Learn to play!

How to Play in 6 easy Steps

Blood and Salt TCG is a Captain-and-crew-focused character turn-based roguelike TCG where your crew vies for lordship of the seas in the endlessly flooding world of Agmaloria. As you travel along a setting path and the tides rise, settings will flood, losing their abilities, while others now become available, as opposing crews clash under the physical and psychological traumas of being at sea. Here, you will find the rules to play in 6 easy steps! Push your crew at your own peril!

1) The Goal of the Game

Collect the Bounties of your opposition and gain Lord of the Seas by meeting 1 or more of the following conditions:

  • Eliminate opposing Captains

  • Sink opposing warships

  • Travel to and survive the last flooded setting

2) Crew Setup

Place your crewmembers and possessions into their appropriate positions. Then, draw cards equal to your Captain’s sanity (the number within the blue orb of Captain card - typically 4).

Each card drawn may be used to gain resources, used for their ability, or used to deflect incoming wounds.

3) Traveling Phase

Randomly determine which player will travel up the setting path first, called the “Traveling Player”, and which player will hunt for their bounty first, called the “Hunting Player”. The Traveling Player will be the player moving up the setting path until their crew rests or they reach a new tide level.

Additionally, the Traveling Player will play the first setting onto the setting path where both players will start followed by the Hunting Player playing settings as needed. If the Hunting Player does not have a setting to play, the Traveling Player may play a setting they control.

4) Ability and Combat Phase

Starting with the Hunting Player each travel, players go back and forth using character turns (selecting a character in their crew to use ability cards from hand, abilities from their card text, or using any other possession card your crew controls) until all character turns have been used.

A few things to note:

  • Each ability will have positions where it can be used from and then positions it can target (tan being where the ability can be used from, red being enemies it can target, and green being your own crewmembers it can target)

  • When using an ability with “attack”, this starts an engagement with a character where the attacking player will roll for the amount of wounds dealt followed by the deflection of that attack or any reactions.

  • Each player must use a character turn when it is their opportunity to do so, including using a character’s turn to pass or displacing them 1 position on their crew’s half of the playing field

  • If an ability has the keywords “with haste”, that player may choose to use another character turn after they had taken one rather than passing to their opponent.

  • When you take 4 stress through gameplay, you will reset your stress counters and take a trauma. When you do, you will need to take the top card of your deck and place it face-down on your side of the playing field, called the “Trauma Stack”. If you accrue traumas equal to your Captain’s trauma limit (the number within the light red orb of a Captain card - typically 6), your Captain dies of stress and you lose the game.

5) Resting Phase

Once all players have used all of their character turns, the Traveling Player will determine if they wish to rest or continue traveling.

First, each player may add a card from hand to their warship’s Captain’s Quarters to keep for later and then each player will take back to hand any resources created face-down, shuffle any resources created face-up back onto the bottom of their deck, and discard any card that was used that travel. All character turns will now be reset.

The Hunting Player will then draw back up to their Captain’s Sanity followed by the Traveling Player doing the following:

  • If traveling, the game will recycle back up to the traveling phase without the Traveling Player getting to draw up to their Captain’s Sanity.

  • If resting, the Traveling Player will draw back up to their Captain’s Sanity and end their travel.

6) Swapping Roles

Once a player has chosen to end their travel, players will swap roles. The traveling phase, ability and combat phase, and resting phase can then be repeated until a player wins the game!