FissureVerse – Psalms gets art, and rules changes

Thanks to Joifish for the art!

Click to see up close.

I considered making this art a Blue card, especially since it has a nature theme. But the concept of Psalms in the first place is a rather Blue-like idea, so it fits just as well here. For flavor text, I considered making a new verse to the Song of the Walkers, but a four line verse might not fit, so I opted for a tweak on the lullaby instead. Hmm... “Lullaby” might make a good name for a new Rogation...

I've made some significant changes to the rules. I've added a timer to the game to give a sense of urgency, but it is not based on a strict time time, but on a number of moves. So a player can spend as long as they want to move without affecting the timer. Instead, the timer works off the Location cards. A number of Tokens is placed in a stack near the Locations. When all the Locations have been revealed, and need to be shuffled, one Token is removed from the stack. When the Locations need to be shuffled but there are no more Tokens left, the game ends.

I've made the number of Tokens something that players can decide themselves. A short game uses no tokens, so the Locations are only each revealed once and never shuffled and redrawn. Or players could decide to make a long game with, say, ten tokens on the timer.

I've fixed quite a few little rules as well:

If a player must Reinforce, but has no Crusaders to Reinforce with, they must discard cards into their Fearful Pile until they find a Crusader to Reinforce with. This whittles down the player's deck, so finding another Crusader later is not a slog. This also has the benefit of making players think carefully about their ratio of Crusaders to other cards in their customized deck.

I also changed the rules so on the event of a tie when converting by fire, the defending Crusader does not survive, but rather goes into the defending player's own fearful pile. So it eliminates the card from play, yet it does not count toward the offensive player's score at the end of the game.

Lots of minor tweaks have been changed in the rules in an attempt to clarify and make things more logical. The game is getting complex enough that I will also start needing to make a FAQ about specific cards, to answer questions like “What happens if the first Location Card is Haven, and no one can Reinforce?” (Answer: Players can still play Rogations, so the Round is not a complete loss).

Lastly, to make the cards once again in line with some vocabulary changes, I'll need to go through all the cards and fix text on them. That comes later. I'm lazy!