Scallywag

Basic Info

Type: Card game
Players: 1
Playtime: 20 - 35 minutes
Requires: The Deck of Sailors and a D20

Quicklist

  1. Deal four cards face up to form a room

  2. Play three cards or flee

  3. Draw the top card from the event deck and reference the special event card information

  4. Deal a new room

  5. Win after the final card is played



Overview

This variation of the roguelike dungeon crawling card game Scoundrel was designed for the Deck of Sailors.
Can you survive a voyage to the bottom of the deck?

Preparation

Remove the Victorian Clambake card, the tarot reference card, double backer, and QR code card.

Separate the 22 major arcana cards into their own event deck. (Fool - XXI)

Shuffle the cards well and set the deck in front of yourself.

Set your D20 to side 20 or use a pencil to track your health points starting at value 20.

Rules

Your goal is to reach the bottom of the deck by uncovering rooms of four cards, playing three, and then dealing out three more until the final card has been played. If your health reaches 0 then you have died and reached the end of your run.

Gameplay

  1. Deal a four card “room” face up

  2. Play three cards or flee

  3. Draw the top card from the event deck and follow its rules

  4. Deal a new room

  5. Win once the final card has been played

Fleeing

  • Take the current four cards of the room and move them to the bottom of the deck before dealing a new room.

  • There is no specific order the cards must be placed in when fleeing.

  • You cannot flee two rooms in a row.

Playing Basic Cards - Fighting, Looting, Healing

  • Swords: These are your weapons. You may only have one sword card equipped at a time. Take and place a sword card in front of yourself to represent that it is equipped. Your previous sword is discarded when you equip a new sword.

  • Hearts: Once per room, you may heal yourself with a heart card. You gain equal HP to the value of hearts on the card that is discarded.

  • Skulls: These accursed skeleton pirates are monsters that must be defeated to continue your adventure.

  • Coins: Enemies with loot. Follow the same rules as skulls except the cards are kept in a special loot pile separate from your weapon.

  • Cards are ranked from 2 - 15. Creatures are 11, Jacks 12, Queens 13, Kings 14, Aces 15. [Note] The ace of hearts and coins are worth 1.

Fighting

If you have no weapon and must fight a monster to progress, you deduct the full value of the monster (Typically skull card value) from your HP.

If you have a sword then you may defeat a monster of equal or lesser value to your equipped weapon by moving it onto your sword. You may continue to defeat enemies of lesser (but not equal) value by placing them onto the previously defeated monster on your weapon card.

If the enemy you are attacking with a weapon has a greater value than your equipped sword card, you will take damage equal to the difference between values. [Example: 7 of Swords + 10 of Skulls = 3 HP Lost] Move the defeated monster onto your weapon. Further attacks against enemies of a higher value than your sword (not the enemy on it) will deal full damage, but, you may still attack an enemy of equal or lesser value to the sword without taking damage.

When a new weapon is equipped, the previous one and all enemy cards on it are discarded.

The ace of swords and skulls are considered to be worth 15 while the ace of coins and hearts are worth one each.

Special Room Cards

Jokers
Sea Monsters with a value of 20 each

Red Aces
Broken heart - Halve your health (round up)
Cursed sword - Decreases your health by one point for each defeated monster
Cursed skull - Decreases your health one point for each room it remains on your weapon (15 value)
Bloody coin - Spend any amount of health for equal value in coins

The Black Spot
Curses you immediately. Cannot be fled from. Doubles all damage you would take.

The Whale
Wild value monster - deals no damage and sets weapon value up to 15 when killed
Cannot be fought bare handed - another action must be taken if empty handed

Special Event Cards

The Fool
Carries any card in this room as an uncounted "fifth" space until it is played.

I - The Magician
Select a card to discard with him.

II - The High Priestess
Clears the black spot if present.

III - The Empress
Protection from the next damage you would take, weapon is still effected by standard rules.

IV - The Emperor
Draw five more cards, cannot flee this room.

V - The Hierophant
Heals equal to a single coin card you discard.

VI - The Lovers
Creates a linked card pair. Draw two cards; the first card is paired to the second card and activated immediately after the card on top. It cannot be separated or skipped by fleeing.

VII - The Chariot
Hold and skip two rooms in a row / discard.

VIII - Strength
Remove the black spot if present.
Fully repairs active weapon.

IX - The Hermit
You can only draw one new card at a time which you must play until you give the hermit any coin card.

X - Wheel of Fortune
Shuffle the room deck three times.

XI - Justice
Convert a coin card into a weapon. (Excludes bloody coin ace)

XII - The Hanged Man
Move the lowest value monster card on your weapon into your loot stash.

XIII - Death
To be played, you must discard everything. Weapon, coins, followers, black spot, and the entire set of active cards, however, if death is played in the final room the game ends in a loss.

Lose one health for each card discarded.

XIV - Temperance
Move one card from the room to the bottom of the deck and redraw - Don't redraw for temperance until the room ends.

XV - The Devil
Pay him at least 10 coins or take 10 damage.

XVII - The Tower
Lose your weapon.

XVII - The Star
Return any discarded card to the bottom of the deck. Event cards included.

XIX - The Sun
View the next room in advance and choose which cards to keep in the next room and which to place at the bottom of the deck.

XX - Judgement
Take one damage for every monster you have defeated (skull card, joker, and whale) - Can be reduced by one for each coin or weapon card you have available to sacrifice by discarding.

XXI - The World
Deal the oldest four cards in the discard deck alongside the next four cards. If you draw this in your first room, draw four more cards.