skytotems
All the townspeople are preparing for the annual festival, and you have joined in to build an altar in honour of the animal totems. The animals are messengers of the gods, and they will bestow their blessing on whoever raises the most magnificent altar.
Over ten rounds you take pedestal cubes from the five supply spaces of the shared board and stack them on your own cloud-covered altar, growing it upward and outward. When a pillar meets the requirements of a totem, that totem comes to roost on top of it and starts scoring for you, and each totem - bird, wolf, horse, cat and dragon - scores in a completely different way.
Altar cards give every player private goals and a unique starting altar, and only four of the five totems are in play each game, so no two altars ever rise the same way.
LB_NUMBER_OF_PLAYERS: 2 - 4
Game duration: 32 mn
Complexity: 2 / 5
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Free.
Rules summary
Goal
Over 10 rounds you grow your own altar in the clouds: you place cloud tiles, stack pedestal cubes on them, and raise totems on top of the columns. Pedestals, totems and revealed altar cards all score at the end. The highest score wins.
Each player builds their own altar. You never build on another player's altar; what you compete for is the shared supply of pedestals.
Setup
1. The number of pedestal slots on the main board depends on the player count: 3 slots with 2 players, 4 with 3 players, 5 with 4 players. Unused slots are blocked.
2. Four of the five totems are used in a game (see Game options below). The two altar cards that refer to the unused totem are removed from the deck.
3. Each player receives one 2×2 starting cloud tile and three altar cards. You choose one card to reveal — that card defines your starting altar — and the other two stay face down as your secret goals. All players choose at the same time, so you cannot react to anyone else's choice.
4. Build your starting altar exactly as printed on the card you revealed, taking those pedestals from the bag. If the card shows a cloud icon, also gain and place one extra cloud tile.
5. The start player puts 2 pedestals from the bag into every pedestal slot. Nobody looks inside the bag.
On Your Turn
You take exactly one of these two actions:
1. Build pedestals 2. Build a totem
In addition, you may reveal altar cards at any time during your turn, as often as you like. Revealing does not use up your action.
Build pedestals
1. Choose one pedestal slot and take all the pedestals in it. If no slot has any pedestals left, draw 2 pedestals at random from the bag instead.
2. Take the pedestals one at a time and either place it on your altar or return it to the bag.
3. For each pedestal you returned to the bag, gain one cloud tile and place it.
Build a totem
1. Choose a totem whose placement condition is met and place it on your altar. 2. Immediately take that totem's blessing. 3. The totem scores at the end of the game.
Each kind of totem can be built more than once during a game, as long as its condition is met.
Placement Rules
Pedestals
• A pedestal can only be placed on your own cloud tiles. You cannot place one where you have no cloud tile.
• You may stack, but a pedestal may only be stacked on a column whose bottom pedestal is of the same kind.
• Exception: a pedestal of the same kind as one sitting in the dragon's hoard may be stacked on any column, whatever that column is made of.
Cloud tiles
• A new cloud tile must be placed edge-adjacent to one of your existing cloud tiles. Touching only at a corner, or placing it apart from your altar, is not allowed.
Revealing Altar Cards
• You may reveal a face-down altar card whenever its condition is met, at any point during your turn.
• Every reveal gives the same reward: look inside the bag, take one pedestal of your choice, and place it.
• A revealed card scores at the end of the game, and the points are locked in — you keep them even if your altar later stops meeting the condition.
• The heights drawn on cards such as Bird God, Horse God or Cat God are not part of the condition. Only the rare-pedestal requirement counts.
• A condition is often met by the action you have just resolved. So if you can still reveal something when your turn is about to end, you are asked once more before play passes on: reveal as many cards as you like, or end your turn without revealing.
In the interface your two goal cards sit on the right. A card is highlighted in gold when its condition is met and you may reveal it, and revealed cards keep a check mark so you can still see what you have scored.
End of Round
Once everyone has taken a turn:
1. The round marker advances by one. 2. The start player marker and the bag pass to the player on the left. 3. The new start player refills every pedestal slot: a slot that is empty gets 2 pedestals, a slot that still has pedestals gets 1 more added to it.
There is no refill after round 10, and no refill if the bag is empty.
The Last Totem
After round 10, starting with the start player, each player may build one totem, or pass. Blessings still trigger normally — if you build a horse you still get the extra turn, and you may use it to build pedestals or another totem.
Scoring
Before scoring, any player holding a face-down card whose condition is met may reveal it (resolved in start-player order, and the usual reveal reward still applies).
| Source | Points |
|---|---|
| Normal pedestal | 1 each |
| Rare pedestal | 2 each |
| Totem | its multiplier × the height of the column it stands on |
| Revealed altar card | as printed on the card (2 / 4 / 6 / 8) |
• Pedestals score whether or not a totem stands on top of them.
• Pedestals sitting in the dragon's hoard also score.
• Tie-break: the player who was later in turn order during round 1 wins.
The Five Totems
Height is the height of the column the totem stands on. A horse and a dragon stand on columns of different heights — they use the higher one.
| Totem | Points | Where it can be built | Blessing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bird | 3 × height | Covers 3 squares in an L shape. All three columns must be the same height, and at least 2 high. | Gain and place 3 cloud tiles, then draw 3 pedestals at random from the bag and place them. |
| Wolf | 3 × height | Covers 2 columns with a one-square gap between them, which it straddles. Both columns must be the same height, and at least 2 high. The column in the gap must not be higher than they are, and the wolf cannot straddle another totem. | On every one of your columns that has no totem on it, you may take a pedestal of that column's own kind from the bag and stack it there. |
| Horse | 2 × height | Covers 2 adjacent columns whose heights differ by exactly 2. | Take an extra turn — build pedestals or build a totem again. |
| Dragon | 3 × height | Covers 3 columns forming a staircase of +0 / +1 / +2. | Move 1 random pedestal from the bag into the dragon's hoard without looking, then take a build pedestals action. |
| Cat | 1 × height | Cannot be built as an action. A cat is built automatically and immediately on any of your columns that reaches a height of 6 or more. | Look inside the bag and take 2 pedestals of your choice, which must be two different kinds. Place them. |
If several columns reach height 6 at the same moment, you choose the order in which the cats are placed — which matters, because each cat's blessing may change what happens next.
Game Options
Totems in play — four of the five totems are used each game.
• Beginner set (bird, wolf, horse, cat) — the four basic totems, without the dragon. Recommended for a first game. • With the dragon (wolf, horse, dragon, cat) — includes the dragon, which is aimed at experienced players. • Cat plus three at random — the cat is always in play; the other three totems are chosen at random out of the remaining four. • Random four — four totems chosen at random out of the five.
Glossary
Pedestal — the cubes you stack. Normal pedestals come in 6 kinds and are worth 1 point; rare pedestals come in 4 kinds (cat, wolf, bird, horse) and are worth 2.
Column — one stack of pedestals on a single square of your altar. Its height is how many pedestals it contains.
Cloud tile — the ground of your altar. Pedestals can only stand on your cloud tiles.
Pedestal slot — one of the supply spaces on the shared main board. Building pedestals means emptying one slot completely.
Bag — the shared supply all pedestals are drawn from and returned to. Some effects let you look inside and choose; others are random draws.
Altar card — you start with three. One is revealed to define your starting altar; the other two are your secret goals, revealed later for points.
Blessing — the one-off effect you get the moment you build a totem.
Dragon's hoard — the space a dragon's blessing puts a random pedestal into. Pedestals there still score, and their kind can be stacked onto any column. It is shown as its own strip: yours in the right-hand rail, and each opponent's inside their mini altar card. The strip only appears once a dragon has put something there.