Description

A card game for 3-6 players in which each player represents a branch of the Royal Habsburg Dynasty. Players try to make and steal the most and best holdings.

Players share a common deck. There are 5 types of Cards:
Person Cards
Holding Cards
Claim Cards
Succession Cards
Disaster Cards

To start each player is dealt 3 cards.

Players take turns with each turn consisting of 4 Phases:
1. Draw Phase
- Draw 1 card from the deck and put it in your hand.
2. Meld Phase
- You may make 1 or more melds. A meld consists of exactly 3 cards from your hand: 1 person card, 1 holding card, and 1 claim card. (If the top card of the discard pile is a holding card, you may use that instead of a Holding card from your hand.)
- Every time you make a meld, gain 1 Victory Tokens equal to the value of the Person card.
3. Event Phase
- You may play (discard) 1 succession card or 1 disaster card or 1 Claim card or 1 Person card.
- If you play a Succession, steal a target meld with a claim value equal to or less than the value of the Succession card.
- If you play a Disaster, discard a target meld with a Person card equal to or less than the value of the Disaster card.
- If you play a Person card, draw 2 cards from the deck.
- If you play a Claim card, steal 1 random card from target players hand.
4. End Phase
- Max hand size is 5 cards. Discard excess cards.

Each Melded Holding card is worth from 1 to 5 Victory Points.
Each Victory Token is worth 1 VP.

The game ends when there are no cards left in the deck and no player has any cards left in their hand that they can or will play. The player with the most Victory Tokens and Victory Points worth of melded Holding cards they control at the end of the game wins.