SPOOKTACULAR GAMES SERIES! PART 5

Spooktacular Games: Wandering Wizards ​

You’ve been wandering for what seems like hours. You keep finding huge glowing doors to fantastic places, but every time you try to pass through one, you find yourself here.  Always here in the main level of this cursed library! You hear talking from around a stack and when you arrive you see several other Wizards peering down at a glowing Grimoire on a desk tucked at the end of a long, long row of books. The Grimoire seems to be giving you clues to get out!  Can you and your Cohorts interpret the Grimoire well enough to escape?  Are all of your Cohorts to be trusted?  You have no idea, but you have to try...

​Obscurio
Age: 10+
Players: 2-8
Playtime: 40 mins
Publisher: Libellud

The two primary roles for players in Obscurio are that of the Grimoire and the Wizards.  The Grimoire plays as the clue-giver, moderator and timer- and so it is definitely the more challenging role but, the wizards are the players whose decisions win or lose the game. (Especially, since there’s a traitor among the wizards!)  We’ll go through set-up, the Grimoire’s role, the Wizards’ role, and last the Traitor’s!  Set up is a little complicated because there are a number of different boards to set up before playing.  First is the

 main play board, also known as the cursed library from which the Wizards are attempting to escape.  In order to do so they must successfully pick the right door six times! The numbered circular outlines on the edge of the board represent the spaces for the six (at least) doors the wizards will have to choose from.  Place this board where everyone can see it easily and place the Wizard character chips that your players want to use in the middle of the board and give the matching Wizard character card to each player. Then place a number of cohesion tokens (depending on the number 

of wizards and experience of the Grimoire in your group) on the cohesion tracker along the bottom of the library. The progress marker goes in the first room on the progress track along the top of the library board. ​
Next up is the foldable Card Holder with a Time Track on the outside.

The Grimoire should secretly fill the eight slots of the card holder randomly from the deck of Illusion Cards. This will be used by the Grimoire and the Traitor during the game. The back of the card holder has the timer track. This track will indicate how many trap tokens to reveal based on the wizards reaction time the previous round. The more traps the harder it will be to decipher the clues and find the right door. Set the rest of the deck of Illusion Cards aside as they will be needed later in the game. 
As long as there are at least three wizards in your group, grab a number of loyalty cards equal to the number of wizards in your group. Make sure that the traitor card is in the bunch (if there are only two wizards you skip this step). Deal one loyalty card to each wizard and have them secretly look at their loyalty.

Add all of the trap tokens to the black bag. Now it’s time to start the first round! On each round, a player will reveal a trap 

token (or tokens depending on the Wizards time the previous round) and apply those effects. There are three categories of traps and each set affects play at a different part of the round. We recommend keeping the back page of the rule book handy for reference. The brown traps affect how the Grimoire shares information, the purple traps grant the traitor more power, and the green traps hinder the wizards choices, time, and abilities. A special watcher trap automatically applies when the progress token is on the last place on the track and blocks all communication between the wizards. 
Now it’s time to prepare the first riddle! The Grimoire will secretly look at the top card of the Illusion Cards. This will be the door the Wizards need to find. Set it aside and place the next two (as long as a trap doesn’t change it) Illusion Cards in the Grimoire’s Desk.

The Grimoire will use the two magnetic butterflies to provide hints to the players about the door card they need to find. The Grimoire hands the whole desk to the Wizards who may pass it around and discuss it freely. The Grimoire, however, cannot talk or provide any additional hints about the door. Once the players are satisfied, they pass the desk back to the Grimoire. The Grimoire then asks the wizards to close their eyes, and then the traitor to open their eyes.  Communicating silently so as to provide no clues to any of the other wizards the traitor may choose to add up to two cards from the Card Holder to the stack of cards with the door. Once the cards are chosen and the Card holder is closed again, the Traitor closes their eyes, the Grimoire adds the cards needed to make a total of six (or more) possible doors from the Illusion Cards to the stack with the door and finally commands the Wizards to open their eyes. The Grimoire shuffles the stack of six cards and hands the whole stack to one of the Wizards. The Wizards flip the cards and place them in the numbered cutouts on the library board and the Grimoire flips the sand timer and places it on the {+0} spot on the outside of the card holder. The Wizards now have one minute to find the right door; after the one minute expires, the Grimoire flips the timer again and moves it to the {+1} spot. This adds one additional trap to the next round. If Wizards still are not prepared when the sand runs out, the Grimoire would flip the timer onto the {+3} spot, and so on.  In all rounds that the progress marker is not in the last room, the Wizards may freely communicate about the doors. Once the Wizards have chosen their doors, the Grimoire identifies the correct door and determines if the Wizards move forward on the Progress Tracker. Each Wizard may make their own decision about the right door, and they can even choose different doors and as long as one of them chooses the right door, the whole group will progress to the next room. However, for every Wizard that chooses the wrong door, remove one cohesion token from the tracker and pile them in front of the player, or players, that chose the wrong door. Once the first area of the cohesion tracker is depleted, the Wizards must identify the Traitor. If they accuse the wrong Wizard, that Wizard will be ejected and the Traitor will still be among them. For each round after that the Wizards find their remaining cohesion tokens on the right side of the Cohesion Tracker and the Traitor has not been identified, the Wizards must accuse one Wizard. If the cohesion tokens run out altogether, the Wizards lose and are lost in the cursed library forever. In this case, the Traitor wins! If the Traitor is identified and ousted, they cease participating in all parts except the card choosing phase of the game and the Wizards may continue their escape attempt. 
Each round is played the same as described above, except any rounds played in the last room where the Watcher Trap comes into effect. Because of the Watcher, the Wizards are unable to communicate with each other in any way during the viewing of the Desk or the choosing of the door. In fact, they do not even place their tokens in front of the door until all Wizards are prepared. Then the Wizards all place their tokens in front of the doors they choose on the count of three.   
Do you and yours have what it takes to find your way out of the cursed Library?  Play Obscurio at your next Spooktacular game night and find out!