Including Dahlgaard’s Academy, Duel of Magicians, and Dahlgaard’s Heir

GENERAL SETUP
Place the Main Game Board in the middle of the table.

1) Separate the Trick cards into four decks by category (Mechanical, Spiritual, Escape and Optical), and place them face
up above their corresponding slots in the Dahlgaard Residence part of the Downtown.
2) Fill up the Market Row’s Buy area with a Wood, a Metal, a Glass and a Fabric Component. This will be the Market
Row’s initial stock.
3) Create the face-down Performance deck, consisting of two random face-down Performance cards of each type,
stacked in the following order from the top to bottom: 2 Riverside Theater, 2 Grand Magorian, 2 Magnus Pantheon.
Put this deck face down next to the Theater. Finally, from left to right, fill up the Performance card slots in the Theater
with a number of Riverside Theater Performance cards (drawn randomly from the remaining cards, not from the
Performance deck) equal to the number of players minus one.
Duel of Magicians:
Use the Performance cards with gray Trick markers printed on them to create the Performance deck.
4) Place all Components, Trickerion Shards and Coins in a pile next to the game board where all players can reach them.
5) Shuffle the four Special Assignment decks (sorted by Location) and place them face down on the respective slots in
the Dark Alley.
Dahlgaard’s Academy:
a) Dahlgaard’s Academy: Before placing the four Special Assignment decks (Downtown, Market Row,
Workshop, Theater) into the Dark Alley as usual, shuffle the 2 new Special Assignment cards for each
location into their respective decks.
b) Dahlgaard’s Academy: Shuffle the 14 Academy Special Assignment cards and place the deck face up in
the empty area at the Dark Alley between the Prophecies and the 4 original Special Assignment decks.
6) Place the Trickerion Stone on the I slot of the Turn Counter track (below the Fame track).
7) Choose the three starting Pending Prophecies at random, and place them face down on the respective slots on the
Fortune Teller orb. Put the remaining Prophecies in a face-down pile next to the Main Game Board. (There is no
Active Prophecy in the first turn.) Flip them up only after player setup is complete.
Dahlgaard’s Academy:
Before choosing the Pending Prophecies, remove 7 Prophecies at random, then add the 7 new Prophecies to the
Prophecy pool. The new Prophecies provide even more interaction with the Academy.

Dahlgaard’s Heir:
For solo play, remove the following Prophecies before setting up:

NOTE: Since the Prophecies add a little more complexity, even if you are playing with the Dark Alley, you may
choose to play without them. If you decide to omit them, exclude the Priestess of Mysticism from the starting
Magician choices.

2-3 PLAYER RULES: In a 2- or 3-player game, two or one +1 Action Point slots respectively are not used at the
Downtown, Market Row, Academy, and Dark Alley Locations. Use the purple blockers to cover these slots for the
duration of the game. You may also use Duel of the Magicians for a 2-player game.
Duel of Magicians:
8) Create a deck with seven face up Turn Setup cards and place them next to the Main Game Board.
Dahlgaard’s Academy:
9) Dahlgaard’s Academy: Place the double-sided Academy board to the left of the Main Game Board. The side with
10 Room slots is for 4 player games, while the side with 8 Room slots is for 2 or 3 player games.
10) Dahlgaard’s Academy: Place Closed Room tiles over Classroom and Practice Room slots. Some rooms of the
derelict Academy are initially unsafe and will only open up later in the game
a. In a 2 player game, place the tiles on slots marked with A and B, leaving 4 slots open.
b. In a 3 player game, place the tiles on slots marked with A, leaving 6 slots open.
c. In a 4 player game, place the tiles on slots marked with A and B, leaving 6 slots open.
11) Dahlgaard’s Academy: Place Open Room tokens on the Turn Counter track based on the number of players. Open
Room tokens tell you when to remove Closed Room tiles from the Academy.
a. In a 2 or 4 player game, place two tokens: one on the IV and one on the VI slot.
b. In a 3 player game, place one token on the V slot.
12) Dahlgaard’s Academy: Separate the Practice Room and Classroom tiles by type and Fame Threshold (1, 16 and 36)
and create six face down stacks. Place them near the Academy board. You will be able to build these rooms in the
Academy. Practice Rooms will improve your Tricks in various ways, while Classrooms will turn them into passive
but consistent sources of Fame, Coins or Shards.
13) Shuffle the Secret tiles to form a face down stack, and place it above the Academy board. Then, draw the top two
tiles of the stack and place them on the indicated slots on the Academy board. Secrets allow you to customize your
new Specialist, the Protege, with various abilities.
PLAYER SETUP
Starting with the player who most recently wore a top hat and in a clockwise order, each player chooses a Magician with a
Favorite Trick category not chosen before and then receives the respective Player Game Board and the following:
• The Magician card. Each Magician has a special ability, detailed in the Appendix.
Dahlgaard’s Academy:
o Use the expansion’s Magician deck as it introduces 4 new Magicians to choose from and updated
Magician abilities for the Priestess of Mysticism and the Master of Chains. NOTE: If a player chooses
Professor Bernard, also give them the two special Symbol and Academy markers.
• The Magician Poster card.
• All Trick and Symbol markers in the player’s color (4 different symbols with 4+1 markers each).
Dahlgaard’s Academy:
o +1 Trick Marker
• Component(s) of the player’s choice for a total Coin value of 2, placed in the Workshop.
• A Level 1 Trick card , chosen from the Magician’s Favorite Trick category, placed in the Workshop. Mark it with a
Symbol marker. This will be your starting Trick.
• A starting hand of 6 Permanent Assignment cards: 2 Theater, 1 Workshop, 1 Market Row, 1 Downtown, 1 Dark Alley.
Dahlgaard’s Academy:
o The starting hand also includes the Academy Permanent Assignment card.
o
• All Character disks of the player’s color. Place the Magician and 1 Apprentice disk on their respective slots on the
Player Game Board. Keep the rest next to the Player Game Board as a personal supply.
• A Specialist of the player’s choice, its respective Game Board Extension, and a bonus based on the chosen Specialist:
o Manager: Additional Component(s) for a total Coin value of 2, placed on the Manager’s Board Extension.
o Engineer: A Level 1 Trick card of the player’s choice, chosen after all starting Tricks have been selected,
placed on the Engineer’s Board Extension. Mark it with a Symbol marker.
o Assistant: An additional Apprentice placed on the Apprentice slot on the Assistant’s Board Extension.
• 10 Coins.
• 1 Trickerion Shard.
• Place the wooden cylinder in each of the players’ colors on the 5 Fame slot on the Fame Track.
Dahlgaard’s Academy:
Each player starts with 3 Fame instead of 5.

Dahlgaard’s Academy:
• The Protégé board and both Protégé Character disks. Place the disk with 1 Action Point on the Character slot on
the Protege board.
• Dahlgaard’s Academy: 12 wooden Banners. Banners commemorate each Magician’s contribution to the
renovation of the Academy. At the end of the game, you can score a significant amount of extra Fame if you placed
more Banners than your rivals.
• Dahlgaard’s Academy: 4 Academy markers, 1 in each suit. Academy markers help identify your Tricks in the
Academy’s Classrooms and Practice Rooms.
STARTING FAME POINTS AND INITIATIVE ORDER
Place a wooden Magician meeple in each of the players’ colors on the Initiative Order circles (left edge of the Main
Game Board) in a random order. This will be the Initiative Order in the first turn. In the subsequent turns, the
Initiative Order will depend on the players’ Fame points. (See ‘Set Initiative Order’ phase.)
2-PLAYER RULES: In two-player games, only the first and the third Initiative Order slots are used. (This influences the
cost of Advertise and the starting Coins.)
Dahlgaard’s Academy:
Each player starts with 2 additional coins: 12/14/16/18 Coins
Then, players on the second/third/fourth slot in the Initiative Order receive 2/4/6 additional Coins (for a total of
10/12/14/16 starting Coins for the first/second/third/fourth player in the Initiative Order, respectively).

IMPORTANT
If you meet your chosen starting Trick’s Component requirements with your starting Components (including the ones you
received if you chose the Manager as your starting Specialist), you receive the Trick with the number of Trick markers on it
equal to the number of overlapping squares on the card’s Trick marker slot. This is essentially a free ‘Prepare’ Action for that
Trick at the start of the game. (See ‘Prepare’ Action under the ‘Locations’ section.)
DAHLGAARD’s HEIR (SOLO RULES) SETUP
Dahlgaard’s Heir Setup:
1) Set up for a 2-player game with the Heir replacing the other player. The Heir does not need a Magician board or any
of the board extensions, so return those to the box.
2) Place the Heir’s board close to your own, ready for use by the Heir. Use the side with the 6 Character slots shown.
3) Instead of using the regular Performance cards, use the Solo Performance cards to create the Performance deck.
NOTE: The Solo Performance cards work exactly like the Duel of Magicians Performance cards, and you are
allowed to freely mix and match them both for solo and/or 2-player games.
4) After selecting a Favorite Trick category and a Magician for yourself, return the other Magicians of the same
Favorite Trick category to the box. Then, shuffle the remaining Magician cards, and randomly select one. This will be
the Heir’s Magician card (which also determines its Favorite Trick category). Place this card (with the side marked
facing up) next to the Heir’s board. See page 15 for an explanation of all abilities.
5) Shuffle 3 Level 1 Tricks of the Heir’s Favorite Trick category — all except the first one, the one requiring two Basic
Components. Randomly draw one and place it on the leftmost slot of the Heir’s board. This will be the Heir’s
starting Trick. It starts Prepared — place the number of Trick markers on it as indicated on the card. Return the
other two cards to Dahlgaard’s Residence.
6) Place one of each Component type present on the selected Trick to the ‘Shopping List’ box of the Heir’s board.
7) Based on the desired difficulty, give the Heir a number of Character disks:
8) Place these Character disks on the Heir’s board left to right in:
Magician → Protégé → Specialist → Apprentice(s) order.
9) You always start as the first player in Initiative Order
(start with 12 Coins when playing with the Academy).
10) The Heir receives no Coins or Shards at Setup.
11) Place a standard deck of Assignment cards (2x Theater, 1x Downtown, 1x Academy,
1x Market Row, 1x Dark Alley, 1x Workshop) next to the Heir’s board.
12) Build the Heir’s Plan deck as described below. Cards with icons on the top and bottom
are referred to as ‘Perform’ cards, while cards with icons only on the top are referred to as ‘Set Up’ card
a) Randomly select one Perform card, and b) Shuffle 1 Setup and 2 Perform cards together and put two
put it face down on the bottom of the of them face down on top of the card selected in step ‘a’.
deck. Remove the other one without looking at it.

c) Shuffle 2 Set Up and 1 Perform cards d) Then put 1 of the remaining 2 Set Up cards face down on
together and put them face down on top top of the deck. Remove the remaining one without looking
of the previous ones. at it.

e) Remove the following Prophecies before setting up:

GAME PLAY SUMMARY

ROLL DICE
Roll the six Downtown dice and place them on the Downtown Location.
Dahlgaard’s Heir:
After rolling the Downtown dice, some or all of the Turn Setup dice are rolled:
• Turn I: Roll all five Turn Setup dice, assigning each one of them to the
matching colored Location (Yellow: Downtown, Orange: Market Row,
Black: Dark Alley, Blue: Academy, Red: Theater).
• Turn II: Select exactly two of the five Turn Setup dice to reroll. Place the two Turn Setup markers
underneath the two rerolled dice.
• Turn III-VII: Select exactly two of the five Turn Setup dice to reroll, with the following restrictions:
o You may NOT select dice with Turn Setup markers underneath them.
o If there is no Turn Setup marker underneath the Theater die, you must select the Theater Turn
Setup die as one of the two.
o Afterwards, move the two Turn Setup markers underneath the two dice you chose to reroll.
Duel of Magicians:
After rolling the Downtown dice, place the top card of the Turn Setup deck next to the deck. Based on the layout
printed on the card, cover 2 slots in the Downtown, Market Row and Dark Alley, Academy (which uses the same as
Dark Alley), and 2 Weekdays in the Theater using the face-down wooden disks of leftover player colors.
This way, there will be different Character slots and Weekdays available each turn, and, since players can always
see the upcoming card, they can plan one turn ahead.

SET INITIATIVE ORDER

Rearrange the Initiative Order according to the opposite of the Fame point ranking of each player (so the player with the
fewest Fame points takes the first position). This phase is skipped in the first turn.

ADVERTISE
Players may receive 2 Fame points once by paying 1-4 Coins depending on their position in the Initiative Order.
Dahlgaard’s Heir:
The Heir advertises every turn at no Coin cost but receives Fame nonetheless.
ASSIGNMENT PHASE
Players simultaneously plan the upcoming ‘Place Characters’ phase by placing Assignment cards from their hands face down
below their Characters.
Dahlgaard’s Heir:
You assign cards first, using the same rules as the multiplayer game. After assigning your own Characters, do the
Heir’s assignment:
1) On Turn II and later turns, first discard the Heir’s Plan card used in the previous turn.
2) Then reveal the top card of the Heir’s Plan deck.
a. If the revealed card has an icon both at the top and the bottom (a ‘Perform’ card), place it on the
top slot in the middle of the Heir’s board.
b. If the revealed card has an icon only at the top (a ‘Set Up’ card), place it on the bottom slot in the
middle of the Heir’s board. Then, use the standard Assignment cards to mark which Character is
assigned to which Location:
i. Place the Assignment cards to Characters left to right, in the order shown on the Heir’s
Plan card.
ii. Do not use Special Assignment cards (that the Heir acquired from Dark Alley), unless the
Location is marked as a Special Assignment card on the Heir’s Plan card.
iii. Skip over any Location marked as a Special Assignment card if the Heir does NOT have a
matching Special Assignment card.
PLACE CHARACTERS PHASE
All Assignment cards are revealed. Then, following the Initiative Order, players place their Characters at the Location specified
on the Assignment card below them, one at a time. Characters can be placed in any order. Based on the number of Action
Points they have when they are placed, they immediately take Action(s) at the Location.
Dahlgaard’s Heir:
The Heir’s stance can be Busy or Ready.
• The stance is Ready if the revealed Heir Assignment card has an icon top and bottom (a ‘Perform’ card) and
the Heir has at least one Trick of the highest Level available to it. Mark the Heir’s Ready stance by sliding
the Plan card to the top Plan card slot.
• In every other situation, the stance is Busy. Mark the Heir’s Busy stance by sliding the Plan card to the
bottom card slot.
Changes in stance are evaluated immediately. Slide the Plan card up or down to show changes in stance. (Changes
are possible at: The beginning of a turn, when crossing 16/36 Fame, or when acquiring a new Trick.)

A Location is contested as long as both you and the Heir have at least one available character assigned but not yet
placed to that Location.
EXCEPTION: The Theater is not contested if either you or the Heir only has the Magician left assigned but not yet
placed. The Workshop is never contested.

On the Heir’s turn, it places a Character according to the following rules:

• It sends a Character to a contested Location if possible; otherwise, it sends the Character to a non-
contested one.
• If multiple Locations are contested (or only non-contested ones remain), the Heir’s priority list for selecting
which Location to send to is shown on the non-covered plan card slot on the Heir’s board.
• When multiple Characters are assigned to the same Location:
o The Heir always sends Characters from left to right to the Downtown (which means higher first).
o The Heir always sends Characters from left to right to the Theater, except the Magician who is
always placed last.

PERFORMANCE PHASE
In a Thursday to Sunday order, each Magician on the Performance slots can Perform ALL Tricks on a chosen Performance card
with at least one of their own Trick markers. The owner of each Trick marker receives the respective Trick’s Yields. The
Performing Magician receives additional bonuses.
Dahlgaard’s Heir:
Resolve the Performance phase as normal. When it’s the Heir’s turn to pick a Performance card to perform, it picks
the card where the bonus for Links + Performance card bonus is the highest (most Fame, ties broken by most
Shards, ties broken by most Money, final ties broken left to right.) The Heir can only pick a card with at least one of
their own Trick markers on it.

It receives the bonuses for Links and the Performance card, but it does not
receive the usual backstage bonus for its Specialists. Instead, the Heir
receives a flat bonus for each Character it has Backstage (Specialist,
Protege or Apprentice) when Performing, based on the difficulty level:

The Heir receives Yields for all of its own Performed Tricks (whether performed by you or it) as usual (Fame, Coins,
Shards), including the ‘Yield Increase’ Practice Room abilities. However, it ignores the Yield modifier for Thursday
or Sunday (or any Yield modifiers introduced by Prophecies).

The Heir’s performed Trick markers are immediately returned to the Tricks, keeping them perpetually Prepared.

EXCEPTION: If one of the Tricks performed by the Heir has the Practice Room ability, the Trick marker is left on the
Performance card as it would be for you.
CLASSROOM PHASE
Dahlgaard’s Academy:
The 'Classroom' phase consists of two steps:
• If a Trick in a Classroom still has Trick markers in the Theater and/or the Workshop, remove those Trick
markers and place them into their owner’s personal supply.
• In player order, each player receives the Yield(s) for their Trick(s) in the Classrooms. Most Classroom slots
modify the Yield of the Tricks on them — these modifiers are detailed in the Player Aid booklets.
Dahlgaard’s Heir:
The Heir receives the Trick’s full Yield (regardless of modifiers shown on the Classroom spot) for Tricks in the
Classroom tiles; furthermore, its Trick markers are NOT removed from the Theater or the Trick, allowing it to
keep performing Tricks while teaching them.

END TURN PHASE

• Pay Wages
Dahlgaard’s Heir:
The Heir does not pay Wages. Instead, if at this time it has 10 or more Coins on
the ‘Coin Purse’ box, it discards sets of 10 Coins until the ‘Coin Purse’ box is
reduced to below 10. Then, based on the difficulty, it scores Fame for each
set of 10 Coins discarded:

• Return Characters
• Orders Arrive
• Move Performance cards
Dahlgaard’s Heir:
During the Move Performance Cards step, if a Performance card is removed while it still has one or more of the
Heir’s Tricks on it, the Heir still receives the Yield of those Tricks, minus 1 Coin and 1 Fame.
• Remove Posters
• Move Turn Counter
Dahlgaard’s Academy:
If the turn counter is moved to a slot with an Open Room token on it, remove 2 Closed Room tiles from the
Academy slots marked with the letter on the Open Room token (“A” or “B”).

• Move Prophecies (with Dark Alley)

• Discard Special Assignment cards (with Dark Alley)
Dahlgaard’s Academy:
• Reveal Secrets
Return any Secrets still on the Academy’s secret slots to the bottom of the Secret stack, then place two new ones
from the top of the stack. These will be the Secrets available next turn.

END GAME SCORING:

Dahlgaard’s Academy: Dahlgaard’s Heir:
At the end of the game, the Heir receives the Yield of all Tricks left on
any Performance cards minus 1 Coin and 1 Fame. Then the Heir scores 1
Fame per collected Shard and 2 Fame per collected Special Assignment
card (maximum 20 Fame for each category), just like you. It does not
score points for leftover Coins.
It scores a fixed amount of Fame for
each Level 3 Trick it has, regardless
of the actual bonus on it. It also
scores bonus Fame for Characters
above the first 6.