 4 | (8) |
Attack
Deals damage to the chosen body part of the dragon.
+2Ϟ on the first daredevil turn after the dragon's attack with that body part resolves (riposte).
Orchestrated attack: if two or more attacks resolve on the same turn and the cards share the same suit, each attacker gains +1Ϟ per additional attacker landing on that turn.
If there is no target and a daredevil's attack resolves, the dragon takes them as its target. If multiple attacks resolve on the same turn, the dragon targets the daredevil who initiated their attack last.
Guard
The action has no warm-up time. The daredevil stands guard until their next turn and performs the action on the first dragon attack.
Entangle
Can only be applied to a body part of the dragon that is not currently being used in an attack. Daredevils receive a +1Ϟ bonus when attacking an entangled body part. When that body part is first used in an attack, its warm-up is extended by +1 turn on behalf of freeing itself from the entanglement. The entanglement token is removed only when the attack resolves — daredevil attacks landing during any warm-up turn still receive the +1Ϟ bonus.
Intervention Dodge
The dragon's attack target avoids damage, but at the cost of being knocked to the ground. Cannot be used to save yourself. Cannot be performed on a daredevil already on the ground.
When the dragon's attack hits nothing, it loses its balance - does not apply to AoE attacks. The cool-down after the attack is extended by one turn. The riposte window extends to the first 2 daredevil turns instead of 1.
Draw Aggro
The daredevil becomes the dragon's new attack target.
If performed during the dragon's warm-up, extends that warm-up by +1.
Shield vs Direct Attack
Shields another daredevil who is the dragon's attack target. Takes the damage on themselves while reducing it by -3Ϟ. Also takes the knockdown effect, if the attack carries one.
If multiple shields are active, the damage modifier stacks, but only the last shielder suffers the attack effects.
Shield vs AoE Attack
Shields all daredevils in the dragon's attack area, reducing damage by -3Ϟ.
A daredevil within the attack area does not shield themselves.
A daredevil outside the attack area also enters the area of effect but is shielded.
Multiple shields stack.
Example: The dragon's attack deals 8 damage and hits daredevils A, B and C. Shield is performed by daredevils C and D. In this case the daredevils receive damage: A — 1, B — 1, C — 4, D — 1.
Helping Hand
Helps another daredevil up from the ground. Cannot be used on yourself.
First Aid
Restores up to 8 health points, even if the daredevil is incapacitated. Helps them up. Cannot be used on yourself.
On the ground
When a daredevil is knocked to the ground, they cannot perform Guard-type actions or actions with a base warm-up of 4, i.e.:
— Intervention Dodge,
— Shield,
— Charge,
— First Aid.
Warm-up of remaining actions +1.
Damage dealt by the daredevil -2Ϟ. |
2.2. Dragon's Actions
| Card | Body Part | Action | Type | Warm-up | Cool-down | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A ♥♦ | — | Fire Breath | AoE Attack | 2 | 1 | 8 |
| A ♠♣ | — | Roar | Special | 1 | 1 | — |
| K | Jaws | Crush | Direct Attack | 4 | 2 | 13 |
| Q | Jaws | Bite | Direct Attack | 3 | 2 | 10 |
| J | Tail | Swing | AoE Attack, Knockdown |
3 | 2 | 6 |
| 10, 9 | Legs | Trample | Direct Attack, Knockdown |
2 | 2 | 8 |
| 8 | Paws | Heavy Strike | Direct Attack | 3 | 1 | 8 |
| 7, 6 | Paws | Strike | Direct Attack | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| 5 | Paws | Quick Strike | Direct Attack | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| 4 ♥♦ | — | Far Glare Right |
Special | 0 | 0 | — |
| 4 ♠♣ | — | Far Glare Left |
Special | 0 | 0 | — |
| 3, 2 ♥♦ | — | Glare Right |
Special | 0 | 0 | — |
| 3, 2 ♠♣ | — | Glare Left |
Special | 0 | 0 | — |
| Joker | — | Health Regeneration |
Special | 1 | 1 | (8) |
Direct Attack
Deals damage to the target.
If the targeted daredevil has a non-guard action currently warming up:
— damage +1Ϟ,
— causes knockdown unless there is a shield.
+2Ϟ if the daredevil is lying on the ground.
If there is no target, instead of attacking the dragon merely menaces and skips the turn.
AoE Attack
Deals damage to the target and both its neighbours. For example, with 4 players the neighbours of daredevil A are daredevils D and B.
Has no effect on daredevils lying on the ground.
If there is no target, instead of attacking the dragon merely menaces and skips the turn.
Knockdown
Cancels the daredevil's current action and knocks them to the ground.
Roar
Cancels all daredevils' actions currently placed on the board (cards in hand are not cancelled). Each player discards 2 cards of their choice from their hand.
Glare
When the dragon plays a Glare, it shifts its attack target accordingly:
— Glare: by 1 to the right/left,
— Far Glare: by 2 to the right/left.
Imagine the dragon standing in the centre of the board, surrounded by daredevils. Turning right means selecting the next daredevil clockwise, turning left counter-clockwise.
Incapacitated daredevils are skipped when counting steps — they cannot be the dragon's target.
For example with 4 players, if the current target was daredevil B, a Glare Left shifts the target to daredevil A, and a Far Glare Right to daredevil D.
If the dragon had no target, it has been watching the daredevils' actions, so it starts glaring from a position between the daredevil who had the previous turn and the next one. For example, if the turn before the dragon was daredevil B's, a Glare Left sets the target to daredevil B and a Glare Right to daredevil C.
Health Regeneration
Restores up to 8 health points to the weakest body part. In case of a tie, priority order is: jaws, paws, legs, tail.
Number of Players
If there are more than 4 players, the dragon gets a +1Ϟ bonus to damage on every attack.
2.3. Health Points
Daredevils
| HP | Impact |
|---|---|
| 25–21 | Max 6 cards on hand. |
| 20–14 | Max 5 cards on hand. |
| 13–1 | Damage dealt -1Ϟ. |
| 13–7 | Max 4 cards on hand. |
| 6–1 | Max 3 cards on hand. |
| 0 | No cards at hand (incapacitated).* Daredevil can no longer be a target of dragon's attacks. |
(*) Daredevil cannot take any action that requires playing a card. Still, card draw is possible.
The Dragon
Affects attacks using given body part.
| HP | Impact |
|---|---|
| 13–1 | Damage dealt -1Ϟ. |
| 0 | Warm-up time +1. Damage dealt -2Ϟ. |
All HP-based penalties are evaluated at the moment an attack resolves, not when it was initiated. If a threshold is crossed during warm-up, the penalty applies to the eventual resolution.
3. Release Notes
Version: 1.0
The game is complete, fully playable and enjoyable. It is actively developed based on player feedback — if you find something that could be better, share it in The Forge. For rules questions, visit Helping Hand. Extensions are in the works.
3.1. Game Balance
Fighting the dragon is not a routine activity. It is supposed to be a challenge, that forces players to cooperate extensively. However, if you find the game too easy or too hard to enjoy, you can adjust the difficulty by making dragon's attacks stronger or weaker. For example adding +1Ϟ modifier to all attacks will make the dragon stronger by roughly 25%.
You can also adjust the pace of the game, by adjusting strength of attacks for both the dragon and daredevils, while keeping the same level of HP.
Some of the dragon's attacks might appear "unfairly" powerful or annoying… Well, the dragon was never meant to be your sparring buddy.