Cthulhu Dice

A simple variant of Zombie Dice, a game of risk and chance.

Rules of Play

Players are people from all walks of life trying desperately to protect themselves against the ancient evil that is awakening.

Players take it in turns to roll dice in the hopes of discovering Elder Signs - protective symbols that can help fight the darkness. But the path is difficult. Minions of Cthulhu are everywhere and the players could easily find themselves snatched from the jaws of salvation by lashing TENTACLES.

On each turn, the player takes 3 dice from the a bag containing 15 dice. In the bag are 3 types of dice, namely:

• Library dice (high chance of success, low chance of failure) - there are 8 of these.
• Museum dice (equal chance of success and failure) - there are 4 of these.
• Tomb dice (high chance of failure, low chance of success) - there are 3 of these.

All dice have 6 sides.

Each die has one of three possible outcomes when rolled:

1. An Elder Sign, a mote of protection against the dark things that lurk. This is what the player wants and counts towards their possible score.
2. A Clue. It's not an Elder Sign, but at least it's not a TENTACLE! The player must re-roll this die if they choose to continue with their turn.
3. TENTACLES! Tentacles bad. If they player ever has 3 or more, they score 0 this round.

The distribution of results for each of the types of dice are:

• Library dice have 3 Elder Signs, 2 Clues and 1 TENTACLE!
• Museum dice have 2 Elder Signs, 2 Clues and 2 TENTACLES!
• Tomb dice have 1 Elder Sign, 2 Clues and 3 TENTACLES!

The player rolls their 3 dice and acts accordingly:

• Any Elder Signs they get are added to a stash of Elder Signs.
• Any TENTACLES they get are added to a pool of TENTACLES. If the player ever gets 3 (or more) TENTACLES, they are "downed". They lose their stash for this turn and cannot continue with their turn.
• Any Clues they get remain in the player's hand. These are used again if the player chooses to continue (see below).

If the player has 2 or fewer TENTACLES, they now have a choice:

1. Continue to research the ancient power in the hope of uncovering more Elder Signs OR
2. Retreat to safety with their knowledge of the Elder things and live to fight another day.

If the player chooses to continue, they must draw further dice from the bag, such that they have 3 dice to roll. The number of dice they draw from the bag is based on the number of clues they have in their hand:

• The player draws 3 dice if they have 0 clues in-hand.
• The player draws 2 dice if they have 1 in-hand.
• The player draws 1 die if they have 2 in-hand.
• The player draws 0 dice if they have 3 in-hand.

The player must then roll these dice and live with the consequences. No backsies at this point!

If the player chooses to retreat, their total score is increased by the number of Elder Signs they have in their stash.

Each time a player chooses to retreat or is "downed", all dice are returned to the bag and the bag is passed to the next player.

Play continues clockwise until a player manages to gather 13 or more Elder Signs. At which point, the current round continues until each player has taken an equal number of turns. Then, any players with fewer than 13 Elder Signs at this point are devoured. The remaining players get to live on in the knowledge that they are probably next... and the winner is the player with the most Elder Signs.