Quacks

Each starting bag contains four white 1s, two white 2s, one white 3, one orange 1 and one green 1; each player also receives one ruby and a full flask. Each of nine rounds begins with a Fortune Teller card. From round two, count rat tails between your score and the leader and place your rat stone that many spaces beyond your droplet for this round.

Normally brew at your own pace, stopping whenever you choose; never look into your bag. Advance each chip its value beyond the droplet, rat stone or previous chip. A white total above 7 normally explodes the pot: place the triggering chip, then stop. Events and ingredient books can modify relevant rules.

Use only the ingredient books selected for this game. Orange pumpkins simply fill the pot. For example, set-one red chips gain one or two extra spaces depending on the number of orange chips already in the pot; set-one blue chips let you draw several chips and place at most one, returning the others.

A full flask can return the white chip just drawn to your bag; flip the flask empty and continue drawing if desired. It cannot return a chip that already caused an explosion. Use it at most once per round. At round end, spend 2 rubies to refill it or 2 rubies to advance your droplet permanently by one space; these purchases may be repeated.

Your scoring space is immediately beyond your last chip. Among players who did not explode, the farthest position earns a bonus-die roll, with all players tied at that position rolling. Then resolve black, green and purple effects and scoring-space rubies; exploded players still take part in these steps.

Without an explosion, take both the scoring-space points and buying power; after an explosion, normally choose one. Buy at most two chips of different colours, respecting book prices and available supply. Unspent buying power is lost; purchased and drawn chips return to the bag.

Yellow becomes available in round two and purple in round three; add a white 1 to every bag in round six. In round nine, draw simultaneously on command and show an empty hand to stop. Finally, each 5 buying power or 2 rubies can become 1 point; the explosion restriction still requires choosing scoring-space points or buying power.

After nine rounds, the highest score wins. Break ties by the farthest pot position in the final round, then share victory if still tied. Remove rat stones after every round: their catch-up benefit is not permanent droplet movement.