Trickerion: Legends of Illusion

Scope and sequence: play five weeks without the Dark Alley. Each week proceeds through rolling Downtown dice, setting initiative, optional advertising, secret assignment, alternating character placement, performances and end-turn upkeep. The optional Dark Alley configuration lasts seven weeks and introduces Level 3 tricks and additional rules.

Assignment and action points: simultaneously place facedown destination cards beneath characters, then reveal them together. In initiative order place one character at a time at its assigned location, or leave it idle. Apprentices, Specialists and the Magician have 1, 2 and 3 base action points, modified by their slot. Spend points immediately on local actions; outside the Theater you may pay one shard for one extra point per placement.

Downtown: learning a trick, hiring a character or taking money normally costs three action points and turns the chosen die to X. Learn from an available category or your Magician’s favorite category. You may pay coins for a shortfall against the trick’s Fame threshold. Components are not required to learn; newly hired characters join at week end.

Market and Workshop: a Buy action costs one point and purchases up to three available components of one type, with their coin prices paid separately. Normal orders enter stock next week. Prepare a trick by meeting its component requirements and paying its printed action cost, provided no markers remain on its card. Components are reusable across tricks; at most four markers of one symbol can be in play.

Theater setup: all your characters there must use one weekday, which cannot already be occupied by an opponent. Backstage characters spend one point per prepared marker moved to a Performance card. Two markers of the same color and symbol cannot share a Performance. Matching category symbols create links and immediate Fame or coin bonuses based on the newly placed trick’s level; rescheduling does not earn link bonuses.

Perform: place your Magician on a Performance slot, forfeiting its three immediate action points. In Thursday-to-Sunday order, each performer chooses one card containing at least one of their own markers and performs every trick on it. Contributors earn their own tricks’ yields; the performer adds link, present-Specialist and Performance-card bonuses. Performed markers return to supply and must be prepared again.

Wages and upkeep: pay one coin per non-idle Apprentice and two per non-idle Specialist; the Apprentice on the Assistant extension is exempt. The Magician has no wage. Pay as much as possible; each unpaid coin costs two Fame, to a minimum of zero. Return characters, add new hires, deliver orders and advance Performance cards and the week counter.

Final score: after week five upkeep, gain one Fame per remaining shard, one per three coins, two per Apprentice and three per Specialist. Each end-game scoring category is capped at twenty additional Fame. Highest Fame wins; ties go to the player earlier in initiative order.